Roswell Fanatics

Title: Unclosed
Author: TheOtherWillow
Email: TheOtherWillow@gmail.com
Disclaimer: Roswell and it’s characters are not mine. They belong to Jason Katims, Melinda Metz, and the WB. No infringement is intended.
Rating: T for violence, occasional dirty language, and light sexual content
Pairing: Polar
Summary: Michael and Liz are bonded when her emerging powers spiral out of control.
Author’s Notes:
1.) This is my first Roswell fic. Constructive criticism is eagerly sought!
2.) A heads up to avoid confusion: This will be written mostly in Liz’s POV for the first chapter journal entry and then third person omniscient POV for the rest of the fic.
3.) This is an alternate universe. Liz broke up with Max before “Busted”, so he robbed the convenience store alone. Michael and Maria are over and she’s dating Billy. There is no Jesse. Also Nancy Parker is possibly OOC, but go with it. I needed an understanding Parker parent to make this work.


Unclosed

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“your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself...”
– excerpt from somewhere i have never traveled by e.e. cummings

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Chapter One: Somewhere I Have Never Traveled

Roswell, NM

A small figure sat hunched over a desk, nibbling thoughtfully on a pencil. Reaching up, she swept a fall of coffee colored hair behind her ear as she studied the empty page before her. Slowly, almost reverently, she bent forward and began writing:

It’s November 7th. I’m Liz Parker and I will never look at the world the same way again.

It all started a few weeks ago when I began manifesting powers. Every time I got angry or frustrated, something would explode. Ava had said that when Max healed me I was changed, but it was getting ridiculous. Of course, Michael thought it was hilarious. I think he picked up extra hours from Jose just so he could verbally poke at me, hoping I’d blow something up for his entertainment. Thankfully, I’d always had a habit of waiting until I’m out of the customers’ sight before venting my frustration, so none of my little “outbursts” were seen by anyone. Anyone other than Michael and Maria, that is. As annoying as my inability to direct this newfound power was, I was almost happy it was happening. At least it gave the pair of them something to concentrate on other than their break up. The tension between them had made shifts at the Crashdown an absolute misery for everyone. At least this way, they were too busy with my drama to generate any more of their own.

Once Max found out, he called a meeting. It’s still so awkward to be around him. He’s finally gotten past the point where he’s badgering me to take him back every time I see him, but only because he’s apparently decided to make me want to come back to him. I wish there was someway to make him understand that he’s wasting his time.

I’ll never deny that I loved Max Evans. In a way, I still do. He was my first love, and he’ll always have a place in my heart. But I realized when we watched Tess’s ship shoot out of the atmosphere that all the things I’d been telling myself about Max and I being soul mates destined for each other were nothing more than the fantasies of a little girl. Real life isn’t a prince on a white horse and happily ever after. Reality is the man I loved sleeping with another woman and getting her pregnant. It’s having him refuse to support me when I needed him most. It’s watching that same man let my best friend’s murder flee the planet.

He still says he loves me, but that’s not love. Even if I’m letting go of my fairy tale dreams, I have to believe that real love doesn’t work that way. When I’m feeling charitable, I’ll admit that I understand why he let Tess go. In some ways I even agree with him; a father should look out for his child’s wellbeing above all. Unfortunately logic has nothing to do with emotions, and I doubt my heart will ever forgive him for it.

I seem to be getting off topic. So in light of my new abilities Max called a meeting. Kyle and Maria were stuck working, so the Czechs and I headed to the Quarry. There, all three of them proceeded to ‘test’ me to see what kind of powers I had and argued about who would be best to help me develop them. Really, I think it was just an excuse on Max’s part to connect with me again under the guise of helping me. At least he was smart enough to know that if he was the only one doing the testing I’d have cried foul. You could just tell from the way he talked that Max expected our powers to be a match. After all, wasn’t he the one who healed me? You should have seen his face when we figured out that yes; my powers WERE mirroring one of the hybrids’ - just not his. It quickly became obvious that my powers were Michael’s powers.

On my own, things exploded. Max tried everything he could to force a solid connection with me and got nothing. Isabel and I could ‘sense’ each other, for lack of a better word, but couldn’t get a deep enough connection going to make things work. With Michael, all he had to do was hold my hand and suddenly if he could do it, I could do it. I’d already been blowing things up, so that part was no surprise. But when it came time for me to try something new, nothing worked unless Michael was the one connected with me. For Max the final insult came when we discovered that with contact not only could I do whatever his brother was trying, but Michael’s control of his powers got inexplicably better when he was touching me.

Max’s frustration was obvious. I wasn’t consciously blocking a connection with him, but I certainly wasn’t opening myself to it either. Looking back now, it seems so simple: connections are all about trust. I think there was a time that this would have worked with Max, but that time was long gone. He had shown me, over and over beyond a shadow of a doubt, that any trust I had in him was misplaced. Isabel and I did trust each other, but it was more of a surface level kind of trust. I think you need a more elemental foundation to build on for what we were trying to accomplish. Michael, on the other hand...

I trust Michael with my life.

It’s just that easy. Every time I’ve ever really needed him, he’s been there. He’s listened to me and my theories. He’s kept my secrets. He’s put himself on the line for me, for all of us. And he’s done it time and again without any expectations of gratitude. The thought of Michael looking for thanks for something he’s done is laughable, but the fact that he rarely gets any upsets me on his behalf. Michael and I have never been friends in a conventional way, but that’s still how I think of him. He SHOULD be thanked. We all owe him so much. It struck me while we were all sitting out there that the truly surprising thing isn’t that I trust Michael, but that Michael apparently trusts ME enough to let me connect to him. One of Maria’s biggest issues with him has always been his refusal to let down his walls for her. Before I could think about that too hard, Max had a “brilliant” idea.

Desperate to make a connection, he brought up the fact that the only thing we hadn’t tried yet was kissing. Isabel laughed and said she’d sit this one out, and Max, realizing his oversight, turned a little splotchy at the thought of Michael kissing me too. Astonishingly though, he didn’t back down. I glanced at Michael, and he gave me this look back that said it was up to me. It always amazes me how much that man can say just by cocking an eyebrow.

I agreed with a fatalistic shrug. Max, of course, wanted to go first. The next thing I knew, he’d swept me into his arms and wrapped himself around me. It made me feel a little claustrophobic and, unless I imagined it, I think he actually looked up and glared at Michael before swooping down to kiss me. If he had been any guy other than Max Evans, I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear him growling territorially. I’d have rolled my eyes if I’d had the time. Wasn’t this HIS idea?

It took a minute, but the flashes did eventually start. They were even more of a jumbled mess than usual; in one I think I saw Max leaning in to kiss Tess (YUCK!), then a fourth grade Halloween party, and an argument Max had with Mr. Evans, along with a bunch of other flashes that went by too fast for me to register what they were. I don’t know what Max got from me, but when he finally jerked away he looked oddly pale and shaky.

I used to love kissing him, I don’t know why this time left me feeling a little dirty but I was hard pressed to resist the urge to scrub my hand across my mouth. Michael, who smirked at me like he knew what I was thinking, tossed a bottle of Snapple my way and I gratefully chugged it down. Max looked a little indignant at that, but he shut up when Michael snapped that it was bad enough having an audience, but he drew the line at being forced to kiss a girl with Maxwell still in her mouth. The look on Max’s face...well, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone turn exactly that shade of purple before. Isabel was laughing so hard she was crying.

With an agitated snarl, Max directed Michael and I to get it over with. Michael took the empty Snapple bottle out of my hand and set it on the ground. While he was bending over, I took a deep breath to steady myself. He straightened back up, and we had a self-conscious moment of shared unease as we contemplated one another. With our respective histories, kissing Michael had the potential to be weird enough without having to do it in front of my ex-boyfriend. I knew he had to be having similar thoughts, no doubt compounded by his infamous hatred for public displays. Fearlessly, Michael brushed past all the awkwardness and reached out to tilt my chin up with two fingers so I could meet his eyes before he attempted to open a connection.

Max had never done that before kissing me, he’d always relied on the kiss itself to forge the link between us. I didn’t realize until then how much the flashes I’d gotten from him felt like an invasion. Unlike Max, Michael didn’t thrust his presence on me, or force glimpses of my life out of my subconscious. He knocked at the door to my mind and asked, “Isthisokay?Howmuchareyouwillingtoshare?Willyouletmein?”

He made it my choice. He made me his equal. And that made all the difference.

Something inside of me that I’d never noticed was closed, opened. My eyes drifted shut, but it didn’t matter; the connection had been made. Michael leaned in to kiss me and later Isabel would swear that the glowing started before he even met my mouth.

The kiss itself was undemanding; we weren’t touching anywhere but our lips and his fingertips at my jaw line. It wasn’t about passion, it was about acceptance. Behind my eyes, the world was filled with light and all I saw was Michael. He was standing there, offering me his hand in the middle of that empty brightness, and all I could hear was his voice: “HereIam.Acceptme.Knowme,andI’lldothesameforyou.”

His words were slurred together like the wind rushing past my ears, muffled as if they were coming through a veil. Something inside of me answered without my consciously meaning to, “I see you. I know you. You’re my friend, I accept you. Know me...” The essence of me reached for his hand and met some kind of invisible boundary between us. No matter how I pushed and strained against it, it wouldn’t budge. Michael watched me from the other side but didn’t move to help. Instinctively, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get through without him.

The light around us was starting to fade and I sensed intuitively that our chance to breach the barricade was slipping away. I threw myself against the wall with everything I had, desperate to get through before it was too late, but it was too much. I couldn’t do it alone.

I slid down the unseen barrier dejectedly. I didn’t know why this was so important to me. I just knew that if I couldn’t break through something precious would be irrevocably lost. Tears slid down my cheeks as I pressed my forehead against the wall. “I’m so sorry, Michael...”

I felt as if I had failed him.

“Parker.” I raised my head and was surprised to find him kneeling beside me. We stared silently at each other while the landscape around us continued to darken. Without a word, Michael rested his hand against the air next to me and the flesh of his palm looked like he was pressing it against a window. I reached out tentatively and placed my hand against his where it met the boundary. There was a blinding flash of light and the obstruction beneath our fingertips melted like ice in the desert until there was nothing between us. Our fingers curled together and my eyes traced the path of his arm up to his face unconsciously. He met my gaze with a smile of triumph so genuine it shot through me like a bolt of lightening.

I blinked and I was back in my body. Michael’s eyes opened at the same time and he slowly pulled away from me. Physically, at least. His eyes didn’t leave mine and I was overwhelmed by the sense of him, around me and inside me. Impulsively, I called to him in my head. He had to reach out and steady me when the shock of him responding in kind hit me.

Max wrenched me away from his brother with a panicked jerk. Apparently we had put on quite the Fourth of July style lightshow and they hadn’t been able to separate us until the glow faded. Max was firing questions at us wildly without waiting for answers, but I barely even noticed. All I heard was Michael in my head saying, “It’s none of their business.”

It was nice that his words weren’t running together anymore; however it’s very confusing to hear not only what a person is saying but all the subtext behind it at the same time. Though I suppose ‘hear’ isn’t exactly the right word to use. Because with that one sentence I knew that Michael was already sick of the inquisition and absolutely fucking exhausted with hearing Maxwell whine on about me. Finding out what he and I were experiencing would only make the would-be king’s reaction a thousand times worse. On top of that, he wanted to be furious that there was someone inside his head and behind his walls, but all the reasons he had to be angry at me couldn’t stand up to how equally confused and scared he sensed I was. Included with that was the first hand knowledge of how unequivocally horrified I felt at the thought of sticking my mental nose somewhere he didn’t want it, and he was pretty confident that I wasn’t going to be taking any unauthorized side trips through MichaelLand. Understandably, he didn’t want to be stuck with Max and Isabel for hours when we could be spending our time more productively trying to figure out how to control this new connection. Control had to be our first priority, not pandering to Maxwell’s god complex.

How do you argue with logic like that?

It’s amazing how quick you can communicate when you don’t have to verbalize anything. The entire exchange took less than a second, so Max was still busy peppering us with questions when I tugged myself free of his grip. I told him I didn’t know what the glow was, we were fine, there were no flashes (Not exactly a lie, I don’t know what that was, but it wasn’t a flash.), and I was late getting home.

Max wanted to press me for more information and Isabel gave me this look like she was certain I knew more than I was saying, but in the end she helped me railroad Max into taking us all back to the Crashdown.

It was hours after they dropped me off before Michael crawled through my window. I had been late to dinner after swearing to my mother that I wouldn’t be, so my parents put me in lock down for the rest of the night. Meanwhile, Max and Isabel had circled the wagons as soon as I got out of the car to try and force Michael to open up.

I wonder sometimes if those two have ever met their wayward ‘brother.’

Needless to say, I could feel his rage from the other side of town. On the plus side, it did help point out an interesting side benefit of our new link: Michael’s powers were spiraling out of control and I was able to help him tamp them down without leaving the dinner table. His TV thanks me, I’m sure. After that Michael hopped on his bike and drove around in the desert for a while to cool down. He got about twenty miles out before he headed back and I could hear him just as well as if he were standing next to me, so we haven’t found a limit to our range yet. Though we have noticed that physical contact does seem to bring the most clarity.

Once he finally made it to my room, it was surprisingly easy to control the bond. Although we were unsuccessful in finding a way to turn it off, we did manage to discover how to tone it down some. Thank god! I don’t know that we could live through a single day filter free without killing each other. We were both wound tight enough just from a couple hours. There’s too much that goes on in a person’s head that they want kept private to have someone else tuned in twenty four/seven. And to say that Michael had issues with anyone wandering around in his mind would be the understatement of the millennium.

I was surprised to realize that, while he hated the situation, he wasn’t particularly offended by the fact that I was the one he was linked to. In a way, he found it almost ironic; he got inside my head when he read my journal and now I was in his, literally. I was glad for his rationalization. It made it easier to know that though neither of us were happy about this, at least he didn’t actively resent me for it. Which, for Michael in regards to his privacy, is nothing short of a miracle.

The best way I can think of to describe how our link works is it’s like walking down the hall next to somebody. At the most we can filter it down, the bond is like walking around side by side with someone. You know the person’s there and you can feel their presence. Maybe, if you’re paying really close attention and it’s very quiet, you can pick up little things like the cologne they wear or the pattern of their footsteps. Through our connection it’s the same type of thing; a general sense of where the person is and how they’re doing. A little odd at first, but easy enough to ignore if you try.

The next stage is like holding hands and carrying on a conversation. The other person is right there and they’re interacting with you. This seems to be the default for our link unless we’re actively suppressing it. Strong emotions and directed thoughts are clear this way, but you also get a lot of the subtext. We can talk to each other like this, but I don’t think we can lie. How do you lie to someone who gets every nuance and undertone of the conversation directly from your head? I suppose it’s a good thing that both of us prefer to be truthful as a rule.

The third level, well...that one kind of freaked us both out. The best way I can describe it is like stopping in the middle of a crowded hallway and making out. The rest of the world fades away and all that exists is you and the other person. It’s like melting into each other, you forget where you end and the other person begins. Kyle would probably compare it to some Buddhist form of nirvana but, enlightened or not, it scared the hell out of Michael and me. We’ve agreed to keep things primarily at the first level, but I’ll admit that the scientist in me can’t help but want to experiment and test the bounds of our new connection.

We’ve had a couple days to get used to this, and surprisingly it’s not that bad. It’s actually been kind of nice, mental Michael is absolutely hilarious. I find myself desperate to keep from laughing out loud at some of the things he thinks my way. And having him in my head has given me a new perspective. He looks at things so very differently than I do, I find myself noticing the angles and curves that make up the shape of the world so much more now. He gets grouchy when I think it, but the man has an artist’s eye. He keeps laughing at me for walking around staring at the sky, but he was right when he told me that no one ever looks up. Since I saw the curling branches of a tree in the park from his perspective yesterday, I haven’t been able to look anywhere else.

I hate to cut this short, but I have to go. I promised him if he went to school today we’d watch Braveheart through my eyes while he was working the late shift at MetaChem, and he kept up his end of the bargain.

It’s time to keep mine.

She set the pencil down slowly next to the journal. Thoughtfully, she contemplated the words she’d scrawled across its pages. While the act of writing was a great release, she knew too much of what darkened those sheets was a danger to her and those she cares about. She smiled as Michael began complaining in her head about her welching on their deal and, with a single upraised hand, the words on the paper were wiped clean in a soft flash of light.

“Keep your pants on, Guerin. I’m on it,” she sent back with a mental chuckle. As she rose from the book and went to start their movie, a single line blinked into existence behind her on the formerly blank page, summing up the contents of her entire entry in one lone sentence:

November 7th. My name is Liz Parker, and I trust Michael Guerin.

