Author: Lindsay
Category: AU M/L, K/T and other CC
Rating: MATURE
Disclaimer: The characters of Roswell belong to The WB, Melinda Metz, and UPN.
Summary: The small town of Roswell is a place where secrets and lies run rampant. Liz Parker holds the darkest secret of all, one that could put the lives of the ones she loves in jeopardy...
Author’s note: For some reason, I felt the need to try my hand at an actual alien AU fic, maybe just to prove to myself that I could do it.
So the aliens will be aliens, and the humans will be humans - but the relationships will be different. I hope you guys enjoy this momentary burst of insanity! 
(Best Supporting Portrayal of Kyle Valenti - Round 5)
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</center><center>Banner by the lovely and talented Cristine. Thank you my loooove!
</center> <center>Part One</center>
The day Liz Parker left Roswell, people talked.
It was whispered among the disapproving that the young teenager had gotten herself in trouble, something they all claimed to have suspected from the beginning.
“Too damned shameless,” one man grunted, shaking his head at the thought of the brown-haired, doe-eyed girl who had just begun to bloom into a woman. “Always figured she’d get ‘erself knocked up by one of those local boys.”
His female companion sniffed in disdain. “It’s atrocious, the way she behaved. Why, if my Eleanor had acted that way, I’d have sent her off to one of those boarding schools back East.”
A murmur of agreement sounded.
The youth of Roswell made their own assumptions, although they didn't differ greatly from those of their elders.
“I heard she was having an affair with Mr. Winston,” Pamela Troy confided to her friends, eyes flashing maliciously. “His wife found out, and threatened to leave him if he didn’t get rid of her.”
“I thought she ran off with Max Evans?” one of the girls breathed, momentarily caught up in the romance of forbidden love.
Pamela snorted. “Max Evans left for college on a football scholarship, Mary Anne. Besides, he’d never run off with that girl.”
She said the word as if it were the vilest of curses.
“Well, they were together for awhile before he left,” Mary Anne mumbled defensively.
This caused Pam to laugh at the younger girl’s naivety. “They were never together… except maybe in the way Liz Parker was with every other man in Roswell.”
Mary Anne frowned, but didn’t question her further. She’d learned long ago not to go against Pamela unless you wanted to be seen a fool.
A new voice piped up, silencing the scandalized murmurs.
“Max Evans and Liz Parker were friends.”
The group of girls turned and stared at the newcomer. Her blonde hair whipped in the summer breeze and her petite form was clad in a simple blue dress.
Her blue eyes narrowed as she dared anyone to contradict her statement. “Max cares for Liz. When he finds out she’s left, he’ll go after her. You just wait and see.”
Pamela laughed, but the sound was hesitant. Still, she held her head up and responded with a sneer. “You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you, Tess? If your worthless step-sister somehow managed to snag Max Evans, you’d be a part of the richest family in Roswell.”
Tess’s mouth tightened. “You should watch what you say, Pamela. That way when you’re wrong, you won’t be obliged to apologize for being so incredibly stupid.”
The girls gasped and Pamela fumed.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” she snapped, standing to confront the other girl. “You’re nothing, Tess Harding! Don’t you realize that? You’re a freak, and your sister is a slut. You both could die tomorrow and the only thing anyone would say would be good riddance!”
Tears of anger filled Tess’s eyes. “You’re wrong!” she choked out, biting her lip as the girls began to laugh unkindly.
Tess began to shake, feelings of rage building inside her small form until they threatened to explode. Without thinking, she lifted her hand to silence the girls. Her vision was blurry, her ears ringing with chaos.
The sound of her name being called barely filtered through the cloud of anger.
“Tess, no!”
Kyle Valenti touched her shoulder, fingers squeezing lightly against her skin. He bent his forehead to hers, gently turning her into his arms. “Calm down, baby,” he whispered, aching inwardly at the tears streaming down her face. “Shh… it’s going to be okay.”
