Would you have wanted to know? Michael heard as the words were flung at him. In a room of a facility that he was recovery in because of a five-year-old coma because of an illness that had no explanation and still did not, and he could only make out that maybe his system got overloaded by all the reckless behaviors he had been engaging at the time. But he did not know, and Serena and Max were also clueless to explain it, so it was one of life’s great mysteries.
In a life filled with them he told himself.
I would not be alive if I was not already a walking mystery. And now he was looking at the woman he had had loved at one time, but he had not said the words to before she had left him. Walking out because she was too young. Both of them. And now to discover she would have been pregnant. Even if it was only new, but still she had not come back when she had known.
And so much might have been eliminated if only he had known.
Would he wanted to know?
He did not know the answer to that. He was thinking as someone newly awake. Although he did remember who he had been when it was six years before, seven years. He had wanted Maria.
I picked you did not I? he thought.
I picked Earth and said as much into the room. “I picked Earth?” he voiced, and Maria could only shake her head. “What?”
“Even if you picked me and picked earth. Would you have been able to have a kid at our age of 18?” she wanted to know. “Tell me the truth?” she asked as she was transported back to those days when everything was a rush, and nothing was simple. It was never easy. It was always jumble of emotion to get through the day in one piece.
“Are you thinking of how I treated Yvonne?” Michael asked as he thought of his fling that he got pregnant, right before he slipped away. “You are using that to justify your decision to not tell me?”
“No,” Maria muttered. “We all make our decisions based on what we are going through at the time,” she sighed. “I know you, Michael. You wanted me. Yes, you did pick this life. Earth, but you could barely hold your head above water at the time. I was no better,” she allowed. “I left to better myself. To try for my dreams. I did not know about our baby when I left. If I had, I would not have left…”
“Would you not have?” Michael asked a little warily. “And give up on the chance at glory?”
“I would not have done that to you,” Maria allowed as she chose to ignore his snide comment about her choices.
“Still, you would eventually have known, and you knew from the start it was mine and you did not come back even though at the time you left. You knew I wanted you. I wanted a chance with us, so, yes, my life was a hard to handle. Not just being who I am, but the nature of how I was living. But you did not give me the chance. Not even a single month Maria. You knew and you did not even tell me in a letter, or email,” he muttered. “You could have stayed there if you desperately wanted to prove yourself. But you could have told me, in the very least,” he muttered and then could not help but remember how bad it had been for him in those days. “Max and Isabel witnessed how bad I was after you left. I was reckless and stupid
because you left me but if you had stayed…”
“What?” Maria muttered as she did not like how he was making sense
I could have at least written she thought.
If I did not want to call or come back. Still those days was a whirlwind. “What would you have done?” she asked. “Tell me honestly. Could you have handled a baby back then?” she asked. “Heck I was in New York, scraping by after I gave up on the chance of my music contract. It was not coming easy in those days. Somehow, I made it but knowing how you were handling the baggage of Hank, and just trying to exist.”
“I tried to make a life here on Earth because of you” Michael spat as he did not even want to think of how it was with Hank.
“You did not graduate Michael,” Maria muttered.
“I tried dammit, but I cannot help if drama finds me. I was trying to graduate but then Max and Liz pull Utah, and that immediately sets me back, and then I had to find a way to pay the rent to make it through the day because my power and heat kept getting turned off because I could not pull it just on the Crashdown paycheck. All the while trying to be a suitable boyfriend to you, so I could try to pay for some of those dates. So, sure, I know my life was not some dream come true. But I loved you, Maria. I picked you. I at least would have wanted to try…”
“A baby Michael?” Maria muttered. “And you did not pay for most of those dates. I did…”
“You did not give me a choice,” Michael asked. “And does that not prove my point? But still, you did not give a choice…”
“I understand Michael, I am sorry,” Maria muttered as she gave her own apology for how she treated their situation. “But yes, maybe knowing what happened with Yvonne gave me some back up, but I did not know that until I came back to this town last week and found out you got another woman pregnant and did not want the baby…”
“That is unfair,” Michael muttered.
“I know what Max was
always planning to do Michael,” Maria muttered. “Your illness was an easy way for him to go through with it, and I see him with Micah, and I know he’s an incredible father, and obviously, he made the right choice, but I know you did not want your daughter. And you forced your friend to clean up your mess…”
“Max chose that, and I told Yvonne to have the baby” Michael muttered as he was remembering more of that time.
