Family Matters (CC, Mature) - Chapter 88 - Completed - 01/10/2024

[Parker1947]

It was of course for more than a minute in a half that Tess’s son, Zan was Max’s son. It was a hell of a lot longer Liz would moan to herself, and she could yes, attest to it. Because Liz had to live through all those months, and she had hated every moment of that time. A time where she had been told that the love of her life, then and now she muttered as she thought of how she had been told that Max had fathered someone else’s kid. Even today she felt the body blow of the disclosure. And how it had changed her life, and her expectations of her future with the love of her life. And even now, nearly two decades later, and knowing what she knew now, and how much water was under the bridge. Still, she felt the nausea, as the remembrance of that time rocked her very soul. It would certainly rock Max too if he knew any this, but he did not. Not yet anyways. Instead, it was his ex-wife was getting the body blow. All the while, Max came out of his cave.

Literally.

Out of the closed door of the cavern. Walked down the hill and got into his car and drove back into town. Ready to face whatever came next.

While Isabel was spending some time with Kyle. Mikyla had yet to return to the house. But Isabel knew her daughter was safe. She trusted her daughter, and she knew Kyla needed to become familiar with the town again, because of so much time away. It can skew your perception of things she thought because she knew from experience. Although I was gone a lot longer, and I came back a different person she would think.

But she had her friendship with Kyle and that had remained constant over the years. As she watched him go from woman to woman, marriage to marriage, and then divorce court. She did not know why the wives could not hold on because Kyle was a fantastic guy. A great friend she thought.

“Thank you for staying,” Isabel smiled.

“No problem,” Kyle said softly. Because he had always wanted to help Isabel. And despite his obvious feelings for her, he valued their friendship. Which is why I never did anything when I could have…

But it was Jesse, and then she was single, and I thought, just maybe, but then Neil came along, and she was happy, and I never wanted to rock the boat. Kyle thought. “I am glad I could help.”

“You are a big help,” Isabel said softly.

“I am always at your service,” Kyle said with a smile. And Isabel could not help but smile. Because Kyle always did make it easier for her, and especially in the last year, since Neil passed away, she thought.

“I appreciate it,” Isabel smiled. “But I don’t deserve it.”

“But you do,” Kyle said with equal meaning, and it caused Isabel to turn away as if she was looking to ignore something, as if Kyle did not live with the notion of ignoring something he thought. She was checking the clock and turned back to Kyle. “Mikyla should be home by now.”

“She is wanting to see some friends, let her be.” Kyle said softly. “She’s been away, and it has been a long year. And she is going to be careful, and you can trust her,” he said with assurance. “You won’t have to worry about her because I will make sure she stays on the right path while you are away.”

“Thank you,” Isabel sighed. “I know I should not worry. But it’s tough to be away from her. I know she has been away for the last semester,” she sighed. “Which means the cord has been cut in many ways, and she’s getting older, but I just got her back, and now I am going to be away myself. Therefore, it is going to be hard.”

“I know it is,” Kyle said. It is never easy for our kids get older he thought. “I may live in the same town as Tripp, but I don’t see him every day and therefore I worry about him too, even though he has proven that he has a good shoulder on his head, so far” he murmured. “But anything can happen,” he sighed, at the unknown. “But I figure that we can trust our kids.”

Isabel smiled, and once again was reminded of their shared connection. “Kyle,” she said softly.

“What?” Kyle asked.

“We probably should have a talk when I get back?” Isabel asked.

“About what?” Kyle asked. Because he truly was not sure what she was meaning. Because it could be anything he thought. Anything at all.

“You know,” Isabel said softly.

“I know, what?” Kyle asked.

“You know,” Isabel said. “You have been so good over the years. And I appreciated it. I know we made the deal. You honored it. And never tried to make it be anything more than it was. Which is how I wanted. But I know the reality was there that we really did not see that you would be seeing Mikyla grow up, and you eventually had to watch another man raise her, and for her to think of him as her father?” she asked, I am sorry she thought. Because she had never really seen the reality that Kyle was facing, being on the outside.

Even though he never made an issue of it, and I know his ensuing wives would not have wanted a stepdaughter she thought, but it was not easy.

“I was helping you out. It was as simple as that,” Kyle muttered. “Sure, I would have liked to know her more than I have, but I am lucky that I got to know her at all. We had a deal. Being apart of her life was not part of the original deal. Sure, she looks at me as Tripp’s father, or just a friend of the family. And as she’s gotten older, it has started to bother me a little, but I know Neil was good to her, and she had a father who loved her.”

Yeah, she sighed. “I got lucky with Neil,” Isabel commented. Because not all men might have been as good about the situation she thought. Because Neil had known everything. But it was one of those things we did not have to talk about.

Just like we did not talk about the other facts of our life together, and about me.

It was always easy.

But for Kyle, he stayed on his side of the line, and let us raise Kyla and it never was an issue she sighed, but then Neil died.

“I know you did, Kyle sighed. “Neil was a good man, and good father to your girls.”

“That is why I feel a burden to make sure everything is alright with them. I have been lucky, but the girls are getting older, and I know it’s a tricky age. Especially with Kyla. Because I was once her age, and I know what it means” she sighed because they both knew their daughter was very special. In a way the twins weren’t.

Because she was very much her mother’s daughter Kyle thought. Not so much like me he thought, except for her hair.

That is the only connections he has to me or my father he thought.

“I think you can trust Kyla to know how to handle her life,” Kyle said with a smile. “She’s had a smoother pathway than you did, so you don’t have to worry,” he allowed because they both knew that it was easier for the kids, fortunately they thought, because we would not want them to face what we did.

“It is always hard to be first to go down a path,” Isabel muttered.

“I know,” Kyle said with a nod. “But it makes it easier for those who follow us to make it down in one piece,” he said with a smile. “You won’t have to worry about her, while you are gone to get your daughters. Because she will be alright. I think she will be the sane one in the house with your father and Max.”

Isabel smiled.

“It will make things interesting alright,” Kyle said with a smile. “I almost wish I was there with her, because it definitely going to be a soap opera.”

Isabel laughed.

“I like that,” Kyle said with a smile.

“What?” Isabel asked.

“Your laugh,” Kyle said softly.

“You have heard it before,” Isabel muttered.

“But I don’t get it much,” Kyle said softly. The beginning was a little intense he thought. But there were those moments he thought. Because he knew that he truly did treasure their friendship, and that was why he was always so weary of making a move. Even if she wanted it, and he did not think she did he said as he sighed and tried to divert to a subject that was a little more angsty for them. “We can have that talk when you get back?” he said as he left the unsaid as a hanging question of the future.

Everything is unknown he knew.

Isabel nodded.

“You have been very special to me,” Kyle murmured. “I will always appreciate your friendship.”

“I like it too,” Isabel murmured. “You mean everything to me Kyle,” she said softly. “You have been there since the beginning. When we did not know what we were entering. I know it was never the easiest time for you,” she sighed because he knew that he had not willingly come into this fraternity he came in by a gunshot she thought, although he would never change.

Unlike Liz she muttered of her one-time sister-in-law.

“Was it for any of us?” Kyle asked with a smile.

“No, I guess not,” Isabel sighed. “But I appreciated how you and your father was there for us. We would never gotten through some of those hurdles without the two of you.”

“I am glad we could help,” Kyle sighed. “It was definitely not easy. But you were there for me too, and in the end, I appreciate that I could be there for you.”

“I would not have been able to get through these years without you” Isabel murmured. Knowing next to Michael. Kyle was her most treasured friend. And she appreciated it.

“I think you would have been able too,” Kyle said. “You had your brother and Michael?”

“But they are my brothers,” Isabel muttered. “You are special to me Kyle.”

“You are special to me too,” Kyle murmured.

“I would hate for anything to change what we are to each other,” Isabel sighed. As she knew she was walking on a blurry thin line that could go bad very easily, and Kyle could only look into her eyes, and she wanted to look away because this was not what they should be thinking of or doing. Because she was leaving the next day. She had too many responsibilities to be dealing with this now.

Not now Isabel sighed.

Kyle would think that too, but still it was Isabel. Someone I have been smitten with since high school he thought, and someone who has been there in the back of my mind through three bad marriages he sighed. “You are everything to me.”

“Kyle,” Isabel murmured as she knew they were walking on a dangerous ground.

“Isabel,” Kyle murmured.

“We should not,” Isabel murmured as she knew she should be shying away from this, but she could not do it. Not today. Not now she thought, even though she knew it definitely should not be today.

“You are leaving tomorrow for god knows how long,” Kyle muttered as if a warning to himself.

“I am,” Isabel muttered. “Kyla could be home anytime.”

It would be too easy just to stop because something might get in the way Kyle thought, and maybe we should be hoping that she comes home. “I know because I should be going. Tripp was doing an errand for me, and I have to see that he gets home in one piece?” he said with a laugh because he knew going to Cow Patties at anytime of the day was a lot to ask of his growing son. And he knew his son was going through something with whatever he felt for Claudia…

Isabel murmured something softly, too softly, as they both had every reason to walk away but the were not, and they stayed, and soon they were in a kiss.

One that started out tentative, and grew more passionate,

With neither knowing what they were starting, or could they finish it.

While meanwhile, outside, indeed someone was viewing them through the window. Interesting she thought, as their daughter Kyla only shook her head, “Good one Mom,” she muttered. “And Kyle.”

She did not know how she should respond, but she knew she was not going to bust them this time.

And she walked away, for another lap or two around the block.

*

While Isabel was heading into the unknown with Kyle on the cusp of leaving town to go and get her kids. Max still was not headed home. I am headed anywhere but home he knew. Instead, he was going to safe harbor, or safe enough safe harbour he thought as he turned onto a familiar enough street even though he had only known it for a few days now. Because it was in part of town, he was not familiar with, so he turned into a driveway, and parked, and opened the door, and went and knocked on the door.

The door opened, and it was Michael.

“Max?” Michael asked.

“Can I come in?” Max asked.

“What’s wrong?” Michael asked.

“Nothing,” Max sighed. “I was driving around, and I wanted…” he sighed, not sure how to explain it.

“Hiding from your father I take it?” Michael asked. Which was a definitely a reversal from their youth, when Max and Isabel had the ideal life and home, and he was the one who was hiding from his own home and staying over at the Evans home many a night.

For good reason.

But Phillip Evans never would be like Hank Guerin No matter what he does he thought. He would never know why Phillip did what he did, probably he will think it was to help his son Michael would think. That is highly debatable he thought. But it was plausible on the other hand.

“I am trying, but I can’t make myself go home” Max murmured.

“You know you have to deal with your father one of these days you know?” Michael asked. “You cannot keep staying away?”

“I know,” Max sighed. I figure there will be enough time for that he thought, or was it? “Where is Maria?” he asked because he heard the music coming from upstairs, which meant Lucy was home, and enjoying her music again. And he knew from the car, that it was home.

“Having a bath,” Michael muttered. “She needed to take some time.”

“Why?” Max asked.

“We learned some information today, and it has thrown her for a loop,” Michael murmured. Because of the bad memories attached to that time he thought. Because we were not part of it, he thought. As he looked at Max, and it was clear Max was running from his problems, but he did not know the latest.

“What happened?” Max asked.

“You don’t want to know,” came a voice from upstairs. As Maria now in a robe, had heard the doorbell and had gotten out of her bathtub, and come and heard Max down talking to her husband. “Hello Max.”

“Hello,” Max asked. “What is going on?”

“You don’t want to know,” Maria murmured. Because she still wanted to forget it, and she was trying to do, which is why she had come down for a stiff drink because memories of losing Alex was always intense for her, and she supposed it was the same for Liz too, but Alex had always been there for the two of them, and then he was gone she sighed. “What were you looking for?” she asked as she tried to concentrate on the problem that Max was giving them.

“You said that before,” Max sighed. Ignoring the question, she had asked of him.

“Well, I mean it,” Maria murmured.

She did.

“So, what did you want?” Maria asked. Because she had been looking forward to just relaxing and not having to deal with all this she thought. Maybe we should have stayed in Nashville she muttered to herself. We did not have to deal with all this when we were in another state she thought, even though she knew Michael had missed Max and Isabel. And she knew for that reason, the move had been good.

But she did not want to have to take long baths. So that she could remove the stench of the memories that time brought to her, simply because of who we lost she sighed. Because she still missed Alex. And she hated Tess for taking him from them, if only she thought. If only we had known she sighed, as she looked at Max, and knew only Max could rival with her and Liz in terms of how Tess had played for them a fool because in the end, she played Max for a fool.

Even if Max should have known it was coming given how it all started, she thought. When Tess came to town and played with his head and got in the way of him and Liz she thought. We were so young and naïve back then she thought.

Time would toughen them up and had to go through some excruciating losses. She hated that time. Even if it brought Michael to her, but we would not get our happy ending until after that time and after we left this town she thought, because everything was uncertain, she thought. “It was just a hell of a day,” she muttered. She wanted to blame her music representatives and she wished she could say it was them, but it was not she thought.

Not even close she muttered.

Max nodded as if he could understand.

And he really could not, both Maria and Michael would mutter because there was something big that Max did not know.

Maria could use a diversion. “What is going on Max?”

“I needed… I don’t know, what I needed” Max sighed.

“Max does not want to go home” Michael murmured.

And Maria smiled. “I can see why you don’t want to go home,” she sighed because she still did not understand Phillip Evans actions even if it involved going along with what her best friend wanted. Best friends can agree to disagree on our actions she murmured. Especially when you go back to being kids together, she sighed.

She treasured Liz, but it does not mean she approved of everything she did.

And she knew was the same would be said if the shoe was on the other foot.

“I am also thinking that maybe I should be going with my sister instead of you Michael” Max said. “I think I need to get out of town for a little while.”

And that shocked Michael and Maria as they looked at each other confused.

What about Liz was what Maria wanted to say but wisely did not saw it. So, she chose the other reason why he needed to stay around. “What about Claudia?”

*

Yeah, what about Claudia. Max knew he probably should stick around. But I am probably pushing my luck a little these days he knew. And said as much. “I want to be here for her. But she is overwhelmed, and she does not need me around here. She could use a break from me” he said softly.

“She has had eighteen years,” Maria muttered as she looked at her husband. “You just got her back in town, and now you want to go?”

“I won’t be gone forever,” Max sighed.

“But you would be leaving her,” Maria sighed. As she knew the nerve was struck in that her father left her and did not come back for her or to see her, not that I am missing the man she thought. If he could walk away so freely, why should I miss him.

“I will be back, Max said. “She has never had me in her life. She does not remember me, and I am on the edge of pushing her too much” she sighed. “I don’t want to be push her totally out of my life,” she sighed. “It might be best if I head out of town for a little while…”

“Is it Claudia or are you trying to stay away from your former wife?” Michael asked. “Which is something you should be doing anyways?”

And only got a glare from his wife, and a hard one from his friend. “I am just being honest here you know.”

“We know,” Maria murmured. Because even though being in Nashville all this time had allowed Michael to keep the depth of his feelings for his best friend’s wife to himself, mostly they all knew. Still, Max was not oblivious, on this he thought. I know how Michael feels he thought. And sometimes I want to feel the same way he thought because she hurt me.

But she is Liz Max murmured. “This not about Liz,” was all he could say.

“Are you sure?” Michael asked.

“I am sure,” Max muttered even though he knew it was a little about his former wife he thought. It is always about Liz he muttered to himself, but he was not about to let Michael be awarded by his anger at his former wife. Michael always had something against Liz he thought. Even when there was peace towards each other he thought given that Michael and Liz would work together for a time.

But Max always had known how his best friend felt over his choice.

But I wanted Liz.

Nothing else mattered he would think. Even when I screwed it up, he thought. But then we had a moment there when we got it to work, and Michael had to bite his tongue as I and Liz married, he would think.

“I know what you think,” Max muttered.

“So, do I?” Maria said with a glare at her husband. She might not completely support all her best friend’s decisions, but Liz was only doing what she felt she needed to do, and I am not going to say she was wrong if we were safe in the end.

And Lucy and I got Michael with us, Maria sighed. And Michael and I had a chance to have Lucy at all she sighed at their only child.

“I wish you would not be so hard on her?” Max muttered to his best friend. “She believes that she did the right thing,” he sighed even though he did not know why he was defending his former wife when he was so upset with her himself, but we cannot keep away from each other he thought, I wish we could be exes who had issues with each other.

But Liz is Liz, and I can never truly be angry with her he would think as Maria smiled, and Michael groaned. “I have a right to think what I want,” he murmured. “She kept you away from your daughter.”

Max could only sigh. “I know you do, and you said the paramount word in all this, my daughter,” he could only murmured. “Claudia is my daughter not yours. I appreciate that you are angry for me, and I like the cover,” he sighed, because I have shown I cannot stay angry at my former wife he thought. “But at the end of the day, this is between me and Liz. And of course, our daughter, not you or Maria” Max muttered. “You got your happy home because of what Liz did.”

And you got the shaft Maria thought but did not say because it was not loss on either he or Michael that they were the reversal of high school, and something went right with us, and we got lucky she sighed.

While Max and Liz got the heaviness of what life had to offer them.

“I know we did,” Michael muttered. “It is hard you know, because she knew full well what that kind of deal would mean to us.”

Yes, she did Max knew. “And we got a happy existence these last eighteen years,” Maria sighed. “While she was forced away from Max and had to deal with life in a very different environment.,” she muttered as both her husband and Max looked at her. “I am not defending her actions. Because I do think she could have done things differently, but we cannot deny she was not changed by it. She did not have a wonderful life you know. Walking away from Max, it was hell for her.”

“How do you know?” Max asked. “Because it seems that she always found it easy to walk away.”

She did Maria knew. “But she wanted to be with you,” Maria murmured as she was taken back to those days. “I saw how happy she was on your wedding day. And when we were all on the run. That should have been a stressful time, and it was but she was so happy to be your wife Max,” she sighed at the dubious look from Max, warranted sure, she sighed. “She was content. She loved her life. She wanted to be with you and Claudia. So, it had to have been a lot to take her to walk away from that life. Because she wanted to marry you.”

And to be married to you.

“I thought she did too,” Max muttered as flashes of his special day with Liz came to his mind, and it was hard to ignore them.

“I don’t think she regrets that,” Maria sighed.

“I hope so,” Max muttered.

“How can you defend her?” Michael asked of his friend. “She took your kid?” he murmured, not so silently. “If Maria had done that to me, I would hate her forever.”

“I would not have done that to you,” Maria muttered. “And it was not something I was faced with because I doubt, they would have come to me with such an offer because they did not want to deal with us,” she sighed, as she glanced at both Max and at her husband. Thankfully she thought of the offer that never came her way. “You know I would never have taken Lucy from you,” she murmured because this was the truth of it, she knew. I was not given the chance, and still I would not have taken it.

But I also know Liz would not have taken it without a damn good reason.

“But we would have thought that of Liz, and look at what she did?” Michael asked.

Yes, look at what Liz did to me Max muttered as he mourned all he lost. And now that he knew so much more, I don’t know what to feel.

“She felt like she had the only choice,” Max muttered.

“Really?” Michael asked. “You are really defending her after she took your child from you?”

Yes, I am. “Claudia was safe, and there was no guarantee she would have been safe with me” Max muttered, and it was hell of a realization to know this I hate the mere thought of it he would think. “Liz was going regardless, because she feels like it was the only way to save us, you, me and Isabel.”

“So, she says” Michael said dismissively.

Yes, she says, and I believe it Max thought, because he now knew what was in her inner mind at that time, and it still made him wince of what she had to go through. And therefore, she could not let it be through of that she could do it without a good reason. “She was tortured, okay, Michael, she was tortured” Max blurted out. “You don’t want to know what they did to her to make her decide to leave…”

“She says she was tortured, but was she really?” Michael asked dismissively once more.

“Come on, be sensitive for once Space boy” Maria sighed. “I know you have it in you to be, and not to be that jerk that you were back in high school.

Michael is Michael Max muttered to himself. “I don’t mean tortured as she did not want to be do what she did, because she did it in the end” he sighed. “We will never be able to forget that, but I mean it Michael. They gave her a hellish time,” he sighed because he still did not want to think of what he had seen during their encounter. Liz had not wanted to speak of it, and I had not wanted to approach it until I could.

Michael could only shake her head. So, she says he would mutter to himself.

Max and Maria knew what Michael was thinking, and ordinary, it would be understandable, and it was. But Max knew what he did know. “White Room bad Michael” was all he said, as if it was code.

It was indeed code.

And Michael stopped in his tracks. So, did Maria. But Michael in particular knew how bad it was for Max. Sure Max did not want to talk about it he thought, and I don’t all that happened because Max did not want to talk about it, but he could only imagine and he knew what Fisher had wanted, and had put Max through, thanks to Isabel’s little mind trip he thought of Isabel’s ability to dream walk, and fortunately, they had been briefly able to get through to Max’s drugged subconscious, and they were able to know.

But there was still so much they did not know.

But Liz did.

So, White Room is a code to remember a horrific time and even Maria knew it although she had not been there that day. She had stayed behind. But she knew a little about it from Liz, before she high tailed it to Florida, she muttered to herself. So, she knew it was bad.

And how Liz had hated to walk away, but felt it was too much.

Way too much and even Maria knew from experience because Michael was being his jerkish self, only time would tell him the weight he feels about his actions during that time she muttered to himself.

But Max had to go through something else all together different Maria knew.

Oh god Maria whispered because she could only imagine how bad it was for her best friend.

*

It was indeed bad. But across town. Liz was not even thinking about it, because she was thinking of another time in her past that was pretty bad, and it sometimes eclipsed what she would later experience, okay, not really, she would tell herself. But then she had largely made peace with what happened in the future. Which is now my distant past.

Even if she could not talk about it. Because why would I want to?

It was hell to experience in the first place she muttered. Why go over and over it she muttered to herself, but that issue was not one that was pressing for her now. It was something entirely different. It was one that her daughter had flung on her in the middle of her breakdown. Are you kidding me? she asked herself and wanted to ask her daughter.

But she wisely did not. Because she knew it would not do anyone any good. Because it would not help her daughter.

Claudia was distraught. And Liz was too, in her own way. “What?” she said in a more restrained way. Because her brain was not being coherent in any way. I know Archie.

And he is not the baby formerly known as Zan in my early life she sighed. Of course, Tess would name her son after Max, as if it was joke. Especially now that we know she was lying or misleading about the paternity of said child she muttered.

Claudia knew her mother had to be using stronger language within her but was keeping it restrained. Because she knew that side of her mother. As an only child for eight years, and then significantly older than her brother. She got a full sense of who her mother was as a person. Or I thought I did.

Because this trip to Roswell was opening channels that Claudia had not been aware of, and it was a daily surprise. So, she said what she had just said before…

Before the room went into a zone of silence.

“It seems like Archie’s birth name was Zan. “His birth mother was Tess Harding, and that means, for about a minute and half, he was Dad’s son.”

Hell Liz muttered to herself, that is ludicrous, right?

Right…

…or maybe not so. So, she tried again to formulate a more coherent thought. “Are you sure?”

Of course, she is sure Liz, she told herself as she looked at her daughter.

“I don’t know about anything anymore,” Claudia muttered. “Everything is not what it seems” she muttered to herself.

[Parker1947]

Everything was not what it seemed. Because it was as if everything was changing. And nothing was the same as it was only a few days ago. Liz knew this all of course because she had gone through it for now going on eighteen years. But this was something different. Something completely different and she had to ask herself Why? she would mutter to herself as she also wanted to look up at curse and swear at the sky.

And scream.

Why are you doing this to me? Liz swore to herself. And she looked at her daughter, to us? she also wanted to ask. But she knew she would not get any answers from the unseen forces that existed beyond them. Because to her, well, it made absolutely no sense as she looked back at her daughter and tried to make sense of what she had just heard. Claudia has to be wrong. “Archie can’t be Tess’s son.”

