Finished Canon/Conventional Couple Fics. These stories pick up from events in the show. All complete stories from the main Canon/CC board will eventually be moved here.
Title: Dominoesfalling
Author: Greywolf
Couple: All CC mainly M/L
Rating: Mature due to subject matter.
Disclaimer: I don't own Roswell or any of the characters. Please don't sue me, I'm just having a little fun here.
Summary: A Sequel to The Vault, life continues for the Roswell Aliens after fate intervened to make Liz and Max a couple long before friends or family were ready.
Saturday morning 6AM
Nancy Parker had just gotten up. She felt like she had barely gotten to bed. In fact, she had gotten to bed only 4 hours previously. She had stayed up until 1AM waiting to hear the jeep bring her daughter back home. It had been the fourth time in two weeks that she had gone out with.... him. She had waited for Liz to come upstairs, but that had been almost another hour. She had heard her down there with.... him.
She had once trusted her daughter but no longer. Oh, she knew nothing had gone on downstairs last night. She'd heard the jukebox playing softly, even watched from behind the door at the bottom of the stairwell leading to the upstairs living area. They had done nothing more than dance and Lizzy had fixed them both milkshakes but even so, she knew there was more to this story.
It wasn't just that Lucy Frederickson had frightened her so badly with her theories about why Lizzy hadn't been able to remember all of what happened to her in the vault, it wasn't just that the two men had been brutally killed ....by him, it was that her daughter had fundamentally changed in that vault.
'She's not sixteen anymore,' Nancy thought. Somehow her daughter wasn't the same little girl. Nancy knew that terrible things could have happened in the vault, and she hoped that they really hadn't. What she knew to be true was bad enough, but that alone didn't explain the changes in Lizzy. Something had happened in that vault. And that something had surely involved....him. She had to know the truth, whatever it took to discover it. She wouldn't rest until she knew.......
Last edited by greywolf on Tue Jan 23, 2007 3:40 pm, edited 36 times in total.
Jeff Parker watched his daughter come down to breakfast, already dressed in her alien-waitress uniform for her eight hour shift that would start at 9AM. She had traded with one of the other waitresses so she would have the evening off… for a date…..with him, of course.
Jeff had to give her credit….she wasn’t rubbing it in, wasn’t even making it obvious. If an outsider were to witness their family, she would appear the obedient daughter she’d always been. And Jeff even believed she would stay that way….at least until the first time her parents tried to restrict her from seeing ….him.
He would never forget that night, the night when he’d had to make the choice. Even now, two weeks later, he could remember the look in her eyes. His time and her patience had run out. And it wasn’t about her, Jeff could tell, not about some adolescent need to assert her independence from her parents. It was about...him.
Jeff Parker had no doubt that Lizzy loved her parents, even now. But the threat they’d made against the boy had almost lost her, forced a choice between her parents and Max Evans. And despite Jim Valenti’s warnings, he really hadn’t believed until that night that it was true.
'I’m not talking about the usual parent-teenager troubles here either, I’m talking about crossing a line you may never be able to put right with your daughter.'
But it had been true. He and Nancy had come within a hair’s breadth of losing their daughter. Of that he had no serious doubt. And if he forced that choice on Lizzy again, he had no reason to expect any different outcome.
Two weeks ago he had told the Sheriff that he would get to know Max Evans, but so far it hadn’t happened. There had been the cup of hot chocolate he’d made for the two of them, after the first date…the date that, to be truthful, had been less a date than a warning shot by Lizzy across her parent’s bow. A declaration of independence…no, not even that. An unspoken understanding that Max Evans was…..hers. Her business, her responsibility, a subject so off-limits for her parents that to even attempt to influence her might cross the line. And it had been that attitude, he knew, that had undermined his determination to get to know the boy better.
Would Lizzy accept her parents trying to understand better how the intense relationship between the two teenagers had happened? Or would she resent it as parental interference. Jeff Parker again felt like he was walking through a minefield.
Jeff Parker had believed on the day he’d sent his daughter to the bank for change that she had barely known Max Evans. Three days later, Max Evans apparently had Lizzy’s unconditional love. Nothing made sense, and ….he had to know.
Maybe if he asked Lizzy to invite Max over for dinner…..or maybe if they invited all of the Evans’s to a picnic or something….. Somehow, he had to figure this out. He didn’t want to risk losing his daughter but there was something here that….just wasn’t normal.
Last edited by greywolf on Tue Sep 26, 2006 3:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Philip Evans knew that Diane loved to have Saturday breakfast at home as a family. She really enjoyed having the kids there, everyone talking about what they had done during the week, how school was going, how things were going at the office for him....it was the quintessential family time, and Diane reveled in that the way some women revel in a new dress or a sixteen year old boy revels in a bright red convertible.
So what were they doing here? In an alien themed restaurant, looking at breakfast menus that included ‘foo-fighter flapjacks’ and ‘Alien eggs in a basket’? Why had the woman he’d known for twenty-five years suddenly decided this morning that they’d leave Max and Isabel with a half-gallon of orange juice and a dozen cinnamon rolls and the two of them would go out for a romantic breakfast alone….and then come here? Those were easy questions, thought Philip Evans, as he looked over into the other section where the young girl in the alien theme uniform and bobbing antenna was working. It was because of….her. Diane wanted to see her, to try to understand how all this had happened, how their lives had turned around in five weeks, how …..everything had changed. She was the key, somehow, and Diane recognized that. So did he.
