Roswell Fanatics

Gentle Readers ...

I apologize over and over again for the delay. As some of you know, I've been out sick for awhile with colon problems. Even after I was starting to feel better, I had all the ambition of a slug.

I'm a little unsure of this chapter. I think I got it right, but you never know. Of course, the show treated the whole situation like crap anyway, so what I wrote could hardly be worse. I spent alot of time second guessing myself with it, especially with how I decided to write Liz's feelings about his future self, and finally decided to just post it.

Thanks for sticking with me during long, dry spell. You're the best.


From Chapter 7c

It was in his mind to simply remove himself from her presence, her tears a silent testament to the pain he'd caused her. He'd inflicted himself on her long enough. Max hand his hand on the ladder, ready to swing his leg over the ledge and climb down when her voice stopped him.

"You can't go yet, Max," Liz's voice was weary. "We have one more thing to talk about."


Chapter 7d

Max heard her request for him to stay, and it stopped him in his tracks. It was an awkward moment, and he rocked back and forth a bit, before regaining his equilibrium.

He looked over his shoulder at her, standing there with the light from the window making a halo around her, and he slowly turned. Max took a few steps in Liz's direction, raking a hand thru his hair before thrusting both of them in his pockets. His uncertainty was slowly turning to dread. Somehow, he knew down to his bones that what he was about to hear was going to shatter him.

Liz went to take a seat on her chaise lounge, too tired to keep up the effort of standing. She rested her elbows on her knees, letting her head fall into her hands. She had no idea what to say, how to begin to tell him about the night that had changed everything.

She could hear Max move over to the spot by the wall, the place where so long ago he'd written their intials in red, along with a heart. Why did he have to go and stand there? She raised her head to see him leaning back against it, his hands still in his pockets, a sure sign that he was nervous. He always did that when he was nervous or unsure, needing to do something with his hands.

"I don't even know how to start this," Liz told him, her brow wrinkling a bit. "It's going to sound so ... so ... unbelievable. But everything I'm going to tell you is true."

"Okay," Max nodded, hoping that his voice sounded encouraging. He could feel his heart beginning to pound in a staccato rhythm, and he moistened suddenly dry lips.

"It was last fall," she began. "Maria and Alex and I went to see her mother's psychic," she said with a small, wry laugh. "It seemed like such a silly thing to do, and I was really only went along to humor Maria. She told us about our futures," Liz's voice trailed off as she remembered. She frowned as her mind veered slightly off track, thinking of something that hadn't occurred to her before. How was it that this "prophet," whose advice Maria's mom based her whole life on, managed to miss FutureMax landing on her balcony with all the subtlety of a Mack truck not even 12 hours later?

"Was it good?" Max asked softly when she didn't continue.

"Yeah, yeah it was," she brought herself back to the present, feeling the sting of tears at the memory of everything Madame Vivian had told her. She took a deep breath before resuming. "Anyway, after Maria dropped me off, I was in my room," Liz could feel the warm blood suffusing her cheeks as she recalled standing in front of her mirror with the swathe of lace that had become a wedding veil in her fantasy, "and that's when it happened. I had a visitor."

Liz could still see him so clearly ... long hair and leather, a world-weary face, haunted eyes that had witnessed far too much. He was scarred and hardened and desperate. Yet, for all of that, his voice had still softened with an incredible gentle yearning as he'd remembered learning the lyrics to a spanish love song to woo her. And as he'd reluctantly described their life together, the depth of the love they'd shared, and their blazing happiness, were achingly apparent.

"Oh, we danced," he'd whispered, his eyes faraway, lost in the memory of their wedding night.

Max watched her face, emotions delineated there that he hadn't seen since the night they'd spent in the van, after his rescue from the white room. It was an unguarded moment, as she let herself relive the encounter, and he felt another stab of jealousy and loss flood his heart. When she shook herself out of her reverie and looked up at him, her next words stunned him.