***WARNING***: Be advised, this chapter contains a violent attempted sexual attack. Suppose I should have noted “violence” in my original chapter one synopsis too, huh? Oh well. It’s updated now.

Chapter Two: Panic at the Crashdown

Liz awkwardly repositioned the headband with its bobbing antenna as Jose blinked at her apologetically.

“Do you need me to stay? I…” he began to say, but she stalled him with a sharp wave of her hand.

“No, it’s okay. Go ahead and go. It’s not your fault Agnes bailed on me and you put your request for tonight in months ago.” She gestured to the café behind her, finally empty except for the unbussed tables and a middle aged man in the booth by the window. “It’s not as if we’re busy anymore, and you’ve already stayed an hour later than you were supposed to.”

She grabbed a tub and began clearing tables as she called over her shoulder. “Now that the dinner crowd has cleared out, I should be fine. Just finish scraping off the grill for me. When my parents get back tomorrow night I’ll make sure Dad knows to throw a little something extra in your next check for staying late and helping me out.”

Jose grinned at her gratefully through the pick up window. “Thanks Liz, I really appreciate it!” His head disappeared as he bent to his task, and the grill was cleaned in minutes.

“You sure?” he called one last time from the entrance to the kitchen.

Liz rolled her eyes and tossed a rag at him. “Get out of here before I change my mind.”

He caught the rag with a grin and lobbed it back at her before disappearing through the door. In no time at all, Liz heard the tell-tale swing of the employee exit heralding his escape.

The worn out girl shook her head ruefully as she surveyed the room. Settling one hand on her hip, she closed her eyes as she reached up and massaged the knot of tension at the base of her skull with the other. Her parents always enjoyed their trip to the annual restaurant convention in Las Vegas but, as glad as she was to give them the opportunity to go, handling the Crashdown by herself was an exhausting experience. She would be so glad to have them back tomorrow night. Resolutely, she opened her eyes with a sigh and turned her attention back to the mess in front of her.

Halfway through clearing the tables, she realized she had been sadly neglecting her only customer. Grabbing a fresh pot of coffee, she steeled herself and approached the lone man in the booth. He wasn’t someone she’d seen before, but that wasn’t too unusual. Tourists came and went in Roswell all the time, even in the off season. This one had come in with the dinner rush and waited patiently in the middle of the evening chaos to order and be served. That in itself was usually enough to endear a customer to her, but something about this quiet man set her on edge.

She pasted on a smile as she approached his table and asked pleasantly, “Can I get you anything else? A warm up, maybe?” She gestured to his half empty cup with the carafe of hot coffee.

His head swung away from the closed blinds of the front window to face her. She tried not to shiver as, once again, his eyes focused on a random spot to the right above her shoulder instead of her face. He’d done the same thing every time she’d spoken to him and she found it strangely unnerving.

“I’d take a refill,” the customer replied with an incongruously dreamy smile.

She responded with a nod and bent forward to refill his coffee. He hadn’t extended the mug, so she was forced to lean over in front of him to reach its spot on the inner edge of the booth. She moved to rise, holding the cup and saucer in her left and the coffee in the right, when the man’s hand unexpectedly snaked out and closed around her left wrist.

The porcelain clattered in her grasp as the action stalled her movement. She froze as he began to stroke his thumb back and forth along the inner skin of her wrist. “You’re very pretty,” he said in a conversational voice, his unfocused eyes still fixated on that point of empty space beside her head.

“Uh, thanks,” she replied uncomfortably and tried to free her arm, but he merely tightened his grip.

“You’re alone,” he said quietly as his thumb continued its stroking. “I could stay with you...”

A spike of panic jolted through her as she realized he had heard her conversation with Jose. She tried to remember exactly how much about her situation she had given away during the exchange, and came to the queasy conclusion that the answer was too much. She determinedly wrenched her hand from his grip with a forced smile. “Um, thanks. But my boyfriend is on his way here now to help me close up.”

His eyes met hers for the first time and a jolt of fear surged through her at their abnormally hollow depths. “Liar,” he murmured serenely, and the oily slick smile that accompanied the words made her curse herself for missing the opportunity to put some distance between her and the booth.

Something in her face must have set him off, because she saw the violence bloom in his expression an instant before he moved. She immediately pivoted away from the table as an ancient ingrained survival instinct flared to life, screaming at her to escape. Before she got far, he was out of the booth. The carafe and china crashed to floor as he grabbed her elbow and yanked her flush against his body. She vainly struggled in his grip as he spun her around and screeched in her face, “Don’t turn away from me, bitch!” His wild eyes burned into hers; his formerly calm countenance a distant memory.

She opened her mouth to scream, but a swift backhand ensured her silence. Her head rocked with the force of the blow and before she could react, the belligerent man had twisted her arm behind her back. Using the leverage of his position, he forcibly bent her forward over the table, knocking the empty plate from his dinner off the edge as he slammed her into the Formica. Blinking back tears, Liz reached for her powers to throw him away from her. She moaned in dismay when nothing happened, her control of her abilities completely overwhelmed by the icy river of terror raging through her bloodstream. Twisting and squirming, she fought to escape, but his solid grip and the position of her arm kept her restrained.

“Stop! Please...” She moaned ineffectually as the man began to stroke his free hand down the side her body and grind himself against her. She gasped painfully as he grabbed the collar of her uniform and pulled, tearing it raggedly off one shoulder with a savage rip. His touch was rough against her newly bared skin as he tore away her bra strap. Helpless tears of disgust and horror leaked from her eyes as she unsuccessfully attempted to bat him away with her other arm. When that failed, she tried to use the hard surface beneath her as leverage to kick at him with her legs, but he shifted easily to avoid her feet. His fingertips slid across her back and down her shoulder. The captured girl yelped in agony as he seized her free hand in a bone-crushing grip and forced it behind her so he could trap both of her wrists in one bruising hold.

She gasped in revulsion as he used his now unimpeded hand to slither up her thigh and underneath the short skirt of her uniform. She froze when she felt him toy with the elastic edge of her panties. He dipped a fingertip beneath the band as she began to buck against him in panic, wriggling in a desperate attempt to throw him off. He chuckled appreciatively and began inching the mint green back of her dress up out of his way. Liz reached for her powers again, and was gratified when this time at least the sugar container at the end of the table exploded. The man reared back in shock. Before she could press her advantage, she heard him cry out in surprise and felt a sudden jerk as his body was wrenched away from hers.

Wasting no time shoving herself off from the table, the trembling young woman spun to see Michael holding her assailant up by the throat with glowing hands, quaking with rage. The older male desperately clutched at the fingers crushing his windpipe, but the angry alien holding him merely growled at his struggles and increased the pressure. Liz watched blankly as her attacker’s thrashing tapered off and Michael dropped him unceremoniously in a ragged heap.

The glow faded from his hands as Michael checked the man’s pulse with quick, efficient movements. Satisfied that he hadn’t killed him, he swiftly removed his belt and used it to bind the unconscious man’s hands behind his back and anchored him to one of the booths’ poles. Once the teen was sure the unconscious man was secured, he rose from his crouch and turned to the girl behind him, his face a carefully smooth mask.

“H-how did you know?” she stuttered tremulously as she clutched the remains of her ruined uniform to her chest.

“You were screaming in my head. I was riding home from MetaChem,” for the first time she noticed he was in his uniform, “nearly wrecked my bike.”

She shifted uncomfortably beneath his stare when she realized she had no recollection of initiating the deeper connection necessary for them to mindspeak. Her panic had been so blinding that it hadn’t even occurred to her consciously to call for help that way. Thankfully her subconscious hadn’t had the same problem.

Michael steadily closed the distance between them until he was standing directly in front of her. “I kept asking what was wrong and you weren’t answering me, so I whipped a u-turn in the middle of Main Street.” His eyes darted away from her to glare at the broken pile he’d left her assailant in. “Damn good thing, too.” The glare immediately softened into concern as his eyes slid back to hers. “You okay?” His stonewall façade slipped, showing his concern for her, which triggered an avalanche of emotion inside her.

“Michael, I-” she began but broke off, shaking. He reached out and tugged her to him with one arm as her tears began to fall. She flinched at the initial contact, but the warm pulse of his protective support thrummed through their connection and she found herself melting against the solid wall of his chest.

Carefully, he wrapped his other arm around her quivering form and held her silently, mentally opening their link further to soothe her with his reassuring presence. The reality of what had almost occurred pounded through her mind and sobs wracked her small frame as he held her in the harbor of his arms. Once her tears began to subside, he slowly released her and shrugged out of his jacket to wrap it securely around her shoulders.

She clutched the warm cocoon of his coat like a lifeline and tried ineffectually to wipe the slick path of tears from her cheeks. The battered girl winced as her fingers encountered the rapidly darkening bruise that swathed the right side of her face. Wordlessly, Michael brushed her hand away and traced his fingertip down the unblemished edge of the damage in sympathy. Liz tried to stay inside her own head, but the air was suddenly thick with his memories of similar marks dealt by a too familiar hand. She could feel his side of the connection shutting down as he reached past her to snag a napkin from the nearby dispenser. With unexpected tenderness, he cautiously blotted the moisture from her injured skin before depositing the wet tissue in her hand.

Sparing a glance towards the crumpled shape of her attacker, Michael settled a comforting hand low on her back and steered her gently to the counter nearest the phone. She instinctively leaned into him as he picked up the receiver and dialed the police, noting distantly how careful he was to keep his body protectively between hers and the would-be rapist.

It took half an hour to convince the police dispatcher on the other end of the line that it wasn’t a prank. Michael growled unhappily at the delay. Even though his relationship with the Roswell Police Department was less than stellar, it irked him to have them waste precious time making him jump through hoops. He hated to think of what might have happened if he’d actually NEEDED them to hurry. Finally, the dispatcher agreed to send Deputy Blackwood by to check it out and the disgruntled alien disconnected from the PD with a sarcastically snarled thanks.

Grateful that the police were finally on their way, he peered down at the brown head resting silently against his chest. Warily, he lowered his internal shields and found the torrent of emotion she’d been projecting earlier curiously absent. In its place, her mind was consumed by a carefully constructed emptiness. He wasn’t prepared for how deeply that disturbed him. Seeing her that way after Alex died had been bad enough, but FEELING it? It was a million times worse. Recognizing that she had shut down, he gritted his teeth and picked the phone back up. Snaking an arm around her waist to more firmly anchor her against him, Michael dialed the elder Parker’s cell phone.

Several rings later, Jeff’s groggy voice scratched disjointedly over the line, “Lo?”

The weary teenager grimaced as he looked at the time, realizing that the older man had no doubt been asleep for hours, “Mr. Parker? It’s Michael.”

“Michael?!” The sleep evaporated from the adult’s voice instantly, “Are you okay? Is everything alright?” The young man felt indefinably better to have someone take him seriously immediately. Through the phone in the background he could hear Liz’s mother stirring.

“Jeff, what’s wrong? Did something happen?” Nancy’s muffled voice filtered through the handset.

Hearing their anxiety, Michael hurriedly responded to them both, “There was an incident at the Crashdown. Liz was attacked.” Both parents exclaimed in alarm, and he hastened to finish. “She’s okay...mostly. I’m here with her and we’re waiting for the police.”

“Put her on the line,” Jeff commanded as Liz, expecting the request, eased the phone out of his hand before Michael could comply. Without moving from his loose embrace, she gingerly cradled the earpiece to her head.

“I’m here, Daddy.” Michael took the opportunity to thread his now free hand around her and listened circumspectly as she spoke to her father. He couldn’t make out what was being said on the other line, but the sharp chatter of syllables beat against his ears.

“Dad, stop. I’m a little bruised, but fine,” Liz’s sharp voice cracked like a whip. “Michael got here in time.”

Both of the teens flinched at her dad’s thunderous roar of indignation, “IN TIME FOR WHAT?!” Liz held the phone a away from her ear for a moment.

Feeling her desperate desire to delay dealing with her parents reverberating in his skull, Michael took pity on her and plucked the headset out of her grasp. He took a moment to do a quick surface scan of the night’s events through the bond and sucked in a deep breath before speaking into the phone.

“Mr. Parker, it’s me again. Liz is still shaken up, so I’ll explain.” His grip on the tiny girl pressed against him tightened subconsciously as he tried to organize the memories she’d shared with him.

“Liz was closing by herself; Agnes called out sick and Jose was scheduled to leave early. There was one remaining customer who tried to pick her up once she was alone. When she turned him down he got violent. I found her pinned down to one of the booths when I stopped by to pick up my paycheck.” Liz wrapped her arms around him and squeezed gratefully, if a little shakily, at the recap. “I dragged him off her and knocked him out. We called the cops and then I called you.”

The line was quiet for a moment as the Parkers struggled to absorb this information. “How bad is it?” Mr. Parker’s voice drifted into his ear. “Did he...”

“NO.” Michael interrupted decisively, not even allowing the older man to complete the thought. “He tore her uniform and bruised her face, but that’s as far as he got.”

The parents on the other end gave silent prayers of thankfulness that their little girl had been spared that injustice. The door to the Crashdown opened and Michael breathed out in relief to see Deputy Blackwood enter.

“Mr. Parker, I have to go. The police are here.”

“Michael, wait!” The young man paused as Jeff continued, “Nancy and I are going to get on the first available flight home, but I need you to keep us informed.”

“I’ll do what I can, Mr. Parker,” Michael replied gravely. “But I’m not family; there’s only so much they’ll be willing to tell me and Liz is still a minor.”

“If we can’t be there, we need to know what’s going on. If it’s alright with you, I’d like to authorize the police to share information with you on our behalf until we make it home.”

Michael sucked in an involuntary gulp of air, surprised by Jeff’s display of trust. “T-that’s fine,” he replied, stumbling a little over the words in his shock. “Whatever you need me to do.” Liz laced her fingers with the hand he had settled low on her hip and brushed her thumb against his reassuringly.

“Thanks, son.” Mr. Parker responded appreciatively. “Who did they send?”

“Owen Blackwood,” Michael replied with a nod to the man in question, noting that the officer had already verified Liz’s assailant was secure and still unconscious. “You want to talk to him?” At Jeff’s acquiescence, he proffered the handset to the police officer. “Deputy Blackwood? Mr. Parker wants to speak with you.”

The Deputy took the phone with a nod. Michael dipped his head in response and relinquished the receiver as he stepped back, pulling an unresisting Liz with him.

Leaning back against the counter several feet away, Michael tilted Liz’s head up to scrutinize her. “You okay?”

She gave him a sardonic look and snorted disdainfully at his ridiculous question.

“Don’t be a smart ass, Parker,” he said as he rolled his eyes in exasperation with her. “You know what I mean.”

Her gaze dropped away from his face and skirted the edge of the room to land on the unaware form of her attacker. Her concerned friend followed the path of her stare and frowned. “I could be a lot worse,” she said finally, so quiet he could barely hear her. She swung her eyes back up to meet his. “Thank you, Michael.”

He squirmed, uncomfortable with her gratitude, “It’s nothing.”

She watched him with an unblinking stare. “It’s not nothing,” she said firmly. “If you hadn’t been here...” She trailed off as images of what could have happened if he hadn’t interrupted began to overwhelm her. Shaking her head to clear her mind, she stated stiffly, “Don’t say it was nothing.”

Michael tried not to shake as he was inundated with the mental slide show of possible outcomes she’d imagined. The thought of any of those things happening to someone he considered a friend shook him in ways he would never have believed possible. He was surprised to find that he would give <b>anything</b> to have gotten to the Crashdown twenty minutes earlier. He stunned them both when he lowered his internal shields to mindspeak, impulsively pulling her closer as he intoned sternly in her head, <i>“Don’t thank me. I was LATE.”</i> He clutched her tightly as his subconscious pledged with grim severity, <i>“It won’t happen again.”</i>

She blinked up at him in alarm as she was engulfed by the feelings of self recrimination and guilt that buoyed his near overwhelming determination to protect her in the face of what he perceived as his failure to do so tonight. She was completely dumbfounded; how could he possibly be blaming himself?! He’d saved her! She struggled internally for a way to make him understand how woefully out of place his personal condemnation was.

In a burst of inspiration, she opened their link wide and melted against him, softening his desperate grip into a joint hug. He reciprocated unthinkingly and the unfiltered wave of her emotion rolled over him. His eyes slid closed as he was overwhelmed by her presence and for a long moment he reveled in the warm gold of her essence. She surged around him and through him, filling up all the cold, dark places inside him with her light.

The sickly pallor of his reproach was no match for the fire of her resolve and she burned acceptance into him with the soft hum of her words, <i>“You saved me, Michael...” </i>

He was lost in the twisting ocean of her mind; swirling in the sea of sincere gratefulness she held for his rescue, tossed among the tangled waves of security and contentment she felt in his arms, completely awash in the glowing swells of her friendship. It was acceptance and family and belonging; everything he’d ever dreamed of during the empty nights of his childhood in Hank’s trailer.

