Roswell Fanatics

“You should give your mother the benefit of the doubt,” Maria was asking as JJ had called his mother into the bedroom he had been in, and therefore it was Claudia role to see Maria out of the apartment because her godmother had decided it was time to be going back home and leaving Liz to get used to being back in her childhood home, and all that it entails. “I know it is difficult for you because there is so much you do not know,” she said softly of the journal that had been discovered. “But your mother went through a lot back then, and it was not easy to leave this town behind.”

“It seems she had no problem with it,” Claudia murmured. We did not come back. “We never came back here, and Mom did even want too?”

“You do not know what happened back then, because even that book of yours does not have everything that went down,” she said because she knew how much her friend had elected to leave out after the journal went missing, and because the action in their lives had escalated, and the last thing they needed was a lasting record of it. We learned enough when we found out Topolsky was onto our scent she thought of the first agent that came their way, when we were too naïve to know better.

“Mom never talked about her old life,” Claudia muttered.

“I know she did not,” Maria sighed. “It was not an easy time for her Claudia. Therefore, you should give her some space.”

“I know I should,” Claudia muttered even though she was not feeling that urge to give her mother some space given she did not know a whole lot about her own history. “Is it not strange that she did not want to come back here and did not talk about it. I mean, she loved Grandpa and Grandma but come on, she never talked about back here. And we moved around so often, none of it made sense.”

“We all have our reasons for doing things,” Maria sighed. “It is never easy to get where we are, no matter who we are, because we had to travel down many roads to get them, and your mother had a rockier road than even I did.”

Claudia nodded.

“I am not trying to suggest that you were not given a raw deal,” Maria sighed as she wished Claudia had a more conventional childhood and growing up period. Something that had been given to her own daughter more often than not even though she, Maria had been trying to make inroads in her music career, which meant she was on the road more than she was home. And early on Lucy was on the road with her, but there came a time when she had to be gone and Lucy had to have a home base which would be Nashville, and that led Michael to take on more of the brunt. So, her daughter had a different life than Claudia, who was always moving around until she had a more stable base when she and her mother, and new little brother settled in Boston. “You did. At least you were loved by your mother, and you were safe and sound.”

Claudia nodded but sighed, yeah, we were really safe there she thought of some of those scrapes on the road. “I wish I knew more,” the teenager muttered. “I know I was, and I am not saying Mom was a horrible mother because she was there, and she loved me. But my life has been unconventional.” to say the least.

“And I know the last year has not been easy on you,” Maria muttered with a deep sigh with memories of that dreaded pandemic, which had gone had impacted all of their lives, and given them all a ride.

Even if health wise, we have managed to skate by. She did not even know if her precious Space boy would have been immune if he had been stricken, if any of them, even with their good health but fortunately, we never needed to know.

Claudia nodded.

“So, yeah, it has not been easy, but your mother is trying, and you should not be hard on her until you know more…” Maria said as she walked to the door and looked around and it was blast to be back in a place that had defined her childhood, and even her teenage years. So much had been different, and now she was back in the beginning as she hugged her goddaughter who was looking way too grown up these days and knew that Claudia was embarking on a very different life than her mother and godmother faced once upon a time.

Thankfully Maria sighed, because she wanted it to all be so much easier than it was for her and Liz back in those days. She did not want Claudia or her own daughter Lucy to have to deal with those nightmares.

Claudia knew her godmother was somewhere, so she brought her back to the land of reality by asking a simple question. “Did my parents really love each other?”

“Intensely,” Maria muttered automatically as she sighed because the love, she knew her best friend had for her ex-husband was huge, and life defining.

And still there, even if Liz would fight hard to admit it.

Claudia was wary of the confirmation. Even though she had wanted her godmother to say yes, it does not seem real to me. “Then why did she leave him?” Claudia muttered. “If she loved him that much, why leave?”

“You will have to ask your mother that because she is the only person who can tell you that,” Maria sighed because she did not want to be telling her goddaughter, the whole sordid mess. It is not my place to tell Claudia what she needed or did not need to know. “Just know that day at the Crashdown, or downstairs I guess it is, now, well, that day, it changed both of our lives, and we were never the same. That goes for both your mother and father and what your mother did feel for your father was very real, and truly important to her. Claudia, I was there sure, but your mother is the only one who can tell you why, she left.”

Claudia nodded and walked down the stairs with her godmother and walked her to the back door and both women looked at the oldness of the old Crashdown and knew there was so much different than what was in these walls back in the late 90’s, and early new millennium.

She wondered what would happen now as she walked back inside and watched as her mother was coming out of her bedroom where she had been tending to her little brother, and Claudia knew that a lot was different for her mother, and that this apartment was small. She did not know how they were going to manage it.

“Aunt Maria left,” Claudia muttered.

Liz nodded.

“JJ?” Claudia asked.

“Sleeping,” Liz said softly. “I will let him sleep until it’s time for us to go to bed,” she sighed as it had been a long day, and a long couple of weeks since they started the drive across the country from their old home. She had wanted to make it a trip, and not a race and really, she had no idea what she would find when she arrived in her hometown.

She knew she was getting everything she knew would eventually come, she just did not expect it on day number one.

“Do you want help, getting the couch ready?” Claudia asked.

“I can handle it,” Liz said with a softness that indicated the teen’s mother was tired. “You can turn in if you want?”

Claudia nodded as she knew they both were not discussing what was needed, the journal and the past she thought but she knew she did not want to get into it tonight with her mother for fear of a bigger battle that they were not ready for and was not appropriate for the beginning of this newest adventure. “Can I keep your diary?”

“Journal,” Liz said softly.

“Is there any difference?” Claudia asked, knowing there really was not.

“It felt more scientific for me,” Liz sighed. Knowing that at one time she had dreams of being a scientist, and the Liz she had been before the alien invasion of ’99 would not have rested until reached her goals, but so much changed downstairs on that September day. When Max saved my life.

“Why record any of it?” Claudia asked.

“I did not know enough not to until I was too far down the road and then I became more selective with what I put in there,” Liz murmured. “Still, it was a place to put down my thoughts of what I was experiencing. I needed to tell someone. And I could only talk to Maria about it, and no one else, so writing about it became a way to express it.”

“So, I guess that is your way of also telling me that I am not going to know what I really want to know, from reading your diary, excuse me, journal?” Claudia murmured.

“There is enough there,” Liz murmured. “Everything changed in an instant.”

“Because my dad saved your life?” Claudia asked.

“Yes,” Liz said softly. “I would have died that day,” she muttered with the knowledge of so much that would change because of that one event. “It is a long difficult path,” she sighed “We can get into it another time.”

A brush off Claudia thought, “Fine,” she said with a mutter and turned and walked through the door of her new bedroom.

Leaving Liz to sigh.




“It is all set up,” Max said as he stepped back after spending the past hour focusing on helping his best friend move into his new house. And putting aside his own concerns and worries and focused on something that did not make him think of the woman he loved or his now teenage daughter, someone who he did not even know but was now back in town. Entertaining them was a very loud sounds that was coming from Lucy’s bedroom because she had her music on much too loud and gave him memories of his own childhood when he would shut into his bedroom and listen to his music on loop because he was trying to escape from thinking of the brunette girl who was a vision for him, and who was not giving him the time of day.

Until that all changed.

Now he was focused on something that did not have anything to do with Liz or Claudia, and it was helping his brother in arms. My brother in every way but blood he thought as Michael was settling back in Roswell after being away from it for so long.

“A lot of stuff still needs to be unpacked,” Max muttered.

“At least we are starting,” Michael nodded. “Thank you for coming over and helping, as they were preparing to go upstairs, and work on the upstairs and especially on the master bedroom and Lucy’s bedroom. Which was only superficially set up. “You have to start somewhere first.”

“Yes, you do” Max said softly as they prepared to head upstairs when the door burst open, “Home sweet home, I could use some loving after the angst I have been living with all night,” came Maria until stopped and saw Max. “Oh. Max…”

Oh, right is right Maria muttered as she saw her husband’s best friend staring at her. Which was the last thing she needed after spending several hours dealing with the other side of the dysfunctions of their life was more…

“Maria,” Max said softly as he stared at the love of his best friend’s life. The only one for Michael Guerin, and the one who had surprised his friend. Maria had been someone his friend had not seen coming, and to be honest Max would not have seen her coming even though they had parked themselves, or I did Max thought of the day after day routine of sitting in the Crashdown and watching a certain brunette waitress ever so endlessly. While her blonde, free spirit of a best friend was also there, and there had been no indication of what would happen in the wake of that September day when everything changed.

Because everything changed.

And at the end of the journey, his best friend got what he never thought was possible.

A family, and a home.

While Max watched as everything walked away from him. “Michael said you were out,” Max said as Maria had already been gone when he arrived. So, he had figured she was visiting her mother or a friend for something in relation to the move. But now he figured out where she had been, of course, she would seek out Liz, he would now think.

Why would I think anything else?

“I was visiting a friend,” was all Maria was going to say because it was easier to leave it simple. But she knew Max knew and knew it would not be left alone.

“Liz?” Max asked.

It was foolish to lie, and so Maria did not. “Right,” and she left it at that.

“How is she?” Max said because of course he could not help himself. Which is often the case with my ex-wife, even when she was hundreds of miles away from here.

“You know as well as I do,” Maria said softly. “I know you saw her earlier?”

“But we did not talk,” Max said softly as he cursed the inability to have been able to talk to his ex-wife. “All I did was see my daughter, Claudia…” he muttered as if it was a reminder that he had more of a link to Liz than once upon a time-sharing vow, and that they would never truly be apart even when they were or the fact, he had not had a role in raising his daughter, at least I knew I had a daughter.

Maria nodded because she knew how complicated it was for her best friend.

And again, was thankfully she had not been fated to have that kind of life with her own Space boy, because she and Michael had been to raise their daughter together?

Which was something that Max and Liz had not been able to do.

Although Maria knew, if Max had any say, they would have…

But it was Liz’s decision to walk away, and Max had allowed her too…

Without pitching a fight.

“Which is why Claudia is all up in arms with what she does not know of her life,” Maria muttered ever so softly, and of course Max caught it, and perked up at that, and Maria knew trouble was on the horizon. “Leave them alone Max.”

“I have left them alone for almost eighteen years, and therefore I have not known the one child I have…” Max muttered ever so forcefully, which was a change and something that Maria had not heard from her husband’s best friend, and her former friend. Because they had been friends once upon a time. Ever so briefly, back in high school as they were mutually mourning the loss of some important relationships in their life.

When it was over, almost as soon as it began Maria thought of those early days with Michael. When they had everything on the cusp, but it did not work out and would not work out until it did, and Max was on the outs again because Liz had for the first time walked away from her, and he could not handle so he and Maria had formed some kind of bond. And while there was no breaking of that bond over time, it was obvious Maria knew more about his ex-wife, and he knew she had orders not to tell him, and therefore time would mean they were not that close anymore.

And it helped that Michael and Maria had settled elsewhere, until now, because they are back.

At the same time as Liz and our daughter.

Is that a coincidence? Max wondered now. He did not know, and Maria nodded because she knew the rough deal Max had been given, and how her best friend did not know everything Max did about the past. And eventually she knew it would come out, whether they wanted it too or not.

“I know you have not been able to know your daughter,” Maria muttered. “But both Claudia and Liz are newly back, and neither of them need the complications of the past mixing in with their attempts at trying to create a new life for themselves.”

“Why is she even back here?” Max asked. Was she not successful in moving on from me? he wondered. All these years she was gone, so I always assumed that she was able to do something that I have not been able to do.

“She needed a fresh start,” was all Maria was trying to say despite Max’s obvious attempts to ferret out more information about his ex-wife.

The only woman he would ever love.

Interesting Max muttered. “Why?”

“It does not matter,” Maria sighed and knew she was weakening and knew that Michael was sitting on the sidelines while his friend was dueling with his wife over information, “She is back in town, and she is trying to put together a new life.”

Max nodded.

“Claudia returned to figure out the next part of her life, as she is facing graduation” Maria murmured, and she knew she was willing to give information about the man’s daughter. Because she did know Max had gotten a raw deal, and she never really understood Liz’s desire to walk away and keep Claudia away from Roswell, and from Max.