"It was you, Max," she said as her eyes filled with tears. She brushed at them absently. "My visitor was you, from 14 years in the future."

"It was me?" his voice was filled with confusion, doubt. He'd braced himself to hear alot of explanations, but this was the last thing he'd expected. "I don't ... I don't understand."

"I'm not surprised," Liz gave a tired little laugh. "I barely understood it myself, when it first happened. One minute, I was by myself, the next minute he was crouched by my window, saying my name."

Without realizing it, Liz had switched pronouns as she began to describe the events of that time. It was as if the Max in front of her, and the Max from the future, had become two separate entities in her mind. Maybe it was because they seemed so different now.

"I was scared, at first," she continued. "He told me he was from the future, and I was ready to run. It was almost ludicrous, actually ... the two of us circling around my room, me trying to get away from him while he was trying to convince me that he wasn't a shapeshifter."

She could see in Max's eyes that he had been thinking along the same lines as she described the scene ... that it was a shapeshifter.

"There is no such thing as time travel, Liz," he said in a hesitant voice. "It's against every law of physics."

She could tell that he was trying not to give the impression that he didn't believe her per se, but that he was skeptical all the same. She could understand that, because he was just expressing exactly what she'd thought at the time, almost word for word. Mr. Seligman should be proud that two of his best students retained that much of what he'd taught them.

"That's what I told him, and that's why I didn't believe he wasn't a shapeshifter at first. It wasn't until he told me that you were going to come to my balcony with a mariachi band to serenade me," there was the smallest of smiles as she could see Max look down with a slightly embarrassed quirk of his lips, "and you showed up about 10 seconds later, that I first started to believe him. And when he told me that you would change the roses from red to white, because you remembered that they were my favorite, and it happened just as he said, I was pretty much convinced," she shrugged. "There was just no other way he could have known those things."

"How is that possible, Liz?" Max asked. "I mean, even if I believe you, and I'm not saying that I don't" he hurried to add, "it still goes against everything we were ever taught, everything that the scientific community knows to be true."

"The Granolith," she responded simply.

"The Granolith," he repeated with a note of disbelief in his voice.

"He told me that it was possible because they'd modified it. He said that it has an enormous amount of power, and with the changes they'd made, they were able to create an artificial tear in space time," she explained. "That's why he was able to come back."

Liz watched as Max tried to wrap his mind around the fact that he had come back through time, with the help of a machine that he had no idea was that powerful. Oh, he knew that it was a force to be reckoned with, because of her warning before he'd gone to New York, but other than that miniscule piece of information, he was unaware of it's potential.

"Why would he do that, Liz?" he asked, not realizing that he had unconsciously followed her lead, and changed pronouns while referring to his future self. "Why would he go to all that trouble? What happened in his time?" Max's voice was suddenly laden with dread. "It was bad, wasn't it, whatever caused him to risk modifying the Granolith and come back." When she didn't respond immediately, he verbally nudged her again. "How bad was it, Liz?"

"The end of the world," she said in a hushed murmur. "It was all over, Max. Kivar invaded, Earth was overrun, Michael and Isabel were dead. There was no hope, nothing but death and carnage and devastation. He didn't share it all, or give me details, but he didn't have to. It was all over his face, in every inflection of his voice. He was a walking, breathing mass of exhausted despair."

Max felt his legs give out, and he dropped to his knees, appalled.

"14 years from now?" he whispered.

Liz nodded, unable to say anything further. She waited, giving Max time to try and absorb the enormity of what he'd just heard. She remembered what it had felt like, to try and handle the revelations that came one right after another, each one going from bad to worse. There were times when she'd felt like she personally had been the model for the Edvard Munch painting, "The Scream."

"And there was nothing left?" he asked, his voice strained.

"No, I don't think so," Liz shook her head sadly. "He didn't really say, but I think he was trying to spare me as much as he could."

"Why would he come back, just to tell you that?" Max gazed into her eyes as he worked to put the pieces together.