He’d never wanted so badly to drown before.

“Mr. Guerin.” The shock of Blackwood’s voice wrenched him back into reality, and he raised his face from where he’d unconsciously buried it in her soft hair.

“Yeah?” he queried roughly as forced his body to release her and step away, needing the distance to help stomp their bond back down to second level. He fought the urge to close the link further, reminding himself of how painful they’d found it during their early experimentation to drop directly from the deep enmeshment of third level to the sharp restriction of first. He tried not to notice how Liz wrapped her arms around herself and watched him with dark eyes once he faced the older man.

“The Parkers told me you’re my liaison until they make it back to town,” the Deputy addressed Michael. “Asked me to let you know they got an early flight in tomorrow and with the drive from the airport to Roswell they should be back by 10:30.” Offering a piece of paper to the younger man, he said, “Here’s their flight info.”

Michael took the slip with a nod and tried not to tense as the solid warmth of Liz’s body rested against his arm while she leaned forward to study the sheet’s scrawled contents. The officer continued, “I’ve radioed the station for an EMT to check out Miss Parker and our perpetrator. We can’t take him to the station until he’s conscious. What the hell did you hit him with?”

He handed the piece of paper to Liz before replying, “I didn’t hit him.” Deputy Blackwood looked at him disbelievingly and he grudgingly elaborated, “I hauled him off her and held on to him until he quit struggling.”

“By what, his neck?” the deputy scoffed.

Michael shrugged as he scratched at his eyebrow in agitation, “Seemed like the best plan.”

The policeman began to reprimand the teen’s aggressive actions, “Son, attacking a man like that could bring you up on attempted murder charges…”

Michael rudely interrupted him with a defiant glare, “Deputy Blackwood, I walked in on him trying to rape a friend of mine. If I started hitting him, I can’t guarantee I would have stopped and then <b>attempted</b> murder charges would be the least of my worries.”

The officer searched his eyes and finally nodded in understanding. With a sigh, he ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Let’s get you kids started on your statements while we wait.”

***

Hours later, the tired teenagers slumped dejectedly over lukewarm cups of coffee while the remaining officers packed up the last of the crime scene equipment used to canvas the restaurant for evidence. The number of police in the Crashdown had quadrupled shortly after they had given their statements and the pair had narrowly escaped having to go to the station for further questioning. As much as Michael hated owing anyone anything, he appreciated how deeply they were both indebted to Deputy Blackwood for convincing Sheriff Hanson to conduct the rest of their individual questioning in Mr. Parker’s office. The last thing either of them needed was a trip to the Police Station on top of everything else that had happened tonight.

Liz’s assailant had awakened while the EMT’s were checking him out and broke a paramedic’s nose attempting to escape. The police had tackled the man before he made it to the door, but the sight of her attacker making a break for it had left her badly rattled. A female officer had been arranged to take pictures of her bruises, but the young woman had flatly refused to allow anyone near her without Michael by her side.

As he stared moodily into his coffee, the brooding alien reflected on how the sight of Liz’s smooth skin marred by violence had left his hands burning with the desperate need to sooth away the sinister marks. He clenched his fingers around his mug in an attempt to ward off the remnants of the tingling spark of power that buzzed insistently below the skin of his palms. The clearing of a throat dragged his attention away from the dark mysteries of his beverage.

“We’re running his prints against the national database,” Blackwood said softly as he grasped Michael’s arm, pulling him away from the table and Liz in order to avoid upsetting her further. The shaken girl circumvented the officer’s attempt to spare her by listening in through Michael’s ears as the earnest man explained to her rescuer. “But I thought you’d like to know we already have a tentative match locally. Sick bastard meets the information on file for the White Sands Stalker.”

Liz’s trembling resumed as the words echoed through their link and Michael swore softly as they both recognized the tag name the press had given the violent sexual predator that’d terrorized the area around NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces for the past year and a half. Michael pursed his lips angrily at the thought of such a monster wandering the streets of his home town and snarled as he gestured toward the alien figures painted on the Crashdown’s walls, “Must’ve got bored with NASA and felt the need to branch out to the real alien mecha.” Seeing his irate reaction, the Deputy nodded in understanding.

“He’s not going anywhere now. From what Miss Parker described, the M.O. sounds the same. We’ve already contacted the department in Las Cruces and they’re arranging a DNA test with one of our local labs against some physical evidence from the most recent crime scenes as we speak.” Deputy Blackwood met his eyes seriously, “If it is him, she may owe you her life. That whack job really likes to rough ‘em up. They’re still not sure if the co-ed he attacked two weeks ago will ever come out of her coma.”

“She doesn’t owe me anything,” Michael said tightly as he slid his arm free of the man’s grip. “Are we done here?”

“For the time being,” the officer ceded. Turning, he addressed the young woman at the table, “Miss Parker, we’ll keep you and your parents informed but you will be needed for further questioning.”

Michael returned to his space beside her and slid a protective arm around her shoulders. Grateful for his return, she allowed herself to sag against his chest and nodded weakly. “Of course. I’m sure my parents will want to stop by the station after they get home for a copy of the police report anyway. Thank you, Deputy Blackwood.”

“We’ll see you tomorrow then, Miss Parker. Mr. Guerin.” The Native American officer nodded in goodbye to them both as he ushered the last of his colleagues out the door.

The heavy silence that followed their departure pressed down on the pair at the table. Gripping Michael’s hand, Liz used her powers to secure the locks on the front door. Sensing the exhaustion creeping up on his companion, the young man tugged her to her feet and erased the remaining mess with a wave of his hand. “C’mon, Parker,” he said as he pulled her toward the door to her family’s apartment. “It’s way past your bedtime.”

She grinned weakly at his comment as he ushered her through the door to her home with a reassuring hand on her back. She flicked on the light in the hallway as they entered, and the echoing silence of the apartment seemed to close in on her.

Feeling her mounting panic at the thought of staying in the empty house alone lashing at him through the bond, Michael turned her to face him and tipped her chin up to force her to meet his eyes. “Stop freaking out, Elizabeth. I’m staying.”

Her feelings of dread stilled in shock at sound of her name on his lips and the knowledge that he wasn’t abandoning her. Before she could dredge up a response, the hungry rumbling of her stomach interrupted. She pressed a hand to her middle, but the growling continued. “I didn’t get dinner,” she said sheepishly in explanation.

“Yeah, me neither,” he said with a grin as her stomach continued to gurgle. “Look, I’ll throw us together something to eat. Why don’t you grab a shower and get ready for bed after I do a sweep of the perimeter?”

“Sweep the perimeter, Michael?” she queried with a raised eyebrow. “Really getting into this soldier thing, aren’t you?”

“Shut up, Parker,” he growled as towed her around behind him while he checked the empty rooms. “Or you’ll be eating Brussels sprouts.”

“Yes sir, General Cranky, sir!” she saluted as he finished inspecting her bedroom.

Rolling his eyes at her silliness, he ignored her comment and commanded sternly, “Keep the bond open to second level at least. I’ll be in the kitchen, yell if you need me.”

She watched as he sealed the window to her balcony with his powers and headed for the door. “Michael?” she called before he could step through. He turned to face her with a questioning look. “Thanks,” she said simply with a bright smile.

“Lock this behind me,” he ordered with an answering smirk as he drew the door closed.

He waited until he heard the telltale click of the lock engage before heading toward the kitchen. Quickly inspecting the contents of the Parker’s fridge, he began pulling out the ingredients for hot ham and cheese sandwiches. He was halfway through assembling the second sandwich when the link between them flared to life.

<i>“Michael, talk to me please...”</i> The soft purr of her voice trickling like smoke into his awareness caught him off guard. Her side of the connection was so open it teetered precariously on the insubstantial line between second and third level. It was taking every ounce of concentration he had not to get lost in the steady stream of images and sensations pouring through from her end.

<i>“What do you want me to say?” </i>he replied uncertainly, tightly gripping the butter knife as he tried frantically to ignore his body’s response to the unintentional impressions she was emitting of bare honeyed skin and cascading water.

<i>“Anything, just make me feel better. I feel safer when I can sense you,”</i> she whispered back, superimposed with a jumbled mass of yearning for her Grandma Claudia’s hot chocolate, her parents, and another hug that would make her feel like the ones he’d given her in the Crashdown. Safe. Protected. Cherished.

He dropped the knife as her emotions crashed through him and stomped down the urge to rush into her room and drag her into his arms. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and paused for a moment to stuff all his thoughts and feelings back into their respective compartments in his head before replying, <i>“Have you ever read James Joyce’s Ulysses?”</i>

He could feel her negation floating in his mind without her having to actively respond. Picking the knife back up to resume making their late dinner, he continued, <i>“It’s the whole of human existence packed into a single day...”</i>

Liz finished her shower and dressed mechanically as she focused on the soothing resonance of his presence in her psyche. His words washed over her, but the sensations behind them were what gave her the strength to keep moving.

His love for the book shined between them with every comment, but more importantly than that, with every syllable his thoughts caressed hers with this guarantee: He was there. He was on guard. She was safe, because he’d DIE before he let anything get past his defenses to harm her.

Hazy memories of Dungeons and Dragons games played with Alex and Maria half a decade past dredged a word from her subconscious. “Paladin,” she murmured thoughtfully to herself as she tugged a comb through her damp locks, visualizing her shaggy haired friend in a white knight’s stereotypical armor. She smiled as his internal monologue faltered at the thoughts she was projecting.

<i>“Knock that shit off. You know me better than that,” </i>Michael disrupted her musings scornfully. <i>“You done? Food’s ready.”</i>

She twisted her hair into a knot and secured the damp bundle with a clip while she followed the sense of him into the living room. As she entered from the hallway, she saw Michael perusing her family’s movie collection. He looked up from the case of the video he had been studying as she approached.

“Bout time, Parker,” he said as he tapped her copy of Shrek against his palm. “I was wasting away out here.” She slipped the film out of his grip and moved to place it on the shelf. “That any good?” he asked with a gesture toward the tape in her hand.

“It doesn’t have Braveheart’s body count, but I like it,” she teased as she slid the box back into place. “You’ve never seen it?”

He shrugged in negation, “It just came out on video and I work too much to make it to the theater.”

She smiled up at him, “Next time you’re bored at MetaChem, let me know and I’ll pop it in the player.”

“I dunno, Parker,” he said as he moved away from her and dropped onto the couch. “Thought we’d already agreed to introduce you to the Matrix next?”

Waving her hand dismissively, she joined him on the sofa. “I’ve put off seeing it this long...”

“Blasphemy,” he growled jokingly as he grabbed a plate from the coffee table and shoved it into her hands.

She rolled her eyes playfully as she set the plate back down and grabbed the sandwich off it instead. “Get over it, Guerin. I have.”

“Just for that, I’m in charge of the TV,” he declared as he scooped the remote off the table and began flipping through the channels. Settling on a TV Land marathon, he tossed the controller back down and grabbed one of the mugs he’d set beside their dinner plates.

“Oh Michael, not more coffee!” she groaned when she saw the steam rise from his cup. “We’re already gonna be up all night!”

He smirked challengingly at her and gulped down another swallow before replying, “If you don’t want your cocoa just say so, Parker…”

Her eyes widened as she leapt to snatch her cup protectively up and peer inside. Half melted marshmallows floated happily in a lake of rich milk chocolate. She inhaled the bittersweet aroma of her Grandma Claudia’s hot cocoa recipe before taking a sip. Her lids slid closed euphorically as the deep mélange of cinnamon and chocolate flavors exploded on her tongue.

“Should I leave you two alone?” her forgotten companion’s amused voice broke through her delight. She opened her eyes to see him watching her with a laughing grin over the rim of his cup.

She blushed at his perusal and regarded him with wonder, “Where did you get this recipe?”

He set his mug down as he leaned forward, sweeping a few errant strands of hair away from her face before tapping his finger against her temple. “You were projecting earlier. Didn’t seem too hard, so I threw some together.”

She caught his hand before he could pull it away and pressed it against her uninjured cheek. “Michael...” she began tremulously, tears leaking from the corner of her eyes as she struggled to find a way to convey how much his gesture meant to her.

“Turn off the waterworks, Parker,” he said incredulously as he brushed a tear away with his thumb. “I’ll never understand chicks. What exactly about this makes you cry?”

She gave a strangled half-sob, half-laugh and took a brief moment to set her cocoa down before launching herself at him. He caught her in an awkward hug as she projected a torrent of emotion, trying desperately to explain to a man without words how sometimes the things that make a woman happiest are cause for a few tears.

“Oh.” He muttered with a surprised blink as he tried to process everything she’d shared with him. The confusion fell from his face as he began to laugh and she looked up at him in mystification. He gave her a reassuring squeeze as he continued to snicker, “Nice try. Still doesn’t make any sense.” Reaching behind her on the sofa, he dragged her mother’s old crocheted blanket down and settled it over both of them. He then plucked her half eaten sandwich off the plate and dropped it in her hand before grabbing his own. “Chicks are crazy,” he stated definitively before biting into the cooling remains of his dinner.

She shook her head with a laugh of her own as she leaned comfortably back against his arm, munching quietly through her own sandwich. She yawned as she nursed her hot chocolate, and Michael watched her with drowsy eyes minutes later as he slid the cup from her unresisting grasp and placed it on the coffee table.

The muted prattle of Father Knows Best followed them both down into unconsciousness.

Author’s Notes & Sources
********************************************************************
Notes:
1.) God, I can’t wait to get to later chapters in this story! I don’t write linearly, so everything post chapter eleven is about 80% done. Stupid chapters one through four, however, kick my ass. Ah well. Least one and two are done now. On to the nightmare that is chapter three...This may take just a bit.

Sources:
1.) Title for this chapter inspired by the band named Panic! At The Disco.

2.) Research for my creation of the White Sands Stalker and his behavior patterns gathered from the following resources:

a. Malicious Intent: A writer’s guide to how murderers, robbers, rapists and other criminals think by Sean Mactire, Writer’s Digest Books 1995.

b. The Criminal Behavior of the Serial Rapist by Special Agent Robert R. Hazelwood and Janet Warren, http://www.holysmoke.org/fem/fem0126.htm February 1990

3.) Series research garnered from the Roswell Research thread on the Polar Attraction Board: http://board.polarattraction.com/viewtopic.php?t=2739

Thank you so much for all the feedback! I promise, updates for this will be coming much more quickly, I just had a really hard time with the chapter.

Chapter Three: Rude Awakening

The telephone refused to quit ringing.

He’d been successful in ignoring it, clinging to unconsciousness through the first disturbing set of tones, but the damned thing persevered and tormented him by ringing again. And again. Whoever was calling this early in the morning deserved to die.

Clutching stubbornly at the last vestiges of sleep, he yanked the receiver off the cradle without opening his eyes and growled angrily into it’s tiny speaker. “What?”

He was met by silence on the other end and, just as he was about to throw the handset down in disgust, Max’s voice drifted tremulously over the line, “M-Michael?”

“Obviously,” he snarled, dangerously unhappy with his brother for interrupting his only day to sleep in. “What do you want, Maxwell?”

“What are you doing answering Liz’s phone at six thirty in the morning?” Max snarled back at him, and Michael froze.

Liz’s phone?

He peaked his eyes open and last night’s events rolled over him in a wave. Liz had been attacked. He was on the Parker’s couch. But all Max knew was that he hadn’t come home last night and he was answering Liz’s phone. “Oh, shit,” he muttered as he tried to raise a hand to rub his eyes, only to find his arm trapped by the sleepy warmth of the young woman in question. He looked down and drank in the unimaginable sight of Liz Parker curled against him. She lay sprawled across his body like a blanket, the damp heat of her breath tickling his neck as she dozed.

“Fuck me,” he whispered quietly to himself as Max began to rant in his ear.

“Where’s Liz? Is she with you? Why didn’t you come home? Maria saw your bike knocked on its side when she was opening the Crashdown this morning and got worried so she called me. What the hell are you doing there?! What-”

“You gonna stop to breathe at some point there, Maxwell?” he drawled sarcastically into the phone, annoyed at being interrogated before he was even fully awake.

“We were worried about you,” his brother stated stiffly. “You’d never abandon your bike and no one’s seen you since yesterday after school. What the hell were we supposed to think?!”

He grimaced, Max’s guilt trip quickly succeeding in making him feel like an asshole. “I’m fine, okay? Look-”

“Yeah,” Max sneered through the line. “You’re fine. Great. Thanks for the heads up. You in bed with my girlfriend too? Is that why you didn’t come home, Michael?”

“You and Liz aren’t together anymore,” the irritated young man spat out without thinking.