Even in the somewhat comical uniform, she was an attractive girl. Philip wondered what she had looked like in the 3rd grade. Izzie had told them three weeks ago that Max had fallen in love with this girl when he’d stepped off the bus in third grade……but what kind of nonsense was that? How could a third grader fall in love….and how could someone go seven years without acting on that love and then….Philip had seen her when Max had come to her in the restaurant, when his son had looked as lost and vulnerable as he’d ever seen him look. He’d seen the young girl pull Max to her….and it was like she was radiating defiance at the world, like he was hers and she’d do…anything….to protect him, to …to care for him.
And she had certainly backed down the Parkers, which Philip could kind of understand, Isabel knew the right buttons to push on Diane and Philip Evans, too. But those particular buttons….., she’d given the Parkers no choice whatever, everything about that meeting had told Philip Evans that. Accept my choices with Max, or lose me… the message could not have been clearer.
But what she had done to Lucy Frederickson….., Liz’s back had been to the parents when Lucy had taken her off to the corner of the birthday room to insist she not go out with Max, but Philip had seen Lucy’s eyes. He’d argued with Lucy for over an hour, and the woman hadn’t budged, but whatever Liz had done or said, whatever communication went between the two…….no, there had been no give or take there, whatever message Liz had sent to Lucy had done in five or ten seconds what he and Diane had been unable to do in an hour. There had been fear in those eyes....of course, the woman was borderline irrational anyway, but he'd actually seen this slight young girl put terror in Lucy's eyes somehow.
Yes, Philip Evans knew why his wife had dragged him here. It was to look at ….her. It was to try to understand just how their son who had never dated, never been serious about anyone, never even told his parents about this girl, had fallen in love in the third grade. Fallen in love enough to risk death for this girl by going into the vault with her. Fallen in love enough to kill for her. Who was this strange creature, and how had she managed to cast a spell on their son like she had?
Diane Evans looked at the girl, not in fear but in wonder. How had she done it? Because it was pretty obvious that she was the reason it was all happening.
Diane Evans loved her kids, HER KIDS, despite anything that Lucy might have to say about them. She thanked God daily that He had seen fit to have Isabel and Max walking down that road that evening...they had saved her marriage, saved her sanity, saved her life. No birth mother ever loved two kids any more than she loved Isabel and Max. And on any other Saturday morning, she'd have been with those two...and probably their friend Michael, too, back at the Evans house drinking in the pleasure of their company, making memories that she would have forever. But she was beginning to wish for something.....not different really, but....more. And while Diane Evans didn't understand it at all just yet, she knew that Liz Parker was the key.
She had been prepared to hate this young girl just a few weeks ago, hate her for spreading terrible lies that were threatening Max. 'How wrong I was about that,' she thought. 'How many things are there, I wonder, that I think that I know that are wrong?'
That whole mess had ended right here, right over there in the birthday room, and....she had ended it. Five adults had struggled for hours trying to sort out a way to compromise their way back from positions they had taken....because of fear, because of uncertainty, because four parents who only wanted what was best for their kid couldn't find a way to get past their fears and hatred .....and then it had happened....Max had come to her....not to his parents, but to her......and...God, he'd never looked so vulnerable...not even walking naked with his sister down that road, the two of them alone in the world...even then Max had never looked that vulnerable.
And Diane knew she would remember to her dying day what happened next, as she had pulled Max to her, how she had comforted him, the look of caring that had changed as they had watched into a look of possessiveness and then resolution. It had been as simple as that to the girl, Max was in pain, and she was putting a stop to it.
Diane understood from the discussions in the birthday room that this girl had always defended Max to her folks, that it had been that....Lucy-creature that had instigated all of this, and at that point she'd started to forgive her...no, not forgive, started to realize that she'd wronged the girl, by how she had felt about her, how she had blamed her for all of the allegations. But the look in her face when she'd held a vulnerable Max to her bosum, softly kissing his hair.....Diane felt like she'd been able to read the girl's mind then...'This stops here. This stops now.'
Diane could tell the girl loved her parents, she'd apparently first tried to talk reason to them, then threatened them if they didn't compromise, but it had been neither threat nor compromise when she'd brought Max into that room. She loved her parents AND she loved Max, but if they had forced her to make a choice......The Parkers had been wise to not force that choice, Diane decided. If they had they would have lost their daughter, and the Evans's would have likely lost their son........or maybe gained a new daughter, Diane thought suddenly, somehow picturing Liz sitting around the Sunday breakfast table with Max and Isabel.
But it had been what happened next that had really gotten Diane's attention. When she had reached out to that Lucy-creature....when she had slowly brought her fingernail down across the woman's cheek....Diane honestly believed she would have killed the woman. rather than let her hurt Max, as frightening as that sounded. And Max, her shy little Max, HAD killed two people to keep them from hurting her, and risked death in the process. Somehow, already their bond was that great.
