It did not make sense both Max and Liz were thinking to themselves as they could only look at each other as they did not know how to respond to the life changing events that had taken place. Faith had taken her que to leave the room, so that Max could talk to his ex-wife in private. She knew how much this was going to change Max’s life, regardless of whether anything came from his former wife coming back into his life, and both clearly being still in love with the other. Faith knew what love looked like, and she experienced it in her own life with her own husband. So, she knew when someone was pining for someone they had let get away, which was the case for both Max and Liz.
Of course, it was complicated
. There are a lot of complicated factors in this one Faith thought as she walked down the hallway to her next patient. She didn’t know how her friend would deal with this one except to know Max’s life was now changed, forever, and there would be no going back to the way things were, because you couldn’t, when you knew something like this. But in Liz’s hospital room, nothing made sense.
“I didn’t know,” they said in unison. “Sorry,” they whispered again together in unison as Max could only see the eight years of absence, and not being present in his child’s life.
What have I missed? A child he would have been there for if only had been given a chance. For Liz, it was seven years of being in a self declared misery because she had chosen wrong and tried to figure out how to make her life work for the sake of her daughter.
If only she had known, she could have made so many other decisions. Loving Carl had ended almost as soon as any feelings started to develop. She had stayed because of Natasha, and because she had known she had given up on a good thing, and she didn’t know how to right a decision she had made herself, when she knew Max hadn’t wanted her to leave.
How do you go back when you were the one to leave, she mused?
When you could not be happy with the love that he was willing to give me? she wondered.
Was it payback for what he had done earlier? She did not know, and she did not want to know. She blamed the government for their treatment of her when they had her in their custody, and a large part of it was,
how could I not be changed. Just like Max was, during his time, but once home, she could not be happy I had a loving husband, and life I could get back to, especially as they were able to stop running but still it didn’t satisfy me. She could not go back, and she let it ruin her life. She let it ruin her marriage. “If only I had known?” she whispered.
“I don’t blame you,” Max murmured because he would never blame her, even if she had been at fault. But in this case, Neither, of them had known the truth, and it was obvious the love of his life had only been protecting herself, and that of their daughter with her choices. “You obviously didn’t know, and who wouldn’t have thought what you thought, if Natasha was really born too late to make me a believable father…”
You are human, I am not…
“I at least should have known,” Liz asked. “To at least question it given who you are?”
“No one would have thought differently,” Max sighed. “Even now, I can’t believe it, and because of that I don’t blame you,” he murmured. “Because I still don’t know how it would have happened…” he sighed. “I know when it could have happened,” he smirked. and he got a rare smile out of the woman he loved as they remembered back to their good times.
“Yeah,” Liz whispered. “We had some good times together, didn’t we?”
“The one way we were very compatible, and didn’t have to think about what was going on in our lives,” Max smiled as he thought back to their last time, when they both knew it was the last time, and still they went there even know they knew his heart would be broken when she left him. She had not blindsided him because both know her departure was coming, and yet still they could not help but spend one more moment together, as if they were hoping it could change something. And it had not, but they had not realized it at the time, and it has taken nearly eight year to realize what they had created. “We don’t have very much experience you know,” Max murmured. “Only Tess, and then most of that you know happened elsewhere…”
“Yeah,” Liz nodded as she remembered that time when she had been so happy to have Tess elsewhere but then she came back and brought Max’s son with her, and changed everything, and while they were able to reunite, still things had changed with the knowledge the baby was there, and Max had to give him up.
“She was like me, not you” Max said softly because they both knew that had been the chief reason for his dalliance with Tess, and how he had betrayed her because for so long Liz had been the one, and still was the one, and only for him, but he had been with someone else. Betraying their love… he whispered “You are the only one I love Liz, don’t doubt that…”
Liz did not respond to that because it still was a wound that was clearly not healed “There was reason to
not believe that, once upon a time” she sighed as she glanced at the angst on Max’s face. “But I
do believe you loved me, and what we had was intense, and yet uniquely us” she asked. “Tess could never touch that…”
“I will never not love you,” Max murmured as he knew the truth
No matter what happens to me, and whether we just become co-parents to Natasha, nothing will stop my loving Liz. “So, what are we going to do now?” he whispered because he didn’t know if Kyle’s belief of his marriage rang true now that they knew Natasha was his child, and a child had come from their marriage, which gave one more error to the papers.
