Title: Lost and Found
Author: Karen
Rating: MATURE
Disclaimer: Not mine
Summary: Takes place the summer after "Destiny". Just how did Max and Maria become friends? And how good of friends were they? Told from Maria's POV
Part One
I’ve become Jeff Parker’s bitch.
The thought often crosses my mind that Liz must have never done anything but study, go to school, drool over Max Evans and wait on her father. I’m astounded that she ever found time to do anything else.
Of course, now Liz has packed all of the pieces of her broken heart into a suitcase and escaped to Florida to try to put her life back together and forget Max (like that would ever happen). And in her absence, I’ve become the bitch.
I’ve never run so many meaningless errands in my life. Go pick this up, go deliver that. Be here to open, be here to close. Leaving for the week, please water the plants.
Which is where I am now – standing in the Parker’s living room looking at a sickly Fichus tree. Its leaves are all droopy and it looks like it might snap if I touched it. I didn’t do that. I swear – it looked like that when I came up here three days ago. I guess I should try to help it…but I really don’t know what to do for it. Do they have plant doctors?
I sigh and move away from the tree with my little can of water. I’m glad Michael Guerin is downstairs in the Crashdown kitchen and not up here to see this humiliation. I’m wearing a turquoise waitress uniform with silver bobbles on my head and I’m walking around like friggin’ Martha Stewart tending to the house plants. It’s not the uniform that’s embarrassing – it’s the fact that I’m sixteen and I look domesticated. I want to look mysterious, alluring – irresistible. And this is so not that.
I wander through the empty apartment and feel like an intruder. I’ve probably spent more hours here than at my own home, but I feel odd being here without a Parker in sight. The wooden floors creak beneath my feet – something I’ve never noticed. I guess because when I’ve been here before, I’ve been too busy chattering with Liz to notice.
Speaking of Liz, I’m standing in her doorway and a sad smile comes to my face. Unable to resist, I put the watering can down on the floor and go to lie on her bed. Her blankets smell faintly like her and I suddenly miss my friend more than my next breath.
I stare up at the ceiling and think back to all of the times I’ve been in this exact position, giggling with Liz, crying to Liz, holding Liz while she cried. I was standing on this bed when she told me Max Evans was an alien. We were all in this room just weeks ago when Max’s sister Isabel dreamwalked him when he was in the White Room.
I shudder just thinking about that. Not because of what Max endured, but because of everything else that happened that day and the next. We sprang Max from the government facility where they were torturing him, Michael killed Agent Pierce, the aliens found out their true destinies and Liz walked away from Max. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Not for me.
The worst was having Michael walk away from me. Because he “loved me too much”? What’s that? How can you possibly love someone too much? If he really loved me, then he’d be here with me. End of story.
Which I why won’t let him go. If he loves me at all, he’ll want to come back to me. It doesn’t help that I see him nearly every day – he’s putting in extra shifts to get some spare cash and I’m always here because of my new bitch status. But then I ask myself if things would be any better if I had gone away like Liz.
I’m thinking not. If I was in Florida right now, I’d be dialing Michael’s number every five minutes trying to find out what he was up to, and God knows I can’t afford that kind of phone bill. No, I like being right here where I can see what’s going on.
As far as I can tell, there isn’t much happening. I see him with Tess a lot these days, but I think maybe she’s taken him under her wing to try to teach him how to use his powers. It’s about time someone did – that boy’s a loose cannon. I see Isabel once in awhile, but she just looks nauseated by the fact that she and Michael were engaged in a former life. Cruel of me – but I find that funny. I don’t want the Ice Princess to lay a hand on my guy.
And to me, he still is my guy.
I have about fifteen other chores on the bitch list, so I guess I should keep moving. I pick up the can and water the rest of the Parker’s plants, then head back downstairs to wait some more tables. At least down there I’ll get tips for my work.
As I pass the Fichus, I remember that you’re supposed to talk to plants to keep them happy. I give it a nice, “Bite me.”
*******
Wonderful! Mr. Happy Evans is in my section. Christ. Here we go again.
I stand in the kitchen and watch him through the window. He hasn’t picked up the menu and I know he’s not interested in eating. He wants to know if Liz is back – uh, hello! she said she’d be gone all summer – or if I’ve heard from her. He keeps looking around the restaurant like he just expects her to appear.
And what is with that green T-shirt? I mean, I know it holds like every sentimental Liz memory that Max has – Liz told me it was the shirt he was wearing when he healed her, when he kissed her for the first time and from what I remember it was the same one he was wearing when she walked out on him. But, what is it made of? Why hasn’t that thing worn out yet? Jeez – maybe he doesn’t wash it. Ick.
I draw in a deep breath and head out to his table.
“Hey, Max,” I say, concentrating on my order pad and not his kicked-dog eyes.
“Hey, Maria,” he says, trying to look chipper. Nice try, buddy, but I saw the sour puss from the kitchen.