There I said it Liz told herself. A fact in this story. Sure, it helped to know Max was no longer the legal or biological father, even if he might be on some legal paper for all I know, but most importantly, the boy was not related to her former husband. Nor to my daughter. Even though she had not yet come to terms that all she knew once was now a lie. Or a hoax when they should have been suspicious from day one. Except how could they?

Max did sleep with Tess Liz would mutter to herself. It was a fact of life, and it could not be disputed unless I got what I wanted, and for Tess to tell me that she mind-warped into her former husband’s brain.

But she did not.

Even though it would have made sense of how he was behaving back then she would tell herself. But Alex was gone, and we were all a little loopy to different extents, so how could I fault Max for going there when I pushed him away months earlier. And then given how things went even more off the rails when Alex was lost to us, she muttered to herself as she saw her daughter looking at her confused.

Welcome to the club she wanted to say.

“Archie was adopted,” Claudia muttered.

Which was what Liz knew. I don’t know much else.

Claudia hated this. She wanted for her life to make sense. She had always valued the fact her relationship made sense in the havoc that their world had gone into, a tailspin more like it she thought to herself. We might have not been in the same city. But I knew we were special, and I could count on him.

And then I come to town and find out there was new branches to my family tree she thought. Not that I did not already know this, but it was a full accounting of my life story she thought. And she always thought she would ready when this day did come.

Because it was going to come. It was partly why she had come to Roswell after all, right? she asked herself. But I did not know everything or the fact everything could have been so different she muttered to herself.

She had always known she lived a crazy life. But she did not know that she could have led a very different life because her father loved her mother so much, and it appears her mother loved him just as much she thought. But then who could know if our life would be better.

Because hearing the recounting of her mother’s experience, told her that she could have had a very different life. And that she was fortunate to be the person she was today.

But that does not mean I want my sexy boyfriend to be my imaginary brother she said. A brother that apparently, I had until I did not anymore.

She did not understand any of it.

No one did Liz could say as she came into the conversation once more. “Just because he was adopted, it does not mean he is that baby?” she muttered because it was too bizarre to her to think that Archie could have been Zan.

“I don’t know how any of it could be true,” Claudia muttered.

“I am sorry honey,” Liz sighed.

“For what?” Claudia asked. “For the fact that for a minute there my father had a son with someone else, and he turned out to be my boyfriend?” he asked. Someone I have slept with, she thought. Many, many times.

How is my life not a movie of the week?

“He’s not your brother?” Liz muttered. “Even if it proves true that Archie could be Tess Harding’s biological child?” she muttered, how can we prove it with the woman dead she muttered to herself. You got us one more time, did you not Tess? She asked herself.

Although it could be blamed on Max for choosing adoption. After months of having to endure the possibility that he might want to raise the kid she muttered. Knowing it had not done their relationship a world of good, not one bit she told herself even though she would acknowledge that we did not talk about it she thought. How could I?

Why would I want to talk about a child my boyfriend created with someone else? The boy who I loved intensely she told herself. It hurt too much to talk about what it meant if Max wanted to raise him.

So, for the fact Max could decide on adoption gave her a out, and allowed her to continue our relationship, and made it easier for us to marry and to be happy.

Until I blew our marriage up, she muttered to herself.

A year later.

“But for a moment there, he was?” Claudia sighed. “Even if he is no longer, and Dad was lied too. He was basically my brother?”

“But not now,” Liz sighed because she still did not get it. “But how could it be true?” she muttered softly. Because what are the chances, she muttered to herself. What are the chances that the boy my former husband thought he fathered would live in the town as Claudia and me, and they would meet and fall in love.

Shit Liz told herself.

But Max is not Zan’s father she thought. Whomever the boy is, now.

“Someone else is the boy’s father. Your father was proven not the be the father. Whenever that came about, it does not change the fact that it is now the truth.”

Claudia nodded. It should be easier, but it still seems unseemly she told herself. “How can that be any better?”

“It might be hard to fathom sure,” Liz muttered. “But it is easier to get down. Your father was not the father. For a minute yes, he believed he was. And there was no reason not to believe it," she thought. Which is how Tess probably got us? she thought. “There was a baby or should be I clarify; he was not born yet” she muttered. “Tess was still pregnant when she departed this place” and the planet.

“In some spaceship that was hiding out in a cave?” Claudia asked.

“I wish you had not read my journal?” Liz muttered.

“Why not, then I might totally be having a breakdown now,” Claudia muttered. “If I had no knowledge of anything. Because you did not tell me anything. But you wrote a lot down.”

“But not everything,” Liz knew. And she was lucky she had not taken it on the travels she and Max had done, then who knows what would have happened then because certainly there were a lot of blank pages in the book, but I wrote down a lot.

Too much in some instances she told herself.

“It reads like a science fiction book you know,” Claudia muttered.

“I know it does,” Liz sighed. It felt like a television show at times, with too much too soon she thought. We should never have gone through some of the stuff we did she thought. But that is on us in the end, and we cannot blame anyone else.

But us.

“Tess vanished, and when she did come back. She had a baby. Who she had named Zan?” Liz said softly. After Dad’s former self.

“But you did not see where she was, or the boy be born?” Claudia asked.

“Right,” Liz muttered, fortunately she thought. Because she did not know if she could have taken that development if she had stuck around and I would have had to see her… she thought, I was much happier that year that Tess was gone.

Even though we did not exactly have the easiest of times getting back on track she would think. But it would have been ten times worse with Tess in town. But then we might have not gone down some those pathways if she had been she thought. But I rather deal with what we had to deal with, than have to deal with Tess being in town until I had too.

Yeah, she could not have imagined the concept if Tess had been around with the baby. Only for the truth to come out, that would have been something she thought.

“So, she could have been anywhere?” Claudia asked.

“I guess there is that possibility” Liz muttered. Although she came back in that spaceship that she apparently found somewhere she thought, of the aircraft that started us on the collision course with the military base.

Even if we had nothing to do with it, Liz thought. But we ended up going down for something Tess did.

Liz could only shake her head at the memories. “Alien vs. military suicide”

She told me that she did it for her son but now Liz questioned it. How could she vanish once more, this time, to death knowing that Max was not the father of the baby.

“It sucks,” Claudia muttered.

“Yes, it does” Liz agreed. “I don’t get it. Sure, Archie is adopted. But there are a lot of kids in this world that are adopted, and it does not mean they all interconnected with you,” she muttered. Because she needed to make some sense, even as she knew that it was like they were only two in the world right now. Everything seems different she thought.

“I would love to have say that it was all a mistake,” Claudia sighed. “That was some elaborate joke or something.”

It has to be one she thought. “It is not like that Archie even looks like Tess,” Liz murmured. Archie’s hair is a little darker, but he is still young, so who knows where it will end up, she sighed as if hair color made paternity all the simpler.

“Archie was sick when he was a baby,” Claudia sighed. As if saying those words made it make sense.

“I know,” Liz said softly. “I know from his mother that he had some health problems after the adoption,” she sighed. Which is why his mother worries for him today.

“And by becoming sick, even though his parents were living elsewhere. They eventually would go to my Dad, and I guess some testing showed that Dad was not the father. And eventually, he would become better, but it meant that they had to come here, to speak to Dad?” she sighed. “Because Dad was back here by then.”

Damn Liz muttered to herself, as she could only nod. I was not around but Max was back here she thought. We were gone a year, but I would leave, and Max would come back because I insisted on it, through Phillip.

Setting in motion a lot of angst.

Liz could sigh as resignation settled on her; this is no hoax. If Archie’s parents came to Max, she thought. Even if they vanished once more.

And they told their son this Liz thought. “Honey.”

“Don’t okay,” Claudia muttered. “It’s all too much,” she muttered. “I thought that I had enough with the fact that I came to this town and found my biological father after eighteen years of not having him in my life,” she sighed. “Then in the aftermath of all that, as if I could understand it, there was all this crap that happened back then that I did not know about because I was a baby,” she muttered and left out of were the words, and you did not tell me half of it, and even two thirds of it “Now this. Now I find out my boyfriend was almost my brother.”

“But he is not your brother,” Liz sighed.

“Does that make it better?” Claudia asked once more.

It does not make it better, but it makes it easier to handle. Right? Liz told herself. “I don’t know what it all means,” she sighed. “It is up to you to decide what you want to handle?” she asked as she knew she should be guilty about the life she had forced her daughter to live. I did it for a reason, but I never wanted it to impact my little girl she thought.

“I am sorry you know,” Liz sighed.

“You keep on saying that” Claudia muttered.

“I know I do, and this time I am” Liz sighed. “You don’t deserve any of this, you know.” she sighed as she walked over to her daughter and gave her a hug. A hug that her daughter would ordinary turn away from, but this time, Claudia took it in, and embraced it.

“Thank you, Mom,” Claudia said.

“For what?” Liz asked. Because it was not a word she was used to hearing from her daughter because their relationship was one that was a push and pull, and one that had had many moods in it.

“For being here,” Claudia sighed. “For not blaming me.”

Why would I blame you she asked herself and asked it. “Why would I do that?” Liz asked. “I could never blame you. And I hope you know if you did feel like I was, that it was never my intention?” she asked softly as she looked at her daughter.

“My life has never been one that you wanted for me,” Claudia sighed.

“Your life is your life,” Liz said with a sigh. “We all have to deal with many factors that the outside world would have no idea of. “That goes for me, because we both know my life is not what your grandparents would not have wanted for me,” she sighed because she knew her parent had to come to terms with a lot from that time, and she did know that her parents had once very different dreams for her, I had different dreams for me too she knew,” she sighed as she brought back to her daughter’s distraught face. “And that goes the same for you too, and I don’t blame you. I would never blame you. But fortunately, you are young, and you have your whole life to figure out what you want for your life so that it is so dramatic,” I am closer to the end of it than I am to the front of my life she knew.

Dramatic Claudia smiled. “Dramatic?”

“It’s the sane word,” Liz sighed. “But it will get better.”

“I hope so,” Claudia and winced when she saw the time. “I guess you better check on JJ?” she asked, as it was often easy to forget about her brother, and think the world revolves around just me she thought. But we have to think about JJ too.

“Yes, I do” Liz sighed as she also wanted to wince at the sight of the time. The day has gotten away from us she thought.

“Anyways, thank you for being here” Claudia muttered. For once I don’t want her to stay away, she thought.

“I will go check on your brother,” Liz said.

“And I will head back to the apartment,” Claudia sighed.

“You can stay if you want too?” Liz asked as she was not so sure that it was good for her daughter to head back to an empty apartment, all alone she thought, not when she is so emotional. “We can collect your brother, and we can go out for dinner, assuming your brother has not eaten too much?”

“No,” Claudia said. “Maybe a rain check?” she asked of her mother, who nodded. “I would love to see JJ, but I am in no mood. And I better get on away from this place. Because I have spent too much time here, as it is.”

“How is that?” Liz asked.

“Archie has agreed that staying with me at the apartment is not wise,” Claudia sighed. “He has agreed to move into the room upstairs, with his sister.”

“Oh,” Liz said. “And I am sorry about that.”

Claudia smirked. “Sure, you are Mom, really sorry,” she said with a laugh. “I mean, you just love it that he won’t be at the apartment with me,” she sighed. And Liz could only smile, but wisely she did not say anything and allowed her daughter to speak. “We both thought that it would be best until I had some space to think about it all.” even if she knew it was more her, than a mutual decision.

“I hope you take that time to think about it,” Liz said softly. “Archie is a good guy,” she sighed. “Just because he might be who he is, it does not take away whatever good your relationship brought to the two of you?”

“I know,” Claudia sighed. “It was just so unseemly.”

Unfortunately, Liz thought as she nodded. “If you need to talk. You can call me, and I can come over the apartment at any time you need me” she sighed because she knew she had to be over there more as she makes whatever decision that needed to be made for the Crashdown. I need to get on it.

“Thank you,” Claudia nodded.

“I will go over and see your brother,” Liz sighed.

Claudia nodded as they walked out of the motel room. As she thought of her life and thinking of Archie made her wonder. “You were here…”

“That is ominous start,” Liz asked. Unsure of what her daughter was going to ask.

Maybe it is. “Can I ask a question?” Claudia asked.

“Sure, go ahead” Liz asked.

“If Dad is not Archie’s biological father, then who is?” she asked. “You were here back here. You have to know whoever the other candidates are, right?” she asked of her mother, who instantly groaned.

Who is it? both thought. Who was Archie’s biological father?

A question that did not an easy answer. Because that was easy for Liz to know as she looked at her daughter. Who is the father? She asked.

“I don’t know,” Liz sighed because I honestly don’t know. “We thought it was your father.”

“Obviously,” Claudia muttered. “But someone is, right?” she asked. “It always takes two to create someone, right?”

Most of the time Liz muttered to herself as she honestly could not say as shook her head as she watched her daughter walk away, Why do I care? she asked to herself.

It does not involve me, right? she thought. Someone other than Max is the father…

*

Someone was but it was currently not in the realm of either Isabel or Kyle as they were across town. Reeling from the kiss that had stirred up a lot of emotion, and even a little passion. Something that ended as soon as it started, and they stepped back from it. And yet Kyle did not leave the house. They just went back to being oblivious, and not wanting to talk about what clearly had transpired between them.

Until finally Kyle knew it was time to go. “I better go,” he would mutter as he walked to the door with Isabel. “Maybe I will stop by in the morning before you head off. Do you know when you leave?”

“I have to talk it over with Michael,” Isabel murmured. Because she did not know if it was good that she and Kyle were back to their old way of dealing with each other, oblivious, and not talking she sighed.

“Let me know,” was all Kyle could say as he exited the house, with Isabel watching him walk away and she could only sigh to herself, I cannot help myself, can I? she asked. I should be concentrating on anything but this she thought, and yet the memory of the kiss had made an impression.

It was that good.

She could only turn around and head inside and close the door.

*

Meanwhile,

Kyle was still at loose ends. He did not know what to do with himself. I should be going home, and he figured that would be the best place for him as it was now getting later in the day. The day has gotten away from me he thought as he thought of this day. It should have been ordinary, but it was very unordinary.

The kiss was fantastic he marveled.

As something happened that he had been dreaming of since high school, even when she was with Jesse he thought. When I was too late for something to start, he thought, or she was not looking at me as anything but a friend he sighed. Of course, he had not woken up to any feelings up until after she had met and gotten engaged, and then quickly married. Personally, Kyle could tell that it was not going to work between her and Jesse, but I was a friend, and I kept my mouth shut, and my feelings to myself he thought, and I kept my opinions to myself because she was getting grief from other, he thought, namely her mother.

We stayed friends he thought. All these years, through many up and downs, and marriages for both of us he thought. Although I have the market on marriage and divorce, he thought but today had brought something wonderful to him, and he was ruminating but also celebrating that little moment, and he was not clear where he was going as he was walking aimlessly until he saw out of the corner of his eye that Kyla was walking up the sidewalk towards him, “Mikyla?” he asked of Isabel’s daughter.

And mine too he thought. But my connection is to not be talked of to anyone, and that goes with Kyla too he muttered. It was the deal he had made with Isabel, back in the beginning. Before I really knew what I was getting into he knew.

But he kept to the letter of the agreement, and while it was currently the worst kept secret within their group. All parties do know he thought, but we don’t talk about it.

What else is new he thought. It should be talked about it, but it was not.

“Kyle,” Mikyla murmured. Because she was one first name basis with Kyle, even knowing how bizarre it was. “Coming from somewhere?” she asked, because she knew they were the neighborhood of her house, but then she was not about to ask her biological father what he was doing with her mother.

That will come, but I am not going there yet.

Kyle did not know what the teenager might know. Because there was no reason too. “I was visiting your mother,” Kyle muttered as he was suddenly seeing that with Kyla at fifteen, she was starting to look so grown up. And so much like her like her mother, even though she does not have the blond hair of her mother he thought. Still, she is so much like Isabel he thought.

And she is growing up too much he thought. Much too fast.

Being away in Europe had helped that along. “She was telling me about her sudden trip?”

Oh, right Kyla thought. Kyle did not know she thought. That had to be some conversation. “Yeah, I am going to be staying with Grandpa and Uncle Max,” she said softly. “I could have gone with her, but I did not want too, and Mom did not really want me too, either.”

It is going to be strange to know Isabel is away Kyle thought. Since Isabel came back, she has not gone anywhere worthwhile. So, this will be different he sighed. But Kyla will be here. “Are you looking forward to it?” Kyle asked.

“It’s a place to stay,” Kyla murmured. And I know the house. “I am sure I will like it okay,” she said softly. Because she did not know how to talk to Kyle. Especially as she was getting older, and she definitely was seeing the shades and edges of their family, and her connection to Kyle and Tripp. Connections that were not that evident when I was younger, she thought, even if you grow up in the clan and you figure out the secrets pretty early, she thought.

But she had Neil Anderson for a father, and he was the best she thought. Even knowing what she knew. She was not craving for the unknown. Unlike cousin Claudia she thought.

A new face in the family, even though she has been a silent member of our family all these years she thought. She did not know what it meant to question everything, including my parents she thought, because what she knew had always been there, in front of her, but it was not talked about.

Because that would be not the thing to do, she thought. “I will be a buffer for Grandpa and Uncle Max,” she sighed. “Things are pretty bad for them right now.”

“I know,” Kyle sighed. And unfortunately, Phillip has earned some of the anger. Because Kyle definitely knew what it meant to be a son and be disappointed in your father, for real or imagined slights he thought because when he was younger, I was not sure I would have the relationship with my father I have today because of Jim’s belief in aliens.

Little did I know that Grandpa and Dad were onto something, and that it would be so life changing Kyle thought. And a reason why I am still alive to have fathered two great kids, even if I can recognize only one of them.

As he thought of that belief. And at one time it had ripped the very fabric of his father’s relationship with his own father. And while he would come to terms with Grandpa far too late Kyle thought because Grandpa was too far gone by that point he sighed. But still, there was a lot there underneath.

And while my situation is my different than what Max is facing with Phillip.

Still…

“Do you want to be a buffer for them?” Kyle asked. Because he did knew how hard it was to be a buffer between two people who did not see eye to eye.

Kyla would rather not be, but she loved her family. And she wanted her grandfather to be happy again. Because she knew her granddad had been unhappy since her grandmother died. I miss her too Grandpa she thought of her grandmother who was the head of the family, even in her determination, and then she was gone she thought. And Grandpa went down hill from there, but it has gotten pretty bad since… “I want to be a help,” Kyla said. “Because things are tense for them,” she sighed for parts of the story that she did not know. “I love my family.”

“I know you do,” Kyle sighed. “Family is always important,” he murmured because he definitely knew what it meant to want your family to be better than it was. “You know that even with your mother gone, if you do need any help, you know that you can always call me you know?”

“I know,” Mikyla nodded. This is strange she knew. Because for years she had always seen as Kyle as just there, but now that she was getting older. It was becoming different. She did not want to think that she would need help. “But I think I will be alright,” she sighed. “I am not a baby anymore.”

“No, you are not” Kyle sighed. You are definitely not a baby anymore he reflected. Unlike Max, I have been back here, on the sidelines and watching Mikyla grow up he sighed. “But the offer is there, if you need any assistance.”

“I appreciate it,” Kyla murmured because she did not know what to do with this situation. Because she liked her life. She was not looking for anything more. She never had this super need for a father in her life once her other father passed away. “I loved my Dad” she thought, as she had always thought of Neil Anderson as her father. Even though she knew she had been born before her mother’s marriage to Neil. “I am sure I will be fine.”

Kyle nodded, and had a reminder for himself, don’t push it, Kyle, don’t push and so he did not say anything more.

Mikyla appreciated the effort of Kyle not to push the situation. She figured it would be angsty at her grandfather’s home. But I can deal with it she thought, and just when it looked as if Kyle would walk away. She wanted a subject that did not make her question everything, she decided to move onto something, maybe not the best subject, but she was willing to risk it. As a thought came her mind as she remembered before, and what she had witnessed. “Can I ask…”

“Sure, what do you want to ask?” Kyle asked.

“What are your intentions regarding my mother?” Mikyla asked of Kyle and watched as his face drained away. “Because I saw before, you know…” the fifteen asked of her biological father, of his intentions towards her mother.

Something she did not think she would have to…

I have a weird life.

[RoswellFan68]

Anyone else think that Kyle could be Archie's father? He would be a good candidate since Tess lived at the Valenti home.

[Parker1947]

Intentions, what on earth? Kyle would think to himself as he could only look at the link that he shared with the woman of his dreams. And there were way too many of those dreams he thought, fortunately she never came into them, by other methods he thought. Because maybe she would have figured out before I married any of my other wives he would think as he looked at Mikyla. A picture of her mother but looking like him with the brown hair.

It was definitely a weird feeling to be questioned about his feelings. Or my intentions he was thinking.

Because it was not something he was used too. I have never been asked about my intentions he thought. Not ever. Not even by my own son whenever I was getting ready to introduce a new stepmother to him, he thought. And that is probably where the problems started. As he looked at his daughter, who was not really his daughter. But she has a right to ask the question. “I…” he sputtered because he did not know what to say, and Kyla knew she had put Kyle on the spot with her question. “I don’t want my mother to be hurt?”

I would never want to hurt Isabel Kyle thought. “I don’t want her to be hurt either Mikyla,” he would think. “She is very special to me.”

Yeah, she is very special alright Kyla muttered to herself, and knew she loved her mother. Because she had always had a close relationship with her mother. So, she knew how her mother liked to put on a face with people, and show she was more together than she was, “She lost a lot last year.”

“I know,” Kyle murmured. “I know your mother was happy with your father” he was forced to say, because it was the true. I am only genetically linked to Kyla he thought. We are not father and daughter he thought. Neil Anderson was her father in every way that mattered he would think. “We are only friends.”

Yeah, friends, nice one Kyle.

“Only friends?” Kyla asked with an eyebrow lift as she was weary of the comment by Kyle. “Because when I came home the other night, I felt like I was busting in on a moment between the two of you?” she murmured, “And now today?”

“Whatever you think you see, is something you don’t see” Kyle murmured. Even though he was not sure if was wise to be telling Mikyla to discount anything she might have witnessed. “I promise you that your mother only sees me as a friend.”

Some friend Mikyla murmured to herself. That kiss did not look like it was between two friends she thought. Or two people who only see each other as a friend? which is what she knew her mother felt for Kyle. But I don’t know everything…

Yeah, we are some friends Kyle said with an inner smile. Because he knew there was no one like Isabel to him.

“Do you want to think something that she currently does not?” Mikyla asked of Kyle.

And that definitely is not something I should be discussing with a teenage girl he thought. Even if it’s our daughter he thought. “I think that is something we should not be talking about,” Kyle said, and Mikyla smiled. This is all a complete mess he thought. Because he did not know how to respond. “It is something I should be discussing with you mother,” he muttered even though we are definitely talking about it he thought. Maybe that is talk she wants to have. “But I do promise you that whatever happens between your mother, and I is going to be purely her decision to make, and I am not going to push her into something she does not want. If she decides that she does not want me, then that is up to her.”

Kyla nodded. “So, you want something to happen with my mother?” she asked. Because she also could not help but wonder if I want something to happen between them, she thought, it is very weird she thought. But then she knew her mother was still pretty young, and to think she would be alone for the rest of her life was a little unfeasible.

I don’t want her to be alone.

Because I am going to be gone in a couple of years, and Poppy and Katy not long after she thought of her sisters who were only two years behind her, and I am determined to get out of this town if its possible she thought.

I want to see the world. Kyla thought. Because so much is possible.

And Kyle wanted that for all the kids. To see the world. Because the last year was a little too isolated and restrictive, he thought. We should be allowed to get out of this town if he wantedbut he knew he had come back all those years ago, because I did not want to be out there.

Roswell is my home.

And Isabel is now here Kyle thought. I am not going anywhere.

But it did not mean he knew what he wanted. Which is something he did not know. “I don’t know what I want,” Kyle said with a sigh. “But you should not worry about it because whatever happens will be something we decide together.” Even if we decided to be simply friends.

