Author’s Note: I haven’t written any Rosfic in a year—as some of you may have noticed—but I’ve had a few ideas churning around inside my head for a while, and decided this one needed to be written.
Disclaimer: The author of this fan fiction does not own any aspect of Roswell. Those rights belong to Melinda Metz, Jason Katims, WB, UPN, 20th Century Fox, etc. Disclaimer added by moderator.
I’m also back working on ANTARIAN NIGHTS for those who remember that one, and will probably be posting a new chapter very soon. This particular story is the sequel to WINTER SOLSTICE, a polar story with strong dreamer undertones. http://rosdeidre.com/deidre/wintersolst ... stice.html
This one…well, it’s going in its own peculiar direction. I’ll warn you right now that there’s going to be a mild slashy thing—but there was that undertone in WINTER SOLSTICE if you looked carefully. This time will be different, more obvious, but with different characters than last. I’m simply warning you in case slash offends you. If so, steer clear.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy it and the next part should be up in another day or two. Most of it is done already. Please bear with me, though, as real life takes a lot of time for me these days—part of the reason for my fanfic hiatus. I don’t expect this story to be more than a handful of chapters, though. Thanks for reading and it’s good (already) to be back!
PART ONE
It’s hard to stop holding your breath once it’s become second nature. Liz may be healed and well and the leukemia all gone, but I’m not breathing, not yet. Sometimes I wonder if I ever will be again.
“Michael, please stop worrying so much,” she chided last night, as we lay in bed, discussing the doctor’s appointment today. “You’re suffocating me like this,” she said, and I drew her tight against my chest. Memorized the scent of her for the millionth time, always afraid that it might be my last.
Earlier today, at the doctor’s office, I couldn’t sit still. I kept pacing back and forth across the waiting room floor, thumbing through magazines, watching the clock. Watching her. She made a frustrated face at me, begging me to settle down without so much as opening her mouth. I heard her inside my head, telling me to shush, to stop rattling in her head so much with all my nonsensical fears. She was frowning, little lines forming around her dark eyes, and all I could think was how beautiful she looked.
Baby, I said, I’ll relax once I hear what the doctor says.
She smiled, and went back to knitting a blanket or whatever it is this week. Her mother taught her when she first got sick; point eventually came when she didn’t have the strength for it anymore, and then another point came, this past January, when she had the strength to pick it up again. So she sat there this morning, while we waited for the doctor to call her name, needles clicking back and forth and I felt her stillness form inside of me. It swelled right in my center until I felt quiet and patient and able to put up with myself, at peace with how I am, just like she always manages to make me feel.
After that, the nurse called us back, then the prognosis came, and exactly as she predicted, the beast was still in full remission. Her weight was on the low side, but up two pounds from last month and gradually coming back; the doctor seemed encouraged by her progress. Yet somehow all that peace she’d mapped inside of me earlier vanished, replaced instead with roiling anger. Outside, at our car, I shook my head and muttered at her that she better start taking better care of herself. Argued that she needs to get more rest, needs to work less at the café, to sleep longer and harder and stop ignoring the way her body rebels against her impossible schedule. “There’s a lot I want to do,” she explained calmly, but I just stood there, shaking.
“You won’t be able to do any of it if you die,” I snapped. “Will you, huh?”
“Michael, I am fine,” she said, wriggling the keys from my hand and opening the car door while I stood there huffing at her. “Let’s go. It’s way too hot to talk about this out here in the parking lot.”
“Baby, if you don’t take care of yourself, you’re gonna get sick again,” I continued, as she slid into the driver’s seat and ignored me standing there on the burning asphalt beside the open door. I ached for that peace she’d given me just thirty minutes before.
“Come on,” she urged, turning the key in the ignition, smiling up at me. “We’ve got a lot of cheesecakes to prepare.”