She watched his struggle to understand, and she knew when it began to dawn on him the exact reason why his future self had taken the chance on modifying the Granolith, why he'd attempted the risk of time travel.

"What did he ask you to do, Liz?" he demanded. "What did I ask you to do?"

"He told me that he needed me to help you fall out of love with me," her voice broke, as tears brimmed in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. At Max's look of bewildered disbelief, she continued. "He said that when you and Michael and Isabel and Tess were sent here, you were sent as a unit. You all had different gifts, and each was critical to your success. Your unit was irreparably weakened when Tess left Roswell. Apparently, you and I got back together, and the closer the two of us got, the worse things became with Tess. She'd finally had enough, and she was gone. It was only when Kivar invaded Earth that you realized that you couldn't win without her."

"So his solution, my solution, was to force you to try and make me fall out of love with you?" Max was incredulous. "Why would he think that? Didn't he know himself ... me ... at all? I could never fall out of love with you."

Liz felt her anger at this Max rising, just a bit. It was odd, because they were the same person, really. But she was the one who had shared that time with his future self, and he was her comrade in the inevitable destruction of their blinding happiness. Maybe it wasn't the best plan in the world ... oh, who was she kidding? It was a ridiculous plan. But she understood his future self. She got how desperate he was, grasping at any straw to try and change events that were so horrific in scale that the mind couldn't conceive the level of devastation.

"He worked with what he knew, okay?" she snapped. "The only thing he understood for sure was that a FourSquare missing a member was useless as a fighting unit. Tess left because of us. He said he treated her badly. Knowing what we know about her now, I'd say that she probably continually hounded him to accept her as his wife. Maybe he got tired of her constant harping about their former 'relationship,'" Liz made angry quotation marks with her fingers, "and maybe he just flat-out told her to either accept that you and I were together or get the hell out. I. Don't. Know."

Liz stopped to take a breath. She could feel the need to begin to wring her hands together again, and put them under her thighs, trying to contain the desire. She felt unbelievably protective of his future self.

"But, I do know that he understood he had to keep the unit together," she continued when she felt in control again. "And since she was so fixated on being his wife, maybe he felt the only way to keep her here was if that relationship had a chance to develop. And that meant that I had to be out of the picture."

Liz's voice caught, as the anguish at the mere idea of breaking them apart fell over her again. She'd lived with this for so long now. She should be able to tell it without falling into pieces all over again, right?

"So, we tried," she bit her lip for a moment. "We tried everything we could think of. You were so stubborn. Setting you up with Tess didn't work. Every lie I told you about wanting a life that wasn't dangerous, wanting a life that was normal ... that didn't work either. I had to stand there and verbally rip you to shreds, and pretend that you were everything I didn't want, when you were everything that I did. And all the time, the clock was ticking."

As she continued to remember that time, she thought of something she hadn't before. When she'd come back from Max's house, after giving him the speech about Romeo and Juliet, there had been a deepened anguish in his future self's face. She wondered now if maybe, just maybe, he'd internalized that speech as it became part of his present self's memories. That he could recall the wounds those words had inflicted ... not because he'd helped her write the speech and memorize it ... but because it became something that he'd lived. And he'd never let on how much it hurt. It was another blow taken in the futile attempt to change history.

Liz looked over at Max, struggling to take it all in. He looked absolutely shell-shocked ... dazed, bewildered, devastated.

"There was only one other thing I could think of to do," she tearfully shook her head, reaching for a tissue to wipe her eyes. "I called Kyle."

tbc, because it's still not over

Gentle Readers ...

It's not as long as I wanted, but I have to go away this weekend and I wanted to post what I had. My godson has a part in the school play, and I have to travel 180 miles to go see him. West Side Story, and he's a Jet.

I sound like a broken record, but I'm a little unsure about this part. I think I'll feel that way until the entire conversation is done, which it still isn't, btw.