Mikyla nodded.

“You better get home, because your mother was wondering where you were?” Kyle muttered.

Mikyla knew she had to be get home. And should have there already, but I was diverted. “I was headed home, but I did not want to walk in on your moment there,” Mikyla murmured. “So, I went for another walk.”

Kyle nodded, realizing it was a difficult situation to be in. And it was one that did not have any good answers to it.

“But I will now head inside,” Mikyla murmured.

Kyle could only nod. “Have a good night,” Kyle sighed.

“You too,” said the teenager. “Good night, Kyle,” Mikyla murmured as she watched as Kyle walked away. And yes, she marvelled at her bizarre life. What is going to happen now?

Who knows.

*

No one really did. And once Liz was able to check that her son JJ was doing well. Watching television, and yes, gorging on junk food but still, she knew he was only ten and that he would come off it fine, fortunately she would think. And knowing he did not need more time. She returned to her own room for her own time out, but she found she did not want to be alone.

So, she took out her son to movie. An old classic that he did not want to see but she wanted to see it, and he could not complain because it got him out of the motel. And they would go out for some ice cream or something.

While Claudia was responding to no one calls, not even Lucy’s text messages. Archie knew better than to text her until they both had time.

“I am sorry for coming to Roswell and dredging this all up” Crystal muttered as she could not help but think that if she had not come to this town, her brother could be with Claudia right now, and be happy, and now he was in a funk and in her motel room. She still did not know what tomorrow would look like.

Or would either of them be here. She did not particularly want to start the long trip back home but eventually her brother would have to go back to Colorado.

“You did not cause this,” Archie muttered as he had not wanted to go anywhere for dinner. He wanted to stay and fester in his misery, so they had gotten takeout, and stayed in. “It would still have come out even if you had not come.”

“Are you sure?” Crystal asked.

“Most likely,” Archie sighed. “This town is full of secrets, and they do eventually come out” he sighed. “I was not trying to cover who I am, but I just did not think it was important until I saw Claudia’s birth father, and I put two and two together.”

“And rocked her world as a result,” Crystal muttered. Unreal she thought. Because what are the chances two people could meet up, and only later do they realize that they could be related she asked of herself. Fortunately, they are not she would think.

I would never wanted to do that Archie muttered, and his sister nodded. “I am sorry.”

Archie nodded.

“You two are not related,” Crystal muttered, more as if it was a form of the question.

“Mom says that there was testing and everything,” Archie sighed. “And my birth papers were amended to state that I have an unknown birth father.”

“That must rankle you?” Crystal asked.

“Sometimes, but mostly I don’t care” Archie sighed “I liked my life. Sure, Dad and I have our rounds,” he sighed because he did know that he liked to put his own rounds in there too with the man. Because he knew he could have walked away and not engaged, and he ultimately did with going to Colorado. I like my life and therefore I am not about to rock the boat he thought. “But I don’t deny that I was not looking for something I was missing,” he sighed. “I just wish sometimes it was easier back home.”

“Maybe you would not have left?” Crystal asked.

“Sorry kid,” Archie sighed. “I know it can be a bit much back there,” he allowed because he knew how much their family drama can cause you want to escape it, and I thought our life was insane until I met Claudia’s he noted to himself. Nothing beats this he thought. As he did not know where that left him and his girlfriend.

Is she, my girlfriend? Archie asked himself.

“It’s better it came out now than later on, if we were more committed to each other than we are right now” Archie sighed. That would be a disaster he would think.

Crystal nodded. “What are you going to do about it?”

I don’t know Archie muttered. “Claudia is a little overwhelmed on a whole host of things, and so it best to give her time. But I don’t want to leave yet. I would causing more drama if I left for home when everything is out of control for her,” he sighed. “So, yeah, I don’t know what that means.”

Crystal sighed. “And me?”

“And you,” Archie sighed. “We have to get you home.”

“I wish I did not have to leave yet,” Crystal asked. Because why would I want to leave this drama she thought.

“You have to get home,” Archie muttered. “I don’t know how long I am going to be staying here, and Mom is going to have my head when she realizes you are missing and just where you are…”

“I know, I know” Crystal muttered.

“You know she hears it from Dad,” Archie sighed because even though their mother is quite able to handle her former husband, and there is no love lost between them two of them unlike Claudia’s parents he muttered, still, I don’t want for her to deal with the hassle he thought. “She has too much on her plate.”

“I know,” Crystal sighed. “She is dealing with Grandpa being sick.”

“Which is why she is going to know you are not there,” Archie muttered of their grandfather’s illness, “You should have come with a more creative excuse,” he sighed. I was much more creative in my time he thought of all he could get away with…

“I know, I am a newbie in all this” Crystal sighed, and it was as if the gods were trying to showcase something as Archie’s cellphone rang, and he picked it up from the bed it was staying on, and he swore, “It’s Mom.”

Damn Crystal muttered as she watched her brother’s face as he answered. “Hi Mom”

This is not going to go well Crystal sighed as she heard her brother’s call. “I know Crystal is not at Grandma and Grandpa’s,” he would say into the phone as he looked squarely at his sister. “She was not thinking,” he said as he glanced at Crystal who grew annoyed. Obviously, they both would think.

As he lifted the phone away from his ear away, as she could hear the yelling.

Traitor Crystal muttered, as there was a door knock and she went to answer it, and she smiled. “Tripp?” she asked of her friend. I have friends here in Roswell she thought. “Back again?”

“I could not stay away,” Tripp said.

*

Why he did not know. But Tripp found himself going towards the motel. “Do you want to talk outside?” he asked with a smile. “What is going on?” he asked of Crystal as they walked out onto the outside hallway, and she closed the door to her brother saying, “Yes, she actually got on a bus and came here” and she quickly closed the door with a slam.

“Mom found out I am here,” Crystal sighed. “And she’s not happy.”

“Where do you live?” Tripp asked.

“Boston” Crystal muttered.

“Wow, that was some trip,” Tripp asked. “And you needed to get away. Because of your father?”

“It was one of those moments, where Archie is right, I probably should have been thinking more than I was, but I needed to get away. Unfortunately, I started a whole chain reaction of elements,” she muttered. “It has been a long day. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow.”

“No one does,” Tripp muttered.

“You came back?” Crystal asked. “I would have thought you would be with your friend, Claudia.”

“We are not friends,” Tripp sighed, yet. “Our families know each other. Our parents dated each other. My father, her mother” he clarified, “before they would go on and meet our other parents,” he muttered. “Claudia was raised away from this place, and she’s coming into a world she did not know.”

“Tell me about it,” Crystal muttered. “Archie is like that too.”

“It’s definitely weird,” Tripp thought to think Archie might be Tess Harding’ infamous child. The one she had in hopes of trapping Claudia’s father he mused to himself. Dad got a little singed there for a moment or two he thought. But then, he only knew part of the story and did not know everything that went down between his grandfather, father, and Tess.

“And you did not know any of it?” Tripp asked.

“I knew my brother was adopted. But my parents split before I was born, so it was not really discussed and my brother did not have a huge need to know, or because he’s older than me, whatever he did know, is not something he would discuss.” Crystal sighed. “I didn’t know anything about this though, and I don’t think my parents knew otherwise they might have had problems with you know Archie and Claudia being you know close,” she sighed. “They did not raise any red flags. But it was unlikely that my brother would have listen to them, if they had appeared,” she sighed.

Tripp nodded. Weird he would think. It is not like anything I have ever seen he would acknowledge to himself.

“And there are a lot of Evans out there in this world, right?” Crystal muttered. “How could Mom and Dad know that Claudia was related to the man who was originally said to my brother’s father?”

“It’s a trashy tabloid’s dream,” Tripp sighed. “Definitely,” he said with a slight smile.

Oh, it is, alright she thought. She would love to watch it if it were not my real life, she muttered to herself, and how it concerned her brother. “I worry for my brother. Because I don’t know where my brother and Claudia go from here.” Crystal asked. “I know Mom is going to demand I come home,” she sighed. “But I don’t want to leave my brother.”

“I hope you don’t have to leave yet, either.” Tripp smiled.

Crystal smiled right back.

As if there was something normal going on.

How long that would last is anyone’s guess.

*

Meanwhile,

Claudia needed an out. She needed to not be stuck in the apartment. She had gone back to the apartment and cried her heart out. She knew she and Archie were not related, but it was hard to tell her brain that, and especially when her heart wanted things to work out. She needed to do something. Something to unwind. But there was no alcohol in the apartment because we are so new to this place and then Mom ran off, she muttered. She knew her mother restrained from drinking too much, because of some troubling moments after she split from Dad Claudia thought. She had been too young to witness it, but by the time she was, her mother was often too busy to drink.

Now Claudia wished she could unwind and lose her feelings in something. I don’t even have Archie for some sexy recreational mindless bed action she muttered to herself. So, she called an Uber, and went somewhere she could make some sense of her life.

That is assuming she could.

*

While her father was still with Michael and Maria. And their discussion had been diverted and lengthened when Michael had to take a call, and then head out for a meeting. Not for missions directed by their local Sheriff. He was starting to get his solo business off the ground. And had put feelers out there, and something had come from it, even if he knew he probably should stay home and deal with this latest disaster. There would be time he thought, as he left, but Max would stay behind, because once he was not willing to head home yet. Maria knew Max was hiding, and there was a reason for hiding. And not wanting to go home. “You have to go home, you know?”

“I know,” Max sighed. “I am just taking my time.”

“Your father was thinking he was helping you,” Maria asked, and Max looked on wearily of the words. “I know he did not tell you and allowed you to sit back here when you could have went to Liz and tried to convince her to come home to you.”

Although would that have helped Max muttered himself. I don’t know he thought, but he still felt haunted and filled with the knowledge that so much could have been different if only his father had come to him. “I moved in with him and my mother, and helped out, and he did not tell me. In his state, he even blamed me for letting Liz leave, and take Claudia” he thought of the venom that came to him in his father’s low points.

And there were many he thought. “And he knew,” Max said.

“Sometimes we are not rational, and he hated himself I am sure” Maria muttered. “Phillip should have come to you, but there were reasons why it was probably right for him to lay off. Because no one could know what it would all mean for Liz if you had gone and found her.”

I know Max said, and he was now haunted over that fact. “I might have made things worse than they already were for her.”

“It was really that bad, huh?” Maria asked, because she too haunted by the depth of what her friend probably had to suffer through, while I was able to move on with Michael and have Lucy she thought. Because she knew what was meant by the code word, White Room she thought. She had not been there, only Liz was she though in the aftermath of Max’s abduction. But she knew from her friend that it was pretty bad, and Liz had hated to walk away, but she felt she could not stay. “Liz never told me.”

“It was hell,” Max said. “Probably even worse than it was for me, because I was found in time,” he murmured because he could not help but draw on his own time in a so-called White Room he thought, and he could not imagine what it would be for the woman he loved. Certainly, they knew to go to Liz he muttered.

Why not come for me? Max muttered. Because they had to know I would have done anything to save his wife and daughter. They knew Liz was the one who was the weakest the crack.

“But Liz was not,” Maria whispered as she could only think of how bad it was for her friend.

“She had to hold out until they got what they wanted from her,” Max thought. “So, it is hard to hate her for it, but…”

“But your brain is not listening, huh?” Maria asked. I hate when that happens, she would think to herself. Thankfully I have my Space boy. “She still left and took Claudia with her.”

Yes, she did Max muttered to himself and yet he knew the truth about why his daughter had gone with her mother. “But they did not want Claudia,” he said softly.

“What?” Maria asked. Clearly surprised.

“The original demand was only for her to leave, and to leave our daughter with me” Max said. “They wanted her to walk out on our life together and leave our child.”

Whoa Maria muttered. “That…”

“Is bad,” Max muttered, “If she had done so, I would have had my daughter with me,” he murmured. All these years I could have been a father to my daughter he thought, but what life would we have?

That was the unknown. Could the government just leave them alone? That is unlikely Max knew. But they had agreed to Liz’s demands, and I was able to live my life all these years without any problem he thought.

“But you would not have had Liz with the two of you?” Maria asked at the mere thought of being asked to walk away from her daughter, I could not imagine she thought. Not after my father walked out on me, she murmured, I had my mother she mused, but the idea that the government goons wanted Liz to do that to Max and Claudia. “That is heartless.”

“It would have been hell,” Max said. Because he knew fully that he had been in his own form of hell without both Liz and Claudia, but to have her walk away, and leave Claudia with me he thought. I would have had my daughter, but I would not have had Liz he hated the thought.

“What got them to change their mind?”

“She convinced them that Claudia was normal,” Max muttered.

I figured it was something like that Maria murmured. Because she swore that Liz had commented on it before. “You know she does not mean it like an insult?” she asked, in defense of her friend. “She loved you, for all your quirks.”

Quirks that would be an interesting way to put it Max mused to himself. “She tried to explain it, but that has always been my fear. That she would not want me for me, and she would walk away because it is always easier to walk away.”

“It is easier to walk away but she loved you Max,” Maria sighed. “She would not have gone back to you after you know all that crap that happened, back in high school or with Tess if she did not love you at the end of the day. She could have walked away to a new future. She could have let you deal with it all on your own. She had a chance to make something of herself in a different way than what she was dealing with back then, but she sacrificed her dreams because she loved you, and she wanted to be your wife.”

“She still walked away in the end,” Max muttered. Heart and the brain are definitely still in conflict he muttered to himself. But he also knew that she did come back to me when she did not have too, he thought. I put her through hell, and she came back, and married me.

“You only know that is because of what they did to her, and because she believed she was saving you, and Claudia.” Maria sighed. “Saying Claudia was normal was a way to make sure that they did not come and swoop you guys up when she was not looking,” she sighed. “She made a deal with the devil. But the devil is known to play by his own rules.”

Max sighed, and slowly nodded.

“She deeply loved you. If she did not than all of it would have been so easy, but it plainly obvious that is has never been easy for her, and she has suffered just as much as you did. She might have begun a new life, a different one,” she thought. “But it does not mean she was happy.”

“How do you know she was not happy?” Max muttered.

“Because what you two had was something special. You cannot leave that kind of love that easily,” Maria muttered. “I know from my own relationship with Michael. We have never had the same obstacles as you two, but Liz and I found early on that, you and Michael changed us forever. We were never going to easily move on.”

Max muttered, she still walked away he thought, and went on with life.

“Love never makes sense,” Maria sighed. “We love who we love, and sometimes it defies logic” she sighed. “It is not instantly going to make sense, but sometimes it will just work out. Maybe one of these days now that she is back. The two of you can figure it all out. You don’t have to forgive or forget what she did, just like she did not with you” Maria said a little too pointedly, and Max could only sigh, I know, I know he would think to himself. I put her through hell with Tess he thought, even if she is the one who started it, but she had to some how understand when I believed I was having a kid with Tess he thought.

Max nodded and only sighed, we both have a past we would love to forget or wipe away and Maria nodded. “She did forgive me about Tess,” Max muttered.

“Yes, she did” Maria sighed. Tess, she muttered to herself. I hate that woman he thought. Liz might be playing with the timelines, and not being upfront until afterwards, still Liz could never be Tess who caused so much mayhem she mused. Liz was helping us, even though it hurt us at the time.

“I don’t know what I am going to do now,” Max said softly.

“How about we get some to soothe our irritants?” Maria suggested. “We are out of alcohol here at the house, and have not restocked our supply,” she cracked. “We can go to Cow Patties, and I can call Michael to meet us there. Music, and fun?”

“I think I should go home?” Max muttered.

“Do you really want to go there, and deal with your father?” Maria asked with a smile at her friend’s effort.

“Not really,” Max sighed. I am not in the mental state to deal with my father. But he knew one day that would have to happen, one of these days he thought.

Just not now.

“And leaving tomorrow is not the answer either,” Maria sighed. “Let Michael help your sister,” she suggested. “You need to stay in town and deal with your problems,” she sighed. “It never helps to run,” she sighed.

No, it does not Max knew. But as Liz had proven, sometimes it changes things up he thought.

Maria could only sigh because she saw her friend in his own head space again, “Max, come to Cow Patties, and we can unwind?”

“Maybe,” Max sighed as Maria just pulled him up from the couch. “I don’t need to get drunk.”

“No, you don’t,” Maria agreed. “But everything is too much for you right now, and you need to have a good time” she said softly. “I will let Michael know, and he can join us whenever his meeting is finished,” she sighed. “Plus, I have something to tell you, and I need you in front of some alcohol when you do get this news.”

Uh oh Max muttered. “You are not pregnant again, are you?”

“I would not need to ply you with alcohol if I were, nope, that is not to be” Maria sighed. “Come on,” she asked as she dragged Max to the door. As she yelled upstairs, “Lucy, I am going out,” she called upstairs.

“Where too,” the teenager asked as she came to the top to the stairs and looked at her mother and godfather. A man she did not know well because she had been raised in another state. She had heard the door slam shut earlier, and she had looked outside and seen her father going off. But she now saw that Claudia’s father was here, and she had to wonder what was going on.

“We’re just going out,” Maria muttered as she turned to face Max. “Right?” she asked of Max.

“Fine,” Max sighed as they soon left, as the blonde smiled as she looked upstairs, “If there is an emergency, call your grandmother or Jim, okay?”

“What are you up too?” Lucy asked.

“Nothing a little alcohol won’t fix,” Maria smiled as she dragged her friend out of the house, and Lucy could only wonder what was going on in her clan, and in this town. This town seemed so ordinary during those summers she muttered of her time coming back to Roswell. What have Claudia and I stepped into now?

Who knows.

As she went back to her bedroom and turned the music on full blast and took advantage of being home and alone.

*

Cow Patties,

The music was full blast at this establishment as well, and Claudia certainly did not know what she had stepped into as she walked into the establishment that she should have been staying away from because she was underage. But she was looking for trouble and armed with what any respected rebellious teenager would have created a long time before. A slightly fudged ID. Especially coming from out East. She therefore knew how to look for a good time, especially when she and her mother did not get along. And that mother tended to work long hours.

And especially this last year, but then even then I could only do so much she knew.

It was one of the unspoken things she and her mother did not talk about it. But given she had been uprooted and stayed with her grandparents, these last months, she knew everything had come to a head with her mother. Until this last week she muttered as she allowed that the last week did change the game.

But still she knew how to look for a good time. And she wanted to unwind. She did not think anyone she knew would be coming here. Why I don’t know she thought. Because she did not know the ground. Even as she knew full well that her parents had a background with this establishment. But she was running the chance she could unwind and not have to report to anyone who knew her.

And who did not ask questions.

When she did not know the answers to this questions because everything she knew was in question. Of course, this being Cow Patties she knew she would know at least one person at least. Or superficially because they did not know each other. But that is better than anyone else I know she sighed.

But on this night, and at this moment. She did not see Ava at the counter. She did not know if the owner was here on this night. She was hoping she was not. Because she knew she would not get anywhere if she was. “Is Ava here tonight?” she asked the bartender behind the counter.

“Whose asking?” came the woman.

“She is a friend of the family,” was all Claudia asked. Even as she knew that was a stretch to say because she did not know all that was family to her, I cannot even understand how bizarre my life is. “I thought I would check in with her?” she sighed, even though I don’t know why I am. “Do you know if this place is hiring?”

“Nope,” the woman said. “That is, she’s not around because has plans outside the bar. But she might be back later,” she sighed. “We are always hiring, but you have to ask her because I am not up on the latest coming and goings of the staff.”

Claudia nodded.

“Want something else?” the woman asked.

“A beer,” Claudia murmured.

“Are you old enough?” the woman asked.

Um, nope Claudia thought to herself, but she was not about to say anything like that, and she got out her identification, and showed the document. Something she had been able to use her abilities to create. Because unlike her friends back home, she did not have to shell out money for a fake. She knew how to create something that would pass in any location in this world, because nothing beats it. “Beer?”

“Sure, why not” the woman murmured as she filled a glass and pushed it towards Claudia. “Are you new to town?” she asked. “Don’t recall seeing you around here before?”

Yeah, you wouldn’t Claudia thought. “Just moved to town.”

“How are you liking it?” the woman asked.

“It’s been one thing after another,” Claudia sighed. “I don’t know if I am living a real life, or whether I have slipped into some movie of the week.”

“I guess life is sometimes like that.” The woman sighed because as a bartender she had seen life in all forms.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Claudia muttered as she took the beer. “Thanks,” she muttered as she walked away from the bar and went off to her little corner of the bar. Hoping to stay out of sight.

*

While Archie had no knowledge of this. He had his own issues. After a distressing call from his mother. And having to deal with the emotions that were springing up, so much so that he wished he could have been taking the time out his girlfriend was at the moment, I don’t know if I have a girlfriend at the moment he thought, but nope, he instead was back at the motel. And watching Crystal and Tripp talk to each other.

A discussion that was growing. Somehow, they got each other. Even though Crystal was a stranger in this town, so am I Archie knew.

But it was good for his sister to make a friend. He wished life was more understanding. Fortunately, he and his mother came to an understanding, as he put down the phone. “You have a reprieve until Monday.”

“Really?” Crystal asked, as she forced herself to stop talking to Tripp. Even though they had not been talking about anything important. But it was nice to talk to someone who was not in a depressive mood, and whose relationship was up in the air. “You got Mom to agree?”

“It’s more like there are no buses out of this town until Monday” Archie sighed. “Mom reluctantly agreed that you could stay until then,” he sighed. “And I don’t have a car to drive you to the nearest airport. She will arrange a ticket for you and send us the details when she has them arranged.”

Crystal sighed. “Thank you for talking some sense into her Arch.”

“As I said, it’s more like there was no other choice. I don’t have the funds for a taxi to take you to the big airport, that has a flight back to Boston, because it’s already bad enough I have to go to rent my own motel room until Monday.”

“You don’t have to,” Crystal protested. “That is not that I want.”

“Yes, I do” Archie muttered. I need out of here he muttered to himself. “This room is too small for the two of us,” he sighed. “We both need our space. I will let you and Tripp talk…” he said as he walked to the door. “I need some space anyways.”

Crystal nodded. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I am” Archie muttered. “This day is already too much,” he muttered as he walked to the door. “If Dad should call, leave it alone…”

“Mom is not going to tell Dad?” Crystal asked.

“Of course not,” Archie muttered because the last thing he wanted was for his mother to get in the middle because his parents were volatile with each other, when the occasion called for it, and this was one of those that was not going to be easy to deal. So, Archie was prepared to take the hits. “Leave to me.”

“Maybe I should be the one to tell him?” Crystal asked. “You two get on each other’s cases too easily.”

“You don’t want to see Dad’s bad side,” Archie muttered. “I have seen too much of it, so leave it too me,” he would mutter as he opened the door. “You two have a good time,” he muttered. “I will let you know where I end up.”

Crystal nodded and watched as her brother left the room.

“Are you okay?” Tripp asked as he could see the emotion on her face. Because it was so unlike his own life. My life is downright civil he thought, thanks Mom and Dad he thought of his parents’ determination to co-parent with respect for each other. And it had largely worked because they both realized early one that they were not right for each other and did not let that get them down. “I could leave you know.”

“You can stay if you want, because I could use the company,” Crystal muttered. “This is a strange town you know.”

You don’t even know half of it, Tripp thought to himself, but maybe you will if you brother is part of all this, he would think but would not say because it would only lead to confusion for the girl. Although lore says Tess Harding’ mystery kid is very normal he would think. So, he might not know what is like to be in a small fraternity. “It’s one of a kind, that is for sure” he admitted.

“I hate to see my brother hurting,” Crystal muttered.

“He will be fine,” Tripp murmured. Although he had no understanding of the situation, so he knew those words were hollow. Because he did not know how unique the situation was, but I am in the family regardless he thought.

A small group.

That was getting bigger by the day.

“I am not too sure,” Crystal muttered as she was doubtful. “My brother puts on a great face, especially in front of me because I am younger, but he gets overwhelmed too, and I hate this for him. He has said he’s fine with it, but I know how much he cares about Claudia. And this has to mess him up.”

