CHAPTER #10
Crashdown, 11:15 p.m.
June 12th
“Here ya go,” Alex announced, setting in front of Isabel a large plate of her favorite chili cheese fries. Mrs. Evans had secretly nudged him to make Isabel eat, seeing as how she hadn’t eaten properly for the time he had been gone. She said this looking at him with a glazed kind of look, not particularly as if she saw a ghost, but with a stunned incredulity. It was basically how the whole town had received Alex Whitman back into their lives, with skepticism and relief. Despite Sheriff Valenti’s help, the explanation of how Alex had been presumed dead for a over half a year was a bit of a reach, even for the people of Roswell to believe. But they seemed too eager and happy - especially Alex’s parents - to question the lame explanation they had fed them, and Alex was too appeased to see his loved ones to have a profound conversation of where he had been, though his ’temporary amnesia’ kept him from contacting them.
While Michael, Max, and Kyle took the news with joy but calm, Maria still broke into sobs every time she saw Alex - he joked he would run out of dry shirts. And Isabel - Isabel was perpetually walking on a dreamy cloud. She was always smiling and rarely moody. Her parents and friends were of course, thrilled for this obvious change in demeanor. Not everything was color-rosed though, and Isabel knew this.
Tess’ arrival had aroused different emotions from the group. Max and Kyle appeared to be the less aggrieved. Liz was edgy whenever the subject of Tess came up, and Michael would have to constantly stop Maria from stabbing her in her sleep. Isabel couldn’t find how to feel. She had been so close to Tess before she had turned on them, the small blonde had understood her so eerily, was just as her. Isabel had always seen humanity inside of her. And having glimpses of Tess’s mental breakdown and vacant responses, her heart broke a little.
“And your fries could not go without this,” Alex added, handing her Tabasco with a knowing, soft regard.
It was very sweet of him, and she felt cherished and special, which was something that Alex had always made her feel. She had missed that, his gift of making the simplest sentiment or the shortest of gazes filled with utmost meaning. She sat next to him in the booth, accepting the food graciously - he was very well aware of her love for all things fast food.
“How was your day?” he asked with a soft grin.
She proceeded to tell him many of the events that had gone on since the moment her eyes had slid open. Of course, since she thrived on making everything more extraordinary then it truly was so he could catch her good mood, she embellished certain details. Max’s small clumsy trip on the stairs became a full out, butt-on-the-floor disaster, and her mother’s attempt at making noodles weren’t distasteful, but also poisoined. He grinned in some parts of the story, and laughed in others, and she reveled in it, tried memorizing the sound because he didn’t laugh much. He was quiet, and he was withdrawn, and while she loved him in spite of it, because of his silent reverie, she wished he could sometimes joke about things as well.
Instead, when she asked him in return how his day was, his answers were short and anticlimatic, he made no attempt to engage in conversation, would only stare at her and prod her to eat. She had to always do the talking nowadays and he’d nod his head to show he was listening, though sometimes she had to wonder.
Isabel crumpled immediately as he spaced out on her again, his eyes faraway and distant.
She hadn’t ever thought that getting back together with Alex would ever be easy - not in the slightest. She had picked up on his new habits, he was her best friend and because of it, she wasn’t blind to the differences that now marked him. He was, in certain ways, just as scarred as she was now. He understood pain - had seen her planet before Isabel herself got to know it. He’d been broken, and he’d felt calloused as she had. She felt a kindred soul in him but wanted so desperately to ease the wounds that he would sometimes let her see.
Other times his brooding overwhelmed her. So rarely was he ever in a good mood, when before he was the cheerful light that brightened a room. Not that he was ever in a bad mood, not really. Alex was too nice and loved them too much to ever be irritated. Alex went on stubborn tingents, and, she had come to realize, had grown shortest, hot temper known to man kind, but still had days when nothing could be spoiled for him. And she wished, sometimes, that Alex was still goofy and dorky, not sarcastically witty and even satirical. She was always estimulated by intelligent or humorous conversation. But she just couldn’t read his mind, and having him not speak of what happened to him ever, after two weeks, was making her impatient and frustrated.