I'm emotionally drained, so I'm gonna go hang with Zan for awhile. I won't have anything posted for Always until the middle of next week at the earliest, but he's demanding some attention, too.

As always, let me know what you think, because I love hearing from you ...

From Chapter 7d

"There was only one other thing I could think of to do," she tearfully shook her head, reaching for a tissue to wipe her eyes. "I called Kyle."


Chapter 7e

Liz watched Max's reactions to her words. He had been staring at her, taking in what she had to say, his gaze clinging to hers like a lifeline as revelation after revelation finally came out. She could see how he struggled with it all. How do you wrap your mind around being one half of the reason for the end of the world? How do you take hold of the concept that time travel is possible, when everything you've ever been taught says that such a thing goes against every law of physics and reality? How do you understand that 14 years in the future, you personally are the one to take that concrete fact, and smash it to smithereens under the new reality that it can be done?

She understood how he felt. After all, she'd felt that way herself, months ago, when his future self landed on her balcony. But, she'd had the advantage of having it all play out in front of her. Good or bad, she'd lived it, while Max had to try and accept it on the basis of her word alone.

And now ... well, now they were going to get into the crux of the matter. The final chapter to the whole saga of those awful days.

Without thinking about it, she slid from her seat on the lounge chair, falling to her knees in front of him. They were now mirror images, their posture the same, their eyes locked.

"You have to understand exactly what was at stake," she said urgently, as she pushed her hair back from her forehead. "Everything that we'd tried, failed. It failed miserably. There was one moment, after I came to your room and lied and lied," Liz's voice broke a bit, and she took a moment to get herself under control again before continuing, "there was one moment when we thought it finally worked. I was sitting there," she pointed to her chair, "crying, and he wanted to hand me a tissue."

"I'd never seen anything like that," she shook her head, her voice small. "His hand became ... insubstantial. It went right through the box."

Max cleared his throat.

"What ... what did that mean?" he asked.

"He told me that if our plan succeeded, he would cease to exist," she said sadly. "The future would be different, and there would be no world for him to go back to."

"He would disappear," Max concluded softly.

"Yeah," Liz nodded, subdued. "So, when we saw that, we thought we'd succeeded. And then ... then he became solid again. And we realized it didn't work at all."

"I went to Maria that night, after you'd come to my room," Max told her thoughtfully. "I didn't know what to do, didn't know what to think. Everything you said ... I could never give you the normal life you wanted. I'd never be able to. It was actually the first time that I thought I'd beaten my head against the wall long enough. That I'd tried everything I knew, but I just didn't have what it took. That, fundamentally, the differences were suddenly so clear after your visit, and they simply couldn't be bridged. So I asked her for the truth."

"What did she say?" Liz was curious.

Maria had never told her about her conversation with Max. She was Liz's best friend, but she'd also gotten close to Max over the summer, and there were times that she didn't break a confidence for anyone. Just as she would hold Liz's secrets, she would hold Max's as well. It would seem this was one of those times.

"You know Maria," Max gave a short, rueful laugh. "She was brutally honest. She told me to give you up. Her advice was to let you go, that being with aliens was doing nothing but screwing up your life, hers ... hell, everyone we touched," his voice was hoarse. "But, even though she was right, I wasn't there yet. Maria's gotten to know me pretty well. She knew I wasn't to that point. It was her conclusion that I should let it go. But, when it came right down to it, I couldn't," his eyes were earnest. "I loved you. I just couldn't give up."

"So close," Liz whispered, her eyes closing at the thought. "We came so close."

"Did he ... did I realize how hard it was for you?" Max was troubled. "Please tell me he did."

Watching Liz relive the events, listening to her voice break, her eyes get dark and fill with tears as she struggled with emotions and hurts that were obviously still fresh, made him ache. Even while Max tried to put it all together, the enormity of the cost to her was finally beginning to become clear. She had been so good at hiding her feelings, presenting a facade of normalcy, pretending that everything was fine and that this was what she'd wanted. She never missed a step, because everything was riding on her performance.