Tripp sighed.

“I hope he’s okay,” Crystal muttered.

*

Was Archie, okay? He did not know if he was. His mind was a raging minefield. With bombs being thrown at him every witch way he tried to walk. Therefore, he was thinking too much about what he was standing to lose. Even having his sister in town was not helping because it only reminded him of the responsibilities, he had that he had tried to get away from when he headed to Colorado.

Now she was here, reminding him of his other life.

But then he was now finding out about his other side that was very different from the life he had led all his life, in Boston.

So, his mind was in a zoo as he walked down the stairs, and headed for the main office, and found he just had enough cash to get another room.

Getting the keys, he walked back to the room he had been assigned but not really looking where he was going, until he bumped into someone. “Hey, watch it.”

“You watch it,” came a familiar voice.

Shit Archie muttered to himself as he recognized the woman who had bumped into him too. “Sorry,” he was quick to say. “Mrs….”

“Parker,” came the voice. “It’s Ms. Parker,” came the sound of surprise in the voice of Claudia’s mother. “Archie?”

As they both got the full glimpse of each other since the bombshells that had come out that would change their very lives.

Damn they would mutter.

[Parker1947]

It was not like Archie Holmes was a newcomer to Liz’s world. Because of course not, when he has been dating my daughter for some two years, she would mutter to herself. There is no way I could stay uninvolved and unknowing when my daughter was living in the same house as me, she told herself. Sure, I worked too much but I knew what my daughter was doing she sighed, mostly she said in a correction to herself. Because it was not like she was not knowledgeable about the ways of teenagers, once they feel like they are grown up. Even before she turned 18, she thought, of how much she knew her daughter to have blurred the line back in Boston before she used as Arizona and her parents as a intervention. Still though, her daughter was now eighteen, and therefore she was not eight anymore.

The age when everything started to change. Nope, I am not that lucky she thought. She is an adult in the eyes of the world.

Again, mostly. There were still restrictions on how adult she could be, but her mother had no way of knowing that her daughter was trying to blur one of those lines as she stood in motionless silence as she stared at a reminder of her past.

A past she did not think he belonged too. I believed he was part of another part of it, and one that did not have any role to this drama she sighed as she stared at the boy, she now knew had a major role in her departure from this town. Even though she now knew his paternity was not one that her former husband had any role in.

Thankfully she muttered. Although a part of her still questioned that little bombshell but for the sanity of my daughter, that paternity test better be legit she thought.

There was no way Max was this kid’s father, right, she was asking herself.

And she did not see Max in his eyes.

Not anymore.

But she saw Tess.

Only in the eyes. Because the hair and other features did not immediately bring back the biggest regret in her life Pushing Max at Tess, and for that matter, listening to that future version of her greatest love. She could only sigh now, because for so longer he had been just another kid. A boy who wanted to date her daughter, despite being older than her. She should have known better than to allow it, because the age gap was a little dramatic, and meant a lot more as they got older and more serious, but she had allowed it because she did not want open warfare with her daughter.

Claudia is her parent’s daughter she would think. I know my daughter, and she would have openly defied me if I had said no, she thought.

Just like I did once before with my own parents she thought.

Now, she was seeing everything with different eyes.

Why are you giving me this Liz asked as she wanted to curse the gods, for one more time giving her more than she had asked for. I was starting a new life she muttered to herself. I was giving myself fully to my children.

And you give me this she cursed once more.

But she was stopped because she could see the emotion on the boy’s face. He does not know what end is up, she realized.

I hate that feeling she knew. “Archie,” she said as she stopped the silence, and said something. Being the adult, she should be because she was no longer the teenager. Instead, she was dealing with a teenager, who was facing a very different reality than he was looking at earlier that day when it was so easy to get on his case for coming to town and staying at her apartment with his girlfriend.

Her daughter.

Unsupervised.

When she was wishing some limits was on the pair. And now they were in whole new story, or chapter. She did also did not know what end was up. Welcome to the club she muttered. “What are you doing?”

“Going to my room,” Archie muttered as he from his view was dealing with Claudia’s mother. Someone who had not been his biggest fan. She is probably rooting for us to fail he muttered to himself. And it was not used to having time alone, together.

“I thought you were staying with your sister?” Liz asked.

“You have talked to Claudia?” Archie asked. Because as far as he knew, Claudia was the only one who knew what was before now, the plan. But plans change he thought. And he said as much. “I decided to give my sister some space because she is going to be here longer than anticipated, so we both need some space.”

Liz nodded. As she was looking for any subject than the one that was staring them in the face. So, she would leap on the issue of Archie’s sister. “Does your parents know she is here?” Liz asked, as she asked something simple. One of those easy questions.

“Unfortunately, yes.” Archie muttered. “Although my father does not know, and that is going to be my next battle.”

“Should that be your role?” Liz wondered. The sins of the parents she would mutter. At the thought of parents forcing new roles on their children. Ones that they did not ask for, nor did they want.

Archie did not necessarily want the role, but it was his by the virtue of being in the family that he was. At the end of the day, I still love my family he thought. Warts and all. “It’s the role I want,” Archie muttered because that is easy when everything in my life is going off the cliff. “I rather that it be me than my sister, and especially my mother.”

Liz could only sigh. This is not something he should be dealing with she sighed, as she nodded and did not say anything.

“So, you know?” Archie asked.

“Know what?” Liz wondered, even though she knew what Archie was likely getting at.

“If you know about my sister than obviously, you were talking to your daughter?” Archie asked.

For once Liz sighed. “Yes, we did talk” she said without being committal in saying what she and her daughter had talked about. And Archie could sense it, because the whole tone of the conversation and how she was responding to him told him that she knows he thought. She knows who my mother is.

And who is not my father.

Her ex-husband.

My girlfriend’s father Archie muttered. This life is too bizarre he thought as he found himself in a new territory. One that he did not ask for or want. And now it was one that he was forced to deal with, whether he liked it or not.

And he did not, but he had to deal with it. “Then you are probably happy, because it means that your daughter has problems with me?”

The last thing I am is happy about it, Liz knew. “You have that wrong. I am not happy,” she sighed. “Not in the least. Because I want my daughter to be happy, and I thought the two of you were happy.”

“We were happy,” Archie muttered. “Until we found this town.”

It has that habit to draw us into a web of another kind Liz would think. I love the town. But 1999 began a very different journey for us, and it still existing today she thought. “I never wanted any of this to happen,” she sighed even though she was on the happier side that she was not looking at her former husband’s child.

A child he would have had with a traitor and murderer.

Whether Alex’s death was intended or not, she still unleashed a disastrous campaign to change our lives she thought. Fortunately, we are still standing she knew.

And Tess was not.

But she knew she wanted to be selfish about it. But for Archie it had a lot more meaning given assuming if the rumors were true, this is Tess’s son she thought. “I never wanted any of it to happen” she sighed, even though she knew she had started it.

Archie nodded.

“Look Archie,” Liz sighed but she was not able to get our whatever she was intending to say, and she personally did not know what she was going to say. Because this was a situation was not something she was used to nor was it something she wanted to deal with when she had so much to deal with. Don’t I already have a lot on my plate?

“How can you look at me?” Archie asked a little too bluntly, before he even knew what he was saying.

“What do you mean?” Liz asked, even though she knew what he was saying.

“You obviously know now that I am not simply Claudia’s boyfriend,” Archie asked. “Although I don’t know what we are to be honest with you,” she sighed. “But obviously, I am so much more, to you of all people. So, how can you look at me?”

Yeah Liz, how can you look at him?

*

Liz did not know. If she was being honest with herself. She also did not know if she had fallen into some rabbit hole, and whether she had finally cracked up because of all she had experienced over the years. And especially in the last year. Maybe I am in some hospital bed, sick with that dreaded virus, and in some loop of my own making she thought.

But nope, that would be too easy she though because knew this was reality. Whether she wanted it to be or not, so she did not know how she could deal with this situation as she looked at Archie. “It’s different alright,” was all she could say about it.

Archie could only laugh.

“You knew my birth mother?” Archie asked.

Oh, I knew her alright, Liz sighed. And I don’t want to have known her she thought because of what Tess had presented to her relationship to Max, and what they had in the process, not only with the two of them but also in the loss of Alex. “Yes, I knew her…” she allowed softly and the way she was reacting made Archie know this was a touchy subject.

It was and in ways that Archie could not possibly know.

“So, how can you look at me?” Archie asked. Because he would also have to admit to himself that even though he did not know a lot of the situation, what else is new but also by what he did know of his birth mother, and he had learned that she had caused a lot of pain. And one of those people who had been hurt were both of Claudia’s parents.

So, how can she look at me and accept me?

It is not easy she knew. Especially when she was looking at him now and was seeing Tess, and not her former husband. “You didn’t ask for any of this,” she sighed. “And I am sorry that you have to deal with it,” she murmured. “You were not intending any of this, and you did not want to hurt my daughter.”

“She thinks I lied to her,” Archie muttered.

“We don’t always think rationally when we feel hurt,” Liz sighed. “I grant you that it is a bizarre situation, and it is one that neither of you asked for,” she sighed. “Come into my room, if you want to talk” she sighed. “We probably should be taking this out of the view of the public,” she sighed as if any one was around to witness this unique conversation. “If you want to know more?”

But given past experience. You cannot take any chances, and Liz certainly knew this. Which is why she was happy the original invasion was in an easier time. She could not imagine it happening now, in this climate and in this technology driven world. It was a very different time she thought.

Even though it was hell to get through it. Did we even get through it?

She did not know.

Archie nodded, and they entered Liz’s motel room. Which was just down the hall from his own.

Liz hated this. As much as she hated Tess Harding. She knew Archie did not deserve this. Especially when he was raised away from it, and it was not something he was asking for. I cannot blame a child for existing she sighed, even though she knew she had once. If Max had kept him? She sighed. Because she did not know what she would have done. I still walked away she thought, even though he gave him up she sighed.

It was a very hard situation to be in and understand. “I am sorry for what you and Claudia are facing,” Liz sighed. “As I have said, neither of you have asked for any of it.”

No, we did not he would concede Everything seemed so simple. “So, can you tell me, why is it happening?” Archie asked.

Hell, if I know Liz because she did not know why her own life. So, she laughed. Even if it was not a situation you should easily laugh at because it meant too much to too many people, way too many she thought. “If you happen to find out the answer to that elusive question, then tell me, please. Because this is not what I was intending when I came back to this town.”

I should have known that it would not be so simple to come back to this town.

Because Roswell had that hold on me, and those who really knew the underbelly of the town.

“Why did you come back?” Archie asked. “You kept Claudia away from this town, for so long, so why change that, now,” he asked. “Why come back?”

It was another answer because Liz did not know why she had come back. After all, I had stayed away so long. So, why come back now? she wondered. When so much was different, and so much was missed.

“I wish I could tell you, but I honestly don’t know” Liz murmured. “The last year took a lot out of me, and it made me want to change things up. And this was my home once, and maybe I decided that life is precious, and not to take anything for granted, and to come back and make peace with choices I had made.”

You think it was that easy? Liz asked herself. Maybe, but also maybe not.

Archie nodded.

“Staying away, was never about hurting my daughter,” Liz sighed. “Or hurting me. It was about protection,” she sighed. There is that word again she thought of the “protection” angle she had used to justify her decisions, and it’s the truth she thought, or that might be what she was trying to tell herself. “Coming back now, I don’t know. I guess that it felt right. But as you said, this town is simple in so many ways. When you look at it, it seems so simple. It’s a small town at its heart. But when you do get into the middle of it, and really know what it’s all about, even if it is only that way for a select few, and the outside world really has no idea. Still this town has this tendency to change you. Just as it has this ability to draw you in. Whether it was your intention or not. Which is why I should have known better to come back, because as you said, I spent so many years away from this town. Because yes, it was a town that changed my life once, and yes, I really should have known better.”

Yes, I should have known better and that as something that was almost her catch phrase. In so many ways. And here she was, trying to manage it all.

And finding new things about her life with each day.

And having a reckoning with the past with each other of those days, and this was being one of them as she was looking at Tess Harding’s son.

The eyes told her.

She did not need to see that paternity test. And certainly, Archie could feel the heat of the glare at him, and he was feeling he was being accessed and watched. To see what kind of person he was. Not that he had not gotten that look from Claudia’s mother in the past.

Because I did which is why I was never sure she was completely comfortable with her daughter being with me.

Like we were missing something Archie thought.

Now, he knew more, and why the glare had so much meaning. “Claudia indicated that her father cheated on you?” he asked.

Liz winced at the memory. Because the memory was not that kind because it had too much to it, “That is not the whole story,” she muttered. Of course, my daughter would think that, because she does not know the truth “We were not together at the time.”

“Does Claudia know that?” Archie asked.

“There is a lot my daughter does not know,” Liz sighed. Unfortunately.

“It’s her backstory. So, why did you keep so much from her?” Archie asked. “I know that probably is not my right to know, but I cannot help but ask?”

“Yes, you are definitely right, and no, it’s not your place” Liz sighed. “The past between my former husband, Claudia’s father and I is very complicated,” and that is the easy word for it she sighed. “And it was always easier not to talk about it,” she sighed, and there were so many more reasons why it was better not to talk about it she knew. She knew she had put her daughter at a disadvantage because each day back here in Roswell was showing that in spades. She could only sigh. “I did not want to cause my daughter pain,” she sighed, “even though I know now that I was causing the pain that I was trying to save her from, only in whole different way than I was intending.”

Archie nodded. Because he could see how hard the situation was. “How do I get Claudia not to get scared away…” he asked. Hell, I don’t know why I am asking for advice from my girlfriend’s mother, and especially since said woman does not even like me much, and probably sees my birth mother when she looks at me now.

Now… that it is all out Archie could not help but think. I don’t know all the warts in the story, but I know from my research that before her death, my biological mother caused a lot of pain.

“Because of the murky under layer of it all?” Liz asked, as if she knew what Archie was thinking. “I know you probably don’t want to hear this but Archie, all I can say to that is that you have to give my daughter time, because it’s not easy,” she sighed. “Because none of this is, and maybe I caused it by not talking about her backstory as you termed it, but there was reason for it. Because there is so much you don’t know. She is only beginning to know it. But believe me, silence was the only answer. Because you might think that it strange to hear, but I could not have her going and search for anything I did give her, and if she did, and she would have opened up a hornet’s nest that could have bit both of us,” she murmured. Because that was really at the heart of it. I did keep my daughter in the dark, but I could not have her waking up the sleeping beast she thought. The FBI had moved on, but they could come back and haunt us at any time, she sighed, they still could she sighed because she knew she was causing ripples in the river by coming back to this town as she looked at the confusion on Archie’s face. He does not understand she thought.

How could he? she sighed as she needed to continue. “By keeping her in the dark, I caused so much of what she is facing right now. And I regret that,” she sighed. “I hate that for her. But at the end of the day, we are where we are, and Claudia is her own person. And she is very different from me. And she will do what she wants to do, and we are past time where I can tell her what she is to do, and therefore, you need to give her time to see that there might be a chance…”

Archie nodded.

“Do you love my daughter?” Liz asked.

“Yes,” Archie said. “With all my heart.”

“Then give her time, and if it’s meant to be, it will work out” Liz sighed. Although love does not always make things work out in the end she would think because I loved her father with all my heart, and look where we are…

In a mess of my own making Liz knew.

“I will,” Archie sighed. “I better go,” he murmured. “Thank you for talking to me because I know you probably did not want too.”

“You aren’t your mother,” Liz sighed. Our children are not us she sighed. We did what we did, but they should not have to repent for what we did. And Archie should not have to pay for what Tess may or may not have done.

Although its not in dispute what she had done Liz muttered to herself. We are still living in the world that came from that time.

“She caused a lot of pain, didn’t she?” Archie asked.

“Unfortunately, she changed our lives” Liz sighed. Because she did not want to get in about what Tess had done. “But you should not wear it. Because you aren’t your birth mother,” she would murmured. “You are your own person.”

Archie nodded. “I hope Claudia sees that?”

“She will,” Liz said confidently. She never had to live with Tess in this world she sighed. “I am not saying it is not a bizarre situation because it is, but if it’s meant to be, you will find the right path for you.”

“Was the path you found for yourself the right one?” Archie asked.

I want to say yes, “I don’t regret it, even though I should. But I was doing it for the good of my family,” Liz sighed. That is what it is at the end of the day. “That gets me through the day. And the knowledge that we cannot change the past, and therefore, we have to live with the resulting consequences of our actions.”

Archie nodded. I wish we could go back and change things. “I better go to my room.”

Liz sighed as she looked at Archie walk away. She hoped that this worked out for her daughter. Even if it meant it was with Archie, because despite his paternity, although we don’t know who his father is she thought. But Archie was not his mother. Maybe he is like his father, whoever that is.

And just like that, a sudden remembrance came of a recent discussion she had. Shit she though and was immediately flung into a quandary.

*

Meanwhile,

Claudia did not know her boyfriend had gone to her mother for advice. Or anything they may have said to each other. She was nursing the beer, and it was only beer one she thought as she sat in her corner. She was listening to the music and finishing the drink. And when a waitress passed her, she ordered another one. They kept coming. After all, they believed she was of age, and therefore she did not have to show that forged card once more.

And she was believing that she was only one in the establishment she knew, but that would change. Even though she would not know this.

So, she continued to drink and listen to the music and know that she did not have to explain herself to anyone.

And that is what she wanted, to not think.

*

Outside,

“Why are we here?” Max was asking as he and Maria parked out in the parking lot. He still did not know why Maria was so scared to tell him what she had to say. She had been silent in the car, and he did know that she had called Michael on the way out of town, and Michael would report to Cow Patties whenever he was done with his appointment. So, it did not appear to be about Michael, and would I not know if it were he asked himself as he got out of the car and stood as he knew his sister had the inside track on anything sinister, or unreported situation when someone is not telling us something he thought.

Even though Isabel had not had to use her secret power in a long time to go searching through their minds, she knows we rather that she leaves us alone he knew, to make our own mistakes he thought, but he knew the truth about his sister, but sometimes Isabel has been known to be curious.

If Isabel knew anything than she would have come to him, I know this he thought so he stood outside of the country establishment that had been their go to avenue back in high school when Jim was singing here, that was a fun time he thought.

When he knew it was not a fun time for him, or for him and Liz.

But they had found this place and had coming to it over the years since he came back to town. It was a place he did not want to see tonight because he did not need to be thinking about the other night.

“Maria, maybe we should go somewhere else?” Max asked. “There has to be other places than this one?”

“Too late,” Maria smiled. “We are already here,” she said with a smirk. “There are not too many other places open these days. Cow Patties is the only one who has stuck in recent times,” she sighed, because she knew all the ins and outs of the bar establishments because of her career as a successful country musician. A career she was reinventing at the moment. But she knew of all the comings and goings.

“Why?” Max asked.

“Because of whom owes it” Maria asked. “Just maybe?”

“Oh, right” Max sighed.

“I am just guessing at that but given who she is related to. I would not put it past her to use her abilities to keep the place afloat.”

“Ava is not a bad person Maria,” Max sighed.

“I know she is not,” Maria agreed. “It is just hard sometimes to see her because she reminds me so much of you know…” she muttered, as she thought darkly of the person she did not want to think of and because of recent developments. It was a name on the tip of her tongue, and she would rather have gone anywhere other than this place given who she knew the owner to be, but beggars cannot be choosers she muttered to herself. “I don’t like the memories.”

“Neither do I” Max muttered. “And she does not look as much like youknowwho at the moment.”

“But still I cannot help it,” Maria muttered. “In engrained in me by now. But I want alcohol and I don’t know of any other place that would give me some entertainment and the substances I crave because the house has not been stocked up as of yet,” she sighed. Because we don’t want it too stocked up, she thought now that we have a seventeen year old in our home.

Even though she knew that her daughter was not a worry, not yet she thought. Lucy is a good girl. But there comes a time when all teenagers want to rebel.

“Jeez, what is going on?” Max asked. “What are you afraid to tell me?” he asked. “Is it something about Liz or even Claudia?” he asked a little fearful at the sudden thought. “Maybe that is why she came back to town?”

Damn Maria muttered as she knew she was setting off the instant fear in her friend. “Don’t worry about Liz Max,” she said with a reassurance. “It’s not that dire, and you probably have more of a inside track into why she came back to town than I do.”

“I doubt it,” Max muttered. Even though I know more than I should of my ex-wife but because of me, my former wife has these abilities to be able to control the information I do find out he muttered himself. “She did stay away from me for more than eighteen years.”

Maria could only sigh, “I know, I know” she murmured. “She kept secrets from me too, you know, which means that I did not know much more than you did on a whole host of things,” she muttered. “She came back to town to reinvent her life,” she sighed. “She got burnt out over the last years, and with JJ struggling. She decided a new town was in the cards. Unfortunately, the only town that could give her what she wanted, was this one.”

I am sure there were others he muttered. Why come back when I scare her, he thought as his mind was still sticking on what his former wife had confessed to him. “It did not give her anything for the last nineteen years.”

Stop coming back at me with good comebacks Maria muttered to herself. “I know, but we are different today than we were yesterday. We are all liable to change our minds,” she sighed, “I never imagined Michael, or I would be back in this town” she sighed as she and Max walked to the front door and got the flash of the atmosphere within the establishment. “You don’t have to worry about Liz.”

“Well, I do,” Max sighed.

“Fine if you want to, go ahead but she’s fine” Maria muttered. “She is not the reason why I am dragging you here.”

“Then who is it about?” Max asked. “Michael?”

“Of course not,” Maria muttered. “I know you and Isabel have the inside track to Michael’s secrets. Even more than I do,” she laughed.

“Then whom?” Max asked.

When Maria did not answer, he threw out a name that had also been on the top of his mind. “Claudia?”

*

No, maybe yes, but only partially Maria thought. But it was not Claudia that was bringing her here to get courage to remind Max of one of the hardest times in his life. But then unbeknownth to them, maybe he should be worried because inside, she was still at her table, but drinking more and more, which was concerning to even her, but she long knew she needed a lot of alcohol to get drunk. I have way more tolerance than I should have she told herself. But she was not wanting to think. She did not want to think or to feel, she wanted life to make sense. Because everything was in upheaval, and she did not know how to handle it.

I have long thought I could control my life Claudia thought. But I am finding that I am an amateur she thought.

Or a child she thought.

But I am not a child, I am eighteen, she thought once more. Maybe in the eyes of this place if they really knew my age she thought as she took another sip and did not feel any regret that she was underage and drinking.

I want to have fun she thought. She was willing to look in any direction to get away from the doubts she was having about her boyfriend.

“Hey, looking for some trouble?” came a voice that was coming to her table. Claudia could not help but groan. Because she usually batted these challenges away back home, my prior home she thought, because this is my hometown now, isn’t it?

It is but it did not feel like it to her yet. “So, what if I am?” came Claudia’s response.

“Can I buy you a beer?” came the man’s voice.

“Sure,” Claudia smiled. “I am game for that,” she sighed. “But I would rather dance…” she said as she got up and pulled the mystery guy to the dance floor just as her father and Maria came into the establishment and headed towards the bar.

To find Ava was not working this night. Which relieved Maria.

They looked at the dance floor, which was full, “Lively crew tonight” Max said softly as he looked around and did not see anyone he knew, at least not yet.

“It’s something I needed,” Maria sighed. When she did not even know she did. After being in Nashville so much for the last couple of decades, almost. She was surrounded by this, and part of her missed it, even though she loved her new life. The normalcy of it. But still the last years were still engrained in her, and by the love of music.

Max nodded. As he looked over at the bar. “I don’t see Ava.”

“Good,” Maria muttered.

“She’s not bad you know,” Max sighed.

“We have said that before, but I could use a night without having to be reminded of the past” Maria sighed even though so much was about the past, and why she needed to come here, with Max, and get drunk because she did not want to be the one to remind Max of a horrible time. He has already had a hard time as it is, so why does he need to be reminded of when he was conned, she sighed.