“I’m full,” Isabel whined, pushing the plate out of her view.
Alex, however, raised his shaking finger. “Nuh-uh, you promised you would finish every bit of it.”
“Alex...” she groaned, though she was not displeased at his concern.
“Finish it and I’ll take you shopping tomorrow.”
She wordlessly brought the plate back in front of her and began to finish, as he laid back on the booth triumphantly.
She glared at him as she caught his victorious smirk. “Blackmailing me with clothes? That’s low, Whitman.”
“Ah, but effective. I promised the mother-in-law Izzy, now gorge.”
Isabel shook her head. “I really missed you, Alex.”
He finally graced her with a mega-watt grin, staring at her with the adoration that he used to. It was as if, for a moment, Alex Whitman was sixteen-years old again, innocent and special, loving nothing but her.
She could not stop blushing, she turned around to smile at him, and instead met her lips tangling with his.
“I can’t stop smiling,” she confessed.
“Me either,” he agreed with a grin.
She sighed, shifting slightly. “I hate to be a drag, but didn’t Liz have to close over an hour ago. Where the hell is she?”
Alex shifted in his spot. “I think she’s at Kyle’s.”
No one blamed Kyle when he decided that though he wanted to help Tess, he could not live under the same roof. He bought a loft that he agreed to share with Michael, who began to get paid nicely enough to afford it, and had moved in as fast as he could.
“What is going on between the two of them anyway?”
“Honestly?” Alex asked. “Not sure. But I caught them in a... compromising position a few days ago.”
Isabel’s mouth formed into an ’O’ with surprise. “That’s not possible. Liz loves - ”
“Please. She barely gives Max a glance nowadays.”
“No, I’m not talking about Max. I’m talking about...” Isabel broke off, her eyes snapping to his in alarm. “Oh, wow. We haven’t told you about Alec, have we?”
After Alex shook his head slowly, Isabel proceeded to fill him in on the story, beginning from Alec, Maxie, and Ava’s arrival to Roswell. He laughed in the Liz-and-Alec-getting-drunk parts, and widened his eyes at the Liz-and-Alec-get-caught-doing-it and Alec-is-a-transgenic-and-what-the-hell-does-that-mean parts, and then stared at the table in sad contemplation in the Alec-lets-Liz-go finale.
“So she really loved him?”
“She still does,” Isabel insisted. “I had never seen Liz look at a guy like that. Alex, she was just so head over heels. I can’t imagine her feelings changing so quickly, or changing at all. The two of them together... it was beautiful.”
“Fan number one, eh?” Alex asked with a sad smirk.
“He did a lot for her - for all of us,” Isabel answered, resting her elbows on the booth as she crossed her arms. “Everyone just assumed that Alec would work out his and Maxie’s issues and he’d come back and they’d get the ending they really deserve.”
“Please tell me he wasn’t anything like your brother - no offense.”
“He was the Anti-Max,” Isabel affirmed, amused at the distasteful face that he had made. “He was confident and edgy and self-assured and vain. He was witty and shallow and completely unpredictable. He was distant and guarded on the outside, and completely soft and fiercely loyal on the inside. He made her laugh and he made her cry but Alec was without a doubt, the guy for Liz and vice-versa. The man adored her. She was the reason that Alec did anything he did, even if she didn’t like it. All he is probably thinking about is her safety, keeping her away from harm and danger that could hurt or kill her.”
“He sounds like a hero. Should I be jealous?”
“He did look like an Adonis,” Isabel answered teasingly, stifling a giggle at his glowered expression.
Alex turned his annoyed jealousy into thoughtful pondering. “Even when Liz was with Max, there were always unresolved feelings between her and Kyle. Maybe a little more on his part, she was the one to end it after all. I think there are feelings there. Deep ones.”
“Yeah,” Isabel agreed. “And maybe they also just need each other. Tess is back, and that must be huge for Kyle, who always cared for her more then any of us combined. And Alec’s gone and he was really abrupt and certain in his decision. They’re both scared and they’re best friends, and love each other... but Liz and Alec are so in love... I don’t want her or Kyle to get hurt by this. Or Alec... God if he finds out. Kyle is his friend, too.”