"You mean, did he comfort me?" she asked. At his nod, she bit her lip and shrugged her shoulders. "He walked a very fine line, Max. He did what he had to do. He pushed me, but I could feel how much it hurt him to have to do it. He made me do what was necessary, but he hated ever single second of it. It was killing him," her eyes brimmed with tears, "because he loved me. He held himself so carefully, made himself as remote as he could, because otherwise he never could have gone through with it. And I knew that. That's what I took my comfort from. Not from his ... your ...arms around me, but from the fact that, even as rigidly as he held himself, his despair could still bleed through to me. We were in it together."

"Was that when ... when he asked you to do whatever it was that you did with Kyle?" Max asked cautiously, after an interlude of silence.

"No," Liz shook her head. "Actually, I was the one who came up with the idea. He was against it, really. He said it would never work," she said with a fond, sad little laugh.

Max wanted nothing more, at this moment, than to have the right to take Liz in his arms, hold her close and have her let out all her sorrow and anger. He was horrified at the sheer magnitude of the responsibility that rested on her shoulders, and appalled at how long she'd had to carry the burden alone. Looking into her eyes almost hurt, because they had become just as world-weary as she'd described his future self as being.

"I got the idea from Maria," Liz nodded her head at Max's confused look. "Michael was investigating Courtney, and Maria caught the two of them in a rather," she hesitated for a moment, "awkward display. Courtney was in a towel, coming out of the bathroom," she elaborated. "Maria went ballistic. It was something she told me the next day that gave me the idea. She said that when she saw that, she realized there was nothing that Michael could do to make up for it."

"So, you went to Kyle," Max concluded dully.

"I went to Kyle," Liz agreed. "He had no idea why I wanted to do what we did, but he went along with it. We set up the scene in my bedroom, and waited for you. Undergarments stayed on, nothing happened, and you saw exactly what I wanted you to see," her voice cracked. "The look on your face," she swiped at her cheeks, "I'll never forget it."

She sat back on her heels, tears falling freely as she remembered. Kyle had beaten a hasty retreat after that awkward moment. He took her word for it when she absently reassured him that she was alright, wanting nothing more than for him to leave. She'd given him a jerky nod when he stood in the door of her room, telling her he was sorry before closing it softly behind him. Liz sat on the edge of her bed, the sheet wrapped around her, when his future self walked out of the bathroom.

His face was set in anguish, and from the vantage point of time, Liz now realized that he'd probably internalized that memory too. Another wound, in a night of so many.

She'd given him a rather forlorn smile, before getting to her feet as he came to stand in front of her. It was the one time he'd taken her in his arms and just held her. It was the only comfort they'd allowed themselves.

Max raised his hand, wanting to brush the tears from her cheek as she knelt there, lost in the memory. At the slight shake of her head, he let it fall again, knowing that the gesture would overstep his bounds. Liz stretched behind her to grab her box of tissues, pulling out a few to wipe her tears and blow her nose, before tossing them aside.

"You knew I'd be there because he told you," Max continued to run down the evening in his mind, needing something to say after the awkwardness of the moment when Liz understandably rejected his gesture.

"Yeah, he said you'd be coming with Gomez tickets," Liz nodded.

"Liz," his voice became more urgent, "it was so important that I see what you wanted me to see. What would have happened that night? Do you know?"

She bit her lip, wondering whether or not to tell him this final thing. Did he really need to realize that the night she'd ripped his heart to shreds was supposed to be the night that had taken them to a happiness and fulfillment that few had ever known? What good would it do for him to hear it, now? But, when she'd made herself available to him, she'd told herself that this was the night for the truth ... all of it.

"We cemented," she told him sadly.

tbc, again because it's still not over.

Gentle Readers ...

