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Re: The Story of My Life (CC, Mature) - Chapter 45 - 02/12/2021

Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2021 11:46 am
by Superman86
Oh No! Not Max, I so hope he's ok, that's the last thing Liz needs. Zack seems to be sticking around a lot longer than anticipated, interesting. I hope Olivia has a change of heart when she turns 18 with baby.

The Story of My Life - Chapter 46 - 02/14/2021

Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2021 1:20 pm
by Parker1947
Unaware of what was going on at the prison. Olivia was still at the Crashdown, as she closed the paper she was writing after finishing her on-line exam. She spotted her best friend coming through the door. “So, how is the grand reunion?” Olivia managed as she saw her best friend walk into the back area as she was closing her laptop. She was ready to head home and do the rest of her homework. The bustling back in the backroom was getting more, as it was getting into the dinner rush, and she knew the crowds would be coming, so she figured the time had come to go home, and deal with the rest of her schoolwork. She did not know if mother would be home, and if they could have dinner together. She knew her mother was spending more time these last weeks at home, instead of the office. Ever since her mother’s plea via her Aunt’s legal petitions for more face time with her father was denied for the third time in the last month. Olivia knew her mother was a mess of emotion, even if she had a hard time showing it.

Of course, Olivia knew the feeling, which is why she was spending time on her schoolwork and ignoring the real world. But since she had decided about the baby, she had become calmer, and the waters seemed to have settled some.

But still she did not have a father, and when she did want to see him, she had to go hundreds of miles to go see him, and it could only be a short visit. While her mother was being barred, which was annoying for her, and for her mother because it meant that the outside world was being judgmental and was trying to hold onto what they had created these past years, all the while Olivia and her mother were without the one person they wanted in their lives.

Still, it was boring at home, when she had to spend so much time now on-line conducting her schoolwork, and so that is why Olivia was finding ways to do her studies, elsewhere. So, she often found herself at the town library, or here at the Crashdown. “I am surprised you have come up for air?”

“We had to eat,” Amelia laughed as she saw the pile of schoolbooks, and papers being packed up. “Are you heading home?”

“Yeah,” Olivia nodded but knew she was in no rush to head home. “So, what is up?”

While they continued to talk, out front, Zack was getting some fresh air when he noticed Amelia’s twin walking by. Both frowned at each other. Neither had spent much time together since Zack rolled into town. Not since that night, when Olivia was in the hospital. Alex had been around, but Zack had yet to be able to get a gage on the guy who had a place in his half sister’s heart.

Whether they were over or not, Zack knew Olivia still felt something for Alex, and she that might never truly resolve itself “You are going in?” Zack muttered as Alex stopped.

“Do you know of any reason why I should stay out of there?” Alex asked. “You do not own the place, so why would I not go in, as the food is delicious?”

“Olivia is in there,” Zack murmured.

Alex knew it because he could see the doors open inside the establishment and both his sister and Olivia walk out. It did not matter to Alex whether Olivia was in there or not. “Olivia and I have made peace between us, and we are friends as a result. We were friends before and will continue to be…” Alex murmured as he knew he and Olivia were still in the awkward stage, and there had been an unease with each other since they had formalized their breakup. While it took time for it to sink in, he did know they were right to make the break before the hurt only got worse…

If they were not going to make it. Might as well know now Alex muttered to himself and plus, he did not know what the future would hold, but he did know that he did not want to be holding her down, and he knew the same could be said for Olivia and given Olivia had a bright future to look out for now that she had accepted the exchange program for the next school year. They had made the right decision.

Although it would be odd to have Olivia gone, but he knew she probably would be needing the break. They both probably did.

“Just warning you,” Zack muttered as he moved on to other topics because they both knew he did not have much ground to talk regarding Olivia or Alex. “So, what do you know about your sister’s boyfriend, this Greg guy?” he asked as they looked inside and saw Olivia and Amelia approach the table that Amelia was sharing with Greg. Greg smiled at the sight of Olivia, and got up, and they hugged. Because Olivia knew Greg was a good guy, and they had been friendly in the past and of course when she was dating Alex. They would double date occasionally. “Is it any of your business?” Alex asked.

“I am only looking out for your sister,” Zack asked as he sensed the irritation in Alex. “We are only friends, so there is nothing there, you know…” he laughed at he saw the annoyance on Amelia’s brother’s face. “I am just looking out for her, as a friend.”

“It’s none of your business how my sister is with Greg, or what kind of guy he is” Alex muttered as he had long not liked how Olivia’s half brother was looking at his sister, and was trying to ignore it, and there was no reason to be suspicious of Greg, because his sister’s boyfriend was on the up and up. “Leave her alone”

“It is only I heard a strange conversation Greg had with his mother, and so I am just curious what you knew of him?” Zack wondered.

“Then wonder in silence, because everything fine” Alex muttered. “He has been away this semester,” Alex allowed. “He is bound to be having conversations, so, I repeat, it is none of your business” he muttered as they both walked into the restaurant at the same time as both Olivia and Amelia noticed that they were talking to each other, and neither thought that was a good thing for any number of reasons.

“I have to go,” Olivia mentioned.

“You look great Olivia,” Greg smiled. “You should not be taking what any of the idiots in this town thinks to heart.”

“I don’t,” Olivia smiled. “Talk to you later Amelia?” she murmured as she nodded to both Zack and Alex, who watched her walk out at the same time that Zack got a text message on his phone, and he frowned when he saw it was from Michael. 911. Meet me at the usual location.

“I have to go,” Zack muttered as he checked his watch. “My shift is ending anyways…” he muttered at he went into the backroom, and the kitchen, and worked the last thirty minutes of his shift, and then was out of the Crashdown while Amelia and Greg were still talking.

Amelia noticed the rush that Zack was in and wondered what that was about.


*


Liz was doing paperwork. The office was closed for the day. No patients had been scheduled this week from any of the doctors in her practice. It was a week to do paperwork and office management, and to take off some leisure time since they did get much of it because they operated their own office. The two other doctors she shared the practice with had a conference they were going to the following week, so she would be on duty more than usual the following week when dealing emergency cases, as well as normal rate of patients. She knew Olivia was off, finding some peace and quiet to do her homework. So, that she did not have to stay at home all the time.

E-learning had come a long way since she was in school Liz told herself. If only she had been able to do some of her schoolwork on-line, then maybe the mayhem that was unleashed in her life once she met Max would not have taken so much from her, but then she made it to medical school and became a doctor, the hard way, and she was better for it. Because she had made it, her way. So, she knew her daughter was fortunate for being able to continue her education, despite the detours in her life. She wondered what it was like the following school year when she had a new baby to take care of, and her eldest child would be away, across the country for six months.

Not like she would have much else to do since the government was having their way and getting in the middle of seeing her husband. She had spent nearly seventeen years not seeing him, because it had been her husband’s choice as well as hers. She knew she could have gone and seen Max, but she had stayed away so that she could raise her daughter without the worries that came from being a mother with the constant visits. Now, that she had seen him, she felt the craving that she remembered so well a teenager whenever she was close to Max. For good and for bad.

Now she was being separated from Max because of the villainous actions of the government, and she resented and prayed that somehow the situation would be reversed. She knew like Michael; she was pissed at the government for not taking their other option of a scape goat with the evidence they had of Kal Langley’s actions back in 2002.

He had been here in Roswell. It had not been Tess who blew up the base. When she had driven the blonde and seen the explosion. She had assumed that it had been Tess, but it had been Kal cleaning up Tess’s mess. Tess was not blameless because she had to know what she was doing by going back to the base and sacrificing herself. She had to know the government would not take it lightly and come after them because they had helped her when she first came back to town, with Max’s son.

She always liked to create chaos because she had not wanted her to have Max, and to win. Knowing it was Kal and having credible evidence that showed that he had a motive for wanting to do it. Of course, they knew, it was clean up mission, but no, the government would not bend to their view of the situation and was preceding with Max’s conviction. And they did not want to admit to mistakes or having to admit they had convicted the wrong person.

It would mess up careers They could not have that Liz thought bitterly.

They did not care that someone who was innocent was sitting in prison for something he did not do. The had their man, and did not want to correct their mistake, and that prevented Liz from seeing or communicating with her husband.

She missed Max. She forgot how much she had, until she had seen him.

She checked the clock, and knowing she had to get dinner ready. Olivia would be home anytime. Cleaning up the mess she had made at the dinner table. She was puttering around, and whistling, and thinking about what to make, when there was a ring of the phone. Still having a landline phone helped in case she did not have her phone on her. She knew her daughter always had her cellphone on her. But Liz was not as enamored on those cellphones.

She preferred the old fashion way of making calls, except the appreciate that she could reach her daughter wherever she might be. That had helped immensely when her daughter had been the heat of her relationship with Alex.

“Hello,” she answered it as she wondered if it were Olivia to say she was going over to Amelia’s but no, it was not her daughter, as she would almost wish it were when she heard the silence on the line. “Hello?” she asked again.

“Ms. Parker,” came the voice. Official sounding. She knew what official sounding voices sounded like because she had her own version, and she had heard too many during her marriage to Max, and now she was hearing it once again. “Elizabeth Parker?” came the voice.

“Yes,” Liz asked tentatively. “Who is this?”

“Is this the Elizabeth Parker who is married to Max Evans?” came the voice.

As if there was another one Liz mused. “Of course, I am,” she muttered in response. “What is this about?”

“I am sorry Ms. Parker, but there has been an incident up here at the prison” came the voice of the secretary in the warden’s office as the warden was still dealing with the situation.

“What kind of incident?” Liz asked as fear coursed her.

“Your husband has been hospitalized in the infirmary, and we are calling you to inform you of his medical condition?” came the voice.

“How serious is it?” Liz asked softly as she heard a slam of the front door, and then her daughter walking into the kitchen, and frowning at the expression on her mother’s face. If anything has happened to Max than this is ALL you fault she muttered to herself as she prayed for her husband.

“We are not at liberty to tell you that, but just to let you know he is in the infirmary, and we will let you know when his situation changes.”

“That is ludicrous,” Liz snapped. “I am his wife. I deserve to know what kind of medical condition my husband is suffering from. You cannot keep that information from me?” she threatened, and Olivia’s worry could not help but increase at the mention of her father name in the conversation.

“Mom?” Olivia asked.

Liz muttered; it is fine to her daughter but knew it was not fine.

“If you people do not want a lawsuit than you better tell me what the hell is going on,” Liz muttered into the phone. “Better yet, let me speak to the warden on why he cannot keep his prisoners healthy?” she asked. “Because this is not the first time my husband has ended up with some kind of injuries that were sustained in your prison?”

“I am sorry that is not possible,” the secretary murmured.

“I do not care whether it is possible or not. Make it happen. That guy is probably afraid to talk to me. Tell them to let me know when I can see my husband, or better yet what is going on with him or you will be hearing from my lawyer, do you hear me. Call me back when you have the warden to talk to me, personally or I am coming up there and I will not be leaving until I get an answer, okay, or better yet, see my husband for myself that you have not done your level best to kill him, which is what I know the warden hopes happens” she said in a rant that surprised even herself, and more so, her daughter because her daughter had never seen her mother so off hinged, even in the lowest of moments in recent months.

“I was only told you to inform you of your husband’s situation” the secretary muttered.

“Without telling me anything more. I expect more answers, and as I said, if I do not get anything more in the next half hour than I am heading right on up there, and I will not leave without seeing my husband. Do you have me? Liz threatened.

“Yes,” the secretary nodded in the office.

“Good,” Liz stormed as she slammed the door down. “Those abusive idiots”

“Mom, what is going on with Dad?” Olivia asked as it was the first time her voice had come through Liz’s wall of fear, and Liz knew she had to tell their daughter something. But she did not have the answers.

“It is your father” Liz said softly.

“Obviously,” Olivia murmured. “What is going on?”

“He’s been hurt?” Liz said softly.

“They are succeeding in trying to kill him, are they not?” Olivia asked with fear because she knew that the intention. So, the government did not have to admit how they bungled the case, and so that they did not win and get her father home with them. “Mom, tell me what is going on?”

“Your father apparently had fallen victim to some kind of accident up there, but they will not tell me anything more than he has been moved to the infirmary” Liz muttered with hatred in her eyes for the system that had taken Max from her and was doing their level best to make sure he did not live to see justice done. She knew he had confessed, but she knew if he had fought the case, or let it fall on Isabel or someone else, he would not have been able to handle it and he would rather have taken the beating, than let it be someone else. But she wished they were not being as literal, to try to beat him to death so they did not have to admit they were wrong.

“Oh god,” Olivia whispered. “What are you going to do?”

“I am going to need you to get changed and wear something warm and comfortable because I do not know how long we will be. But I do know I am not going to wait on some hope they will call me back, and I am not going to let them win, so I am driving them up. I assume you will want to come with me?” Liz asked as she immediately knew what she had wanted to do. She wanted to make her presence known, and make sure the prison know they were not going to win. So, she would as Jim warned again. She was going to do a little rocking of the boat. Because she would get Max back.

She just prayed it would not be in a coffin as Olivia nodded and rushed upstairs to get changed. And fifteen minutes later, they were on the highway up to the prison. Liz having put the home phone on redirect to her cellphone in case the miracle of the warden returning her call happened. She was not planning on, but she was not going to sit there like concerned wife, waiting to be told that they were successful in taking her husband from her.

She had lived through that seventeen years ago, and was not going to relive that nightmare…

The Story of My Life - Chapter 47 - 02/18/2021

Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2021 10:15 am
by Parker1947
Michael and Zack had the same idea as they were behind closed doors at home with Isabel after hearing of what happened at the prison. Isabel had been on the phone for much of the last hours with the prison threatening court challenges if she did not get some answers. The prison was being tight lipped therefore she was sitting on little information. Kyle was away for the day otherwise she would be driving up the prison to see for herself, but she was on duty to be around for the kids because it seemed all the adults were busy on this day. She had already talked to Liz who was now on the road and knew her sister-in-law along with Olivia was on the way up to the prison and would be calling when she could personally see what was happening. Isabel was not sure Liz would be getting a straighter answer than she was when she could threaten by using her position. But she was getting nothing, a railroad. “The prison is claiming they do not know how he got injured, and they are assessing his condition before they attempt to do anything more.”

“Isn’t it protocol to transfer prisoners to neighboring hospitals for treatment?” Zack asked as he knew this was television, many of a drama would use the plot device.

“Only if they can’t deal with it inhouse,” Isabel muttered. “The warden assured me that would transfer Max if the need arose.”

“That is nice of them,” Michael snidely thought as he had remembered the SOS from Serena and knew that the prison was closing up their defenses, and it would be hard to get any answer from them, and he prayed Liz could get something by showing up and making it clear that they would not settle for anything less than what they deserved.

“If they do, would that not be our best way to strike?” Zack wondered.

“Keep me out of it,” Isabel muttered as she wanted to stay, but she had to have a little bit of deniability in this was to work. “I am going to check on the girls. I cannot be seen as party to any of this” she sighed even though she was supporting Michael mission to break out her brother, and even helping it along. It was becoming obvious a breakout was going to be the only way out of this, because the government did not want to be made out to be the villains of the story. When they were.