Alex whistled. “It’s a sticky situation,” he began carefully. “But Kyle and Liz are adults, and they’re close friends enough to solve whatever issues they’ve gotten themselves into.”
Isabel nodded, still uncertain. There was no doubt Kyle and Liz adored each other, and there was definitely physical attraction - she had seen it in looks and actions from both of them. They were the friends, definitely the best of, in any way there can possibly be. Maybe even soulmates, if she ever believed in them. But Liz was in love with Alec, hard as she may try to let that go. And Kyle was still gung ho about Tess and their issues, so what exactly were they doing, besides acting on their sexual desire for each other?
“Hey, at what time do you have to be home?” Alex asked, bursting in on her thoughts.
“Thirty minutes ago,” she answered with a laugh. “What do I tell the parents?”
“Tell them I’m too selfish to share you today,” he answered languidly.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Liz’s Room, 12:00 p.m.
June 12th
Kyle playfully bit the soft corner of her shoulder as she was talking. She talked of mundane subjects and inane babbling, the last thing she found out from C-Span or the latest painting she and Michael were working on. They filled him for some reason, because it was the most ordinary of things, and for a moment, just a small moment, he felt like they were normal. They could be encased in simplicity, the existence of only what they were doing, where he was free to adore her and she was free to let him. Moment, which in reality was a night but always felt far shorter, where every heartache and every problem withered away from their skin.
His index finger sought to trace the shape of her cheek and smiled involuntarily. She had the sweetest face. The seriousness that sometimes joined it made it seem less so, but now where she looked carefree and spontaneous the glow was made apparent. Shew as wise beyond her years, had lived so much in so little, and he knew this and still... there was painful innocence in every glimmer or her eyes. How she had actually managed to keep kindness and innocence was impossible for him to know. They had lived so much, loved so much, hurt so much that it had definitely altered. They had ben exposed to the unmerciful trutths of the world that had hardened his every emotion.
But Liz... she still laughed, still cried and painted and sang off-key and read and had dreams for her future. How was that possible?
Liz smiled at him, tracing circles in his chest. “What?”
“You have a sweet face.”
Liz laughed with delight, making something close to content ram into his heart. “I have a sweet face, you say?”
“Yup,” he nodded seriously. “Totally hides what is really inside.”
She gasped, socking him in the shoulder. “Punk!”
He chuckled at her indignant outburst.
She sighed, as if realizing he wasn’t going to take it back, and turned back to him, whatever remnant of outrage evaporating. Thoughtfulness took its place. “You have a sweet face, too.”
Kyle snorted. “I do not.”
Realizing it bothered him, she flashed a pearly-white smile. “Uh, yes you do, cowboy.”
Kyle glared playfully at her. “I have never, at any point of my life - be it my prior infancy and pubescence - ever possessed a sweet face. Don’t kill me, Liz.”
“Well, you don’t have a sweet face anymore. Not when you’re awake,” she ammended. “When you’re sleeping though - you’re different,” she finished lamely, turning to face the window as if she was done with the conversation.
He was now, however. Curiosity had begun to aggravate his mind, and he knew it would gnaw at him until he ended up asking her anyway. “Different how?”
Startling her out of whatever world she had decided to enter, she shrugged. Her hand tenderly moved to his mussed hair, before finally resting on his forehead. “You’re not frowning when you’re asleep - you frown so much now, always thinking. You seem sweet and young because I can’t see your eyes. They’re what give you away, the look that tells me you’ve lived far more then your years show. You look still, but never lifeless. Everything - every worry or anger or hurt - just fades away. So yeah, it looks kinda sweet, Kyle James Valenti. Deal with it.”
He scowled at her, but she was still smiling at him. And, best as he tried, he felt his lips tug at the corners before he realized he was smiling to. “Whatever you say, Bonnie.”
Liz turned to him, melancholic surprise etching her features. “You haven’t called me that in forever.”