Knowingly.

Liz always said, it is the way it has to be, I cannot stay in touch, she muttered and went off on her way, and on the road.

So, Claudia grew up not knowing her father, and she was facing her high school graduation after a challenging eighteen months.

Claudia Diane Evans Max muttered as he could not help but think of his only child. A child he had only seen today for the first time since she was a tiny baby. While he knew he might have learned to compartmentalize the loss over time, so that he did not destroy himself with mourning the loss of such a big part of his life.

But still, it did not mean he was accepting of it. And now he knew his daughter was back in town, and he did not know much about her, nothing at all he thought of how little he knew of his daughter. And the acknowledgement that his daughter was approaching graduation from high school, a time I have missed in its entirely. “She’s graduating?”

“Yes, after spending most of the last year on-line, and especially these last five months since she went to live with her grandparents in Arizona,” Maria said and stopped because she could see a dark frown had descended onto Max’s face and she wondered if she should have spilled that little tidbit. Because of how sensitive the whole situation was for them, and while Max had been good about it, still, it had to hurt, and after all, none of them knew how to traverse the new reality of their lives.

And Max did not know what to say, without saying something he knew he would regret, and Michael knew it was likely going to be trouble on the horizon because he rarely saw the expression on his best friend, even in the worst of times once he lost his wife and daughter.

“Well, is that not nice that she got to know her grandparents” Max muttered a little snidely, which was unusual for him because he usually was able to handle it with ease, mostly he thought, and Michael knew. That did not mean the dark thoughts did not come into play occasionally.

“Max,” Maria murmured.

“No,” Max muttered. “Because that is good that she got to know at least two of her grandparents when my parents do not even know their first-born grandchild,” Max muttered with the acknowledgement of the fact that Isabel now was a mother to her own children. “Because after all, my mother died not having met her granddaughter, her namesake.”

Well...Max isn't happy...things might get nasty.

“My mother died not having met her granddaughter,” was what Max had playing in his mind as he tossed I miss you Mom he told himself as he had tossed and turned during the night as Max had not waited when he wanted to get out of the Guerin after the reminder hit him of the fact, he, and his family had not had the curtesy of having Claudia in their life, in whatever form that would have been possible. But he also knew he was tossing and turning because he had allowed it to happen. Because he had allowed his wife to take his daughter, and leave him and not return to their town, when he had come back soon after, and there was so much he did not know as the conversation deteriorated with those words to Maria, and Max knew he wanted to get home, and walking back into his home.

The one he shared with his father made it all the more pronounce the state of his life, or the fact he did not know his daughter. Isabel was gone. And his father fortunately had turned in for the night, which was good because Max did not have the strength to deal with his father’s insinuations or the fact that his father was a mess.

Walking into his house, and knowing it was dark, Max had almost been tempted to drink something, more than a little something because he missed his mother. The fact his father was unraveling had shown why it was important to Max to keep on the right pathway of life. And not to follow his father, even though he missed his mother.

She was taken too early, and they missed her too much. And the fact Claudia Diane did not know her grandmother in time dug at him as he took a single beer from the refrigerator because his sister stocked up the supply even though both of them wanted their father to quit it, but it would not be good to go cold turkey, so there was always a supply, which was something Max knew not to partake in because he had long learned his limits when it came to alcohol.

Nothing had repeated like it did in Sophomore year as he walked up to his bedroom and looked at the old picture of his wife.

Of their wedding day.

And the baby picture of Claudia. Someone who was now fully grown and was eighteen years from that picture, and he took a sip, and felt himself wishing so much could be different. That his wife had not left him, taking their daughter with her, and that his mother could still be around. And now his daughter was back in town.

And he did not know her, and so he was beyond tired as his eyes woke up the next morning, even though his tolerance for the substance had grown with time, still, he felt weary and hungover. And he wondered what the day would bring.

As he looked at himself in the mirror and did not know what he was seeing.

I have to pull myself together, he told himself.

Getting dressed, he saw his father’s door was still closed, and he did not want to open the pandora box that was confronting his father, so he went downstairs.

And was shocked to see someone in the kitchen, someone he did not expect.

“What are you doing here?” Max stammered.

“I am wondering why in the hell did you let my mother walk away from you, and take me with her…” Claudia Diane Evans asked as she sat at the table…

Yeah Max, why did you?






Liz overslept because she had also tossed and turned most of the night. And unlike Max, it had been nearly dawn, before she did fall asleep, and now as a result she woke up in her new room. Unprepared for the weight that the dawn of the day but knowing he needed to get up and go because this was the first real day as a new resident of her childhood home and having to figure out how to make a go of it.

And thinking of her children once she looked at the alarm clock, and winced at the time and got up, and walked out into the main part of the apartment and heard the television going, and saw her son on the couch, eating cereal while watching television.

Better than a computer screen she thought as she knew the last year had taken a toll on her bright and mischievous son, Claudia acclimatized better to studies via the computer screen she muttered to herself, while it was more of a challenge for JJ which is why she had decided to make this latest change to her life, and her career. And why she had upped and changed it all for the three of them and come home.

Home Liz thought as she looked around the apartment in the light of day with sunlight now coming through the windows.

Am I home? Liz wondered. It feels like home, but Mom and Dad are not here she thought of her parents who were now residents of a retirement community in Arizona. And she was planning on taking over the restaurant, assuming she could decide on what to do with it. Because she fully knew this was a life-changing change for her.

One she never saw coming because she had other plans for herself once upon a time.

Now she was a mid-life career change. One that was a complete departure from what she had done before, even if she had been a waitress once upon a time.

As she now saw JJ.

My son. She thought of the little baby that had come into her life, surprising her, and completing her family with Claudia. Once she allowed herself and Claudia to settle in one place for longer than a few months.

Claudia, she thought of her adult daughter. Eighteen, where did the time go?

But there was no Claudia this morning, perfect she thought as the apartment was too small for her daughter to be missing in action, so had no idea where her daughter was, and that was about right when she opened Claudia’s door, and found the bedroom empty, and the window opened. Yeah, this is about right she told herself as she closed the door, and she turned off the television, and JJ started to protest. “The table,” was all she said.

“It is still a mess,” JJ muttered as he got up with his bowl and went and sat down in a chair, and Liz just sighed and picked up the orange juice and put it in front of her son.

“Then make room,” Liz muttered. “This is your home now.”

“I do not even have a bedroom,” JJ muttered. Not that we did not have apartments before, but nothing that did not have my own bedroom, he told himself. “Why could I not room with Claudia until she goes off to university?” he muttered, assuming that is what she wants to do instead of heading off to be with Archie. “And then take over her room?”

Not on your life Liz thought at the thought of a window and balcony that was just calling out for her growing son to be make use of once he was older, and when he was not my little boy anymore she muttered because just like her daughter, JJ was all too grown up but fortunately he was only 10 years old, and therefore she had a lot more years before she stood to lose him because she knew Claudia could go off on her own at any time now that she was eighteen because I did.

I was married at eighteen, she told herself. I was out of my parent’s home for many different reasons.

And she did not want that for her daughter, nor her son.

I want a different life for them, Liz told herself. “We will figure that out, but that is Claudia’s room, and the last thing she will want to do is share it.”

“We have shared a room before,” JJ muttered.

“I know you did, but you were a baby then” Liz said of the some of the creative homes they had stayed in over time, when there was a brief hiccup in her plan to settle in one place and raise her kids in the sanity of reliable routines. Not always on the run, she muttered.

The kids did not know we were on the run, Liz told herself. We were not on the run she corrected herself, close but not completely. Although to her family and friends it probably did but she did not know for sure what they thought because she had not allowed them to stay close to her until she did.

And then Max was the exception, and now she felt guilty for keeping their daughter away from her father, but I had no other choice she told herself, maybe in the beginning but there came a time… she muttered as she looked at her new residence.

Her family home, so could she make it something that did not have memories of for so many years in the past and make it current.

I hope so she told herself because I do not have any other choice “Mom,” came JJ as he saw that his mother was once again zoning out, like she was in a trance or something, in the past more than likely, but JJ would not know it.

“Yes,” Liz said quickly coming back to reality. My reality.

“My bedroom?” JJ asked.

“I am working on it,” Liz said simply I have responsibilities, I have to make this work she told herself as she walked to the fridge and got some eggs out of the fridge, and dumped them into a fry pan, and knew she had changed everything for the sake of her sanity, and for her children, and it was hard to go back “Do you know where your sister is?”

“No,” JJ shook his head. “Probably off with Lucy, or something” he thought because he knew his big sister had a completely different life today than she did when she lived with his mother and him, and it was weird when she was not living with them, but he had gotten used to it because Claudia was planning on heading off to university anyways, and he would have to get used to her not being around.

Then Claudia had to drop the bomb on their mother, before Christmas, I am not going to university, his sister had announced. I did not even apply came the bombshell. Which was a lie, it would be learned.

Still that pronouncement did not go over particularly well with his mother, Liz. Who at one time was herself the studious overachiever who had compromised her own dreams, and ambitions because of love and even thought she had gotten a degree at prestige’s universities in their own right, still, it was not the same as what she once dreamt for herself, and therefore she had dreams for Claudia, and it seemed like her daughter was heading for those dreams, with dreams of her own? She was going places, Liz thought. Places I could not go. Even though Claudia had not settled on anything of any interest yet, unlike her mother who always had a passion for science.

So, for the announcement to come and for Claudia to be so determined not to follow their mother’s wishes, things became tense between mother and daughter as Claudia insisted on wanting to go where Archie was working and spend time with him. Which was Colorado and its mountains. Hearing that, Liz had a fit.

And a visit to their grandparents for the holidays did not make things better as fault lines were there and opening with the amount of time they were spending together, so at the end of it, Claudia ended up staying with her grandparents at Christmas, which led her to never coming home until now.

And it was not our old home JJ thought.

Because they were now in a new location, and it was a new life with a compromise being made between mother and daughter that Claudia would take the year off, but she would be going to university. Where? It would be Claudia’s choice. And her daughter did admit that her grandfather had read her the riot act and implored her to apply to university, and so she did to please him, with the intention of not going and plus, she figured it was too late to get in, but she was wrong, and got in, but she deferred the acceptance to NYU. Liz had not been happy, but she had to bite her tongue when her daughter said she was planning to defer for a year. And she did not even know if she wanted to go.

At least Claudia would be furthering her education, somewhere, come the fall of 2022, hopefully Liz muttered to herself, hopefully nothing else will come out of the woodwork to delay that for my daughter.

Somehow, she was determined that her daughter would figure out her future.

Claudia was too rootless these days, Liz would muse. Unlike me, who had roots, and plans only for them to go by the wayside she thought. Claudia was different. She grew up on the road, and she did not have a home to call home until Boston, and even then, I yanked it away from her… No wonder she is having second thoughts about furthering her education.

And because of that, Liz was looking at the new life she had created for herself, and for her children. She needed to figure something permanent out. This needed to stick. As she looked at her son, “We will make it work,” Liz said again as there was a knock on the door, and she rushed to it, hoping it was Claudia returning home and knowing that Liz had not had the keys changed yet, and she did not know if her daughter had one or not. After all, she disappeared on me. But she used her escape route in her bedroom.

One that Liz knew, well.

“Oh,” Liz said softly as she did not see her daughter. “Kyle,” she said with a smile at her ex-boyfriend, someone she had not seen in a long time. “I was hoping it was Claudia.”

“You have misplaced your daughter?” Kyle asked with good humor, as a teenage boy stood next to him. “All I can say to that is, you had to return to Roswell did you not?” he asked with a laugh and Liz’s frown because Kyle knew that his former girlfriend had to rethink her decision. “You had called and wanted to meet today, right?”

“Right, I did” Liz said softly as she knew she could not think of where her daughter was, when she had other issues to deal with, Claudia is an adult.

I have to accept that…

But would she be able too?

That was the question, and so much more….




Claudia Diane Evans sure hoped her mother would not react negatively because she knew she was taking a chance when she woke up too early, getting used to a new room, and new bed she thought of and with JJ still asleep on the couch. Claudia could not do much without waking her baby brother up and knew her brother was at already a disadvantage until he had a room to call his own while she had a big one, with an easy out, so she did not want to wake him up, and given also her mother was still in her own room. So, naturally Claudia got to thinking and she was restless and therefore she started to itch to get out of the apartment. After all, she was not used to be held in one place.