“Why, since you did not want to be a father…” Maria muttered. “Why have the baby if you did not want to be a father?”
“I did not want to be a father to Yvonne’s baby. I wanted it to be
you…” Michael muttered as he remembered muttering to himself why he did not let Yvonne deal with it given she did not want to be a mother. Nor did she want him, and he did not want her, but something pulled him from agreeing with her decision to do away with the pregnancy. Maybe,
I could not do that to my child. To dispose of it even though it was a valid choice, and everyone had a right to make it if they chose too but still Yvonne was not Maria. “It was always you” he spat. “I laughed when Max spent from third grade pining over Liz. Unable to do anything about his unrequited crush on her. And even when they gave each other a chance. I thought it was risky, and he should not be putting us in danger like that,
simply for a girl, but Max wanted Liz. And once the shooting occurred. Liz wanted Max. As a result, she came into an unbelievably angsty tale, and she brought you…”
“Yes, she did” Maria muttered. “She brought me.”
“You made me want to go be better,” Michael asked. “I had a lousy childhood. I know that. Hank is a tough pill to swallow. I have baggage. I know that, but I could have left if Max and Isabel had actually left this planet with Tess and Max’s kid,” he said softly. “But I chose you. I stayed even though I had nothing to give you. You were that important to me,” he said. “You are the one who backed away, and left…”
“Because it was too much,” Maria muttered. “Everything was too much. I could not handle it,” she sighed. “I needed a chance to see if I could go for my dreams. And I was a success…”
“To become a success, you kept my kid from me?” Michael spat.
“I am sorry, I was wrong” Maria muttered. “I know that now. I see that in Charlie as he’s growing up. And he is becoming more like you every day. But once he became a reality. I was afraid to come back and tell you the truth. Honestly, Michael. I had no idea what had happened to you. I cut myself off from here. I did not even tell my mother about Charlie until he was born, and then after that, my mother came to visit us in New York. I never came here. If my mother knew. She did not tell me, but then I am told Max and Isabel did the old Tess rouse and said you left town. So, she did not know. It was only when Liz came back here and brought Charlie because of Kyle and Isabel’s wedding. I was scheduled to work, but that got changed at the last minute, so I came back for our son, and for my mother, only to find out the truth about what was going on…”
“You did not give me a chance,” Michael asked.
If only I had known, maybe it could be all so different “I know my life was not easy. It was difficult for even me to get through the day. But I loved you…”
“You did not say the words,” Maria muttered.
“Yes, I did” Michael muttered as he was remembering everything
the warts and all of their romance. “When we slept together the first time.”
“That is something people say for sex, and they do not always mean it” Maria muttered even though she knew
Michael had meant it otherwise he would not have said it. But he did not want to admit that they could have been Max and Liz who were always about
I love you.
“I meant them, and you knew it” Michael muttered.
“Yeah, I knew it,” Maria conceded.
“So, we agree on something” Michael asked. “I do not know how I would have been back then. I mean Max was more of a golden boy than I was,” he muttered
which is an understatement he thought. “And even I do not know if he could have been able to handle being a father to that kid he was having with Tess” he sighed. “Given there was no love between them. Only resentment, and obligation. Still, though, that had been the plan until he sent Tess off…”
“I know,” Maria muttered as she hated the mere mention of the blonde,
who had taken Alex from them. “If you are going to say I am like Tess?”
“Hell no,” Michael muttered. “You are nothing like Tess, even on your worse day” he sighed. “I was not even trying to say that, even though he did not even know what he was going to say he thought. “All I was going to say is that I know we might not have worked out with a baby depending on us. I know what it meant to grow up in an environment that was stressed out, and in one that had anger in it, and I was older when I came to this planet.”
“I know,” Maria muttered. “I am sorry…”
“I just would have liked a chance, that is all” he sighed. “Yvonne was a different story, and I am sorry I got mixed up with her. She was not evil, or bad, but we were no good for each other and using each other for one thing. She would tell you the same thing, I am sure. We only saw one thing and one thing only. Okay, maybe two things. We had a lot of alcohol in common. But one thing was always clear. I never saw my life with her. Unfortunately, a life did come out of our nights…”
“Micah,” Maria sighed as she thought of the little girl who was the light of Max’s life.