And that was really why Diane Evans was here this morning, not because she believed any longer that Liz Parker had falsely accused her son, not because she believed that the girl was any kind of threat at all to Max, but because she was.....amazed by the girl, and wondered what part she would soon play in their lives. And because she needed to try to understand how this slight young woman-child could succeed, where Diane herself had failed for so long.
Diane Evans loved her kids but she had for years felt that she'd sort of failed them, particularly Max. Max had never really truly acted like he ....belonged. Sure, after the initial year or so, after she'd bought him his toy house, Max had eventually bonded with them. Diane knew that Max loved his parents, but she also had no illusions about her son. He'd always looked at life almost as an observer, holding himself at arms length from really...living. It was almost as if he didn't even consider himself quite a part of the world, that while he could observe the rest of the people in the world, he could never really fully interact with them, not even his parents. He was better with his sister, and even somewhat with Michael, but Diane could sense it never really left him, that sense of not belonging, not even with his parents.
Isabel was a little better, but only superficially. She hid it better, keeping the world at a distance as an Ice Princess, dating all the most desirable guys, each only one time. Not so much caring, as....counting coup, with the other members of the Ice Princess Posse, for status, not really wanting to engage fully in life.
But she had changed that, Diane realized. That girl over there had somehow done what Diane herself had been unable to do in all those years. She had made Max somehow more....human. And last night....that'd been truly unbelievable. The six of them in the den, eating nachos, watching videos, and even ...dancing. Isabel who never saw a guy a second time, dancing with that Alex AGAIN, and he called her Izzie, and she smiled at him. And even poor little Michael, the kid who'd never had a chance to have any kind of life at all, the kid who Max and Isabel had always felt guilty about, that he'd gotten such a terrible deal from the social services system, smiling and dancing with Liz's best friend, Maria.
Max and Isabel and even poor little Michael were finally coming to the party, after all these years, and she was the common denominator. Somehow, she had made this happen.
Logically, Diane knew that kids don't choose life partners at 16, and that first loves seldom last. She was trying hard not to think of a future that had Liz at the Evans family breakfast table on Sundays, trying to avoid getting excited about a future that was almost certainly not going to happen. It was enough, she told herself, that this young girl had somehow done something for her kids that their own mother hadn't been able to do in all those years. She'd do her best not to think of her as a future daughter-in-law, she decided, knowing even as the thought came to her mind that she was already failing, already starting to consider Liz one of her own......
Liz Parker looked briefly at the booth in Annie's section before looking away. She could almost feel their eyes upon her as she took the orders and brought the plates to the customers. It was kind of ironic, in a way, that they were wondering about....her.
The Evans' had been sitting on one of the biggest secrets in the world for ten years, and here they were worried about ....her, the smallest of small town girls. Except .....she wasn't anymore. She knew that with certainty. Something had changed..........what had happened in the vault had changed her forever.
Perhaps it had started even before she was in the vault. Perhaps it had started when she turned around and saw Max there, between her and those men. She had wanted a closer relationship with him, but ....she'd been a 16 year old girl then with a crush on him.....on someone who had risked his future to save her life. She hadn't known if it would ever even happen....that the two of them would be a couple, that Max might get over his fear, his sense of isolation, his feeling that he was ....different, ....that he could never be anything but different.
All she had really wanted was for him to give the relationship a try, and she'd really doubted that he would ever do that. And then a gun gets pulled out and Max.......he was ready to die for her....and almost had.
Had it become love right then.....when she'd looked up with her mind full of terror and felt his presence...felt his determination to protect her through the connection? Or had it been that moment when the bullet went flashing into his brain when she felt his relief that he had gotten in front of her in time.....and his despair that he would not see her again?
Whenever it happened, she knew she had changed. And maybe there really wasn't one particular point in time, maybe it started right here 6 weeks ago in the Crashdown, right then the seed was planted that had gradually turned her into ....something...she still wasn't sure just what.
She was still 16.....but...she really wasn't. Because 16 year old girls worry about dances and dresses and boyfriends and all manner of adolescent priorities, and she no longer did. Now all she really was concerned about was him. He'd offered his life to protect hers, been ready to give up his soul to keep her from harm, all without asking anything in return.
'He's more noble than I am,' she thought. Sure, she'd undergone hellish pain for him, pain so bad that even after she had seen the flashes in his mind of her suffering, even as those flashes had triggered memories of sorts from that time, even those memories were incomplete, her mind refusing to recall just how bad that pain had really been. And worse to her had been the memory in her dream, feeling his soul flicker.....start to depart. No, It hadn't been the same kind of instinctive act for her, when her soul had embraced his, as it had been when he'd triggered that powerblast, heedless of what it would do to him.
Her soul had known what it was doing...known what would be the outcome, known how it would change her and Max. Her soul had done more than protect him, it had ...claimed him.
Max had loved unselfishly and unselfishly would have given his all for her. 'But Liz was selfish,' she told herself, ...and she was glad she was selfish. Max was hers now. Her soul had once fused with his to draw his back from the oblivion it faced, and that fusion had forever changed both of them. And Liz Parker was glad.
The terror, the pain, the ugliness of those two men, the nearness to death, even Max's close call with oblivion, ......., it had all been worth it, because Max was now hers..And to Liz Parker, that fusion was more of a joining than any promise, any marriage, any physical consumation would ever be.