Kyle shrugged, brushing his lips with hers, holding them for a moment before pulling away. “Felt like it.”
She nodded, gazing at their entwined hands. “Kyle... what are we doing?”
He stiffened, breaking their eye contact. “I don’t know.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael and Kyle’s loft, 10:00 A.M.
Sunday, June 14th
“Michael, have I ever told you I love when you cook us breakfast?” Maria asked, taking a big bite out of her whipped-creamed blueberry waffles, and sighing in content at the delectable taste.
“Plenty,” he answered wryly, placing the juice carton at the center of the table, finally joining Maria, Alex, and Kyle.
“And today’s a special occasion,” Maria added, eyes already welling up with tears, “it’s a s - special b - br - breakfast for Alex!”
Alex was about to beg her not to start, but Maria was already overcome with racketing sobs, as Michael patted her back awkwardly, shrugging at the guys who were motioning for him to do something.
“Weren’t Max and Isabel joining us?” Michael asked, desperate to change the subject. Much as he loved Maria and they had gotten past her wanting Liz-and-any-of-her-former-boyfriends love story, was still always wigged out by the sight of a weeping woman.
Kyle cleared his throat. “Max isn’t coming. He - he decided he’s gonna... he’s gonna try and heal Tess.”
Maria banged her glass of juice in the table. “Why the hell would she? She deserves it!”
“Maria,” Alex warned her tightly, his lips pressed into a thin line. He and Kyle had been Tess’s most adamant defendors, and it always had Maria boiling with rage.
“What? It’s true.”
“This isn’t for you to decide,” Kyle reminded her softly.
“How the hell can you defend her?” Maria cried.
Kyle stood up in helpless frustration. “I don’t know. I don’t know!”
“She killed Alex, Kyle!” Maria admonished him.
“Hey, I’m alive and well, thank you,” Alex argued sarcastically.
“Not for lack of her trying!”
“You know what? You have no idea who Tess is.”
“And you do?” Maria challenged.
Michael hesitated. “Guys - ”
“Damn right I do!” Kyle bellowed. “She was raised by Nasedo, and that doesn’t excuse any of the things that she did but I understand it. All of us, sans for Michael were raised by either one of our parents. Good parents, Maria. Whether it was the kind of parenting we would have liked, it was never continuously vengeful, there were never seeds planted in our brain to become evil one day. You weren’t treated to daily abuse. You know how Nasedo was, Maria, ruthless and only out for himself! Imagine a little girl growing up with that monster, and only tehn tell me what I can and cannot feel for Tess.”
“Kyle - ” Maria stammered.
“Maybe it’s stupid of me to forget everything she’s done so easily. But I care, okay? I always have. I want her to be okay, I want her to stop looking so dead and empty inside. When everyone as too busy shunning her, when everyone was too damn selfish and actively hating her, I never could. Even when I chose to send her away, even when we cruelly decided to separate her from her son, I never hated her, Maria.”
The silence defeaned the room, and the three were openly staring at him with concern and genuine confusion.
“I’m sorry...”
Kyle sighed, exhausted. “I don’t care you’re sorry,” he answered honestly. “And... and I’m really not hungry right now.”
He quietly slipped his jacket and walked to the door, closing it gently.
Michael stared at Maria in annoyed reprimand.
“What? She’s evil,” Maria muttered, though she was guilty.
“Can’t bear to give a person the benefit of the doubt, can you?” Alex asked, throwing his napkin on the table and standing as well. “You don’t know what she went through, you have no idea the lengths she went to to save my ass, or what she endured with Khivar. A person can change, Maria, and so many of us are living testament to that. Don’t throw stones. You’re not God.”
Maria opened her mouth in surprise.
Alex turned to Michael apologetically. “Sorry to cut this short, dude, I know this was made in my honor and whatnot. But I’m not hungry much anymore, either.”
Michael, who had his hands on his face, replied in muffled voice, “Completely understandable. Forgive her rage outbursts and her psychotic imbalance, in general.”