She had developed a routine of wandering, because you could only stay in a retirement community villa for so long and therefore it was a morning routine for her almost to start walking, even though she did not have a set route. You find different spots this way, and she did not know this town.

Even though her grandparents did, and her mother did.

She also knew her father was in this town. But she did not know where, so she put her mother’ journal in her bag, and she went for a walk. And found herself sitting in the park as the sunlight of the early morning descended on the town, “It was a beautiful town, a bit small for my liking” she thought after growing up all over the country, and especially in New York and Boston. But it was also only the beginning. So, much time to go…

And she got to reading, and even though there were a lot of empty spaces in the book, and she imagined why her mother had not filled those pages and written plenty on the other pages. And the impression she was getting from the book was one of confusion, why did Mom even leave my father? Claudia muttered.

The answer was not on the pages of the book.

They were a mystery to most everyone who knew Max and Liz, and their daughter was especially curious given she paid for the fact that her parents split up when so young, and the acknowledgement this book really only covered those pivotal years in high school. And therefore, there was probably a good reason why she did not know why her parents had split up, because if you believe these pages she read, you saw how in love Mom and Dad were in those days she thought.

Even the acknowledgement of her father’s dalliance with someone else did not stop the love her mother had for her father; it all makes no sense.

Although do I have a sibling? Claudia wondered. I have JJ but I do have a half sibling, by blood? She asked herself. The answers were murky in a book with so many blank pages. And therefore, she needed answers, and so she got up, and went walking, and checking her phone for her father’s address. She found it, and then found herself at said address, and she made her way inside.

Her way, and she had looked around the house. Seen the family pictures, but also the decay of age of the lack of wanting to do anything about it, and she made it into the kitchen, and made herself at home. Because she knew the risk she was taking because she was not used to being in places that she was not expected, yet she had this urge to be here, and now she was looking at her biological father, who was looking at her shocked, and maybe a little hungover.

I know what it means to be hungover Claudia thought. She was largely good, but she knew how to party. But she largely left the substance alone because she had no idea if she could do it because the little her mother had talked about her true self or how alcohol might not be her greatest friend and to be careful with it when she was grown up.

Sure, I still do not know much about that side of my life Claudia muttered to herself, but anyways she knew how to see how someone could be, if they drank too much, and now she was seeing her biological father in a different way.

She had said what she had said, I am wondering why you in hell would let my mother leave you and take me with her.

And now her father was stammering at her.

It was a different look for him, although he had been close to it the day before when they had seen each other for the first time.

“How did you get in here?” Max was asking his daughter. As he was amazed that she was even in the house. Of course, he was elated that she was. But still, it amazed him to see her, when he looked so much like her mother did at eighteen.

And maybe a little like me but he did not really see it.

“How do you think I got in?” Claudia asked. “These days I find that I am little too much like you, my father” she murmured as a quick glance of green came out of her hand, as her father’s confused faced turned into a frown, “Or as Mom tends to tell me when we talk about you, and we rarely do,” she sighed. “Although I did try the old fashion way, but when that would not work.”

What am I going to say? Max muttered to himself. To that or that other thing…

“Nothing?” Claudia murmured.

“What am I supposed to say?” Max muttered as suddenly he was getting an awakening that no hangover cure could help with, there is nothing like sudden fatherhood. Even though he had known it was there in his history, he was just never activated until now. As she was forced to think of how he had reinforced the locks, to the point that you needed an especially coded key to get into the house because there was so much in the walls, and in the attic.

In a power enforced safe.

You have to be careful Max thought Although a second location, being their trusty old safety deposit box also helps, he thought of the box he, Isabel and Michael had gotten together back in high school and that they have kept going all these years, but still, there was certain artifacts in these walls.

Because we cannot risk having to go to a bank and opening up a box.

And now he was looking at his daughter, all grown up. And so different from the baby he last remembered holding before watching his wife driving away with his daughter in the baby seat. Never to see her again, until now. And Claudia was looking at her father with a cross of amusement and curiosity, “I was only wondering if you would try to be the one in trying to tell me crime is never the answer?” Claudia asked, although if anything in Mom’s journal is correct then maybe Mom and Dad know a little about how crime comes into one’s lives, whether you look for it or not, and in their case, they went for it.

I would be a hypocrite if I tried Max sputtered and said as much out loud.

“I thought so,” Claudia sighed.

“Why are you here?” Max almost whispered.

“Can’t a girl come and visit her father,” Claudia said with confidence about her that was totally opposite of both of her parents, who were way more cautious than obviously their daughter was. Given that both Max and Liz liked to operate by operation of a plan, and that seemed like a foreign concept to Claudia who just acted and lived with the consequences later.

“Um,” Max murmured. Unsure of what to say because this had been such a shock. I almost want to be dealing with my father because I can deal with him.

Because I have had practice Max would mutter to himself.

It is not every day you have your grown daughter in your kitchen. “I know what you want to say,” Claudia said with a sly smile. “You will want to start with that we do not know each other, and that you are my father in my blood only, because you have not been there for me during any of these last eighteen years?”

Almost Max murmured to himself, knowing full well he could not utter those words since so much was new. So, he stammered and was in a state of shock. And Claudia laughed, “I know the feeling,” she muttered. “I had this urge to seek you out. Why, I have no idea.” she thought. Maybe that shrink Archie told me to find she muttered to herself. You wonder why I chose here over the mountains and my hunky boyfriend.

Although there was no trouble in paradise. Because Archie will be there waiting when I am finished with this place.

Because the last place I am sticking, is here…

I have a year to be fancy free before the crushing disappointment of figuring out my future.

Again, Max did not know what to say.

Claudia was thinking it was a pattern because she had not known what to expect. She had taken a chance to come here, and she did not know what she wanted to have happened because she had come here, and she knew that she was surprising her father.

She was playing a hunch.

After reading her mother’s journal, she had felt this urge, and now she was here. Still though, she wanted answers. “So, to get me back to what I originally was asking, why did you let Mom take me away from you?” Claudia asked. “Did you not love us?”

“Of course, I loved you guys,” Max murmured as the question hit him right there in the stomach. I just was never given a chance to show it he sighed to himself as he stared at the woman that was now his daughter, with the knowledge of so much missing time. “I have never stopped loving you, or your mother, I just was not given the chance too” he muttered. Your mother stopped loving me.

“Then why did you let Mom walk away from you?” Claudia murmured.

And take me…

Looks like Max..Liz and Claudia are going to have a conversation and an explanation.
Thanks for the update

Why? Max was still there minutes later, still struggling to answer the question. Why did I allow it? Yes, why had he allowed Liz to leave him and take Claudia with her without any custody arrangement. Max knew the answer but did not know if his daughter would be satisfied. You have got to be safe. And I knew you would be safer out there with your mother, than with me. Max told himself because that really was at the heart of it. Max had been worried about the danger. Even with it calming down with each day. Still, we were in that small town for a reason he thought of the little cove he and Liz had settled in while the others had gone their individualistic ways. And knowing how they were safe. We could have come back. Still, Max knew they had not come home yet even though the road was clearer than it was back before their daughter was born, when they were forced on the road in the wake of Tess’s betrayal and the government’s discovery of their identities and what they could do. Or their assumptions, because all it was assumptions that we have to be bad people Max muttered to himself.

Not a lot has changed in two decades, he muttered to himself as he stared at shiny light of the new future. Someone who was young, and someone who did not know the battles her parents had to go to even try to be together.

We had to run Max thought. And even though we tried, we did think there that we could handle whatever we would find ourselves.

But we could not.

Not really. Although for a time there, I believed we had won.

And especially when they were alone on the road, and when things calmed down and Michael and Maria had left to eventually settle in Tennessee and Isabel had come back to Roswell after a pit stop in Boston to find out her marriage definitely could not be fixed, so a divorce was in the offering. It had only been him and his wife.

And then the baby came, and suddenly it became real, and they did not know to handle it. And before long, despite their passionate displays at night. Sunlight brought a host of other issues and finally Liz had said the dreaded words to him, “I cannot do this anymore.”

“Why not?” Max had asked.

“It is too much for me,” Liz would say, and Max knew it was more. It has to be more, and he felt the anguish in his wife’s tone and voice. “You are asking too much of me.”

“What am I asking of you?” Max remembered asking, mystifying him, why this was coming because everything had been good between them. As much as you could have a functioning marriage on the road, when you are feeling from the federal government whose only mission was to catch you, test you and maybe exterminate you.

Although Liz might have been facing a different fate if they had been caught, it was not much of a different fate for her unfortunately he thought now but fortunately they had been lucky. They had escaped it, and back home the bad people were exposed for their dubious motives and brought down, and therefore the road was clearer. Which allowed Michael and Maria to go off together and settle down in Nashville, choosing not to return to Roswell because Maria had wanted to try for her dreams. And Michael had wanted that for his wife after watching her sacrifice so much to run off with him.

Sacrifice, he thought. Or he thought he knew…

While Isabel had gone to save her marriage, and when that was not possible, she would come back to their old home. Home Max thought as they were discussing the fate of their marriage. “If you want to go home. Back to Roswell then I am open to that, because I want our parents to meet Claudia?” he asked of their newborn daughter, only was only a few months old and was sleeping in a crib that he had crafted for their child.

“No,” Liz shook her head as if she thought about that, but knew it was not going to work, and now was uncertain about something. From her side of it. She knew this was a shock to her husband because there had been so doubts prior to this about how invested she was, because she had been happy, I am happy she told herself but continued to on, as she looked down at a pocket, and a message waiting on her phone. And knew what it said as she told herself, but you have to do this Liz. You have to blow up your marriage.

So, now she looked at her husband and said the words that she knew would destroy him…

“It is too much. Everything,” Liz was asking. “Max, you are asking too much of me.”

“What am I asking? Max asked as he was confused by her words “If I am asking anything of you, then it is not a lot. All I am asking of you is to be with me because you are my everything. I am nothing without you.”

“That is just it. You are asking too much of me,” Liz muttered even though if it was yesterday or last year, she might have melted at the words about how she was his everything, which is something she did know but that was not enough today, it cannot be. She had to stand and tear out her husband’s heart. “Do you know what it is like to be someone’s everything?” Liz whispered, knowing the dagger she was using. “I thought I could do this,” Liz was saying and could see the tears almost forming in her husband’s eyes. And she hated to be the cause of it. “Because Max, when we got back together back prior to graduation, I thought the road would be clear but then everything changed once Tess and your baby happened, and even though the adoption happened, and we had a clear road, but that clear road was no longer clear. Because I could not go off to school. We had to run. And while the adrenaline, and that diamond fueled me for a while, but it slowly has died off, but then I became pregnant, and I felt I had to stay for the sake of our child.”

She is not happy. Max was thinking as Liz continued to destroy him. “But then our daughter was born, and I see in her eyes the truth of what it means to be with you, and I cannot do it anymore.”

Liz was aware of what she was doing to the man she loved, and the marriage she had wanted, and she had taken the vows with all the love she could manage at the time. She was nuking her marriage, breaking her husband’s heart. Saying that he was too different. And he was hurting her by allowing her to stay with him.

Then she gave the final knife wound to her husband, “I do not want Claudia to grow up in this life.”

That did it, and Max looked defeated as Liz continued to destroy everything they had together. “You asked me to give up everything for you, and I do not want that to be Claudia’s view of life or us.”

“I did not ask you to give up anything,” Max was saying. “You could have had anything you wanted.”

“But you would not have been there. I know I made the choices I made. I take it all on me and know I could have a different road if I really wanted it but maybe now, I am finally waking up. Because the adrenaline is off, and I finally can see what I gave up in being with you,” Liz murmured. “I had a dream once. And being with you changed that for me.”

We are all different Max wanted to say. We all had a dream once. Wanting to ignore for a minute that the only dream he really ever had was to have Liz in my life, and I got that dream he muttered to himself. “Everything changed for all of us.”