Yes, she wanted those also, but........that was no longer something to worry about, because the fusion of their souls had made that inevitable, made that....destiny, and in the final analysis, that is what had changed the perfect Liz Parker.
She smiled as she looked again at Diane and Philip Evans. The rest was just details, but those two were part of the details.
There were rather a LOT of details, Liz thought to herself, as she mechanically filled water glasses of the customers at one of her tables. The biggest detail was....well, Max.
Only a month ago she had resented the fact that Max wouldn't consider a relationship with her... she remembered feeling that way in the bank when he was with his father....before all hell had broken loose. But it hadn't been fair of her to resent that, Max was sweet and kind and loving and self-sacrificing and had been back then. What he hadn't been was......well mature.
And it wasn't his fault, she had realized guiltily once she'd really understood. There were times Max made her feel, the blush rising in her cheeks even as she thought it, almost like a pedophile. Four weeks ago, Max had been only ten years old. Only a little over ten years since that machine had.....what?..Hatched him? Two years after that living at home, not even going to school while he and Isabel learned English, learned how to read and write, were....potty-trained. And even then, even after going to public school, 'even after loving me since he was in third grade,' never really being a normal part of society because of fear of discovery. ' Even from his parents, those nice people over there who love him ALMOST as much as I do.'
Yes, Liz Parker thought a lot about this aspect of her destiny. She smiled as she remembered him coming to her bedroom, remembering still the fear and embarassment he had felt when she'd practically forced him to touch her to heal the bruising and scratches that ...animal had done to her breast. And Liz Parker realized that there had been a time that she would have been just as embarassed, just as fearful. And that time had not been all that long ago, just a few weeks, but.....the time in the vault had changed everything, the sharing of souls had changed everything.
Now there was nothing she wouldn't gladly share with Max, her life, her love ...her body. Except of course, she couldn't, at least not the latter, at least ....not yet. She'd scare the poor dear out of his wits. So that too was one of the details, one item among many; ...seduce Max Evans, if possible without scaring him out of his wits.
He wasn't quite the naive ten year old he had been prior to their time in the vault, but he still needed a lot of work, a lot of maturing, she decided. But it promised to be very enjoyable work.
But back to the details, she thought. Like those two there, and her parents as well. 'A gal has got to have a plan,' she thought, and she was already formulating one. But she had all the time in the world, because Max was already hers, and no one would ever take him away from her.
Philip Evans was wishing he'd gotten the Hyperbolic Ham and Eggs rather than the Ganymede Garden Omelet, and he would have too, if his cholesterol wasn't 260....or if Diane hadn't been there with him. 'After all, the damn eggs had so much cholesterol anyway, what was the harm in a little ham?' he thought. His inner contemplation of the prehistoric differences between man the hunter and woman the gatherer, was interrupted abruptly as the young woman came over to their table.
"The two of you went to bed before I left last night. I really never did get a chance to thank you for your hospitality. Everybody really seemed to be enjoying themselves in the den, and the nachos were great."
'Now THAT is a gracious guest,' thought Philip Evans. He'd tasted the nachos that Max and Isabel made....once......years ago. He was still not completely sure his tongue had recovered. 'I hope they toned them down a little for the other kids,' he thought...although perhaps he was just an old fogey. Michael seemed to like them that hot too.
"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself, Miss Parker."
"Please, call me Liz..."
"Well...Liz, feel free to come over anytime. You are always welcome."
Philip Evans had heard the jeep drive off after midnight and not return home until after 2AM. He would have to talk to Max. First of all, he thought the Parker's were just barely holding it together already. They had been so frightened of this.....it was hard to believe this young girl had somehow maneuvered.......no, blackmailed was probably fairer, the two of them into accepting her and Max going out, despite their fears. But Max was so new to this...he might not understand how the Parkers felt and.... while he didn't believe Max would be capable of doing anything to this young lady against her will, Max was naive. He'd better understand that 'no' really meant 'no,' and that putting this sort of a full court press on this young girl might scare her off.
At least most of last night had been a triple date which was good, thought Philip Evans. With his sister there Max was unlikely to get too carried away. And really, he was probably worried about nothing. The girl had seemed assertive enough with her parents. Likely if Max let his hands wander or got too pushy about a kiss goodnight, the young lady would put him in his place quickly enough.
She actually appeared to be a very charming and capable young woman. Maybe in four or five years when they were old enough to really consider a serious relationship, they might even get back together. Of course, their current puppy love wouldn't last 2 months, but who knows? Someday when they really were ready........hell, Max could do a lot worse.
As Liz Parker excused herself and got back to work, Diane Evans watched her walk away. 'Oh good Lord, she's trying to win us over...... That girl wants to bear my grandchildren.'
It hadn't been anything she'd said, really. She'd just been making polite conversation. It was just that Diane Evans had once been a teenage girl and knew darn well the feelings that you had towards the parents of someone you were casually dating. You weren't altogether sure you'd even be a twosome in three weeks, you certainly didn't start trying to cultivate a relationship with the guy's parents, and certainly NOT after you had only been dating for two weeks.
And then there was the memory of her standing.....well, right about where she was standing now, when she'd pulled Max to her....that brief look on her face of possessiveness....the look of determination in her eye when she'd confronted her folks......even the none too subtle threat to Lucy.