“So you’re just gonna jump right in and go after her? How could you?!! You know what she means to me, what she’s always meant to me! How can you-”

Michael didn’t have a chance to react before Liz tore the phone away from his ear and out of his grasp. Through the link, the sharp bite of her frustration with the man on the other side of the phone made him very happy not to be Max Evans.

“Max, stop,” she growled firmly into the receiver. “You’re being ridiculous. Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m not having sex with Michael.” Max tried to say something angry in response, but she cut him off abruptly. “Look, just meet us at the Crashdown in 10 minutes and we’ll explain everything. Goodbye.”

She slammed the phone down and deliberately reburied her uninjured cheek against Michael’s shoulder. She could feel his entertainment at her words reverberating through the bond as his hand subconsciously rubbed her back. Everything seemed to come in so much clearer when they were this close.

“What?” she snarled mentally, puzzled by what about their current situation was striking him as so damn funny.

Michael replied in kind, his amusement ringing clearly in her head, “Notice you didn’t say you weren’t sleeping with me.”

She groaned and leveled herself off him. Resisting the urge to hit him with a sofa cushion, she stood and stretched.

“What?” he said with a smirk as he sat up. “It’s an important distinction.”

“Shut up, Michael,” Liz rolled her eyes at him as she refolded the throw they’d used for a blanket and laid it over the back of the couch. “You always wind him up. Like he wasn’t already yelling enough, I can just imagine how he’d take THAT. Now, give me two minutes to get dressed so we can head downstairs before he calls Maria and the gale force winds of Hurricane Deluca start banging down the door.”

Her sleepy friend grinned up at her unrepentantly as she moved to circle the couch. Suddenly, the smile dropped from his face and he jumped to catch her arm, forcing her to turn back towards him. She looked at him in confusion as he raised her chin and frowned down at her.

“Michael?” she asked uncertainly as he examined her in silence.

“We should’ve put some ice on that,” he finally said as he gently tilted her jaw to study the dark bruising that covered half her face. He scowled, thinking of the dozens of pictures the police had taken to document the damage that effectively preventing him from healing it for her without raising suspicion.

She covered his hand with hers in understanding. Michael never could stand to see his friends hurt. “S’okay,” she joked with a smile. “I’m battered, not broken.” She squeezed his fingers reassuringly before letting go. “I’ll take some Advil before we go down. Though,” she said with a yawn, “I seriously could have used some more sleep before having to face the firing squad.”

He nodded in agreement and released his loose grip on her wrist. “I’ll make us some coffee,” he offered as he nudged her back towards her room for fresh clothes. She beamed at him gratefully as she retreated. He watched her slight form disappear down the hallway, noting the finger shaped bruises on her arms. Gritting his teeth, he imagined the myriad forms of punishment he’d like to inflict upon her attacker and growled low in his throat, “Bastard better hope they lock him up tight; legal system fails on this one and he’s mine.”

***

Coffee in hand, Liz carefully navigated the stairs to the Crashdown with Michael trailing behind. Through the pickup window she could see Max leaning over the counter to speak with Maria, gesticulating wildly. She sighed unhappily at the pinched expression on her best friend’s face, visible even in profile. Feeling her discomfort, Michael placed a reassuring hand at the small of her back. He reached over her head to push the door to the dining area open and she smiled up at him, thankful for his support.

Abruptly, the pair at the counter stopped talking and simultaneously swung their heads in their direction. “Oh my god!” Maria exclaimed as she scrambled toward her friend. Her hand stretched towards the dark haired girl’s battered cheek only to pause an inch away, hovering indecisively before settling safely on the side of her head. “Liz, what happened to you?!” The blonde turned fierce eyes to the smaller girl’s hovering shadow. “What the hell did you do to her, Spaceboy?!”

Michael scowled angrily at her accusation. “Right Maria,” he drawled condescendingly as he rolled his eyes, “because Liz’d be cool with me hangin’ around if I was the one that banged her up.”

Shaking off her concerned friend’s hand, Liz stationed herself firmly between the arguing pair before Maria could fire back. “Michael didn’t hurt me,” she said emphatically. “In fact-” she began, but Max cut her off.

“Then who did?” he demanded. Turning to Michael, he commanded furiously, “Tell me that you took care of who ever did this.”

“He’s handled,” the taller teen confirmed simply.

“What Michael means,” Liz jabbed his ribs promptingly when it became obvious he had no intention of elaborating, “is that the police have him in custody.”

Max and Maria began to talk over each other in their haste to get details, but Liz waved them to silence as she took a seat at the counter. Taking a long sip of her coffee to buy herself time, she shot Michael a mental wave of gratitude when he plopped down in the seat between her and Max, offering her some much appreciated distance. Taking a deep breath, she set her coffee down and explained the previous night’s events as quickly and succinctly as possible.

“Jose had to leave early last night, so I was closing up by myself. There was only one customer left and once I was alone he attacked me. Michael was coming by to get his check, saw what was happening and pulled him off me. We called the police and they took him away. I was still shaken up afterwards and since my folks weren’t supposed to be home until tonight, Michael offered to stay so I wouldn’t have to be alone.”

Michael watched her intently as she explained, more concerned with the effect replaying the story, even in such a truncated form, might have on her than their companions’ reactions. Her dry recitation of the facts did nothing to portray the emotional impact of what she’d endured, and he knew without even looking that there was no way the pair to his right had any real appreciation of the mental trauma she’d experienced. His hunch was born out by the absurd nature of Max’s next question.

“So that’s why Michael was in your bed this morning?” the dark haired young man demanded eagerly.

Liz rolled her eyes at him before replying, “Not that it’s any of your business, but Michael wasn’t in my bed. We were watching TV in the living room to wind down and we fell asleep on the couch.” Taking a deep breath to curb her frustration with Max, she turned her attention to Maria. “I’m so sorry, Ria. I should have remembered you were opening this morning,” she said as she shook her head with a rueful smile. “No wonder you panicked; we all know how protective Michael is of that bike! God forbid it ever gets so much as a scratch,” she teased, tossing a smile Michael’s way over the rim of her coffee cup.

“Exactly!” Maria chimed in with a grin when she saw Michael’s glare at Liz for her verbal poking, “He won’t let anyone breathe on the damn thing and I come in this morning to find it lying on its side in the alley!” Throwing her hands up in the air in fake exasperation, she exclaimed, “Obviously the world was about to end!”

“Very true,” Liz intoned sagely. “It is one of the first signs of the apocalypse.”

The two girls’ eyes met before glancing back at Michael and the pair of them broke into laughter at the disgruntled look on his face. Michael tried to scowl at them, but their happy smiles were too much to resist, especially when he remembered the ashen expression Liz had worn as he’d pulled that man off of her. The contrast was startling and he found himself grinning back at her unrepentantly.

Max watched their easy camaraderie with an oddly queasy feeling. There was something about the way Michael and Liz grinned at one another that sent alarm bells pealing throughout his brain. He took some consolation in the fact that Michael was smiling at Maria too, but he couldn’t help notice that his pseudo-brother’s eyes lacked the warmth they contained when pointed toward the darker haired girl.

“Ha, ha,” Michael groused with a smirk as he got up to refill his and Liz’s coffee cups. “Very funny. You two done yet?” He asked as the girls’ giggles started to taper off. This, of course, set them off again, and the pair clung to each other helplessly as they laughed. He and Max shared a small grin and shook their heads at pair’s silliness.

The sound of the employee entrance opening dragged Michael’s attention away the trio at the counter, and he turned to see Jose coming in from the back to start up the grill.

“About time,” he said as he watched other man slip on his work apron. “Weren’t you s’posed to be here ten minutes ago?”

Jose spared him a sour look and muttered something derogatory in Spanish as he fired up the grill. “You that worried about ‘bout me bein’ late, you coulda started the grill up for me.”

Michael shrugged, “S’my day off. We haven’t had any customers yet.” Approaching the pick up window, he set his mug down and stood there, waiting, until Jose looked up at him. The angry expression on his face was one his fellow cook had never seen before. At least, not to that extent.

“What?” Jose snapped, irritated by the way the Michael had been on his case since he walked in the door.

“New rule,” Michael growled as he leaned menacingly into the window. Behind him, the other teens went silent at the seriousness of his tone. “From now on, nobody closes alone. You gotta leave, you call someone to cover for you or you don’t go anywhere.”

Jose slammed down his spatula, “Mr. Parker wants to make that policy, fine. But last I heard, you weren’t a manager.” He snapped, glaring angrily. “Why’re you being such a pissy bitch today?” he demanded.

Liz felt the white hot burn of his rage and was out of her chair like a shot, practically materializing at Michael’s side before he could even open his mouth to tear into the other man. “Michael, stop,” she begged, tugging futilely on his arm in an attempt to turn him towards her. “I told him to go last night, it’s not his fault. There’s no way he could have known…”

Reluctantly, Michael dragged his eyes away from Jose’s fuming gaze and down into Liz’s pleading brown ones. The gentle touch of her hands against his skin sent warm pulses of concern flowing into him, making it hard to maintain his ire. The stony wall of his countenance visibly softened as he covered her small hand with his and nodded, surrendering to the pleading that echoed through their bond. By the counter, Max and Maria could only gape in shock at the unprecedented sight of Michael Guerin yielding to someone else’s will without conflict.

On the other side of the pickup window, Jose was feeling hung over and frustrated. “What the hell was I supposed to have known?” He snarled when it became obvious no one felt like finishing the damn sentence.

He was almost sorry he’d opened his mouth when Michael swung around to face him again. The warmth that had filled the other man’s face while communing with Liz evaporated, leaving a blank expression broken only by the raging fury blazing in his eyes. The cook took an involuntary step back as the cold fire of that gaze burned into him.

Michael noted Jose’s unconscious move with grim satisfaction as he hurled his accusation, “Liz was attacked last night by the customer you left her alone with.”

Michael’s barb found its mark as Jose noticed Liz’s bruises for the first time. “Dios mio,” he whispered weakly, reverting to Spanish in his shock. He hurriedly left the kitchen to examine the damage up close. “Querida, lo siento…” he murmured in dismay as he took in the extent of the bruising. Liz squirmed uncomfortably as he tilted her chin to get a better look.

“I’m okay,” she said finally, unable to take Jose’s horrified staring and mumbled apologies anymore. “It looks worse than it is.” Slipping free of his grasp, she headed back towards her coffee on the counter as the phone began to ring. Seeing her opportunity for a break from everyone’s scrutiny, Liz dove gratefully for the telephone. “Crashdown Café! How may I help you?”

Jose turned toward Michael as Liz hurried to the phone, only to find the other man watching him with dark eyes. Shaking his head as if to clear it, he began insistently, “I would never…I mean, man, you’ve got to believe me – I never would’ve left her alone if I thought for a second–”

“Enough.” Michael said, cutting him off with an abrupt wave of his hand. He stepped closer and continued, “The cops think the asshole who attacked her is the White Sands Stalker.” The color drained from Jose’s face and Maria and Max broke off their quiet conversation to stare at him in shock. Michael ignored them as he glared at Jose, reaching up to grab handfuls of the man’s shirt and yanking him forward. “If she had died,” he snarled threateningly in the cook’s face, “if he had raped her…” His growl trailed off, giving Jose a moment to let the gravity of the situation set in before he released his grip with a jerk. Taking a step back to lean against the counter, he pinned the man with a dark look and continued in an ominously calm, almost conversational tone, “Let’s just say that being sorry wouldn’t have saved you.”

Their eyes locked, and an icy chill shivered up his spine as Jose absorbed how serious the threat was. It was obvious that as far as Michael was concerned, Liz’s safety was worth his life. The bleak rage burning behind Michael’s eyes whispered to him how lucky he was that she was alright and how painful the retribution would have been had her attacker gotten any further. Jose paled further at the realization and nodded in shaky understanding.

Satisfied that he had made his point, Michael nodded back slowly. “Get back to the grill,” he stated firmly. “And remember: No one works alone.” This time, Jose didn’t question his right to give orders as he slunk back to the kitchen.

“The White Sands Stalker!!!” Maria’s shrill squeal dragged his attention away from Jose’s retreating form. Flicking a concerned glance at Liz, he was relieved to note she was still on the phone. A quick check of the bond revealed that she was talking to her parents. Turning his attention to the irate blonde tugging on his sleeve, Michael allowed himself to be hauled around to the other side of the counter.

“You didn’t tell us she was attacked by the White Sands Stalker!” Maria whispered furiously with a worried look darted in Liz’s direction to ensure she didn’t hear them.

Max didn’t seem nearly as concerned about not drawing Liz’s attention. “Jesus, Michael!” he yelled angrily. “How could you leave that monster’s marks on her?! You can heal the small stuff, those bruises should be gone!”

Glaring at the irate boy, Michael was relieved to note that Jose had gone into the freezer to get supplies and had missed Max’s tirade. “Use your head, Maxwell,” he snarled back. “The police took pictures of her injuries. They need them for evidence to put that psycho away; don’t you think it’d look a little suspicious if she showed up at the station today magically healed?”

Max had the grace to flush in embarrassment at his oversight. “You still could have sped it up a little,” he grumbled, unwilling to completely give up the argument.

Setting his jaw angrily at the admission, Michael ground out, “My control’s not that good.”

“Then you should have called me!” Max snapped back. “You should have called me anyway! I’m the one who should have fallen asleep with her on the couch!”

Michael gaped at the other man’s fixation and Maria descended on him like a storm. Max opened his mouth to continue, but Maria smacked the back of his head to silence him. “Leave it alone, Max,” she snarled as he turned to glare at her. Planting her hands on her hips, she glared back at him, “How can you even be focusing on that?! Liz was attacked last night! Don’t you think that rates higher on the important scale than your petty relationship issues?” Michael watched quietly from his post at the counter, grateful to have the blonde dynamo on his and Liz’s side. Dealing with a jealous Max and a pissed off Maria would be too much to inflict on anyone.

Liz had rejoined them in time to see Maria whack Max at the beginning of her outburst. Leaning on the counter next to Michael, she watched as Max absorbed her best friend’s rant and slumped contritely in his chair.

Darting his eyes towards the battered form of his ex-girlfriend, he sighed. “Sorry, Liz,” he said remorsefully. “Maria’s right; the important thing is that you’re okay.” Off to the side, Michael smirked. It was nice to see the “perfect” Max Evans on the receiving end of some patented Deluca ire instead of him for a change.

“We really didn’t mean to worry you guys,” Liz repeated ruefully as she shook her head. “We should’ve left a note or something.”

Maria walked up and carefully eased her into a hug. “S’okay,” she murmured. “It’s not like you didn’t have enough on your mind. I’m just glad you’re alright.” Pulling back, she smoothed some hair away from the uninjured side of her friend’s face. “Just, call me next time okay?”

“Promise,” Liz pledged solemnly, and pulled the little blonde into another hug.

Clearing his throat, Michael asked, “Who was on the phone?”

Liz shot him an ironic look at the question, knowing full well he’d already used the bond to find out the answer. “My parents,” she said aloud as she pulled out of Maria’s arms. “Their flight out of Vegas was cancelled because of a technical problem with the engines.” Pressing a tired hand to her forehead, she continued, “They got another flight, but it’s not till later. Unfortunately that means they missed the shuttle they had booked from the airport to bring them home, and with the Balloon Festival going on in Albuquerque all the rest of the shuttles and rental car are booked solid. I’m supposed to drive up and get them.”

“What time does their flight get in?” Michael asked as he checked the wall clock.

“11:55,” Liz replied, thinking longingly of the nap she’d intended to have after finishing this conversation with Max and Maria.

Knocking back the remainder of his coffee, Michael set the cup down resolutely. “We’d better get going then. It’s more than a three hour drive to the airport in Albuquerque.” There was a moment of silence, and everyone started protesting at once.

Maria: “Michael, don’t you have work–”

Max: “I’ll take her–”

Liz: “You don’t have to¬¬–”

He silenced them all with a hard look. Addressing their concerns one by one, he started with Maria. “Today’s my day off. Max, you’re due at the UFO Center in half an hour.” Turning to face Liz, he said simply, “And I want to.” Liz smiled up at him and the edges of the bond tingled with the warmth of her regard. Aware suddenly of how strong the desire was to bask in that warmth like a cat under a ray of sunshine, he smirked at her, “Didn’t go to all that trouble saving you only to have you kill yourself fallin’ asleep at the wheel.”

“You didn’t get any more sleep than she did!” Max sputtered in protest.

Michael shrugged dismissively, “I’m used to it. She’s not.”

Swiveling his stool toward Liz, Max said pleadingly, “I can take the day off, it’s no problem.”

“Max, it’s a three hour car ride back. My dad hates you.” Liz shook her head negatively, “I’m too tired to deal with the extra drama.” She smiled at her ex to soften the blow, but it was obviously forced. Twisting toward Michael, her plastic grin melted easily into a real smile. She may not have noticed how her entire demeanor softened when she looked up at her unlikely hero, but her audience did. Max and Maria shared a bemused glance at her behavior.