“You have something to tell me?” Max asked.

Ugh Maria muttered out loud, and it got an eyebrow raise by Max. “Where is Michael when I need him?”

“Obviously not here,” Max murmured.

“He’s coming,” Maria muttered of the text that she had gotten as they arrived outside. “Should not be too much longer.”

“So, are you going to tell me what you need to tell me?” Max asked once more because he was becoming more and more convinced that it was something.

“No,” Maria muttered. “I need alcohol first.” Then comes the soul crushing bombshells…

Max could only shake his head, and Maria did not care as she walked towards the bar. Stopping at an empty stool, she looked across the bar. “Ava here?”

“Nope,” came the bartender. “Off tonight.”

Perfect Maria nodded. “Two beers,” she ordered.

“No problem,” the bartender murmured. “You know that you are the not the only one who was asking for the boss,” the girl said as she filled the glasses for Maria, so she could take it over to Max who was getting a table, if one should open up.

So far, no luck.

But that was not Maria’s problem, as she was concentrating on the alcohol. “Who was?” Maria could not help but ask. Because usually she was not worried, but when someone was asking for their resident duplicate. Someone who was a reminder of a time in the past, whether Maria wanted to be reminded of it or not.

“That one, over there” the bartender said as she had seen Claudia head onto the dance floor with some mystery man.

Maria looked over and she immediately regretted it, Shit she muttered to herself as she looked at Claudia, who was obviously dancing her heart out, and it was obvious she had been drinking, and having too good of a time, damn it she thought as she looked at Max who was no where near, thank god she muttered. “You are serving her?”

“One beer, but she might have gotten more from the waitresses,” came the bartender.

“She’s underage,” Maria quibbled.

“She does not look underage,” the bartender muttered. “She gave me an ID card,” she muttered as she walked away.

I am sure she did Maria muttered and given who she is. She likely came by it very easily, and without it costing a fortune.

Which was something she had not had to have when she was her goddaughter’s age. Because we were way too busy doing quasi dangerous things to think about something mundane as usual teenage angst.

Although there were moments for Max and Kyle Maria thought.

But Max did not let himself become too loose she thought. Pity, because it would have lessen a lot of the angst for both of her friends, because everything was way too uptight, she murmured to herself.

She knew she could say more to the bartender, but she took the woman’s disinterest in the situation as a cue not to make the situation worse for Claudia. She's legally an adult, but not according to the drinking gods she muttered as she walked to Max with the drinks. “We have trouble.”

“What?” Max asked. “I found a table?”

“I see,” Maria sighed.

“So, what is going on?” Max asked. After more than twenty years of knowing the one-time Maria Deluca. Max could tell when she was overwhelmed, and that was what this night was all about, I know something about that feeling and because he had his own battles to deal with, I am not going to say no to alcohol in this land of uber, and taxi’s so that I can get home safely.

Assuming I want to go home.

Max was aware he was still hiding from going home. Which is not something that I was known to want until now…

“We have trouble” was all Maria could say. As she tried to figure out this one more thing.

“What is it?” Max asked.

“It’s Claudia,” Maria sighed.

“What about my daughter?” Max asked even though he still was not sure he was adjusted that he was a father, I have always known I was a father, but she was not in my life he thought, as he knew so much has happened in mere days.

“Look,” Maria muttered as she pointed to the dance floor.

Max took a look, and he could not believe it. “What on earth?” he asked as he saw that his daughter was making a spectacle on the dance floor.

Shit, he sighed.

Maria would think the same thing.

[Parker1947]

Over the course of the last few days, Max had been forced to come to terms with a lot, has it only been a few days? he would ask himself and he would have concede that yes, it has indeed been a memorable few days. Why can’t this be over he muttered. But then life is never over. I just have to deal with it. Even thought as it was feeling like it had been way longer and was becoming endless at this point. But unfortunately for Max, it was what it was, and he had to come to terms with a lot, and it was feeling like it was coming to a head. After having eighteen years to be oblivious to what was out there waiting to collide with him. And now it was all here, and he had to handle it. After eighteen years of not having his daughter in his life. For letting his wife walk out on him and take her with her, so much could have been different if only we had made a different choice or two, he knew. But that was not to help this situation. As he was getting a reminder that his daughter was no longer the baby she once was. That would be too easy he knew.

She was a little girl who was growing up away from him, and now is eighteen and looking way too old he thought as he saw his little girl on the dance floor. Dancing it up with some stranger. Someone he did not know. Even though Roswell was a small town. And they pretty much knew most of the town, but of course, the reality was that they did not know everyone, and there was a segment of the population that existed out of their bubble.

And now his daughter was dancing with someone he did not know. What else is new he thought, because of course, he had kept to himself over the years since his lost his family and lost his reason for living. But he did not lay down and die. He got up and tried to move on, and some days it was quite successfully.

And he was forced to move along even though it seemed like one long day since he walked into the Crashdown and seen his little girl for the first time in eighteen years, since she was three months old.

That day she was a force of nature, and it had blown his mind as he remembered his first impressions of his daughter. And he was still coming to terms with it, yes, you are coming to terms with a lot, Max, he told himself as he once more looked at his little girl on the dance floor. Because even though her antics on the dance floor was a reminder that she was no longer the three-month-old he last saw.

She was growing up. And wanting to sow her oats, and she was very determined to show that she was now an adult in the eyes of the world. Of course, he had seen that before, I had that clue with Archie he thought.

So, I don’t need a reminder of this he thought of how suggestive his daughter was being on the dance floor. “What has gotten in her?” he asked. Where is Archie? he wondered. Because nothing indicated in his last conversation with his daughter was that there was trouble in paradise. If anything, she was willing to battle to see him over her mother and me.

But Max and Liz knew better than to forbid their child from being with someone she wanted; we learned the hard way what it feels like to be forbidden he thought. And knew that so much that went on during senior year was because of obstacles put in the way. Still, it did not make sense because of that last interaction with his daughter.

Daughter, he thought. I am still getting used to that…

Next him, all Maria could think was Heartbreak as she took a glance of Claudia on the dance floor. Because she knew things that Max did not know.

In more ways than simply knowing about Tess.

And of course, that is why I am here to ply Max with alcohol to tell him that Tess’s son was in town and was not any ordinary kid. But his daughter’s boyfriend and therefore she did not know how to him about this new chapter of their soap opera.

Because their life was very much like a soap opera. Too much so with every passing day she thought. After nearly two decades of having, it be calm.

What we did not know was that we were only being kept in the dark, and now we are out in the light Maria thought as she heard the music blaring around them, and she wanted to join in on the celebration after a horrible year.

“I don’t know,” Maria finally said. Even though she did.

“You don’t look very surprised, so what is going on Maria?” Max asked.

“I don’t know,” Maria said once more. “It’s really not my place to say anything,” she sighed as she knew it was why she was here, to tell him about Archie but I don’t need this she thought. She did not need this. I rather deal with my own family she thought because she needed to get Lucy ready for her future.

Whether her daughter wanted her help or not.

I don’t need this, Maria thought. But this was part of being in this little fraternity. I have to care she thought.

“Something tells me it is,” Max asked.

“That is another conversation, this is new, and you have to deal with Claudia Max” Maria sighed, because she knew her conversation could be for another time. Even though she did sense that it was all mixed up in the same thing that they were now battling. Claudia would not be here after all, if it were simple, she thought. “Max,” Maria sighed.

“Fine, but I suspect you know something” Max said as he knew it did nothing to stay and try to get something out of her friend, because he knew too well by now that Maria could be as stubborn as her husband. Shaking his head, he chose to walk towards his daughter while Maria sighed, because she knew this was going to get out of hand.

Was it?

*

Claudia did not care whether it was going to or not. She was past caring. She didn’t want to think, and this was her mission for being here. So, she danced up a storm and wished for tomorrow to come so she could know what she wanted to do. Having a little fun won’t harm me she thought. Because eventually I will wake up and have to deal with what is to come “You are a great dancer…”

“So, are you are,” came the person she was dancing. “I am Chase,” came the gentlemen. “What is your name?”

The request for her name caused Claudia to flinch because this was not what she wanted for the night. So, she bristled, and tried to be nameless. For one night, I don’t have to give myself to anyone. “Let’s not get into names,” Claudia sighed because she just wanted to dance. And not think about what was behind her name, and what she did not know about her own life, why cannot I have some peace she thought.

“Sure,” Chase muttered.

“Claudia,” came a voice, and she bristled. Damn it she muttered to herself as she looked at the man coming her way. I know his voice even though we have only known each other for a few days.

Were them as memorable as they were her father, I cannot tell you she muttered to herself. Because I want it to make sense she thought. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “I thought I had this corner of town to myself.”

“This is a public place,” Max Evans asked as he glanced at his eighteen-year-old daughter. “I am of age to be here, but are you?” he asked, because he knew better than to state the fact his daughter was currently underage and was should not be in a place that serves alcohol, especially when it is clear she is drinking he thought. “Claudia?”

“That is my name,” Claudia muttered. “And I am of age,” she muttered even though she knew she had used a fake license to get served. I could have just come for the music and stayed away from the alcohol she knew.

But where is the fun in that? Claudia muttered.

Huh, where is that fun she smiled, and Max did not feel that it was that funny. “Lighten up a bit Dad,” she sighed as she used the title for the guy looking at her, even though we don’t feel like father and daughter she knew.

Brazen Maria thought as she watched, as she walked up, Damn that girl she thought.

As she knew generations of teenagers had done something like that. I didn’t because I had a little thing about being in love with an alien she thought, but I knew that I could have gotten in trouble she thought, because I once sang in this joint when I was eighteen…

New York was a result she thought. That was a disaster she thought.

Okay, maybe not she murmured. I just learned my dreams were in different places, and I was able to make it work with Michael. And we were able to have Lucy.

So, yeah, dreams come in different ways, and not in ways we would expect she now knew. And one day Claudia would learn that no matter what life throws at her in the ensuring journey she sighed. “You are of age,” she agreed. Eighteen she thought. “But there is more to it, is it not?” she asked of her goddaughter.

“Whatever,” Claudia muttered.

“She’s eighteen,” Max said. As he was ready to be the parent in the situation. Whether Claudia wanted him to be, I am your father he thought. You might not like me today, but you will be better for it tomorrow.

Chase stepped back, “Really?” he asked of not Max or Maria but of Claudia.

“Unreal,” Claudia muttered. "You won’t let me have one night alone to unwind and do something that does not have the whole world telling me what I should think or feel” she muttered. She knew she was spinning, and out of control. And she needed to feel that balance, and it was only getting more and more extreme for her. While deep down, she knew her father was concerned for her. I should be happy he cares for me she thought. But I don’t care. “Maybe Mom had the right idea in taking me away from you,” she blurted, and she saw it was a direct hit at her father. As he had winced. I know, I know, I am sorry she thought. But she was not ready to say those words. “In fact, I don’t need you playing the role of my father, because we might be related, but you are not my father” she blurted. “So, please, stop trying to ruin my life?” she asked. “I have had enough of this,” she said as she rushed off.

That went well Max thought.

Being a parent sucks Maria knew. But I raised my kid she knew. But it still sucks she thought. “Do you want me to go after her?” she asked of her friend.

“No, I should do it,” Max sighed.

“That is the last thing you should be doing,” Maria sighed. “She is already too hyped up, and you might just make it worse” she sighed because they were both of the opinion, that he had probably made it worse and that is the last thing he should be doing.

“What is wrong with her?” Max asked. “I thought she was happy with the boyfriend” he muttered as he was still not ready to comprehend how old his daughter was, and how serious she and Archie Holmes were, even though I am trying too he sighed.

The boyfriend is the issue Maria knew. “Leave it to me.”

“No, Maria, you let me handle it. I am her father, and it should be me,” he allowed. He knew Maria was trying to be helpful, but I am her father, and I need to handle this he sighed because he had no idea what was happening. “But thanks,” he sighed as he was totally ignoring the strange in the midst. “You have always been a friend to me.”

“I try,” Maria sighed as she watched as Max followed in the path of his daughter, as Claudia had raced off, outside. “Sometimes I feel like a teenager, myself” she muttered. “Perfect, Deluca” she muttered softly, unaware that Chase had heard it.

“You are Maria Deluca?” Chase asked.

The sudden invasion of her inner quandary with someone she did not know, who seemed to know her name. “What if it is?” she sighed. It was my name, once upon a time she knew. I may have taken my married name, but I am still a Deluca at heart.

“Nothing,” Chase said softly. “Nothing at all. I better get going,” he said. “I didn’t know she was only eighteen.”

“No, I am sure you did not” Maria sighed. “That is how she wanted it,” she sighed. We girls never want to own up to our ages she thought.

She still did. But I have a teenager at home, telling me how old I am.

She critically accessed the guy walking towards the door, wondering if they should be worried about this guy. Something about him is weird she thought. The vibe coming from him is off putting she thought.

Not that I know that kind of thing, but I know when someone is trying to get information she sighed. Obviously, she did not know the situation.

Sighing, she went back to the bar, to herself a drink. Because she figured she was going to need one before long.

*

Meanwhile,
Outside…

Max was wishing he had a little alcohol in his system or in his hand so that he could know how to deal with this. Not that it would make it any better. Because after years of having not been a father, because both chances were taken from me, he thought, even if he had to amend those thoughts if were to be honest wit himself, certainly by my own choice, he knew. But still, those actions had caused him to be single.

And not having to deal with being a father or the emotions that came with it. So, he was now getting a wakeup call because while Michael and his sister had their children and become parents, and were living the dreams that Max once held, if only it could with Liz he murmured, he was the single uncle. Living in background, and at times almost being envious and bitter at how it had gone so badly for him, even as it had allowed to be the spoiling uncle he thought. To Kyla and then Poppy and Katy because Lucy was living elsewhere. But it had allowed him to the kids when given the chance, and it had meant that I did not have to deal with what it would mean to be a parent. The daily emotions, and he could take the kids home at the end of the day, or let their own parents pick them up after some adventure of or so.

Even though I was distant, still I enjoyed those days…

Because Max knew that my chance was taken away from me Max knew. So, it was causing him not to know how to deal with how quickly his fortunes were changing and now his daughter was in town, and clearly crying out for help. And he was helpless to help because he did not know what made her tick. Or how to handle her because I never got a chance to know her.

And it was not even a dig at her mother Max thought. Not this time he thought. Because I don’t blame Liz for this, because the past is the past, and I have to deal with the present he muttered. And the present was his daughter. Who was clearly calling out for help. So, he wished he could have some kind of aid to help cure his nerves, because they were fluttering big time. I remember only one other time when I was like this.

And it was with Claudia mother he thought. Although technically, I didn’t think I had a chance with her that night, when I decided to get drunk with Kyle he murmured. A night before I was eighteen, so how can I be mad at my daughter for acting like a teenager? he murmured to herself. Teenagers need to rebel sometimes, and we need to express ourselves and react sometimes.

Certainly, it was for me, Max thought as he knew he had been drinking that night with Kyle was because Liz was out with another man because of that damn radio contest that Maria had signed his dream girlfriend up for.

One sip had made him tipsy, he thought. And way too drunk for my own good he thought. Boy has my tolerance been built up.

Therefore, he did not want to see that same thing happen with his daughter, but she is much more human than I was he thought. But for now, as he was following his daughter out in the parking lot, and seeing her rushing behind the building, and puking.

A time old tradition he supposed. But something he had not done. Because I keep my drinking to house limits, he thought, mostly. And therefore, he tried to uphold his dignity when out and about. Although it does not always work, he sighed.

But I try.

And he knew he was about to lose it as he dealt with his daughter.

I have to be the adult here he thought, as he was thinking to himself as he was having quite the session of debating with himself. So, he cut off that debate and asked. “Claudia are you okay?” he asked as his daughter steadied herself as she got to her feet and was looking very queasy. I know the feeling he thought.

It is why I stay at home for my drinking he thought. When I decide to consume too much.

“Can’t you let me puke in peace,” Claudia muttered as she was clearly not ready for this moment as she had groaned when she saw her father walking towards. “You were gone all my life. Why must you try to play father,” she grunted. “Now, of all times?”

Wincing at the knowledge of so much missed time. She has never expected me to be here he thought. “I am not playing a part Claudia,” Max sighed as he glanced at his daughter. She looks so much like her mother he thought. And knew that was not something he should be trying to say to his daughter, not now he thought. As he looked at his dream child from his dream woman. No, I am not playing a part he thought, even if it was a part that I would have loved to have played all your life he thought, ruing all the missed time. But the past is the past he murmured; I cannot litigate the past. “I am your father, and I am here to help you,” he murmured as it was obvious his daughter needed some help, badly he thought. “Can you answer me this question, are you okay?”

Hell, no Claudia knew, but wisely kept quiet, and was determined to put on a false show of what was going on. Towards the man she did not know. He does not know me, and I don’t know him she sighed. “I am peachy,” Claudia muttered. Even though she knew she was as far away from being fine as you could possibly get but she did not need her father trying to worm himself into the situation and trying to make the situation better because I am where I am, because of my father she murmured. This is all his fault she muttered at the thought of her boyfriend almost being her brother. “You might have helped Mom create me, but you are not my father.”

“I know,” Max said wincing once more because it had been right on target. “I am not trying to be” Max sighed. Even though he knew he would have loved to be acting as her father, in more ways than simply blood and biology “I would have loved to have been there for you, but unfortunately that was not to be, but you are here now, and I would love to be able to help you, and it clear you do need some help. So, if you want, you can let me help. But only on your terms. I am not looking to push anything on you…”

“Like hell you are,” Claudia muttered. “Why are you here if you are not trying to push me to accept you?”

“I am only trying to help you” Max sighed. Oh Claudia. As he was feeling helpless. And he could not even blame his former wife for separating him from his daughter, that is something else he knew as he could feel the breakdown on his daughter’s face. This feels different, he sighed as he could see the emotional weight on his daughter’s face.

“Don’t okay, don’t” Claudia muttered as she was feeling sick, and drunk. I hate this feeling she thought, It always is fun to let loose, but then you wake up and you have to deal with the side effects of getting wasted she sighed. “I am this way, because of you.”

Huh Max murmured, tell me that one again he asked as he was unsure of what Claudia was meaning. “Because I didn’t drive you here, to Cow Patties, when you are underage, and I did not have you lie about your age and drink up a storm.”

“Maybe that is on me,” Claudia allowed. If I was being charitably, but she knew she was not. “But you are the reason I am like this today of all days,” she sighed. “It should have been so simple…” she muttered as she looked out into the parking lot. Drunk, and a mess, and not caring that it was getting colder by the minute. And not simply because of the weather Max knew as the night was wearing on. The temperature was cold, but his daughter was red hot.

But feeling ice cold.

“What should have been simple?” Max asked.

“I came to this town to know more,” Claudia muttered. “When I should have stayed with Grandma and Grandpa or gone back to Boston because coming here changed my life, and its all because of you.”

“Hold up,” Max muttered as he was not computing any of this “What did I do?”

“You are the reason my boyfriend is where he is, and who he is” Claudia murmured. As she knew full well that she was ranting, and not making a lot of sense, and her father did not deserve it, but he’s here, is he not?

“If you think I did something to Archie?” Max asked. Obvious lost to know what was making his daughter so upset. “As I told you before, I had nothing to do with him going missing,” he asked. “Did you find him?” he asked of his daughter. She must have, otherwise she would not be lighting into me like this he sighed.

“Oh, I found him alright” Claudia muttered.

“What happened?” Max asked, unsure whether he should be getting his daughter to unburden herself at this moment, she’s upset, and she is still a little drunk he thought. She might not remember in the morning.

Which is something she might want…

“Claudia?” Max asked. “Tell me what is going on?”

“It’s all your fault,” Claudia blurted even though she knew she was ranting, and what she was saying was not making a lot of sense. Not even to me she murmured. “If you have not stepped out on Mom, then you would not have thought you had gotten Tess Harding pregnant, then I would not have almost had a brother….” she blurted, and the flashes to the past made Max flinch as this was the last thing he expected to have heard from his daughter.

“What are you talking about?” Max asked. “Tess Harding has nothing to do with you,” he sighed. “She’s dead.”

“IF she were not dead, you might have gotten some answers before you gave the kid you believed to be yours away for adoption, and he would not have been raised elsewhere…”

Max was completely confused now, what on earth?

Precisely. What on earth. But unfortunately, Max had no idea of the emotional breakdown of his daughter, and what she was carrying in on her shoulders. “I am lost.”

“Of course,” Claudia muttered. “What else is new. You are always lost?”

Jeez Max sighed. I have had an enough of this he sighed, and he knew better than to reason with a drunk teenager. Especially when she is unleashing on me, and ranting and raving and not making a ounce of sense. “Tell me Claudia, what is going on. How does my past with your mother and Tess Harding have anything to do with you, or the fact I once did believe I had another child out there, which would tell me in time that no, it was not true. Because, no, I don’t have a son, and you don’t have a brother…”

“For a minute I did,” Claudia sighed.

“But you don’t now…” Max sighed. “I am sorry for my past with Tess and how I hurt your mother. I will always regret it, and I wish so much could have been different. And maybe if I made different choices, or figured it out before I did, than things might be different, but nothing changes the fact I love your mother. And for a brief time, she gave me a second chance, and eventually we would have you,” he sighed because he was fully aware that if any of those decisions had been changed than maybe I would not have had Liz marry me or have our daughter so briefly in my life.

“Yes, you did” Claudia muttered.

“Then what is wrong?” Max asked.

“Simple,” Claudia muttered. “It’s because of you that Tess Harding’s son is here in town…”

And with that, it felt like the roof was falling in on him. And we are not even indoors he sighed as he knew they were outside, fortunately, but it still felt like worm hole was opening and taking him back two decades. Because none of this made sense to him. Max assumed it had to be about him and the fact he and her mother had not been able to last, and therefore naturally her life had been one of thing after another, but this about Tess’s son he thought, my almost son. “He’s in this town?” he asked as he was trying to convince himself. What hell is this?

Who knows.

What on earth? Max asked softly as flashes of that time crossed over his face, whether he wanted them too or not. How is that even true? “That makes no sense, why would he be here?” he asked because this was not anything he knew about. If he’s here, then why don’t I know it? “There is no way Tess’s son is here in town.”

“You are wrong Dad,” Claudia muttered. “He’s here, and it’s ruined my life.”

“How would it do that?” Max asked.

“He’s Archie Dad,” Claudia blurted, and Max wanted to faint, but he kept standing and quiet. As Claudia with all her hurt, whether it makes sense to me or not, was aiming at her father. Blaming him for this disclosure upending her life. As if Max had any fault in any of this. Because Max did not think so. But Claudia did not care. “Because of you, my almost brother is my boyfriend. So, if I want to get a little drunk, then let me, because you and Mom both screwed with my life. And because of you, I am a mess” she yelled as she did not stay because she then ran off again…

Leaving a shocked Max, stunned.

What on earth? Max asked again. As if his brain was trying to make sense of it, which it is he thought. How is it even possible he asked, once more as he sounded out the bombshell as if it to make it sound believable. “Archie is Tess’s son?” he asked in almost disbelief.

Disbelief would be almost easy, compared to what he was feeling.

And before he could go after his daughter, not that she particularly wanted him to at the moment but before he could, he heard “Yes,” came a familiar voice, and he turned and found that it was two people he knew too well, because Michael and Maria were now staring at him. And they had words that would confound him. “So, you now know?”

[Parker1947]

How is this true? Max was asking himself as he felt like he had fainted, but nope, he was still standing and was feeling like he had been put throw the ringer, and for some reason he was still standing. When he did not know how to make any sense of it. And Michael and Maria were still staring at him. Because during the course of Max’s conversation with is daughter, if you could call it a conversation Max thought as Michael had also arrived but did not see the collision of father and daughter because they had been closer to the edge of Cow Patties because of Claudia’s puking session, and so once Michael arrived, he would not have known what was going on.