Diane Evans was now as sure as she had ever been in her entire life of one thing, this wasn't practice for Liz Parker. This wasn't testing the waters in dealing with a member of the other sex. This wasn't part of a process of maturation of a young girl becoming a woman. Liz Parker considered herself a grown woman and she considered Max.....hers.
Diane sat back and let the emotions wash over her for a few seconds, trying desperately to figure out just how she felt about that. At first she decided they were too young but......she wasn't really sure that Liz was too young all of a sudden. She somehow had a maturity that belied her age.
But Max was too young. Diane was almost certain of that. But then....he had matured so much in just a few weeks, seemed more capable than he'd ever been of dealing with the real world, not hiding from it.....and she had been responsible for that.
Liz was good for Max, that was clear. and somehow she didn't think Liz could ever bring herself to hurt Max. 'I think I'll try to have a talk with Miss Liz Parker,' Diane Evans decided, '....woman to woman,....hopefully BEFORE she scares Max out of his wits....'
10:25 AM Crashdown Café
Sheriff Jim Valenti went up to the counter and handed the waitress the thermos bottle. She knew the drill and promptly filled it. He was DETERMINED to finish up by noon and then spend the rest of the afternoon with Kyle and, if the fates were kind, actually having a quiet dinner with Amy DeLuca. All that, of course, was subject to nothing happening that would require the County Sheriff to get involved.
He couldn’t help but smile when he saw the Evans’ sitting in that booth. It had all started right there, about six weeks ago, when a stupid argument had led to a senseless act of gunplay that would have killed the young lady in the next section.
The last six weeks seemed like an eternity to Jim and, he decided, it was probably just as well. Because if it had hit him all at once, he had no good idea how he would have reacted, but he suspected he would have done something he’d now be regretting,….like sending that blood and ketchup stained uniform to the FBI, rather than incinerating it.
It was difficult to believe, even in retrospect, that so many people could have been so certain for so long of things that were absolutely incorrect, and as he looked at the Evans’ he smiled as he realized it was still going on.
Hell, Jim’s own misperceptions back then were bad enough. There was no part of that shooting scenario that he didn’t have wrong. But it wasn’t until the security tapes showed that Max had actually intended to put himself in that vault to protect Liz that he’d actually understood a little of what was going on between them. And by the time he really knew the story, by the time he knew about the DVD and actually saw what happened in the vault, he’d already long decided that Max was one of the good guys.
And that was fortunate, the sheriff thought, because if he’d known on Day ONE that Max Evans was an alien with special powers, that in fact there were three orphan aliens in Roswell New Mexico, he would have probably turned them in. And he might never have known that it would have been so wrong…..
It must have been terrible growing up so frightened that you were afraid to tell your mom and dad you were…..different. He’d chided Max about that a few weeks ago, but as he looked at the Evans’ watching Liz Parker, he’d be willing to bet they still didn’t know. He suspected they were there trying to figure out just what was going on between the two kids, what made Liz different, not knowing their own two kids were aliens.
But as he looked at Liz, he had to admit that she was different. Kyle had dated her a couple of times months ago, and she was sort of …shy. But she had changed enormously in the past six weeks, like metal that has been heated to white heat in a furnace, and come out annealed, tougher than any 16 year old girl he’d ever seen.. And why not? She’d almost died on the floor of this restaurant, would have been repeatedly raped and likely killed in the vault, had Max not rescued her, and she’d gone through hell on earth to bring him back from the brink of death….or maybe even something worse.
Everyone is changed by their experiences, and the experiences Liz Parker had been through in the last 6 weeks had certainly changed her. But he wondered if there wasn’t something more there…Had Max somehow changed her inadvertently when he’d healed her in the Crashdown? Had the assault by Garber and what she had to do to fight him off, made her a different person? Or had watching Max almost die changed her? Or enduring the agony she willingly endured to bring him back, pain so hideously severe her brain refused to remember those long hours, had that been what changed her? Something sure had. It was hard to believe that shy young girl Kyle had once dated had gouged someone's eye halfway out, not that the bastard hadn't deserved it.
And it wasn’t like she was bad the way she was now, just ….well, she wasn’t like a 16 year old girl anymore, she was stronger, tougher, more determined. Tougher than any 16 year old girl he'd ever seen.
In fact, neither Max nor Liz were really kids anymore in many ways. Their souls had been kind of melded together, somehow, and there just wasn’t any doubt in either of them that their futures were going to be together. Jim knew he had cautioned them to take things slowly, to give their parents time to adjust……but it was apparent that the kids idea of ‘slowly’ and their parents idea of 'slowly' were two different ideas, at least from the look of wonder the Evans’ were giving the girl.
'I guess I've changed too,' thought Jim Valenti. 'Six weeks ago if I'd known that three teenage kids were wandering around town with the power of a bazooka in the palm of their hands, I'd have called out the National Guard.' But they'd lived there for ten years, caused no trouble, and what Max had done in the vault......well, Jim Valenti would never stop being thankful to Max.....and to Liz, that he didn't have to tell two pair of parents what he had been so sure he was going to have to tell them.
'So, we have three aliens with incredible powers in town, and the only adult who knows is the Sheriff....and he isn't telling anyone. Well...... welcome to Roswell.'