Not that any of them knew it at the time. Dad would not have known otherwise he would have told me… Max reflected, and that was the
one thing he knew of his father.
Dad would have told me…
“Max,” Liz murmured.
“Don’t,” Max murmured. Afraid of what she would say. “You need time, and we both need time before anything more is decided” he sighed because giving a smile. “We have our daughter to think about…”
“I am still married,” Liz murmured as she remembered that she was still married, and her husband may be fleeing from justice, but still it meant she had his ring on her finger, and she wasn’t free. “Carl is still a factor…”
“About that,” Max murmured as he knew that maybe it was time had come to fill in Liz on Kyle’s suspicions about the legality of their divorce.
But they were interruption by the burst through the door of a small little girl who had out run the adults behind her by a wide margin. “Mommy is it true Max is my Dad?” she burst out said before anyone could stop her.
Max and Liz could only stare at the proof that hey had come together and made something special with jaw dropping at the audacity of the girl to ask something that they had just learned themselves.
*
“Sorry,” came a trio of voices as Maria, Michael and Isabel came rushing behind the girl as it became clear where the child was going once it became clear of what she had overheard and because the adults on scene didn’t know how to answer, so, she came to the source of inquiry, with a sudden need to know. Because it had answered so many questions, she had about herself despite her age.
Some still did not make sense but that was for another time she told herself.
“Mommy,” Natasha asked as she looked at Liz with a look of expectation that her mother would make it all seem to make sense.
Liz didn’t know how to answer it because she was beginning to let it sink in, and now she had to face the product of what she and Max had created together, and for so long she had been led to believe something that hadn’t been true, and she didn’t know how to respond to her daughter’s very clear interest in knowing the truth about her parentage.
Natasha was always intelligent and had a quest to dig until she knew the answer “Mommy?”
“Let me,” Max said softly to Liz who nodded as he got down on his knee in front of the child, he had just been told was his. And it all became clear, and why since Natasha had arrived in their lives had people suspected, and yet he and Liz had been oblivious to it. None of the others in the room, which included Kyle as he walked in after the mob that had rushed after the child.
“Is anyone going to answer me?” Natasha asked as she showered her eyes on both her mother and Max.
“Yes,” Max said as the news whipped through the room because they got Max’s answer before the child did of course as Liz still looked dazed at the possibility.
“Yes, what?” Natasha asked dubiously at Max.
“Yes, I am you father?” Max murmured. “Your Mommy didn’t know so you shouldn’t be too upset with her, okay. Neither of us knew until minutes ago. But yes, you are my daughter”
“I am,” Natasha whispered as she glanced up at Max as Isabel glanced at her brother and then Liz, who nodded.
“Yes,” Max nodded.
“Oh my god,” Maria whispered in the background.
It makes so much sense and yet it does not at the same time as Michael whistled to himself at the acknowledgement of the suspicions everyone in their world had about the little girl. It was still something to hear the words
Well done Max, well done he mused as he knew his friend’s life was now forever changed, no matter how it went with Liz.
Max is a father, wow he thought. It was starting to make Michael question a lot in his own life as he grabbed his wife, and forced her to leave the room with Isabel so that Max and Liz could have some time with Natasha to see how the little girl would react. Kyle kept close to the room because he sensed his presence would be needed sooner than later as he glanced at his fiancé who looked at Kyle with a degree of knowing that this changed things, and everything they knew was no longer the case.
Back inside the room, Natasha was silent as she looked back between her mother and Max. “I know this confuses you,” Liz said softly as she reached out her hand at her daughter, and Natasha approached her. She did not know how to respond. Neither did Max or Liz and it came to their attention that they now had to think about not was best for them,
but what was in the best interest of their daughter
“I don’t get it, why didn’t you know?” Natasha asked pointedly at her mother. “Does my other Dad know?”