“You think Max can just keep on fixing you?” I huffed, slouching beside her in the car, staring out the window as we pulled out of the professional complex parking lot. We know the attendant by name after all our time here. Juanita. And Juanita knows Liz as the miracle girl; they all do around here. After Max’s voodoo trick, we weren’t sure what to say, so we just told the doctors we believed in the power of prayer.
If you get sick again, Liz, I warned as we waved a greeting at Juanita, He might not have the cure. He might not even be around.
Michael, please stop it.
I’m not doing anything! I shouted inside of her, and she cut her eyes at me irritably, silent. “What?” I cried aloud, feeling powerless and frightened and like this demon that still haunts her blood is somehow a living part of me.
“Michael, I haven’t been sick in half a year,” she explained, quiet as she turned a corner, onto the main drag of town. Red, white and blue bunting waved across the street, advertising the 5K run in the morning. The Race for Independence, it’s called even though it’s a good two weeks before the Fourth of July; really it kicks off the first day of summer. She kept driving, silent, on past the Crashdown, glancing sideways at her father perched atop a ladder with a large flag in his hands.
After a while she asked, “When are you going to let this go?”
“When I know it won’t come back.”
“We won’t ever know that, Michael,” she said simply, and I couldn’t look at her. Slouching further down in the seat, I raked a hand through my hair—it’s way too long and in need of some shaping, but Liz likes it this way, and I like how she combs her fingers through it every night in bed. I like how she twists it in her hands when we make love, and how curling against me afterward as she falls asleep, her small body rising and falling with her quiet, dreamy breaths, she still has her hand right there.
I had a dream last night. She was behind the glass counter in the café, apron on, tallying the day’s receipts. She looked up at me, smiled as she so often does. I remember thinking that she’s absolutely gorgeous—more beautiful now than when we first got together, than before she got sick. I was going to say that, in the dream, but her smile slipped a little and in a whisper-thin voice, she told me her bones felt like paper. That they felt like chalk. And then she collapsed right in front of me.
I have dreams like that a lot.
So I can’t breathe, can’t let go, can’t stop suffocating her with all my insatiable fears.
“I haven’t felt that way in months,” she announces ambiguously, staring at the road ahead. I turn toward her, unsure. Like paper. Like I’m going to float away, she says. I haven’t felt that way since Max came home.
Is that what it was like, I wonder. How it felt when she almost died?
“Liz, if you get sick again—if I lose you? I won’t be able to take it. Don’t you understand?”
“Michael, we’re never given any guarantees,” she answers, reaching for my hand. It’s small and surprisingly cool when our fingers lace together.
“I know that.”
“I want to have a baby.”
Groaning, I blow out a breath. We’ve talked about this. Often. And she knows where I stand on the matter. The doctors have said it’s a risk; her body is weakened from the long-term effects of her disease, from the chemo, from the intense drug therapy. It’s not a good idea to have a baby—if we’re even capable of conception—because she might never survive the strain.
“No.”
“You can’t just decide!” she cries, her dark eyes wide with sharp anger, when she turns to stare at me.
“No, way, Liz. It’s not ever gonna happen, so let it go.”
“God, sometimes I hate you.” I see the tears fill her eyes, and they fill mine, too. “Well, if it keeps you alive, then hate me all you need to,” I answer as we pull into the space outside our small restaurant.
“It’s not your choice to make.” Her voice is hollow, tired.
“I’m your husband, baby. I’m part of this, too.” I try and sound gentle, placating, when I feel anything but that. What I feel is alien and angry and like I could cause a few ripe explosions around this block of cars. Rubbing my hands together, I try and stifle the banking energy within my palms, within my body, this riotous need to protect my soul mate.
“After everything,” she answers, staring at me hard. “After all that we fought through, how can you do this to me?”
Opening the car door, I turn to her. “Because I can’t lose you, Liz. I couldn’t lose you before, and I sure as hell can’t now.”