“I am sorry for that, and I am sorry for what she might grow up to know,” Michael muttered. “I would never want that for a child. To feel like they were not wanted. I know what that feels because Hank only wanted me around for the monthly checks. Phillip and Diane love Max and Isabel, and gave them everything, but I did not have that, so I know what it means not to have that love and someone to depend on, which is why I am not anxious to change the life my daughter has with Max…”
“Max is a wonderful father…” Maria muttered as she thought of the little, she had seen of Micah and Max together, and knew the child was incredibly lucky and she could tell that Max was a devoted father to a child that he did not even have to accept because they were not linked, and all he was doing was a favor to a friend but she could tell it did not matter to her friend. Micah was special, and well adjusted because Max loved her.
“I know he is,” Michael agreed. “I mean I never have seen them together, but I know the man Max is, and I know he is the role model that one should have. I did not have that, and maybe you were right to take our child away from me because I grew up with Hank and was on my own way too young,” he thought. “I would not want our child to know that kind of resentment” he thought. “Max had Phillip as a role model. I had Hank. I cannot imagine how I would be for a child to look up to, and see me as their father…”
“You would never be Hank” Maria sighed as she flinched at the mere thought because she had not stayed away because she had thought Michael would a terrible father. She had stayed away because she was afraid, he might want to be there for her, and she did not know how they could be capable to being together and having a child.
“You did not come back, did you?” Michael muttered. “You must have thought maybe the apple does not fall far from the tree, because I look at how Nascedo raised Tess to be, and they were not even blood related.”
“God Michael,” Maria muttered as she could see how messed up things were… “It was never the belief you would be a bad parent that kept me away,” she sighed. “I was trying to protect our child, and maybe I went around it in the wrong way, and I am sorry for that, and maybe next time, things will be different…”
“Next time,” Michael chuckled.
“It was a figure of speech,” Maria was quick to say. “I know I screwed things up and I am sorry for that, because no, I have no idea how it would have been if I came back. I only know how it was for me these six years. Fighting tooth and nail to protect our child, and to go for my dreams. And I have made it, and I am not going to regret it because I have been able to give our son something to believe in, although I grant you that Charlie should have known you…”
Michael nodded.
Although if I was still destined to sink into the coma, maybe it was a good thing Charlie did not know me.
“Which is why I have to go back,” Maria muttered. “Charlie has to get back to school, as he has already been out too long” she sighed. “And I have a play that I have already skipped out on, and I have to get back to it, otherwise Steven will have my head and he will see me in court.”
“Steven,” Michael asked. “You are on first name basis with your director?” Michael asked.
“It’s how he wants to be, and you are not to be jealous,” Maria murmured with a muttered. “You do not have any right to be…”
“I know,” Michael agreed. “I am not jealous…” he allowed even though he knew he was…
“Yes, you are” Maria commented.
“Can I ask you something?” Michael asked as he did not know how to take the change in the dynamic of their conversation. The ice was gone, but he did not know what had replaced it. Calm, and a break in the clashing.
“What?” Maria sighed.
“How did you choose our son’s name?” Michael asked.
“Charlie,” Maria murmured as she thought of their son “
Charles is Alex’s middle name” she said with a sigh that weight on her and for a minute Michael felt it too because both of them knew how much was robbed when Alex was taken from their planet.
“Right,” Michael nodded as he thought of Alex Whitman and it had escaped him what Alex’s middle name had been, but he supposed Maria and Liz would have known given how close they had been to Alex from childhood on. “I guess that is an appropriate name, I guess” he sighed because he did not know what to say.
As a silence crept up and interrupted them.
“Charlie,” came a voice and a word from behind them and Maria whipped around as they had not heard the door open as their talk had taken over all senses and they had been in their own world. And now they were back into reality. “There you are,” came an exasperated Serena. “Sorry,” she saw to Maria who had whipped around to find their son looking at the both of them.
Neither of them knowing how long he had been there nor how much he had heard.
*
Charlie had gone wandering as soon as Serena was out of sight. She had left the room do deliver some results across the street and knew Charlie would be safe in a locked facility, with passwords galore protecting him and she figured she would only be gone a short time. Which she was, but she got back and found her office empty, and then it was a search for a six-year-old who was too smart and would have known how to get through at least some of the barriers.