“No,” Liz muttered. “He didn’t know,” she whispered. “It’s complicated why I didn’t know or why Max didn’t know, and it’s pretty adult stuff right now, and you will know more when you’re older but until you are, well, I am truly sorry that this is affecting you now, because I never wanted you hurt by this?”
“Mom, this is best news of all time” Natasha whispered as she looked at awe at Max as her brain processed the incredible news, as a bright smile came to her face.
Neither Max nor Liz were expecting such a reaction from the little girl as Liz clearly looked surprised. “Really?” she asked as she glanced at Max who was now suspecting for the little girl, life with Carl had not been any easier for her than it had been for Liz, because at least Liz could react. His little girl was too small, and to be a target, it made him feel rage at what his daughter would have had to face in that home. Liz had tried to prevent it, but clearly, it only went so far…
“My other Dad hated me,” Natasha asked as she had long known the truth. “I know he did. He might not have known but he must have known, and Max has been nicer to me than my other Dad ever was, and I appreciate that, so this news is like the best gift I could get Mommy,” she whispered to her mother and Max, and Max took the little girl and eased her worries with a simple smile. “I hope this doesn’t mean we have to leave Roswell?” she whispered to her mother and Max. “I’ll be good, I promise…”
That promise broke Max’s heart as well as Liz because it was clear life with Carl had instilled a lot of fear in the little girl that Liz had not always been able to soften. “You always are a good girl, so don’t think you’re not, and you don’t need to make that promise because while I don’t know what the future holds, and neither does Max” Liz whispered as she glanced at Max who nodded. “But I will promise you that you and Sarah Rose will be on the top of my mind in whatever we decide okay, and I will certainly get your opinion before we make any decisions, okay?”
“Okay,” Natasha said accepting her mother’s word as she glanced at Max. “So, you’re my Dad?”
“Yes,” Max confirmed.
“Cool,” the seven-year-old whispered as she was still struck at how happy it made her. “I will have an awesome story for
show and tell whenever I go back to school,” she smiled as she ran out of the room and left both Liz and Max looking amazed at the reaction of the girl.
“That is some girl you raised there Liz,” Max muttered as they watched Natasha approach Isabel outside the room. “You should be proud?”
“It wasn’t me,” Liz muttered. “It’s all on her,” she sighed. “I should have left, and raised her on my own, and then I could be the role model that she needs…” she asked. “Because it’s clear she has scars from a life with Carl, and scars that don’t always show up on the skin.”
“You survived,” Max murmured as he approached Liz, and sat down and took her had and she felt her heart start beating once again, after being dead for so long. “She’ll always see you as her hero for that alone,” he sighed. “And you have Sarah Rose…”
“Yeah, I do” Liz nodded as she didn’t know what their future would look like, as for so long she had looked at it in only one way, and now she’s finding out she has been looking at it all wrong, and it wasn’t a pleasant sight. “I wish I would have known…”
“Me too,” Max admitted. “But she’s still only seven, and has a lot of years to go, and we can make sure that she and her sister have lives that they can be proud of.”
“Thank you, Max,” Liz muttered as she was struck at how a remarkable man she once loved, and still might, as she would always regret her choices.
“For what?” Max asked.
“For not coming down on me for leaving you out of her first seven years,” Liz murmured as she glanced at the man who she had wished she had spent these last years with…
It forced Max to miss on so much, so how can he forgive me?
“You didn’t know, and I believe you when you said you didn’t know” Max murmured. “I can only think of that for some reason the pregnancy was slowed down from a normal one because who we are,” he murmured. “You’re special and so is Natasha, and despite some inner scars, it’s pretty clear to me Liz that she is a happy little girl.”
“Yes, she is, isn’t she?” Liz asked. “I look at her now, and I see you…”
“I see you,” Max smiled. “I will always see you…”
*
They are hopeless Isabel muttered to herself as she and Kyle took Natasha for a walk around the hospital and to stop at the NICU to see if she could get a glimpse of her baby sister. Isabel could see how much her brother was growing attached to this changing drama, and she did not know what it would mean for the future. “How did they get it so wrong?”
“Sometimes that happens,” Kyle allowed. “And we haven’t even gotten to that other matter that needs to be discussed.”
