(Banner by me.)
Title: 522
Author: April
Disclaimer: Oh, lord, after all this time, it really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that I have no affiliations to Roswell. Although I have mildly kinky fantasies where I do.
Summary: A year and a half after the last chapter of 521, Santa Fe’s most dramatic, romantic, and problematic people have settled into adulthood. Some have changed; others have not. Some have gotten what they wanted while others have fallen short. At a time in their lives when marriage, children, and careers are their primary concerns, they discover that the only difference between college and the “real world” is that the problems they face are bigger and more intimidating.
Category: Ensemble AU (Sequel)
Rating: Adult
Warnings: Consider yourself warned that this story is going to deal with a lot of difficult and controversial subject matter. Other warnings include graphic sexual situations, adult language, violence, and some UC elements. This is in the Alien Abyss for a reason, folks.
Author’s Note: This is the first sequel I’ve ever written to a novel-length fic, and I’m excited about it. I didn’t intend to write a sequel to 521, but I thought about it and realized I had a lot of (hopefully) intriguing ideas and a diverse cast of characters to work with. If you have not read 521, then DO NOT read this fic. A lot of it will be lost on you. So read 521 first if you’re interested in reading 522.
Just a quick side note here . . . in order to keep the story chronologically accurate, I had to set it in 2012. The last time I checked, I’m writing this in 2009/2010, and I’m not psychic, so I don’t know what’s going to happen in 2012. Obviously some references won’t be factually correct for that reason.
Okay. So this story is meant to challenge me as a writer and challenge you as readers. As excited as I am about posting it, I’m also very nervous about posting it. So please, let me know what you think by posting feedback. I’m interested in what everyone has to say, whether it’s positive or negative. Enjoy the fic, and please hold on for the ride.
All (slightly spoilery) trailers can be viewed on my Youtube channel, http://www.youtube.com/user/April7739 as well as the playlist for the soundtrack I'm in the process of compiling.
Part 1
A Year and a Half Ago
Maria’s fingers shook as Michael slid the diamond onto her ring finger. It looked like it was meant to be there.
“Come here!” she cried as he stood up. She threw her arms around him and kissed him happily. So happily.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered in her ear.
“Good tears,” she promised. She’d waited for this day for awhile.
“Sorry it took me so long,” he apologized.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.” He gave her another quick peck on the lips, and then the wedding guests crowded around them. Tess and Kyle both hugged them and offered their congrats. Amy yanked on Maria’s hand and demanded to see the ring. Mascara was streaming down her face.
Once the commotion had died down, Marty’s voice rose above all the rest. “Picture!” he shouted. “I gotta get a picture of this.”
“Oh my god, no, look at me. I’m all over the place,” Maria said, wiping the joyful tears from her cheeks.
“You look beautiful,” Michael assured her.
“I want the married couple, the gonna-get-married couple, and my niece,” Marty said. “Everyone else clear out for a minute. I just want the five of them.”
“Fab Five!” Tess joked.
Maria laughed. “Yeah, Fab Five.”
“Here,” Kyle said, handing Miley over to Maria.
“Okay, scoot in,” she told them. She grabbed Michael’s collar—her fiancé's collar—and pulled him in close to her. He wrapped his arm around her waist while Tess came to stand beside Maria. Tess put her hand on Maria’s shoulder, and Kyle wrapped both his arms around his new wife’s midsection.
“Miley, look at the camera,” Maria said as her brother took a few steps back, trying to get the picture in focus.
“Out of the picture, Mom. You’ll be in the next one,” Marty snapped. “Everybody lean in.”
“Look at the camera,” Maria told Miley again. She was such a good kid that she did just that. She laughed the way she usually did when she looked at her wacky Uncle Marty.
“Are we ready?” Marty asked.
“Wait a minute,” Michael said, reaching back to the table. He picked up the pink rose bouquet Maria had just caught and handed it to her. “There you go,” he said.
“Oh, okay.” Her hands were full. Kid in one arm, flowers in the other. It felt good, though.
“Alright, I think we’re ready, Marty,” Tess said.
“Wait, is my hair alright?” Kyle asked.
“No. Who cares, you dork?” Maria teased. “Take the picture, Marty.”
Michael chuckled. “One big happy family.”
“Okay, bitches,” Marty said. “On one . . .”
Maria smiled. Here she was, surrounded by her best friends, her fiancé, and her daughter. Her, the once out-of-control party girl who’d never even allowed herself a glimpse of this dream.
“Two . . .”
Never had she imagined that her life could be this good. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it was pretty damn close. And it was close because of the people in it.
“Three!”