As much as Isabel wanted to maintain her professional duty to her profession. She knew she had to look out for her family, and she did not care what that meant at end of the day. They had lost out on too much over these years as she walked up the stairs and found her youngest peeking out of her room. “What’s up Kate?”

“What are you doing Mommy?” Five-year-old Kate Valenti asked as she looked up at her mother. To Isabel, the brown hair of her youngest reminded her of Kyle, but her demeanor was very much like her brother, even though Kate sister was her brother’s namesake. Everything about Kate reminded Isabel of her brother when they were as kids. The unassuming nature of her brother, and someone who wanted to blend in, and yet Kate was a little more outgoing than her brother had been, but like her brother, and Kate’s age, you should not count her out because she knew Kate would be a force one day. And Isabel could not wait to see what life would bring her daughters, because they had a chance to be in this world and create the chances that she and her brother had been denied.

“Just doing some adult stuff,” Isabel sighed and wished life were only a tad easier than it was because this had been everything she had ever wanted. She had settled down and she had found love. She had been able to have children and was a mother. She poopooed that stunt that Topolsky did when they were in high school when she was trying to get intel on them but had asked how they saw their future. Isabel was sure she had wanted fame. But Topolsky’s test determined, she wanted semblance of family, and to settle down.

And Isabel had to admit that maybe the test was right. Because she had everything she ever wanted, except for her brother.

But one day, she would have her brother back.

Then she would have her whole family together. She did not care how it would happen. But it would happen because for too long, they had taken from them. And one day they would have everything once again.

She did not know how it would happen. But it would happen.


*


Liz was driving with fear. Nothing scared her as much as when she faced the lost the love of her life on that day in Vermont. And how lucky they had been to get him to come back. No one should have lived again after dying. In the way he had died. But on that day, she had gotten a miracle. And lived a lifetime in those weeks before he was taken from her again. But at least he was alive, these past seventeen years.

She could live her life, raise their daughter, and hold out hope that fate could right their mistake, and bring him back to her, but now, she was knowing what someone out there did not want Max to come out of that prison alive. So, while her daughter was staring into space thinking of the father she had just barely gotten to know and did not know how she could live her life even if she had not known her father for all her life, until the month before, “Mom” she whispered.

“It will be alright honey,” Liz said softly. “Your father is the strangest person I have ever known, and he has made it through some truly horrendous experiences, and this will be no difference. We will not be losing him or please god, do not take him from us she whispered to herself because she knew her husband had many qualms in believing god, given who he was, and what powers he did have, but she wanted to believe god was not this cruel to take Max away from them, when they were just starting to know the man he was today.

The drive was long and frustrating, and Liz knew this was what her husband had been trying to eliminate the constant drive from Roswell to the prison, and now she and Olivia were taking the drive out of necessity because she needed to know her husband was still with them. “Your father will come through this…”

“Not if they do not want him to?” Olivia muttered because the last month had instilled a degree of frustration and hatred at the system. She had been raised to believe in it and most days in situations that she did not have to think her father to be in, then she knew she did believe in. She saw the good the Sheriff did in their town. But Roswell was small. Sure, it was close minded in many cases, and liked to criticize her mother for sticking by her man when he was in prison. Even though many would do it if their shoe were on their foot.

Given they were not in a big city, but a small town. She loved her small town. It was peaceful most of the time she thought. She would not want to live anywhere else, but she was happy to be able to try it when she took the exchange during the following school year.

“You should not think like that,” Liz murmured even though she had the same feeling. “It would take a lot to have your father not make it” she muttered out loud into the car. She knew it did take a lot for any of the aliens of any make to get sick. It was rare, and usually only due to unusual circumstances for it happen as she remembered when Max was momentarily unconscious in high school thanks to a car accident they were, and then Michael when he went through that bonding exercise trying to get information from River Dog, out by the reservation and then when he became violently ill while drinking too much during an angsty period with Maria. Therefore, Liz knew it took a lot for any of those she loved of the alien hybrid gang to get sick or hurt. Which scared her for Max. Because she had known he had withstood seventeen years of this crap. It wears you down after awhile, and nothing you do to prevent it can stop you from feeling it in the end.

“But given all he has gone through?” Olivia asked. “His number has to come up, sometime, right?” as if she had read her mind and Liz had not counted out that possibility as she grimly assessed the situation.

Liz did not want to think like that, so she stayed silent and Olivia got her answer in her silence as they continued to drive, and finally they found themselves in the parking lot of the prison. Getting out of the car, they each ran to the front door. “No, I do not care” Liz said at the resistance they were met at the security station. “My husband is in the infirmary, and we have a right to see him?”

“No, you don’t” came the guard as he looked at the computer that had a big red alert on Max’s file. On the computer, it was said in big letters, not to let anyone in the prisoner’s immediate family inside to see the prisoner and gave pictures of all the family members they knew of, at the time.

“I am his wife,” Liz muttered.

“Who has been told to stay away,” came the guard as he joined the one on duty. “We know what you and his lawyer have been up to?”

“I am sure you do,” came Liz with disgust in her voice. “It does not stop me from being his wife, and better yet, I am a doctor. So, maybe I can be of some help to those doctors you have on staff. I know my husband more than anyone, and I know how to handle him.”

“You have only seen him twice in the last seventeen years” came the guard. “And is he not in here because of what he did to you?”

“What happened in our private life is none of your business,” Liz bristled and so did Olivia because neither woman wanted to remember even if they had to of the circumstances that had led Max to be in this place. “I love my husband. And I am not going to allow you people to succeed in killing him.”

“Hey,” came another guard nearby. “We are doing exactly what we are supposed to be doing.”

“Not if you refuse to let me and my daughter see her father than I am going to assume that you people are up to funny business, at the direction of the government. My husband has been a model prisoner, and until recently has shown nothing to warrant you keeping him from me or my daughter,” Liz said with a ton of disgust on her face, and the guards knew it as Olivia just stood back and was stunned to see her mother was all her glory in her demands her father. This was not a role she was used to see in her mother, except when it was in defense of her, and she was seeing it being aimed at the prison. She was impressed and loved and respected her mother even more than she already did. “Let me see your boss?”

“Which would be the warden, and he is busy right now,” The guard mused because he knew the warder was dealing with the prisoner in question. “You will have to come back” the guard muttered and knew that was not going to go over well, as both women gave a fierce look at the man. Both eyebrows went up, and Olivia knew that was not something that should have been said to her mother.

“Do I care, get him or take me to him” Liz demanded. “Or my daughter and I will stay here, and we can make a racket?” she threatened. “You can tell the warden this, and he will know it is better to see me, because he knows very well what kind of mess that I can bring to him, and to the reputation of this prison if I am ignored,” she murmured as she was beginning to think she was too passive all these years, and maybe she would have her husband if she had raised a stink way before now. Whether Max had wanted her to or not.

“Fine,” the guard mumbled because he was tired of the scene that Liz was making, and people were noticing and watching. And he knew she would be right. This was a mess they did not need, so he relented, as he let Liz through the security rope that led to the scanner because the guard had the feeling ultimately that Evans’ wife would be sent away.

“Mom” Olivia asked.

“You stay here, and I will be back to get you when we get the okay” Liz murmured as something unspoken went from mother and daughter, and Olivia caught as she stayed behind, and nodded. “I love you” she called out towards her daughter as she walked away.

“I love you too” Olivia said as she was full of admiration for her mother as she watched her mother walk away as she turned and sent death rays at the guard but stayed silent.

“If you are going to say something,” the guard assessed the teenager and knew the girl wanted to unload on him but was staying silent.

“Who me,” Olivia in her best smile as her eyes turned softer, like she was a perfect angel while at the same time her brain was swirling. “Of course not. All I want to say is what you people are doing to separate my mother and father, and even me from even seeing my father, who could be dying for all we know is unconscionable, and you will be going to hell for what you are doing here at this prison in the name of your job.”

The guard did not respond, as Olivia merely stopped speaking and walked over to the waiting area near security, as people watched her, as she got out her phone, and the guard did not know what to think about it was clear moments later that Olivia was doing something to do her phone to get the guard to step away from his post. Once no one was at the computer, by they security check-in. The teenager simply looked around and walked on up, and did some fancy tap work of the keyboard, and the locked gate opened, and she waked on in, and the guard came back moments later the guard came back, and noticed Olivia gone. None of the family members in the audience spoke up because they impressed that Olivia had the guts to what they had wanted to as they waited to be able to see their love one.

The guard meanwhile did not think she got through and figured that she likely left.

He would be wrong…


*


“What do you mean you brother is in the infirmary?” Phillip Evans asked as he walked into his daughters’ home. Irritating Isabel because she needed to get to the office now that her husband was home and able to take care of the kids, and now she was being prevented by her father. On the way home from the golf course after a friendly game and dinner with friends that he still did once a month. With Diane busy Phillip was electing to take the long route home and decided to stop by her daughter’s home to gather more information on the insane level of activity in their family in recent weeks. Phillip could also tell that his daughter was annoyed by his arrival.

Annoyed sure, but Isabel quickly gathered that her father had not been told the latest. Which did make sense because as Max’s lawyer. She knew. And since next of kin would be Liz and Olivia in that order, therefore, her parents would be the last to know.

“I am sorry Dad,” Isabel murmured as she tempered her tone.

“Sorry, about what? Phillip asked as he lighted up at the sight of his granddaughters who had come to greet him. Maxine and Kate were the light of his and Diane’s lives, and they were evidence they had made the right choice in adopting Isabel, and her brother. Grandchildren always made it easier, and he loved seeing his granddaughters grow up.

“That I have to keep shocking you,” Isabel murmured as she for once wanted something to go right in their lives.

“What happened?” Phillip asked.

“I do not know, which is why I am hoping to get to office and use the official channels to find out more because I know from Olivia that the prison is giving her and her mother a bad time up there, and there is no guarantees that they will be allowed to see Max,” she murmured because she knew from her niece’s text that Liz was now in with the warden, and the prison was refusing to give out any official word on her brother’s health.

“What do you think happened?” Phillip asked because for most of his career he had stayed in business, and contract law with a few diversions into the criminal world, with some limited and some stressful times involved which is why he was happy to say within the specialty of the law that he had. His daughter had been the opposite and had wanted to help those in need with the obvious hope of one day find a way to bring her brother home.

Phillip did not want to get his hopes up.

“Honey,” Phillip asked once again when Isabel was not answering his question.

“Dad,” Isabel sighed.

“You do not think that the prison in some way aided in your brother’s condition?” Phillip wondered.

“I do not know Dad,” Isabel managed. “Because they will not tell me what is going on than it is not hard not to think the more dreadful of theories as to what happened to my brother. Which is why I want to go over to the office and see if I can get them to give me something.”

“I would think the prison would not want to do that?” Phillip asked and Isabel only sighed because she knew her father still had some idealism in relation to the field of law. While she had seen the front lines, and while she loved being a lawyer. She also knew the profession was not for the faint of heart. You needed to have the fortitude for this kind of profession. To weather the disappointment that too often rang out more than joy for a successful case.

“Dad, I love you, and I know you want to think the best, but they do no want to admit they got it wrong regarding my brother,” Isabel insisted.
“Which is why they are playing hardball, and putting every wall up to prevent Liz from seeing Max or from admitting that maybe they have made a mistake and my brother is not guilty?”

“Honey,” Phillip murmured.

“Dad, seriously, we have given them enough reason doubt that it was likely someone else who committed the army base massacre. Max is not guilty, and only confessed to save the rest of us, and he would have been out if it was those other charges. They do not want to give him any happiness, or to admit they were wrong, and they are preventing Liz from seeing my brother. Even today, they are putting up a fight. Because to admit they were wrong, and they put someone behind bars that was innocent, and tampered with evidence to get their evidence would put the attorney general in danger when he wants to win the Senate race next year,” Isabel muttered with her hatred at her officials and yet had the knowledge that she had to keep it button up because she had to deal with these same people for her other cases. Cases that these people were playing ball with but did not want to do the same with her brother. Which did annoy her.

“I understand,” Phillip acknowledged.

Yet Isabel knew he did not. “Grandpa,” Maxine asked as she came into the room after taking a detour into the kitchen. “Can we shoot hoops out in the back?”

“How about you and your sister play, and I’ll watch” Phillip murmured because he did find joy with his grandkids. Because while Kate did have other interests, she did play basketball with her father and sister in the back. Kyle had been couching Maxine for the last year since it became obvious the girl was seriously talented. Kate was skilled, but she liked watching it more, and she had other interests. Just like her mother. Maxine might look like her mother but was just as much or more talented in basketball than her father. While on the other hand, Kate favored her father, and uncle, and yet she went other ways in her interests.

Isabel liked seeing it because it meant their family could be normal. Given that normal was not always what it was cracked out to be, but in this case, Isabel relished it as she saw her father go and collect Kate who was in the kitchen. Sighing, she picked up her case as her cellphone rang, and she answered it as she walked out the door.

“I am on the way to the office,” Isabel murmured as the door slammed behind her while Phillip supervised a children’s game of basketball in the back, as it got competitive between the sisters, and it was fun to watch.


*


Olivia felt like a rebel. Like all those characters you see in the movies. Who attempt the impossible in protection of those they loved? Well, she was one now. She might not know her father. He might still be a mystery to her. And she was reacting on instinct. But she had a sense this was the right thing. Even if it was going against, the very system she was supposed to support. She knew her father might have done some wrong things in his life.

But it did seem right to her for him to be kept behind bars for something he did not do. All under the disguise of doing what is right. Out of protection of the outside world.

She crept through the hallways. Creeping around, amazed that she had not been discovered yet. It helped that she had quickly changed in scrubs, under a mask and no one could have a sense of who she truly was. As she had this sense of where she was going and did not need directions. She continued to have.

“Who are you?” came a voice from behind her. Fear of being caught, she stopped and turned and faced the guard. “You are new?”

“Yes,” Olivia lied. “Intern in the infirmary. My first day,” she lied. “Intern Jones,” she lied once again as she took out her faulty license that she still had on her but only gave an appearance of showing it because she could not afford to have them remember her name because of her previous appearance here at the prison under the identity. “Trying to find my way around, you know.”

“Go that way,” the guard said as he nodded as she breathed a sigh of relief when he did not check her identity. “You better be careful around here because these people are pretty dangerous.”

I can take care of myself Olivia muttered as she quickly walked away, and down the hall. The guard went on his way and did not think anymore of the intern. While Olivia had a lot on her mind as she continued to walk along the pathway that took her to her, to her father as she felt the coldness of the prison.

Not that should surprise her, but she wanted her father to be out of this place. No one should be in a place like this unless they deserved it. and her father did not need this place. Sure, she might not know every gory tale of her parent’s courtship nor what crimes he might have committed that did warrant investigation. Still, to be in prison for something he had not done, or not been in his right mind. Olivia could not reconcile with that. The footage might tell a side of the story. Still, she knew her father did not deserve this fate.

Even if she still did not know the man. And only had a few meetings in her sixteen years of life as she continued to walk the halls and was amazed, she was getting as far into the fortress of the prison as she was without being discovered. Then she saw a circle of people around a doorway, and then a guard look directly at her and frown. She knew her rouse was up. Someone knew who she was.