Alex smiled at her fondly. “I love you, Maria. You’re one of my best friends and though I’ll never understand or agree with you on much, I hope you see Tess for who she is now. If I don’t hold against her what she did, so why do you?”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Valenti Household, 11:30 A.M.
Saturday, June 14th
As much as he wanted to be nonchalant about the whole business, Kyle was dying to go to Tess and see if Max’s healing had worked. He had prodded himself to find job applications, to go visit Liz, call up Isabel, anything to keep himself from going over.
Hard as he tried, fifteen minutes later he was standing on the porch of his house. Noises brought his attention to the street, and his face stretched into a smile. A young little boy was running with his brother. One was blowing bubbles and the other was squealing, trying to catch them with his hands. He didn’t know why that picture of innocence brought him so much grief and content at the same time, but it did.
Hearing the door open, he turned around and saw Tess leaning on the frame. “So, were you planning on coming in or were you just going to count to ten first?”
Relief washed through him as he heard her familiar teasing as he went to hug her. “It worked?”
“It worked,” she affirmed, a large smile appearing on her face. “Max is good at it. It’s kind of hard to understand everything I feel again. For so long I was on emotional shut down. And guess what. He even let me spend the whole morning with Zan.”
“That’s great,” he responded sincerely as she moved to let him pass.
“It is. He’s getting so big... I hope he remembers my face,” she said lightly, moving around the kitchen.
“Haven’t eaten?” he asked. Though he’d claimed being full at Michael’s breakfast, he really had been hungry.
Tess shook her head. “Max and I were drained after he healed me, and then with Zan, and having to explain everything to Mr. and Mrs. Evans, who know the truth by the way... it was definitely a crazy morning.”
“Tell me about it,” he muttered wryly.
Tess smiled at him sympathetically, placing in front of him chopsticks.
He shifted eagerly. “You ordered Chinese?”
Tess scoffed. “Did I order Chinese, he asks. Is there anything else that anyone should order?”
Kyle stared at her as she moved from one place to the other, setting plates and utensils around him, humming gently to herself in a light, airy, musical tone.
Tess would always remind him of a priceless porcelain doll his mother had always kept in the living room. She had a thing for china dolls and fashion. Jim Valenti was always oblivious to the elitist world his mother had yearned to belong to, full of superficiality. He was content with his job and his life, and Kyle admired him for it.
But his mother loved that porcelain doll, had praised it time and again, admonishing Jim for not buying her similar ones to add to her collection. Until, of course, she left without notice. She left, not even taking that stupid porcelain doll with her. The stupid, meaningless doll that he still had hidden in his closet, and never thought to look of because it still refreshed scathing wounds. And somehow, looking at Tess’s face, it reminded Kyle of the stupid doll. It had the same golden perfect hair and the pale, pale blue eyes - so beautiful and blue they were painful to look at. Delicate and ethereal.
“Tess?” he asked suddenly.
She was busy trying to twirl the chopsticks around the rice, sighing with frustration as she realized she couldn’t.
“Tell me something - anything - to show me I’m right about you. That you’re not who everyone thought you were. Please,” he begged her.
Her eyes saddened, and they turned to dark violets instead of their usual aqua. “You don’t trust me,” she said softly. “Not that I blame you. But that’s... that’s what this is, isn’t it? I’m all of your poison, I’m all you despise? It’s why you moved out, isn’t it? Because you can’t... you can’t be around me, someone that represents everything you hate.”
“That’s not it!” he cried, his voice so loud and pleading.
A small tear fell down her cheek. “Then what is it?”
“I look at you... and I feel like dying,” he whispered to her softly. “There isn’t a part of me were you are not there, you have broken and torn me in ways I never knew where possible. Maybe you don’t remember how you used to be or how you felt. But God - I do. You poisoned love and you fed on anger and cruelty. And I... I knew that. And I loved you anyway. I look at you and I want to die. Still that feeling won’t leave me and I need to know that... that I wasn’t wrong about you, that I did right in not giving up on you. Please, Tess, give me anything!”
Tess had stood stunned at his passionate words, say him turn around because he couldn’t face her, trying to even out his breathing.
