To Roswell, With Love</center>
by Chione
Category: CC M/L M/M I/K
Rating: Teen
Disclaimer: I don’t own Roswell.
Summary: Ten years after Graduation, Liz Parker writes home.
Authoress’ Notes: This was just an idea that haunted me and wouldn’t go away so I thought I’d write it. Yes, it’s short. There is more, but whether or not I post it depends on how well this is received. It’s not exactly like my other stories, or like any usual story.
So. . . tell me what you think.
Dear Mom and Dad,
It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? I don’t have much of an excuse, I suppose. We’ve been on the road a lot, moving from place to place and it’s been hard to find the time. Or maybe I’ve just been avoiding this. It’s easier not to think about how disappointed you must be in me. Here I am, twenty-eight years old, and I don’t have a college education. I didn’t make it to Harvard. Instead, I own a small restaurant with Maria and Isabel. I guess I was born for the restaurant business. Or I guess it’s the only thing I have the education for.
I hope things are going well with the Crashdown.
I suppose you’re wondering, why now? What’s changed that she has time to write us after ten years? Well, I’m a mother now. And I understand what it’s like to have children; I wonder how we could’ve done that to you. How you survived it. My children are my world. I’m sorry for up and leaving. I’m sorry for never saying goodbye. I’m sorry you couldn’t see my wedding, and I’m sorry you’re not here now. I wish so much that things had been different. I wish a lot of things had gone differently.
I had twins. Two little girls, who have their father’s eyes and their mother’s face. They’re already eighteen months old; they’ve gotten so big. We named them Emma and Jayden. Everyone calls her Jade. She’s our little angel, the quiet one, always playing with books and sitting on our laps. She’ll just quietly sneak up next to you and cuddle, and be perfectly content that way. We’re convinced Emma’s the musician. Anytime music is playing she just wiggles and dances and claps. Emma will just run around all day, and she eats so much, yet is so skinny. She doesn’t take medicine well either. Always the drama queen, she’ll make a big deal out of the littlest things and you just kind of have to let her get over her dramatics before she’s reasonable again.
You’d love them both, I know. I wish you could meet them. Maria calls them her little princesses.
Maria’s married. She and Michael tied the knot only a year after Max and I did, and they’re happy. They have their moments, and of course they fight all the time, but they’re happy. They have a child too, a little boy named Caleb. He’s two years older than the twins, and likes to take away their toys or peak into their cribs and get them to cry. It keeps us on our toes.
The twins have started teething, and it keeps them up at night. It was adorable; last night, I was trying to get Jade to go to sleep, but her teeth were keeping her awake. I gave her some medicine, and rubbed her back a little til she fell asleep. The whole time, Emma was sticking her head over the side of her crib and making cooing sounds at Jade. She’s such a little mother, trying to soothe her sister. Whenever Caleb picks on Jade, Emma always gets in between and plays peacekeeper. Jade may be the quiet one, but she’s got a temper and has discovered she can bite. So when Caleb takes her doll, she’ll bite his hand, and then he’ll started crying. It can be a mess. But it’s fun, and I wouldn’t give them up for anything.
You should see our apartment, everything is either put away in a childproofed cabinet or is above child-level. We’ve had to start keeping the counters completely clean, or push everything way far back. Emma can reach stuff on the counters, and tries to pull them down on her head. Then yesterday, I found her climbing up on one of the chairs and handing things down from table to Jade. They’re getting too smart for us.
I keep thinking I should write these things down so I remember them when they’re older, but I never really do. So Max suggested I write them to you.
We all live together, I don’t think I mentioned that. Max and I share an apartment above our restaurant with Michael and Maria. Isabel and Kyle also have a room, but they recently started renting the apartment next door. Caleb sleeps in their old room, to keep him out of the girl’s room now that he’s getting older. It’s a cozy life.
And I guess I didn’t really explain the Kyle and Isabel situation. About seven years ago, Isabel got a letter from Jesse (he gave it to Jim, and Jim sent it along to us). He asked if he should bother waiting. He loved her, but he was young, and lonely. Self-sacrificing woman that she is (hard to believe, I suppose, because she’s very selfish in some ways, but it’s true), she told him no. The divorce papers arrived a few months later. It can be lonely on the road like we’ve been, I know if I hadn’t had Max I’d have gone crazy. Kyle and Isabel were the only two of us not attached to anyone, and it was inevitable they got close. Five years ago, it became more than close.
The four of us have a bet going on how long it will be til they get married. No one thinks it’ll be long.
I know it’s not the life you imagined for me. I know you blame Max, for taking me away and for being what he is. But he gave me more than enough chances to back out. He told me a hundred times to leave him, that it wasn’t safe. And I chose to love him.
Daddy, a long time ago, back when Grandma Claudia would tell me stories of true love and romance and soul mates, you sat me down one night and told me something different. You told me that love wasn’t that easy. It wasn’t magical, and it didn’t happen without effort. I was upset because I’d been dumped by my very first boyfriend, in seventh grade, and I thought my life was over. I thought I’d failed at love and I’d never have another chance. You said love was something that took years to form, and it came from a mutual liking of two people. But in order for love to exist, those two people must both put effort into the relationship. Love was more than an emotion, it was a choice. Made daily. That everyday you got up in the morning deciding that you were going to love Mom for the rest of your life. That she was the one you wanted to be with. Liking and caring was involuntary, but loving was a choice.
Max and I have caused each other a lot of harm in the past, I know that. When we were young we thought we were soul mates, our love was meant to be. And maybe that’s true. Maybe somehow we were destined to find and love one another. But I’m older now, I’ve lived with this man for ten years. I love him. We fight, and we say hurtful things that we don’t mean except when we’re angry, but we love each other. We may sometimes bring out the worst in each other, but we also bring out the best. There’s no other life I’d rather have than the one I’ve got if I had to give up Max for it.
What I meant with all of this was that I chose this life. It wouldn’t have worked out otherwise. If I didn’t choose to love Max through all the bad days, if I didn’t decide everyday that he was the one for me despite the hardships, then we wouldn’t still be married and happy.
Please don’t blame Max. Be happy for me.
This sounds like a goodbye, doesn’t it? I hope it isn’t. I hope we can stay here for many more years, I hope the FBI doesn’t get another lead on us. I’ll try and write every once and awhile, let you know we’re alive and safe and happy. It isn’t safe for me to contact you too often. But this letter will be carefully sent and delivered so that no one can track it. Please burn it when you’ve read it through. I know you won’t turn us in, but it seems so easy for a hint of us to be found that we can’t risk even this small letter to remain.
I love you both, so much.
Liz
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