But the guard looked away, and Olivia wondered what was up with that when a text came on her phone, and she looked down at her smart watch that had been a birthday present from her mother. Why are you here? came the message, but she knew she could not answer the text. Another one popped up Room B240.

Olivia did not react and continued to walk away from the rush of people who were mulling among themselves about the situation with Evans. Scotti was observing, and she had seen Olivia and knew it was Max’s daughter. Despite the disguise. Olivia looked so much like both of her parents. It was easy to know who she was, but thankfully the prison was as oblivious as the parents had been as teenagers.

Scotti watched Olivia walk towards the room. I might have underestimated Olivia she thought. Maybe the teenager would prove fiercer than her half brother. She had seen that you should never underestimate any of the clan as she watched as Olivia found the room and disappeared into it, and out of her sight.


*


“Ms. Parker,” the warden said with wariness in his voice as he looked up at the wife of his prisoner. Why could she not be like most spouses and abide by my rules he muttered but he quickly learned that was not Elizabeth Parker. Even if he knew he was taking her husband’s name. “We told you that we would tell you if anything changes?”

“No, you did not” Liz muttered. “You did not tell me anything about my husband or his present condition,” she allowed as she hated having to come here and deal with this man who wanted to keep her husband in this place, when there was evidence that showed he did not deserve to be here. “I want to see my husband?”

“We told you that was not possible,” the warden murmured.

“Why the hell not?” Liz asked.

“Because we do not know what is going on with your husband’s condition, and we want to wait and see before we call in family” the warden muttered.

“Which is ridiculous given I am doctor myself, and I know that you should always have family with someone who is sick, and I am next of kin, and I am proxy on any medical condition regarding my husband. You cannot keep me away from him in a situation like this,” Liz said with lethal eyes. “That is unethical, and what if my husband’s condition is truly serious and decisions have to be made” asked. “You cannot keep me away.”

“We want to see what we are dealing with, as it only been a few hours” the warden muttered.

“Hogwash. The first hours are the most crucial,” Liz muttered. “We deserve to see him,” she asked. “Are you going to let me see him or are you going to bow to the government who want to keep me away from my husband?”

“Your husband’s conviction partly involves you,” the warden asked.

“So, what?” Liz asked. “As I said to your guards. What transpires between my husband and I are our private business? My husband confessed, and we might be fighting that confession but that does not mean my husband’s human rights should be violated. He deserves a chance to have his family around him. You have had him for all these years, and he has not done anything to warrant this heavy-handed move to keep him from seeing our daughter or myself. Serial killers have been able to see their families. So, why can’t we do the same?” she asked. “My marriage is my private business, and none of your concern.”

“As long as he is a resident in this prison,” the warden murmured. “It’s my business. The court obviously says that access should be denied?”

“Because you are telling them to deny the access, while I do not see you giving the same discretion a serial killer” Liz asked.

“You have no idea what might happen with other prisoners,” the warden muttered.

“Don’t I?” Liz asked. “I think I have a pretty good idea,” she muttered as she knew she needed to get the warden on his side. “Look, I know you have a prison to run, and most of these people deserve to be here. You should not think I am against punishment because I am sure most deserve to be here, but I know my husband confessed for a crime he did not do because of outside forces, and those outside forces are now trying to keep him here,” she sighed. “I love my husband, and if he deserved to be here, I would be singing a different tone. But I do not think my husband deserves your treatment. He has asked for nothing these past years, has he?”

“No,” the warden conceded.

“Then why are you so interested in going along with the government on my husband’s treatment?” Liz asked. “You might think me as some deluded wife who is standing by my man, but I am not. My husband has made mistakes. No person is a saint, and I am not saying he is an angel, but he should be treated on his own merits and not because the government does not want to look bad, or future political careers could be tainted?”

“I cannot speak for any other person’s career, and neither can you?” said the warden.

“Fine,” Liz murmured. “All I want is answers. I want to know how my husband is, and I want to be able to see him. That is all I am asking for, and nothing else until I know at least something to help me know what is going on with my husband?”

“We do not know what is going on with you husband,” the warden said honestly. “He suddenly collapsed, and we are running tests in the infirmary before we do anything more. We do not like keeping family away from prisoners, especially if they can help. But I have my orders…”

“And those orders are crap,” Liz said honestly.

“They might be, but I will protect my prison” the warden muttered. “It is my job.”

“And Max is my husband, and I will not be kept from him” Liz warned.


*


Daddy came Olivia’s first words as she walked into the room that held her father. Lying so flat, and so unconscious, hooked up to machines. With a large degree more bruises than when she had last seen them Bastards she thought. As she quickly looked around to make sure she was alone. She was, because it was obvious that no one in the infirmary ward was paying any attention to the patient because he was unconscious.

And to them, they did not care because of his perceived crimes. But Olivia did care. She knew she probably should not because this man had not been a father to her. Her mother had been the one she could count on. Her father had made the choice to sacrifice himself, but still, she looked at the man who laid in the hospital bed and it was like all the dreams she had before she learned the truth.

But this was not any hospital she knew, because it was different. It was cold and sterile. She hated being in here, but she needed to see the man who had braved this life to protect her mother, and even her, even though he had not known of that consequence of his decision for sixteen years.

“Dad” she said as she composed herself. “What did they do to you?” she asked softly. Too soft, so not to wake up any surveillance of the room.

She did not want to take any chances.

Seeing her father like this made her decision for her, and she whipped out her phone and called for reinforcements I need U to help me?

Why me? came the response.

U are the only one I thought of, so will U help me? she typed and waited for a response. Where are U? came the response.

She typed her location, and chuckled when she got back Are you kidding me, or are you crazy?

I might be she typed back and while Olivia knew she was playing with fire, and this could plan of hers could turn on a dime, but she knew she needed help, and it did not occur to go to her family, or maybe she was, even though to her, he was not completely family, but he was blood to her. They are playing hardball with Mom, and you are my only hope. So, get here, please.

Fine, keep low came the response. What do U want me to do?

She knew she had to keep low, because that might be the only way she could get out of here, and she typed.

Maybe U are crazy was the response.

Are U coming or not otherwise, I can call other reinforcements?

Yes, came the response.

Now she just had to keep low and hide.


*


While it was nearly the end of hour three within the warden’s office. Liz was still in a stare down the man. She did not know where her daughter was. She was refusing to budge from the room, and therefore the warden had to stay. She tied to seek out her daughter but was seeking silence. The warden indicated she was no longer at security.

Which told me she was to her own devices, and that scared her. Because who knows what her daughter could be up to. But Liz felt compelled to stay and win her showdown with the warden. “Are you going to let me see my husband?”

“No,” said the warden. “Your husband is being treated, and we will let you know when his condition changes” he muttered.

“How about you let me see him, and then I can leave you alone” Liz asked. “I am not going anywhere unless I see my husband.”

“We do not know anything more since you arrived here Ms. Parker,” came the warden who wished for his visitor to actually leave his office so that he could get back to the business of running this prison.

“How should I trust you. You have not one thing to remove the danger my husband faces in this place” Liz asked. “So, why should I take you word for it?”

“Because we are not in the business of misleading families” the warden muttered.

“Aren’t you?” Liz asked. “You have been preventing myself from visiting my husband and making my own assessment of his condition. Should you not be wanting me to see for myself that everything is on the up and up otherwise I am going to continue to think the worst and that you people have been doing your level best to make sure my husband does not come out of that infirmary alive.”

“We have not touched your husband?” the warden muttered.

“By keeping me from him, well, you are making sure I have a different opinion” Liz murmured. “All I want to do is see my husband. I am not asking anything more of you,” she demanded. “I need to see him for myself.”

“You two have been apart for nearly seventeen years, so why is today any different than any day in these past years?”

“Because my husband has been inflicted by some condition. When I know he has not had a sick day in his life, and it is very hard for him to become sick because he has a very iron clad constitution,” Liz lied because there was a very different reason for her husband’s inability to become sick. “It takes a lot for my husband to be inflicted by something unless it is being done to him, by someone else…”

“You are not accusing my guards?” the warden warned.

“If you refuse to let me see him than how can I not have that opinion. I have not wanted to do this, but I can call my lawyer, and she can go to court?” Liz threatened. “You are denying my husband something that is his basic right. To be treated, and to see his family?”

“It’s not a right to see family?” the warden muttered.

“It is to be cared for, and to be treated fairly and in the same way that you would treat anyone else in this prison. To discriminate against him based on what he is believed to have done is wrong. I want to see my husband…” Liz muttered with tension in her voice as she was becoming tired of this run around. “As I said. Even the more horrid serial killer can see family?”

“I really think…” the warden muttered because he was tiring of this conversation when the phone rang. Answering and taking the reprieving the caller was giving from dealing with Liz, “Yes,” he said as Liz felt defeated by the battle she had been waging and checked her messages and still had not heard from her daughter.

Where are you? she texted to her daughter.

No response.

“Are you kidding me?” came the warden in wariness and anger as he looked directly at Liz, and Liz knew something had to have happened, and the warden was livid. Which meant it was bad news for her. “Have you looked around the place?” he asked. “Why was someone not watching the prisoner?” he asked. “No, do not come here. Lock down the place and look for the prisoner do you hear me. How does a comatose prisoner get up, and walk out of his damn prison” he asked as if he was poising the question to Liz?

Shit Liz mused to herself. What did you do Olivia? she also asked herself as the warden dropped the phone and got up from his desk. “Has this been some ploy?”

“What do you mean?” Liz asked.

“Were you playing diversion so that someone cane come into my prison and cause my prisoner to disappear?”

“What do you mean Max is missing?” Liz asked. “That is impossible?”

“So, Ms. Parker, tell me where you took my prisoner otherwise you might become a resident of this place?” as the warden’s eyes came down on Liz, and Liz knew she was not getting out of this office anytime soon.

“How should I know?” Liz asked as she finally batted back the advantage the prison was giving her by not allowing past the security gates “You have not allowed me to see my husband” she said with a smug satisfaction that only made the warden angrier.

The Story of My Life - Chapter 48 - 02/20/2021

Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2021 2:30 pm
by Parker1947
Well after Midnight,


“Thank you for coming to get me,” Liz murmured as she looked over at her sister-in-law and lawyer because she had summoned Isabel immediately after getting the news, and Isabel had come running. Isabel trip to her office had been short and therefore when she got the call to come running from her brother’s wife. She had gotten out of a warm bed. But she came running and went toe to toe with the prison especially when it was noticed that Liz’s car was missing, and so was one of the prison’s ambulances. Max was not getting the blame for escaping, yet Liz thought to herself. That may come later. But to the authorities who last saw Max. He had been unconscious and unable to get through the security, and technology it would take to be able to stage a break.

But Liz had a good idea of who could. Olivia Maria Parker. Someone who was like the man who fathered her, even if he had not had any role in raising her. But with her car missing. She did not know what that meant…

Because Michael was accounted for, and back home trying to figure out what happened. Isabel had come running and went bat for her sister-in-law and pointed out that there was surveillance footage that Liz had not left the warden’s office thank god for the footage. The one-time Liz could tell herself that, and therefore, she had no knowledge of the events of the evening.

They both knew who the likely suspect was. Although they had not given the prison a name when they asked. Because Isabel knew her niece could not have pulled it off solo. Once she called Maria, to figure out where her friend was, Maria had given the phone to Michael who was at home watching a movie with his wife. Baffled over the events of the night. Michael said Amelia had been on a date with Greg. Both parents had seen them go off. Alex was with friends at a party. So, that meant the other suspect in the caper was…

Max’s son. Liz murmured to herself as it still felt confusing to her that she had consider that she was not the only one who had a child by Max.

“No problem. They should not have blamed you,” Isabel murmured as they were thinking frantic thoughts because neither knew what it meant for those they loved. So, far they had pointed the blame at Olivia.

Because Olivia had covered up with her computer trickery because there was no evidence that she had gotten through security because they had checked. When they saw the car had gone missing. Liz stammered to say her daughter probably headed home thinking she would be able to see her husband and would not be needing a ride home tonight.

It was not a farfetched theory. So, it was believable, which meant Liz needed a ride home and now they were driving in silence. As both tried to figure out what was going on, and how things had become this maddening. Isabel got the prison to admit that Max’s condition was not critical, but he was unconscious, and there was evidence of bruises, but no obvious reason for Max to still be unconscious. It made both women remember back to high school and when a simple car accident cause worry, and fear, and confusion when Max became unconscious, but he woke up once in the hospital and fully recovered.

And despite some youthful antics. Nothing happened in the time between then and when they were forced apart after their wedding. So, neither could imagine what might have happened even if they knew a prison was an incubator for germs, and who knows what Max had been exposed to in a place like that over nearly seventeen years. “Any luck,” Isabel murmured as she saw her friend check her phone once again, but Olivia had gone radio silent, and had not been responding to any messages since Liz first found out what had happened.

Liz could only shake her head. As they both knew that Olivia and Amelia were always with their phones, and they were not like Isabel’s own daughters where she could put curfew on telephone time. Olivia and Amelia had minds of their own, and independence, and you could not reign that in at their age. “What would have made her do it?”

“What do you think” Liz said as she thought of her daughter. “She has had to live her life without a father and seeing him in such a place will want her to do anything crazy to protect him because we both know if it was the reverse than we would be doing anything in our power, and even further to get Olivia out of there,” she sighed. “We know the government do not want to admit being wrong and knowing they would rather an innocent man be in prison than admitting the truth,” she spat. “Yeah, I do not blame my daughter.”

“You think she drafted Zack into her mission?” Isabel wondered.

“Yes,” Liz admitted. “She would not have been able to do it herself. Taking the ambulance was the easy way out, and then she took the car to make it look like she went home…”

“And left you at the prison?” Isabel laughed.

“We do not tend to think rationally when we are in a middle of criminal act” Liz murmured.

“That is for sure,” Isabel chuckled because she saw it millions of times in her work. When her clients did not tend to think the most logical route, which is why they were asking for her help to begin with, and she had the sense her niece would be the same way. And Zack had the aura to him that he would be willing to do almost anything. Even if he had been raised away from this town, and their clan. “Where can they be?”

“That is the one thing I am not sure of,” Liz allowed. “They could be anywhere,” she conceded before a sudden thought. “I can think of no where in Roswell where they could go that would extremely private” she thought. “Except one place.”

Isabel was loss to make the connection as her mind whirled “Where?” she asked, because she could not think of where her niece would take her unconscious father, after breaking him out of prison?

“Think” Liz murmured.

As Isabel went through the places, but finally the light bulb went off in her mind as she looked at her sister-in-law who nodded. “There is only one place we would have access to that is completely quiet, and no one would know of it, and would be denied entrance to it unless you are marked?”

“Right,” Liz nodded. “Olivia is Max’s daughter, which allows her entrance?”

Isabel grimly nodded as she picked up the speed, and steered their car to a vastly different location than then one they had been travelling to…


*


“What is this place?” Zack was muttering as they had taken the long route back to Roswell, in two cars, as the vehicles had stayed together as much as possible, and once they arrived at the location, he was shocked. This was not the place he had been expecting for Olivia to be meeting him. As Zack had expected a private hospital or another location so they could make sure their mutual father could get treatment he needed because Max was not waking up, and it was mystifying why he could be out cold. Because there was no evidence of any trauma.