Tears, oh the tears, wouldn’t stop forming themselves. They continued falling, continued burning her pale skin, as her hands covered her face.
Her shoulders began to shake as she was overcome with all of her burdens and her sins.
His arms tightened around her waist.
“I’m so sorry, Kyle,” she cried. “I’m so, so sorry...”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The Crashdown, Liz’s Room, 9:10 P.M.
Sunday, June 14th
I’ll never finish writing secret letters to you. Even though I honestly wish that I could tell you to your face. That I could honestly scream to the top of my lungs what I have been silencing for so long. Isn’t that weak? Always having to use someone else’s voice for fear of what people might think of your own? Seeing the world with eyes people want you to see? Innocent and special. You, though. You seem to listen to my hidden cries, you seem to look into my eyes that are unreachable. You find it tangible, and you make me feel real. I don’t remember the last time I felt real.
I always want the wrong thing at the wrong time. And, it’s true. Mom reassures me that it’s just my over-achieving control issues.
I want your darkness. I want your fears.
I hang on to your every word, I cling to your silence.
Is this what we’ll always be? Me, writing my life away until there is no life to breathe?
I want dreams, dreams embedded with tears. I prefer the pain to what I’m feeling now... like I’m feeling nothing at all.
Maria says if I keep trying at it hard, I’ll stop loving you one day.
That I’ll wake up one day and you’ll simply be a memory. And something inside me breaks a little hearing it. More so because I know it isn’t true. I’ll be old and gray, and your name will flow beautifully and seamlessly from my mouth and I will still remember how deeply I love you. It’ll never leave me. When I’m with you, I never feel like searching for more. When I feel trapped and I need to scream, I look at you and I never feel lost anymore. I feel like there’s no guilded cage around me and I can feel and speak and breathe freely.
No, no. You’ll never leave me. You’ll be my secret, Alec, walking around unaware of the gaze that follows you.
It could never be. But... could it be?
It wouldn’t be neat, our box, tied with a fairy-tale kind of bow. We’d get messy. It would be... messy. And we would have to watch our backs almost all of the time. And sometimes, it won’t be pretty and there would be so many obstacles in our way.
But what is the point of love if it isn’t something too precious to lose? If love isn’t hard to achieve, wouldn’t that make is less special?
So what makes me want to try so badly? What makes me want to pull you closer and ask you, once again, to try?
And yet I still here am, in a restless night, wasting away to the possibility of the two of us.
Your eyes always feel like beautiful promise.
And Alec - that is a promise I’m going to hold you to.
Liz stopped writing abruptly when she felt herself being... nudged?
There was no one with her.
Frowning, she stood, once again feeling a strong pull.
Stars exploded in Liz’s mind as her body swayed waveringly, a faint glowing emanating from her body. And she saw, every color that must exist in the entire universe, combining with each other, separating, molding, swirling in beautiful whirlpools of movement that were familiar to her. The majestic colors she had seen with only one person before, threaded inside of her mind, the swirling, encompassing her in the torrent of dark hues, before she finally felt solid ground thundering below her feet.
“Alec?” she asked uncertainly.
Her eyes widened as she saw him approach her.
“What do you want?” she asked softly, her eyes guarded.
Alec opened his mouth and closed it. “I just wanted to see if the dream thing worked both ways. Guess the connection we made is still... cemented, huh?”
“I hate that word,” she muttered, shivering as she remembered FutureMax’s words.
“Sorry.”
They stood in front of each other, neither knowing what to say until Alec took the first step. “I miss you. And I know you now agree we can’t... be anything, but I had to see you.”
Liz swallowed, having him so close, feeling his body, so real, and burning near hers. “Why?”
“Because I don’t know if this is the last time that I will,” he answered honestly.
Liz’s eyes changed to frantic concern. “What are you going to do? Did something happen? Please let me help.”
“Liz, I can’t tell you where I am. Please just... just give me one night?”
“This isn’t fair,” she whispered to him painfully.