I leave her there, in the car. And it’s a long, long time before I hear the bell over the door tinkle, signaling her entry, a long time before heat from the June afternoon firestorms into our boxcar of a dessert café. By the time she does come inside, I’m in the back, fiddling with some red and blue frosting and I hear the soft clattering of her sandals on the polished tiles. She doesn’t stop, doesn’t poke her head in to talk to me, and I hear her weary footsteps as she hauls her body upstairs to our new apartment.
****
He’d left the examination room. He thought the doctor was finished because I told him so, and he went on to pay the bill. That’s when I asked and the doctor agreed to call me later. So now I’m on tenterhooks, waiting here beside the phone. Thank God Michael needed to frost all those holiday cheesecakes for the street fair tomorrow morning. Kicking off my sandals, I lie down flat on my back, staring at the bedroom ceiling that swims a little overhead. If he had any idea, he’d know there’s a reason for all his worries. He’d remember that he is so connected to me, that he can’t possibly tune out the truth.
Thank God he only thinks he’s overreacting, I sigh, rolling onto my side to wait for the call from the doctor’s office. Curling into a fetal position, drawing my knees up to my chest, I’m glad he has no idea, because I couldn’t handle him knowing, not this soon, not yet. I’ve never met a stronger man, or a more vulnerable one than my husband, but it’s clear I have to protect him from this.
****
The restaurant’s not open today. It’s a Wednesday and that’s our usual baking day, but about three o’clock, I hear a soft rapping on the front glass door. Wiping my hands on my apron, I round the corner and find Maxwell, his face pressed up against the glass, peering inside. With a casual wave, I let him know I’m on the way. He backs up, shifting his weight as he shoves his hands into his pockets. I still can’t quite get used to the way he looks, even after all this time. He’s lost some of the weight, but he’s still a heavyset guy, and the fullness of his face always shocks me. So does the well-trimmed beard that shadows his jaw.
“Hey, man.” I open the door, but not all the way. He stares at the ground, away from me. This should be easier by now, this awkward thing between us. “What’s up?” I prompt him, and he looks at me. His golden eyes are a little lost, darting from side to side. Finally he asks, “Everything okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure,” he answers, staring past me into the restaurant. “Just is it okay? With you…and Liz.”
“I think so, man, yeah.”
“Good,” he answers, nodding resolutely, backing up a few steps. “Good. I’m glad.”
“You leaving already?” I call after him, as he turns to head down the sidewalk. So many of our interactions end like this: unsatisfying, incomplete. I need more of him than this, by God, but I’m not sure how to ask for it.
“Kyle and I are going for a run,” he explains, glancing at his watch.
“Now? The race is in the morning.” Kyle has had him running for months now, one reason he’s lost the weight that he already has; that, and the fact that he’s left off the booze for the past few months.
“Kyle wants to go on a short run, so…” he shrugs, explaining as he continues to back away from the door. I notice he’s not dressed for exercise: he’s wearing khakis and a t-shirt.
“Why don’t you come by for coffee later,” I suggest. “Liz would love to see you, Maxwell. She needs—”
“Can’t.” He gives me an apologetic smile, backing away from me. “You know I can’t.”
Leaning my head against the open door, I watch him disappear around the corner and pray it isn’t the last I ever see of him.
****
“My name is Max and I’m an alcoholic.”
“Hello, Max!” they shout in unison and what I really want is to slide out of my seat and onto the floor. Hello, my name is Max and I’m an alien freak. What if I said that? I suspect it would not go over very well.
Across the room, Sheriff Valenti gives me an encouraging nod. He’s my sponsor, ironically enough. He got sober about five years ago when he finally realized that a few nightly beers had turned into a twelve pack. So when I started coming around this A.A. clubhouse, he offered to sponsor me. Of all people, he understands my special challenges in making the twelve steps work. Even acknowledging a higher power is a strange proposition for a hybrid being like me. But lately, I’m starting to suspect someone’s been guiding my ship all along.
