) that managed to meet up with me for the author's chat. I had great fun! And I hope you had too... 
Now, when it concerns this story all chapters up to and including this one have now been reposted. Chapter 22 and onwards have never been posted before. This also means that you are now stuck with me since Stef (due to busy life) is unable to finish this story with me. For those of you who have read my other works and know of my sometimes infrequent updates
, don't be alarmed. I have already written up to chapter 28 and I just need them edited by my fantastic beta before posting them. I suspect that around chapter 30 is a good place to end this story, so there's not many chapters left and I think I can pull it off without leaving you hanging for terribly long.With that said, to all of you, my beautiful readers, thank you;
clueless
roswell4life
rowedog
aussietrueblue
begonia9508
cassie
Natalie36
dreamerbabylioness
Chapter 21 (by Jo)
She couldn’t breathe. Her chest was aching and she was starting to feel dizzy. As the weight of the water was pressing down on her, her head started to feel light. As the muscles in her arms gave out, she became intensely aware of the water around her. It was encircling her, devouring her, pressing the air out of her lungs. Her lungs had been burning a second ago, but were now past the point of conscious pain. Her mouth opened and water started to flow in and she knew. She knew that this might be the last seconds of her life, but it didn’t scare her anymore. The hands pushing into the flesh of her upper arm, forcing her body to remain under water weren’t frightening her any longer. But then his face moved to hover above hers and she felt the pain. She felt it strike her heart so hard that it felt as if the heart disintegrated. She could see his smile through the water surface, making the open wounds of her heart sting. Then she heard his voice echo in her head.
“You will never get rid of me. I will never disappear.”
The air burned the inner walls of her lungs as she fiercely pulled in the oxygen. It took her a couple of seconds before she was able to orient herself. With her chest heaving and her heart racing, she looked around herself into the darkness of her bedroom, a single small lamp spreading a humble light around the bed. She still couldn’t sleep with all lights off. But even though the light from the lamp usually was warm and comforting, she couldn’t calm herself down. She clutched the sheets closer around her body, trying to fight off the chills coursing through her body. However, the one fact remained, and it was breathing down her neck intensifying her shivering, that she was alone. All alone.
She settled back down and closed her eyes in an attempt to go back to sleep. But his face continued to haunt her. His smile was making her feel unwanted and nauseous. She turned her head and looked to her side, at the picture frame decorated with small teddy bears with balloons and the photo inside. It was a picture of her and Max when they were about eight. There was something different in her eyes; a look of happiness that she didn’t recognize any longer. Looking at that little girl was like looking at a complete stranger. She didn’t understand her. She couldn’t remember a time when she had been that carefree. She couldn’t remember a time when fear wasn’t overshadowing her every move. She couldn’t remember a time when her father was not looking over her shoulder; waiting for her to make a mistake so that he could attack. She pulled the comforter closer around her as the air around her seemed to grow colder. She closed her eyes against the darkness that suddenly seemed to hide danger.
She hated living alone. She would never admit it to Max, because she was tired of being a burden to him. She wanted to appear independent. She wanted to try to actually be independent, but it had proved to be harder than she had anticipated it to be. All her life she had wished to be left alone. She had wanted to find a place of her own where her father couldn’t reach her and her mother’s absence couldn’t hurt her. She had been afraid to acknowledge that those wishes were the dreams of a little girl taking her refuge in a fairytale land. The reality was different. When she was finally left alone, she realized that she hated it. She couldn’t stand this loneliness.
With a deep sigh she turned in the bed, as if changing position would remove the loneliness. But she would always be alone. She would never be able to recognize what other girls in her age were talking about when they started to discuss boys and parties. To her, the world had been irreversibly changed by her father, and his presence was still burning holes in her very existence.
<center>---------------------------------------------</center>
A sudden sound woke him up and his heart went from a slow steady breathing to a wild gallop as the adrenaline suddenly pumped through his blood vessels. Without moving the rest of his body, his hand moved slowly out from underneath the comforter to contact the baseball bat he always kept there. His fingers encircled the hard wood, feeling its solid weight as he lifted it from the floor. The sound was coming closer; a rustle outside his window. A twig from the tree standing guard outside his window slammed against the pane, making him jump. Every nerve in his body was on edge. If this had happened a couple of months ago, he wouldn’t have been so afraid. But ever since he took Liz away from her father and he had learnt so much about her world, his world had irrevocably changed and his openhearted and trustful nature had taken quite a blow.
He relaxed slightly as the twig continued to brush its hard fingers against his window. Maybe it had only been the tree rustling in the window. His eyes were still trained on the window, but he was slowly moving back into the bed. Suddenly a human hand was pressed up against the window and he froze. But not out of fear, but out of concern. Another night flashed through his mind, a night when he had run away from Roswell to save his best friend’s life. Because he had no problem recognizing the petite hand pressed up against the window pane. The bat fell to the floor and his feet touched the floor the same second her face came into view behind the window. He tried to will himself to relax. She didn’t look hurt and she wasn’t crying, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong nonetheless. Why would she be here otherwise?