So, he had gone to find his wife, and with Maria knowing that Max had come out into the open air to find his daughter and when he did not stagger back in, she decided to come and preceded to drag her husband outside with her, who had rather have gone for the beer that he had been wanting than witnessing any tension between father and daughter, But my wife calls the shots he murmured to himself. “Yes, we know” came Maria who had decided to answer for her husband.

Who was now clearly accessing his friend and wondering if he was going to collapse. And would they had to deal with a fainting spell.

Which is a distinct possibly Michael knew. Only Liz would get him too he knew, but now everything was different, and he definitely knew that Claudia could give her mother a run for her money, in shelling someone with a bombshell and then running.

Definitely the daughter is like the mother was Michael’s quick assessment, and even though he was still not a fan of the girl’s mother, he knew Claudia did not earn any of what her life has brought, so he was a little more lenient for Max’s daughter.

Especially since he knew the bombshell was a big one. Life changing in some ways, even if they are not related.

But still, it’s tabloid-esque Michael thought, even if I am a tabloids’ dream, and they don’t even know it.

Still this day’s bombshell was not something he would wish on his friend because even though had lived far from here, I know how Tess’s betrayal haunts him to this day he thought, even if he never would have wanted to have had the child be his if he could have chosen it but to be told you had a kid, and then told it’s all a lie.

A hoax Michael thought. Tess had to have known he thought dismissively of the blonde who had blown apart his friend’s life. No wonder, she was dealing with a human kid and running to escape certain death on that planet he muttered.

But it was not something she thought to share Michael thought, and now someone else is the father, and that stings, and Michael knew it. Even though we still don’t know who the father is, but that thought was not keeping him up at night, I don’t really care to be honest with you.

But I do care that Max is getting screwed all over again he would think. First by Liz, and now with this revelation about Archie Holmes. It is bound to bring back nightmares that were in the distant path he sighed. “You know?”

“Obviously,” Max said softly. “Claudia just blurted it out,” he muttered. “She blames me for ruining her life and thinks that this all because of me.”

“She’s hurt, and she does not know which end is up on a whole host of things,” Maria sighed as she felt for the girl. It is not easy to find this out about your first big love she thought. I had to deal with it in my own way, with falling in love with an alien. “She will come around.”

“Will she,” Max asked as she looked away as if he could see his daughter in the distance but nope, Claudia was gone.

And he did not know where she had gone, but that was the most pressing concern because he was trying to comprehend the rant his daughter had just laid on him, it cannot possibly be true right he was asking him. “None of this makes any sense,” he was muttering to himself. Not really directing it to his friends, “How could it be true?” he was asking, as he was trying to make it make sense. “Are you really telling me that Archie Holmes is Tess’s son?”

“If we believe what he is saying?” Maria asked. “I have not seen proof, but there is a distinct possibly that it is true,” she was saying even though she wished it could be a hoax because he did not want this to be true, for the pain it was causing Claudia she thought, because it is going to take a lot to come out the other side she thought. Because even they are not related.

Still, it is definitely not going to be easy because there was so much baggage among the families, “He has not shown a DNA test, but his story adds to what we know what happened when the baby came back into your life, and you know…”

“I found out the truth?” Max asked. As he was still living down that shock. “Because the boy was sick.”

“Yes,” Maria nodded. “Archie claims he was sick as an infant, and his adoptive parents came here, and tried to find his biological father, only to find out that….”

“The name on the birth certificate was wrong, and I was not the father?” Max asked as again as he felt like he was being ambushed. It was not like I liked the idea of being the father of that baby he thought. Because for so long, I wished it was all one of Tess’s famous mind warps he thought, and well she had played with my mind before, did she not.

So, why did not I see the truth, or ask for more proof Max asked of himself, But then I connected with the baby, and that seemed to indicate what any human paternity test also would tell me, he sighed, which tells me I was likely the father, but then she lost the baby.

Or I am trying to tell myself that she lost the baby because the shocker had completely rocked my relationship with the love of my life over an ill-timed tryst that if I was stronger, I would never have done he thought. If only I had restrained myself, then I would not have had to deal with it.

But Tess wanted off the planet, Max thought, because of a deal that I would learn about when it was too late.

Or I thought it was too late Max sighed as he was continuing his inner debate with himself. Because I believed I was the father he thought.

Only time would tell him that he had been wrong.

Completely wrong. And yet again I was taken it by Tess Harding he thought as he visioned the devious blonde, who had betrayed their group so badly, and he had fallen for her charms, and schemes.

Now it was adding up to be Archie Holmes, Shit Max would think to himself as he was racking his brain to go back in time and remember whether it was the Holmes family who had come to him in a quest to help their new son.

And he could not remember. I blocked so much out of that time. And it could be true, but I have no memories really of it, just broad strokes of the story…

Archie is Tess’s son? Max asked himself softly, and then he connected it to his daughter. Oh god he would moan.

“Claudia?” Max asked, once more as it was really setting in. “I guess that it is no wonder that she hates me?” I would hate myself if I could.

And I definitely put myself through a lot of hell back in the day he knew.

“She does not hate you” she murmured. “She just does not understand it,” Maria counselled. How can she? “Because truthfully, I don’t see how anyone could believe it. And because she has so many other issues at the moment,” she was thinking, to put it mildly. “She is lumping it all in and blaming you for it.”

“Maybe, she has cause to?” Max thought. “Because I did sleep with Tess, and I did think the boy was my son.”

“But he’s not, and that does not make them related now” Michael murmured as he was now entering the conversation. “There is nothing that makes them related in any sense of the word, and we all get that it is a kick to the gut, but it will be something that she will come out of,” he suggested. “It might even make her stronger?”

As if that is what is important now Maria thought, No one wants to think of months from now. “It’s a lousy situation, but you need to let her come to terms with it.”

Max sighed, but he knew his friends were telling the truth. “So, I should be staying away from her?”

“That is up to you,” Maria murmured. “Because she does need some space.”

Max sighed. Because he was at a loss of what he could give to his daughter to make her understand. Maybe taking a little time away from each other, will help. “I can give her that too her.”

“Just don’t give her too much,” Maria warned, as if she knew what Max was possibly planning, even as she knew that the situation did need to be turned down, instead of being turned up. “She needs her father.”

Unsure of what to do. Max was at a loss to comprehend any of this. This really makes no sense. “She needs someone,” Max sighed, “I am not sure she needs a father she does not know” he allowed. “Or who she sees as being a cause of her problems.”

Unfortunately, that was the situation they had here, and they all knew. “I need something to drown in,” Max would mutter.

“Precisely, my thoughts” Maria sighed, and she turned to Michael. “How about it, let us go back in and drown in our miseries, and hope tomorrow will be better?” she thought, as she wished midnight would come, because this has been a long ass day.

That got Max to smile, and Maria liked that. “Space Boy?” she asked of her husband.

“Go in,” Michael suggested as she saw a car heading into the parking lot, and he needed to deal with this situation. “I see a friend that I need to talk too, but I won’t be long” he would mutter as Max and Maria nodded, and walked back towards the entrance to Cow Patties, while Michael turned as she saw a couple get out of a car.

And walk to towards him, Just great Michael would think as aggravation was warranted as he saw who was approaching. “Ava?” Michael muttered.

“Michael?” Ava sighed. “What are you doing here?”

“Having a drink with my wife, and friend” Michael muttered without elaborating the friend, but Ava of course knew who it was. “Who is this?” he would ask of the person accompanying the alien to the bar.

“My date,” Ava muttered. “Is it any of your business?” she sighed as she glanced over to her date. “Richard, sorry for this intrusion.”

“No, problem” the date said. “You did tell me that coming here would provide drama?”

“Yes, I did” Ava smiled. I was thinking more of the drunk customer variety. “Will you excuse us Michael,” she asked of the grunting alien.

“No, I need to talk to you?” Michael muttered. “We have business to discuss,” he would pointedly say. “And not with this loser listening to our conversation,” he would mutter as he would quickly access the man. “Is he not too old for you?” he asked of the grey hair on the man’s head. “It’s family business, and he’s not family,” he said just as pointedly.

And Ava bristled at the use of the word, family and she knew it was about the larger clan. This cannot be any good she thought. And I thought getting away from the bar would be nice for a change.

Am I wrong? Ava asked.

But she was not going to give Michael ground to insult her dates, "Maybe I like them old,” Ava batted back, as she smiled. “Richard, can you meet me inside?” she would ask of her date even though she did not want to give Michael the win, because she knew she had to deal with this, and it was better outsider, than in a bar filled with eyes of all variety. And cellphones, with camera’s she would admit. This age sucks to be someone hiding in plain sight.

“Sure,” the date said, and walked away but before he could, he would turn and stare at Michael. “Your name would not be Michael Guerin by chance?” the date asked quietly.

Of course, I am Michael would think. But by saying his name at all, got the former alien second in command, and soldier even more indignant, as he glared at Ava, who winced, this will not be good she thought to herself. “My name is not your business.”

Maybe it is, was muttered beneath any semblance of understanding by the mystery man as he walked into Cow Patties, as Michael could only glared at one of them, but someone not meant to be here he thought to himself. “Ava. Are you talking about us, with your dates?’ he accused. “What gives you a right?”

Nothing gives me the right Ava knew, as she squirmed. “As if it is any of your business, no, I have not talked with Richard about anything in my life. Just that I run this bar, and he thought he would like to see, it and it made for a nice end to our evening,” she sighed. “Therefore, I had no reason to suspect that he might know your name,” she sighed, which is not very good on the surface of it she knew. “We had no idea you would be here.”

“Obviously,” Michael agreed.

“What do you want Michael?” Ava asked tired of this drama. “It has been a long day, and I was looking forward to a nice evening, which is what it was until we came back here, so if you excuse me, I will go join Richard.”

“No,” Michael muttered. “Because we have things to discuss.”

“What could we possibly discuss?” Ava asked, totally in the dark about what Michael would want to discuss. We keep our distance she both knew, and it helped he lived elsewhere he sighed. “You keep your business to yourself, and I do the same.”

“I want to know if this was all a con?”

“Excuse me?” Ava asked.

“Did you set up Tess’s son to come to this town and bring back bad memories?” Michael accused, and Ava was taken back by the blunt of the attack and also the mere idea.

Really? Ava thought. That makes no sense.

Okay, maybe for rest of my fraternity Ava knew. Because she knew she was not really in good standing with the Roswell chapter. New York casts a long shadow she knew. Even if some were kind of enough to her, but Michael was one who was always wary of her, and I know it even when I am doing nothing that you have an issue. “What would I do that?” she asked. “Are you telling me Archie Holmes in my sister’s mystery son?” she asked in case there was anyone listening in, because she had to make pretenses for anyone who might have known Tess Harding back in the day that they were sisters, instead of duplicates she would think.

Clones she thought. But we are very different people because she did not think Tess would ever have moved on from what she believed her destiny was, she thought,

Max, and ruling Antar.

Even though Ava was smart enough to see the fallacy of it, to think that they would let you rule even if your son was the king’s heir.

Even if Tess ended up going by the smoke and mirror approach and tried to con a whole other planet Ava thought.

“How did you know who I was talking about?” Michael flinched. “I did not give a name?”

“Claudia was here looking for her boyfriend,” she murmured oh boy, she sighed. “She thought Archie might be drowning his sorrow, apparently they had a tough time, or that is what I assume happened, and she happened to show me his photo, and mention his name” she sighed. This is so not what I want to be dealing with… “That is all I know of the situation.”

“You did not ask him to come to this town and mess with things?” Michael asked.

“Why in the hell would I want to do that?” Ava asked. “I have no reason to do such a thing. Because my sister’s kid was put up for adoption when he was a baby, and I have had no contact with him over the years and have no idea what kind of kid he is today.”

“Are you sure?” Michael asked.

“Oh, shut the fuck up” Ava muttered as she wanted to say more as she cursed out Michael. “I understand the need to be concerned for our group but accusing me of something I did not do simply because of who my sister might be is going too far,” she cursed. “Tess did what she did, but I have nothing to do with what she did. Because we are different people,” she muttered, we might be, but maybe not she thought of our duplicate status. “You don’t have to like me, and I don’t have to like you, but I am not Tess.”

“I never said you were” Michael muttered.

“Then stop treating me like I am some vulture because of who my sister was,” Ava muttered. “I am not her, and I never have wanted to be. Michael, I hate what she did, and I have had to live that down. And if you are right, and assuming Archie Holmes is indeed Tess’s son, then I had no part in him coming to this town. Because it is probably an insane coincidence,” she muttered as she thought of Claudia, oh boy, she muttered. “I like Max.”

“You say you do? “Michael muttered, and little too wearily for Ava’s liking, and it only made her more incense.

“Oh, grow up Michael,” Ava muttered. “There is nothing sinister in me liking Max. I like him. As a friend,” she would clarify. “I don’t like him like that,” she sighed. “I have always seen him as a friend. And treated him as such, as he does with me when we see each other. We have never changed that because I know how much he loves Liz,” she muttered. “From back in the day, and even today,” because it’s clear as day that Max is pining for his loss love, and why would I mess with that? And said as such. “And why would I want that in my life,” she sighed. “I know how much Tess hurt Max, and I know the scars he carries from that time,” she muttered. “The last thing I would do is hurt him now, by messing with his daughter’s relationship.”

Michael could only shake he head as if he did not truly believe her words. Which aggravated Ava even more.

“I have had enough of this,” Ava muttered. “I am going back to my date. Leave me alone Michael. Because I am not looking to cause trouble to you, or your friends,” she sighed. “I am just trying to lead my own life,” she murmured. “And I have to own an establishment that you have been finding entertaining for your own pursuits, so don’t rock the boat, okay…”

Michael nodded because he knew it would do nothing to this situation to make Ava madder than she was already with his assumptions, I had to ask he would tell himself.

I have to protect my family.

“I am not Tess,” Ava muttered as she knew her duplicate left a long shadow. We might not look like each other as much anymore, but its still a burden Ava muttered as she walked back to her business.

And to her date.

*

Inside,

Max was trying to not think about the mess his life was. I wish it would make sense, or calm down he thought, because why is it escalating, he would think as he reached for his first beer. And after wanting one for so long, he was finding that he was not in the mood to get drunk. “I better go,” he said standing up and looking at Maria. “I appreciate the effort, but I am just not in the mood,” he sighed. “But thank you for trying to get me in a good mood.”

Sighing Maria knew she could not doing anything but let him go. As she felt for him. “Life will get better you know,” Maria murmured.

“If you think so,” Max said with an attempted smile. “It does seem to be a bit much now, does it not?” he sighed. “Everything is just a bit much, and I want things to make sense.”

“Don’t we all,” Maria sighed as she saw the glass, that still had the beer inside, and knew he had drunk anything more than a sip or two. “Are you okay to get home?”

“Of course, I am,” Max nodded. That was a long time ago he sighed. I was a kid with low tolerance. “You don’t have to worry about me” he sighed as he put the barely touched glass on the table and walked away.

Well, if he is going to pass up a perfectly nice glass of beer Maria murmured to herself as she picked up the glass that Max had left, and started to drink it, as she watched Max leave, only to notice that her husband was coming into the bar and heading her way.

“Max is headed home” was all she said. “His energy level took a nosedive after that little discussion with Claudia.”

“I noticed,” Michael sighed. “I saw him when I headed in.”

Maria could not help but nod. As if she did not know what he had been doing outside the bar. Because she had seen Ava’s car drive into the parking lot. When you are suspicious of the resident duplicate in our midst, you know everything about her she sighed. It’s not only my husband who has a bone to pick with the former blonde. “You were giving Ava a hard time, weren’t you?”

“I had a few questions for her,” Michael muttered, “That is all it was,” he muttered. “You got me a beer?” he asked of the other glass on the table.

“It’s probably getting a little warm by now,” Maria said with a smirk. “Really Michael, as much as I have an issue with the woman,” she sighed. And I do. “I mean, I am probably a little irrational because I can hold a grudge with the best of them, because she reminds me of the person who took Alex from us, but when I am being reasonable, I know deep down, that she is not why the group is going over the cliff right now,” she sighed. “She did not ask for any of this to happen.”

“Are you sure?” Michael asked.

Maria could only laugh, and she gave her best oh really look at her husband. “Space Boy, I love you, and I even love that you were born wary and paranoid. And sometimes our daughter is so much like you that it can be scary, and I know that we do have to be careful, but you need to give Ava the benefit of the doubt. Because I doubt that she is working an agenda. Or planned for this to happen. She has no reason to want to use Archie to cause disharmony in our ranks,” she muttered. “Archie is not even Max’s son at the end of the day. That honor belongs to some of guy, that is nameless at the moment.”

“I know,” Michael sighed. I know. “I just don’t like how everything has been one thing after another.”

And I do? Maria thought. I thought coming back to Roswell would be about settling in, and getting my career back on the upswing, and sending Lucy on a path she should be on she murmured. I never imagined any of this. “If you don’t like, imagine how it is for Max and Liz, or even Claudia” Maria smirked. “Because we have nothing on them. We have only relocated back to this town,” she sighed. “We have it pretty easy,” she sighed, even though I know saying that is, famous last words she sighed. “I figure that one of these days, it will all make sense.”

“Are you sure?” Michael asked.

“Call it a gut feeling,” she said with a smirk. “I know you hate my gut feelings,” she sighted with a smile because it was on the only ways she was like her mother. “I know there is a reason to be wary of course, but you have to hope…”

Right hope…

That would be nice if there was such thing as hope…

Michael could only grunt at his wife’s feelings. “What do you want to do?” he asked. “More drinking, or home to Lucy?”

“She has it handled at home,” Maria smiled. It’s not like we don’t have surveillance systems at home and know if our daughter has left the house she sighed. And in the case, they knew Lucy was at home, binging on television and music. “We have earned this night out,” she said as she and her husband went for more drinking… And listening to the music of the night and hoping that there would be more hope in the morning.

Unfortunately, little did the husband and wife know that the man Ava had just been out with nodded at the young man who had been a little too handsy with Claudia.

But Michael and Maria were not noticing it at all.

Uh oh.

*

Of course, Max did not know any of this, but he certainly hoped there would be more hope coming, because he could use some of that hope less than a mile away as he drove back to town, with the idea of actually heading home. I know I know he was telling himself. “I have to go home sometime, right?” he mumbled to himself.

Sometime is right. So, that was the idea, but before he could go home, and maybe talk it out with his father, although he was not sure he was up for that. Going home would be the first step, yeah, one step at a time he sighed. One step…

As he was muttering himself, and even thinking of putting the music on but fearing what he would hear after the earlier incident, he stopped, when he saw someone very familiar.

Claudia, he thought, as his heart restarted again.

Max hadn’t had any idea of where his daughter had ran off too in her state, which was very close to being totally drunk but sober enough to have it out with her father, and he was still living with the results of that altercation.

Claudia did not know this town, and therefore he worried of where his very tipsy daughter would find herself. But he had now found her, and she was out like a light.

Because she had walked the mile down to the nearest bus stop, or taxi stand. Depending on what came first, and she had fallen asleep, and that is how he found her.

Out like a light.

Hopefully, she is having better dreams than she is facing when she is awake Max whispered because he knew better to wake his lion spirited daughter, she knows how to roar he knew as he stopped the car and got out of the car.

“Claudia,” Max whispered.

But he got nothing…

He quickly accessed her, and found her passed out, but breathing. Thank god Max muttered to him. With the knowledge that this was a dangerous situation to have her asleep, and out in the open, and an open mark for anyone driving past.

“Come on,” Max whispered. “Let me take you home.”

“Noooo” Claudia whined. “Leave me alone,” but Max knew his daughter was sleep talking, and was not really conscious enough to know what was happening, which is downright dangerous he was thinking.

“I am going to take you home,” Max whispered, and he tried to get her to stand up, so he could guide her to the car.

But he got resistance. She is stubborn even when she is asleep, he would think. Very much like her mother.

Max was really seeing her mother in a moment like this…

“Okay, let us get you home” Claudia muttered but not really conscious, and Max was feeling a fatherhood lesson in having to deal with his underage daughter, and drinking too much. She might be eighteen, but she is still so young… he would mutter to himself, as he finally realized that his daughter was too formative even when she was drunk, and asleep.

So, he resorted to last ditch methods, and picked her up in his arms, and carried her to the car, and laid her in the backseat of his car. Where she precisely fell collapsed onto the seat and fell asleep.

Deeply.

Sighing, Max got into his car, and drove his daughter back to town. As he was wondering what would happen now.

Who knows.

[Parker1947]

Meanwhile,
Back at the motel,

Claudia’s mother had no reason to be worried for her daughter, although she probably should have been, but she had no way of knowing that her only daughter had left the apartment and gone on her way for some fun, and ended up and drunk, and having to being rescued by her father. Whether her daughter knew this or not…

That it was her ex-husband who was doing the rescuing. Of course, if she knew this, she would concede that Max was a good rescuer.

I love when he would do it with me Liz would think. Assuming she knew.

But she did not know this, because she currently was dealing with her own issues. As she was back in her motel room after spending time with her son. And now with JJ in his motel room, and thankfully passed out. She, therefore, was doing some research of her own. Because she was finally getting around to what she should have been concentrating on with her relocation to this town.

But it was among the things that had been falling further and further backwards by the day.

When she should be figuring out what her future would be. Which is what she was trying to do. Be the adult in the situation. Figure out how to put a roof over my children’s head so that we are all together, and not separated. So, she was looking at the plans for the Crashdown. Looking at the layout of the Crashdown, and the apartment, in the plans that her father had sent to her, of what he and her mother had to work with when they bought the Crashdown when she was a kid. Because it was always a passion for my father to own the restaurant she knew. After some tough years, he finally found what he wanted.

And created a life for me and Mom Liz knew. And that is what I want she thought and insisted to herself that she wanted this to work because it has too, she knew. There are no more second chances.

This is my last second chance Liz knew as she stared at the television in her room, that was only on for noise. Not that she was paying attention to it. She was in the midst of her quest to get the Crashdown renovations started, and to that end, she had finally called Kyle and they planned to meet the next day. So, she had fished out the plans, and she was quizzing herself on the apartment, and the restaurant and hoping to see what she wanted to do with it.

She knew she had to be slightly crazy. To be doing this in the backdrop of the year it has been, and how life changing it was for the restaurant business. Which meant she knew she had modernize it if she was going to make it work.

I want to make this work Liz told herself as she was into the research phase of the changes. I like research she knew.

It might not be science, or finding the next breakthrough, but it’s still interesting she was telling herself. And it was a needed diversion from thinking of her sexy ex-husband or the fact their daughter was having a breakdown. She would rather be helping Claudia, but she knew that would not be what her daughter needed.

Whatever breakthrough we had, is still so tentative Liz knew. I don’t want to push it and so she was looking at her future, in terms of the business she should be concentrating on making over, and it was getting her interested in trying to remodel it but keeping the charm of it. I don’t want to lose what it was in the late 90’s and early 00’s she thought.

When everything changed for me.

So, when the phone rang, it startled her out of the zone she was in, and she absently researched to pick her cellphone as she was looking at her tablet, and the plans saved on it. Technology has come a long way she thought. “Yes?” she said in a matter fatly way that she had been so used to as a premiere scientist when she was up to her eyes in research. “Parker, here.”

“Liz?” came a voice.

A voice she had not heard from in a couple of weeks. One that was not of her new life here in Roswell, it is part of my old life. “Annie?” she asked as she stopped her staring at the screen, she asked of her former neighbor, Annie Underhill.

Someone who with her husband and three children had lived next to her, Claudia, and JJ in Boston. Ever since Liz had moved into the house after moving to the city. After apartment living for most of their lives, and from my childhood on she thought of the original apartment she had lived in, the one I want to remodel now. But it had felt nice to buy a house and feel the space of having a backyard for the kids.

And a school in the neighborhood. So, they did not have to ride on a bus she thought. They were safe.