Oblivious to the undercurrents swirling around her, Liz placed a questioning hand on Michael’s forearm. “Are you sure it’s alright?” She asked tenuously. “I hate to see you waste your only day off like this…”

Ignoring her question, Michael nudged her toward her family’s apartment. “Get your purse and a pillow, Parker. You can sleep on the drive up.”

For one bright, blinding moment, the link between them opened and her gratitude flowed over him like a wave. Dazed by the unexpected outpouring, he watched numbly as she said her goodbyes to Max, Jose, and Maria, promising repeatedly to stay safe and to be careful. He hadn’t been exposed to much positive emotion from other people in his life, so having such an intimate conduit into Liz’s heart was seriously starting to get to him. The girl felt everything at such a roaring decibel it left his ears ringing. And the way she felt about the people she cared for, about him, was positively addicting. It was rapidly reaching the point where he had to consciously fight to keep the bond at first level the majority of the time. The desire to wrap himself continuously in the heady blanket of her affections that second level offered was almost overwhelming.

He shook off his daze in time to hear Liz assert to Max in exasperation, “I’ll be fine! Michael takes good care of me.” He didn’t want to examine why the wide smile she graced him with following that proclamation made his heart ache.

“C’mon, Parker,” he said gruffly as he scrubbed a tired hand through his hair. “Let’s get this show on the road.” Nodding to everyone else, he couldn’t help giving a relieved sigh once he had managed to shepherd Liz upstairs. He slumped against the door as he closed it behind him and was surprised when, rather that get her things, Liz sagged wearily against his side.

“And you said I was exhausting,” she murmured into the fabric of his jacket.

He gave a sharp bark of astonished laughter and wrapped an arm around her waist in a half hug. “You are exhausting. They just have the added bonus of being annoying too.” Liz chuckled weakly, and he surprised himself by pressing a kiss against the crown of her head as she slipped an arm around him. The heat of her body seeped through his clothes, relaxing knotted muscles he hadn’t realized he’d tensed during their little showdown in the café. Recognizing that if they didn’t start moving he was going to fall asleep standing up, he pushed them away from the door and steered Liz back towards her room.

Releasing the brunette with a squeeze, he nabbed a pillow from her bed as she grabbed her purse and a jacket. Catching the longing gaze she threw at the bed, he snorted in amusement. “Don’t even think it, Parker,” he smirked as he launched the pillow at her. “You so much as sit on that thing and you’re out. I’ll be damned if I’m carryin’ your ass to the car.”

Narrowly managing to stop the projectile cushion from tagging her in the head, she gave the bed a final yearning look and tromped towards the door. “Mean people suck, Michael,” she told him as she passed. “Don’t make me hit you with my pillow.”

“Oh yeah, I’m worried.” Shaking his head, he laughed as he followed her out to the car, “News flash, Parker: You’re about as scary as a wet kitten.”

Jerking the passenger side door of her mom’s car open, she stuck her tongue out at him. “Screw you, Michael. Most things that are small and furry have sharp claws, you know.”

Sliding into the driver’s seat, Michael grinned and plucked the keys out her hand. Twisting the key in the ignition, he peeked at her out the corner of his eye before turning towards her with a straight face and saying, “Meow.”

She blinked at him for a moment before dissolving into giggles. She knew she must be exhausted if such a little thing was striking her as so hilarious, but she couldn’t help meowing back at him as she reclined the seat and snuggled into her pillow. Michael could be so unexpectedly funny at times.

Meow, indeed.

***

Three and a half hours later found them huddled together on an uncomfortably hard plastic bench waiting for her parents to disembark. The airport was packed and, after some guy tried to wedge his way onto the bench between them, Michael had wrapped an arm around her to securely anchor her to his side. Unconsciously cuddling his shoulder, she sighed in satisfaction when she felt him rest his chin on the top of her head. She could sense his fatigue and was glad to feel his body relaxing against hers. He had let her sleep the entire drive, waking her up only when they’d parked in the airport garage. Three hours rest had done wonders for her and she was hoping he’d have the same opportunity on the ride back. Though, knowing her parents, questions about her attack would probably take up at least half the trip home.

Sighing regretfully, she wondered if there was anyway she could convince mom and dad to hold off on the interrogation until after they made it back.

“You’re thinking too loud.” She jumped at the sound of Michael’s voice ringing in her head.

“Sorry,” she returned sheepishly, and chewed on her lower lip. “Just trying to figure out a way to shield you from my parents.”

“I don’t need shielding, Elizabeth,” he thought with firm tenderness. The complicated swirl of emotion that surrounded the full version of her name left her gaping up at him. He ignored her slack jawed expression and continued, “Your parents love you and they worry. That’s not a bad thing.”

She closed her eyes at the longing and envy that colored his statement. Knowing that he would view anything she said as pity, the only thing she could think to do was hug him. Her alien bodyguard stiffened in her arms for a long minute before returning the embrace. That was how Jeff and Nancy found them a few minutes later; clinging desperately to one another on an empty bench.

“Lizzie?” At the sound of her mother’s voice, Liz opened her eyes and pulled away from Michael slightly.

“Mom?” Busy disentangling herself from her friend, she missed her mom’s gasp of dismay at the sight of her bruises.

Nancy dragged her baby girl into her arms. “Oh honey, look at you!” she chided as she took stock of her child’s injuries.

Embarrassed at being caught practically groping their daughter, Michael had released Liz and now stood to face her father. “Mr. Parker…” he began, hoping to avoid any confrontation in front of Liz. He was surprised when the older man yanked him into a fierce hug.

“Thank you for saving my little girl,” Jeff Parker’s voice sounded raw in his ears as he clutched him tightly. Pulling back from the puzzled young man, Jeff gripped the back of his neck and pressed their foreheads together. “You’re family, Michael. Understand me? If you ever need anything, anything, you just call.” Stepping back from the stunned teenager, he gripped the boy’s hand in a solid shake before turning to wrap his arms around his wife and daughter.

Watching the tearful reunion in front of him, Michael had never been more aware of what he had missed out on by growing up with Hank. For the first time in his life, he found himself considering the future. Imagining what it would be like to have people that loved him unconditionally, to have a real family. The hunger he felt must’ve leaked through their bond, because Liz reached out and hauled him into their group hug. Jeff and Nancy accepted his presence unquestioningly, and for one brief moment Michael Guerin knew what it meant to belong.

***

Nancy chuckled weakly as she watched Jeff’s eyes float back to the rearview mirror for the fourth time in the last five minutes. “Eyes on the road, dear,” she murmured as he surveyed the teenagers behind them instead of the highway. Swinging his gaze back to the road, Jeff shot her a sheepish grin. Nancy shook her head, but couldn’t really blame him. The sight in the backseat kept drawing her attention too.

After hearing a slightly more detailed explanation of last night’s events, she and Jeff had taken pity on the obviously exhausted teens and told them a more in depth accounting could wait for later. The pair in front had watched, bemused, as Michael tried to force Liz to take the pillow, only to have their daughter tell him unequivocally that since she intended to use his shoulder anyway, if he didn’t take the pillow it was just ending up on the floorboards.

Nancy smiled at the memory. She didn’t know who was more flabbergasted by Liz’s statement, Michael or her husband. The boy had put up a pretty fair resistance, but the instant she had heard the tone of her daughter’s voice, she knew it was a lost cause. Stubborn was a trait Liz had inherited from both of her parents and when she sounded like that, you were better off just letting her have her way because nothing was going to stop her. A fact that Michael had finally acceded to reluctantly, hence the scene in the backseat of her Ford Focus.

Michael was a tall boy, so the vision of him scrunched down onto the rear seat of her car would have been amusing all by itself. But the sight of Liz curled contentedly up on his chest lent the picture a particularly surreal air. She’d seen how these two were when they worked together, normally you couldn’t get a word in edgewise between their back and forth quips. To see them lying there so peacefully, Liz swathed in Michael’s jacket and his fingers tangled in her hair as he cradled her against him, was just …incongruously fitting. It was like seeing a kitten curled up with a German Shepherd. Were it not for the dark bruises staining her daughter’s fragile skin, she’d love to have a picture of this for the mantel.

“We should drop the kids off before we head to the station,” she said gently as she watched the Welcome to Roswell sign pass by outside. Her husband nodded in silent agreement.

A short time afterward, they pulled to a stop in the lot behind the Crashdown. Nancy turned to rouse the two in the back, only to find Michael blinking drowsily up at her, awakened by the vehicle’s stop. “We’re home,” she whispered softly. “Michael, you’ve been so great about all of this, I hate to ask, but…Would you mind staying with Liz until Jeff and I get back from the police station?”

“Don’t worry about it,” The tall boy whispered back, unconsciously stroking the back of her daughter’s head with his thumb as he held her. “I’ll take care of her.”

He was too preoccupied after that with carefully waking Liz to notice the strange look Nancy shot his way, or to hear her quiet reply. “I’m sure you will, Michael…I’m sure you will.”

Neither parent was particularly surprised when they came home two hours later to find the sleeping pair entwined on the living room couch beneath an old crocheted blanket.


Author’s Notes & Sources
********************************************************************
1.) Jose translations:
Dios mio! – My god!
Querida, lo siento… – Sweetheart, I’m sorry…

2.) Okay, so the Albuquerque Balloon Festival happens in October, not November. Sue me, I needed the plot device.

3.) Sorry this took so long. I swear, I must’ve re-wrote this damn thing ten times before I was even marginally happy with it.

Chapter 4: Turkey and Tabasco

“So, tell me about this boy that you’re abandoning your family on Thanksgiving for. Is it the illustrious Max I heard so much about a couple of summers ago?”

Liz flushed at the thought of all the rambling diatribes her Aunt Patti had endured on the subject of Max Evans during her visit to Florida. Shaking her head, she said nonchalantly as she continued transferring mashed potatoes to a Tupperware bowl, “Max and I broke up a while back.”

Patti, a slightly taller, blonde version of Liz’s mother, slid onto a barstool across the kitchen island from Liz and propped her elbows up on the counter. “Really?” She queried with obvious interest. “A <b><i>different</b></i> boy then? Do tell…”

Ignoring her aunt’s question, Liz continued packing her picnic basket. “I’m not abandoning my family. Everyone’s finished eating and we’re already starting our second movie.” Closing the lid on the hamper decisively, she told the older woman, “Nobody’s gonna miss me if I slip out for a couple of hours to visit a friend.

“A couple of hours, huh? Must be some boy!” Aunt Patti teased.

“Enough, Pat!” Her mother’s laughing voice intruded as she carried the last of the turkey platters into the kitchen. “Leave Liz alone! It’s still early and you’ll have plenty of time to harass her once she gets back from Michael’s.”

“Good name, Michael,” Patty declared as Liz darted out of the kitchen to grab a couple more things before she left. “Do we have any pictures of this paragon?” She turned to ask sister.

Nancy laughed as she shook her head no. “I’d actually hoped you’d get a chance to meet him. Liz invited him to Thanksgiving dinner, but he’s been so burned out from work he told her he was taking the day off from people.”

“Burned out from work? How much can a kid work?” Patti pursed her lips as she considered, watching her sister putter around the kitchen. Finally, she asked in concern, “How old is this guy, Nance?”

Looking up from the dishes, Nancy turned and wiped her hands on a rag as she moved to sit in the chair next to Patti. “He’s Liz’s age, Pat. Michael’s the boy I told you about. You know? The emancipated minor Jeff hired a couple years ago?” Twisting the rag anxiously in her grip, she continued, “He’s the one who saved Liz when that monster attacked her.”

“Oh god,” Patti gasped and paled at the reminder of her niece’s assault. Everyone in the family had heard about Liz’s brush with violence and they were all watching the developing case against that bastard unfold with much relish. Thankfully, Liz’s involvement was being kept to a minimum since the young woman the man attacked before her had finally awoken from her coma. The Prosecution was convinced that the girl’s firsthand testimony would be enough to put the White Sands Stalker away without having to call up any additional witnesses for more than a few minutes. Thank heavens she’d woken up, Patti thought, but it was a damned shame the poor girl would never be able to walk again. The young man who’d saved her niece from what could have been an equally horrendous fate was definitely someone she’d like to thank first hand. “I wish I could meet him, too,” she said quietly. “The whole family owes him a tremendous debt of gratitude.”

“And I think that’s more than half of why he didn’t come,” Nancy said wryly as she released her death grip on the washrag. She shook her head as she laughed, “As Jeff and I have found out firsthand this past week, Michael hates being the center of attention and he <b><i>hates </b></i>being thanked.”

“What was that?” Liz asked as she reentered the kitchen, purse and a video cassette in hand.

“Nothing, dear,” her mother replied affectionately. “Aunt Patti and I were just catching up.” Liz looked at her quizzically, but continued getting ready to go. Nancy watched her pack the movie in the basket and asked, “Did you grab some Tabasco sauce?” Patti looked at her strangely, and Nancy shrugged. “Michael’s addicted to the stuff. Won’t eat anything without it and I do mean <i>anything</i>.”

“I’m sure he’s got some, Mom,” Liz replied, but obediently added a bottle to her basket just in case.

Nancy nodded approvingly and pulled her daughter into her arms. “C’mere, you!” she said as she hugged Liz tightly. Ever since the attack, she and Jeff and both made a conscious effort to show their little girl how much they loved her. Liz returned the hug with a wide smile. Pulling back, they grinned at one another as Nancy told her, “Make sure Michael knows we missed him, and give him a hug from me.”

“Mom!” Liz protested laughingly. “You know Michael’s not a huggy person!”

“Oh,” Nancy said with a mischievous grin as she remembered Michael and Liz wrapped around each other on an airport bench, “I think he’ll make an exception.” Liz looked at her strangely, but Nancy ignored her as she reached for her own purse to dig for keys. “Here, honey – take the Focus. The heater’s still out in the delivery truck.”

Rolling her eyes, Liz grumbled, “Mom. It’s like, sixty degrees out; I doubt I’ll need the heater.”

“Humor your mother, dear,” Nancy declared as she dropped the keys in Liz’s hand and grabbed the picnic basket for her.

Patti pulled Liz into a hug before she could take the basket. “You tell Michael he has to come by so I can thank him personally,” she whispered fiercely into her niece’s hair. Pulling back, she searched Liz’s eyes for a second before smiling wickedly. “Or,” she said as Liz squirmed, uncomfortable at the tone of her voice, “you could always give him a thank you kiss on my behalf.”

“Aunt Patti!” Liz exclaimed, aghast at her suggestion. “Michael and aren’t like <b><i>that</b></i>!”

Swinging her eyes over to her sister’s face to catch Nancy’s smirk at Liz’s protest, Patti smiled and thought, Yeah right, honeybear. Not like that <b><i>yet</b></i>. “Your choice, Lizzie,” she quipped with a salacious wink at her now blushing niece. “Either deliver for me or tell that boy I expect to see him before I go.”

Liz shook her head ruefully as she took the basket of leftovers from her mom. “I’m leaving now,” she told her aunt and mother as she headed out the door. “Try not to spike the punch while I’m gone,” she threw over her shoulder as she left.

Dropping an arm around her sister’s shoulder, Patti said thoughtfully, “I do believe your daughter just called us a couple of old drunken reprobates.”

“We’re lucky she didn’t call us meddling busybody matchmakers.” Nancy shook her head as she laughed, “Really, Patti! A kiss?”

“S’good for her,” the taller woman replied with a smirk. “Builds character. That girl’s always been way too serious!”

“Just for that,” Nancy declared as she launched a damp sponge at her sister, “you wash. I’ll dry.”

***

Michael leveled himself off his couch with a groan when he heard the pounding on his front door. It didn’t take three guesses or a telepathic bond to know who was on the other side. Swinging the door open, he loomed forbiddingly in the entryway and crossed his arms. “Did I or did I not say I wanted a day off, Parker?” he queried the petite brunette awkwardly cradling a picnic basket to her chest.

Liz rolled her eyes and pushed past him into the apartment. “Blah, blah, blah. I can’t hear you! Where do you want me to put this basket of food?”

Michael shook his head and chuckled at her before clearing space on the coffee table. He had turned down Liz’s offer of a family Thanksgiving and told her that he wanted a people-free holiday, but he was actually really glad she’d ignored him enough to visit. An awkward meal with a bunch of people he didn’t know who felt obligated to tell him how ‘heroic’ he was wasn’t his idea of a good time. But a delicious home cooked feast delivered by a pretty girl? Now that was a concept he could get behind. Bending to help her unpack the food, he stubbornly refused to examine the fact that he’d just thought of Liz as pretty.