True to her worries. Yes, Charlie had managed to get through a few of them, but he stayed within the facility because he had no reason to venture out of it because he was in search for someone he had been denied knowing. Before it was too late, he wanted to seek out this person, so he was making it a search, and he had found the room he had been looking for not long after his search had begun. After all Charlie had also wanted to find his mother and little did he know that he would be finding his parents shouting at each other.
About him.
And about his half sister, Micah who he would learn his father had not wanted. And allowed Micah’s Dad to step in and raise.
And his Dad was pissed that his Mommy did not tell him about
him Charlie muttered to himself. And now he had been discovered.
“How much did you hear?” Maria asking as he turned and spotted her son. An eerily facsimile of the man standing there, stupefied.
Which is a fun expression to see on Michael she thought. Because he looked like the ringer of the Michael had been once upon a time.
“Enough,” Charlie muttered.
A child of New York Maria thought. As it was unnerving to know her son at six was way more grown up than she probably was at the age. Given she had grown up in a small town, and with a hippie mother, and protected in the cocoon of this town while her son was growing in New York. A different life. “Honey…”
“It’s okay Mommy,” Charlie muttered.
“Sorry again Maria,” Serena sighed. “I had to step out for a minute, and I thought he was playing computer games in my office, and by the time I was back, well, he was gone.”
“I know the feeling,” Maria thought of her son’s knack of getting in mischief. “Although you should honey mine your elders,” she said. “I trusted Serena to look out for you.”
“It’s not like I can get out,” Charlie muttered. “Or anyone in for that matter,” he thought. “You know all the barriers,
that are so awesome and cool.” he said softly as he knew he probably could get through some of them. But he knew he would not be able to get through all of them. And plus, he had wanted to stay, for this moment.
To see his Dad. But now, he did not know for sure whether he wanted to meet him or not. To meet the actual man now that he was awake.
My son Maria thought
and his funny sense of humor… “It’s alright Serena,” she said as she focused on Serena and then checked her watch. “Time has obviously gotten away from us,” she said softly. “Honey,” she sighed as she focused on her son and forgot for a moment, her child’s father.
“Yeah,” Charlie asked.
“Michael,” Maria said as she turned and saw that Michael was acting like he was seeing a ghost. She supposed he was because their son was such a mini replica of him when he was a kid. With touches of her of course, but he was
all Michael, for good and for bad she mused. “This is Charlie,” she said softly. “Charles Michael Deluca?”
Surprised to know she had given Charlie his name, but not his last name what do you expect he thought.
She did not tell you. Did not tell anyone.
“You are my father?” Charlie asked bravely to Michael.
“Apparently,” Michael asked as he glanced over to Maria, and so did to Maria. And she nodded. “It’s nice to meet you, Charlie.”
“Yes, it is” came the six-year-old. “Now that you are awake?” he said of the man who was his father. Someone who was a mystery to him. As both were assessing each other, and the two women knew this and found it funny.
If not heartbreaking for Maria to know so much could have been avoided for both Michael and their son if only, she had been honest. She did not blame Michael. She blamed herself for wanting their breakup to be final in the first place. She was the one who broke them up when Billy came to town, and it was a showcase of how things could have been if she had not been sucked into the alien chaos in the wake of the shooting.
They had lost so much. She had watched her friend change from the girl she had been at one time. She saw her friend seduced into a life. So, had her. But she saw the danger and experienced her fair share of it. And then the topper had been Utah. And still, she loved Michael
he had stayed on this Earth because of me she thought. Although they would find out there was a caveat to that departure when they learned the truth of why Tess had wanted to leave. But there was a significance in Michael picking her…
For so long Michael had wanted off the planet, and now he was choosing to stay, and he wanted them. She remembered in the weeks before that, when he had been a model boyfriend after they lost Alex. Staying on the Earth and having to make a life on it became his mission, and he was trying, and she knew it.
But the reality of it crashed into her, she knew now. Before that, they always existed with the idea that Michael had one foot off the planet. It was exciting to be like that, and to know it could all end tomorrow. But the reality of picking her had come down on them, as Michael came to realization that he had to mold a future now on this planet. After not living for a future.
So, Billy coming to town and making her see that it was possible to go for your dreams. And now have to fear that you someone you loved might die because of some enemy of some pothole they might fall into? It was needed. And so, she ended it with Michael.
But because who they were, and their chemistry and their passion for each other. They could not stay apart. And they felt the push and pull of them for the next few months despite her attempts to stay away. Until finally, she left.