His fingers fumbled with the small lock on the window and she smiled at him, nervously, when he opened the window.
“Hey,” she said softly.
“Hi.” The confusion he felt was reflected in the tone of his voice and she smiled again, insecurely, as if trying to tell him that she wasn’t quite sure why she was there either.
“Can I come in?” she said, pointedly raising one of her eyebrows.
“Sure,” Max said quickly, moving out of the way and reaching out with one hand to be able to catch her if she fell.
“Thanks,” she mumbled.
Max observed her as she slowly and mutely crossed the floor. “Is everything okay, Liz?”
“Sure,” she said, looking up at him and smiled again. All this smiling was on the border of freaking Max out. He got the feeling that something was wrong. She wasn’t herself.
“Are you sure?”
“Am I not allowed to visit my friend?” Liz asked with another smile plastered on her face. Her eyes were on a photo frame next to his bed and her fingers were tracing his eight-year-old face on that picture. He knew that she had the same photo in her apartment. They had found it among some stuff that her father had put away in her family home.
Max raised an eyebrow. “At three in the morning?”
She laughed. A little too nervously, Max thought. “Yes, I admit it’s a little late. I just… I couldn’t sleep and I thought that I could come and check on what you were doing.”
”Probably sleeping,” Max said pointedly. But there was a hint of amusement in his voice now.
“To be honest, I didn’t really think about what time it was. I’m sorry.” She gave him a half-crooked smile as she started to walk up towards him. “Will you forgive me?”
Her hands brushed down his T-shirt clad chest and his eyes followed the movements of her hands before looking at her confusingly. What was she doing?
“Liz, are you sure you’re okay?”
“I need you, Max,” she whispered and he could hear a familiar break in her voice. Her eyes looked down at her feet and his overprotective streak kicked in full force.
He put one finger under her chin and forced her to look at him. “Liz?”
Before he had time to ask anything else, her lips were on his. At first, he was too perplexed to react but his body quickly fixed that problem for him. He became increasingly aware of the softness of her warm lips against his and his hands moved to cradle her face, trying to pull her even closer. Her lips were slanting over his, her tongue demanding entrance. There was urgency about her that he hadn’t noticed before and he wasn’t sure if he should just welcome it as a natural progression of their relationship or if he should be worried.
She pressed her body up against his and he could feel the heat from her body. One of his hands moved down to her waist, pulling her closer and keeping her close.
“Max,” she murmured, her hands moving restlessly up and down his chest. “Please, Max.”
He wasn’t sure what she was asking him to do, but his heart was convinced that it would do whatever she asked as a helpless sigh escaped her lips. Her tongue brushed hungrily against his and he thought that he had never experienced anything as sweet as Liz. How could someone taste like sunshine? Her fingers were now threading through his hair, her whole being whimpering underneath the assault of his kisses, which were now being rained down her neck. Everywhere his body brushed against hers felt like it was on fire.
Mutually, they started moving towards the bed and when the back of Max’s knees contacted with the edge of the bed, he felt himself falling backwards, bringing Liz down on top of him. Something at the back of his head started to make slight protests as Liz just continued kissing him, with such fervency like she might die if she didn’t. Something felt wrong about this, but then Liz’s hand sneaked underneath his T-shirt and his mind became a blurry mess of emotions as he responded to the pleasure of having her small hand moving over his skin.
“God Liz,” he sighed into her mouth as the softness of her hands glided over his warm chest.
Her weight on top of him was comforting at the same time as it was arousing. Then her hands moved down to the zipper of his pants, his whole body giving a startle as she in the process brushed over the part that really needed relief right now, and warning bells went of in his head.
“Liz?”
He had to fight every primitive instinct in his body to reach down with his hands and grab her wrists. Her large eyes, filled with confusion, met his as he pulled her hands away.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Max swallowed at the hurt in her voice and he struggled to not give in and let her do whatever she needed to do. God knows his body sure wanted her to. But there’s was something really wrong about the situation and he wouldn’t let her destroy another part of herself just because he couldn’t control himself enough to stop it.
“Liz, baby, let’s talk about this,” Max answered.
She looked at him for a long second and then she bent forward so that her lips were just an inch from his.
“I don’t really feel like talking right now,” she smiled and then closed the distance.
God, did she taste good. Was it possible for any person’s lips to be so soft?
With a strangled, regretful sigh he gently pushed her away. “No, Liz.”
She looked at him again and his heart constricted when he saw the glittering surface of tears form in her eyes.
“Fine,” she murmured and lifted herself off him.