With an older daughter who could walk her little brother to school before heading to her own school, she had never had to worry on the days she had not been able to take JJ to school. It was a very different life she knew.

And now she was reminded of that with a simple Liz.

“Annie?” Liz asked again. “What’s up?” she asked as she put down the tablet, she had been concentrating so hard at. “You and Tom doing alright?”

“We are doing great,” Annie Underhill sighed from her end. “But I wanted to call and let you know there was a break in at your house.”

What? Liz squeaked. As she thought of that safe neighborhood. She had always had the toughest alarms on the house. Even though she had a daughter who was growing up, and was able to bypass those alarms, and could mostly take care of her own safety, but when Claudia and JJ were home alone.

And when Claudia was gone these last months, she thought. It was a godsent for the nannies that had to take care of JJ when I was working too much because of the damn pandemic she muttered to herself as she brought herself back to the conversation. “Break in?” she thought of the house in Boston.

A house she still owned.

Not that she planned to go back, one always should have a backup plan, right? But that was not the case for Liz now, because she viewed it as investment project for herself. To make money she thought as she had kept the house and was planning on renting it out. For at least the next year, Because I might get my daughter to go to Harvard or Boston University she thought, and then maybe Claudia could use a residence she muttered as she laughed at myself even as she knew her daughter had her own plans, and they did not include furthering her education in Boston or elsewhere, for the moment.

Liz hoped that changed. But still, she had someone moving in at the first of the next month. But the house was empty, she thought. So, I was paying the teenager next door to take care of it, and Tom Underhill to fix any problems once the new tenant did move in. “When?” she asked on alert now of what had been her worse nightmare. “What happened?”

“Unclear. Graham was at school, but he did check the house in the morning, and it was fine, but by the time he was home, and before Tom and I got home from work. It was clear the door was busted open…”

Oh god Liz said. As her mind was flowing with images of what could have happened. “Was it some crank taking a liking to an empty house?”

“We don’t think so Liz,” came Annie’s voice. “We think they were looking for something, or someone. Because the house was trashed,” she blurted. “You know the stuff you didn’t take, and were leaving here for the next residents?”

Oh god Liz moaned. Because yes, she knew only packed up half of their worldly possessions because she knew only so much would be able to go into the apartment above the Crashdown. So, we had to be picky she thought. “Any causalities?” she asked of the furniture.

“No, Tom and Graham were able to clean up most of the stuff, but we figure it was hopeless to call the cops, right without you and the kids here, the chances of them finding out anything. Because they will just assume it was someone taking advantage of an empty house, and so, we just kept it in the family.”

“Thank you,” Liz sighed. Because she knew of her own policy. Police were to be called as a last resort she knew. Only Jim Valenti has a pass from that. But she had learned the hard way when you deal with the authorities, how cruel they can be.

“I thought you should know,” Annie murmured.

“Thank you again. You, Tom, and Graham” Liz sighed. “I will send a little extra with the next payment.”

“You don’t have too,” Annie sighed. “We would have done it for any of our neighbors, and with us next door, it’s easy to keep a look out.”

“I do appreciate it,” Liz sighed. “How are the girls?” she asked Annie and Tom’s two daughters.

“Busy as ever,” Annie said with a laugh. “Even with home schooling, and zoom taking over our lives,” she muttered at the technology. “They always seem to have something on the go,” she sighed. “How is it being in New Mexico?” she asked as she was trying to reach for where Liz was. “Roswell is it not?” she asked. “It was your hometown, right?”

“Right,” Liz sighed as she tried to put the break in in the back of her mind, but it was getting hard. The last thing I need is to worry about back in Boston she thought. She knew whatever the people ransacking her house, well, they were not going to find whatever they were looking for. Although Liz had no idea what they might be after, All my secrets are with me here in Roswell? she asked. Why would I leave anything back in Boston, unprotected?

Idiots she also thought.

“It’s one thing after another,” Liz sighed. “It’s weird.”

“That town is known for it’s aliens, right?” Annie asked.

“You can say that” Liz murmured, with a semi laugh. Because you really had to know this town, and its warts to really get what was under the skin of it. But everyone believed they knew what this town was all about.

Alien myths…

“That must be a hoot,” Annie asked.

“It’s a hoot, alright” Liz murmured. Except not really, she thought as she thought of the house, she had left unprotected. And now the break in. “I do appreciate you calling Annie, and that you, Tom and Graham are looking after the house for me.”

“It is no problem,” Annie sighed, and then on her end, she frowned. “Oh, I forgot to mention. There was a message left on the mirror.”

Shit Liz cursed as she had to put her hand over the phone so that it would not filter through, because only Liz knew what it would mean. “Oh, god what was it?” Liz asked, fearing the answer.

You thought we were not watching, but we are, and you cannot protect “them” by going home she said matter fatly. “It was written with lipstick,” she sighed. “Dark red lipstick.”

Shit Liz thought once more, and any semblance of intrigue about her new life, had vanquished, and she barely heard her say good-bye to Annie, as she hung up and looked at her own mirror, and she was pale as a ghost.

As the past haunts.

*

The past definitely still haunts.

Everyone knew this. And certainly, Max did too because as his former wife was being cruelly reminded of old ghosts he meanwhile was finally acting like a father, albeit dealing with a part of the role he never imagined him having to deal with and driving towards town, and parking outside of the Crashdown. And he looked at the now dormant restaurant. As he had been so used to in his youth to see the shiny sign that was able to captivate so many to come into the café. And he had been no stranger to that either because I had ulterior motives for wanting to go in there he mused because those days would eventually lead to where he was now, looking in the backseat. Because on the drive into town, he had not heard a peep out of the backseat, and he did not know if that was good or bad news. Actually, he viewed it as a mixed bag. But it was something he would take in comparison to the alternative, so as he parked on the side of the Crashdown.

Away from the glaring eyes of main street. It might be getting late, but there are eyes all over the place he knew from his own youth.

And he looked at the place he would know well. Or at least once upon a time. Today was a different day. Because today he was behaving like the father, he never imagined himself to be, not after Liz took our daughter away. As he was behaving like a typical father, finally he even thought, but he was not a typical father. He was concerned for his daughter. As he was trying to protect her in this increasingly bizarre world, that is unfortunately growing even more weirder by the day he thought of the world his daughter was growing up in, compared to the world he had come into as a six-year-old.

And I thought I had it rough he muttered.

He therefore prayed his daughter had a better time of it from now on, but she was eighteen, and trying to be older than she really was, and he looked at the sleeping body of his child. A child he once knew at three months old, but she was no longer that three-month-old.

Nope, she’s much older, and capable of breaking hearts, even more than she had as a baby, please, be okay he whispered as he opened the door. “Claudia,” he called out into the car. “You are home now…”

“Leave me alone, let me sleep” is what came through the sleeping mutters, and he was not sure if she was conscious enough to know what she was saying. Probably not he sighed, “You are home,” he would repeat.

In her heightened unconscious state, “Home, what is that” Claudia would mutter as if she was responding actually responding to him, and he figured she was not, she’s sleeping “I don’t have a home.”

“Yes, you do” Max said, Your mother is trying to give you a home as we speak “Come on, let’s get you inside?”

“Whatever,” Claudia muttered, and fell into a deeper state of unconsciousness. Obviously putting no effort into getting out of the car.

As much as Max wanted to close the door and take Claudia home to his home and care for her. He knew that was the last thing he should be doing. Especially not when she is not awake to consent, he muttered. He did not know if it was much better to allow her to be alone in an empty apartment. That was so far from the glory of yesteryear. But he knew it was his daughter who mattered. “Okay,” Max would softly mutter as he dug into the car and got his daughter out of the backseat, and picked her up into his arms, and walked up the long stairs, to the entrance. She’s heavier than she was at three months old he thought. Of course, with his daughter passed out in his arms, he did not have access to a key to the apartment. So, he was forced to use his special abilities to open the door and did so. Therefore, he would walk into the apartment, that was once the home of his former wife, and in-laws.

Sighing, life changes does it not?

He knew he did, and he looked down at his little girl.

Now a big girl, completely passed out, as he walked into her bedroom. And sighed, because it was such a reminder of days past even as it was clear that Claudia was trying to make it her own bedroom. As he saw posters that were not of Harvard or and other scientific leaders that his former wife had admired once upon a time. Science books no longer resided in the bookcases. They were of the romance variety, and today’s music.

Music, he had opinions of, but he knew more than to voice them with today’s youth in his clan. “You are home now, Claudia.”

But she was silent, and he figured that was better than having her fighting it, so, he laid his daughter down on the bed, and pulled a blanket from the chair, and placed it over his daughter.

Sighing once more, because he did not know how to handle this situation because it was not something he was used too because all parents dealt with their children coming home drunk, but it was not like he had done it. Because I kept my drinking to one sip, and I was very sober by the time I came home after a night to remember he thought.

I am a unicorn they would say Max knew.

He did not feel very rare. But he knew he was, and his daughter was equally a unicorn. A very unique creation he muttered. Someone who come from his love with her mother. My salvation he thought.

As he looked as she slept on her bed. “I love you Claudia” he said softly.

Too softly to think that it would be heard.

Especially not by a teenager who was passed out drunk and upset about events out of her control. Max wanted things to be in her control. Please calm down he told the world, as he leaned down, and kissed his daughter softly on her forehead. “You might not love me, but I love you, and I will always love you” he murmured once more, and he stood up, and turned and walked out of the bedroom.

A moments later, the apartment.

Thinking that he had not be heard. But unknown to Max, well, he had been heard. Because as the door shut behind Max. Claudia’s eyes opened, and she replayed the words she had heard. “Dad loves me.”

She might not have believed it before, but now she was wondering if she should believe it.

But felt her eye lids too tired to keep stay open, as she was way too tired to think about that now, as her eyes drifted close.

As she fell into a deep sleep.

While Max got back into his car and drove across town.

In the opposite direction of his home.

*

Meanwhile,

At the home he was avoiding. Although in this case, it was not about avoiding it, per se. Because it was about choosing having to deal with his past, and how that past was causing issues with the present. So, it was not a deliberate attempt at staying away from his house so that he would not have to deal with his father. On any other night, that would have been the case. But not on this night.

At the Evans’ homestead though, Phillip felt that it was deliberate attempt to avoid him, because he was not aware of the escalating factors, because he did not know what everyone else knew.

Or almost everyone.

Because there were others who did not know, and who thought it was an ordinary night, as he was welcoming his daughter and her eldest daughter because it had been decided that Isabel wanted to get on the road as early as was humanly possible in the morning, and therefore Kyla decided to come over to her grandfather’s, tonight, rather than wait until the next morning. And so, once Kyla was home from her friend’s, and encountering Kyle. She had finished packing, and they had come on over, and were now visiting Phillip.

The change in the schedule suited Phillip just fine, because he would always welcome his granddaughter, and he had a nice talk with her and his daughter, and now, the visit was concluding, “Your room is all set up, if you want to take your stuff upstairs” he said with a smile as his granddaughter. “It’s your mother’s old one.”

“I figured, thanks for taking me in” Kyla smiled, as she checked her watch, and knew time was getting away from them, as she smiled at her grandfather and grabbed her bags and ran upstairs, and Phillip and Isabel could only smile at the enthusiasm of the young. Yes, being young is so wonderful they both thought. Because being an adult sucks.

“Thanks Dad,” Isabel murmured as she wanted to believe this was the right decision. I could have taken her with me or found other arrangements she thought because she knew Kyle would have jumped at the chance, but she knew that was a hornet’s nest that should remain closed for the time being, because of what it meant to open it she thought. With Kyla here, I can maybe home for some family harmony she wondered. Because she knew she was asking for a lot. But there still a chance, and she was hoping for it. “I know it is going to be hard for you and my brother, but I appreciate it.”

“It’s really no problem sweetheart,” Phillip murmured. “And it’s not like your brother is home most of the time these days, because it seems like he is finding any reason to not come home,” he would sigh, because it was not like he wanted to be in constant fights with his son. But at least before the last week, his son would find himself at home more often than not, and now he was spending most of the days out and about, and not always coming home.

“Max is a little busy,” Isabel sighed because she wished her brother’s life was a little less burdened, it’s all about that ex-wife of his she murmured. “With Liz and his daughter back in town, chances are no, he probably will not spend much time at home when he can be elsewhere.” Whether that is good for him or not, that is debatable she sighed, but I cannot tell my brother anything because then he might voice his opinion on my own life.

And I don’t want that…

Phillip nodded, “That is why you should not worry about me and Max honey,” he allowed. “We can handle ourselves.”

“I know you can,” Isabel murmured. Although you have not proven it so far, she muttered. “Because I would not be leaving you if I thought you and Max would be in open warfare while I am gone,” she murmured with a smile, and it got Phillip to chuckle.

“You have to go get the girls,” Phillip muttered.

“I could have sent Michael to get them or found some other way to get them home,” Isabel murmured. As if I really could, she thought. “Kyla can only be so much of a buffer?”

“We won’t need her honey,” Phillip promised. Because the last thing he wanted for his granddaughter was for her to be a bodyguard or in the middle of things here at the house, it is not that bad he thought. How can it be bad when Max refuses to come home?

“I hope so,” Isabel sighed as she looked at her watch, and winced. “Oh, I better get home. Because I want to be on the road early.”

Phillip nodded as he leaned in for a kiss and hug with his daughter. “Call us.”

“I will,” Isabel sighed. “If you or Max need any help with Kyla, you know that you can reach out to Kyle or Jim” she said, and Phillip only smirked. “What?”

Kyle Phillip murmured to himself. “When are the two of you going to figure out what is going on with you guys?” Phillip asked. I might have been an alcohol daze until recent days, but I know what is what he would mutter as he knew something was going on between his daughter and Kyla.

And in this case, it did not have to do with his granddaughter.

Because they have been ignoring that link Phillip murmured. With the knowledge that it had been easy with Neil alive. Because his daughter and his late son-in-law had a strong union, and they were happy, but now that Neil was gone. It left doors open.

Doors that could be opened very easily. If they were opened.

“Dad,” Isabel muttered because the last thing she wanted to talk about, was her love life. Especially with Dad. “Not now?”

“When?” Phillip asked.

Yeah, when Isabel? Was the right question, but it was not one Isabel wanted to hear, as she chose to ignore the directness of the question. “I will go and say good night to my daughter.”

“Do that,” Phillip sighed at the obvious punt of subjects, but before Isabel was able to go upstairs to her old bedroom and say good-bye to her daughter. Kyla came rushing downstairs. “Mom, wait.”

“What is it?” Isabel asked.

“I accidentally packed your phone. I guessed I picked it up by mistake from the charging port,” she muttered as she handed the phone to her mother. “There seems to be some SOS texts from both Uncle Michael and Aunt Maria,” she murmured. “I shut it down when I realized it was not my phone,” she sighed with the knowledge that they had too similar of a phones, so the mix up had happened before.

“What did it say?” Isabel sighed. It has been alarmingly quiet she reflected. At the thought that she had not heard from her family in a couple of hours. She had known her brother had gone to Cow Patties with Maria, and Michael was supposed to meet. She was invited to join them for a good-bye drink fest, but she had wanted to finish packing, and that was before it was decided that her daughter would come over to her father’s and settle in early. “What now?” she moaned.

“Something about Tess…” was all Kyla could say, and it put both Phillip and Isabel on alert because of how infamous the name Tess had been in their family, with the bringing about of a lot of great pain, that was still not completely lived down.

Unfortunately.

“What about Tess Harding?” Phillip asked as he looked at his daughter, who took the phone out of her jacket, and looked at it.

“I guess this is yours,” Isabel muttered as she handed the phone to her daughter as she realized yes, that it did not open to her passcode.

Kyla nodded as she reached for her phone as she watched as her mother looked at the phone, and her face went pale at the text messages. This is not good.

“Mom, what is it?” Kyla asked.

“Honey,” Phillip asked when it was clear that yes, his daughter looked like she was going to faint.

“It’s nothing,” Isabel tried saying, but she knew it was more than a little something.

“I know it has to be something,” Phillip muttered. “Is it something to do with your brother?” he asked, because he knew of his son’s brief relationship with the blonde, and while he had not really know much about Tess at the time. He knew Diane had met her once, and she seemed okay with the girl, but that was before they would find out about some of what would later go down, and of course they believed they had a grandson.

That turned out to be an unfortunate disaster he thought. As he knew his son was still living down that one.

“No, it does not have to do with Max” Isabel sighed. Okay, maybe partially she conceded. Because my brother will always be part of that story, whether he is related to Tess’s son or not she sighed. Thank god he is not.

“Isabel?” Phillip asked.

“Yeah, Mom?” Kyla asked.

“Dad,” Isabel muttered. Holy hell… “Tess’s Harding son is back in town.”

What? Phillip thought as his jaw dropped. “You cannot possibly be serious?” he asked, as he thought of the possibly. Which was always there because on the birth certificate, Roswell did appear as his birthplace he thought because you could not say outer space for location of birth he acknowledged. Which is why he and Max had fudged some of the facts on the birth application, and certificate so that the formerly known baby Zan would go down as being born in Roswell, and a made-up birth date that would make sense because of the circumstances. Max did not know when the baby was born, and with Tess dead he would sigh. But he could see that his daughter was not kidding. “What on earth is he doing back here in Roswell?”

“That is unknown,” Isabel murmured. “But him coming to town does not make it complication. What does, is that its apparently Archie Holmes,” she muttered to herself. “You know, or maybe you don’t know because you have not really met Max’s daughter, Claudia” she sighed as she stopped, and glanced at her father….

I have met her, briefly, twice Phillip would acknowledge and nod without saying anything more. Once at three months old, and just a few days ago before everything went into turmoil he thought with Max. “I know she is in town…”

“Oh, she is in town alright” Isabel muttered. It is part of the reason my brother is in a mess he is in.

“What is this about Claudia?” Phillip asked as he was trying to figure out a way to comprehend. First Claudia coming back to town. And now that boy he mused. “Who would this Archie Holmes be?” he wondered because the name was not familiar to him.

It would have not been to Kyla or Isabel either if not for a recent conversation. One that seemed not at all important, but now she was thinking. It raises to stakes. “Dad, Archie Holmes is Claudia’s boyfriend,” Isabel muttered as she glanced at her daughter who nodded. “But Archie is not just Claudia’s boyfriend. But also, it seems Tess Harding’s son, the one you know my brother put up for adoption. And the one you arranged?”

Holy hell Phillip muttered as it was not hard to see the complicated ties, even if they do not include any blood relations he thought. How is any of this possible? He would think, but also would also have to think…

What is with this town, and all this drama?

[Parker1947]

One would think that yes, but Max was not caring about the latest drama. Because he was worried for his daughter. The only child I do have he was thinking as he drove across town and was parked across from the motel. A motel that roomed his former wife. He would have not known about its other occupant. Even though he knew enough to know Archie was not at the apartment because he had just deposited his daughter at the empty apartment and made sure it was locked up when he had left it.

Now, he was parked across from the motel near the outskirts of town and was trying to convince himself to get out of the car. And talk to the woman he had come to see.

He did not know why he was hesitant to see her, since it was not the first time, they had seen each other because they had that distinction just a few hours before, is it even the same day? he had to wonder because so much was happening. But he knew he had to talk to his former wife because he was worried for Claudia.

So, slowly he got out of the car, and walked across the street the motel.

And knocked on the door.

*

Inside,

Liz was still petrified about old ghosts and worried about her attempts at crafting a new life back here in Roswell were all going to be for naught. I was wrong to come back to Roswell she knew. Because she had known she was taking a risk. Even though it had been a decade since the danger level vanquished with the changing times. And she and Claudia were able to settle down and have a life.

Where she was able to adopt JJ and have a new life with her two children.

JJ Liz feared. Claudia is eighteen she muttered. JJ is only ten she lamented even if at the same time she knew that the ghosts would not care for her son, he would not interest them she knew. Why would he? she thought. He’s normal.

Thankfully.

But Claudia? Liz feared at any thought of working on the plans for the meeting with Kyle the next day was long gone. Ever since she had gotten that call from her former neighbor in Boston. Telling her of a break in.

She had a lot of freedom these years she knew I was always able to do what I wanted she murmured. I settled down and Claudia and I were able to have a life we wanted.

Without what we really wanted she muttered.

We wanted Max.

And coming back to this town was about finally reclaiming the past, even if she was not sure she could go back in time and figure things out. At least my daughter would know Max and Max would know Claudia. Still, I knew that there was a chance that the old demons would come out of the woodwork and figure out what had happened.

Especially in this climate Liz muttered. This climate, anything goes.

Anything that has any semblance of normalcy was not appreciated, especially if we were different Liz muttered. Of course, I am fine. But my daughter.

Our daughter she thought of the connection she and Max shared. Claudia makes it a different game now she thought. Because she knew that her daughter was too old to be controlled, and it made things more dangerous and she wished she had thought it through, coming back to this town.

Why did I not think it through?

She had thought she did, as her tablet now laid on the bed. The papers all over the place. It was a reminder of how she wanted to start over, but now the past was coming back in the ways she thought she did not have to deal with, when coming back to this town. This past I am dealing with here is different.

Even when they are colliding together Liz murmured, and wished she had some alcohol in this room so she could drown her sorrows, and not think because the break in had reminded her of the past.

And Richard Delaney and his goons she muttered. Even though they no longer worked for the Special Unit and moved on to different branches of the government. She did keep up on them and knew he had moved into politics.

Which made it so dangerous to come back here and stir up the danger once more.

Especially in this climate and now Liz was worried all over again. After a decade of the worry lessening with each year, until I made this decision.

She had wanted to take the risk, but now she was fearing, and she did not want to live in fear as she was inside herself, and very little else registering until she heard a knock on the door. And instantly wondered if she was found.

Have they found me? she wondered.

Jumping almost because even though people did know she was here, maybe I should leave as she ignored the door. Leading to more knocks, and she picked up her suitcase, and was slamming it onto the bed, and putting clothes in it. I need out of here she thought.

Anyone back in Boston would know where she was because of the official way she had gone about registering her move, so they could be coming after me now…

Forgetting about the door, but the knocks were persistent. Not that she was caring until she heard a familiar voice.

“Liz, come on open up. It’s me” came the voice.

Max Liz thought as his voice cut through the fog of the fear of the knowledge of the break in. It’s only Max.

She walked to the door and opened it a tiny bit to make sure she had not been fooled. Why am I worried about this? she asked because it’s eighteen years since those hours that made her crack. Crack enough that she would leave her husband.

And take our child from him.

And a decade since she was on her own. Away from the burden of the government and what they meant to her life. I should not be worried about a simple break in back home she thought, my old home she corrected herself. The house was empty.

Pranks are possible Liz knew. Especially in empty houses, and with teenagers all around them. Not that she thought that the Underhill kids would have done something like that, because she trusted those kids, but still…

Pranks were possible.

So, she was almost able to settle herself down, and think she had no reason to be upset. To think she had no reason to go there again. Why go back eighteen years, or even a decade? She asked.

Because I am back in Roswell Liz knew. Everything past is new again.

“Liz, come on, open up” came the persistent calls of her former husband. And Liz knew once more she was not really hidden anymore. She did have people on her side, if only I could talk to him, she sighed. “Liz?”

“Fine,” she was telling herself as she went to the door and flung it open. “What is it Max?”

As looked into the concerned eyes of the man she had loved at fifteen and was married to briefly at eighteen.

Why does he look at me like that? Liz wanted to ask. “What do you want Max?”

*

A few minutes later,

“Can I ask, what is going on here Liz?” Max asked as he walked into Liz’s motel room. After efforts of getting him to leave landed with thud. He had resisted any attempts to get him to leave. By bulldozing into the room without asking first whether he could come in, better to storm in and then ask questions he knew “We have to talk.”