“Uh, it’s been ninety days and I haven’t had a drink, but lately it’s gotten harder…” I begin, wondering how I can explain that with Liz in this town, and with feeling her all the time--and feeling her with Michael—I’m constantly torn up inside. Something’s wrong and I don’t know what it is, and possessing that knowledge is enough to make me go insane. I settle on a lame, “It’s hard not to drink, that’s all.”
In exchange I hear a few platitudes, then an equally lame, “This program works if you work it. Keep coming back.” It just feels good to know that I’m not completely alone—after a lifetime of feeling unique. There’s a circle of strangers around me who understand how overpowering my compulsion to drink can be.
What they don’t understand—and I wish I could verbalize—is that I’m an alien with a terrible sixth sense when it comes to my soul mate and her husband. I wonder if they’d understand if I likened it to The Princess and the Pea? Whatever Michael and Liz’s problem is, whatever is eating away at the both of them, that thing is the pea in my mattress every night. It’s the pebble in my shoe every day. God, as much as I love them both, it kills me not to know what that problem is.
Kyle tells me I’m imagining things. What does Kyle know? He’s as pathetically alone as I am, without so much as a single date in the past six months. He’s in a platonic partnering with Tess that I don’t pretend to understand. He tells me they don’t sleep together—haven’t in years—but that they’re soul mates or something like it. They see each other every day, sometimes for breakfast, sometimes for lunch, sometimes just to watch videos on his couch. And this is the one I really don’t get: sometimes she spends the night in his bed, but he swears all they do is “snuggle.” I ask him if he still thinks about sex with her and he just smiles. He asks me if I’d still think about sex with Tess Harding if I weren’t her lover anymore. That question always makes me blush.
You see, I’ve never slept with a woman—alien or human. That train passed me by thanks to my unique heritage. If I kiss someone, they could know everything in the space of three flashes, so I’ve kept to myself. No wonder the booze tasted so incredibly sweet when I was alone every night.
Staring down, I realize I’m holding the basket of money that’s being passed around the room. I toss in a few dollars to support Alcoholics Anonymous and wonder what Kyle is up to tonight.
****
Kyle looks at his watch, squinting out into the darkness from his apartment door. “Evans, we’ve got a race at seven a.m.,” he cautions. “You do remember that, right?” He’s wearing boxers and a loose t-shirt from the Roswell Fireman’s Run last fall. Hot To Trot 10K the shirt says, with little bursts of flame shooting out of a pair of running shoes. Standing in his doorway I feel awkward and overweight and old. How can he look so fit and healthy when I’m completely worn out already? I’m all used up and he’s in better shape than he was years ago. As if he’s reading my mind, he asks, “You lose some more weight, Evans?”
“Shut up,” I say, frowning and sucking in as much of my portly stomach as I possibly can. “You going to ask me in or not?”
“Let’s go for a walk,” he replies, opening the door wide. “You need it.” Kyle’s taken it as his mission to get me healthy and in shape. So far, I’m down by about twenty- two pounds, but I’ve got a good thirty more to go. “Let me go get some pants on,” he offers, heading down the hallway toward his bedroom. I notice that he still has the sleek, muscled body of a football player, even at nearly thirty years old. He returns a moment later wearing a pair of khaki shorts and tosses me a bottle of water. “Drink up. You need it for tomorrow morning.”
“Lucky me, my very own personal trainer.”
“Some people pay the big bucks, you know,” he laughs, opening his door for me. “So how come you don’t charge me?” I ask, wondering for the first time why he doesn’t, when down at the Y he gets at least forty dollars an hour. He shrugs, laughing. “Guess I like you, Evans. Plus I owe you.”
“For what?”
His blue eyes widen, genuinely filled with surprise as he says, “You saved my life. Duh?”
“Oh. That.” I’ve never considered it in the cosmic scheme of things. After all, I did what I had to do that day—it was my fault anyway.
He laughs sardonically. “Yeah. That. Way I figure it, Evans, I sort of owe you big time.”