Jeff Parker cleared his throat as his daughter came up the stairs.
He had brought her home about ten minutes ago, but they had lingered downstairs in the Crashdown for awhile, no doubt saying their goodbyes where parents prying eyes wouldn’t see, he thought. Liz’s curfew time had been 11:00 PM unless specifically extended until….two weeks ago. He honestly didn’t know what it was anymore…she’d stayed out later…with him, and neither parent had the courage to call her on it. He had been sitting there for an hour already…prepared to sit as long as it took, because he had to talk to her….had to have this conversation.
She looked up and saw him when he cleared his throat….sitting at the table, two cups of hot chocolate there….very much like she had met him with coffee one morning about three weeks previously. She had to smile…..she had needed a heart-to-heart talk with him then…..to lay it on the line….to tell him that she couldn’t let it go on much longer…their treatment of Max. Dad apparently needed a heart to heart talk with her now.
Jeff Parker watched as his daughter walked over to the chair and sat down, picking up the cup and looking at him. She didn’t say anything to him as she picked the mug up with both hands, sipped it, and looked back across the table at him with eyes that seemed to almost sparkle at him.
“How is it?”
“You always did make the best cup of hot chocolate, Dad.”
“Maybe. But things change. You always used to…trust me. You used to be my little girl, and your daddy was someone you could always talk to, someone who would always make it better. Now I’m afraid to talk to you….afraid I’ll drive you away. I’m even really afraid to have this conversation, because I don’t know how you’ll react to it.”
She took another sip of the chocolate and looked at the far wall of the room for a few seconds before answering. “You and Mom are still my parents, Dad. I love both of you, and I realize how much I owe you. I look at Maria, growing up without a father, or Michael, growing up with no parents at all, just a foster father who keeps him around to get a check from the state,….I realize every day how fortunate I have been to have you and Mom.”
‘Have been?’ thought Jeff Parker, ‘Not, how fortunate I am? Did she mean it that way….or am I just reading my own fears into what she said?’
“So what happened to the trust?”
He saw just a brief flash of anger in those eyes then, as she took another sip of the chocolate, trying to let the anger cool before responding. “What DID Happen to the trust, Daddy? Most of my relatives and half my friends have taunted me about being “the perfect Miss Parker,” since Mrs. Jamieson put that on my report card in 6th grade and you put it in our Christmas letter that year.
What did I do to ruin that trust? How was it that instead of talking things over with me, you and Mom call me into the birthday room and confront me with that Lucy-woman, and tell me you are going to hurt someone…hurt someone so very important to me…for my own good.
You didn’t ASK me what I thought of the idea, you didn’t even talk to Max, you just went and did something that hurt someone I care about, like….like he was nothing, like what I thought meant nothing.
Where DID the trust go, Daddy? Where did the trust I built up in sixteen years of being “the perfect Miss Parker” go?”
“Liz, there was so much about Max that we didn’t know…that we still don’t know.”
“But you knew ME Daddy, you knew ME!”
“Honey, we were frightened. You’ve changed so much since …I sent you to the bank that day. And Mrs. Frederickson seemed so sure…’
“I know I’ve changed, Daddy…..I went through a lot in there. I did things that….I would have never thought I could do. But even so…….I only survived in there because of Max. And I can’t let you hurt him, Daddy. As much as I love you and Mom, I could never let you hurt Max.”
“If he is important to you, Lizzie…Well, we never did want to hurt him. We just wanted to protect you. But it seems like now….because of him, we are outsiders now. We don’t really even know what’s happening in your life…what’s really happening. It’s like you are a stranger who rooms here almost, …and we want you back, back into our lives and us into yours. And if Max is a part of your life,…well he needs to be part of ours as well.”
Liz looked at her father, tears coming into her eyes. Did she want her parents back in her life? Sure. She wanted then to rejoice in her happiness, to understand what Max meant to her. But did she trust them?
On nothing but the ravings of Lucy Frederickson, they had almost done things that would have hurt Max, would potentially have attracted enough attention to him to put him at risk of discovery. HER Max. The Max who had saved her life three times, who had been willing to give his soul for her…..put at risk by her parents because of Lucy Frederickson’s delusions?
And what if she let them get close…and they did find out about Max? They had freaked over Lucy Frederickson’s unfounded fears. How were they going to handle…’Well folks, this is Max….my soulmate and the future father of your grandchildren….and, Oh yes, did I mention he is an alien??’
You damn right she wanted them back in her life…..but could she risk it? And the real risk wasn’t even for her, it was for Max.
“Dad, I just don’t know. I guess I’m going to have to think about it a bit,….maybe talk it over with Max too. I do want you and Mom to understand what Max means to me…but, but.. I’m not sure I can forget what you did to him….what you would have done to him. I need some time to think about this, OK? I love you both so much but……I just need some time to think about it, OK?”
Jeff Parker nodded. “OK, Liz. You think about it and we’ll talk again later.” But in his mind he was going over the words Jim Valenti had said to him, back three weeks ago when he had been so sure….and so wrong.
‘I’m talking about crossing a line you may never be able to put right with your daughter,’ Jim had said.