“I know. I know it’s selfish but I just can’t help myself. I try staying away from you but you’re carved inside of me too deeply. It’s like you’re more myself then I am.”
“I can’t do this. I can’t look at you,” Liz said, shaking her head, turning around from him and ready to push him out of her mind.
He flipped her around, backing her into what felt like a wall before claiming her mouth hungrily, her gasp of surprise lost as she stood, at first, motionless. Ah, but he was sneakier then she was, coaxing, seeking her tongue to come out and play as he caressed it with his, hands pressed firmly on her hips.
The wave of heat that poured into her was instantaneous and came with no warning. Ruefully she locked her hands around his neck, pressing him closer to her. Long, heated strokes of her tongue with his, hands touching everywhere they could, Alec moved his hands to the waist band of her jeans. She moaned into his mouth and stood still as he bit her lower lip, wrapping herself tighter around him, anger be damned.
“Don’t... don’t walk away from me,” he plead softly. Parting his mouth from hers, panting heavily, he found her hands and clasped them in his urgently. “Rip inside of me, yell at me all you want, tell me I’m the world’s sorriest excuse of a transgenic and that I was an asswhole to you. Hate me and punch my face but don’t... don’t leave me.”
Liz closed her eyes, his soft imploring melting her anger. She just couldn’t let herself be angry, not when she had him so close. She took a deep breath. “One night?”
“One night.”
“Our last?” she whispered harshly.
“I don’t know.”
“Okay,” she interjected in a small, child-like voice. It wasn’t a whiny sort of child. It was the kind that seemed like she had no idea where she was going, what she was doing, where there was to go.
“We have to look fancy. I want it to be fancy,” Liz said, changing her mood, snapping her fingers. “So, what color do you want my dress in?” she asked with a grin. “I mean, it is your dream. Whatcha say? Purple? Blue? Gold?”
“No color does you justice,” he interrupted. “But red’s as close as you can get.” He put his finger on her cheek. “Red’s fire, it’s passion, it’s intensity, it’s love, it’s… devastatingly beautiful.” His finger trailed all the way down to her lips. “Red is you.”
She had missed how much he proved he loved her. He somehow always knew what to say to explain what he was feeling. Smiling at him genuinely, she swished.
“Wow,” he breathed when her jeans and shirt were replaced by a dress. He’d never known what it felt like to be knocked breathless until he met her. His heart just always stopped for a second, drinking in her beauty, before it went back into his chest with double force and beating twice as fast. She was just gorgeously breathtaking.
Liz laughed, twirling around much to his appreciation.
“You’re beautiful,” he answered honestly. The gown, a devastating crimson wine red, clung to her like second skin.
He took her in his arms and they began to twirl to music only they could hear. It was scary to him how she fit into his arms perfectly. Her heart was beautiful to him, and he was attracted to her flame. She stared up at him, being met with a beautiful shade of emerald green. He was all she could see at that moment, and the whole world seemed to float away from her mind. It was eerie, how this man had so easily, and so quickly become such a huge part of her.
And Alec knew he was sinning with this dream, because it was too beautiful, too perfect to ever be real.
He looked at her, the way that he always did, no matter what she did. It was almost as if no matter what happened or what he claimed to feel, he’d always look at her as if the sun rose and set in her eyes, or as if she were a star.
He pursed his lips and nodded softly. “I was right about you all along, you know.”
She tilted her head as she felt his arms encircle her waist. She looked up at him and was filled with relief when she saw playfulness in his eyes and a teasing laugh in his smile. “And what’s that?”
“You’re worth waiting for.”
At that moment he was not in a cell, his body too beaten for him to even move. No, he was with Liz, who was unaware of that small fact. Sheer happiness, pure and unspoiled joy that radiated off of him like an innocent child he’d never been.
They stared into each other’s eyes and like so many times before, words just weren’t necessary. He would always love her eyes, beautiful black diamonds that told him all he needed to know. They were happy, dancing, mischievous, like he’d always known them to be - promised him so many dreams, the dream of her.
He didn’t need to say that he had loved her passion and ingenuity, how he’d seen her grow to the beautiful, sexy woman so full of wisdom and glow.