But they had created Charlie before she left.
And now their son was growing up, and meeting Michael, and assessing each other and she did not know what was going to happen now…
*
While Max and Liz knew none of this. As they had gone their separate ways. Although they had spent a leisurely drive together as they went through some of their favorite haunts and taken a drive. And they had found themselves along the old highway, which had ended in an ambulance drive once upon a time. But this time it did not. Instead, it led to a time they could spend together. Liz was not sure how to take it. She had wanted to it alone, and then she was in the car with the man she would be leaving the following day, when she left this town.
Once again.
But this time knowing she was leaving. And it was unlikely she was going to come back. Despite Max’s attempts along the way on their drive to try to give them a chance. That he was not asking her to give up Europe. But to know she could go home again.
She was trying to ignore that idea. She wanted to be able to concentrate on her breakthroughs. And not think of Roswell. But she suspected once she did leave. She would be forever changed,
once again she thought. Every part of her wanted to take the chance that they were denied back in high school. But it was too much. She did not want that for her, and she did not want that for Max.
To wait, and so after their drive. They had gone their different ways and now she was sitting in the Crashdown having a good-bye meal with her parents. Honoring her parent’s request to spend some time before they left. They were upstairs, although for the moment. Her father had gone down because of some crisis in the kitchen, and now she was sitting up in table in their family apartment. Sharing a drink with her mother. And taking in her family apartment once more. This had been her home since she had been a child when they took over the Crashdown, and moved in, over the place that was her father’s dream.
And had given her a job, and skills and gave her the boy that would still haunt her even years after their officially ended. Nancy could see how her daughter was preoccupied and her mind was elsewhere. “Honey, are you happy?”
The simple question snapped her daughter back as Liz heard it and sighed. “Mom…”
“I see you are obviously elsewhere?” Nancy asked as she sensed her daughter was thinking of more than the end of her vacation the next day, and how she was starting a new job, and relocating to a new place in Europe.
“I am fine,” Liz tried saying but she knew she was not selling it with ease.
“Are you?” Nancy asked. “You are leaving tomorrow, right?”
“Yes,” Liz muttered. “I have my flight scheduled, and I am leaving so if you or Dad think you can stop me?” she asked even though knew that statement was ludicrous because her parents would never stop her, because they loved her…
Nancy said as much. “Why would we stop you?” Nancy asked as she glanced at her daughter. “Your father and I want you to be chasing your dreams. Even if they are on another continent, and million of miles away from us and your home.”
“My home is wherever the job is, or whoever is playing my paycheck” Liz muttered even though she did not sound like she believed it.
“This will always be your home,” Nancy muttered. “We love you.”
“I know Mom, and I love you and Dad” Liz sighed. “And I am sorry that I do not get back here enough…”
“Or at all,” Nancy commented. “Before this last week. And we know it was not about us, why you came…”
“Of course, it is,” Liz mused.
“Honey, you should not kid yourself. We know you came for other purposes,” Nancy asked with a smile. “And I am good with that because I want you to be happy. And your father and I are happy to be able to see you anyway we can…”
“I came back for the wedding, but it was also to see you” Liz said. “I am just sorry I was not able to see you more while I was here…”
“Which is why I am asking, are you sure you want to go tomorrow?” Nancy asked. “Because it seems to be that you have a chance honey. And that you might be missing out on something if you do leave…”
“Mom, my life is not here anymore” Liz said softly.
“Maybe it should be,” Nancy asked as she was finally addressing the elephant in the room. “I have seen you with Max honey, and I am afraid that you are potentially going to cause your even more hurt if you leave…” she asked. “Why would you want to do that to yourself?”
Oh, Mom Liz said.
That thought had not escape her either… Which is why she was determined to leave. She knew she had a chance of a lifetime in Geneva
Why would I give it up? she asked herself.
For a guy?
An incredible guy she corrected,
and mind-blowing sex she thought.
How could she cut that off she thought to go back to those days where it was normal yes, but it was boring, and she was gone the next morning or even before the night way out.
Max was something amazing. A chance of a lifetime.
And she was blowing it, and she knew it. But she could not see stopping herself from leaving.
If I am hurt, she mused to herself.
It cannot be as bad as it has been these seven years? she wondered to herself.
Why end the pain now?
Should she not want the man who was offering her happiness, and companionship and a chance to right a wrong that was done to them.
So, her mind was in turmoil.