“What does that mean for them?” Isabel asked.
“It’s not like Liz knew,” Kyle muttered because they were very apparent, they had a child listening to their conversation. “But still there is a very growing issue with that decree,” he muttered. “And something Max could use to say he didn’t have the right knowledge to agree to it, because if he had only known than we both know he would have said no, and wouldn’t have tried to sign those papers, or whatever he ended up doing.”
“I want my brother to be happy,” Isabel murmured.
“You’re Max’s sister,” Natasha pipped up into the conversation, and Isabel smiled.
“Yes,” Isabel confirmed.
“So, that makes you my aunt, right?” Natasha asked.
“So, it does” Isabel smiled because it meant there was one more family member. A family that had been shockingly cut down by the loss of her parents, and now they could add another one, and who knows what Max and Liz would end up doing, and Sarah Rose could end up joining the fun. “You’ve found a unique family to join?”
“Mommy doesn’t have to leave, does she?” Natasha asked. “And go back to my other Dad?”
“Not if she doesn’t want to,” Isabel murmured
Max won’t let that happen without a fight she mused as she looked at Kyle who nodded .”Let’s get you something to drink, as you have had a long day.”
*
“Seriously,” Maria asked as she sat next to her husband as he drove her to her mother’s place. Her car was out of commission once more, and not only because of the crash but because it was needed until the deputies were finished with it, and therefore she was without wheels. She was supposed to be starting at work that night, and she did not know if she could, with her headache raging, but she knew she needed the money. So, she was headed back to her mother’s place, and get some sleep before she headed for work. “And you’re just telling me this, now?” she answered to Michael’s latest bombshell.
“A lot has happened in the last twenty-four hours,” Michael murmured as it seemed unbelievable for him to be next to Maria after so long, and not going out in a search of a risky bet to risk it all on, or some floozy of the moment
Everyone pales next to Maria. “Obviously, Kyle didn’t tell you?”
“I tried to get it out of him, but because he paid my first mechanic’s bills, well, I couldn’t very well get down on him, and then everything happened with Natasha. Wow, Michael, wow…”
“I don’t know how it works, or if they could revoke it at this point” Michael conceded. “Although the Natasha development changes things?”
“Liz didn’t know,” Maria muttered. “Otherwise, she would have told Max whether it meant anything for their marriage or not. Since, she was determined to leave him at that time, but one can’t look back and second guess what we would have done if we weren’t given what we know today?”
“Right,” Michael acknowledged.
“If the divorce is funky?” Maria asked.
“Then Max and Liz are still married. Natasha would have been a product of the marriage regardless, and Carl might be deemed a simple affair, and Sarah Rose could still be declared legally Max’s child.”
“But they have legal papers that indicate a separation in the very least?” Maria asked. “Carl can do a paternity test?”
“Still, if their marriage was never officially and rightfully terminated than it has simply been a long drawn out separation, and Max is on the hook for legal claims over the children. Carl’s only recourse would have to go to court to prove paternity. That is now out for Natasha, and for Sarah Rose, well, her birth was escalated by the abuse shown to her mother…” he muttered as the anger threatened to take over once again. “That is on Carl”
“Oh god,” Maria whispered.
“Something tells me Max is going to protect those children and Liz from anything Carl tries,” Michael admitted as he turned onto the street that the Deluca/Valenti home resided as he reflected on all that had happened within these last twenty four minutes and how it could mean Maria might be out of here before long “So, how much longer do you think you’re sticking around?”
“I don’t know?” Maria conceded as she had yet to process anything that had happened these last hours, and days. “My life wasn’t going the way I wanted, and so I was headed south, for a job on a cruise ship, but I turned it down because of everything with Liz, so, my schedule is a lot lighter these days” she sighed. “I think I should stick around and be the responsible daughter for once, and prove to Mom that she can count on me?”
“What happened with that career you wanted?” Michael asked as he stopped the car, but Maria did not rush to get out as he knew Amy always missed her daughter, but never resented Maria for not coming back, nor resenting him for that matter in allowing Maria to stay away.
Still he felt a lot of resentment he knew.