Despite Olivia saying otherwise. Still, he had driven ambulance because they had been stopped than they would not believe Olivia at the wheel of the ambulance. They would buy Zack. If he were to lie, and said he was transporting someone special. Plus, he would rather be responsible for the theft of an ambulance than of Liz’s car assuming Liz reported it. Olivia tried to say that her mother would know he would not be responsible, but

Zack had not wanted to take any chances and so he went with the ambulance.

“Where this all began?” Olivia admitted as they looked up at the pile of rocks. And the caves, and only she knew what was really in one of them.

This was the part of the journey into their chaos that Zack had yet to be exposed to.
When they heard a commotion from above, and they stopped with them both thinking that they were going to be caught.

Fortunately, the commotion was two familiar people. People Zack had not expected to being joining their caper, as he turned to his half sister. “You called them?” he asked as they both considered the two newcomers to their criminal posse.

“Well, we needed reinforcements because neither of us could have done this alone, and especially not me, with my condition” Olivia murmured as she knew this was rash, and the opposite of who she once was. But anything to help her family, she would do. Of course, she did not know how this would end up, but it was worth a try.

“Mom’s going to have a tantrum” Amelia conceded as she envisioned her mother’s reaction to their caper and in many circumstances, she probably would say her mother would be right, but she felt this was the right cause to be joining in because she knew their parents would have done the same thing when they were their ages, and probably had… “We are both missing our curfews.”

“They will be pissed, no doubt,” Olivia conceded of her godparents. “But they will see that we are doing this, for the right cause” Olivia murmured.

“You better hope so,” Alex muttered as he took a glance around the perimeter, as he was too envisioning his parent’s reaction and he was not sure it would one they would want as he grunted when he saw Zack and hated how Olivia’s half brother was in on this mission. “Why did you have to invite him?” he wondered of his ex-girlfriend who only laughed at the irritation in her ex-boyfriend.

“Because I needed an accomplice, and I did not want you to get into trouble and ruin your future” she allowed and winced with a quick “Sorry…” as she knew how it would have sounded to Zack because the wording had been harsh, and inconsiderate.

Olivia was sorry about it, truly, but she knew she was stressed, and therefore she was liable to say anything, and that meant hurting feelings.

“Yeah, that does hurts,” Zack conceded. “So, I will try not to take it personally,” he murmured because he did know how his sister tended to speak when stressed, and it was not one of her finest qualities, and he was not going to take it personally.

“I did not mean like it sounded,” Olivia sighed as she turned to focus on her friends and moved onto their plan. “Is it ready?”

“Yes,” Amelia conceded.

“I am sorry that you had end thing with Greg early,” Olivia asked as Zack looked interested in the fact that Amelia had to end things with Greg earlier than she would have wished. “It was all spur of the moment. I had to act, and then I had to think of how this would work, and so I am sorry if any of you are going to be in trouble because of this?”

“It’s for a good cause,” Amelia smiled. “How are you going to get your father in there?”

“That is what the muscle is for,” Olivia cracked. “Can you guys handle it?”

“I am sure we can,” Alex admitted.

“Good…” Olivia murmured. “We have to get out of sight before the ambulance is noticed…” she said as the guys struggled to move the gurney that held an unconscious Max behind the girls as they found their way up to the rocks, which was not easy when they were lugging a grown man on a cot. But it was better than lugging the guy, but still time consuming and tiring, especially as they had to go over some heavy rocks.

Once up at their obvious location, Zack looked around and did not know why they were near some pile of rocks. “Why are we here?” he asked as he looked around, but Olivia did not stop to talk, and she put her hand up, and handprint became noticeable among the rock, and Zack’s mouth dropped open. “Be careful,” was all she said as they maneuvered inside.

“What is this place?” Zack asked once again.

“The place where our fathers were born,” Amelia admitted. “The place they settle in when they came to this planet,”

“What on earth…” Zack muttered.

“Something like that,” Olivia sighed, as the door behind closed, and they were all sealed inside. “This is the place where it all started. You see those pods,” she murmured as she pointed at a wall of webby pods, obviously broken open. “That is where Dad, Michael and Isabel came out of, and I guess your biological mother too” she sighed as she was forced to remember Tess’s role in this saga as Zack’s mouth dropped open when he looked over and saw the green pod things who was imposing and taking a considerate amount of space.

“You mean, they…”

“Hatched, yeah” Amelia sighed as she looked at how stunned Zack was. To her, Olivia, and Alex, well, it was old hat to them, but she guessed for Zack, a newcomer to this story. It would be a real shocker. “It would be how our Dad’s came to…” she murmured as it was obvious Zack was still blown away. “Simple explanation is. Up on their planet. Their planet had just experienced a coup. Your biological father, and mother, my father, Aunt Isabel were facing death. So, the elders decided to mix a little human DNA from unwilling donors, and alien DNA and send them here to here to Earth to save them, and they landed here in Roswell, and their watchers made sure that their pods made it here to the chamber, and so eventually, they hatched when they were six years old.”

“This is crazy…” Zack muttered as it began to sink in what he was seeing, and to hear the easiest explanation of how their parents could have come to this land. Are we not sure this is not some sci fi drama?

“Yeah, it’s some kind of life, for sure” Olivia said as Zack and Alex finished the job and yanked Max over to the hospital gurney. “How did you get this anyways?”

“Ask Alex” Amelia chuckled

“Alex?” Olivia asked.

“You should not ask,” Alex muttered as he glared at his sister who laughed off her brother’s expression.


*


As Isabel and Liz continued to drive back towards Roswell. In the middle of the night, Maria could not sleep so she was roaming the house. She had not heard the kids get in, and it worried her because she rather liked knowing they were safe and sound in the house, but trusted that they were safe in their rooms, sound asleep. But when she went downstairs for some warm milk so it could help her sleep. Because it had been a rare event that she could not sleep. She usually slept like a rock, but not on this night, and so she was going for a solution that would be able to get her some sleep.

Except that she bypassed the front door and was immediately alarmed by the fact the surveillance alarm – needed even when you have three alien human hybrids in the house. It was an added level of protection in this dangerous world. Anyways, it was still disactivated because they had not activated it before going to bed because they were waiting for the kids to come home. The protocol was for the kids to activate it, whoever was last to get home. Usually in the it had been Alex. But lately it had been Amelia. Maria did not like the fact they would have two sixteen years in the house, with immense freedom at their fingertips in a matter of hours and days.

She could not help but also notice that the chain lock was not set. Damn it, she stormed upstairs, and went to the twin’s room and found empty beds. Fuck what are they up to? she pulled the blankets down and found no shell of where they should be. They were plainly not home yet, and it was the middle of the night.

She rushed into her bedroom. She noticed her husband sound of sleep Just like Michael to sleep soundly on this night Maria muttered to herself. “Michael,” she called out into the darken room, as she quickly turned on the light, but Michael did not immediately wake up, she shook him, and slapped his arm. “Wake up, Space boy.”

“Jesus Christ, wha…t on earth Maria,” Michael stammered as he woke up to the sight of his outraged and emotional wife, which meant this was not going to be something good or something he wished to know. As he also did not understand why she would still be up when his wife tended to sleep even more soundly than he did most nights. It is usually me wondering the house in the middle of the night.

“The twins are not in their rooms sleeping Michael,” Maria cried. “I checked their rooms. Both. It is the middle of the night. They should be home, in their beds and asleep, and neither are…” she demanded. “I know they are doing something bad…”

“I heard Amelia come home” Michael asked as he wiped the tiredness out of his eyes.

“Then you heard wrong,” Maria blurted. “Michael, their beds are empty and made,” she repeated. “Obviously, they have not been home tonight,” she blurted. “Where could they be?”

“Shit,” Michael murmured as he fully become awake. “Have you tried their phones?”

Michael was looking at Maria like she was stupid, and she did not appreciate it. “Of course, I did,” she muttered as she looked at her husband who was still trying to wake up. She was frantic with worry even though she suspected if both of her kids were out of the house than they were together. She knew Alex had been spending time since the official breakdown of his romance with Olivia. And had not dated at all, which she was relieved about in that he was not trying to bounce into something new.

Especially since it had been Olivia who wanted the breakup. Amelia was someone different. Maria knew her daughter was smitten by Zack but taking the fact Greg was back in town and on the scene seriously, as she should. Whether that meant anything good for her daughter because she had been talking to Ann Simpson; Greg’s mother and therefore knew more of the situation. Information Maria wished she did not have because she did not want her daughter to be hurt.

But that would come another day if only she knew where her wondering children were. “Michael, of course I have tried their phones., and neither are answering. Which is why I am asking you to wake up and help me find them.

“Fine,” Michael muttered.

“Thank you,” Maria sighed as she sensed something was off.

First Max was missing from prison, and now both of her children were missing. “You do not think this is connected to you know what is going up there at the prison, do you?” she wondered as Michael dragged himself out of bed at his wife’s summons. They both knew Liz and Isabel were driving back from the prison and there would be a pod squad meeting come morning to get a sense of where the situation was.

Neither knew Olivia was unreachable. So, Maria was only spinning theories as to what was going on. She knew she and Liz had reason to give their parents worries when they were teenagers and spending endless all-night sessions on some mission or another. Once they became enchanted by the unraveling alien abyss that centered around Max and Michael, and even Isabel after the shooting that had changed her best friend’s life.

And allowed Maria to find the love of her life. Albeit after some truly dangerous times. So, she worried for the next generation. It was a vastly different day and age for her children to be alive in. Today, was a nightmare compared to 1999. Therefore, she wanted them to face different worries as she had already discussed it with her husband that she did not want their kids to take on their legacy. She wanted them to find their own way.

“How can it be?” Michael asked as they walked downstairs. After checking the bedrooms to make sure Maria had not been sleepwalking but no, both kids were unaccounted for, and Michael also remembered their teen years and the countless nights they spent all hours out on the roads, trying to find answers, and in some instances. Staying alive.

“How could we have gotten into all we did back when we were teenagers, and my mother and Jeff and Nancy being so oblivious?” she queried of her husband. Because they both knew Phillip and Diane had been only slightly more aware of their children’s antics as a teenager. “I just hope those two are not up to no good?”

“Are we sure Alex is not at that party?” Michael asked of his son.

“Not his thing,” Maria muttered. “And even if he were, where would our daughter be?” of Amelia.

“Olivia” Michael asked if wanted it to be normal. Because for it to be abnormal would not do their minds any good.

Plausible Maria conceded to herself. “Amelia would have told me, and she told me herself that she was headed straight home after her date with Greg. Therefore, I cannot think of anywhere she might have gone. Greg is too straight lace to want to do anything rebellious,” she allowed although she would have to concede that their daughter was game for anything because her tendency was alarming at times when she tended to model her behavior after her, and Michael. Because she had known she had gone for risky, and adventurous when she was her daughter’s age. Which is why she was living the life she was living today.

Which is why Maria did not want history to repeat itself. But her daughter had a mind of her own, and she had equally a strong will. Regardless of what her parents might wish for their only daughter. “Where are they?”

“We might as well and go check,” Michael muttered as he grabbed his key, and minutes, well, they were on to road to anywhere. If it meant their missing children and neither parent knew where to start.


*


Meanwhile at the same time, Isabel and Liz were encountering the ultimate run around. Traffic. For some reason, the major highway on the way back to Roswell, or the desert, which was their ultimate destination was using the middle of the night to conduct major renovations to their roads, and other structures along the road. Which made for an extra detour for the car to encounter. And it felt like they had been driving for hours. Both were tired, and confused, and they did not know why the kids would do this, assuming they could blame the kids.

Liz had this sense that they could. It was not her powers or the ability to envision her daughter in her shoes. Which she could. After all, they had broken Max out of an armed and secure base once before. But there was much more on the line now, than it had been at sixteen. The government felt they had a reason to keep Max in their clutches, and he had confessed. But still Liz only wanted Max in her life. She did not mind the anger from the authorities.

What she did not want was her child being caught up in the line of fire. “That girl,” Liz murmured as she looked out on the rolling building as they sped by. It was all cloaked in darkness, and who knows what secrets they held. Secrets that can bring heartache to those who are not looking for them.

“She is you and Max too a tee,” Isabel observed as she thanked goodness once more that she and Kyle did not have to face this with their own children for another decade or more because it was an eye opening to see it in the actions of Olivia, Amelia, and Alex, and so reminiscent of their times as teenagers. She did not like the view, or the trip into the memory banks and therefore, she whished she could keep it from her own children, but she knew what genetics her girls were starting out with, and she was not sure she and Kyle would not be facing the same wakeup call come a decade from now.

“Most days I enjoy the looking into her eyes and seeing us, but nor right now” Liz murmured as they finally took the turn off towards the desert, and the caves and the sudden awareness of her husband seemed to like a beacon that drew her to him. Stunning her that the awareness she could feel so strong, after twenty years of love, and seventeen years of distance. Which meant she knew she was on the right track. “We are getting closer. I know Max is close by?”

“Incredible,” Isabel remarked out loud as she always had been surprised by the extent of the intensity that drew her brother to his wife. It should have been not have been because it had been the same way back in high school, and she should know by now how it was between Max and Liz.
Because they were Max and Liz and they had had a draw to them that had not existed in anyone else. Michael and his love for Maria came the closest, but still there was something different between her brother and Liz, and it had been there since that shooting in September 1999.

Liz did not say anything as she saw in the passenger seat as they became closer to the love of her life.

Knowing she was thisclose.


*


At the same time, at the site of their rescue mission as Olivia had classified it as. Zack was looking at her like she was crazy, and Olivia knew she was. She did not know where her risky behavior was coming from because she was so opposite of who she was and how she crafted her life up these last many months. She wanted to believe it was the genes she got from both her parents to need to do the right thing.

Was it the right thing?

Olivia wanted to believe it was, and she knew she would have some doubters. And among them were her sane side, that was telling that this was too risky, and she was risking a lot more than she had before, when she always walked on the right side of life.

Much like her mother.

But people did say she took after both of her parents, and from the tales of their courtship. She could tell her actions were right in line of something that they would have done when they were her age. She told herself she was only doing something that should have been done seventeen years before or prevented. After all. Her father should never have been in that place.

They would say, and they had said that he was protecting her mother. Olivia knew he was, and she did admire it. Sixteen years before finding just what he had saved with his actions. She watched her half brother watching with a cross of amusement and surprise. She knew he was processing a lot since coming into this chamber. All he had been doing since being told of the purpose of this place and had been observing, while Olivia went to work making sure everything was working how it should be, and it was.

Except for her father was not waking up. Maybe she did not want him to because she did not know how to handle his opinion on her antics, and Zack said as much “Have you thought about your mother, and what she might want?” he was asking. “Or your father, because this is probably the last thing, they want for you?”

“They would have done the same thing when they were my age, and probably did” Olivia muttered. “They understand. You did not see him in that place…”

“I saw him,” Zack answered. “It is a hellhole sure, but he wanted to be there if it means he is protecting you and your mother?”