But Liz did not allow her to try to console her, as she continued to lash out, “I am different because of you. You have changed me.” she uttered, and the tears did start to come to her husband, but she could not stop herself, because she needed to do this for her sake, if not for her daughter’s sake. She wished she did not have to say these words, but she had no choice. Because she knew the many fears her husband had because of that September day. She knew Max felt a lot of guilt, and here she was sticking a knife into him.

“I did not know what I was doing,” Max whispered with tears coming to his eyes, and it was too searing difficult to bear for Liz. “I acted because you would have died.”

“I am grateful that I am alive. But you asked me to leave my family and friends. Every friend that I had with the exception of Maria. And that only did not happen because she also happened to fall in love with one of you,” she said softly. “Max, being with you, it forced me to break off from everything I knew. I am no longer the girl I was dreaming I could be at fifteen. I am not a scientist. My parents do not even know where I am, and they have yet to meet their granddaughter. Being with you has forced me to take on an alias, and to be different than who I wanted myself to be.”

“You could have said no?”

“But then I would have been harmed because of you,” Liz whispered as if everything she resented about the situation but did not want to say was finally coming out. And she did not have any other choice but to say the words that she would devastate the man she loved. “I would have had to walk away from my life because of you. I could not have stayed in Roswell after all that havoc. Eyes would be on me, questioning my every move. All because of you. We might live elsewhere, but I cannot allow Claudia to live in this life anymore. To fear that someone might see that she is different and report her to someone who we are hiding from,” she sighed as tears came to her eyes. “Max, I want her to be normal.”

“I want her to be normal too. And she might be, for all we know” Max argued. “We do not know how she will be one day. She is only three months old,” he said softly as he glanced over at his daughter, only months old, and the apple of his eye. And then he looked back at his wife. And the regret was soaring in him. “I am sorry for doing this to you. I thought you knew how much I loved you. You are my everything Liz and I mean it. I saw you in third grade and knew you were the one. You are the reason I risked everything for Michael, Isabel, and I.”

“I know…” Liz murmured. Which makes me a hypocrite she was thinking.

“Maybe this is postpartum or something,” Max asked trying to find a way to explain this so that he did not have to lose everything…

“So, the only reason I am telling you this is because I have to be irrational and acting out?” Liz demanded in a singing accusation. “I could not possibly be thinking of any of this of my own mind?” she muttered. “Of my own free will?”

“No,” Max said softly. Even though he wanted to say yes. “But it has been a hard year for all of us. I know how much you have had to give up. Don’t think I am not grateful that you were able to be with me, but I know how it has been extremely stressful and then of course Claudia came quicker than we would have imagined, and it has been a big adjustment for both of us. Maybe if we just settle down?”

“No,” Liz murmured. “It not going to change anything. If we wait a week, or ten weeks. I have thought this through, and I think it is time we end this before too much is said, and we resent each other”

“It sounds like you already resent me?” Max asked.

No, Liz was saying to herself. I love you. But she could not say that. “I do not resent you, but I think we need to look at what is best, not for ourselves but for our daughter. Because Claudia deserves to grow up in a happy household. Not one that has resentment and danger in it. She needs to strive for her owns dreams and not think that that with every move, she could be risking everything.”

“So, you want to leave me and take Claudia?” Max asked.

“Yes,” Liz nodded. “She’s a baby. She needs me.”

“I know she does,” Max said. “Maybe she needs me too,” he muttered and knew this was too much. He could see how certain his wife was, and since he knew she liked to plan, then obviously this was something she had been planning for a while. Nothing he could say would stop her. “If you want to go. Fine, I want both of you to be happy and healthy. If you think being with me is too disruptive and draining, then fine go and leave. You deserve to be everything you ever wanted to be, when obviously it was not to be my wife.”

And things in a flash had gone from there and within twenty-four hours, Max watched as his wife and daughter drove away from him, and now eighteen years later, his daughter was back wanting to know why he had so easily watched them go off.

“I loved you both,” Max said softly as Claudia could see that her father was coming back after zoning out there for a couple of minutes. Mom did the same thing she muttered to herself, and she found it disconcerting to see it happen in her own father, like it was a family trait she muttered to herself as she herself came back to reality of the conversation.

“You let us walk away, or let Mom carry me away,” Claudia muttered. “Why, if you loved us so much?”

“You mother wanted it to be that way,” Max said. “And I wanted the both of you to be happy and to be safe,” he muttered as he had been long regretting it even though he knew that if he could go back to that day when he watched his wife destroy their marriage with her words, and reenforce every one of his fears that one day she would see that being with me way too dangerous he thought. I warned her in the beginning, but you do not know until you see it for yourself, he told himself. And finally, it became too much.

“Why did you let her take me?” Claudia asked.

“She did not want to be in my life anymore, and to expose you to my life anymore and therefore I had to let you go off and be happy and healthy somewhere else.”

“Who’s the say I was that happy?” Claudia asked as she fully knew as she grew up that her life was abnormal to many of those in her classmates. “Or that our life was that happy?” she thought because she did not think her mother had been that happy.

“You were with your mother, and I know I would not have been any good for you” Max said. Because as much as he wanted his daughter to be here in town. Being a single father would not have been his calling. “Your mother wanted to go, and because I loved you both, I let you go with her because I knew it would be better in the long run.”

Claudia did not know if her father believed what he was saying. Like it was the politically correct way of saying why he had not fought to be her father. “Then that is a crappy way of showing you love someone. If you could let us, go because you did not want or have the guts to fight for us to stay?” Claudia muttered as she got up from the table and stood toe to toe with her father, and once more Max was reminded how different today was from that day when his marriage went up in flames.

Because his daughter was now an adult, and capable of having her own insight into the choices he had made once upon a time.

“I had to be the bigger person,” Max muttered. “I know you would have been a better life than the one you would have had if I had fought for you to stay, or if I had gotten your mother to change her mind about leaving than we would have raised you in a life full of resentment, and I did not want that for your mother and for you, and she did not want that either which is why she chose to leave instead of staying and being unhappy. And she did not want to stay around here, and I was in no financial situation to be able to raise you alone.”

Claudia nodded.

“I wanted your mother and you in my life, but your mother did not want to be in mine,” Max murmured as he wished he could go back and erase everything about the last eighteen years so that his wife would have stayed with him, and he could have known his daughter “As long as you were able to have a good life, than it was a sacrifice I was willing to make.”

“I wanted to be able to have a father in my life,” Claudia muttered. Yeah, you made some sacrifice if you could let us walk away. “It was never easy or fun to be out there, with only Mom to lean on” she muttered. “It’s a joke to think you gave us a better life, when we were always moving, and I had to live under different names…”

Max was unsure of what to say or what he could have said because he was momentarily taken back because it was sinking in that he did not know anything about the life his daughter would have faced on the road with his wife, who would eventually become his ex-wife. He figured they would settle down somewhere, even though it would not be anywhere close to where he was or his family. How could I not know what was going on with my only child? “I wish you could have had a father in your life, because I am sure I would have loved having you for a daughter,” he said with a lot of conviction in his words and Claudia did not know what to make of it.

She did not want to believe it because he had not come after them or forced her mother to have a part of her life. So, how would he know he would have wanted me as his daughter? Claudia muttered to herself. So, she did not have a response for her father.

A man she did not know. And did not know if she could buy what he was saying. Yet, everything she felt about the man told her that he was sincere, and genuine and a good guy. So, why did Mom leave my father?

It did not say in the journal. Only that the youthful breakups earlier had been of their own making, choices that they both had made. But the ultimate break, how did that come about? Claudia did not know because he could not see in Max’s mind and see what had transpired in the past. That is not one of my powers. She was still young, and she did not know everything she was capable of, but mind reading was not one of them.

But she still felt like Max was genuine in his words. At least, I can believe he believes in what he is saying.

“I better go,” Claudia muttered as she knew she should be going. “Mom will have my head for leaving the apartment before she wakes up,” she sighed. “It does not help that my brother has to sleep on the couch.”

“I guess the apartment is not big enough for two kids?” Max muttered, because he knew that his ex-wife had been an only child. “It was just big enough for your mother and your grandparents?” he said with a sigh that Claudia knew her grandparents, and yet she did not know his parents. She could have, if you had fought for her, he would mutter to himself.

But at what cost would that have been like Max would think. Liz would always have the leverage to play against him. My lifestyle is dangerous, he thought. Being who we are takes time to get used to, and so much does have to be sacrificed.

“You know the place?” Claudia asked, “Yeah, you do because I saw you there yesterday. Which reminds me, why were you there?”

“I was looking out for the place for your grandparents,” Max muttered.

“Why, because I heard Grandpa did not particularly like you and Mom were together?” Claudia wondered. There is so much I do not know.

“We made up,” Max said with a smile, and Claudia laughed. “We both cared about the same person, so we had that in common and when your grandparents had to close the place because of the pandemic,” he said with a sigh, as he wished the pandemic was truly behind them, and knew so much was lost over the last year. “I promised to keep an eye on it, until they made a decision about it, of course in the beginning they had plans to come back.”

“Yeah, they did” Claudia acknowledged. “But the last year has done a lot to all of us.”

“Yes, it has.” Max nodded.

“I suppose you have your grandparent’s bedroom?” Max asked even though he knew that Claudia wanted to go, and maybe she should be going because all of this was completely surprising for both of them.

“No,” Claudia shook her head. “I have Mom’s old one.”

Wow, oh, Max definitely did not know what to say about that because his memories of her mother’s old bedroom was so memorable and downright unbelievable, so many memories there he thought as flashes did come of his first kiss with his dream girl.

“Yeah, I thought so” Claudia muttered as she could see from her father’s expression, my new room has a lot of history.

Do I even want to know?

Probably not.

“I need to go,” Claudia murmured as she knew she needed to leave because she had overstayed her welcome already.

Max nodded as he snapped back to reality, because he did not want his ex-wife to be worried or angry, and this was a new town for his daughter. “Come back.”

“Maybe I will,” Claudia muttered. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” Max sighed.

“Do I have a brother?” Claudia asked, as she asked, the question that was nagging on her mind. “I know I have a brother via Mom, but do I have a brother because of you?” Claudia asked. “Biologically I mean, because JJ is adopted.”

He is? Max wondered as he sniffed for any information on his ex-wife’s new life. Ignoring for a moment the reminder of the son that never came to be.

Even though it had taken hold of their whole senior year and led to some major events in his life.

“Dad?” Claudia asked. “Do I?”

“No,” came a voice from behind them, as it was a reminder that they had been in a bubble of their own making, and they had not been immune to the fact the house contained other people, and in this case a baffled older man who looked at his son and the younger girl in the kitchen, that was not young but still young enough Phillip thought as his son twisted around to see his father staring at him.

Oh god, Max muttered. Not having much more energy after originally being hung over and now having had an intense conversation with his daughter.

“Dad,” Max said softly to his own father.

Dad Claudia thought as he looked at the older greyish gentlemen. Someone who appeared even more hungover than her own father, and that was saying something.

“Claudia, meet your grandfather Phillip Evans” Max as he pulled himself together to take command of the situation.

“My grandfather?” Claudia Diane Evans asked.

“Yes,” Max said softly. “Dad, this is my daughter, Claudia Diane Evans” he said softly as he faced his father. “You were named for your mother’s grandmother, Claudia Parker and my own mother, Diane Evans,” he murmured as he glanced at the dark shadow in his father’s eye as they both remembered the woman that was lost to them.

“Where is she, I mean your mother?” Claudia asked, stunned to know where her name came from. She thought she saw the name Claudia in her mother’s journal, but a lot was not written about…so, names can be easily forgotten.

“Unfortunately, she died” Max said softly.

“I am sorry,” Claudia murmured.

“So, are we…” Phillip muttered as he glanced at his granddaughter for the first time in eighteen years.





It was a situation that Claudia was not prepared for, and she knew it. While her mother was under very different emotions as she was at some peace because she could control what was going on now. Because a dear friend was in her apartment. And therefore, she could deal with what she did not know later, which was dealing with her missing daughter. Because she knew eventually Claudia would come home.

Because she always did before…

Liz simply needed to get used to the fact her daughter was now an adult.

She was eighteen. Where did the time go?

Too fast Liz thought now. As she was choosing to deal with stuff she could control. And that was making a life here in Roswell for herself, and for her son. As she was showing her former boyfriend the apartment. Kyle had not been in the apartment in nearly two decades. And it was not like he had been in it much when they were dating. Because we were not that serious. And it did not make sense to he thought. “Being back has to bring a lot of memories for you?”