The camera flashed, freezing the moment in time.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Present Day
It was time. Maria DeLuca knew it was time to do this.
“Miley, look at the camera,” she coaxed her daughter. Miley stood by the side of the car, her light brown hair in low-slung pigtails, a Finding Nemo backpack on her shoulders. She was wearing her new red and white checkered dress and white shoes. She looked like a little princess. But not a very happy one.
Miley begrudgingly turned to look at the camera but maintained the frown on her face.
“Smile,” Maria urged, her voice high-pitched the way it usually was when she was trying to convince her little girl to do something. She snapped the picture even though Miley was still pouting, then put the digital camera back in her purse. “That wasn’t a very happy smile, girly.”
Miley hung her head and kicked at the sidewalk with the toe of her shoe.
“What’s wrong?” Maria asked, even though she already knew.
“I’m scared,” Miley mumbled. “I don’t wanna go.”
“Why not?”
She shrugged exaggeratedly.
Maria sighed and knelt down so that she was at eye-level with her. “Miley,” she said, stroking her hair. “It’s totally okay to be afraid. But there’s nothing to be afraid of.” She glanced back over her shoulder at the entrance to Happy Hearts Daycare. It looked like a safe place, clean and lively. She’d already checked the whole establishment out last week. It was the perfect match for Miley. “It’s just daycare,” she said. “It’s fun. You’re gonna have a great time. You’re gonna make lots of friends, and you’re gonna play all day.” She didn’t remember much about her own daycare experience, except for flirting with a boy who she’d ended up dating in the seventh grade. Luckily Miley wasn’t as boy-crazy as she had been. “I bet when I come pick you up this afternoon, you won’t even wanna leave,” she declared confidently.
“Yeah, I will,” Miley insisted. “Mama, why can’t I stay home with you?”
Mama. The way she said that word tugged at Maria’s heartstrings, made her want to change her mind about all this. “Because I’m not staying home today, sweetie. I have things to do,” she reminded her.
“Then why can’t I go to work with Daddy?”
“Macy went to work with Daddy, just like you used to. But you’re a big girl now, so it’s time for you to go to daycare.”
“I’m not little, I’m big,” Miley said in a rush. That was her good-old standby line, the line she always used when she was trying to convince her parents to let her do something. “I mean . . .” She caught her mistake and corrected. “I’m not big. I’m little. I’m only . . .” She held up two fingers. “This old.”
“But you’re almost . . .” Maria held up three fingers. “This old.” Sometimes she swore Miley was older. She was already teaching herself how to write her own name, and she even wanted to start reading now.
“Mama . . .”
Stay strong, Maria told herself. She couldn’t give in . . . no matter how cute her kid was. “Sweetie, you can do this,” she said, squeezing her shoulders encouragingly. “Okay?”
Miley continued kicking at the sidewalk, then stopped and nodded reluctantly.
“Okay. Let’s go.” Maria grabbed her daughter’s hand, then led her up the sidewalk towards the entrance. Miley’s steps were so little that she had to take three or four to match one of Maria’s.
When they stepped inside, Maria had to steady her own nerves. There were about a dozen kids there. They were all in the playroom, bouncing and rolling a big beach ball in a circle. Some of them were so young that they were no taller than the ball itself. Others appeared to be about five or six.
“See?” Maria said. “This looks fun.”
Miley held her hand tighter and turned around so none of the other kids could see her. She’d always been a little shy.
The daycare’s primary director, Pam Austen, approached Maria at the door with a smile on her face. She had short dark hair, and she wore thick, black-rimmed glasses, a plaid blouse and jeans, and an enthusiastic attitude. She and Maria had met in Lamaze class when Maria had been pregnant with Macy. Pam and her partner Cecily had artificially inseminated, and after having four kids of their own, they’d decided to open up a daycare. They were acquaintances at best, but Maria knew them well enough to trust them with her child.
“Maria, hi,” Pam greeted.
“Hi, Pam.”
“Hello, Miley,” Pam went on. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”
“Miley, turn around,” Maria said, but her daughter was resistant. “Um, she’s a little nervous,” Maria said, hoping her daughter’s nervousness didn’t make her seem impolite.
“That’s completely natural,” Pam assured her.
“I thought maybe if I brought her some of her things from home, she’d feel better. So I brought, um . . .” Maria reached into her backpack and pulled out a furry little snow leopard. “Her favorite stuffed animal,” she said, “and her crayons. She likes to draw.”
“Oh, we have lots of crayons here,” Pam assured her.