Reaching into the basket, the first thing his hand closed around was a box that revealed itself to be Liz’s copy of Shrek. Holding the video up, he looked at her inquiringly.

“Family tradition,” she said with a shrug. “We always watch a movie while we eat Thanksgiving dinner and since you said you’d never seen Shrek…” she trailed off uncertainly, biting her lower lip in that way he’d come to realize he found so endearing.

Giving himself an internal shake at the direction of his thoughts, Michael blinked at the tape for a second and then proceeded to load it into the VCR. In response to her questioning look at his easy acquiescence, he grinned, “Beats having to play board games.”

Liz rolled her eyes at his reference to the Evans family traditions as she grabbed some dishes from the kitchen. Isabel had dragged Michael to dinner over at her house before Max had left on his latest trip to search for his son, so Liz had endured an entire night of Michael’s biting mental commentary on why one should never trust Isabel Evans when there was monopoly money involved.

Michael was busy forwarding past the previews when she returned. Setting the plates down on the coffee table, she laced her fingers with his free hand and used her powers to warm the leftovers. Her control of her abilities was better when they were either in physical contact or holding a second level connection. They’d both realized early on that as fixated as people were on the meeting of skin against skin, it wasn’t nearly as personal as inviting someone inside your mind. Hence their connection stayed largely at first level unless they were talking and feats of power were performed with hand holding whenever possible. Satisfied with the temperature of the food, she gave his fingers a quick squeeze and began to dish out the food.

Michael paused the movie at the opening credits and moved his arm up on the back of the couch behind her. “Ya know, it’s not like my hands are broke,” he teased, gesturing toward the plate she was making for him.

“Oh!” Liz gasped, coloring when she saw what she was doing. “Sorry!” she gulped sheepishly. “I get so used to seeing my mom fix dad’s food that I didn’t even think about it.” Handing him the platter with an embarrassed fidget she said, “Here you go.”

Feeling bad for giving her a hard time when she was just trying to do something nice for him, Michael took the plate and set it on the coffee table. Twisting toward the red-faced girl beside him, he caught her chin to force her to look at him. “Hey, it’s okay,” he said as he brushed a strand of hair out of her eye. “Just figured you get tired enough waiting on people at work without doing it here too. ‘Sides,” he joked, “keep that up and you’ll spoil me.”

Liz looked down, biting her lip, and released it with a smile as she looked back up. The wicked grin she wore made his mouth go dry and Michael became painfully aware of how close they were. “If you wanted spoiled,” she teased, oblivious to his sudden discomfort, “you should have come to my house for dinner. Mom was all set to make you the guest of honor.”

“Uhg,” Michael said with an exaggerated grimace and used his feigned disgust as an excuse to move a little away from temptation and grab his plate. “No thanks. I’ve had my fill of being the man of the hour already.”

“But Michael,” Liz purred mockingly as she wrapped her arms around his bicep and lay her head on his shoulder, batting her eyes up at him, “you’re my hero!”

He couldn’t help but snicker at her parody of all the girls at school who suddenly found him irresistible in light of his stint crime fighting. None of the little fluff balls may have consciously known what a Byronic hero was, but damn sure if they hadn’t subconsciously decided he was one. “Get off me, Parker,” he laughed. “I’m trying to eat!”

“Oh, Michael!” she wailed playfully, still caught up in her rousing game of pin-the-tail-on-the-alien. “You’re so big and strong,” she gasped tauntingly. Throwing her head back and putting the back of her hand to her forehead in a fake swoon like some twenties movie heroine, she cried, “Take me! Take me now!”

Some primal part of his hindbrain kicked into overdrive at her words. Tossing his plate on the table, he barked, “Okay! That’s it!”

Liz caught his movement out of the corner of her eye and launched herself off the sofa in a burst of giggles. She didn’t get more than three steps before Michael caught her with an arm looped around her waist and dragged her, kicking and screaming, back to the couch. Michael loomed over her as she fought to get free, pinning her to the cushions with his weight as he danced nimble fingers over her ticklish ribs. She batted at him ineffectually as she howled with laughter, begging him between chuckles to let her go.

“Let you go?” Michael taunted with a leer as he grabbed her wrists and held them trapped above her head. “Now what sort of incentive will you give me to do that?”

“I’ll clean the grill for you for a week,” she promised as she squirmed beneath him, desperate to worm free.

“Hmm…” Michael said, pretending to consider as he transferred his grip to hold her wrists one-handed so he could scratch his chin thoughtfully. “Nope, I can do that in a second with my powers,” he said finally, inching his free hand back towards her ribs. “What else you got?”

Liz bit her lip in desperation, trying to think of anything she could promise to stop him from tickling her again and Michael noticed two things in rapid succession:

First, that Liz looked positively edible spread out beneath him. A delicate blush stained her cheeks from their exertion and her hair was spread out on his cushion like a wild halo. Her eyes were bright and sparkling and if it weren’t for the lingering shadows of her bruises, he could have mistaken her for a nymph straight out of a Waterhouse painting.

Unfortunately, those shadows led to his second revelation – She was trapped under him, unable to move her arms and subject to his whims, less than two weeks after being molested in frightfully similar manner by someone who meant to do her harm. The fact that he would never hurt her was inconsequential. She had begged him to release her and he had refused…just like the monster who had attacked her.

“Oh fucking Christ,” Michael spat as he threw himself off of her in disgust. Clawing his eyebrow in agitation, it was all he could do to keep from blowing things up in a fit of self hatred. What the hell kind of man was he?

“Michael?” Liz asked timidly as she propped herself up on her elbows to watch him stalk angrily around the apartment. “Are you okay?” Instinctively, she reached out to him through their bond and the depth of his internal revulsion knocked the breath from her lungs.

“<i>Monster. Useless, no-good bastard. You’re abusive. Just like the bastard who hurt her. Just like Hank. Good for nothing looser-</i>” As his tirade of mental abuse continued as she hurled herself off the couch and into his path. Michael skidded to a stop to avoid crashing into her.

“<b><i>What the hell are you talking about?!</b></i>” She screeched aloud and in his head as she grabbed his arms to keep him from evading her. His shock at her screaming bought her a moment’s reprieve and she used it to her best advantage. Dragging his head down to hers, she pressed their foreheads together and opened their connection to it’s full second level potential. Staring into his eyes, she told him firmly, “<i>You are not abusive or a monster. And you’re sure as hell nothing like Hank or that bastard! You are a good person, Michael. Now where the hell did this come from</i>?!”

Closing his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see her condemnation as well as feel it, Michael bombarded her with a series of flashes: <i>trapped against the table by her would-be rapist, her arms twisted uncomfortably behind her…the female officer taking pictures of her injuries as Michael stood in the background, clenching his fists against the rival desires to heal her and to kill the man responsible…the sight of her ashen, tear-streaked face after she watched him choke her assailant into unconsciousness…her caged by Michael’s body, desperately wriggling to escape as she begged him to let her go…</i>

She gasped as she saw the correlation he’d drawn in his mind. Shaking her head, she drew his resisting form into her arms. He stood there stiffly as she balanced precariously on her tip toes in order to wrap her arms around his neck. “I wasn’t scared, Michael, not for a second,” she whispered tearfully against his skin. “I’m not afraid of you and you weren’t hurting me. <b><i>I trust you</b></i> and you’re <b><i>nothing</b></i> like the man who attacked me!”

The flood of her emotions through the link reinforced her words and gradually he relaxed enough to wrap tentative arms around her. The force of his hold slowly increased at her telepathic urging until he was practically crushing her against his chest. Embarrassed at having ruined their fun and by his uncharacteristic display of vulnerability, he snorted. Liz peered up at him questioningly and he gave his head a rueful shake. “Don’t I feel like a jackass.”

Liz laughed as she pulled away, wiping the wet tracks from her cheeks with the back of her hand. Michael frowned at the evidence of tears, and reached out to brush a line away with his thumb. Trapping his hand against her cheek with her own, she smiled up at him gently, “Your dinner’s got to be cold by now. Let’s warm it up and start the movie.”

In less than half an hour they were curled up comfortably on the couch as if nothing had happened. Michael marveled at Liz’s gift for letting things go. He knew that Max was renowned for exploiting her inability to hold a grudge and he hated to think that he was doing the same thing, but he couldn’t help appreciate her easy forgiveness. Maria could hold a grudge until the extinction of the cockroach, and in her mind no sin was too old to be inadmissible as evidence against him when they were arguing. With Liz, once she said you were okay, it was absolved, forgiven, and forgotten. It was only when she was hurt too deeply to give that okay that you needed to be worried, a fact that good ol’Maximillian found out far too late. He glanced down at the brown head resting against his shoulder and made himself a promise:

She would never have to fear that kind of pain from his hand.

Oh, he knew he’d hurt her. Much as he’d like to avoid it, he recognized that people hurt one another all the time with misunderstandings and miscommunications. Hell, not even a telepathic link could help avoid that completely, as evinced by his little freak-out earlier. But he resolved to never do what Max did. He would never consciously betray her. He would never undermine her self worth, or belittle her importance to him. Right then he decided that, to the best of his ability, he would try to be the kind of friend that Liz Parker deserved.

She must’ve felt the weight of his regard through the bond, because he blinked to find her smiling up at him. “You’re not watching the movie,” she stated with a little moue of displeasure. “Don’t you like it?”

“Nah, it’s cool,” he replied with a smirk to throw her off the fact that he was beginning to suspect he’d rather be watching her than the TV. “Just wondered if there was anything left in that basket of yours.”

“You’re still hungry?!” she laughed in disbelief. “I brought enough turkey to feed a small army and you polished off the entire container!”

“Yeah, well,” he sneered as nudged her side with his elbow. “I’m a big boy, it takes a lot to satisfy me. Though,” he waggled his eyebrows at her in an exaggerated leer, “you’re welcomed to try.”

Rolling her eyes at his teasing, Liz reached for the wicker basket at her feet and pulled a final container from its depths. Michael’s mouth began to water. He may’ve used his stomach as a diversionary tactic, but he really was still hungry and Nancy Parker was a damned fine cook. “Gimme,” he said as he made a grab for the Tupperware.

“Careful, caveman,” Liz teased, pushing on his chest to move him back and managing to maneuver the box out of his reach. “This one’s delicate.”

“It’s food, Parker,” he snorted as he peered over her shoulder to watch her open the lid. “It’ll end up in my stomach, it’s not like it has to be pretty.”

The spicy chocolate scent hit his nose as she removed the top to reveal half a cake. He watched hungrily as she carved off a massive slab for him and a small slice for herself before placing them on to the plates she’d brought out earlier.

“I love you,” he announced as she handed him his share. “You brought me cake.”

“Wow, you’re easy,” Liz giggled as she grabbed them forks. “Most guys want sex.”

Michael paused with his hand on the Tabasco bottle and looked at her incredulously and then guffawed, “I think I’m rubbin’ off on you.”

“You wish, Michael,” she said wickedly as she handed him a fork.

“Every time you bend over in that Crashdown uniform,” he teased as he took the silverware from her.

“Michael!” she squealed as she slapped his shoulder in mortification.

“What?” he asked in faux innocence as he reached for the Tabasco again. “You’re dad knew what he was doing when he picked those short things out. I swear it’s how we get half our customers.”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” she said as she stopped him from dumping his favorite condiment on the mound of chocolate gracing his plate by plucking the bottle out of his hand.

“Damn it, woman,” he growled as he tried to grab the Tabasco back. “You know I’m teasing! You really gonna ruin my cake eating experience over <b><i>that</b></i>?”

Rolling her eyes at his pique, she laughed, “As tempting as it is to try and wrangle a promise that you’ll stop staring at my ass at work, I actually had a valid reason for stealing your hot sauce. Try the cake without it first.”

“C’mon Liz,” he pleaded, “this cake looks great, I don’t wanna mess it up by having a bad first impression.”

Using her own utensil to spear him a bite, she held the fork temptingly up to his mouth. “Trust me,” she breathed as she ran the tines along his bottom lip, “I wouldn’t let you down.”

Unable to resist such an enticing display, he locked eyes with her and opened his mouth to allow her to slide the sumptuous morsel past his lips. His mouth closed around the bite and she slowly eased the fork out. Once the metal was removed, the flavor of the cake exploded onto his tongue. Rich dark chocolate melded with cinnamon and a seductive bite of chili fire to create the perfect symphony of sweet and spicy. His lids dropped close in appreciation and Liz clapped delightedly.

He opened his eyes to gape at her in awed wonder and swallowed, “That may be the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”

“I’m so glad you like it!” Liz hugged him ecstatically. “There’s a Vosges Haut-Chocolat Boutique in Miami by my Aunt Patti’s work. I had her pick me up a case of Red Fire candy bars before she came to visit.”

“Red Fire?” he queried.

“They’re made of dark chocolate, Mexican ancho and chipotle chili peppers and Ceylon cinnamon,” she explained as she picked her own plate back up. Michael noted that she didn’t bother to trade forks with him before taking a bite of her cake.

“Nice,” he said appreciatively as he watched her lave the fork he’d just had in his mouth free of chocolate before taking another bite. He wondered as he watched her suck the last vestiges of flavor off the prongs if she realized that she was about to give him a heart attack.

Thinking he was talking about the chocolate and completely oblivious to his subtext, Liz nodded, “I wasn’t sure it would be spicy enough, so I threw some extra chili powder in with the flour.” Pausing a moment to consume another bite, she continued, “I don’t normally care for spicy food, but there’s just something about the combination of dark chocolate and chili that goes really well together.”

As she was speaking he noticed a little streak of brown to the side of her lips. He wiped the smudge away with his thumb and unthinkingly stuck the digit in his mouth to lick the chocolate off. Liz froze, flustered by the erotic sight of him savoring the rich flavor that had lain against her skin.

Michael pinned her with a knowing look as he pulled his thumb free of his lips and tongue. “Best thing I’ve ever tasted,” he told her in a husky murmur, intrigued by the dark flush that crept across her cheeks. Interesting. And here he’d thought that Liz Parker was completely impervious to him as a man. She’d spent so much time using him as a teddy bear the past few weeks, he didn’t think she’d even noticed that it was a teenage male she was cuddling up to. Not that he minded being there for her, but suffice to say the hot water heater in his apartment wasn’t exactly seeing much use lately. It was nice to know that she wasn’t completely unaffected by his presence.

Clearing her throat nervously, she gave him a shaky grin. “Yeah, well – I’m glad you like the cake.”

Recognizing her desire to get them back on more familiar ground, Michael took pity on the pleading look in her brown eyes, “Yeah. It’s really great. Thanks for going to all the trouble, Liz.”

“It was no trouble,” she beamed at him gratefully for his forbearance. Flicking her eyes toward the television, she asked, “Do we need to rewind? You’re kinda missing the movie.”

“Prob’ly couldn’t hurt,” he replied. Settling back against the sofa cushions, Michael grabbed the remote and began to rewind until things looked familiar. Liz sank back into her seat beside him and the dip in the old couch had her leaning against him. Throwing his arm over the back of the couch tucked in her against his side, pillowing her head against his shoulder. He tried not to think about how much time they’d been spending curled up on couches lately, or how sitting with her like this was rapidly becoming second nature.

On the screen in front of them, Donkey and Shrek were busy trying to rescue a princess from a dragon.

As the story progressed Michael was surprised by how much he enjoyed it. He wondered how much of that enjoyment came from watching it with Liz. Together, they cheered when Fiona kicked the crap out of Robin Hood and his Merry Men. He teased her about her fear of creepy crawlies as Shrek enjoyed his spider web on a stick snack and they’d both booed when Fiona left with Farquaad.

He was still chuckling about Dragon chowing down on the little pipsqueak jerk when a tangled thread of longing seeped free of Liz’s side of the bond to tickle the back of his mind. Opening his side of the link to second level, he realized that Liz was envious of Shrek and Fiona’s uncomplicated declaration of love.

“<i>Now that’s the way it should be</i>,” her mental voice echoed covetously between them. Michael couldn’t help stare at her in perplexity at that statement.

Feeling his eyes on her and his confusion in her head, Liz frowned. “What?” she asked as he staring began to make her feel uncomfortable.

Michael shrugged, “Just didn’t figure that for your kind of scene, Parker. You’ve always struck me as the ten pages worth of soliloquy type of girl.”

Realizing he must have heard her thought, Liz scrunched her nose in disgust, “I’ve had that, Michael, and ya know what? Words are just words. You can string them together any way you want, but in the end if you don’t mean what you’re saying, does it really matter how pretty you make them sound?”

Reaching up, she tugged her hair out of its pony tail and scrubbed a hand through it in frustration, “After everything Max and I put each other through, I think I’ve decided flowery declarations are overrated. At this point I’ll take a sincere ‘really, really’ over ten pages of dishonest drama any day.”