Tess clung to him, forgetting the shocked expressions of the girls behind her. She pressed her face into his strong shoulder and sobbed, allowing herself to vent the pain that ate her inside to the person she loved. “She’s gone, Kyle.”
“I know.”
His voice, usually so full of optimism and cheer, was bleak with misery. It made the guilt that churned inside of her bubble to new heights. She broke away from him, wiping a hand over her eyes as she forced a distance between them.
Without looking at him, she confessed, “It’s all my fault. She… she wasn’t ready to know…”
“No, baby,” he murmured, attempting to draw her back into his arms. It destroyed him to see the look on her face, the expression of stark grief.
When she turned her blue eyes on him, the tears that clung to her lashes shot through him like an arrow. With a low sound, he grabbed her back, unable to let her go. “We’ll find her, I promise.”
“We have to tell Max,” Tess whispered, wincing as she imagined the young man’s reaction to the news that the woman he loved had disappeared. “He’ll… he’ll want to know.”
“Of course,” Kyle nodded. With shaking hands he cradled her face and placed a light kiss on her lips. “We’re in this together, Tess. I’m not going to let you do this alone.”
Though his words brought a measure of relief, Tess still knew that in the end, she was exactly what she had always feared.
She was a monster.
What she had done had driven her sister away, and nothing Kyle or anyone else could say would ever allieviate the feelings that crashed through her when she had seen the look of horror on her sister’s face.
<center>One year earlier…</center>
Liz Parker wipe down the grimy counter at the CrashDown Café and sighed as the door opened to admit even more customers on this busy summer afternoon.
Laughter reached her ears, and she looked up to see a handsome dark-haired boy smiling as he made his way to one of the corner booths. He was with a tall statuesque blonde and a brooding sandy-brown haired boy who wasn’t smiling, rather scowling as he made himself comfortable on the red vinyl bench.
Liz dismissed the latter immediately, and her gaze returned to the dark-haired male.
In deference to the smoldering summer heat, he wore a sleeveless white-cotton shirt and a pair of battered jeans that were worn white in certain stress points, like his knees and back pocket.
A pair of silver sport sunglasses perched on his nose and a ballcap was slung backwards over his hair, small tendrils of dark locks escaping to frame his ears and brushing his neck.
Despite his worn clothing, he exuded wealth and privilege. It was in the way he carried himself as he followed his friends to the table, all loose-limbed and graceful power.
It was in the way he spoke, deep and warm with a cultured southwestern inflection that reached her ears in snippets.
It was in the way his wallet bulged in his pocket.
Liz allowed herself a momentary admiration for the way his well-muscled backside filled out the pair of jeans, then tucked the rag into her apron before heading over to take their order.
On the way, she was stopped by a catty voice.
“Well, well, if it isn’t Liz Parker, serving the masses.”
Liz forced herself not to react to Pamela’s snide tone; instead she plastered a benign smile on her face and turned to meet her adversary’s gaze.
“What can I get for you, Pam?” she asked in her best waitress-to-annoying-customer voice. “Green Martian Shake? Blood of Alien Smoothie?” A vat of arsenic?
Pamela looked down her nose at Liz’s grease-spotted uniform and sneered at the bouncing antennae adorning her head.
Liz ignored the snicker that came from Pamela’s cohorts. But that didn’t stop her from wishing she was wearing something as nice as Pamela’s designer clothing.
“Do you realize how ridiculous you look in that thing?” Pamela laughed.
Liz locked her knees and bit her tongue. She couldn’t afford to tell Pamela off in the middle of the café, not if she wanted to keep her meager job.
Pamela Troy belonged to one of the wealthiest families in Roswell, and she played the part of spoiled rich girl to perfection. She had hated Liz on sight, many years ago, and did her best to ruin her life at every turn.
Liz wasn’t sure what it was about herself that so disgusted the other girl, but she had long ago given up trying to apologize for her inadequacies.
She was what she was, and if someone didn’t like it, well then that was their problem, and she would be glad to tell them so.