Of course they did. It was a daycare. “Right. I suppose you would.” That didn’t stop Maria from digging a box of twenty-four Crayola crayons out of her backpack. Well, twenty-two now. Miley had gone through a chewing phase right about the time she’d turned two. Thank God she was out of that now. “Actually, these are glitter crayons,” she said, “so . . .” She handed them to Pam and smiled. The daycare probably didn’t have glitter crayons. Miley liked glitter.
Pam laughed lightly and took the crayons from her. “Maria, she’s going to be fine,” she assured her. “She’s not the only nervous one, is she?”
“No, she’s not,” Maria admitted. She was probably even more nervous than Miley was, but she was trying not to show it because she didn’t want to make Miley any more nervous than she already was. “This is new for both of us.”
“Nothing to worry about.” Pam knelt down and said, “Miley, do you know what we’re gonna do today? We’re gonna watch movies and listen to music and paint.”
Miley immediately whirled around, her face lit in purse excitement. “Paint!” she exclaimed. She looked up at Maria. “Like Daddy?”
“Yeah, like Daddy.”
“Cool!” Miley let go of her hand. “Bye, Mama.”
“Oh . . .” Maria stood back and watched as Miley walked into the play room with Pam. “Bye,” she whimpered, feeling uneasy. That had all happened too fast. She hadn’t even had the chance to kiss her goodbye. Now she was going to have to wait until 3:30 to see her again. This sucked.
Maria sulked out to the car, a bundle of worries. What if they fed Miley something she was allergic to? As far as she knew, Miley wasn’t allergic to anything, but . . . she’d never eaten corndogs before. What if she was allergic to corndogs? What if they were having corndogs for lunch? Come to think of it, she thought as she struggled to open the driver’s side door of her navy blue Mercury Sable, what are they having for lunch? She hadn’t even had the chance to ask.
Maria yanked hard on the door and finally got it open. The lock stuck a good deal of the time. It was really not the greatest car, but her Lincoln MKZ had crapped out on here after a year of use.
She shut the door and held her key up to the ignition. She was just about to insert it and bring the car to life when something took over. She shot out of the car and bounded back into the daycare center. Miley had already joined the group of kids with the beach ball and was laughing and smiling and playing along with them. She didn’t notice her mom come in. But Pam did. She grinned at Maria almost as if she'd been expecting it.
“Hi,” Maria said, approaching the director. “I forgot to mention something.” She pulled a Zip-lock bag full of cheddar cheese cubes out of her backpack and handed them to her. “She likes cheese,” she said. “Miley does.”
Pam nodded, looking as though she were holding in laughter. “We’ll give it to her for lunch.”
“Okay. What are you serving for lunch, by the way? Because she’s never eaten corndogs before, but she might be allergic.”
“Fish sticks.”
“Oh.” For some inexplicable reason, Miley really liked those. “Okay. Good. Well . . .” She flapped her hands against her sides, the separation anxiety almost unbearable. “I guess I can be going then.”
“You sure can.”
“Yep.” She nodded, not moving. Eventually, Pam had to grab her by the shoulders and push her out the door.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The drive to the Fairview apartment complex was a familiar one, one Maria had driven many times when she’d lived there and many times still after she and Michael had moved out. And one she wouldn’t be driving much longer now that her friends were moving out, too. She parked out front, popped open her trunk to take out the cardboard boxes, and trudged into the building, still thinking about Miley.
She got off the elevator on the fifth floor and strode down the hallway, passing the door marked with the number 521. Somebody had scratched off some of the wood on the doorframe, and the word fucker was carved into the door below the numbers. The place had really gone downhill. It made her feel a little sad.
“Tess?” she said, knocking on and then opening the door to the neighboring apartment where her friends resided for only a short time more now. “You decent?”
Tess Valenti peeked out of the bathroom. She held a hair straightener in her hand. “Am I clothed? Yes,” she replied. “Am I decent? Never.”
Maria laughed. “I brought your boxes,” she said, setting the lightweight boxes down on the living room floor. She and Michael had a ton of empty boxes stacked up in their garage from when they’d moved.
“Hey, thanks. That helps me out a lot.” Tess turned off the light in the bathroom and pranced out, looking perfect as ever. Her long blonde hair billowed behind her, and her pink halter clung to her flat stomach. Maria’s stomach wasn’t big by any means, but it hadn’t been quite that flat for awhile now.
“Did you get the girl off to daycare?” Tess inquired, inspecting the boxes.
“Oh my god, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” Maria said dramatically.
Tess gave her a skeptical look. “I thought giving birth was the hardest thing.”