And Jeff Parker hadn’t believed, hadn’t believed until….was it really too late? He sure hoped not. As he walked slowly down the hall to the master bedroom, he was praying it was not too late to put things right with his daughter.
Saturday 11:05 Across the street from the Crashdown Café.
Max was surprised as he came up to the jeep to see a figure sitting in the passenger seat.
”Mrs. Parker…? Uh….do you want something?”
“I’d like to talk to you about you and Liz, Max.”
“Right here? It uh…must be about 45 degrees, Mrs. Parker.” The top wasn’t on the jeep, and the high desert was cold after dark.
Nancy Parker looked up and down the street. “Maybe we should go in to the Crashdown and sit down in a booth to have this conversation.” She picked up her purse, awkward with the extra weight, and led Max across the street, opening the door of the darkened restaurant, and then locking it behind them.
The Crashdown after dark had an eerie feel. Several of the alien images on the walls had been painted with fluorescent paint that gave off a soft yellow-green glow, while the small neon flying saucer sign in the large picture window gave a reddish glow, that sent shadows throughout the tables and booths. Nancy Parker motioned him into a booth and sat down across from him, awkwardly gripping her purse. They both stared at each other for a few tens of seconds, waiting for the other to talk. Finally Nancy Parker spoke first, “Tell me about you and Liz, Max.”
“I just brought her home. We were just watching a movie in the den…at my place. Maria and Alex were there too…..we just took them home before coming here.” Max could tell she was upset, and he wanted to reassure her that nothing had happened, that they really hadn’t been alone together.
“I mean in the vault, Max. Tell me what happened in the vault.”
“I’m not sure what you mean, Mrs. Parker. I mean, we have told people what happened in the vault….Liz and I both. It went to a coroner’s jury. I….I well…I admitted what I did and they decided it was….justifiable.”
“My daughter is different, Max. She’s not the same 16 year old girl she was before she went in there. I have to know what happened.” ‘I have to know what you did.’
“I admitted that I killed them, Mrs. Parker. What else can I say?”
“That doesn’t explain to me what happened to Liz, Max. Tell me what happened to Liz in there.”
“I’m not just too sure I can tell you what happened to Liz, Mrs. Parker…I mean,…why she changed or what changed her.” ‘I sure can’t tell you that she endured six hours of hell……saving me. Or that she….saved my soul from oblivion,’ thought Max, believing that Nancy Parker was just short of being hysterical.”
“Start at the beginning, Max. Why did you beat those two so badly?”
“Mrs. Parker… Ask the Sheriff. I was hit in the head with a bullet before the door was even all the way closed. During the hour or so that there were negotiations going on…I wasn’t even conscious. Liz was…holding my head….trying to help me. I don’t even remember when they pulled her away….when they kicked her…hit her in the face…”
Nancy Parker was surprised to see Max’s eyes start to tear, to hear his voice quaver with emotion, to see his hands shake just from the memory of that time. She watched and listened closely as he continued, “….that man…started to hurt her….just to see her pain…,”and she could hear the rage start in his voice then, “…to ENJOY her pain…..I wasn’t really conscious…I don’t know where I was….but I could hear the fear in her voice as she fought him, ..somehow I struggled back to consciousness…..I saw what he was doing…what he was trying to do….I remember attacking both of them....both of those men……that’s all I remember until six hours later. I awoke with Liz holding my head in her lap, crying down at me. She was beaten and battered…..I’d even hurt her some when I attacked those two, without knowing it. But she didn’t care……,she’d been crying about….me.” His eyes softened then, looking out not with rage or hatred but with wonder, “..all that had happened to her…all she had gone through, …and all she cared about was me.”
The tears were coming unashamedly from the boy’s eyes, and Nancy Parker was confused, eying her purse, eying the tearful boy. “Ms. Frederickson says that you beat them so badly to intimidate Liz. That you terrorized her that way.”
“I don’t remember anything after that first second or two. I think I blacked out…but if I didn’t…I just don’t know. Jim Valenti has told me a couple of times that I did the right thing…that I shouldn’t feel bad about it…..but…I’ve never killed before. Never killed….anything, I mean other than bugs and stuff. In seventh grade we had to dissect frogs and they brought us…live frogs. Rana pipiens…leopard frogs. We were supposed to put them in a jar and put ether in to kill them…..I couldn’t do it.”
Suddenly her purse was forgotten. Nancy remembered the day Liz had come home, smelling of formaldehyde. They’d dissected a frog and pickled it for science open house. She’d said that she’d had to anesthetize it...to kill it, her lab partner couldn’t bring himself to do it…… ‘that was Max.’
Max's hands appeared to shake uncontrollably as he continued, “I never wanted to kill them…..I never wanted to kill anyone. But what they were doing to Liz….what that man wanted to do to her…….yeah, I killed him. I killed them both. I would have given my soul to kill them, to stop them.”
His eyes looked up to her then, and she could feel them pleading with her, even before she heard his voice,”Why did it have to be that way? They knew both of those guys were bad, that they would do that. Sheriff Valenti said they’d already killed a 14 year old girl up in Albuquerque…after they had….both of them had….Why Mrs. Parker? Why didn’t they keep them locked up? Why did they let them free to do that to Liz?”