“It didn’t go the way I wanted,” Maria conceded. “I think I should have taken the lesson New York was trying to teach me, when you won’t compromise your values than you’re rarely going to go places until you do hit it big and you are able to give no as an answer. That was never going to be me…” she sighed. “So, I have to think about a lot in my life…”
“I am sorry,” Michael admitted. “I know I never showed it, but I did think you were talented…”
“Well, we’re the way we are,” Maria murmured as she and Michael glanced at each other one more time, and knew their history was one for the history books along with Max and Liz. “We had a funny way of showing it, but I did know I had your support.”
‘But not enough to stay in our marriage?” Michael wondered
“Since when did you want me to stay?” Maria asked as she turned and faced her husband with the truth “When you let me go?”
“I always wanted you Maria,” Michael sighed as he knew the chief reason, he had screwed up these last years without his wife was because she had left. “And plus, it was you, who left me…” he muttered. “You wanted Hollywood. You didn’t want me, and you didn’t want our marriage?”
“Space boy, I always wanted you,” Maria muttered as she opened the door to the car as all she could see was the boy she had met at fifteen years old when she fell in love
He was something unique. A bad boy who made my heart race. “Yes, you made me crazy. I tried walking away, but I could never stay away, not really, but should I have not wanted to at least try to see if I stood a chance out there. Why would I want regrets if I never tried? So, yeah, I deserve that, but you stayed here when you could have come with me,” she sighed but knew that argument was faulty because Michael would never have taken to California life.” Yeah, I know you probably would not have meshed out there with the life that Californians lead, and we were probably on thin line, but you never tried,” she sighed. “You chose to stay, even after Max was on his feet. Although of course, truthfully, neither of us knew how to be married back then. It was drunken dare done in Vegas, and the next morning we woke up, and we were never the same…” she muttered. “We were never going to be Max and Liz?”
“No, we weren’t,” Michael agreed as he could not help but agree that neither of them knew how to be married, and they were always one disaster away from ending,
Rarely, did it go well for long. “But you were still special”
“Thanks for that, at least” Maria sighed as she got up and leaned forward to say some parting words, “Long story short, I am here for the near future, because who knows what the future holds. These last twenty-four have changed a lot of lives”
“Yeah, they have, haven’t they?” Michael muttered as he wondered what the future held for all of them, as he drove home.
*
“Were you pregnant when you signed those divorce papers?” Kyle was asking Liz as he sat in her hospital room. The hospital was silent except for the drama going on in the hospital room as Isabel had taken Natasha to the Crashdown to spend some time with Jeff and Nancy and to have dinner. Later, she would be back to pick up Kyle because finally the discussion of the state of Max and Liz’s divorce had come up, and he elected to stay to have it as he could see the confusion on his ex-girlfriend’s face ¬¬
the interrelated relationships in our little fraternity are quite something he mused to himself with a laugh at how small their group was, “I know this doesn’t make sense…”
“Are you’re saying Max’s father circumvented certain laws, and as a result Max and I might still be married?” Liz asked if this day had not been bizarre enough without this added layer and now, she was being confronted with a doozy to top them all. “Which would make me a bigamist if I married Carl, and was already married?”
“Only if you knew, and you didn’t, right?” Kyle asked.
“Of course not,” Liz muttered as she searched Max’s eyes. “You knew about this?” he asked as she could see that this discussion was not foreign to him. “You told him?” she asked her former boyfriend. Because, still, it was amazing to her to know Kyle had ended up a lawyer because that was not something, she had been expecting from him to be when they grew up. She figured despite his grumbling that he would end up at the Sheriff’s department as his father’s heir apparent to continue the family business, and to know he followed Phillip’s Evans example and became the town’s leading attorney.
We grow up, don’t we?
“I may have said something about it,” Kyle conceded.
“I didn’t believe it,” Max muttered
as much as I want it to be true and for it solve Liz’s problems, well, there is no way Dad would have done it and said as much “Still I don’t believe that Dad would have done that, even if it was for me or he was trying to save us from ourselves” he sighed as he knew his parents had witnessed how much being on the run, and having Liz captured had changed their son and daughter-in-law after they were able to return to Roswell. “Dad was always by the book. Phillip Evans rarely bended the rules.”