Michael nodded in understanding. After all the hoops Maria had made him jump through, a little black and white simplicity would be a nice change of pace. And he knew their arguments were nothing compared to the twisted verbal morass that Max and Liz’s communication had become near the end. Noting the credits scrolling across the screen, he stopped the tape and set it to rewind. Turning to Liz, he smiled. “Thanks,” he said plainly. “For the food and the movie. And for hanging out. It was…” He struggled mentally for a moment to find a word that conveyed his gratitude without giving away how much she’d made his day special. “Nice.”

“My pleasure,” she said with a contented smile. Michael had done so much lately, been there for her so reliably when she needed him most, that it broke her heart to think of him sitting alone in his dingy little apartment on Thanksgiving. She was so glad to be able to give back some of the care and consideration he’d shown her. Plus she was beginning to realize more and more how much she enjoyed hanging out with him. He accepted her how she was and expected her to do the same for him. He just made everything seem so…simple. As much as she loved her other friends, everybody else was steeped in their own personal dramas. With Michael, things were easy and straightforward. It was so nice to have someone that she could be uncomplicated with.

As Michael stood and stretched, Liz rose and began gathering dishes. “Seriously, Parker,” he said as he swiped the plates from her hands. “Leave it. I’ll clean everything up and bring your mom’s stuff back when I come into work tomorrow.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s not like I don’t know how to wash dishes, woman,” he said, rolling his eyes. Popping the tape out of the VCR, he slid it back into it’s cover and handed it to her. “Your folks expecting you back soon?”

“Yeah,” she said reluctantly as she checked the time. “I’m actually a little late.”

“Feel free to blame me,” he joked as he walked her to the door.

“Oh don’t worry, I will,” she joked back as she got out her keys.

Michael was busy undoing the locks when she grabbed his arm.

“I almost forgot,” she said as she slipped her arms around his waist. “Happy Thanksgiving and a we missed you from my mom.”

He returned the hug with a wide smile as he looked down at her, “Tell her the same from me.”

“And this is a thanks from my Aunt Patti,” she said mischievously as she snaked her fingers around his neck and yanked him down to her lips. She pulled so hard he almost fell and their mouths weren’t properly aligned so she ended up kissing his chin while his upper lip tickled her nose. She laughed to see him so unbalanced and he glared at her.

“Your Aunt told you to thank me by mauling my chin?” he groused at the rollicking girl in his arms.

“No,” she giggled as she spun out of his hold. “She just told me to kiss you. Too bad for you she didn’t specify where!”

Rolling his eyes, he swatted her ass as she darted out the door. Ignoring her indignant shriek, he called to her retreating back, “And you chose my chin? That’s it, you’re off my Christmas list!”

“Night, Michael!” she sang as she practically skipped to her car. He shook his head as he closed the door. Sometimes that girl was crazy.

Wandering over to the coffee table, he began to gather up their dishes. Hearing the door open behind him shortly thereafter, he said without turning, “Forget something? Or did you come back to pick a better spot to maul?”

“Michael?” Isabel’s perplexed voice floated over to him.

“Izzy!” he cried jovially as he turned and swept his heart’s sister up in a hug. “Happy Turkey Day!”

“Thanks, you too,” she echoed in perplexity as she hugged him back, careful not to drop the bag of leftovers she’d brought with her. “Was that Liz Parker I saw pulling out of your parking lot?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said nonchalantly. “She stopped by a while ago and we watched a movie.”

Isabel cocked an eyebrow at him. Liz left a houseful of relatives on a holiday to hang out with Michael? What was that about? “Apparently she brought dinner, too,” the tall blond observed as she gestured to the remains of the meal on the coffee table. “And here I brought a full container of mom’s turkey surprise just for you.”

Michael blanched at the thought of Diane Evan’s misguided attempts at cooking, “What’s the surprise? That it doesn’t fight back?”

“Michael!” Isabel reprimanded as she playfully slapped his shoulder. Her scruffy brother grinned at her gleefully before catching the tension in her shoulders. Her eyes were just a little too wide and the happy expression gracing her features seemed plastic and forced. The smile fell off his face abruptly and reformed into a stern grimace.

“Max didn’t come home for Thanksgiving. Did he?”

She bit her lip against the burn of tears before shaking her head slowly. Throwing her arms around Michael’s neck, she trembled as she fought back the urge to cry again. “It was awful, Michael,” she sniffed pitifully against his neck. “Mom cried all the way through dinner. She and dad just don’t understand and they keep looking to me for answers and I…I don’t have anything to tell them!”

Stroking his hand soothingly down her back, Michael frowned. Damn Max for putting her in this position! He was letting his need to help his son destroy the people around him and he didn’t even seem to care. “Max is a self-involved jackass,” he stated definitively into the shining crown of Isabel’s hair.

Caught off guard, the watery girl gave a strangle bark of laughter. “Yeah, yeah he is.”

“C’mon,” Michael said as he led her to the sofa. “I know just what you need.”

“Twenty minutes alone in your apartment?” Izzy quirked half-heartedly as she eyed his ratty couch in distaste.

“Funny, brat,” he said as he took the dirty dishes to the sink and grab some fresh ones. “No, I’m not letting you redecorate my apartment,” he snarked as he came back into the living room. “I was talking about chocolate.”

Isabel perked up at the magic word. “Chocolate?”

Quickly slicing a piece of Liz’s wonderful cake, he presented the plate to Isabel with a flourish, “Dark chocolate, Mexican ancho and chipotle chili peppers and Ceylon cinnamon for your dining pleasure.”

“Oh god,” Isabel moaned around her first bite. “I know you did not make this.”

“Hey!” he protested indignantly. “I can bake! I made you that cake for your birthday!”

“That cake was good,” she agreed as she greedily inhaled another bite. “But this cake is heaven on a plate!” Giving him a sneaky look, Isabel reached for the Tupperware container, “Well, if you made it then you won’t mind if I take the rest home with me. After all,” she said with a triumphant grin, “if you made it, you can always make more, right?”

“I didn’t say I made it,” Michael grumbled, irritated at being backed into a verbal corner by Isabel. “Liz brought it for me.”

Isabel set her plate down and studied her shaggy brother. “Liz, huh?” she prodded leadingly. “She’s baking for you now?”

“It’s not a big deal,” he snapped as he stalked into the kitchen to start the dishes.

“Really?” Is drawled as she followed him with her dirty plate. “Because the only other person I can recall her baking for is Max, and <b><i>he</b></i> was her boyfriend at the time. You two have been spending an <b><i>awful</b></i> lot of time together lately…” she let her voice trail off suggestively.

The gruff teen glared at her as he dug his hands into the hot, soapy water. “I said it’s not a big deal and it’s not,” he barked fiercely as he concentrated on the dishes. “She’s just been going through a rough time lately and we’ve been hanging out.”

“I know about her rough time, Michael,” his sister sighed. “All I’m saying is that this all started happening around the time you rescued her and Liz has a tendency to fixate on her savior…”

Michael froze for a long moment as he tried to wrap his mind around what he thought he was hearing. Between gritted teeth he bit out, “Are you accusing me of taking advantage of some misguided hero worship of Liz’s?”

“No!” she gasped desperately. “No, Michael! I know you would never do that!” Wringing her hands in anxiety, she continued, “It’s just – you broke up with Maria not too long ago and she just broke up with Max and then all this happens! I just don’t want to see you guys mistake friendship and gratitude for something you might not really be feeling!” Michael seemed to deflate before her eyes.

“I understand your concern, Is,” he said stiffly. “But you don’t have to worry about anything like that. Liz Parker and I are friends. <b><i>Just</b></i> friends.”

“Okay,” she said, trying to keep her skepticism to herself. Making a conscious effort to let go of her worry, she grinned teasingly as her fingertips edged toward the sealed Tupperware container at his elbow. “Now, about the rest of that chocolate cake…”

She laughed when Michael swiped the box out of her reach with a growl.

Author’s Notes
********************************************************************
1. Vosges Chocolates. Every bit as wonderful as they sound. The bar Liz baked into the cake can be found here: http://www.vosgeschocolate.com/product/ ... candy_bars
2. Shrek and it’s plot are owned by Dreamworks Animation. No infringement is intended.

Many thanks for the feedback! I love hearing what everyone thinks! I really wanted this story to be a slow evolution of their relationship and I'm glad that no one's told me they're bored yet. Chapter 5's a shorter one, but I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it!

Willow



Chapter Five: Building Bridges

<i>“Michael, you busy?”

“Yeah. I’m jacking off. What’d ya want?”

“Liar.” </i>*mental snort* <i>“You’re reading Ulysses.”

“If you already know, Parker, why ask?” </i>Rolled his eyes. <i>“Besides - Teenage guy. I could’ve been whackin’ it. Then what would you’ve done?”

“Please. Like I don’t know you wait until I’m asleep to do that.”</i>

Blinked. Set book down in his lap. “<i>And how exactly do you know that, Miss Parker?”

“Like you said: teenage guy. There’s no way you would’ve made it this long without, and I’d have <b>known</b> if you did it while I’m awake. Besides,”</i> *impression of a wicked smile* <i>“you’re always less cranky the next day.”

“You’d have known, huh? And what do you base that on? I dunno what <b>you’re</b> doing twenty four hours a day.”

“You were painting the other day-”

“And?”

“And, Mr. Impatient, when you’re painting you really focus on what you’re doing. So much so that if I close my eyes, it’s like I’m in the room with you. I have to assume that if you were ‘whackin’ it,’ as you so charmingly put it, the activity would have your <u>full</u> attention.”

“Like you’re in the room with me, huh? Putting aside <b>that</b> intriguing thought, exactly how often have you been spying on me?” </i>

Rolled her eyes at him.<i> “We pretty much share a brain, Michael. How is that spying?”

“Liz Parker shares her brain with Michael Guerin.”</i> Snicker. <i>“Somehow I doubt any of our teachers would agree with that assessment.”</i>

Rolled eyes again. <i>“You’re smart, Michael. We both know it. Smart’s not your problem.”</i> *teasing nudge* <i> “Motivation – now there’s your problem.”

“School sucks, it bores the piss outta me. Maybe if the genius living in my brain was willing to give me some <b>hands on</b> motivation…”</i>

Chuckle. <i>“Smooth, Guerin. Real smooth.”

“I try.” </i>Unrepentant grin. <i>“Why are you bothering me again, woman?”

“I had a thought-”

“Only one? You’re cutting down.”

“Smartass.” </i>*affectionate wave of emotion* <i>“I was watching Star Trek: The Next Generation with my dad and they were in the Holodeck. And then I started thinking about how clear my vision was of being with you while you were painting and I wondered if we could do something like that…”

“Like what? If you’re lookin’ to seek out new life, you’ve got your very own alien to experiment with right here.” *leer*

“Someone’s feeling frisky tonight.”

“I had a good day.” </i>Shrug. <i>“Been a while since I had any time off.” </i>Closed book to place it on the bedside table and crossed his arms. <i>“Okay, now I’m being serious and you have my full attention. What did you want to try?”

“I think if we both concentrate, we can make our own sort of virtual Holodeck. I’d like to start simple, maybe try imagining a room? A sanctuary that we could make our default meeting point.”

“And from there?”

“Sky’s the limit. Train our powers, explore the limits of our imaginations, just have a place to hang out…I don’t know. What would you do in a real Holodeck?”</i>

Lascivious grin.<i> “Nothing you want to think too hard about, Parker.”

“Focus, Michael.” </i>Mischievous smile. <i>“Can we try this tonight or do I need to leave you alone with your Playboys?”</i>

Amused laugh. <i>“Oh no, Liz. I’m all yours. Miss November will just have to live without me this evening.” </i>Laid back against his pillows and laced his hands behind his head. <i>“Direct me.”

“Okay, so we’re testing a hypothesis here: that our connection can be utilized to create a mental construct. First, get comfortable.”</i>

Took a deep breath and relaxed. <i>“Done.”

“Now, close your eyes and imagine you’re in a room.”

“What kind of room?”

“Something simple, homey. We want it to be someplace that we can both create an affinity for so we can make it our default location.”</i>

Closed eyes with a smirk. <i>“Create our own mental homepage. Check.”

“Now, listen to my voice. Imagine I’m there. See me with you. Hear my breath, feel me sitting beside you…I’m with you, Michael. Can you feel me?”

“Yes.” </i>Whispered longingly aloud and in his mind.

<i>“Good. Now open your eyes.”</i>

Michael obeyed without question and blinked in shock. Instead of the dingy walls of his government subsidized apartment, he was greeted by creamy white plaster. The room was huge, almost cavernous in size, but it still managed to feel cozy and lived in. The ceiling above his head was an interesting affair of arched struts and vaulted recesses and the king sized bed he found himself in stood across from a wall sized window that revealed the most breathtaking desert sunrise he’d seen in his entire life. It felt like home.

“Michael!” Liz’s excited voice drew his attention and he found her curled up next to him on the mattress. “We did it!” she squealed as she threw herself into his arms and he laughed in wonderment as he hugged her back.

“Unreal,” he breathed as he held her. Reaching out to trace the solid wood of the headboard behind them, he gaped in awe. “This is absolutely un-fucking-believable.”

“I know! Look at what we made together!” Liz beamed as she clung to him. “I can’t believe it worked!” Swirling out of his arms, she gazed around their room avidly. “Oh!” she gasped, pointing to a riotous splash of color on the back wall. “That’s from me! That’s the painting Grandma Claudia had in her study!”

“Nice,” Michael intoned appreciatively, enjoying the artist’s vivid use of primary colors. Leaning back on the fluffy pillows, he gazed up. “I think the ceiling’s mine.”

Liz lay down beside him and looked up. “It’s beautiful. Very majestic.”

“Thanks,” he replied sheepishly. “Got tired of looking at Hank’s drop ceilings. I swore if I ever had a real place of my own, I’d have something better above me to look at.”

Liz shifted beside him and propped her head up on her hand. Her eyes widened as she finally noticed his lack of visible attire. “You’d damn well better have something on beneath those covers, Michael Guerin!” she yelped in outrage.

He laughed at her as he lifted the edge of the comforter to reveal the worn pair of sweat pants he’d been wearing in the real world. “Calm down, Parker,” he chuckled as he dropped the blankets, “Your virtue’s safe.” Turning his head to examine his bedmate, he smirked. “Cute,” he said teasingly as he hooked a finger around the shoulder strap of her tank top and tugged. “Not a shade I usually see you in.”

Liz blushed and batted his hand away, looking down at the very light pink front buttoned tank shirt and matching pajama pants set she wore with a shrug. “Not really my color, but it’s comfortable.” Feeling suddenly self-conscious, she burrowed down beneath the covers. The top blanket on the pile was crocheted in a triangular array of earthy tones which caught Michael’s eye.

“This come from your head or mine?” Michael asked as he toyed with the dangling edge of the afghan, noting the oddly geodesic pattern of the design.

“Dunno,” Liz murmured as she tested the softness of its yarn against her cheek with a contented purr. “But I’m claiming it now!”

“Oh, really?” he asked with an amused grin. “Thought it was share and share alike,” he alleged as he huddle down under the covers to nudge her shoulder playfully. “This is <b>our</b> room, after all.”

“Fine, fine,” she grumbled as she reached around him to ensure he was draped with a fair share of the throw. “The blanket’s <b>ours</b>.” Propping her head back up on her hand, she observed him. “What now?”

“Oh I don’t know,” he teased playfully. “You, me, and this great big bed. I’m sure we can come up with something to do.”

“Miiichael,” she groaned at his innuendo. “Am I gonna have to break out the rolled up newspaper to get you to behave?”

Michael cocked an eyebrow at her as he sat up and materialized a worn copy of Ulysses in his hand. “<b><i>I</b></i> was talking about reading. What were <b><i>you</b></i> thinking about, Parker?”

“Liar,” she mumbled as she propped pillows up behind them.

Ignoring her altogether true allegation, Michael looked at her challengingly, “Not in a reading mood?”

Biting her lip, she looked up at him entreatingly, “Don’t suppose I could talk you into reading to me, could I?” He blinked at her in surprise and she confessed, “I picked up Ulysses after you told me about it a couple weeks ago, but I’ve been having a really hard time making sense of it.” Shrugging apprehensively, she continued, “It’s not very linear and that throws me off. I want to understand why you love it – Show me?”

He was having a hard time wrapping his head around her request. She wanted to understand his favorite book. Not because it was a challenge, but because it was important to <b><i>him</b></i>. Here they had the opportunity to go, literally, anyplace imaginable and she wanted to lounge around in bed and listen to him read Ulysses. He took a deep breath and struggled to remind himself why he wasn’t allowed to fall in love with this woman. At least half of his family would never forgive him.