Max could practically feel the coldness she was emitting and he sat up, trying to catch her by the arm before she disappeared completely. But she was already standing in the middle of the room, her arms wrapped tightly around herself, her back hard and signaling pain turned towards him.
“Don’t you want me, Max?” she asked in a small voice.
“Liz, this is not about not wanting you, believe-“
“Then what?” she interrupted. “Every guy jumps at this opportunity. If a girl shows up in their room in the middle of the night they don’t object, they do what she wants.”
“I’m not like most other guys, Liz, and are you saying you could have gone to just any guy?”
There was a short silence before she answered coldly, “Maybe I should have.”
He looked at her back, unconsciously moving his eyes over her tousled hair. He wouldn’t let her hurt him. She was hurt right now and she wanted him to feel it too, but he wouldn’t let her. “What is going on?”
She spun around and he could see the tearstains on her cheeks. Her eyes were large and sad. So sad. “Well, I came here because I wanted you and stupidly enough I thought that you wanted me too since you kissed me the other day.”
”I do, Liz. God, do you know how much I had to fight with myself to stop?”
“Why did you?” Tears become more frequent and she sniffled out the next part. “Why can’t you love me? I just want someone to love me. My dad hates me and my-my-my mom sees me as another inconvenient detail that she has to fit into her life.”
Max moved to get off the bed. “Sweetie, don’t-“
”No, Max.” She stared at him, her breath catching in her throat and her bottom lip trembling with abandonment. “I just wanted one thing from you and you are not willing to give it to me. I’m just gonna lea-“
Max caught her elbow as she turned around for the window and turned her back to him.
“Liz,” his voice a little harder and firmer, “Listen to me. I don’t think you are ready for sex yet.”
Her eyes dropped to her feet, as if naming what she had been after embarrassed her.
“Sex complicates things and I don’t think you are ready for complications right now.”
“That’s not for you to decide,” she murmured.
“Yes, it is. I’m not just a person you can use to feel better, Liz. I have my own feelings and my own thoughts about all of this and even though I want nothing more than to carry you back to my bed right now and show you just how much I do love you, I don’t like the idea of you coming here and asking me to make love to you just so that you won’t feel alone and unloved. That’s it, isn’t it?”
She pulled a sniffled breath and answered him with her gaze still fixed on the floor. “I thought you were my boyfriend and this is what you do when you’re in relationship, Max.”
“No,” Max whispered and reached out to gently touch her cheek. She slightly pulled back first but he just extended his motion to reach her.
“When you’re in a relationship you look out for each other and you take care of each other. When one is feeling bad or sad you give comfort.”
“Then why couldn’t you-“
”That’s not the right kind of comfort.”
Her eyes closed and she bit her lower lip while trying to control her sobbing. He watched her quietly, trying to figure out what to do.
“Why couldn’t I fall in love with one of those jocks? They would gladly have sex with me.”
“Because your heart doesn’t need that. You deserve more, Liz. You deserve so much more.”
She dried her cheeks with the back of her hand and to Max’s surprise she gave a small quiet laughter.
“What?”
She shook her head in disbelief. “Everything you’re saying right now just makes me want you more.”
He smiled and gently cupped her face between his hands and forced her to look at him. “I love you, Liz. I’ve loved you for longer than I can remember.”
“You are not really helping,” Liz whispered, referring to her trying not to jump him.
He gave her another smile and then ever so gently kissed her. Her eyes drifted close and her lips started to tingle. She emitted a frustrated sigh as he pulled away which made him smile again.
“You are never alone, Liz. Never again. If you let me, I’m gonna hang around – a lot.”
“That’s good,” Liz smiled.
Max looked at her for a long time before voicing his question. “Do you wanna stay?”
Liz looked at him incredulously, slightly raising one eyebrow. “Max Evans, I thought that you didn’t wa-“
”To sleep,” Max interrupted and he added softly, his eyes barely holding onto hers. “I need to hold you.”
Liz couldn’t help but feel that it was refreshing to have him needing her for once, but she couldn’t deny that she too wanted to spend the night safe in his arms. She had missed it. She had missed the uncomplicated intimacy, comfort and safety sleeping enveloped in his arms had brought her when they had been running from her father.
“I guess if I have to settle for that I will.”
He rolled his eyes at her hint of teasing and took her hand, pulling her towards the bed.
It was with smooth instinct and easy natural feeling that they climbed into bed and curled up against each other. Liz positioned herself on her side and Max spooned his body around her, letting his hand creep under her shirt at the waist to feel the warmth of her skin against his. His contented sigh drifted to her ear as he pulled her even closer. She could hear his breathing easing out into sleep after a few minutes and she placed one of her hands on top of the one around her waist and closed her eyes, letting the warmth of his body spread into hers as sleep claimed her tired mind.
TBC...
shucks...thanks
) things will seriously steam up between Max and Liz in the chapter after this. Just hang in there 