“It does,” Liz said as she tried to smile.

“It does not seem like it is the same without your parents, and especially your father milling downstairs dealing with those who chose to come into the restaurant on any given day,” Kyle asked because back in the day. Jeff Parker was famous for his devotion to the restaurant, and Nancy was less hands off but still you could find her working on occasion. Especially once her daughter was fully grown and was off doing whatever she was doing these past eighteen years until the year before when they shut everything down. “We are so used to it full of people, as they enjoyed the food. Right Tripp?” Kyle asked of his teenage son who was standing and watching his father with someone he did not know.

Because Liz had not come back to town until now.

So, Tripp of course would not know the prodigal daughter of the establishment’s owners. A place he had come to with his friends before everything went haywire the year before, when things shut down. And school went on-line, and therefore he started working with his father as Kyle was trying to keep his business going.

In a town where construction was reduced to home repairs, because trying to build new ones had a lot of delays.

So, there was work to be had. But not a lot.

So, Tripp knew his father was hopeful of this job potentially here at the Crashdown. Which is why he was dragged along with his father to come for the meeting, father/son bonding and all that because I am with Dad today, but he had wanted to come when he realized the address was where he had seen the brunette on some balcony the night before…

And it was outside of this apartment.

He was sure of it.

Because he had been in the area doing an errand for his father when he saw her the night before, but she was not around right now, so he was wondering if he was only hallucinating, and it was all a dream.

“Yes Dad,” Tripp murmured as he came back to reality. He had long known his father had a past with this woman. You hear talk over the years when you are in the same house or passing through and he knows that it was a young romance and nothing that special. But they stayed friends, and it showed which was good because he figured his father could use some friends, because his latest divorce had done his father little good.

A second stepmother down the drain Tripp thought as he was born during his father’s brief first marriage. When that failed, of course his father tried again, twice before getting the message that you should not try to find love with someone who does not really have his heart. When James Valenti, III aka Tripp could see that despite a good relationship and a valiant attempt at co-parenting with his mother, they just did not work as a couple.

And he knew his father’s heart was not with this woman either, but with someone else.

Whom, he had not even tried to have anything with…?

Why not? Tripp did not know. There were parts of the story he did not know. But all he knew was that his father pined from afar even though he had made a good attempt to move on with both his second and third wife, but they ended the same way his first marriage ended.

Divorce because Tripp knew his father pined for the mother of his half-sister.

Mikyla Anderson, who was Isabel Evans Anderson’s eldest daughter. They tried to say that Kyla was a result of a sperm donation, and she was, but everyone knew the identity of her biological father. I mean, even my sister and I know…

You could tell it because Mikyla was very much unlike his mother, and every bit like his father.

So that he knows.

Even though his father and his half-sister’s mother did not own up.

The kids knew.

When you go with that name, you make people ask questions. Especially your daughter when she grows up even though Mikyla was on a very rare school exchange at the moment and did not ask the questions, but she had done a number of times before she had left, and they had even talked about how crazy it was.

Even though his father did not own up to it because there was agreement that Kyle would not.

“I am trying,” Liz said as Tripp could not help but come back to reality as Liz could only smile because there was relief in knowing that this was something simple. Although it was weird to think that her one-time boyfriend was now a father.

We are all growing up in some way, Liz thought. As she reflected on the fact, she had her own child who was slightly older than Tripp.

It is a trip to think that his son was the age they were when all of this started and then some.

Kyle knew that his former girlfriend wanted to deal with something she could control. So, he moved onto something new. “Tripp, why don’t you go downstairs, and we will meet you down there. Liz and I can talk about what she wants done, and you will find that boring, and you can make any notes of damage down there since it has been unoccupied for over a year now.”

I can do that Tripp nodded because this is not what was expecting when suddenly a door opened, and Tripp’s dream girl came walking out of her room.

Mystifying him, and even more her mother who had not expected it.

“Claudia,” Liz asked stunned to see her daughter. “When did you get back?” she muttered as she was not happy to know her daughter had taken the back way into the apartment, and sidestepped her…

And now was showing her face.

“Just now,” Claudia muttered. “And before you asked, I came in the back way.”

The easy way Liz thought and muttered as such.

“I am here aren’t I. You insisted on moving back here, and changing JJ and I’s lives once again, so I had to get used to my new town. Assuming I choose to stick around…”

Looks like Kyle and Tripp will be helping to fix up the Chrashdown.

Liz knew Claudia was testing her. That had been the pattern between them for as long as Claudia’s mother could remember because her eldest child, her only borne seem to make it her daily mission to test her, which is why it was good to have the break these last five months so that Liz could concentrate on her son. Because JJ needed her to pay attention and because she was approaching burn out point in her career, and therefore she needed to focus on something other than her daughter.

Claudia could deal with her own life most of the time. But there was a push and pull relationship between mother and daughter that required Liz to pay attention to at the expense of her son. And she wanted that to change. Assuming I can accept that she’s eighteen now, and can deal with her own life, and make her own decisions.

That is for any other day than this one she pleaded. Because she was not in the mood to deal with her daughter on this morning, and Claudia knew it as she walked into the apartment and saw that it had a few additional people in it. People she did not recognize, although she was startled at the sight of someone, because she swore, she had seen the night before, but she did not say anything nor did Tripp.

While Kyle just stood amused by the sight of Claudia. Someone he had never met because she had been born away from this town. When they were all on the run. But he did not last, because he did not have a mark on his back. His name was not on the wanted list, and therefore after realizing that Isabel was pining for her husband Jesse and not him and getting tired of being on the run. He had come back to town.

And on the way back, he had met his first wife Sue Ann. And ultimately that led to his first marriage, and then to their son. But within a year of the boy’s birth, they were over. And establishing a co-parenting relationship for their toddler son, and he would proceed to head into an additional two ill-conceived marriages over the next sixteen years. And now he was newly single and trying to form a better relationship with his only child.

Yeah, I am telling myself that he thought it was because of the deal he made with Isabel. That would result in a child. That he had no role in raising. Who grew up with another man’s name. And therefore, it had been hard to see Mikyla over the years, and especially in the last year after the only father she knew died.

Leaving her, and her siblings without a father.

And Isabel was single.

But they have been keeping to their corners and in a friendship state.

We are simply friends.

And now he was visiting his past. One that he had moved long past. And it was amusing to see Liz in a different way than she had been back in the day. Young, and in love with someone so opposite of himself, not that I was not jealous for a little while there…

But he moved on, eventually although it took all three years that they were in headlock of the alien invasion, and then some he thought.

It was an alien invasion like no other and Kyle was still living in the aftereffects that had begun to infest their lives over twenty years ago. Older but not necessarily wiser Kyle knew he was changed whether I have powers or not, and I do not have that privilege he muttered to himself. Thankfully. Still though, he considered himself changed regardless because the last two decades had been life changing. And therefore, he figured that if it was like that for him than it would be ten-fold for his former girlfriend because you can say that he was no different than he had been during those days.

The consummate ladies’ man but not really because he had never been that lucky with the ladies because they did not seem to see him and when he did get involved with any of them. Kyle tended to eventually lose them in ways that were truly unique to the life he was living. Losing one to a living breathing alien and another one who was actually one herself.

Although I never truly was with that, but still, it was unique. Although later, the demise of his three, yes, three marriages were largely his fault. Most of what had happened was laid on his feet because he had been pining away for the unattainable.

Everyone knew it, and he even knew it.

Because of the one he had wanted.

The one who was just out of my grasp. No matter what he did. There was nothing that could change that Isabel was not seeing him in any way that was not just as a friend he muttered. He knew he was partially responsible for that because he had not gone out of his way change the way she saw him, but then she was married at the time, and so he had thrown himself into three unwise marriages and let them each in their own way disappoint him in some way by the end.

And they always ended.

And as a result, he knew that he was giving his son, Tripp, a terrible look at marriage. Thankfully he is getting a better look elsewhere he muttered. Thanks to Sue Ann and yes, Dad he sighed to himself. Because thankfully his father, Jim Valenti was now in a successful marriage. But Kyle also knew he could not help himself. Even though, he wanted to be better for all those attempts and try not to run into disaster. Still, it had not prevented him in the past, and has only left him to pray that he had finally learned from the most recent fiasco.

Because after three disasters, you would think your strikes were out, right? Kyle muttered to himself. And it is not like I can afford anymore alimony.

Tripp certainly hoped that he could learn from his father, or he had hoped his father would finally learn his lesson because he was tired of going through divorce after divorce with his father. Especially when his mother Sue Ann now Wilson had found her one on the first retry Tripp thought. When his mother had married his stepfather Doug Wilson and it was fifteen years and counting. Tripp knew that they were a good match and therefore he had some belief in the concept of marriage even if his father was trying to ruin it for him.

So, Tripp was looking at Claudia with interest because she had appeared out of nowhere for him and without warning.

Of course, he had come with his father with the express hope of being able to see his vision from the night before. The brunette beauty who had appeared on the balcony before him.

Claudia was unsure of what she was dealing with as she did not know the newcomers. She knew she had taken a risky chance that morning. “As I said, I need to get used to this town. And with JJ asleep on the couch, well, I could not make any sounds.”

Liz stood there almost chagrined to know this was the situation she was in. One I created for myself and my daughter, she reminded herself. It was becoming increasingly clear that this apartment would be too small for two strongly minded women that was herself and her daughter.

Especially now that Claudia was an adult and was testing her. And given that the last five months were like the leash that was now snapped in half and Claudia was seeing the freedom that was out there, just awaiting each step she would take as she went for her dreams.

Dreams.

That is what Liz once had for herself. And while she had found a life for herself, and anyone would consider her accomplished. She knew deep down that she could not say she had reached the goal that had been her ultimate dream.

Because that dream had died at eighteen when she walked away from the man she loved and taken their daughter from him. Choosing a deal with those who held leverage on her over the man she loved.

A sacrifice she was still living down. And it was the reason why she was so restless and why she had taken this big jump. And why she had upped and changed their worlds. She should not be upset that her daughter was trying to get to know the town that she had kept from her daughter. A town that was almost her birthright.

But Liz knew this town was not an ordinary town. Or even her hometown even though it was. But she knew it held even more than her daughter. Claudia liked to take chances. Ones that Liz wished she would not take but then she would be a hypocrite if she called her daughter out for being inconsiderate.

So, she just moved on, and decided to wait for the inevitable showdown with her daughter as she now faced her daughter. “I appreciate that but please leave a note next time.”

Claudia nodded.

“It can be dangerous if you do not know your surroundings,” Liz muttered as if she had not used that excuse before, and I have she knew, and Claudia knew it as she gave her mother a funny look that said, really Mom? she murmured to herself because she knew she and her mother had lived in way too many places, so Claudia was an expert in getting the lay of the land pretty quickly. And she knew Roswell was an easy study.

Of course, she did not know half of what Roswell really was about. But she believed she did, and Liz sighed.

And knowing she was responsible for the lack of understanding her daughter had of this town, you have to be careful here, more than anywhere else.

“Really?” Claudia asked with a laugh as she looked at her mother as if she knew Liz was trying to snow her and then Claudia looked over at Kyle and Tripp. “Is this town dangerous?” she asked of the men in the room.

Suddenly the amusement Kyle felt had dipped. But his son kept it as his dream girl had spoken to him. While Kyle did not know what to say because he wanted to be a friend to his former girlfriend. He did not want to take sides.

So, he chose another tactic that he knew would move this conversation along. “You wanted to discuss any work?” Kyle asked as he looked at his former girlfriend.

Claudia just smiled. “I thought so,” she muttered because on the walk that morning, she knew she had this town’s number. I can handle this town, she thought. Assuming I stick around? She wondered.

But after the encounter she had just come from, heading to the Colorado mountains did not seem like something I am destined to do but she knew she would keep on trying because she wanted to lead her own life.

It was something she was itching to do.

Because she wanted to lead a life that did not leave her with unanswered questions that would be nice, she muttered to herself as she glanced at her mother, and dared to ask the pivotal question to where she had been, and she had been with…

Because she knew her mother did not want to go there.