Once again, I'm a little unsure about this. I've had to recreate it, because my computer crashed again, and it got lost. And I'm getting ready to build an ark this weekend, because we've been sitting under a stationary front that has been dumping scads of rain for what seems like days now. The entire weekend looks waterlogged, too. Now I know how Noah felt.

Let me know what you think ...


From Chapter 7E

"Liz," his voice became more urgent, "it was so important that I see what you wanted me to see. What would have happened that night? Do you know?"

She bit her lip, wondering whether or not to tell him this final thing. Did he really need to realize that the night she'd ripped his heart to shreds was supposed to be the night that had taken them to a happiness and fulfillment that few had ever known? What good would it do for him to hear it, now? But, when she'd made herself available to him, she'd told herself that this was the night for the truth ... all of it.

"We cemented," she told him sadly.


Chapter 7F

"We ... cemented?" Max repeated in a low voice, confusion in his eyes.

Why did that word resonate so deeply within him? It was such an innocuous word really, an obvious euphemism, yet he somehow knew it represented something so important, so critical, that he could feel it's impact begin to spread through his soul, even before he totally understood it's meaning.

"We made love," Liz's tear-laden gaze fell from his as she looked away, suddenly inexplicably shy.

Max stared at her averted face, stunned. He couldn't begin to identify all the feelings that began careening through him at those three simple words. Every revelation during the course of the evening rocked his world, but this last one shook it to it's very foundations.

"No," Max shook his head slowly, "we didn't."

Liz almost smiled at that, his reaction really not much different than her own, when his future self dropped the bombshell so long ago. Sheer, instinctive denial.

"That's what he told me," Liz said softly, turning her head to look at him again. "You came to my room with tickets to see Gomez. I refused to go, but," she gave a delicate little shrug, "you wouldn't take no for an answer. It's just that," she bit her lip, a blush staining her cheeks, "we never made it to the concert."

With what he'd just learned from her about that time, the differences he'd seen in Liz's demeanor now began to make some sense. When he'd come to her balcony to serenade her, he could have sworn she was softening. He was sure there were chinks in her armor that were finally showing. On the strength of that, he'd gone out and purchased tickets, knowing that she loved the band. He'd been so hopeful that he could finally persuade her to change her mind about their relationship. And then, on the night he'd found out she'd set him up with Tess, all his hopes had been dashed once more. She was closed off again, more determined than ever that it was over. Now, he knew that his future self had already revealed to Liz the consequences of their being together.

He'd come to her balcony in another desperate attempt. And, instead of the evening that was supposed to be, filled with tender passion where they'd made slow, sweet love to each other for hours, binding themselves together forever ... cementing, indeed ... it had become a night of unimaginable pain for them both.

"He said that we became inseparable, after that," her eyes were sad and wistful as she thought back to his future self's reluctant confession of that magical time. "Nothing ever came between us again," Liz's voice trembled a bit, "until the end of the world."

Max felt as if he couldn't breathe. He now knew the whole truth of that night. They would have made love, would have been together always. As hard as it had been to deal with that shattering evening before, it was unbearable now. In his mind, he could see the two of them, locked in a fevered embrace, their clothes fallen away as they explored mysteries between each other that were as old as time. And then it was gone, replaced by the image of Liz and Kyle in bed together ... the necessary lie.

What would have been, what should have been, had been sacrificed on the altar of what needed to be.

Max could feel his throat get tight, his eyes filling. "What ... what else did he tell you?" his voice cracked hoarsely.

"Max," she entreated. She was no longer sure she wanted to continue, despite her decision to tell him everything. It just hurt them both so much.

"Liz, please," he begged.

After a moment's hesitation, she nodded. He had every right to hear this, because it was his future that had been given up too. And she could understand how he felt. He was greedy for details, just as she had been when she'd spent that evening in Whitaker's office with his future self. That Max had been as reluctant to tell her anything about those years, as she was now to reveal them to his present self. But, in the end, he'd given in to her gentle unspoken plea, and told her.