“Well, besides that.” Maria sat down on the arm of the couch, amazed that Kyle and Tess still had all the same furniture they’d had when they moved in together and combined their belongings at the end of junior year. “I know she’s gonna be fine,” she said, “but I felt so bad leaving her.”
“Maria, there’s nothing wrong with pursuing your own interests.” Tess set one of the boxes down on the kitchen table and started filling it at once with pots and pans.
“But my kids are my interests.” Miley and Macy were the first thing she thought about when she woke up in the morning and usually the last thing she thought about when she fell asleep. Unless she fell asleep after a powerful orgasm, in which case she then fell asleep thinking about sex.
“But what’s that other thing you’re interested in?” Tess said. “Oh, wait, it’s on the tip of my tongue.”
Maria rolled her eyes.
“Oh, that’s right. Graduating.”
Maria grunted. “Yeah, like that’s ever gonna happen.”
“Oh, come on, you’ve only got a year left.” Tess went into the kitchen, pulled open her silverware drawer, and then literally dumped all the contents into the box. They made a terrible clanging noise. “As long as you don’t get knocked up between now and May . . . hello, Pomp and Circumstance.”
“Well, I’ve gotta survive my student teaching first.”
“That’s spring semester, right?”
Maria nodded. “Yep. And then I can be out in the real world with Michael and you guys.”
“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Tess said, folding the flaps of the box down. She stared off into space, looking thoughtful for a moment. “I miss college,” she said wistfully. “Maybe that’s why Kyle and I have held onto this apartment for so long. It’s like a reminder of the way things used to be.”
“Yeah,” Maria said. “But are things really that different?” Sure, she was a mother of two and Tess was married now, but . . . actually, things were pretty different.
“Uh, yeah,” Tess replied as though it were obvious. “For starters, 521 isn’t so much an apartment as it is a whorehouse now.”
“What?” Maria shrieked. She knew it had gone downhill, but . . . had it really gone that downhill in three years’ time?
“The new neighbors—I think there’s, like, four of them . . .”
“Four? It’s a one-bedroom.”
“I know, they have this, like, weird 70’s orgy of love thing going on.” Tess waved it off. “Whatever. Anyway, all they do is have sex, throw keg parties, and make noise. One of the reasons why Kyle and I are moving out. It just hasn’t been the same since you guys left.”
Maria had to admit, sometimes she missed apartment life. It was simpler, way less expensive. But she and Michael had decided early on that they wanted Miley and Macy to grow up in a house, not an apartment. “Well, you’ll like home-owning,” she said. “It’s nice, except for the mortgage.”
Tess grinned. “I can’t wait to christen all the rooms.”
“Definitely the best part,” Maria agreed. “Although I don’t think you’re gonna get much christening done if you don’t pick up the pace. You’ve still got a lot of packing to do.”
Tess sealed the kitchen utensils box with brown packing tape. “You could’ve brought Macy over here to help me,” she said.
“Help? She’s six months old, Tess. I don’t really envision her doing any heavy lifting.”
“No, but she could sit around and look cute while I lift.”
Maria smiled. Macy was adorable. Unlike Miley, who’d been born with a full head of hair and already had hair down past her shoulders at the age of two, Macy was practically still bald. She had bright green eyes and the cutest, most pinch-able cheeks ever. Her grandparents definitely planned to do a lot of pinching when she got older.
“Did Michael take her to work?” Tess asked.
“Yeah, he really wanted to.”
“But he’s her dad. He gets to see her every day.”
“So do you, practically,” Maria pointed out.
“That’s not the point.”
“Then tell me the point.” Maria sank down on the couch, ready to listen to gush Tess about her youngest niece. It was something she did often.
“Uh, I would if you weren’t running so late,” Tess said.
“Late?” Maria echoed.
“Yeah, it’s 9:15. Doesn’t your class start at 9:30?”
Maria leapt to her feet and glanced at the clock on the microwave. Tess was right. “What the fuck?” she shouted. She tried not to swear anymore because she didn’t want to let something slip out in front of Miley, but when she got extremely worked up about something, the words came tumbling out. “The clock in my car said it was 8:45!” she cried. “Miley must’ve set it back.” Like any curious kid, Miley liked to press buttons. This wouldn’t be the first time she’d set the clock back. “Oh my god, Tess, is it really 9:15?” Maybe this was all just a practical joke.
“Yep.”
Or maybe not. “Oh, shit, I gotta go,” she said, throwing her side-slung back over her left shoulder. “I’ll talk to you later, Tess.”