Nope, Liz did not.

Because she knew the answer. Max, who was still resting in her heart. So, she wanted to plead ignorance a little longer.




All the while this was happening. Max was still coming down from that whammy of being hung over for the first time many years and also from seeing his daughter and incredibly having a real conversation with her for the first in the teen’s life. So, it was a high that was, high, and he knew the low was coming.

How did he know this?

Simple, because all he had to do was look at the man who was looking at him. A man Max had sworn that he did not want to be and worked very hard not to be because despite the losses he had taken in his own life. Therefore, he knew he could not fall apart even when he wanted to and had come close.

So, he took it as an omen. That by knowing his daughter was in town. It was God I do not believe in him, but is he giving me one? So, now that the house was empty and his daughter was gone, and now all that was left was a slightly greyish nearly forty-year-old, and a much older man burdened by loss who was looking at his on in an accusing manner. “Why did you not tell your daughter was in town?”

I did not want the snide comments that would be coming from you Max muttered because already had to deal with a lot of it, the night before, and he did not want the commentary that he knew would come from his father’s knowledge that his eldest granddaughter was now in town, after a life of not knowing her.

Which is why he gotten so upset by Maria’s careless comment about Claudia spending time with Jeff and Nancy in Arizona because of the grandparents his daughter had not been exposed to over her life. Of course, he did not know what kind of relationship his daughter had with her maternal grandparents. Not an extensive one but one regardless… Which is something she had not been able to have on his side…

Or with me he thought.

“Max,” Phillip muttered as he was seeing that his father was zoning out again. What else is new, he thought. It was something I have had to get used to over the years and he thought he had and now he had to deal with it all over again. “Are you here with me?”

Was he? Max thought. Unfortunately, he told himself. “Yes, I am here” he muttered softly. “You were already thinking badly of me, so I did not want to deal with it because yes, I knew she was in town.”

“When and how?” Phillip asked because the conversation with Claudia Diane was on the short side because as soon as she figured out the situation she had at hand. She was quick to leave the scene, and now the aging man had to come to terms with her visit.

“I am still not up on what has happened, but she is back in town, and so is her mother” Max muttered And, her new son.

A child that was not his.

Something he had come to terms with yet because JJ meant his wife had moved on in some form. And now the three of them were in town, and he was having to figure out what that meant for him. “I really do not know what it all means,” And that was an understatement he knew. No one knows what it all means, he sighed.

“Your wife is back in town?” Phillip asked.

“Ex-wife,” Max muttered even as it was only a small distinction, and he did not know what to make of it. It was a word he hated to even have to use. And one he had to deal with ever since the final divorce agreement came back signed, and therefore, he had to sign it and move on with his life. “I know what you think of me Dad.”

“No, you do not” Phillip muttered. Because like his son, he did not know what to think or say to the latest news because he was already sharing a lot of guilt for actions of so many years before, and now his son was on edge once again and he did not know what to say “Son, you have a chance here…”

“Dad,” Max muttered. “Last night was a late one, and I do not have time for this” he sighed as he wished he had just walked away and gone back up to his bedroom and fallen asleep once Claudia was gone from his life, but nope, he had to stick around and now his father was interested in having a conversation with him, and it was one that Max did not particularly want to have.

“Yes, you do” Phillip sighed as light was coming to him from the end of the road, he had been one. A road that had been one of self-loathing as much as it was one of loss because he did miss his wife. Diane Evans had always been able to take care of the house, and him in a way he knew he could not, and they had been married for many many years, and gifted with two children who had come into their lives under unusual means and now she was gone from his life, and he had to deal with his new lot in life even as his children were trying to keep an eye on him.

He knew he concerned them. I am not that far gone he surmised of himself, and he knew to some extent that it was probably warranted because had traveled down a form of the rabbit hole of his own making in the loss of his wife and having to look into the concerned faces of those children that he and Diane had been thrilled to be able to add to their family.

Even if their quirks were not that apparent until years later Phillip mused even though he knew that he and his wife were at fault that they did not create the conditions for their children to come to them before they Phillip and Diane had taken matters into their own hands, and they were lucky their children were still talking to them by the time Diane had departed this earth.

And knowing how much his son had wanted to be able to heal his mother but Diane would not let him because she wanted to die on her own terms, and not have to burden her son if something happened and her recovery did not make it through the long haul. Phillip understood and he had given the same instructions to his son if his own health took a nosedive? Of course, the fact that it had not even with all the abuse he was putting it under, well, he couldn’t not have the impression that God was laughing at him.

But now, he was wondering if it was the opposite because he was wondering if that same god was trying to give something back to him. With the hope that could find a way to help his son.

Because he knew his son was only living a half a life.

Better than his, but still half of one. While his daughter had suffered her own losses, still though Isabel had been able to move on, and live her life in ways he and his son had not been able to although his son was coming off many years of having to cope with his loss. So, he was more of an expert but of course Phillip knew a lot of it was based on the fact he, Phillip felt guilty for the fact he had not told his son everything about why his wife wanted a divorce.

And left this town.

Yes, because Phillip knew some of Liz’s predicament. I definitely know more than my son he thought as he felt the pressure for years as he watched his son deal with the loss of his wife and daughter in ways that Phillip himself was not familiar with because he, Phillip had lost his wife to death while Max had lost his wife to the fact that it was his wife who wanted out.

“Son, you have a chance here…” Phillip murmured. As he was unable to know truly what to say.

Max bristled at his father’s expression of hope, because it was the last thing he needed to hear to see. As he did not question why his father was so insistent that this was the answer to his prayers, because Max knew it was the opposite. It will do no good to get my hope up, he sighed. For the sake of the sanity I still do have, I cannot do that to myself, “Any chance I do have is futile Dad,” he would mutter. “Why hold any hope when if I do, it will all be so hopeless,” he muttered. Why would I do that to myself. “I am only hurting myself if I do, so if I have any hope left than it is that maybe it will be possible to have a relationship with my daughter who unfortunately is eighteen, which means I missed out on so much of her life. Because Dad, my wife did not want me.” He murmured. “She wanted out, and I allowed her that out. She knew who I was, and everything I could do. But in the end, she felt my life was too dangerous for her. She was too changed because of me, and she did not want our daughter exposed to my life, or to me, therefore, why put any effort when she obviously does not want me?”

I can pine from afar but the idea we have a chance is pointless.

“Max,” Phillip sighed. Because he knew so much more than his son. I am sorry son…

Max winced as a migraine was forming as she winced at the fact this was getting his father engaged, finally, but he could not let it continue. “Dad, enough, I appreciate you want to help me, and I like that you are not looking at me as some loser who could not keep his wife and daughter, but you know that my situation is not the one you faced because you lost Mom to death, and I only lost my wife because she chose to end our marriage and walk away.”

“Son, she might have had her reasons…” Phillip murmured to himself before stopping with the realization that he might have said too much, way too much, he told himself because it was not his tale to tell. Although he did not like how his son thought he saw him, which was anything but what his son apparently thought but he knew it was useless to try to defend himself because it was like he was sitting king of the mountain and had been a decent human being these past six years, because he had let that role slip away.

Unfortunately.

Max did not want to hear it. Because he was still in a daze over his former wife and daughter’s return to town, and the last thing he wanted to hear was that his ex-wife might have had some reason for doing what she had done. If she did, then it does not matter he told himself it is the past and he wanted to believe it. “What kind of reasons could she have because she told me herself that our life was not what she wanted from her life. That it was too dangerous, and how I was too dangerous to be a father to our daughter. “Dad, it is foolish to think there are reasons for what she did because it is simply, we were not meant to be together,” he muttered as he turned away and started walking out of the kitchen when he was stopped for a split second.

As much as he still loved his ex-wife. The anger was there, and the confusion. So much for the pedestal.

“Oh, Max” Phillip murmured. “You do not know everything about that time,” he sighed so softly that he thought his son might not have heart, which was foolish given who Max was, too, to his very being. “You think you do, but you do not.”

“And you do?” Max asked suspiciously as he turned and faced his father. “How could you know, and I do not?”

I was your wife’s attorney at one time, and yours too Phillip wanted to mutter but chose to keep that knowledge to himself for fear it would escalate a subject that was already slipping away from him, and he almost wished he was back in his alcoholic haze. “All I know,” Phillip muttered as he tried desperately to right the ship on what he knew, “Is that she loved you.”

“If she did, then she had a funny way of showing it” Max muttered and continued to walk away, as he did not want to hear anything kind of that time in his life. I am over it. She might always be his dream girl, but he had watched his dream girl break his heart and walk away and take their child with her.

It was going to take some time to understand because it was something that never had made sense, even when it did.

Just because he could understand it why she would finally have enough did not mean that it still did not stump him, because it had been so sudden. I thought we had finally made it.

“She did,” Phillip said softly. “But she did not have any choice but to leave,” he muttered, and he did not know if his son had heart, but he did as he once again twisted and looked at his father, but he did not try to say anything more…

Because he was too busy trying to figure out what his father might know.

What does Dad know Max thought? So, yeah, he paused and wondered. “Dad?”

But Phillip did not stay, instead he chose to walk away because he felt he spilled too much, and he therefore left his son feeling stumped and baffled, what do I do not know? he could not help but think as he watched as his father walk away.

Lots.

“What have I missed?” came the sudden voice of his sister who had suddenly arrived, unsure of what she had just walked in on, as he turned and saw that his best friend was here too…

Questions....what does Philip know
How will Max react when he finds out Kyle is working for Liz
Will Tripp pursue Claudia

Isabel and Michael both knew only too well that it was basically a crap shoot to come into this house on any occasion. Isabel did not have any choice because after all she was family and Phillip’s daughter, and Max’s sister. While Michael was as close as you could be to being family without being formally connected. And that was even though he would have spent the lion share of his last eighteen years on the road, and most importantly a different state. Tennessee. Which had become his home. And therefore, he had not really come back to hometown, unless it was called for, and it had been indeed called for, six years before when he had had last come back.

To attend the funeral of Diane Evans.

A woman he had battled at times in his life because of how close he had to her children although it would take years for Diane and her husband to figure out the reason their children was so unnaturally close to a kid that would seem so at odds to the personalities of her own children. Still, though, the loss was biting for Michael because he knew how much she had done for him because all three of them had been in foster care together, and unfortunately Michael did not have a savior like Phillip and Diane were for Max and Isabel.

Two people who were able to bring two kids new to the planet not that they knew this, Michael thought now. It would be years before they found this piece of information. Michael had not been as fortunate as he would have to stay in the system because he never gelled in a home for long. And unfortunately, the home I did gel in was the absolutely wrong one to be in, because in the end, he had to live with a foster father from hell, who only would see the kid he had been as someone from the system who could provide him with a monthly cheque. Not that he would use those funds to provide his new foster son a good home. Why would he even want to do that Michael cursed now, because he only saw himself.

Nope, he would not use the money to provide a life for Michael. Instead, they would end up living in a trailer, and Hank Guerin would use the money on alcohol and women. And Michael would grow into a resentful young man who could have gone in many ways if he did not have two people who were there for him, and who had the tendency to rein in his harsher tendencies, although they would not always be successful, he would acknowledge now. But I was more on the straight and narrow because of Max and Isabel he mused. I could be living a very different life if not for the love of my family.

Max and Isabel are my family.

And it would be also the love of a free spirit who he had found when he was not looking. I definitely was not looking. Especially when it was back when he wanted to ridicule his best friend for the unattainable girl. There was no way Max was going to be successful he remembered thinking at the time. Okay, I got it a little wrong, he mused as he remembered how his best friend would constantly be at the Crashdown pining for the definition of the unattainable female. The brunette waitress in their local dining establishment that catered to the town myth that was the 1947 crash.

People looked at the crash, and reports of it as a way to make money.

And to believe.

Little did anyone really know how the town was. That the little green men did really exist but in human flesh with very human DNA and blood flowing through their veins. Only a select few would really know what this town is really about. Anyways, back when he was younger, he had a simple goal of getting off this planet and went through his days wishing to know more about where they came from, because it had to be better than the life he was living. Because he was not Max or Isabel who had the golden life. With a mother and father who loved them and wanted them to be better people. I had a different life. Michael thought as he would wince at his path through this life. And how everything had changed on that day in September 1999 when it would all slowly change for both Max and for him.