"We got married," Liz told him, and she could see by his expression that he was truly shaken.

"Married," he whispered, turning away to stare at the ground without really seeing it.

"He said we eloped when we were 19," her voice grew strained. "The Elvis Chapel in Vegas," Liz elaborated, watching him closely, waiting to see his reaction.

Max's head shot up at that. His gaze slammed into hers, and she could see that he had quickly grasped the significance of what she'd just said. Liz nodded her head slowly, knowing that they were both thinking the same thing.

"My memory flash," he rasped. "It really was real."

"Yeah," she brushed the ever-present tears away, "yeah, it was." She drew in a deep breath. "Max, I know I never asked you this before, but ... but, what did you see that day?"

His face softened to that same incredibly gentle yearning she'd witnessed when his future self told her about learning the lyrics to the spanish love song to woo her.

"I watched this couple that I'd never seen before get out of a taxi. He picked her up and spun her around, and then ... then it was us. You and me," Max was lost in the memory. "I held you in my arms, like I was going to carry you over the threshold. I was wearing a tux, and you were wearing a wedding dress. It was kind of, I don't know, satiny, with little straps at the shoulders. And you wore a veil, with your hair down ... the way I like it," his voice was soft. "You had a bouquet of white roses. You were so beautiful, Liz," his eyes filled with tears of his own. "You were beautiful and happy and ... and ... what's that word they always use?"

"Radiant?" Liz's cheeks were flaming, her voice very shy.

"Yeah," Max nodded, his gaze earnest. "You were radiant. I spun you around and we ... we kissed. We were so happy," his voice trailed away, and he reached beyond Liz for the box of kleenex. He held it out to her, and she grabbed one to wipe her eyes. Max took a few himself, blowing his nose, before stuffing them into the pocket of his jeans. He cleared his throat.

"It really was real," he said, his voice wistful.

"After we got married," Liz took up where he left off, "we called Michael, Maria, Isabel and Alex, and had them meet us halfway home. To celebrate," she gave a sad little laugh. "We met up with them at this little dive outside of Phoenix. We spent the whole night singing and dancing. We actually wore them out," a small, tearful smile lit her face. "It was so late, and they were all exhausted, but not us. That's when 'I Shall Believe' came on the radio," Liz's eyes were tender as she remembered what his future self had told her. "And we danced, just the two of us. It became our song."

They were both weeping quietly now, silent tears slipping down their cheeks as they mourned a coming together and a marriage that had never been ... for them.

And that the insistent feeling he'd had at the back of his mind for so long before, the feeling he hadn't had for months now, was back with a vengeance. The instinct that there had been more going on than what he was seeing, the voice that he'd ignored as it became quieter and quieter, until it faded away altogether, awoke to thunder once more in his head. And it called him a fool.

He finally saw it for what it was. That still, small voice was nothing less than his faith in her. It had whispered to him that he should trust her, that everything he'd ever believed about her wasn't a lie. And instead of heeding to it, holding onto it with everything he had, he'd let his faith slip farther and farther away from him, until it was lost.

And now, that faith found it's voice again, vindicated. But it was well beyond too late. How could he have allowed himself to be led by what his eyes saw, and not looked deeper? And even when she stonewalled him, how could he have not kept faith with her for as long as it took? For all his protestations that he loved her, wouldn't the proof have been in remaining steadfast, no matter what?

"I hated it, you know," Liz said quietly, after a long silence. She blew her nose, and crumpled the tissue in her palm. "As much as I hurt you, telling you those lies and setting up that scene, I hurt myself just as much. Maybe you won't believe that, but it's true. I wanted to tell you a million times. There were a couple of occasions where I almost did," she gave a rueful shake of her head, "but I was just too afraid of the consequences. And now, it doesn't even matter, because the world's going to end anyway."

tbc, again

Gentle Readers ...