“Well, I am talking about the infirmary,” Olivia answered as she had not known that her half brother had met their father. “They did not care about him, and were not helping him, and why should I allow him to stay there when they only want him to come out of that place in a body bag,” she murmured. “I know it is a chance I am taking?”

“Do you?” Zack wondered. “It is more than a little chance Olivia. You are taking an extreme risk, and one that could come back to haunt you” he asked as Amelia and Alex were talking among themselves as both twins knew time was not on their sides as their parents were going to react, and most likely the reaction would not be the one they would like.

“You helped, did you not?” Olivia asked. “So, you knew I was doing something right?”

“I only helped because you were liable to get yourself hurt, and you could not have done it all on your own” Zack conceded because he did not know he had helped. And he was not that sorry that he had, but he knew he was willing to take the chance on himself because that was how it was, but he was not going to allow Olivia to mar a future she was planning for. While he was older. Still, he knew he did not have many goals for his future. But he knew his half sister sure did, and if he could keep some pressure off her than that might be the one thing, he could do for his half sister. Because while they did share blood. But she did not look at him like family. And he was not so sure he did either.

But they were family. A very bizarre one, and one day he might decide about just what he wanted his future to be, and if it included Roswell but he did not know what now meant, except to get through the day in the midst of all these incredible discoveries as across the chamber, the twins were talking among themselves.

“Mom and Dad are going to have a fit,” both agreed as they were muttering to themselves as Alex nodded. “Why did we agree to this again?”

“Because you would do anything for Olivia?” Amelia Guerin commented because she knew her brother was still hung up on Olivia, and still in love with her even though they both would describe their breakup as mutual. Still, Amelia knew her brother was not over his ex because she knew he was not allowing any of the girls at school who were showing their interest, like Missy Johnson or Carla Jenkins near him. Which was funny most days, but she knew it was also serious too. Despite the fact there was a baby, she was glad the two were taking time apart. Whether that would mean anything for her brother in the end, but she not looking to model herself after her brother’s relationship.

And you wanted to see Zack?” Alex slung back.

“Dream on,” Amelia muttered. “Greg and I are happy” although she was not acting all that convincing to either her brother or herself. Of course, she was happy, but she did know things were different. You cannot be apart four months and not be different, whether you were together, in a long-distance relationship or not.

“Are you?” Alex asked as if he was using their twin connection, because since Greg had been back, he was wondering if Zack was onto something. Any other day he would love to say the newcomer should keep his nose out of his sister’s relationship since the last thing their clan needed was for Amelia to get mixed up something like Zack even though he was one of them.

Still, he was normal, and an outsider. Which is funny to think for Alex. If someone with abilities, and gifts could be an outsider in their world. Alex was not sure if Zack was one of them for the long haul or not.

He could always leave.

None of them could or wanted to for that matter.

Zack was a different story.

“Yes, I am” Amelia muttered even though she could not help but send a quick glance over in Zack’s way and her brother could only shake his head and she was not unafraid to comment on how she did not need to hear her brother’s assessment of her relationships. It was not needed or wanted. “You should not judge, you know?”

“Who says I am judging?” Alex asked. “As you said yourself. I am the last person to judge someone” he murmured. “But do I have to remind you that there is no guarantee that Zack will stay in this life at the end because he can always go home, and back to the life he knew before all this,” he murmured. “While we are in this for the long haul,” he commented as he could see his sister shaking her head in defiance. “Amelia, he is not one of us”

“Isn’t he?” Amelia asked as she took her brother’s opinion in. Given Zack was sticking. She had her doubts that Zack could ever go back to his old life like he was anyone other than who he truly was. If he did, there would be a lot of fight and a lot of struggle.

“You are risking a lot of hurt,” Alex murmured.

“As I said, it does not matter whether I get hurt or not because I am happy with Greg, and I am not looking at Zack like that,” Amelia murmured. “We are only friends” as she once again glanced across the chamber as Olivia was turning her attention from Zack’s concern to her father’s condition.

Max was still laying there. And still was out cold.

Which was nothing that they had ever experienced. All of them were sickening healthy. Yet Olivia kept her attention on her father even though she did not have the healing powers that were given to her father, which she knew made his unconscious state even more unusual. “Daddy” she whispered, as she felt like the little girl who longed for a father and who had been denied one because he was stuck behind a wall, and unable to get to her.

“Dad, please come back to Mom and me,” Olivia whispered. As she was lost in her trail of thought, and willing him to wake up, she was oblivious to what was going on outside of her little bubble she had going, only for it to burst when she heard “WHAT the hell do we have here?” came an outraged voice, as the sound of the voice carried through the whole chamber and was unmistakeable.

All four teenagers stood frozen silence as they turned in unison, as they each knew the jig was up, and that they had been discovered. As each turned, they would find a clearly irritated Michael and his angry and still fearful wife.

The Story of My Life - Chapter 49 - 02/22/2021

Posted: Mon Feb 22, 2021 4:55 pm
by Parker1947
Michael and Maria had taken time, useless time, as it would soon turn out as they drove around town and looked at all the spots, and busted some parties in their search for their mischievous twins, but they were turning up zero, zilch, and then Maria received a text, check the caves from Liz who was still on the highway with Isabel as she communicated their hunch, and it was paydirt, and instant recognition for Michael and Maria that this might be the answer to where the kids were. Although neither could figure out why they would go there except that it would be the one place none of the authorities knew of, and if they were aware of it, none of them could gain access to the sacred grounds.

Caves whose doors would seal them off from the world.

So, when they arrived. They did, yes, find a sealed-up chamber. You would know nothing was suspect and because of this. Neither wanted to open the cave door and be right about their hunch but they knew they had to do it as they saw lights of a car pulling up nearby, and hoped it would be Liz and Isabel, but because they were first on the scene, they knew they had to be the ones who to check, and if they were right. It had to be them, who busted the fun.

“Dad,” Amelia tried as they saw the stunned realization on the faces of their parents of what they had been up to and had done.

“Do not Dad us Amelia,” Maria muttered as this escapade might have topped any previous act of mischief that the twins had pulled. She did not how to deal with this one, but she knew she had to try. “Why did you do this?”

“They did not do anything, but I did” Olivia said as tension rang out in the chambers. Still, she immediately came forward to take the blame as she approached the twins, and Michael and Maria who were clearly assessing the scene. “It was all me,” she said claiming the blame. “You do not have to think poorly of Amelia and Alex or think they did any of this. They did not even do anything except meet us here, and so, yeah, it was all on me?”

“And me,” Zack murmured as he was not going to all Olivia to take all the blame. Sure, she did not believe in this mission but still he had been a party, and he was not going to allow her to take it all on her, when he had assisted, and could have stopped it.

“I should have known,” Maria murmured as they glanced at Max’s son.

A symbol of the past, and a past that had taken a lot of people down, including the very person they had rescued from the prison. She wanted to believe it was all on the son, but knew Olivia was discovering her heritage, and origin story, and was liable to do just about anything, and probably had acted on a spur of moment basis. She is going down the same roads that we did Maria mused. “You are to blame?”

“I am to blame,” Olivia muttered as she did not relish Zack stepping in for her. “You did not see him there Maria,” she sighed as she thought of her father in that room. “It was hell, and they were giving the runaround to Mom, and I knew they were going to still do it, and because they refused to allow Mom even a small visit, so when she went off the confront the warden, I snuck in, and found Dad. I anticipated it being a short visit. In and out but seeing him like that, well, I acted, and I do not regret it, so it is not on anyone else, but me?”

“It is on everyone who aided and abetted,” Maria murmured as she remembered her own challenges as a teenager and the criminal activity she once engaged in, because she had fallen in love with Michael and came to believe his mission to know his history, and because of friendship with Liz. If Liz was going to be in, then she was not going to be left out. Still, it had been one headache after another, and she was not about to allow her children to repeat such a sacrifice. “My children could have come to us, or better yet resist the urge in this endeavor,” she muttered as she glanced at her son and daughter. And then looked at the clearly overwhelmed girl in Olivia and felt for her so she changed her tone. “At least you had support, which you and would have needed if you were going to undertake this kind of endeavor as she sighed “I love you Olivia, and I love your father, and most of all your mother, and I would do anything for her, and then, I did, when I was your age but we do not want you kids to revisit that road, and mar your incredible futures,” she murmured as she lectured all of the teenagers in the chamber “All of you deserve a chance” she muttered outside and thought of the casualties in their mission. “We cannot lose anyone else.”

“We know,” Amelia muttered as if she had not heard the same lecture over the years. Even if she would concede to herself that it was probably warranted this time. Even if she and Alex were only responsible for a tiny part of this caper. What else was I supposed to do, was I supposed to not come? Amelia asked herself as she had not wanted her best friend to go down in the flames. So, she had come for the ride. Like Olivia’s rational side, Amelia knew she probably should have talked some sense into her friend. Of course, Alex would have done anything for Olivia. It is not like we truly aided and abetted. Amelia told herself. Zack is implicit in the crime. We are the support the system she also told herself, but I am lying to myself she also told herself. She knew this would top any other previous act of mischief they had done over the years. She knew her mother had a reason to worry.

But she was not yet sixteen, and she was not looking at it as a mark on her future.

Maria was. “So, think next time, will you?” she mumbled because she knew rebellion when she saw it. She had done enough of it when she was her kid’s ages, and still, she did not want to revisit that time in her kids. So, she knew she was hypocritical, and Michael was the same as his wife. “We want you to be safe, and for you to think about your futures, whatever they might be” he muttered as he knew their legacy had blood on its hands, and he did not want the next generation to revisit those sins of the parents, and go down that road, where you would do anything to get the mission, and to save the day.

Maria could only sigh as she saw the determination on the kid’s faces, so she changed to a new tact “What made you want to do this?” she wondered as she knew they had to tone down their outright disapproval of this caper if they wanted to get through to the kids, as she glanced over at Olivia.

“It’s Dad,” Olivia murmured.

“Of course,” Maria nodded as she continued to temper her tone once more as she knew they would want to do the same thing, and had but was short circuited by being an adult, and wondered sometimes if she should act more like her kids, but then who she was kidding? They were always on an edge of disaster and something was always happening as they heard the cave door opening, and their attention was diverted by that sound, and the rushing in of two additional women.

Isabel and Liz.

“Where is he, where is Max?” came a frantic Liz.


*


“What were you thinking?” came both women in unison as they entered the chamber, and the awareness reached with the chamber’s walls. Isabel had pulled off the road and into the desert shortly after Michael and Maria had arrived. Neither had seen them pull up, although they had the sense of being approached by car lights. Still, they had come into deal with their mischievous kids. But now the consequences of that rash decision of Olivia’s to break her father out of prison was setting in.

“It was spur of moment,” Olivia muttered as she was forced to rationalize her choice to confuse her current existence. She had not gone into that place thinking she would break her father out if I had, I would have planned, and would have brought the muscle with me she mused to herself. But entering the room, and seeing her father, she had acted, and she did not have any regrets “They were giving you the runaround, and therefore, I found myself in there, and I could not help myself.”

Just like me Liz muttered to herself. She often could not help herself regarding Max. From that day in the Crashdown when a bullet almost cut her life short, and Max had flown into action and changed her life forever, and in many ways, all their destinies. So, as she looked at her daughter and she saw…

Max….

“I bet,” she muttered to herself and partially out loud. Isabel in turn immediately rushed to her brother, and so did Liz, as they saw Max still unconscious, and on a makeshift bed, that the teens had made for him.

“Jesus,” Isabel winced when she saw her brother’s bruised figure, and Liz wanted to cry because brought memories of the past to her, of when times were innocent and less angsty as if there were ever truly a time but still for Liz to see him lying there as she felt the pain of the consequences that would unfold in those days, months, and even years to come “Max…” she whispered as she grabbed his hand, as the two women who Max loved most tended to his unconscious state. “What happened?” came the words, but not really directed at anyone.

“They did not want him to make it out of there alive,” Isabel muttered as her distain for the limits of her profession became clear. She loved the law, and her job because she knew she could help people. But there was a side that she did not like, but it made her more determined to face the challenges of tomorrow. But still, to see her brother suffering. She could not handle it. “What made you come here?” she asked as she took a step back and faced her niece, and godchildren in Amelia and Alex who were exchanging what happens now glances at each other.

None of them knew. But to Isabel, the kids were…

Three or maybe four of the newest generation. Growing up in a different era than that of their parents. None of them would have to face the battles that their parents had faced.

“It was the only place I could think of that would make the authorities would not have founded us,” Olivia allowed because nothing was coming to her when Zack had asked for a location to make their escape to, and then one location popped into her mind, and she knew it had been their ideal location, at least until they got a sense of what was going on.

“It is certainly unique,” Isabel muttered as she could see the confusion reign in her brother’s children, and she took a glance over at Zack.

Yes, her brother’s son. The only one of them who did not know the realities of this kind of life. The boundaries, and the limits. It was one thing to listen to stories, or to know you were special because of abilities that you could not even comprehend. It was another to come to this place.

Where everything started.

Back in high school when they discovered this place. She remembered how shocked and amazed and even the awe of such a complex maze of this past. A place where they had been born, or had simply hatched, when they were already formed kids.

An oddity which made her appreciate the simplicity of how the newest generation was born. Which made sense. Which was normal.

Normal that they had not been or been able to experience.

“You must have questions?” Isabel wondered as she again glanced over at Zack as she left Liz to watch over Max. She knew no one would be getting her away from Max, and it was ludicrous to even try. So, she focused on her brother’s son.

“Some, sure, but they do not matter” Zack murmured because he still was amazed that this place even existed, and to know his biological father had come from this place after coming onto this planet. “This is something bigger,” she sighed of the situation that his half sister had escalated without asking anyone’s opinion.

“Mom,” Olivia said interrupting the silence of the moment that Liz had been under since arriving in the chamber.

But Liz could not be reached.


*


Liz felt in a different world. One that she found herself in this place whenever it involved the love of her life. Max had always been someone who took her to another world. Even when they were simply on Planet Earth.

It always felt like that first day.

When she was taken by a dark hair mystery man from another land. She had been a simple small-town girl captured by the unknown quality of a boy who looked at her like she was the only one for him. She believed that for the longest time, and still did, but she knew life was one of hard knocks, and was not for the faint of heart, because it was not simple, and she could never be the girl she had been at fifteen when life became one that was always spinning out of control once she had survived that bullet.

Each day was a new one, and a new obstacle, and it had brought a boat load of pain, and one specific blonde who tore their relationship and changed who they were as people.

Still, she felt the pull she felt on that day when she was fifteen, when nothing had made sense after she came back to life. So, simply staring at the man who had gave her a new purpose, and who had changed everything for her, and made a different person, quite literally.

“Mom?” came a simple word, and she was reminded that she was no longer that girl of fifteen or eighteen. She was a mother. She had responsibilities. She had lives to look out for, and she could not act as rashly as Max still made her feel.

Which was not rational. She knew it, and still she felt like she was losing her breath when she simply saw him.

He did not even have to be awake. He could be simply unconscious, and she felt her life stop, and it was only him.

But it was not only him.

Not anymore.