Unfortunately, Liz’s family didn’t have the means that Pamela’s did, and they greatly depended on whatever she and her step-sister Tess could bring to the table. So while at work, she was forced to survive Pamela’s and other ungrateful customers sneering jabs.
But that didn’t mean she had to like it.
“Might I recommend the special?” she asked with razor-edged politeness. “Today it’s the Trekkie Tuna Casserole, with a soup and salad.”
Pamela’s eyes flashed as Liz ignored her previous dig. With a flick of her wrist, she thrust the menu onto the table and snapped, “We’ll each have a salad, light on the dressing. Can you manage to remember that?”
Liz poked her tongue into her cheek and nodded. “Would you like to make that low-cal dressing?” she blinked her lashes innocently, but Pam’s eyes narrowed.
“Are you implying that I need to lose weight?” she growled dangerously.
“Of course not, high calorie dressing it is,” Liz responded cheerfully, then turned on her heel to leave.
And found herself drowning in a pool of rich amber.
The dark-haired male from earlier had removed his sunglasses and was now staring at her intensely.
Liz felt a wave of heat creep up her neck and wondered if he’d heard the altercation between her and Pam. She walked over to his table.
“Hi, I’m Liz and I’ll be your waitress this afternoon,” she said graciously, trying not to glance at the young man as she delivered the customary speil. “What can I get you today?”
The cool blonde answered in a bored tone, “It’s too hot for anything heavy. I’ll just have a sweetened tea.”
Liz nodded and jotted on her notepad. The sandy-haired male made his order, then she turned and once again found herself snared by his gaze.
She struggled to understand the strange feelings coursing through her as she stared into this stranger’s eyes.
“Max, sometime today, please?” the blonde snapped, bringing them both out of their bizarre daze.
Liz flushed and looked down at her order pad, but not before noting that his cheeks had turned slightly pink as well.
“Right, well, I’ll just have an Alien Blast,” he spoke and the words wrapped around her like silk.
Liz shivered.
“Great, I’ll be right back with your orders,” she promised, then turned to make her retreat. She couldn’t get away quick enough.
The whole way back to the order station, she felt him staring after her.
She pushed the bell and tapped her fingers as she waited for the on duty cook to appear.
Kyle Valenti’s handsome face popped up in the window. He flashed her a toothy grin. “Hey, Liz.”
Liz smiled back. “Kyle, I didn’t know you were on today?”
He shrugged, adjusting the apron that tied around his neck. “Just got here to relieve Jose. Say, is your sister on by any chance?”
Liz laughed at his hopeful tone. Kyle had a major crush on Tess, although Tess did everything in her power to dissuade him. “No, she’s at home.”
His smile fell momentarily. Then he perked back up. “Well, tell her I’ll see her whenever she comes in.”
Liz promised to do so, then gave him her orders.
While she waited, she glanced around the busy restaurant. Her eyes trailed towards the back corner booth, and her brows rose.
The dark-haired male wore a slight frown as he listened to whatever the blonde was saying in a low voice. He plucked at a packet of sugar, replying only whenever the blonde took a breath.
The other boy only watched them both with a raised brow, shaking his head back and forth.
As if he felt her gaze, the dark-haired boy looked up. Liz slunk back, hiding behind the wall as he stared straight at her.
She felt… disconcerted whenever their eyes met.
When she chanced another glance, he was wearing a half-smile as he stared at his hands, obviously not listening to whatever his companions were saying.
<center>TBC................</center>
I've recently come to the realization that it is more satisfying for me to write Tess's character in a non-horrifying manner. Helps keep the whole disaster that was season 2 and 3 far from my mind.
... somehow I've some difficulties picturing Liz being that way... or at least, continuing with that attitude once she met Max 
But I promise you all that there is a reason she acts the way she does, and Max will definately have an impact on her life. Have faith, and I believe you will all be satisfied with the way she finds herself. That, after all, is what this story is truly about.
LOL, sometimes you are so slow... oh well, I love you anyway! 