“No, we don’t,” Liz murmured. You can ask, sure, but it does not mean I will tell you anything she murmured. “We have talked enough earlier,” she sighed as she looked around the room and wondered what Max might be thinking. He’s going to think the worse…

Max definitely was thinking the worse as he saw papers all over the place, but they did not matter to him once he saw the suitcase on the bed, and clothes haphazardly thrown away as his heart stopped, as he looked at his wife former Max, come on he was telling himself. We might not be able to stay out of bed, but we are no longer connected in that way. “Are you going somewhere?” Max asked he asked in a soft way. A way that only he could do, as he looked at her with those gorgeous eyes, and it made her melt. I should have left before he got here…

That would have made sense. Liz muttered to herself. Because it was always hard to tell him.

“It’s none of your business,” Liz muttered.

“Isn’t it?” Max asked.

“No, because we are divorced Max. I can do whatever I want, and you have no reason to interfere anymore…”

Like I would interfere Max muttered. When have I ever interfered? he wanted to say. I let you take our child away from me he sighed, and it was as if Liz knew what Max wanted to say and it was going to be hard to push back at it because of what I did. “I know what we are,” Max muttered. I happen to know we are divorced he sighed. Unfortunately. “I don’t need any reminders from you after spending the last eighteen years without you in my life, and most of all, my daughter in my life.”

“I told you that I am sorry about that,” Liz muttered. And I am.

“I know you are,” Max muttered. “And sometimes I believe you,” he said. And knew that was true. Because he was coming a long way over these last days, and he knew he was beginning to believe this insane life they shared. “I am not saying that you don’t have a right to live your own life. I am not about to tell you what you can and cannot do. But I immediately become concerned when I come in and see this mess, and especially when I see a suitcase on the bed?” he would mutter. “And I know you Liz,” Max said softly. “This is not you. But I also know with your track record, I do become worried.”

Given normally she would have loved that he was worried about her. But not today. All she could do was think of the ghosts, and what they still could do. And fear for her daughter, but also her former husband. I will always want to protect Max she muttered. Against all my best instincts So, if it meant she had to do a little of what she did best back in the day. I have to push Max away she murmured. I cannot get any closer to my former husband. “What I do or don’t do is none of your business,” Liz asked. “Because is it any of your business?”

No, and I give you that Max muttered. “It seems to me that you are thinking of running again?”

“I am not running.” Liz sighed. And truthfully, she did not know what she was doing. She had only flung her stuff in the suitcase in a flurry of panic, without any real plan. She did not need to be told she was being foolish, when she knew she was being foolish. “But what I was thinking of doing is none of your business.”

“Isn’t it?” Max asked.

“We are divorced,” Liz sighed. “We have signed papers and everything. And Claudia is now eighteen, and therefore any connection we have, is not longer valid.”

We will always be connected Max muttered and said as much. “I know we are,” Max muttered. “But regardless of whether our daughter is eighteen or not,” he muttered. Knowing he should be telling his former wife about Claudia’s mishaps. I plan too he muttered, but I have to solve this, first. “So, are you going to tell me what is going on?” he asked as he looked at the only woman he would ever loved and knew he himself was thinking of running only a few hours before. That was before, he thought, because I cannot leave, he thought, not now.

With Claudia how she is.

“It’s none of your business,” Liz said because the last thing she wanted to do was discuss Boston. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “I don’t need you here Max. What we have been doing has been a mistake, so if you came here looking another encounter?”

I would have loved too, but nope, not in this case Max muttered as his eyes rose and dropped at her mention of their encounter. “What if I was?”

“Then you can leave…” Liz muttered.

“It is not that I came to see you about” Max muttered. “You are acting odd Liz, and I know you, because I was very intimately involved with you. I love you….”

“Max, we are over” Liz sighed.

“I love you, Liz. I have never stopped,” he said with every ounce of him as he took her hand in his before she yanked it away and he could see her hand that was alluring as it was back in high school. “Liz, I once put a ring on that hand,” he murmured as Liz could have melted. “We were married once. We said our vows. And I meant every word of them. And with those vows, and with our love, we managed to create Claudia together. She might be an adult, but if you need me, I will be here just as I suspect if I needed you, then you would be there for me. We have a bond. Which has been more than tremendous.”

“Yes, we do” Liz conceded. It has been tremendous she conceded. But it also is complicated she mused. “But Max…”

“No buts” Max insisted. “I know when you are trying to push me away,” he asked. “All this happened because you pushed me away and I let you,” he sighed. “You forced me to give you up once before, so I know when it feels like you are trying to protect me.”

“I am not trying to do anything of the sort,” Liz sighed.

“Then tell me what is going on,” Max asked. “Because it feels like you are trying to push me away.”

“If anything is bugging me, then it’s none of your business” Liz muttered. “It’s my burden to deal with,” she muttered. It has been my business all these years. I am the one who did this. That I came back here, and put everything at risk once more…

“Not when I can help you” Max offered. “This is not your style, to be so out of sorts.”

“You don’t know how I have been,” Liz murmured. “I have been different since you knew me.”

“We all change,” Max conceded.

“Right, we do,” Liz sighed because she needed to stop this. “Max. you cannot help me. I don’t even know what is going on, so how can I ask you to help you if I don’t know what is going on…”

“Are you leaving?” Max asked.

“Yes, no, I don’t know okay” Liz muttered. “I am spinning. And I don’t know what I am doing, and what tomorrow will bring. I hate that, even though that has been my life these last eighteen years so I should be an expert at it. You cannot help me Max,” she sighed. So, what if my house in Boston was broken into, but I really don’t know who it is, and if it’s really my nemesis from the government she mused to herself.

“I guess spinning out is a mother and daughter trait,” Max sighed, confident for the moment that he would not have his former wife run out on him…

“What do you mean?” Liz asked.

“Because I did not come to see you for the heck of it, or maybe another of our little excursions” Max said with a smile, and it almost got a smile out of his former wife. “Come on smile. Even though I am being serious. I did not come to see you on any matter that has to do with us,” she murmured. “And that is the truth.” This time it is.

“Then why did you come to see me?” Liz asked. As she looked at her former husband in a dubious way, as if she did not trust him.

She did. I do she thought. But he has ways of worming into my thoughts she thought, and forcing me to spend time with him, and it always has to do with us.

At least a little.

But not this time, and Max knew. I came here for another reason entirely. “It is about our daughter.”

Claudia Liz thought, as she had not anticipated her former husband using their daughter’s name, “What about Claudia?” Liz asked, softly as if she could see it coming. Claudia is why Max came to see me? she wondered. She could see it. Damn it, she muttered. “What happened. Please don’t tell me she did something rash?”

“Rash,” he said with an almost smile. “You can say that…” Max muttered.

This is just great Liz muttered when she knew that it was not great, she thought, I don’t need this “I knew she was upset about Archie. Because we had a long talk earlier, and I knew she was upset.”

“I know,” Max muttered. I know all about that.

“You know what?” Liz asked as she looked at Max. Because for the very first time she was seeing very little concern about what it might mean for them, or desire. Instead, she could see the truth in his eyes. Max knows she thought. She connected the two and two together. “You know about Archie?”

“Yes,” Max nodded. “I know who he is really is.”

Shit Liz murmured. “This is not what I need for right now. But maybe it is,” she thought to herself as she needed to forget of the danger, she had probably brought to their shores by going with her selfish whims by coming back to this town, when I could have settled elsewhere, she thought.

I might not have had Max in my life. But they would be safe she murmured because she was holding out hope that she was not taking a giant risk. Of course, if she was, she might be too late, so this was something she could control.

Helping her daughter. I can help Claudia she thought. It’s my fault I did not prep her with how life would be here in Roswell she knew.

One more strike against me she knew.

“Liz?” Max asked.

“What?” Liz asked as she could tell she had been staring into space, what else is new. “I am fine. I am back. So, you know.”

“I know,” Max agreed.

“What does that mean?” Liz asked.

“It means that I just had to rescue our daughter,” Max sighed. “Liz, she was spinning out of control. She was drinking up a storm at Cow Patties,” he would mutter as his former wife’s mouth dropped open. “You look surprised?”

“I am,” Liz sighed. “While Claudia did have a knack of getting into trouble back at home. But she always knew what line to draw. She knows I don’t approve of underage drinking,” she sighed. “Not that she usually went with what I approved with,” she sighed at the frown coming from Max. “What can I say, our daughter liked to rebel.”

“Obviously,” Max sighed.

“How bad was it?” Liz asked. Because drinking underage is refreshingly normal, she knew. It beats some of the stuff I did she muttered. After all, I robbed convenience stores, and broke into high schools and many more misdeeds.

So, drinking underage is normal.

She wanted her daughter to be normal. Yes, please. I want her to be normal.

“Liz?” Max asked once more.

Liz knew she was zoning out. This time has to be the cause of this she muttered. “I am fine,” she muttered.

Max sighed.

“How bad was it?” Liz asked once more.

“She was drunk Liz!”

[Parker1947]

She had been drunk. Definitely she would concede to herself. And it was not like she had not been this way before. But this might have been worse of anything I have felt before Claudia muttered as she was now feeling and running to the toilet and puking her daylights out, god I feel like shit Claudia muttered as she knelt by the toilet and puked once more. This is why they make those afterschool specials she muttered to herself back in the day she muttered, not that I ever really watched but now she was feeling terrible as she dragged herself up and looked at the mirror and saw her pale face.

She looked ghost white. This is not a good look on me she also conceded.

This was not her usual look. I never usually drink like this she muttered. Okay, maybe I do at certain times, but it did not really seem like I drank a lot she muttered to herself. Why does it feel like I drank a pack of beer? she asked as she dragged herself back to bed and crawled onto the bed, and collapsed against the pillows as she thought back to earlier, as I finally got a chance to be alone with my father she muttered. And I was passed out drunk.

What must he think of me? Claudia could not help but think.

She almost felt disappointed at her conduct. Because she had always wanted a father. A father that wanted her around. And she finally had one, and what do I do, I get drunk and rant up a storm.

She did not remember exactly what she had said to Max. But she remembered some of the bullet points, shit she muttered. I feel horrible she muttered as she immediately got up from bed and raced to the toilet again.

And just as she was about to feel bad about herself. She heard the doorbell ring, and there were persistent knocks. Come on, do they not know that it is way too early she thought as she looked at the clock and saw the flashing sign.

It’s way too early she muttered, even though it really was not.

Because she had been up much earlier before…

As she dragged herself out of the bathroom and was wondering if she was going to throw up again, a great probability she admitted.

As she opened the door and frowned. “Mom?”

“Claudia” Liz said as she stood and accessed her clearly hung over daughter. Max was not lying she muttered to herself. She was not stupid enough to think this was the first time her daughter had gotten drunk, but it was the first time I have seen her this ghost like…

“What are you doing here?” Claudia muttered again reflecting on the time. It is way too early to be dealing with my mother she sighed. As she did not see her little brother. Where is JJ?

“I live here,” Liz muttered not feeling the need to answer her daughter’s question. JJ is busy she murmured to herself. Before she was going to say anything more, she handed out her hand, “Drink this,” she said as she handed over the thermos of liquid. “You will feel instantly better.”

God Claudia muttered because this was the last thing she wanted to deal with, Mom seeing me drunk because despite her ability to have a good time back in Boston. She never got caught. Mom was always busy.

Which is why I partied up a storm when JJ was at sleepovers she admitted. But I never felt this badly.

“Who told you?” Claudia muttered as she took the thermos, and twisted the cap, and looked into it. It looks awful she muttered. It stinks.

“Who else,” Liz muttered. “Your father, and I know that it smells but it’s an old family recipe.”

“A Parker one?” Claudia asked, as she took a sip. Because she did not think her mother would have access to an Evans one. And she did not know what to think about the possibility that her father might have gone to see her mother after her encounter with the man, I don’t know what it feels like to have parents who talk about me she thought.

It was not something I am used too she thought.

It reflected the changing world in more ways than simply this one. “No, Maria” Liz muttered… A Deluca standard she muttered, that I had to use once upon a time as she reflected back to the night before and dealing with what Max had told her. And now she could see that he was not lying. “I needed it once, and it was the perfect pick me up.”

*

Hours earlier.

Before Liz needed to give her daughter the perfect pick me up or assess her clearly hung over. Not the image any mother wants to see but it was not something she had been thinking the night before when she was talking to her former husband. Max had come and it was obvious out of concern for their daughter. And Max had just told her that he had to play hero and rescue their daughter.

Oh god Liz murmured. “You did not have to do that. You could have called me.”

I could have Max knew and said it. “I was not going to leave our daughter in that condition,” he sighed as he looked at his former wife. A woman who still captivated him in ways he did not know why they could have such a bond. We loved each other once, and we tried, but it did not work out.

So, why must I put myself through this he would think. But their connection was always unexplainable. No one could understand why it was Liz who had managed to capture Max’s heart when he should have been with others, and most of all not a human he thought. Those were the days.

But I wanted what I wanted Max murmured to himself as he looked at the only woman who did capture his heart. We were so young once.

And now here we are he could not think. As they were talking about their daughter. Our link he thought. “I needed to help her.”

“I am glad, thank you” Liz said. “I cannot say she has never done it before. Because what can I say, she’s now eighteen and even before she headed to my parents. She was known to skirt the boundaries, but never enough to capture my attention” she sighed. “Not that I was home much this past year, because I was having to work.”

“It was a rough year” Max knew.

“Yes, it was” Liz sighed. “So, I allowed my children a lot of freedom, and unfortunately, I cannot say what she might have done with that freedom. Especially since she did not have Archie with her, because he was in Colorado.”

Max nodded. Archie. That was the discussion they were not having.

“Where is she?” Liz asked of their daughter because she did not know if they could discuss about that other matter because it was so confusing.

It was confusing, and not something Max was able to comprehend, I rather deal with my drunk daughter, and my ex-wife he would mutter, than the kid who was for a moment, my son. And now he’s dating my daughter.

Jerry Springer, yes. As if he would not be attracted to the other parts of our story that were much more convoluted as that pairing, he knew. Which is why they could not advertise their story. Nor was it something they wanted to talk about, because of the past…

“Claudia, Max” Liz asked. “Where is our daughter?”

Our daughter Max thought. It was something he still had not gotten used too. Just a week ago, none of this would have been possible he thought. “I took her back to the Crashdown, the apartment” he murmured. “I made sure she got into her bed, in one piece.”

“Thank you, Max,” Liz sighed.

“It’s no problem, because it is the least, I could do as her father” Max muttered, allowing for how complex their situation was, but then on the surface of it, it is not so difficult to understand he muttered. “We share a daughter. She was crying out. And even if she hates me right now, the least I could do was make sure she got home safely.”

“She does not hate you,” Liz sighed. She does not know you she murmured to herself and knew that sentiment was hanging out there, and it was not something she could say because I caused her not to know him.

“You did not see her ranting to be about the fact Archie is you know…” Max muttered, because even though he could say it, still, it not something I like to acknowledge given how messed up the situation was.

But it was something they would have to admit too. “Tess’s son?” Liz asked, letting it hang out there between them, as if they had any proof. Just other people’s certainty, but it was plausible if you knew the players.

Unfortunately, it was plausible.

“Yes,” Max sighed. “I know you don’t want to talk about Tess?”

“No,” Liz sighed. But the past is our past she sighed. I might have to talk about her. “But it might be the truth. After all, we knew Tess’s son was out there…”

“Yes, we did” Max sighed. I have always known that he sighed. Therefore, I always knew there was a possibility that he might want to know more he murmured to himself. But I never imagined any of this…

As if Liz knew what he was saying, she could help but give a supportive smile. “You just never imagined any of this?” she asked as she was trying to come to terms with it herself.

“No,” Max admitted. Who would.

“I don’t think any of us would have expected it,” Liz sighed, “Even if her son had come seeking more information about his beginnings,” she sighed. “The idea that Archie could have been you know the baby previous known as Zan.”

“It is a little unbelievable?” Max admitted as he glanced at the woman he loved. And could not help but feel comfortable, even when he knew that they should not be this comfortable. We should be awkward, and definitely talking about any of this he thought, but it felt normal. Like their past, when we could talk, he sighed, even if truthfully, so much happened, we could barely lean on our friendship he thought of their beginnings, when yes, we were friends.

The very beginning.

Before it became weird and brought us too today.

“It will get better,” Liz sighed as she thought of the different emotions she was thinking. Talking to Max like this was helping her come down from the heights of her nutty about Boston. I suppose it could be a simple break in? she asked of herself once more. I did leave an empty house, until the new renters move in.

And that message could have meant anything, right? she asked as she was trying to convince herself things were fine, and talking to Max was bringing down her blood pressure. It is cracked up she knew of the situation, but I have to believe everything is on the level and nothing sinister is happening, because too much is on the line she knew.

“Will it?” Max asked, as he was still feeling the sting of his daughter’s rant. “You did not hear our daughter ranting at me.”

Yeah, they are definitely an acquired taste she knew. “I have been on the other end of her rants,” Liz sighed. “She will calm down. In this case, she was a little emotional obviously for a good reason, because I am sure if that was me than I might also be a little overwhelmed,” she sighed as she smiled at Max. “But it was not me, because I had other issues to deal with, when we were her age.”

Oh, I know it Max thought.

I fell in love with you Liz was thinking, a living breathing alien she also murmured to herself. “I had different issues, so hers is a little more of the normal variety, but of course of the soapy variety” she sighed. “She will come to see that it does not matter what might have been,” she sighed. “What matters is what is true, now” she acknowledged. “If Archie is Tess’s son, then he is not yours, right?”

“Right,” Max murmured. “DNA testing and everything that was fit to be disclosed back then,” he sighed. “I am not the boy’s father.”

Good Liz murmured to herself, and Max could see the relief on her face, and knew it was more than simply about their daughter.

It is how she feels about it Max thought.

“Then she will figure out the right way to come through it” Liz said feeling confident that everything would make sense, one of these days, she sighed as she and Max continued to talk through the night.

Doing nothing extra curricular, only talking. What a concept, yeah, I know. Even when they were too tired, they found themselves talking. And soon Max fell asleep on the couch, not on or in Liz’s bed because that was where she was sleeping. And even when they were tempted, we restrained ourselves. And in the morning, she slipped out. And collected her son JJ who was none the wise about the occupant in his mother motel room, or so she thought and took him over to Maria’s house because that was where she was going to spend the day with Maria, because Michael was leaving. And Maria was going to get her music studio up and running, and JJ was looking forward to helping.

Once she was satisfied that her son was taken care of, she found herself driving across town, and viewing her hung over daughter…

*

Now,

“What made you need Aunt Maria’s concoction?” Claudia was asking half hour later as they stood in the kitchen of the apartment, and she was trying to drink the thermos that was brought for her, as much as it stinks, it does seem to work she thought as she felt herself clearer headed, and she did not feel like she was going to vomit anymore, thank god she muttered as she hated that feeling.

Because of her constitution. She knew she had very few actual sick days in her life. When she was younger, she did not think much of the fact she did not have to go to the doctors except for her annual vaccine shots and stuff that any ordinary children needed, I was unique she remembered her mother telling her. That it comes from my father’s side she would also be told.

Now, I know, but imagine a small kid understanding that you are different because of your different world DNA, and somehow it makes you immune to this world’s virus and stuff, and it has largely kept me from needing a doctor.

So, she had not needed to see a doctor. And she had not felt that sick. If you don’t count being sick from finding out your boyfriend at one time would have been considered your brother if not for some faulty information, she muttered to herself.

And because before last night, I rarely needed to get sick from drinking Claudia thought. But she did not relish having to wake up and deal with the unfortunate consequences, being hung over she sighed at herself.

“It is a very long story,” Liz murmured. As she thought back to those days when the only time she ever truly got really drunk. Really…

There were other times in other times, but they would never hold a cake to senior year when she was at boarding school.

That time would never be repeated she would think.

“Mom?” Claudia muttered as she was starting to get her head together, and she could see her mother staring out into space. What else is new she muttered to herself. “Are you here with me?”

Hearing the faint words of her daughter, well, it brought her back. And she could see the complexation of her daughter improving, thank god she muttered. “I am fine,” she muttered and knew she was.

“You didn’t answer me,” Claudia asked. “Why would you need one of Aunt Maria’s concoctions?” she asked.

“As I said, long story” Liz sighed because she really did not want to get into that story. “All you need to know is that her recipe helped me once, and it does look like it is going to help you too,” she muttered. “Maybe next time think before you drink too much.”

Of course, she picks this time to lecture me Claudia muttered. But she was trying to turn a cheek, and take it on, because she knew, I did drink too much, and I went too far over the cliff she muttered. “I did not think I drank too much, at the time” Claudia muttered with some irritation, but she did notice that it was not as great as it could have been.

Before.

Which makes it an improvement Claudia thought.

“We never think its too much until it happens,” Liz muttered because she knew it from personal experience. But then at the time I believed Max was dead she was thinking, there was never too much alcohol to deal with that crushing realization she remembered. “But we learn from it.”

“What made you learn from it?” Claudia asked, obviously looking for some insight of her mother. Because her mother had been too closed lip most of her life and did not want to talk about her prior life. The closest Claudia knew she had gotten was the day before, but then, only so much was imparted.

“Long story,” Liz muttered.

“You don’t want to tell me, do you?” Claudia muttered.

“Not particularly,” Liz admitted.

“Of course not,” Claudia muttered with a sense of irritation that did mix with the state of her being hung over. “You never want to talk about yourself. I get drunk and you say you know from experience what I am going through, but you cannot even tell me something that is personal when I figure, it has likely nothing to do with my father or anything to do with our past.

Liz could only sigh, and sigh she did, because she knew there was truth in it because she had been too buttoned up over the years, and obviously this past week has shown that to be a disadvantage for her daughter, and me she knew. If only I had told Claudia more about our life…

“It was never about not wanting to open up,” Liz sighed. “Some things are private,” she sighed. “And my own experience has everything to do with my past, which does include your father,” she muttered. Because it will always involve you Max, because it will always involve you even when it does not.

But in this case, believing that Max was dead. I went a little overboard, and even Maria could not bring me out of it.

Even though she tried.

“Mom?” Claudia asked.

“Sorry,” Liz sighed. “Look honey, a lot happened that you don’t know about it. You know some of it because of my journal but as I may have said, there was only so much I could put down on those pages because your father and I were a very long and complex story, even though it was only for a relatively short time,” she muttered, three to four years that felt so much more she thought as she tried to focus not on her past, but on her now, which included her daughter. “Trying to talk about it would only confuse you more to know about that time,” she sighed. “Still, I wish I could have been a rebellious teenager, and in many ways, I was if you ask your grandfather. Of course, I have a different view of it. And it is a view that is extremely difficult to talk about,” she sighed. “Because talking about the past always has been difficult.”

“I gather,” Claudia muttered. When she did not even know why she was getting so pissed at her mother for being closed mouth about her drinking past. It does not even matter she muttered. But it would bring her closer to me she thought.

After all, Mom has kept a distance from me, because it was like I bring memories of that past she muttered. It has always been clear that we are different people. But Mom has never tried to bring us closer.

“Honey,” Liz sighed.

“I just want to know something about you,” Claudia muttered. “Yeah, I screwed up, and I am sorry about that, even when we both know that I am not, and with you, there is obviously a story there…”

“Yes, there is,” Liz agreed.

“Then, why not just tell me?” Claudia asked. “Maybe I can see why you are the way you are.”

Liz could only sigh and be silent for a minute before breaking.

“Fine, if you must know” Liz sighed. I don’t know why I must get into this she thought. But it is part of the long complex journey that was her and Max. “I became drunk back in high school, when I was briefly enrolled in boarding school because I believed your father was dead,” she muttered and Claudia’s jaw dropped open, as she could not believe it as she waited for her mother to finish. “Yes, you heard that right. I believed your father was dead, so I drank until I was more than a little sick…” she muttered. “Maria tried to help me, but I was too far gone, although you can say it was not only a belief that he could be but knowledge that he was actually dead,” she muttered. “There it is. Your father was dead. And I got drunk.”

What the fuck Claudia thought.