So, she swung her attention away from the man she loved, and towards her daughter. Olivia. Someone who had grown up over the years to be a picture of her. As many of a person would tell her. That her daughter was a replica of who she was at a child. But she looked at her, well and all she saw was a link to Max.

“You should not have done this Olivia,” Liz murmured as she worked to concentrate on her daughter, and not steer her glance over at her husband. Olivia must be my priority now she told herself. “As much as we both wanted your father out of that place, still, you should not have done it?”

“I could not help myself Mom,” Olivia murmured.

“I know that feeling honey. I feel it anytime I look at your father. But life has consequences, and your father knew there would be ones regarding his decision,” she sighed as she hated how he had been compelled to make the decision he had. “We might want him out of there, but…”

“They were going to kill him Mom,” Olivia cried. “Look at him. Look at the bruises, because it was evident that they did not want him to win his freedom,” she asked. “I needed to save him”

“Oh, honey” Liz murmured as she took her daughter into her arms and hugged her. This life can be hell she told herself as she cursed this life because she so much wanted an easier life for her children. And she Olivia had gotten this one. “We are going to make it work, I promise you” she sighed as she and her daughter turned back to focus on the man who had meant so much to the both of them, for different reasons.

On this night. Olivia needed her mother make it make sense. To allow it make sense because all she could see was everything spinning out of control. She needed some semblance of sanity, even if she had been the one to escalate this nightmare. “What are we going to do now?” Olivia asked as she hated knowing that those, she loved might have to clean up her own mess, once again.

“Hell, if I know,” Liz murmured as the sentiment was shared by the collective group within the chamber.

None of them knew how they were going to get out of this one.


*


At the same time as all of this was being felt and experienced. Back in Roswell, at Isabel’s home. Kyle was tossing and turning in bed. Desperately trying to sleep but failing. Because deep down, he knew something was going on and as a result he could not sleep because he could sense that life was once again in upheaval. A feeling he had felt once before, back when they were teenagers. When life had swung far from the one, he believed he was headed for, to one that caused them to live one day to the next in constant fear of what the day might bring.

For his father, and for him. It had changed the very fabric of their lives.

Kyle thought of his father. James Valenti, Jr or simply known as Jim. Their town Sheriff. Someone whose job was to uphold the laws of this town, and make sure the citizens abided by the established rules. Jim had grown up in in a household and raised by a man who felt and even knew in his core that there were aliens, once that ship crashed in 1947. Roswell, New Mexico. A town that became famous on that day. Most of the world, and even much of their town were nonbelievers. Because who could believe that aliens were something that could exist? But to his grandfather, it was a crash that would become an obsession and one that would cost him a relationship with his only son. Which Kyle could relate to, because he nearly lost his relationship with her father over the same obsession.

Obsessions that grew with time as it had with his grandfather as the original Valenti allowed his belief that aliens landed on that day override everything he would hold dear and let it destroy his marriage and his relationship with his son, who would eventually grow up with a resentment borne out of the past that would send him on that same course.

Theirs was a small town with many small-town beliefs, and despite being its Sheriff. James Valenti Sr. would allow his belief in the extra-terrestrial to become an obsession, and that obsession told them they were real, and not only that, but they were dangerous. And that feeling was aided by others who shared that same belief. It changed his life and ruined it at the same time. Armed with the belief that they could be like him, or those he cared most about. Of course, since most of the town laughed it off, they would label their Sheriff a nut and because of choices he either made willingly or driven to in his pursuit. It would ultimately end up consuming him.

Of course, in an unbelievable twist. The same son who he had driven away would one day find out differently when he was himself the town Sheriff, Jim Valenti would eventually find himself upon a discovery of a lifetime. And would face many of the same quandaries as his father but with the weight of the knowledge. Kyle could reflect on it now, nearly two decades later. But at the time, it was a hell of a lot of headaches to live through it as he watched as his father get pulled under the weight of same obsession that had driven his grandfather.

A price had to be paid for knowing what they knew. It was paid in Kyle’s relationship with his father because before finding out that truth. Jim’s son saw his own father being drawn into the same obsession that would cause his grandfather his sanity. It never made sense to Kyle. Why would his father want that? Fortunately, they were able to save their relationship before it was destroyed. Of course, it took nearly dying to save their relationship. And yet, still Kyle had not appreciated what it had taken for his father to begin to believe in a cause that had took his father from him.

It was also paid in the job that was his father’s calling. Passed down from the generation to generation, only to stop with Kyle’s father because Kyle personally had no desire to protect the town when he had so much more to protect, because why would he want to risk it all for a town who would not want to protect whom he loved most.

But it had been his father’s calling, and Jim Valenti, Jr. had been made the most out of it because of what he did know when he had lost the job he loved so much, in ways that were like his father, but also so unlike them too because Jim had protected those aliens while his father would want to turn them over for testing and possible extinction. And he had lost his job over that same protection, and therefore he did have to scramble and climb step by step to gain it back. Which he had ultimately succeeded in doing.

So, yes, Kyle did know that there was a price that had to be paid to know…

And to believe…

Still Kyle could see that it was truly a unique life. A group of people who deserved his respect for how they were able to handle trying to live their life. Because he had been in this life long enough to know the downside of what came with being different in this town, and in this world. It had cost them all, and his father who had to fight to not be considered a nut, like his father, and keep doing the job he truly loved, and what his calling.

One this side of the truth. Kyle knew his grandfather had a right to suspect at least two of those who had crashed on that day. Although to brush everyone with the tar that only one or two might deserve is a different story. And he had a sense his grandfather would not have same consideration that his son, and grandson would one day show. Time would tell them that those bad applies were ruthless and could not to be trusted. Of course, they were also new to this land, but they still were not above taking prisoners and dead bodies in their protection of some precious cargo.

No one knew what would come from that day. Or the many journeys, and not that that his wife would be one of those pods that were being protected, and he would come to appreciate just how human they would be, and how special they could be.

Finally having enough of the tossing and turning. Getting up and putting some semblance of clothes on. He passed the doors of the rooms that held his daughters, and he looked in and smiled as he saw his blonde and the brunette hair princess fast asleep in their beds. Feeling amazed at how special it was to be a father, and how he loved Isabel, and how lucky he was.

His daughters Maxine, and Kate had child worries at 8 and 5 and he wanted to be able to allow them to keep those because he did not want them to face the worries that he had faced once he had come onto a discovery of a lifetime. So, their father wanted them to keep their innocence. Even if he knew that wish would be futile in long run when reality came calling.

Because he knew life would take that innocence from them

Comforted that was years from now. Not today. Going downstairs, he was wondering the house when there was a knock on the door. Wanting to get to the door quickly. So, that the noise would not wake up the kids. Fortunately, he was nearby so he reached the door, and was surprised by who he saw.

Phillip Evans

“Phillip, what is going on?” Kyle asked as he concentrated on the return visit of his father-in-law when it was obvious that the other man was in a frantic state. “Is it Diane?”

“Do you know anything?” Phillip asked frantically as he bypassed the query of his son-in-law as he entered the house and glanced around in the night’s stillness, and the darkness of the events of the current day. “Where is my daughter?”

“Business,” Kyle said softly because it was true because while he might be privy to the current crisis. Only that it had to with her brother. Still Kyle had been around the pod squad long enough to figure that it was all the calling cards as to why his father-in-law would come to their house, in the dead of the night. When he should be home asleep with his wife.

“At this time of night?” Phillip asked as he was wary, and dead tired and because he was barely able to sleep when he got the alert on his phone, and it only magnified as he gained more information on the alert.

So, it had brought him running.

“The life of a high-profile lawyer,” Kyle murmured with a slight smile to his face “Your daughter mission is to save the world,” he smiled. “What can I say, she’s good at her job” he sighed but could see that his father-in-law was not taking his humor as it was intended. “All I know is that my wife got a call, and she went running, and she did not stop to fill me in” he allowed because he rather liked their system. Because sometimes it was hell to know, so he rather be in the dark unless it was truly something he needed to know.

“Max has disappeared from the prison” Phillip blurted out. “So, I have to ask of course, what the hell is going on?”

“Shit,” Kyle murmured as he grasped the nature of the events. and figured that their lives might never be the same.

“Yes, so tell me the truth Kyle. Do you know where my daughter is?” Phillip asked.

“No” was all Kyle could say.

And it was the truth.

Re: The Story of My Life (CC, Mature) - Chapter 49 - 02/22/2021

Posted: Mon Feb 22, 2021 5:44 pm
by keepsmiling7
Can't believe this.
Alex will of course protect his sister.
Liz is giving the prison hell.
What, Olivia slips into the infirmary??
Olivia is underestimated by Scotti.
Need help.........1/2 brother enters action.
Max is now missing.......
Can't wait to see how this adventure turns out!!

The Story of My Life - Chapter 50 - 02/25/2021

Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2021 11:18 am
by Parker1947
“What are you telling me?” Kyle asked a short time later as he and his father-in-law shared an early morning beer. Neither wanted something non-alcoholic, nor given the hour, neither were thinking of it as morning. So, they planned to keep it at only one. Or that was their plan anyways, as both, were trying to comprehend what the news was trying to say as they sat in front of the television.

In one breath they were saying a critically ill patient Max had disappeared from the infirmary, without a trace. That the authorities had no answers, which is no surprise Kyle mused to himself. They could not answer the media’s inquiries. It did not take a genius to acknowledge that this was the matter that had taken his wife from their home, and their bed. And because he had yet to hear from her, which before now, was indeed strange because Isabel always checked in because they shared a life together and because of the girls. “I cannot tell you Phillip because you can obviously see that I know nothing, and it is my wife who is in the middle of this situation, to clean up whatever mess that has occurred.”

“How do you not know?” Phillip asked.

“I have had nearly two decades of knowing your daughter, your family” Kyle mused. “I can know nothing and know that she is in the middle of it” he allowed because of too much experience in this clan.

“Why now?” Phillip asked. “I do not get it. It is not like this happened last month Kyle. This has been going on for nearly seventeen years,” he wondered. “So, I have to ask, why now?”

“Life works in mysterious way,” Kyle muttered as none of it made sense, and he wanted it to make sense. Of course, if he wanted life to make sense than he should not have married Isabel I knew this going in he mused to himself.

Once Olivia met her father. Life was never going to be the way it was before…

Not only because by visiting, well, it allowed Max to get a sense of he had in the outside world. Still, he could not imagine that Max of all people could have engineered this, because he was all about sacrifice. And protecting those who were quite capable of protecting themselves, but of course, there were unintended people who ended up being protected by his sacrifice. And now that Max had inkling of what he was going on in outside world. He would never be able to be satisfied again behind cement walls.

“What do you know Kyle?” Phillip asked as they turned off the television because it was becoming repetitive and annoying and they were not getting any new information.

Kyle knew that Michael had been dreaming of rescue mission, but the trigger had not yet been greenlit, but he was kept out of it. And his wife had been kept out of it as well, so he knew this was not the mission. “You are talking to the wrong person, because they tend to keep me out of their missions” he murmured. “I like to live my life under the saying, plausible deniability. It is how Isabel and have lived our life together. Sometimes, it is better not to know what is going on” he mused. “I am here with the kids, and that is what Isabel wants?”

“You like that, the not knowing?” Phillip wondered.

“For one’s sanity. It is better to work that way,” Kyle advised. “I trust your daughter Phillip. Going back to high school. I knew she was special. I know that she can handle herself. Of course, if it were a situation where I knew your daughter was seriously in trouble than no, I would not stay out of it. I could not. But I trust your daughter. I love her, and I know she is doing what is best for the family,” he murmured at the rare sense of honesty with his father-in-law. It was the truth. “I am the normal one in our marriage, of course, and there is stuff I rather not know…”

Phillip nodded, as they both prayed for a sensible end to this drama.


*


Back at the chamber. A vigil of sorts had developed. No one knew how to act, or what to do. Because this was a situation that no one could have predicted or planned for. All their attention was on one man. Who was still unconscious? “What are we going to do?” Maria wondered as she finally tore best friend away from the only man she could ever love. Which had taken some convincing because nothing was tearing her friend from the man she loved. A connection that stayed the same and had built from the day nearly two decades ago. It still amazed Maria to experience that bond that her friend had shared with the man who had saved her from certain death. Some days she wanted Liz to walk away, and to ignore the love because of the danger that came from knowing, but then she would also have had to walk away.

They both had tried to leave. But it had not stuck.

And now today, in this chamber, again, none of them had the sense to leave.

While the kids were sitting back against the wall of the chamber and had all fallen asleep. Which meant the adults were on guard? As much as they disapproved of the children’s misguided mission. They did not want to leave, and neither did they did not know where they could take someone who was a fugitive.

Liz’s home was the first place the authorities would look.

She would love to take him home. But she knew she could not.

It was too risky. And she knew they were already in the line of fire, and they could not do anything more that would bring heat upon them. Not even for Max’s sake.

Plus, Max would not want them to do so…

“I have no idea,” Liz saw with a degree of honesty as she hung onto Max and wonder where he was, and when he would come back to them.
Or if he was coming back to them…


*


Max meanwhile was in his slumbers. His body battered and bruised, and his mind was somewhere else. He could feel his body floating through some light. All he could see was a light at the end of the hallway. Every door he was opening, he was seeing some memories of the past. Flashes of moments in time. Chances and pathways taken. And usually behind them had incredible amount of angst behind them.

There was one door he opened, and he saw a fifteen-year-old Liz again. Staring at him. Smiling at him. At the start of their journey together. Before the angst, and before the ill-informed decisions he would make. “It is the start Max,” said Liz in the door but he resisted. Something was pulling him from going back into the past and seeing whether he could restart their journey together. And keeping away from the landmines that would trip them up.

As another Liz behind door told him in a haunted voice. “You cannot go into the past Max. You can only deal with the present.”

So, he continued walking, and he always saw Liz behind the door. Until the last door, and he saw Tess with the slither of seduction. “You know she does not give you want you want,” she murmured through the door. “You looked at me did you not and therefore she could not give you want you wanted, and Max, I gave you an heir. So, why would you not want me?”

But he turned and saw Liz and Olivia staring at him, and the softness, and desire to be in their life made him walk towards them.
Yet he still did not wake up but Liz could feel a subtle grasping of her hand so she stood by him, as she looked around and she knew Max would be coming back to her…

Somehow, some way.


*

An hour later,


It was later as a car pulled up into the driveway as the dawn was breaking, and the woman who had been driving the car got out of the vehicle she was able to find at the desert and drive home by herself. She was dead tired. She wanted her own bed, but she also knew sleep was going to be elusive because her mind was filled with what she had just left back in the desert. But because someone had to leave. And it had to be her, despite her wish that she could still be there, with the man she loved, and wish him back to consciousness, but the reasonable side of her knew she could not stay there all night.

Someone had to keep appearances by showing up at her house. Someone had to make sure it looks like it was being lived in, and that she was not apart of any criminal activity.

So, that someone had to come home. And it had to be her because she was the grown up. The adult. The one with all the responsibility that came with age. She was not the sixteen-year-old who was fascinated by the mysterious dark hair boy even if she wished she were still holding that boy’s hand once she felt the warmth of it and felt in her heart that he would come back to them.