“What’ll it be?” I ask, trying to make haste.
He grabs the menu like he hadn’t realized it was there. Yes, this is a restaurant. “Just a piece of pie? Whatever you have left.”
“Okey dokey.” I try to move away, but my escape is never that easy.
“Maria?”
Shit. Here it comes. “Yeah?”
“Have you heard from –“
“No.”
I immediately feel guilty for cutting him off. The little glimmer of hope he had in his eyes is dashed so quickly I’m not sure it was ever there. He looks away from me, down at the tabletop.
I tap the pad, the guilt increasing. “I’ll go get this for you.”
As I walk away, I wonder why I always have to be such a bitch. As annoying as he is, he’s obviously still hurting from what happened. I guess I should indulge him a little more. No sense in making him feel worse.
“Hey, Guerin,” I say as I pop into the kitchen.
Michael looks up from the grill, a toothpick in one side of his mouth.
“Need some pie.”
He points to the refrigerator with his spatula. “You know where it is.”
I sigh internally. But, he’s just as short with me as I am with Max, so maybe this is karma. I pull a couple of pies from the refrigerator. Banana. Lemon. I have no idea which one Max would like.
“Michael?”
“What?” His tone is clipped and I feel sort of stung. I just wanted to ask a question.
“Never mind.” It’s just not worth it. I go to get a plate and I hear him snort. “What?”
He mumbles something under his breath and waves the spatula in my direction.
And I never have been able to just let things go. “Do you have a problem, Michael?”
He nods, meeting my gaze. “Yeah – you’re my problem.”
Jesus, I hate him! I set the plate on the counter and move over to face him. “You should be so lucky!”
He laughs. “Yeah, right.”
“The thing that you haven’t realized, Michael, is that I was the only thing in your life that wasn’t a problem. I was the only good thing you had!”
He doesn’t answer and I think he knows I’m right. Angrily, he flips a burger over so hard that it skids across the slick surface of the grill.
“What? No sarcastic comeback.”
He continues his mad shuffling of beef patties while I wait with my hands on my hips. Finally, his voice so low I can barely hear it, he says, “Your customer is waiting.”
I wait a beat longer, but nothing else comes. “Fuck you, Guerin,” I mutter as I move back to the pies. I think he flinches. Good. If there is such a thing as karma, then he’s got some major shit coming his way.
I pick the lemon pie, reasoning that it’s not as bland as the banana and it should taste better to an alien. As I walk back to Max’s table, I have an overwhelming sense of empathy. Yes, Max is anal. Yes, Max is too serious. Yes, Max is annoyingly perfect.
But Max is also hurting. And I’m hurting, and I know what it feels like. I have this hole inside of me that Michael used to fill. But now it’s empty and half the time I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with myself. I don’t know how to feel. I don’t know what to think. I can only imagine that Max feels the same way.
We’re both lost.
So maybe he doesn’t need my abruptness. Maybe he just needs a friend. I put the pie down on the table and he doesn’t even look interested in it.
“Lemon,” I say. Then I reach over beside the ketchup bottle and grab the Tabasco sauce.
He looks at it, then up at me. I smile at him and he looks startled.
Glancing around the restaurant in a totally reflexive action, I remember that I have no boss this week. If I sit, there will be no Jeff Parker out here with another errand for me to run. So I slide in across from Max and cross my arms on the table. He’s looking at me warily.
“Look,” I start. “I talked to Liz last week.”
He brightens a bit, possibly just at the sound of her name.
“She didn’t want me to say anything to you, but I don’t think it will do any harm if I let you know that she’s doing okay.”
He works his mouth, then finally speaks. He has such a soft voice – he really needs to learn to speak up. “Did she mention me?”
She did. But I’m not about to tell him what she said. Max doesn’t need to know that Liz is having a hard time with this breakup, but that she’s still determined to mend her broken heart. She’s trying to write Max off. Period.
I try to give him a gentle smile and hope my evasive maneuver works. “Liz is at a turning point in her life, Max. I think maybe you should just leave her alone for awhile.” He looks downcast. “I know that’s not what you want to hear, but I think it’s what you need to hear. She wants time, space. Let her figure out what her path is going to be.”
He’s staring at the tabletop again, his lips turned down into a frown. I was trying to make him feel better, but I think he only feels worse.
“Move on,” I advise him. “I’m not saying you should jump into another relationship, but maybe you should find some way to occupy your time so you’re not thinking about her all the time.”
Yep, that didn’t work, either. So I give up and start to leave.
“Thanks,” he says, so softly that I can hardly hear him. He’s looking at the pie like he wants to vomit. “How much for the pie?”
“On the house,” I say and move to my station behind the counter.
As I glance to the order window, I catch a glimpse of the back of Michael’s head. That’s some good advice I just gave Max. But I have no intention of using it for myself.
tbc
That's backfired on me, though. The first line I wrote for "Born to Run" was Michael Guerin was dead...and it sent people away in droves. 