Her breath comes shallow, and she felt physical pain, have him so close, knowing if she only inched a little closer… what exactly did Alec to do her, that she abandoned all reason, threw away all anger, all logic, and want nothing but to have him with her?
It was a furtive, agonizing desire to sweep away her entire agony, back to a time where she’d be standing in front of Alec at the airport and clinging on to him for dear life instead of letting him walk away from her.
He buried his head in her hair, and she bit her lip to keep from weeping out loud. His touch was tender, and loving, how could she have ever thought she’d live without it?
Alec used the tip of his finger to languidly, softly trail her arm. Liz wasn’t surprised to feel the outer goose bumps, the inner turmoil that flamed her skin alive. She couldn’t help but remember those same hands were chained to a wall at this moment. Before she could help it a tear rolled down her eyes.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered. Had his words always been so clipped, as if every word pained his very soul?
Liz stared into his eyes at that moment, vaguely aware that tears were still flowing from hers. What was staring back at her broke her heart. He didn’t look like the carefree young man she’d fallen in love with. He looked tired as well, so tired, and so aged… he was barely twenty-one. They were so young and had their whole lives in front of them… why couldn’t life be simpler?
She was startled out of her thoughts when Alec inadvertently moved his hand to the back of her head, unclipping the barrette that sustained her hair, letting her dark, raven-haired tendrils fall into his hands and frame her face. Alec was trying to learn by heart every achingly beautiful part of her, trying to hold on to her soft, silky mane, commit to memory every shade of her black diamonded eyes, the curve of her button nose and heart-shaped face-he wanted to remember, memorize every inch of her, incase he never…
“Alec,” Liz whispered as she finally saw the long knife wound in his shoulder, and the faint purple bruise in his eye, her voice betraying her as it crumbled. “What have they done to you?” she whispered brokenly, laying her hand gently on his jaw, sending healing energy towards it as the bruise disappeared and the cut was mended. She proceeded to repair his lip, and by the time she finished tears were falling down her cheeks freely.
He grabbed her hand before she could continue. “Liz, I’m okay. I swear I am.”
She cradled his face and shook her head, her nose brushing his before she rose to the tips of her toes, her moist lips from her own tears meeting his as they caressed him lovingly.
He grabbed her face gently with his hand. “I know all of you… from the tip of your head to your toes… I’ve made love to all of your body,” he whispered. If this was his dream, he’d say all he’d wanted to say for a long time now. “I know you snore softly in your sleep. Your nose crinkles when it laughs, you chew your lip when you’re nervous. I know every line of your face, every small curve of your silhouette,” he continued, his hands slowly making their way from her arms to the bottom of her hips, pulling her closer, and urging her to meld with him. “I know… I know that you have a birthmark on the lower side of your back. Kinda sexy if you ask me,” he teased, and she laughed amid her crying hiccups.
He grabbed both her hands with his own, intertwining their fingers, kissing both of them. “Does anyone know you half the way that I do?” he asked seriously in a low husky voice, using his index finger to pull on the strap of her dress. “Does… does anyone love you half the way that I do?” he whispered in her ear. “Tell me, Liz, does anyone know the sensitive spot in your body that makes you scream my name?” he whispered, taking her earlobe with his teeth, producing a soft whimpering moan from her as his hand slid the dress up from her leg, his fingers resting in her upper hip.
“No,” she answered him brokenly. “No one.”
Cupping her face he crushed his lips to hers, fervently meeting her tongue with his. It was bittersweet, and it was perfect. He was tracing every corner of her mouth, allowing himself to remember what she felt like, the wonderment of home that he found in her, the familiar buzzing of his ears and the anticipation that made his hands tremble slightly. He hadn’t forgotten how perfect it was to kiss Liz, but he had no idea how he had gone without it for so long. He poured his every longing, his every pore of pain, of regret, of devastation, every ounce of overwhelming love he felt for her into that kiss, devouring her mouth and making love to it with his, willing Liz to remember.
And for one night, she let herself remember.
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