But someone had to come home. So, she did, and unfortunately, and she locked up her car door, and turned around as she had not expected company to be waiting for her…

Or maybe she did, as her expression changed as she viewed the intruder waiting for her “What do you want?” she asked the person who was watching or accessing her as he took in everything about her.

“Where is he Mrs. Evans?” came the voice simply, and to the point.

“If you knew anything about my situation than you would know that it is Ms. Parker, because I do not share my husband’s name. Which is of course thanks to you folks,” came her response which was a mix of being dead tired, irritation and anxiety. “I was working,” Liz lied. “Is there something I should be aware of, because I would not know what you are referring to?”

“Working at his hour?” came the man. “And I see you have managed to find your car?”

“I am a doctor, as you know,” Liz murmured as she too tired to be dealing with this and deciding against responding about the dig on the car. She knew the fact she was driving home was not the greatest sign, and mark against them but she had to get home somehow, and she could not have the car out there by the desert long term. “If you people had let me see my husband than maybe I could have helped him, but no, you managed to mess things up on your own,” she mumbled. “My job keeps the roof over my house, so it has to more important than you people.”

“And more than your husband?” the man asked as he took in the woman standing in front of him. “Who has turned up missing?”

“You people know more than I do about that would you not because you did not let me see him. So, how would I know where he would be?” Liz lied as she thought of her husband “I asked to be able to see him, and I asked the warden, but they did not let me in, so yeah, why would I know anything?”

“Because I know you and your fan club has been causing no end of trouble these last weeks, and now your husband has disappeared. What are we supposed to think about it?” the man asked as he was in a stare down with Liz, and sensed the woman knew more than she was saying. Because he was well versed on the case before, he had made the drive.

“We are family,” Liz said simply with a flash of irritation. “We are not some fan club. So, yes, we are Max’s family, and therefore we take his wellbeing seriously, and you people overlooked evidence we showed you and would have given you someone else who committed the crime, so I am not crying that you cannot find him.”

“I would not know what you are talking about?” came the man.

“I know you would not,” Liz murmured with true hatred at the situation she had been forced to endure all these years. So much could have prevented. “You are only a henchman sent so the others can keep their hands clean so I do not have any answers for you, so you might as well get into your car and drive away, because I know nothing.”

“You are his wife. You have to know?” the man asked.

“Do I?” came Liz’s response. “Sometimes the wife is the last know anything?”

“I sense you are smarter than the average wife” asked the man who Liz was not letting into the house she had come home to give cover to their situation.

“I would not slam wives,” Liz muttered with her distrust for this man only growing as she wished she could desperately enter her home and forget he had even come. She needed sleep. She needed Max. She needed to see him.

She thought seventeen years without the man who had saved her life and gave an incredible and life changing adventure, for good, and for bad would make her immune. To be able to live without him. But no, she knew now. She needed to see Max, to be able to have him in her life. Which meant she would do almost anything to bring him back into her life.

“We are a powerful force. All of us,” Liz muttered again once she looked at this man who was disrupting her life.

“Which proves my point. You are not average Ms. Parker,” the agent said using her correct name. “That has always been the case, has it not?” he wondered. “Since you met your husband when you were a teenager?” he asked. “After a shooting at your parent’s restaurant, which you were purported to be the victim, but you miraculously survive without a scratch?”

“How do you know when I met my husband?” Liz asked.

“I know a lot about you, and your husband Ms. Parker,” said the agent. “It is my job to know everything about you, your husband and your daughter?”

“You can target me all you want with your pointless inquiries, but you will leave my daughter out of this, as she still is a minor” Liz demanded by the appearance of Olivia in their conversation as her maternal instinct came into display. As she could deal with anything if she could protect her only daughter and allow her to be her immune by any intimidation tactics from the authorities. After all her daughter was the only one who had the courage to undertake what they all had been thinking, and as she knew Michael had been dreaming up a line of attack but had not put an actual plan on the table. So, her daughter, brave and her father’s daughter was only doing what they all should have been doing.

Protecting her father. Protecting Max.

“All I am saying is that I am aware that you gave birth to your husband’s child, and you have raised her under a false identity?” the agent asked as he knew he was deliberately provoking Liz, but still went with his gut feeling that she was in the middle of this, from head to toe.

“It’s not a false identity,” Liz murmured. “It’s my maiden name. And it is only because of you people is the reason I could not give my daughter her father’s name” she sighed. “You people humiliated me, and I only did what I had to do, to protect myself, and make sure our daughter could live with some sanity.”

“And did not tell your husband that he was a father, until your daughter lied about who she was, to get into the prison to see her father?” asked the agent. “We know what Olivia did, talking about taking on alias. She gave false documentation to the prison to allow herself in, so, I have to ask, how did she gain that piece of identification?”

“I told you. You are leave me and leave my daughter alone” Liz gritted out lethally because fortunately for her daughter. She did not have to go through any third party to create any fake identity unlike she or anyone in her generation. Not like I did that, not my thing. She knew her daughter could just with a swipe of her hands come up with something that would con a prison staff to allow her in. Anyone would have seen the name Parker and put 2 and 2 together, maybe not immediately, but eventually. So, her daughter was saving herself come trouble by coming up with something false. She was being a teenager.

“I can’t do that Ms. Parker,” the agent said as he looked at the house. “A prisoner is missing, and something tells me you are right in the thick of things” he asked. “Should I ask the same thing to your daughter?”

“I told you my daughter is minor, and therefore you cannot talk to her without a lawyer, or my permission” Liz asked.

“We do not need permission of a parent,” the agent allowed.

“If she is under the age of 18,” Liz murmured. “Being federal does not solve all of your problems” she sighed. “Look, as you said yourself, it’s late. I have barely slept, and I need a shower, and change before I report to my office” she murmured as if she had actually been at a real medical emergency and she supposed she had, just not one she could help instantly get better. Max had to wake up on his own. She did not have any magic powers to aide him, but he does she mused.

“You know I have to check your home,” the agent murmured.

“Since when?” Liz asked wearily even know though she knew she was engaging in a losing fight.

“Since your husband went missing,” the agent whose name was Dave Barker, not that he had given it to Liz or had she asked for it. “It’s protocol.”

“Screw protocol” Liz muttered. “I have not been home in many hours Agent,” she said sighting. “I think you know my husband is not inside,” she muttered as she wished she could have him in her home, but that was impossible.

“I have to make sure,” said the agent murmured. “Are you going to be cooperative or am I going to call in for assistance, and take you into custody?”

Knowing she was losing the battle once again. Liz could only step aside from engaging in any more fight. If he could see that Max was not in her home, then he would leave her alone. “Fine, because it will show you that everything is on the up and up,” Liz murmured. “As I said before. The prison refused to let me see my husband. So, I do not know why you would think he would be here, of all places, as you should know I was with the warden when he first got notified that my husband was missing. Agent. Clearly, I have no part of this?”

“I have to check,” said the agent as he walked into the house and glanced around, at the homey touches. “You been here long?”

“Yes,” Liz said shortly, and irritated by the try of small talk. “Like you do not already know as you said, you have the book in relation to me and my daughter. So, do, what you have to do?” she sighed as the last thing she wanted to do was exchange small talk with a federal agent who was after her husband “Then go and leave me the hell alone.”

“Will do,” the agent said as he glanced around the downstairs of the house. “Is your daughter home?”

“No,” Liz murmured.

“Why not?” the agent asked.

“Sleep over at a friend’s home,” Liz murmured as she lied and the agent looked like he knew she was lying too, when there were footsteps, and then comfortable looking Olivia at the top of the stairs, in her pajamas and robe. Surprising Liz, and it was obvious a surprise that the agent would note for his records.

“Mom?” came Olivia.

“Olivia,” Liz said softly. “What are you doing home. You should at Amelia’s place, should you not?” she murmured as she said out loud the cover story she had devised for her daughter, and it was once that her daughter would pick up on

“What is going on Mom. Who is that guy?” Olivia asked as she was in a territorial frame of mind, or putting a show of one, she muttered. “It did not work out at Amelia’s place. So, I came home,” she said picking up on the obvious cover story. “You were at work, and so, I went to bed, but I woke up when I heard the slam of the door and heard voice. Again, Mom, what is going on?”

“Your father is missing” Liz said softly.

“So,” Olivia asked as she fought to stay dispassionate as the inside of her dying because her father was still lost to her and had not waken up to this point.

“So, Ms. Parker,” the agent said taking over and noted that the daughter did not seem too worried about the fact her father was missing. “Do you have any idea of where your father would be?”

“Why would I know anything?” Olivia asked.

“Because he is your father?” the agent muttered.

“He is only my biological father,” Olivia said softly as she looked at her mother, who sighed. “Someone who helped my mother create me, or shall you say, the sperm donor, but he has not been a father to me. Who I am today is a result of my mother raising me” she murmured? “My father had no part of that, and so he’s not my father.”

It is a lie Liz murmured but she was startled by the honestly in her daughter’s performance. Almost like her daughter believed it.

“Then why go visit your father if he was only like a sperm donor?” the agent asked of Olivia who looked very irritated, and not willing to talk. “Your father is missing, and I have a right to be here, because we need to know where he is?”

“Who cares,” Olivia muttered as she worked to convey a performance of disengagement so she could sell a story to the federal agent, but her animosity could not help but shine though. “Because you are not going to find him” Olivia muttered with an air of defiance that filled the room.

Re: The Story of My Life (CC, Mature) - Chapter 50 - 02/25/2021

Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2021 3:14 pm
by keepsmiling7
There are times that do call for an early morning beer--------or two!
Mean while, back at the chamber........
Liz was right, the house needed to look lived in.
How does this agent know so much about Liz and her family??
Of course they want to search the house!
Love Olivia's act!!

Re: The Story of My Life (CC, Mature) - Chapter 50 - 02/25/2021

Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2021 11:29 pm
by Superman86
I hope Max will awake soon, and Liz and Max can be together. As for Olivia how is she at home , is that her exercising her powers. Come back soon, nice update

The Story of My Life - Chapter 51 - 02/272021

Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2021 12:15 pm
by Parker1947
Author's Warning: The following chapter includes a tribute of sorts to the Pilot episode of our show. Events of that episode are described but the core of it goes into territory of how I imagined it would have been in the moments before the shooting that rocked everything for Max and Liz. And changed everything. So all credit to the writers who have us the classic episode, and mentioning of any dialogue goes to the pilot episode transcript at foreverdreaming.org.


****

Clearly irritated, and tired. Olivia was not allowing the agent to get to her. As she only had ten minutes at home before her mother entered the house with the stranger. A stranger who had the ability to disrupt the harmony of their home, although it was not as if Olivia did not know she had already disrupted it with her actions. Still a girl wanted safety in perimeter of her family home, and this man was causing anxiety. Because Olivia had seen the black car waiting when she slipped into the backyard and come through the backdoor after Zack had driven her home. Not wanting the motorcycle to be seen near the house. She had gotten off on the street behind them, and then maneuvered through multiple backyards to make herself into the house, so to keep her tracks unknown to anyone watching. Of course, it had been a motorcycle she had told herself she would not ride, but Zack was able to gain access to the form of transport and get her home, so she could pretend to have slept in her bed if anyone asked. She had not expected her mother to be in the company of the federal agent. She should have given the situation at hand and because she had kidnapped her father from a federal prison. But she had seen her mother talking to the man as she quickly changed, and then when she heard the door open. She had hoped the man had gone home, but nope; he had come in with her mother.

And now Olivia was putting on a show, to give the impression that her father did not matter to her. When he mattered so much that…
She engineered his disappearance.

So, it was a performance of a lifetime.

“Why would you say that?” the agent asked greatly amused by the tension on the faces of both Olivia and Liz. Dave Barker could sense that there much in the air that he was not privy to. Dave did have to hand it to both women that they knew how to put on a show. And from what he had read that Elizabeth Parker had given one over the years. And knew how to hide from those were pursuing her husband many times. “Do, you know anything you could tell me about you father?” he asked. “Or the sperm donor that had a hand in your creation?”

“No, I would think he would know how to keep a step-in front of you” Olivia murmured. “You can say, I watch a lot of television shows. Being in that place for all these years has to have given him an education of how to do it?”

“Has he tried to contact you or your mother?” Dave asked.

“Why would he have?” Olivia asked.

“Because you have had two high profile visits to your father,” the agent murmured. “To the guards, you seem to indicate he was a father to you?”

“We share DNA, genetic material, that is all” Olivia muttered. “Do, I have to talk to this man Mom, or can I go to bed?” she muttered as the show continued and Liz could not help but be proud of the display even though I should be the opposite in that I should not be rooting my daughter to snow a federal agent she mused to herself.

“You can go to bed. This man just has to make sure that your father is in not hiding here.” Liz murmured to her daughter.

“Why would he do something so stupid as that?” Olivia asked.

“Why would it be stupid?” Dave Barker asked.

“Because anyone knows this place would be the first place you would check. You do not even have to watch that much television to know that” Olivia muttered. “Wherever he is, well, he would not even come here. Why would he, it was not his home back then. Why would he want to put Mom through that?”

“It’s a thought?” came Dave.

“Then it’s a pretty shitty one,” Olivia muttered.

“You have your answer Agent,” came Liz as she turned her sullen expression of a daughter. “Honey, you may go to bed.”

“I think I will,” Olivia murmured as she turned and went back upstairs, leaving her mother alone with the federal agent. Sighing a breath air that she was not having to lie anymore, as she slammed her bedroom door moments later.

“Your daughter clearly loves you,” came Dave.

“Yes, she does,” Liz murmured. “Clearly Agent…”

“It’s is Dave Barker Elizabeth” Dave murmured.

“Ms. Parker to you,” Liz spat back “You can see what my daughter and I are obviously going through. So, the last thing I would be doing would be engineering a prison escape for my prisoner husband when I know you would be coming here and questioning me so I have a lot on my mind, so you might as well do what you want to do, and that is search my home. As my daughter so aptly said. My husband would pick this as the last place to go to, because we have no memories here, and he would know it is the first place you would come…”

“I am only doing my job” came Dave.

“Then do it and then get the hell out of it,” Liz murmured as she walked up the stairs, and headed for her daughter’s bedroom.

As downstairs Agent Barker watched Liz leave, and he turned around and did his duty, and found nothing to indicate the house knew where Max Evans was…


*


Upstairs, Liz knocked on her daughter’s bedroom. Knowing the teenager could have fallen asleep so quickly. She waited, and moments later, the door opened, and she entered and closed the door behind her. “What are you doing home Olivia,” she asked bluntly as she glanced at her only daughter. “Or more importantly, how did you get home?” she murmured. “You were still asleep when I left you…”

“Zack,” Olivia said simply.

“Not his motorcycle?” Liz mumbled.

“Yes,” Olivia murmured. “I did not have much choice,” she murmured. “We woke up minutes after you left you know where,” she sighed if the walls had ears because there was a federal agent within their house. “Maria told me that you came home, and so I wanted to get here in case there was a presence on the house.”

“Still, a motorcycle?” Liz asked. “Could you not have asked anyone else than for a ride?”

“It was faster, and I figured that I could not wait” Olivia murmured. “Look I am sorry if I surprised you.”

“I told that nice gentlemen that you were sleeping at Amelia’s place,” Liz muttered.