As they would find the two girls who they had been waiting for, and when they were the most unprepared.

Michael would preface it to say he had not been prepared. Max just never did anything about it until he did, and it would take him on a journey that would ultimately leave him alone while Michael would beat the odds that were always against him, as he found the one for him, who had been working in the same establishment he wanted to ridicule for catering to the crowd who though they were a joke. Even those who believed in aliens. They did not really see what it was all about. But fortunately, Michael would end up been better for it because he had found that love that he had been waiting for, and they would eventually have themselves a child. A child he had gotten to raise. While his best friend had it all go so badly. Still, he had gotten everything he had been looking for. All the while Max could have beaten all those odds that were also against him despite that loving family, and for a time he did think he had done it.

And then he would find that life was all a cruel joke.

And he would end up being alone.

Losing out on the life that Michael had been able to find and create for himself. And Michael had not really been here for his best friend because it was not meant to be, I wanted Maria to be able to go for her dreams he thought and the last time Michael was back, it had been for the funeral for Max’s mother, and he and Maria had come back for the service but Maria had been in recording sessions for a new album that needed to be finished, and therefore she had to get back, and so she had Lucy had gone home and Michael had stayed for an additional week so that he had seen how bad it was for his two best friends, who were mourning the untimely death of their mother even though Diane had been ill for some time.

So, he had seen how Phillip had reacted to the loss and Max was no better although better off certainly than his father but still, having two dominant personalities in the same house was not going to be a recipe for the healthiest of relationships because Max had moved in to help his mother during those last months, and now planned to stay.

Because he saw bad off his father was…

Maybe he should have gotten out? Michael thought even though he had not been here to see how bad it had gotten obviously as he had to get back home to his wife and daughter. So, now, he was coming into a different environment even though he knew his best friend was now the name on the deed to the house because he had bought it years before.

So, Michael could see how the house was in a shell of his former glory when it used to sing family and warmth and was everything living in a trailer was not for a little boy who was best friends with the two who had been adopted into a loving home. And given what everyone in foster care craved. So, he walked into a very different home than was present to him even six years before.

Michael now snapped back to reality to watch as his best friend Isabel was snapping at her brother. “How should I know what Dad knows about the demise of your marriage?” Isabel Ramirez Anderson now back to Evans muttered. “It has not been the world I have been in, given my own damn life, you know” she sighed. “I have had to live my own life,” she thought as sometimes it amused her to see her father and brother clash but it also at times grown tired, although whatever was going on with her brother and her father had some new ground that obviously had been opened up with the arrival of her brother’s former wife, and daughter in his life.

Which meant, who really knows Michael thought.

Michael kept it neutral. “What is going on?”

“Dad casually mentioned something in regard to why Liz left our marriage, and took Claudia with her, like he never doubted her love for me?”

“Anyone who knew you would know Liz loved you,” Michael mentioned with a sigh. I might have issues with it in the beginning he thought. Thinking that it was the last thing his friend or I needed with Maria he mused. But the one thing he knew was how much Liz had loved his friend, which made the fact they ended the more baffling.

You make it past the traitor Tess Harding and a baby he thought that would be before we learned the truth about Max’s son he would think. A con that still stung with his friend because he had already lost his daughter although Claudia Diane was still alive, but still if you can make it past what you did in high school. Why would you end your marriage because you were on the road, and it was becoming more than a little real, it never made any sense because Maria and I made it so you would think our clashing personalities would not have a chance, but we did he would sigh. Liz and Max were better personalities. A matching pair if there were ever two people who were made for each other. Even if it was a tad intense but they were so in love. And of course, Michael was one to speak given how much of a hard time he had given them in the beginning but given Max had to get through the last eighteen years. He has to believe she lost the loving feeling Michael sighed. “So, you think your father knows something?” he asked as he came back to reality once more and could see his friend was on the scent of something.

And it was troubling him, which was never a good feeling if you were one of us Michael thought.

What was that something, he had no idea.

And Isabel did not have any idea.

Max sighed, “It was as if Dad realized he said too much, and he slammed the door shut on anything more.”

“If Dad knows anything, he did not mention it to me” Isabel said a little irritably because the last thing she needed was her brother to be consumed once more by his ex-wife. The last thing he needs is to be hurt once more by Liz Parker she sighed. After all Isabel had never been that close to her one-time sister-in-law. We were always different people. Different personalities. And really, she never really had approved of the fact her brother had spilled their secret to of all people, Liz Parker. The preppy goody goody All American although when you really look at it. She knew like Michael did that Liz was the female side of her brother. They matched, but still at the time Isabel did not really want someone stealing her brother’s attention. Even though she had for years done it even when she did not know it.

So, why would Isabel now?

She did not want her brother to be hurt. But she grunted and dealt with it when her brother had gotten his dream come true in Liz noticing him, and they had tried to make it work. What would result was three years of a lot of hurt for her brother, but you could not tell him anything or tell him to stay away from Liz Parker, not when the brunette waitress had finally noticed her brother. There was no telling my brother anything she mused. Even as she watched as her other brother Michael fall head over heels for Maria Deluca. But that relationship never really bothered her even if you think about what might have been given their alien destinies instilled in them, but it did not because she had wanted Michael to be happy.

He had been given a crappy lot in life, and he deserved to be happy. Even though his quest to be with Maria was a lot and as torturous as her own brother’s journey, but Max had ended up being the one who was hurt by Liz.

While Michael and Maria had made it through the long haul.

Even if she lost him to another state in the end, but then she had tried to move herself, but she and Boston had not meshed which meant her first marriage to Jesse died mere months after it started, not a great look for a girl who wanted commitment and to settle down Isabel thought now. But then she found the right one, with her second husband, we were good together.

Isabel sighed as she thought of her late husband.

Neil Anderson.

But then she had a lot to care for by the time she met her second husband because she had become a mother to her eldest daughter, Mikyla. So, she was in such a different world and therefore she did not take notice of her brother’s life even though she had been helping to make sure he did not drown when Liz had done what she had always wondered if she would, hurt Max. “Max…”

“Don’t say it Isabel, okay, do not say it.” Max muttered as he knew what his sister wanted to say but he was not in the mood. “I know it, so I do not need a reminder from you.” especially when I know you could not stand my former wife he thought of his sister’s prickly relationship with the love of his life. Just because my ex-wife is my everything does not mean I am ready to know she loved me back then, he sighed.

Yes, I know that is the quandary of my life.

I am not looking to be a reminder to you Max Isabel thought as she was wondering why she was becoming an advocate for her former sister-in-law when she knew the best thing for her brother was not to fall into old patterns and to hold onto the disappointment so that he did not fall down that hole again because it would only lead to disappointment because Liz did leave my brother after all but Isabel also did know that she was no longer the girl she was, and she was older than she was. Wiser, and even a little hardened even if most days, it did not look like it when dealing with her own life, and especially when she was dealing with Mikyla’s biological father. And what that means to my life now that Neil is gone. “Maybe all I am trying to say is that you might want to ask the person who did leave?”

“Liz?” Max asked.

“Yes,” Isabel nodded. Of course, Liz. She is the person who destroyed you.

Not really, she thought. Because she knew it took two to harm a relationship and to end it but she knew that a lion share of it was her former sister-in-law shoulders for whatever reason it was that led her to walk away because she knew Liz had been happy to be pregnant and to be expecting a baby even if it was so soon after they left town, and to watch her brother and his bride tie the knot.

You had to believe in the power of that love.

But then a year later, it was all over.

And her brother would be alone without his wife and daughter. “I suggest you talk to her,” she muttered That would be a novel way of dealing with it. “If you have questions, ask the person who did leave.”

I do not want to get disappointed Max told himself as he was resisting it, as he turned to his best friend, and he suddenly remembered that they had plans. “Right, we were planning on going somewhere?”

“Which is why I am here,” Michael said with a laugh because he knew his best friend was looking for a diversion instead of doing what his sister had suggest, go to the source an all that… “Do you still want to go off?” he asked of the errands they were planning on running.

“Sure, why not. I do not have anything else worthwhile to do,” Max muttered.

Idiot. Isabel thought. “Fine, go. Where is Dad?”

“Somewhere, I have no idea” Max muttered. And I do not even want to know right now. “Let me grab my coat, and wallet, and we will be going” he said to Michael as a moment later, he disappeared.

“Are you going to question your dad?” Michael asked about his best friend because he had to know that is what she would be planning on doing.

“What do you think?” Isabel murmured.

“Let me know what you find out,” Michael sighed because like Isabel, he was sensing there was trouble on the horizon, and so much we do not know he thought. Max does not want to acknowledge it, but his wife did love him, and was happy on their wedding day.

In that little white church on the outskirts of the mountains.

How could it all end within a year?

Isabel nodded as Max returned and she watched as her two brothers walk off, armed to deal with whatever they were planning on doing now that Michael was back in town, and her brother had his “second in command” again.

Sighing, Isabel chose to go in search of her father and would find him in his home office. A room he had spent considerable time over the years when he was still working but now retired for many years, he still found himself in there when he needed to plan something or to get away, which was his heaven when Mom was sick Isabel knew as she opened the door and walked in and saw his father sitting in a chair at his desk.

A desk she had not seen him at, in months, because he had been at an especially low point lately, but now he seemed different.

She wondered why.

Phillip heard the door open and soon saw the blonde hair of his daughter peek into the room and soon the whole body came in, and she was surprised not to find her father with a drink in his hand. Because she knew scotch was his preferred drink. On the other hand, she did not drink much because she did not know how she would respond because of evidence already exhibited in her brothers, although she knew Max had been more acclimatized to the substance since his divorce took hold, and Michael did not really drink after doing it to excess back in high school. But then with his life centered in Tennessee until recent days, she did not know if he was or not.

But she knew Michael was happy.

So, she suspected no.

Because he has Maria and Lucy Isabel thought of the two that made her brother whole, so he does not need it she murmured as she looked at the man who did not seem bothered by the excess he had been showing since the loss of her mother.

“Isabel?” Phillip asked of his daughter.

“So, are you going to tell me what is happening between you and my brother?” Isabel muttered as she stood against the doorway with her arms crossed, sternly, and Phillip sighed as she spotted the sudden frown on her father’s face.

“I do not know what you mean,” Phillip muttered, even if he did.

“I think you do,” Isabel sighed because she knew her father was a former lawyer. A master at double speaking, and she knew her father too well. “You have given my brother the impression that you know something about the demise of his marriage,” she sighed and from the expression on her father’s face to her words, she knew her brother was right to have such a scent and was now going in the right direction.

But Phillip was prepared to deny it. “You and your brother would be wrong. As we both know, your brother was not even in town back then because the three of you decided to leave this town before,” he sighed.

Isabel groaned as it was not like she wanted to be reminded of that time in her life when they had escaped great harm by the thinnest of their teeth., “Dad, you know every well why we left,” she sighed as her father had been there, and knew what those last days and hours were like. “You were there for those hours, and you know why we had to take the actions we did, and yes, while we did leave, and Max and Liz were living elsewhere, still, I have this sense that you know more than you have given us the impression you do?”

“I know,” Philip murmured as he could not help but flash back to those days, and how long it took before his children were able to come back home to Diane and to him.

“Then are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?” Isabel asked of her father.

Phillip winced because it was not often his daughter raised his voice at him, even with the state of where his life was these days, and therefore it was not pleasant to see because his daughter was loyal and easy to please, which made the fact we did not know the truth for the longest of times harder to handle Phillip mused and it led him to do drastic methods to get at the truth.

Ultimately, it would lose him his children.

So, Phillip knew his words would not go over well with his daughter. “It really is not any of your business,” he would mutter even as he knew that saying such a thing would inflame the situation. Still, the last thing he knew he should be doing was talking about his son’s former marriage to his daughter. “It involves your brother, not you.”

“I am aware of that,” Isabel muttered, obviously annoyed. “But you are obviously not wishing to tell my brother anything either, when it as you indicate, about his own marriage. I know things can be dicey between you and my brother, because you both live in this house, but this will not help matters if he thinks you are keeping something from him. Especially if it is about his marriage to his former wife. Because we both know how much he still has baggage from that time.”