“Run fast!” her friend shouted as she scampered out the door. This first day of class was off to a bad start.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The traffic situation on campus was an absolute nightmare that day. The first day of the fall semester was always crazy like this. There were a bunch of freshman who didn’t know where the hell they were going, sophomores who’d gotten so stoned the night before that they couldn’t even see the road in front of them, and juniors and seniors who were so busy looking over the syllabi they’d printed off the night before that they almost swerved onto the sidewalk. And then there was Maria, and she was running late.
She parked haphazardly in the commuter lot, yelling at her car when the lock got stuck again and forced her to climb over the seats and out the passenger’s side door instead. She ran as fast as she could up the sidewalk outside the Rec Center to the College of Education and Human Sciences building. Her lungs burned and her muscles ached with every step. She wasn’t in shape enough for this.
It was 9:29 when she made it to the lecture auditorium. She wasn’t sure how she’d managed to make it in time. She breathed a sigh of relief, noting that the professor wasn’t even in that room yet, and looked around. It was a small class, only about thirty-five people, the vast majority of them female, but she didn’t recognize anyone. The last time she’d been in a college classroom had been over a year ago in the spring of 2011. All the people who had been in those classes with her had probably graduated by now.
She spotted an older-looking woman sitting up in the fourth row of seats. There was an empty seat to her left, so Maria decided to take it. Four years of college had taught her one thing above all else: middle-aged women were excellent students to befriend in any class. They were generally more focused, more studious, and more willing to take on a large portion of the workload if it came time to do a group project.
Maria sat down beside the woman and smiled politely. She was definitely not a spring chicken. Her hair had grey roots, and her stomach had not one but two extra tires. Maria didn’t want to judge her by her appearance, though, because she really didn’t want to be judged by her own. There had been a day when she would have prepared for the first day of class like she had for senior prom: styled hair, bedazzling make-up, and an outfit meant to stun the men. But she didn’t have time for that stuff anymore.
“First day back?” the woman asked her.
“Uh, yeah, actually.” Maria set her backpack down on the floor, suddenly panicked. “Isn’t it for everyone? Oh god, is it Tuesday? Did I miss the first day?”
“Oh, no, it’s Monday. I was just asking if it’s your first day back after . . . after an extended absence, I guess you could say.”
“Oh.” The panic receded. “How can you tell?”
“That terrified look on your face.” The woman smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry, I’m terrified, too. I dropped out of college sixteen years ago with only a semester left to go, decided I’d try to open up a bagel shop.”
Maria nodded. That was an interesting career choice to say the least, and she didn’t know of any bagel shops in Santa Fe. “How’d that work out?”
“It didn’t.” The woman shook her head. “That’s why I’m back here. I always wanted to be a kindergarten teacher. I figure, if you got a passion, go for it.”
Maria nodded. Sounded like a good philosophy to her. “Well, it hasn’t been that long for me,” she said. “I had a couple kids, took some time off, squeezed a year of school in between. It was actually my first daughter who inspired me to become a kindergarten teacher. Before that I wanted to be a . . .” She trailed off. Sex therapist had been the plan for . . . well, not for long. As fun as it sounded, she wanted to do something more meaningful. “Well, anyway, I guess I’m technically a second-year senior. But I should be able to graduate this spring.”
“Hopefully we both will,” the woman said.
“Hopefully,” Maria agreed. “I’m Maria, by the way.”
“Lucinda.” The woman shook her hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“You, too.” They fell silent for a moment as the stragglers came in. Two bleach-blonde girls sat down in the front row, chatting it up like hens. They looked like they had sorority DNA in them.
“Look at them,” Lucinda remarked, apparently eyeing the same two girls. “Early twenties. Young, energetic. Not a care in the world.” She laughed semi-bitterly. “Us old girls gotta stick together, huh?”
Maria laughed in horror, thinking she couldn’t possible have heard her right. Old? “Oh, no, I’m not . . .” She trailed off. How could anyone think she was old? “No, you didn’t mean . . .” She wasn’t even twenty-five . . . yet. “Well, when I say I have children, that doesn’t mean . . .” She let her sentence fade again. Lucinda wasn’t listening anymore, and clearly she hadn’t meant to insult Maria. Regardless, Maria looked away and whimpered. Old? Seriously? She sure hoped Miley was having a better day than she was.
TBC . . .
-April
How could you not be? You're the lead stalker and I love you for that.
(<-- I have a feeling I'm going to be using this "twisted" smilie a lot during this fic.)
Let's find one and split him in half.
if you want to listen to it. (The link should work. I'm sitting on a crappy library computer that doesn't play Youtube videos, so here's hoping.)
I hope you'll get some massive inspiration for Friendly Encounters, because I love that fic. It always puts a smile on my face. Feel free to bounce ideas off me if you need to.