“You wouldn’t have been shot if it weren’t for me.”
He shakes his head in disagreement. “I don’t keep track of that part,” he answers. “Just the life-saving part.” With that, he slaps me on the back. “Come on, get walking, old man. Geez, how could a guy with a body like you had let himself go like this?”
I was trying to kill myself, Kyle. I even open my mouth to say so, but then close it again. “Alcohol can be pretty cunning and powerful.”
“Yeah? Well when I’m done with you, you’ll look like the svelte alien king again. In fact,” he hesitates, looking me over, then says, “I even see a little bit of that green svelte guy now.”
I slug him in the arm and tell him to shut up with all that talk of the old days. We walk for a while, down the familiar streets, until we come to the park. There are tables set in every direction, small placards with family names atop each one, reserving them.
“Your folks coming to the summer picnic tomorrow?” he asks, lifting a placard and reading it.
“Of course,” I laugh. “This is their scene.”
“Not yours?”
I don’t answer that, because he knows I can’t stop running. I’m trying, staying here in Roswell these months, but the burn to move is in my blood now. Maybe it always was coded into my alien DNA—that I’m a journeyer, a nomad, a wanderer. Maybe I can’t stay still like my human parents do. Then how does Michael manage it, so comfortably and easily, with his little restaurant and his wife? Because he was handed my destiny, a rogue voice whispers in my head. But the voice is lying. I would have been a warrior, a leader. Now I’m just an overweight drunk trying to stay sober, five minutes at a time.
****
The darkness of our small bedroom is punctuated by the periodic sound of fireworks, lights flashing on the ceiling like heat lightening. If I still kept my journal, I’d have written in it tonight. After all, I’m the keeper of a powerful secret, and with Michael beside me I wonder how long I can hide it from him. He worries so much, all the time—and now I worry that if he discovers the truth, it will tear him apart.
But Michael lives inside of me, so it’s only a matter of time until he discovers what I’m hiding, discovers that today I built a silent wall between us, a barricade to obscure what the doctor told me. The call came while Michael worked downstairs, just like I knew it would. I rested while I waited, rested because I knew my weakened body required it—lately I can hardly move I’m so tired, but I’ve hidden that from my husband, too. For now. So that he won’t worry more than he already does.
Lying here beside him, in the dark, his soft snoring becomes staccato occasionally, startling me. Rolling onto my side, pressing closer, I notice that his mouth hangs slack. He’s absolutely exhausted—and to think he chides me for working too hard. Michael’s driven by so many demons, I can’t possibly count them all.
My only wish is that he find his peace, understand how deep my love runs for him. That I don’t ache for Max, despite those doubts I hear inside his mind occasionally, even after everything we’ve been through. And I don’t begrudge what happened to our restaurant when I got sick: how could he possibly have kept it running with all the medical bills and time spent taking care of me? That my dad helped us open up this new place, this much smaller, quainter little café, that’s all I need. But Michael thinks he should’ve kept the other one going, should’ve been able to make the finances work well enough. I know he worries it broke my heart, losing our dream that way, but the only real dream I ever had was spending my life with him. So he doesn’t need to give me another thing, if only he saw it that way.
Fireworks erupt again, splashing colors across his face. I lift my hand and cradle his cheek within my palm. I love you, I whisper inside of him, even though he’s sleeping. Michael, sweetheart, please don’t worry so much about me. I love you and I’ll be okay. We all will be.
Pressing a kiss against his temple, I pray that the words will reach like a tether inside of his dreams, a lifeline between our two lost souls. Sweetheart, let it go…let it go, I say and breathe into him all my tenuous strength.
You’re all I’ve ever needed, Michael. Just you, I murmur into his dreams, into his rest. Closing my eyes I settle into him, closer than close. I don’t worry about keeping that barricade up; the truth is coming, it’s unavoidable now. It’s only a matter of time.
So we'll see. In the meantime, THANK YOU for reading and all the support. You're all the best. Hugs, d