“Of course, he wouldn’t” Liz murmured as she remembered well what Phillip had done for her, and his son, and it still felt raw to know he was gone from this Earth. “The mere thought is too bizarre to even contemplate,” she muttered. “And even if for a minute we could say that he might have bended to a degree, the mere idea that Max and I could still married, Kyle, there is no way the court would see us anything other than divorced, and uphold my marriage to Carl?” she sighed. “We would have to make multiple cartwheels of the truth to make it the truth?”
“Don’t be too sure,” Kyle muttered as he knew courts, and sometimes they can set aside things on the smallest of technicality. “Which is why I asked whether you knew you were pregnant when you signed those divorce papers?”
“Yes,” Liz admitted. “It’s the reason I wanted to end things and make it official with Carl, you know, because of the baby. I wanted to be free,” she sighed as she saw the look in Max’s eyes. “I was naïve, and I was stupid. I was hurting a lot in those days, and I wasn’t thinking straight otherwise I might have listened to my parents or the very least to Maria who saw the red flags with Carl.”
“You didn’t tell Max you were pregnant?” Kyle asked as he saw a glimmer of light in this plan of his “That you had a child on the way?”
“No,” Max admitted as he gave a searing glance at his soulmate. “The first glimpse I had that Liz had a child was six months ago when she showed up at my parent’s service. Which is when I saw Natasha for the first time,” he said stopping hauntingly as he thought of the chance meeting that was not a chance meeting at all, as it was obviously planned. “Can I ask, why did you bring her?”
If you did not think she was mine?
“Because I couldn’t leave her at home,” Liz admitted
I did not trust Carl, and that before I knew what I know now. “And maybe I was forcing myself to take the step in coming back to my home town, and she was the reason and if I had the courage I might have done more with it, but I didn’t, and things went from bad to worse with Carl from that moment on” she sighed. “I told you not to tell my parents because I got scared because of what I knew my life was like, and still if only I hadn’t woken up that pandora box.”
“Something tells me Carl would still have struck out at you, whether you went to service or not” Kyle muttered. “Carl is that type of person, and I have seen enough of them in my career so far…”
“So, you didn’t give Max a chance to see whether the baby was his?” Kyle asked. “To a court of law, and to a judge at the very least, that might be grounds to give the divorce a second look?”
“The dates were off,” Liz murmured. “I didn’t knowingly deceive Max. Why would I have told my estranged husband that I was pregnant by another man?” she asked. “The dates made it seem like there was no way Max could have been the father. I believed Carl was the only likely possibility.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Kyle said. “We can work with this,” he smiled. “You have admitted to drinking too much before the discovery of your pregnancy and therefore we can say that you couldn’t be sure of when you conceived” he murmured as Liz looked at both of her ex’s with shot of wariness at the blatant coloring of the lines of the truth.
“And our date of separation doesn’t quite mesh with Natasha’s birthdate,” Liz murmured. “She was not premature”
“But we have a DNA test that verifies that Max is the little girl’s father,” Kyle determined. “To a court of law, we could imply that you might have tried again, before you ended things because whether the dates exactly add up, nothing changes that a test has determined Max to be Natasha’s father,” he sighed. “So, it would give us grounds even if there were errors in the original paperwork, and they rule your separation is valid”
“Do you think it would work?” Max asked as he knew he would take any shot at a dart table if it meant he could be with Liz or could at least save her the heartache of Carl.
“There is a chance,” Kyle agreed. “If you want me to look into it, and pursue it further…”
“So, how about it, Liz?” Max asked as he was willing to do anything to protect
his wife that resided in his heart, and he would go to moon to have her declared his legal wife, and to get a chance at a miracle. A miracle had occurred when he had a chance at fatherhood against all odds, because of who he was, and it showed that they could never discount each other, and there was always a chance, even if it is so small that you don’t think you make it work.
So, he took the shot in the dark, and got down on his knee in front of a shock and strongly affected Liz by this action, as an very amused Kyle witnessed the moment
Atta boy “Would you like to stay my wife?”
Did she?