“I don’t know Max, ….your parents are the lawyers, maybe they could tell you…something about rules of evidence..”
“Rules? They have rules that you can’t lock up murderers that you know are guilty? But it’s OK for them to shoot people…and hurt Liz….and try to rape….” Max’s voice was interrupted by sobs, that seemed to shake his whole body. “…it’s OK for them to do all that because we have to follow the RULES and then…..AFTER, only AFTER they have hurt people again and again and again, only then it’s OK for me to KILL them. I have to KILL them because when we could have locked them up for murder there were RULES, Liz has to go through all that pain..” and Max again began to shake as he remembered the hour after hour she had gone through agony, healing him a few hundred cells at a time, using the pain of his injury as her template for gradually rebuilding his damaged brain. “Liz has to go through that HELL because we must be civilized, we must have rules….”
Nancy left her purse on the bench as she got up and walked over to the other side of the booth, leaning over to pull Max’s head to her chest, the memory suddenly flashing in her mind of her daughter doing the very same thing that Sunday night, when Max had been like this, almost out of control, so very …vulnerable.
Just as Liz had done, she pulled the tearful boy to her, ran her hands through his hair, and placed a gentle kiss on the top of his head, trying to comfort him. “Max….., I don’t know who fouled up, or how to fix the system, or …much of anything else, I guess. All I know for sure is….well, I know I’m glad you were there for Liz, and I ….I know I’ve never thanked you, not since it happened….and I’m sorry.” ‘Liz wasn’t the only baby in there that had lost their innocence, Max had too,’ Nancy Parker decided, as she held Max Parker close to her.
“Max….the Sheriff’s a good man. If he told you that you did what was needed….well Max, you did what was needed. I wish it hadn’t happened…not to Liz…not to you….neither of you should have to go through something like that….neither of you should have to …give up your childhood like that.”
Nancy Parker held up his head and looked into his amber eyes, picking up a napkin and wiping away his tears, as her tears trickled down her own cheeks unnoticed. “But thank you Max, …thank you for being there….thank you for doing what you did for my baby…”
Nancy looked off into the distance for a moment, in the darkened room. She blinked away some tears and sniffled once.
“But I guess I’d better get you out and let you get home, …otherwise I imagine your mother will be worried about what’s happened to her own baby.”
She stood up then and so did Max. She turned the key in the lock and opened the door. “Good-night, Max. Drive safely. …..and Max. You are always welcome in our house,…I want you to know that.”
“Thank you Mrs. Parker. Good night.”
As the noise of the jeep faded into the distance Nancy Parker went back to the small office next to the kitchen and turned the dial on the small safe. When she had it open, she opened her purse, pulling the pistol free. She put it deep in the safe and closed the door spinning the dial to lock it before putting her head against the wall above the safe, shaking with fear.
She had been seeking a Rasputin who had somehow savaged her child, willing to kill him or die herself at his hands, believing either would get rid of him....would make her child safe. She had found instead of a Rasputin, …just another damaged child.
Both were growing up too fast……both had been in the crucible called the vault, and emerged changed. And her fear had almost made things even worse for them. They didn’t need more stress now, and certainly didn’t need more violence.
She had loved her child, but she also would love the woman she was becoming. And her daughter's young man…..she was already starting to love him too, she thought guiltily, not quite believing how stupid she’d been tonight…and how lucky she’d been as well. 'God willing, neither of them will ever know...'
Last edited by greywolf on Mon Oct 02, 2006 9:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
Jeff Parker was somewhat puzzled as his wife joined him in bed. ‘She must have been downstairs checking on inventory or something. She hardly sleeps more than four or five hours a night since this happened, and she wakes up constantly throughout the night crying out from her nightmares…..’ He looked at the dried tears that stained her cheeks…wishing that he could take it all away, wishing that he could make it all better, wishing that it was like…..like it had been only a few months ago.
He was surprised when he saw the weak smile on her face, after she’d kissed him….surprised when she cuddled up and nestled against him.
“I tried talking to Liz….she’s still …well, ….distant. She said that she’d think about …maybe letting us get to know Max better…about doing some things with all four of us…..But she wasn’t really sure, she needed to think it over.”
Nancy remembered the pain in Max’s eyes when he’d told her about Liz’s experiences in the vault……and when he’d told her about killing those two…animals. Both children were hurting. She wanted to cuddle her daughter, just like she had Max…..it was so unfair that they had gone through that. But they had gone through it, and together…they had survived it….and maybe it had even made them stronger. It had certainly…united them….fused them together somehow…she saw how much he had cared for Liz…..knew that Liz wasn’t angry at her parents so much…..she too was scared….scared that they’d hurt Max. She shuddered for a second, thinking how close she had come….how stupid she had been. But that was over……she knew now that she could never hurt Max, and that Max would never hurt Liz.
“She’ll be OK, Jeff. She just needs time. Time to deal with everything that has happened to her.” ‘..and maybe if she takes too much time,’ thought Nancy Parker, ‘I could talk to Max. He seems a reasonable enough kid…., maybe he can get through to her…'
Jeff Parker stared at the ceiling for several hours, worried about his daughter and…him. He was too worried to notice Nancy Parker’s gentle smile, as she slept restfully beside him, her nightmares no longer tormenting her.