“Nice gentlemen, yeah, right” Olivia muttered. “He has got to know this would be the last place Dad would come to, because he would know they would be after this place” she murmured. “I am sorry Mom, for starting this…”

“You did not start anything honey,” Liz murmured. “Anything that you did start, well, we will work ourselves to make it out, in one piece,” she sighed of what the last twenty-four hours had started. “All of us”

Olivia nodded. “Mom,” she murmured because she could not think of how this might go. “What do you think will happen?”

“Hell, if I know,” Liz asked as she felt like a fifteen-year-old again and all churned up. She felt life becoming out of control, and away from how she liked it. In control. She remembered the whirlwind of those years until Max was taken away from her, and things calmed down. She hated how losing her husband made life normal, and quiet, and now it is all being reawaken, and completely unsettled. And she would not have it quiet. “Honey…”

“No, go, because you have given a show to that man” Olivia muttered. “I might as well actually get a little sleep” she sighed as she was tired. “And then go back to you know where…”

“Right,” Liz murmured. “I love you honey…”

“I love you too Mom,” Olivia murmured. “I was telling the truth when I told that man. Everything I am today is because of you, not Dad. I mean he is Dad of course, but I do not know him, and he was not here for the times when it was the most difficult to raise me, as if today is some picnic.”

“Thank you,” Liz murmured as she left the room, and could only sigh a deep sigh as she saw the agent coming up the stairs as she resented his invasion of her home. A home she had strived to create for herself, and for her daughter. “You do not have to come any further. I can tell you that he is not up here…”

“I have to check,” Dave murmured. “The whole house, every floor”

“Of course, you do,” Liz muttered with irritation in her eyes.

“I am not the enemy, you know” Dave sighed as it was the downside of his job. Destroying the comfort of suspects homes. Interrogating their families, in the search for who he often sought. And this one was no different. Still, it paid the bills, and a job was a job “It is your husband who is missing…”

“Well, you can see, he is not here” Liz murmured as she walked past the man, and back downstairs, and Dave continued walking, knocking on Olivia’s bedroom, and waiting to see if he would get a response.

Naturally, he was coming up with nothing, because it was obvious his arrival had cause tension and disruption in the house, and he sensed there was more he did not know because the sense he did get was that this was not your average house, and it held many secrets.

“What,” Olivia muttered as she opened the door, and snarled when she saw that it was the agent. All she wanted to do was crawl into bed. Now she was at her bedroom door, glancing at the enemy who wanted to take her father from her “Isn’t it against the law to approach minors, alone?” she asked. “Especially within their premises of their bedroom?”

“I have to check your room” was all Dave muttered.

“Fine,” Olivia said opening the door fully. “See, a simple room. Empty. Nothing is here except me, and I want to sleep… Can I?” she muttered as the agent walked in, and looked around, and left. “You are not going to find him, you know.”

“You have said it before,” Agent Barker stopped and glanced at the teenager. “So, Olivia, do you know where your father is?”

“Why would I?” Olivia muttered as she fought the instinct to fight back and knew she was being too clumsy with her quips “As I said, he has not been in my life.”

“You also have said that before. Obviously, you have been raised by your mother, and she loves you. Still though I have a hard time believing a girl your age would not want to know more about the man who fathered her, and if the need were to arise, maybe help him?”

“You do not know me, mister. You are trying to make assumptions, and they will get you no where in this fake investigation of yours. You do not know my mother, and you do not know me” Olivia demanded as she worked to show that he was not getting to her. Because she knew she had started this mess simply because she needed to know more about her father. The man who helped to create her and had been absent all her life. Now, she was coming to grasp just what she had done. Alex had warned her of what she might be opening. She had ignored those pleas, and changed their lives, and she would have to live with a vastly different landscape in the future. So, she worked to mislead the agent, and to get him to leave their home. “You can see he is not here, so go home, and stop getting in our face. My mother has worked all these years to make something of herself, and to raise me and I will not have you upending all that on some crusade when you will not find what you are looking for, or at least not here in this house,” she said defending her mother, and continuing to put on a false front and show. “Go, look somewhere else.”

You’re good you know…” Dave murmured.

“What’s that” Olivia asked.

“You care for your mother, and you will defend her, but something tells me you are not your average teenager,” Dave asked. “Do I have that right?”

“All I can say, you will not find what you are looking for, here” Olivia said slamming her door, and Dave turned and faced a furious Liz. “Yeah, what?” he would murmur and knew he had crossed the line because he did not have permission to question the daughter without the presence of the mother.

“What are you doing confronting my daughter?” Liz demanded.

“To search the house. I had to look in every room,” Dave murmured. “That would include your daughter’s bedroom, and now that I have concluded it, I will continue to do my search.”

“Stay away from my daughter,” Liz fired off at the agent as she picked up her cellphone and started to dial. A phone call she should have made when this visit started.


*


Isabel had just walked into the house after leaving the cave. Michael was still on guard as Maria had finally dragged her kids home so they could get some sleep in a comfortable bed. Now she was home, and being confronted by her husband, and father who was still at the house. Which surprised her, or maybe she should not have been so surprised because somehow her father would have found out. “How are the kids?”

“Sound asleep, as you well know” Kyle muttered. “What is going on Isabel. Your father has filled me on what he knows.”

“And he has been filling me on what he does not know,” Phillip muttered as he looked at the connection between his daughter and husband. Isabel’s second husband, and a marriage that thankfully that was working because she had worried Phillip early on in her misguided first marriage to Jesse.

Which is why knowing both Isabel and Jesse were in better places. It was obvious that Kyle made his daughter happy, and his grandchildren were thriving.

A win for all. As he knew Jesse was happy having remarried and moved on professionally.

The headaches would have been too numerous if Jesse had stayed with his daughter as Phillip realized as he came more fully into the secret that defined both of his children. Happiness was critical. And he was blessed that his daughter had found it.

“As I told you father, there is stuff clearly that I relish not knowing but we both can tell something is going on, and now your father is telling me that Max has disappeared from this prison” Kyle wondered. “So, tell us Isabel, did your brother escape?”

Oh god, Isabel muttered to herself. She had come home preparing to fill in her husband on that the escapades of her niece and her other cohorts in this mission, but she had not been prepared to have to fill in her father too. “Dad”

“Honey,” Phillip murmured. “What is going on?”

“It’s complicated,” Isabel murmured.

“I gather,” Phillip murmured. “I love you honey, and I love your brother and I only want the best for the both of you, but as your mother and I told you back in the beginning of this, back in high school when you told what was going on. You can come to us with anything, and we rather know than not know because not knowing got us into a lot more trouble than knowing has, and we want to be there for you. We have not been able to be there for your brother for a lot of reasons we all know, but if this has to do with your brother, then tell us?”

“Fine, it does involve Max, as you probably assumed” Isabel murmured. “Kyle, Max did not up and escape that prison.”

“I could have guessed that because Max is all about sacrifice and being a martyr for what he has to give up, even though he is the one who started this.”

“Kyle,” Isabel admonished.

“It’s the truth,” Kyle muttered and something he had rarely told his wife regarding her brother over the years because he had known how much she had taken it personally to lose Max, and until now, had been unable to have a relationship. “He confessed…”

“To protect Michael, and to protect me” Isabel murmured. “They had Dad’s tape, and it was not only Tess who they would have designs against. I gave them evidence that we were different, and it was only a matter of time before they came after us…”

“I realize that,” Kyle murmured as Phillip had gone pale over the remembrance of the tape.

“Dad, I am sorry, as I told you back then. I forgive you and Mom for doing that because we gave you no choice. We did not come to you and Mom, and we poopooed your legitimate concerns when you and especially Mom came to us and asked what was going on.”

“Still,” Phillip murmured. “I am sorry.”

“I know you are, and Max does not hold it against you. If he had not confessed. They still would have come after us, and Max was taking the bullet for us, and who knows what would be out there, and given our track record, we might be worst off…”

“I know.” Kyle murmured as he though of that time. When he added to the criminal laundry list against them, when he had unknowingly been an unwitting accomplice in Tess’s killing of Alex. It had taken a lot to come through that in one piece. And the betrayal, and what it had done to him, and his father. No wonder his father almost lost himself before he was able to start the climb back to graining his job back.

“So, honey” Phillip asked as he broke the trance and trip back into the past for Kyle. “What is going on?”

“Max did not escape…” Isabel murmured.

“Then what did happen?” Kyle asked.

“Max got put in the infirmary,” Isabel murmured.

“We knew that honey,” Phillip asked as he wanted more.

“Well Liz went up, and they refused her request to see him in the infirmary, and any information.”

“That is illegal” Phillip murmured.

“When has anything in this story been entirely legal,” Isabel murmured. “They can hold information from family if they feel it necessary, but as next of kin, and when a life in on the hold. They need to fill in Liz because she is Max’s proxy if he can give a greenlight for any treatment.”

“Right,” Phillip nodded.

“Since the last thing that prison wants to be is considered nice to my brother,” Isabel murmured. “They refused Liz’s request, and she had it out with the warden. Same thing happened with that bastard. So, Olivia who went with her mother…”

“Oh god,” Kyle and Phillip said in unison. “What did Olivia do?”

“She snuck in to see her father,” Isabel allowed.

“What was that girl thinking,” Phillip muttered at the mere thought of his eldest granddaughter engaging in such an action. It should not shock him because his granddaughter was now sixteen. The same age where everything changed for her parents, and so it should not surprise him to know his granddaughter would endeavor it but it did surprise Phillip because until now, he had not know Olivia had it in her because she had the opposite of the rebel. But so, had his son, Max had been All American at one time. And things changed, so he could understand it showing up in his son’s child. Still, it did not mean he wanted it to happen.

“She wanted to see her father, who she had been told was in the infirmary struck down by some mysterious fate,” Isabel muttered I am not sure I would be much different she told herself. “I can admire it, and in fact if I was there, and I did not have to act like a professional that I am. I might be doing the same thing,” she sighed. “She needed to see him. She was not looking to do what she did, but she needed to see her father, and I believe her when she does say that she did not know what she was going to do…”

“What did she do?” Kyle asked as he knew it was only his wife’s professional and the weight of what would come down on him, and their girls in not doing the same thing as Olivia. So, he knew it had to be killing his wife to have to be the adult in the situation.

“She decided to sprint my brother out of there,” Isabel muttered as she got the guts of the story.

“How on earth could she had done it?” Phillip murmured as they all knew he wanted to add, in her condition.

“How did she do it?” Kyle muttered as if he did not know.

“She had help,” Isabel sighed simply.

“I figured, but who?” Kyle asked as again he was thankful that his girls were too young to bring these escapades to bare.

“Zack,” Isabel muttered.

“Naturally,” Kyle muttered himself as Phillip looked stunned.

“Max’s son” Phillip asked.

“Yes,” Isabel muttered.

“So, where is he, and I mean your brother when I say that?” Kyle asked as he took an assessment of the situation. “Do I even want to know?”
Isabel was not sure of answer as the ringing of her cellphone rang through the conversion, and she moaned as she did not need any more action, as she sighed when she saw that it was Liz who was calling her, and that was not good news. “What now?” was all she muttered into her phone.


*


It was dark and cold, and Michael was on guard. Grateful that Maria had dragged their kids home and was asleep in their comfortable beds. Which is where Michael wished her was at this moment, but no, he was standing guard even though no mere mortal could get into this fortress. Only those who had an extremely specific set of powers were allowed entrance. So, he could have left, and gone home and been with his wife in bed and lectured his children once more for their entrance into the legacy that defined them.

Michael believed Olivia was the one who had orchestrated this little endeavor. And plus, why should I be against it. I was planning the same type of thing. He never would imagine in a million years that it would be Olivia who did it. Of course, it was not just her, but she had help. Zack. Naturally because there has the be a reason he came into the story when he did after so many years in the blissful unknown that the real world could live in without having the daily worries they did, when you were special, and could do anything you wanted to do, to your dream’s content.

But they had watch out for the deadly traps because they had fallen into them, and lost people as a result. And it seems still unreal to him that he was the family man, while his best friend was one who had been sitting in the prison cell all these years. Of course, Max had sacrifice himself. Which was very Maxwell Michael muttered to himself.

It did not seem natural for Michael to be able to be happy while Max got the misery inflicted on him because he was leader. King of their world.

But he had to make deal with it, but still standing guard as he watched his friend sleep. The fact Max had not woken up yet told him that he was some place he did not want to come out of it.

For fear that reality would crush his dream world.


*

While yes, Max was a dream world.

One of his own making. Not one that was of the past and was a do-over of a particular scenario that had done him bad. Because he would not have been able to pick just one, because there were too many.

No, he was in in bliss. A feeling that was felt whenever he got a look at his dream girl.

A girl who was fifteen, and precious and perfect.

And was not giving him the time of the day.

Because the shooting had not happened…yet

Max meanwhile was sitting in a booth of the Crashdown and watching as the bustling restaurant went through its daily life. He revelled in this moment. As he remembered when time was innocent, and life had not bruised them yet. When he could spend hours simply looking a girl who did not even know he was alive, or she did, but all she saw was her lab partner, or another student in her classes.

So, he took in the moment, and heard “Can I help you?” came a soft voice.

Max snapped out of his trance and was befuddled. Which was his feeling every time he saw her. It was a bright September day. School was in session, but it was not in session on this day. So, he was content to be in the booth, and was watching. She speaks to me he muttered.

Max did not know what to say.

“Do you want anything?” Liz murmured softly in a tone that brought butterflies to him. “You do not speak much?” she asked as she saw Maria in her pixie cut smirk as she saw her at Max’s booth. “You are the same way in Biology class” she wondered, as she willed him to speak to her.

Max did not know what to say, as she always made him speechless.

“I guess I will get your usual once again” she said as she smiled as she walked away as Max cursed his inability to talk to her as the doors and Michael forced himself into the restaurant. “Maxwell why is this the only place I find you?” he gritted.

“The food,” Max said as he glanced over Michael’s shoulders and looked at the goddess that was now speaking to her best friend. A friendship that went back to even before he saw Liz in the playground for the first time when they were in third grade. If only I could talk to her, he mused to himself.

“The tabasco sauce makes it bearable” Michael grunted. “Oh, snap out of it” he muttered as he saw Max staring at Liz once again as she was dealing with two newcomers to town, and showing them some small black and white picture that neither could see but the newcomers were engrossed before Liz found herself back with Maria.

“You are soooo bad girl. Oh, and Max Evans is staring at you again.”

No way…


Was all Max heard before he went back into his trance once again, and then he heard shouts and his mind went far, far away…

As back in 2019. Eyes opened with at a startled sound of gunshots ringing out…

“No, no… Liz… no” he moaned out loud.

Michael who had not been paying attention as he was into his own head and putting together some connections on one of the other cases he did have stumbled up, to stand up and came running when he saw that there were unmistakeable familiar eyes that had opened. “Max,” he whispered. “You are awake?”

“Liz. Where is Liz?” Max whispered as the connection to the present time had not sunk in, and he was still thinking of the past. “Is she okay?”

“Of course, why would she not be?” Michael asked as if we need something else to go wrong in this saga.

“She was shot…”