As said, it is for you brother to know,” Phillip murmured even though everything his daughter was saying was right on target because the last thing he should be doing was keeping anything from his son about that time in his son’s life, although it really is not my place to say anything he muttered to himself because it is Liz who knows what went down back then he rationalized.

Yeah, that is some rationalization there Phillip.

“Dad,” Isabel murmured.

“Honey, leave it to your brother and me, please” Phillip murmured. I have had to live with this on my conscious for many years, so why should I not deal with it at least a little longer?

“Dad, what do you know?” Isabel almost pleaded. “Because whatever it is, you know full well that it will come to light, right, with both Liz and Claudia now back in town, so why keep it such a deep dark mystery?”

I know it will come out, but Phillip knew that he needed to live it a little longer, “It does not concern you,” Phillip muttered.

Isabel knew a brush off when she saw it, but it still exasperated her because she wanted to be the one to help her brother and father through this, whatever this is she mused, and her father was not allowing her to be the peacemaker, and that annoyed her. When she full well that whatever was in the air, could damn well destroy everything their family had built together. Yet she knew her father was very stubborn. It runs in the family she knew. Who says you have to share blood she sighed. Because she knew full well that being stubborn was a family trait. We are all so alike. “Fine, then keep whatever you know to yourself and let it blow up on its own because I think you know that all I ever wanted to be is a safe harbor between you and my brother. Because Dad, you know as well as I do that with Liz and Claudia back in town, whatever dark deep secret you are keeping from my brother, or better yet, whatever Liz is keeping from my brother will eventually see the light, and it will be revealed.”

“Oh, I am sure it will,” Phillip muttered. Because something like this cannot say a secret forever…

Exasperated. “Dad, I do not get you” was all Isabel could sigh as she simply walked off, knowing she might have to employ some of her special talents to get any information, which was something she did not want to have to do. “At all,” she added with the deepest of sighs, “I hope you do not come to regret not telling us what the hell is going on?”

“So, do I” Phillip murmured. “So, do I” he sighed as he could not help but wonder if this was very long nightmare might finally be seeing the finish line. For Max’s sake, I hope it is, he thought to himself. Because he did not care about himself, that much is obvious he told himself, but he did want his son to be happy because he knew how much it cost Max to move in to help his late wife when she became sick.

Isabel had been married at the time, with three growing kids and unable to do more than an odd doctor’s appointment, but it was Max who had moved in to help him with Diane.

Making Phillip feel even more guilty for what he had kept from his son. Sure, it was Liz’s decision, but I could have told so much more to my son, he sighed. My son should have been the priority, not my daughter-in-law, and the sacrifice she was willing to make.

Even though they had lived elsewhere at the time, he had known what had happened because he had been approached first.

When he resisted. They went after Liz. Phillip now would acknowledge, and he would feel guilty although there would be little his son could have done because by the time, he had known what was up, it was over. Liz had made the decision.

And walked away from his son taking his granddaughter with her.

A baby he had not even met except for a very quick glance…

Until today, this morning, and that baby in a stroller was now eighteen and an eerie combination of both of her parents, but with the downside of having to live a life that had come from a sacrifice his daughter-in-law had made as he saw in his office and heard the echo of the door slamming such as his daughter stormed off, because he was not willing to betray a confidence. That was not even instilled in him legally because he had not been used in that manner, but still it was a conversation that had played out and rang continually in his mind.

Still to this day.

“Liz, Max would not want you do this” Phillip remembered saying.

“It is too late,” Liz was saying as they stood in a corner of the park. After suddenly appearing after sending her father-in-law a cryptic message at his office. A message Phillip did not get the true meaning of until after he arrived and heard what was in the process of happening, which was new because his son had obviously not told his parents of the destruction of his short-lived marriage as he would be now armed with that information, and now Phillip could see a man in a suit looking out of place grabbing a hold of a stroller that held a baby. Like that would be appropriate in a place like this, Phillip would muse.

In a family friendly park.

In a small town.

“I did not come to you Phillip to ask for your legal advice because it’s too late,” Liz would mutter And I would not want to put you in that position, she would think even though she stood here today putting him in the wrong type of position. But she knew it was too late because she could not go home again.

I have already taken care of that, she would muse.

Because I cannot go home again, she would tell herself.

Not here to Roswell, or elsewhere, to the place she had been living with her husband. It was too late. She was too far gone, in more than the obvious ways.

“Obviously,” Phillip would sigh as he once again looked at the stern looking man, wearing glasses on a cloudy day. Way to draw attention to yourself, Phillip would think. “Why come to me?”

If not for my legal advice, although there would be so much, he could say.

“To know why I am doing this to your son,” Liz sighed.

Phillip sighed. “You say you love my son,” he would ask. Which betrays the fact that you are leaving my son, he thought. “You know Max would not want you to do this. He wanted to fight. Or if fighting was not possible than he would want to be with you and your daughter, together, which is why you left this town, was it not?” To be together.

“They will not let me bring him, and even if I could, I do not want to chance it Liz would think. “That is not the deal I made because they have me,” Liz murmured. “And it was more like they have Max. This the only way I can think of to protect my husband, your son.” she murmured as it still stung her of those memories of when she told her husband that she wanted out. That she did not feel safe with him.

And I did not want to continue to expose our daughter to his life.

It was all a lie.

And an elaborate shorting of the truth. When the truth was such the opposite of what she had told her husband, that there would be no one like him for her, and because he was her everything, and yes, because he was, she knew she had to do this for him.

To protect him.

Even if she was traveling down a road she had gone down before, that had only led to disappointment and more pain.

Future Max anyone?

But she knew she had to this even if she was sentencing herself and her daughter to a life that did not have Max with them, even though she knew he would have dropped everything and come with her, and gone on the run again, somewhere, anywhere those thugs would not have found her.

Which is something that could be asked, why did she not get out of dodge with her husband and daughter?

They would find me, and she knew she would not do that to Max.

Even though she knew what she was asking of herself…

Lifelong pain, and for her daughter to know the other side of her, or even more painful.

Her father.

“This is not the answer,” Phillip muttered as he felt for his daughter-in-law and knew she had to be debating whether it was really worth it, and he knew that it was not. And even though he was thinking that his daughter-in-law’s sacrifice was not the answer still he did not know what the right answer was because he would have done anything to prevent losing his children to the road, and to the enemy that he had not known was present in his children’s lives until it was too late. “There has to be some other way?”

“There is not,” Liz sighed.

Why can I not help my own family. “They cannot force you to do this you know,” Phillip murmured. “You are giving them all the leverage?”

She knew it. But it was the only thing she could think of, to prevent more pain and harm coming to their group. Even if it was not a sacrifice her husband would want her to take. Or anyone with any sanity, but she had too much experience in this life.

She needed to protect her husband.

Max.

“Maybe this will not work, but if it helps your son that I will take it because I have to think of someone more than me, because if it were only me than I might have thrown caution to the wind like I have done so many other times during the crazy journey that I have been on since I came to know your son, but I have to think of Claudia. I need to make sure she is safe. If I can protect her, and protect your son, then I will do it.”

“How does this help my son?” Phillip would ask.“It makes him a sitting duck.” And it costs him, his wife and daughter?

“No, it is the opposite,” Liz said shaking her head even though she knew that there was some merit to what her father-in-law was saying. But she could not stand here thinking that it might not work. When she had to think of herself as a mother, more than a wife or even a woman who passionately loved her husband. “They do not want him,” she muttered. Because they do not want to think they are harboring an alien if this comes badly for them. Liz would think. “They have agreed to not come after him as long as I go away.”

Jesus Liz,” Phillip sighed. What has gotten into you? “You are listening to a bunch of suits who had been known to hurt my son before…” he would mutter even though he knew he did not have the whole story. Full disclosure was not something his children had been willing to give him and his wife before their flight from their town.

So, he knew he was sitting on a whole lot of unknowns.

But he did not know if this was the answer.

It could not be.

There has to be another way.

But Liz was not seeing any other way. Phillip would muse to himself even though he did not do what his son had said to his wife. Maybe this was postpartum delusions he would wonder. Claudia Diane was only three months old. Maybe Liz was going through something coupled with being with my son, and whatever has gone down over the years.

“They can take him away from me,” Liz cried. “I have to protect him,” even if she knew this was a crappy way of protecting him and how this would have lasting consequences. But they were consequences she could bear because nothing was not what she could bear. “I have to protect Claudia,” who is one of them, and to take her away, I have to do this, Max would want me to protect our daughter, if not him she sighed. “I have to protect my husband and daughter. Maybe I am thinking foolishly, but I need to do this. I need to make sure they cannot get him because they got me,” she flinched at the memory of those hours, and what she had to endure. “And I know what they can do, and it was bad enough what they did to me, I cannot imagine what they would do if they got a hold of your son once more. Especially because they already had gotten a hold him once before,” she winced at the horror that she knew had been inflicted on her husband after Sophomore year, and she could not handle Max going through anymore of that torment. “I cannot allow him to deal with it again, when he had captured once before, and she shuddered to think of what would happen to the others. “Or even Isabel if they can find her,” she muttered as she knew her sister-in-law was in Boston. “And Michael. Getting them would be worse and I rather take the hit if it means protecting them” she thought of the hits she had already taken, figuratively and mentally already, and maybe that is why she was doing this, because of what she had to deal with when they had her. And when she thought of the others, she would never want Maria to have to go through what she has had too…

Even though it was now how different she was, Liz from Maria. Still, she rather be the one to take the hit because she knew how different she really was. She did not want her best friend to feel what she currently did, and in the past had to deal with…

She knew she never would be who she once was, and she was willing to make this sacrifice if it means she could protect Max.

She would rather he hate her, than have to go prison and spend the rest of his life behind bars for something he would never have done in his right mind, so she could live with her self-knowing she did this to save him otherwise if she could have saved him, and she did not make this sacrifice.

A divorce was better than the alternative.

Even if it was not, but Liz was sure, and maybe it was in some ways, and she would rather have her husband living somewhere in this country than before bars…

Or knowing what they had done to me.

Phillip was beginning to see how special his daughter-in-law was, and how lucky his son was but unfortunately it also meant his son would spend the next eighteen years in heartbreaking pain because of the loss that should not have happened.

And because he had not told his son what his wife had done to protect him.

“What do you want me to do?” Phillip murmured.

“Convince your son to divorce me,” Liz muttered. “He is going to be denial. He is going to tell himself that I am crazy because of having the baby, that I am going to take a couple of weeks or months and then I am going to come back to him, and I am going to bring his daughter back to him, and because he is going to think that… He is going to want to stall, stamp down his feet and stubbornly insist on doing nothing. Out of the belief that I will be back, but we both know I will not be coming back to your son and therefore, I need you to convince him to divorce me.”

Jesus.

“I will not fight it,” Liz sighed as she stood there as she took a look back at the man guarding her daughter. Who gave her warning nod to wrap this up? “You have to get him to sue me for divorce. Cite anything you want in the papers. I will not fight any of the grounds you pick. You need to do anything and everything to force him to let me go,” she pleaded even though she knew it would be a tall order. Because she knew the last time, she forced her husband to give up on her, it did not particularly go well but this time I will no longer be around to look into those eyes she muttered to herself. “And make sure he comes back to Roswell. Because you need to keep any eye on him for me, please Phillip, will you do that for me?

Would he?

Phillip knew he did not have any other choice but to say one word.

“Yes,”

“Thank you,” Liz whispered as she would walk away from her father-in-law after giving him one simple glance at his granddaughter, as mere seconds later, he would watch as Liz would disappear into a different world for the next eighteen years as he picked up his phone and dialed a familiar number but did not get the target of his call. “You know who it is, call me back, as soon as possible. “

And went back to sipping his scotch, and he slowly descended back into his black hole over the knowledge of what he did, or did not do, in the act of protecting his son.

As he looked at the picture of Claudia that had come in the mail with signed divorce papers, from a postmarked location in New York.

So, to top it off, he had known where his son’s wife and daughter had been and did not tell his son.

Yeah, I know I am going to hell…

So, you can understand why he was slowly destroying himself.

Could he find some way to seek salvation, and right this terrible wrong?

Well that's quite the situation.
So Liz was with the special unit?
It's a bit confusing.
Hope Max finds out soon.