“I-it’s okay, Michael,” she stuttered, embarrassed and trying to hide her dejected feelings in the face of his silence. “I can read it on my own…”

Realizing she’d taken his stunned introspection for a refusal, he shook his head vehemently. “No! No, it’s cool.” He couldn’t help how his voice softened as he continued, “I…I’d love to read it to you, Liz.”

She smiled up at him tremulously. “Really? Because it’s okay, I mean, we can always do this another time…”

“Now’s a good time,” he said as wrapped an arm around her to open the book between them. She settled against his bare shoulder contentedly as he began to read, <i>“Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed…”</i>

The smoky rasp of his voice combined with the vibrant impressions afforded by the bond made the story come alive for her. Every so often she would interrupt him to ask a question, or discuss something he had read. Michael didn’t seem to mind her disruptions and was always happy to explain whatever archaically artistic twist of phrase had her baffled. She barely noticed how much time was passing as he read. A long while later, she blinked in surprise when he folded the massive volume closed.

“Is it really done?” she asked forlornly as she caressed the cracked leather binding. She felt his chin brush her hair as he nodded.

“Did you like it?” he asked in a hushed tone. She tilted her head back to meet his eyes.

“I can see why it was banned at the time,” she said with quiet seriousness. “But I’m so glad the ban was lifted.” Shaking her head at the thought of this book being barred from the country, she continued reverently, “There’s just so much of it that’s…beautiful.” She buried her face against his neck and whispered, “Unexpected and disjointed, but beautiful.”

He didn’t notice that he was stroking his fingertips down the silken skin of her arm, but the caress sent a ripple of sensation tumbling through her. “What was your favorite part?” he whispered back. Somehow, what they were discussing seemed too intimate, too sacred to speak of any louder than in a reverential undertone.

Liz held her hand over the book, and the cover flipped open. Pages whirled by in a blur until she reached the section she wanted. “Here,” she said, pointing to a paragraph and willing it to glow. Michael held the book back up and, skimming the section she’d highlighted, gestured that she should read it to him.

She cleared her throat nervously and began, <i>“Would the departed never nowhere nohow reappear? Ever he would wander, selfcompelled, to the extreme limit of his cometary orbit, beyond the fixed stars and variable suns and telescopic planets, astronomical waifs and strays, to the extreme boundary of space, passing from land to land, among peoples, amid events.” </i>The soft timbre of her voice resonated through him, adding an extra dimension to the already beloved tale. He closed his eyes as he concentrated on absorbing the memory of her recitation. <i>“Somewhere,” </i>she breathed in the dark space beyond his lids, <i>“imperceptibly he would hear and somehow reluctantly, suncompelled, obey the summons of recall. Whence, disappearing from the constellation of the Northern Crown he would somehow reappear reborn above delta in the constellation of Cassiopeia and after incalculable eons of peregrination return an estranged avenger, a wreaker of justice on malefactors, a dark crusader, a sleeper awakened...” </i>

Her voice trailed off and the last echo of her reading faded, leaving them cloaked in an introspective silence. “You’re right,” Michael murmured finally as he looked down at the tousled young woman lounging in the circle of his arms. “Beautiful.”

She shivered in involuntary appreciation of the sexy roll of his voice. She felt almost drunk on the luxury of his sensuous tones narrating Ulysses. Listening to Michael’s husky whisper reverberate in her ear was as sinful as eating pounds of rich dark chocolate in a single sitting. An indulgence you knew you shouldn’t have, but couldn’t help to crave. “How long have we been here?” she asked with a stretch to divert her attention from her sudden desire for such forbidden decadence.

“Dunno,” Michael replied as he glanced around for a clock. “I don’t wear a watch.” Scratching his eyebrow in agitation, he said consideringly, “That’s a long damn book though. Either time runs at a different rate here, or our physical shells have been sitting around in a week long coma.”

“It’s possible,” Liz mused thoughtfully on his first theory as she nibbled on her bottom lip. “We’re all in our heads right now, like a dream. Scientists have estimated that an entire dream that feels to the dreamer like it lasted for days actually only takes a few minutes real time. Maybe this works the same way?”

“Only one way to find out,” he offered reasonably. “Time to wake up!”

His gruff command echoed in her ears as her eyes popped open. Scrubbing a hand across her gummy eyes, she noted that she was in her own bed. On her desk, the alarm clock read 1:11am.

<i>“Michael, you back?” </i>Query echoed through the link.

<i>“I’m here. Everything okay on your end?”

“Yeah…I guess our theory of non-linear time progression was right because everything looks normal here. You?”

“Ditto.”

“I’m gonna get some rest then. Don’t let Miss November keep you up all night.”</i>

Eye roll. <i>“Sleep, Parker.”</i>

Snicker. <i>“Yes sir, General Cranky, sir!”</i>

Silence.

Author’s Note:
************************************************************************
1. The two sections of the book Ulysses by James Joyce that Michael and Liz read to us all are found on pages 1, 727 and 728. At least, they are in the copy I own. The section Liz read is actually my favorite part of the book too, and it’s the section that I took the name of my fic Variable Suns from. Hmm…must remember to add a note of that to that fic. No infringement is intended.

Well, hell. Here’s proof that I can’t withstand the will of DarkVixen. I had no plans whatsoever to have blatant sexiness of any kind in this story and then she asks me to and I actually start considering it. Next thing I know I’m sitting down to write one more part for Muse's birthday and suddenly the pseudo-smut is happening.

Meh. Who knew? Behold the power of DarkVixen.

Happy birthday to Muse, hope you like it!

A huge thanks to LadyGloria for being my sounding board and stand in beta! You rock the casbah, girlie. Normal is so overrated.

Chapter Six A: Interlude

Michael drug himself wearily through the front door of his apartment. After a double shift at the Crashdown followed by a midnight rotation at MetaChem, he was absolutely exhausted. Dumping his unopened mail on the coffee table, he stumbled gratefully into his bedroom. Taking quick a moment to shuck the majority of his clothes in a pile, he collapsed bonelessly on top of his bed wearing only his boxer shorts.

Running shaky hands through his hair, he glanced at his alarm clock with a groan. The digital display read 4:15am in harsh red numbers. Less than three hours before he’d have to haul his ass out of bed and start the vicious cycle all over again. Fuck.

Taking a deep breath, he tried to remind himself how nice it was to have the extra cash in the bank. Real life was expensive and, beyond the day-to-day expenses, he was really hoping to have enough saved to pay for community college next fall.

He’d spent his life telling himself that there was more for him out there than Roswell, New Mexico, but when he’d had the chance to find out how much more he’d decided that this was enough: Roswell, hell – Earth, was home. Besides, he couldn’t help thinking sardonically, it was good thing he had. Who knew what Tess had awaiting them on the other side of the Granolith?

The downside to deciding to stay on Earth was that it removed his one safety net. His shield against the world had always been that none of this made any difference. Earth wasn’t his home. Why should he care if he didn’t have a family, or if he didn’t get good grades? School was a joke and, like he’d told Liz the other day, it bored the piss out of him. And as for family, well, he’d always assumed that somewhere up there his was waiting for him. Now that he’d changed his mind and decided that the only home he’d ever have was <b><i>here</b></i>, all the things he’d written off before suddenly seemed important.

Not even Liz knew how seriously he’d been taking his studies lately, and she had an inside pass to his brain. Unfortunately, one year’s worth of effort couldn’t make up for a lifetime’s worth of apathy. His sole salvation was the fact that his SAT scores had been through the roof. On a whim he’d listened to his guidance counselor’s urging and filled out a bunch of forms for grants based on his test scores and even applied to UNM Las Cruces for an art merit scholarship, but he wasn’t holding out much hope. If there was one thing that life had taught him, it was that anything he wanted he’d have to get for himself.

Flipping back the covers, he slid between the sheets and tried to get comfortable. Tossing around on his second-hand mattress, he growled unhappily. Stupid bed, it was nowhere near as comfortable as the one in his and Liz’s dreamscape. He snorted at himself when he realized what he was thinking. No shit buddy, you mean your metaphysical embodiment of the ideal bed is better than the one you picked up at the Salvation Army? He rolled his eyes at the thought as he turned on his side and tucked his arm under his pillow. Obviously the exhaustion was making him stupid.

He consoled himself with the knowledge that at least tomorrow all he had to worry about was a morning shift at the diner. There was a teacher’s conference, so school was out, and Monk had switched him schedules at MetaChem so he could take his wife out for his anniversary last night. He’d be off from the Crash by two, and then the rest of the night was his. Twisting uncomfortably in bed again, he couldn’t help appreciate the irony; one of the rare days that he’d have any free time to himself lately and he’d probably spend it making up for his insomnia now.

Flopping on his back, he blinked sightlessly up at the ceiling. He wished Liz was awake. If she were up, at least then he could spend the time wandering around their mental holodeck with her instead of staring at his moldy drop tiles. Reaching out tentatively through the bond, he absorbed the sensations of her slumber with a quiet hiss of pleasure.

She radiated sleepy warmth and relaxation in his subconscious. The ghostly impressions of her soft cotton sheets tickled his skin and, for the first time outside of their dreamscape, he knew what Liz had meant about being practically in the room with him. When he closed his eyes, he could <i>feel</i> her lying in bed next to him. He could hear the soft rasp of her breath next to her ear, smell the warm vanilla of her body lotion. His fingers twitched at the sense memory of the smooth silk of her hair and the fluttering of her breath against his chest the night he’d wrapped his arms round her so they could read Ulysses together.

In her bed on the other side of town, Liz rolled on her side. The movement cuddled his mental approximation of her against him. A low moan tore itself from his throat as she buried her head in her pillow. The action, when mimicked by his unintentionally seductive phantom, felt like her nuzzling the corded muscles of his neck with her lips.

“God,” he gasped as his lower body surged in interest. He gripped his hands painfully closed to keep himself from reaching for her, physically or mentally.

His agitation trickling into her slumber, Liz murmured his name. Even unconscious, she could feel him with her. Something was bothering her Michael, and her sleepy brain wanted to make it better. Her mind was telling her he was right there, so she angled her head onto his shoulder and wrapped a consoling arm around his waist. “Michael,” she sighed again dreamily as she tangled one of her legs with his and drifted back into deep sleep.

Michael froze when the first syllable fell from her lips, horrified at the thought of her waking up to find him invading her privacy like this. The sexy rasp of her voice in his head as she whispered his name again broke something inside him and he couldn’t resist drawing her specter closer as she wrapped herself around him. Synapses fired, nerve endings relaying to his brain a million impulses that all sent the same message to his befuddled senses: Liz Parker was lying in his arms.

He forced his eyes open, the ragged gasps of his breath echoing in his ears. The bed was empty. He was alone, but every cell in his body was screaming that she was with him. That her breasts were nudging his chest with each pull of air into her lungs, that her leg was pressing against the engorged swell of his erection as she snuggled closer. That all he had to do was reach out, and…

He sat up abruptly, breaking the spell and forcing their connection down to first level as quickly as he could without waking her. She grumbled in her sleep as his presence receded but didn’t wake. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Michael rested his elbows on his knees and buried his head in his hands as he tried to calm his racing pulse.

His body was shaking with adrenaline and the throbbing heat tenting his boxers was beginning to ache. Lurching to his feet, he stumbled awkwardly into his bathroom. Splashing some cold water on his face, he hung his head as he considered exactly how near he’d been to taking advantage of Liz.

Raising his head, he contemplated his reflection. “The fuck’s wrong with you?” he bit out angrily at himself. Liz was his friend. Just his friend. He wasn’t allowed to think of her in any way <i>other</i> than friendly. It didn’t matter how well she fit against him or if she smelled like warm sugar cookies. Liz was <b><i>OFF LIMITS</b></i>.

Against his will, the reminder of how close he’d come to the promised land caused his member to twitch insistently in the confines of his boxers. He gripped the sink as his body remembered her pressed against him. He could feel her consciousness resting at the edge of their bond and the feathery wisp of her essence called to him. His mouth went dry as his mind tortured him with images of what it would be like to <i>really</i> have Liz in bed with him. Pulse thundering in his ears, he couldn’t hold back a moan as he imagined the taste of her skin and the sweet sounds he just <i>knew</i> she’d make beneath his hands. His resolve was weakening and he hated himself for it. Clamping his eyes shut even as he told himself that he shouldn’t be doing this, his fingers crept towards his waistband. Clenching his teeth, he surrendered to the inevitable and slowly dragged his boxers down his hips.

Kicking the offending garment away, he turned on the shower and stepped into the hot spray, dragging the curtain shut behind him. It occurred to him briefly that if he were a better man, he would’ve turned the cold water on. Instead steam curled in the air as each searing drop branded his skin. The liquid danced across his body like fingertips caressing his flesh, racing down his chest toward where his cock jutted out proudly, its hard length pulsing in time with his heartbeats.

Closing his eyes, he gave free reign to his guilty imagination. Conjuring up a vision of Liz beneath the cascading water, her dark hair plastered to her back as she peered seductively over her naked shoulder at him, he groaned. Taking a deep breath, he grasped himself firmly as he imagined his dark haired temptress turning to tease him with the brush of her satin slick skin against his body. The Liz in his mind sank to her knees, unconcerned by the shower pelting her from above as her moist tongue traced him from root to tip. His hand caressed his shaft in long, even strokes, setting a slow, teasing rhythm that his fantasy Liz was happy to follow. Behind his lids, he moaned as he watched her head bob over him, her cherry red lips sliding deliciously up and down the taut skin of his erection. The pace of his strokes increased as the pressure built inside him, his body shaking as he strove towards his release.

“Liz…” he grunted desperately, bucking into his hand as his orgasm broke over him while the woman in his head rode out his explosion of ecstasy and drank him down. The flow of the shower washed the hot splash of his cum away as he sagged against the wall weakly. He blinked as his dream lover evaporated, leaving him alone in the steamy stall. “Oh god,” he groaned as his head lolled against his chest, his entire body going limp in the aftermath of his pleasure.

Reaching forward, he turned off the cooling water. Yanking a towel off the rack, he gave it a few cursory swipes across his body before tumbling back into bed. This time, he didn’t notice the lumps in the mattress at all.

***

Liz’s back arched against the mattress as the last waves of bliss rolled through her. The roar of her pulse drowned out the sound of her ragged pants as she struggled to catch her breath. Every nerve ending in her body was on fire, still quivering from her delicious dream.

She’d had sex dreams before, but nothing like this! It had seemed so real; she could still feel the hard angles of his body, still taste him on her tongue. Liz shivered as she realized that if real sex was anything like her dream, she didn’t think she’d be able to walk for a week afterwards!

She glanced at the clock and groaned at the time. 5:30 in the morning! On her day off! Her heart had finally slowed down, but now her mind was wide awake. There was absolutely no chance of her getting back to sleep at this point.

Collapsing wearily back on her bed, Liz struggled to remember the details of her dream. The whole thing had a warm, hazy sort of feel to it, and she blushed to recall that she had never even saw the face of the man pleasuring her. All that stood out in her mind was the way he’d made her feel: Sexy. Desirable. Seductive. Passionate. Just thinking about it made her tremble.

A little flicker of sensation from Michael’s side of the bond caught her attention and she froze in mortification. Oh god! She’d just had a sex dream! What if Michael had felt it?!! Her face flamed as she imagined his response. He would <b><i>never</b></i> let her live it down. Taking a deep breath, she consoled herself with the thought that he wouldn’t have been able to keep quiet this long if he were awake. She reached hesitantly out through the link toward the man on the other end. Sagging in relief to find him wrapped in a heavy blanket of dreamless sleep, she silently thanked god for the small miracle. The <i>last</i> thing she wanted to deal with was Michael badgering her over the identity of her dream man. She knew he’d either decide it was something worth ribbing her over, or decide it was Max and then get all tetchy. Neither option sounded particularly appealing.

Mentally tamping their connection back down to first level, Liz slid out of bed with a frustrated yawn. Even though she was bone tired, there was no point to lounging around under the covers if she wasn’t going to sleep. While she was awake, now was as good a time as any to get a head start on the weekend’s homework.

She growled as she dragged out her Calculus text. Good old reliable Liz. Always does what she’s supposed to, when she’s supposed to. Daddy’s little girl. Little Miss Scientist. She wondered if there was anyone who would believe her if she said that she’d rather be making love to her mystery man under a waterfall again than doing the things people expected her to.

Shaking her head at her own folly, she laughed softly. No, probably not. After all, it wasn’t like anyone even considered looking at her that way. Even Max hadn’t really, and he’d been her boyfriend. Bending her head over her textbook, she pushed her melancholy thoughts away and forced herself to concentrate on Monday’s assignment.

In a dark room on the other side of town, Michael rolled over in his sleep and smiled.

Author's Note:
1. This is largely unbeta'd. My normal beta's MIA, and while LadyGloria glanced at the first bit for me, I finished the rest up on my own. Any and all stupid mistakes are entirely my own.