An update - let's just call it this week's sign that the Apocalypse is upon us:


Chapter 7G

He was totally undone inside.

He couldn't think of any other way to describe it. He'd been so wrong about everything. He'd stopped fighting against what he instinctively knew was wrong, and went with the flow. What he'd believed in his heart was a lie somewhere became an acceptable truth. What strength was gained in his soul by his continuing struggle against what his senses told him to believe, was lost when he'd given up the effort.

And his faith withered and died.

The cost was far above measure. He watched Liz as she bit her lip, gazing at him with eyes that were sad and knowing beyond her years. It broke his heart. The innocence and naivety were gone. In their place was a steely resolve that even the weight of the world couldn't break.

But, she was tired. The weariness in her was a tangible thing, leaving shadows under her eyes that stood out like smudges against her too-pale skin. She was thinner than he remembered, and he hated himself for not seeing it before now. Of course, he hadn't really looked at her closely for a long time, because it had simply hurt too much. Max closed his eyes in self-recrimination. Another sign that he'd changed ... he, who had developed watching her into an art form, now seemed to never watch her at all.

"I hated it, you know," Liz said quietly, after a long silence. She blew her nose, and crumpled the tissue in her palm. "As much as I hurt you, telling you those lies and setting up that scene, I hurt myself just as much. Maybe you won't believe that, but it's true. I wanted to tell you a million times. There were a couple of times where I almost did," she gave a rueful shake of her head, "but I was just too afraid of the consequences. And now, it doesn't even matter, because the world's going to end anyway.

Max's heart plummeted at her words. She didn't think he would believe her ...

It was shattering to him. How could she feel that way? Yet, what could she have possibly seen, in his words and actions of late, that would lead her to believe that he had the slightest faith in her? There was nothing, absolutely nothing, that she could point to. Not since the night she came to him after Alex died. The last time he'd taken her side.

She'd come to him first with her suspicions about Alex's death. Him. Liz trusted him in her heartbreaking loss, confiding in him with the faith that he'd understand and have her back.

"We won't let that happen. I'll...I'll talk to Valenti. He's just jumping to conclusions."

"Just the fact that his parents have to go through this, this nightmare. They do not need to think that their son..."

"Liz, I'll handle it."

Oh, he'd handled it alright. He went to Valenti and allowed himself to be convinced that Alex really had committed suicide. He'd let her down in the most spectacular fashion possible. Hell, he'd not only let her down, he'd turned around and attacked her.

"An alibi ... from one of your own."

The day he'd said those contemptuous words came back to haunt him, taunt him. He'd watched her eyes widen in shocked surprise, before going bleak with the knowledge that the one person she'd placed her faith in was turning on her.

When she'd confided her doubts about the suicide, she hadn't asked for much. She knew that they couldn't be together. His future self told her so. They couldn't have the relationship that they'd had in that other lifetime, one where they'd been soulmates in every sense of the word. But, she wanted something. Was it too much to ask, to be able to be in each other's lives in some slight way? Some little piece of each other, anything to blunt the anguish of the hole each of them had in their hearts? So she asked him for the same thing he'd asked of her, when he got back from New York.

I'd like to...start again...our friendship, that is. I mean...I miss it."

"Just always be my friend. Will you do that, Max?"

"You know I will."

A fresh wave of self-loathing washed over him. He couldn't even do that.

There really was nothing left to say, nothing he could possibly do, to make up for what he'd done. He knew it before he'd ever climbed up on her balcony. All that was left for him was to ask for her forgiveness.

But .. there was one more thing. Max looked at Liz closely, reading how emotionally drained she was. There was something else there too. The bitter realization that everything she'd done had been for naught. The FourSquare was useless. In the other timeline, Tess had gone missing. In this one, she'd turned traitor. Either way, the effectiveness of the unit was compromised. She knew it, he knew it.

Suddenly, he was angry. Liz had sacrificed so much, paid such a high price for the sake of the world. She'd done the best she could with what she knew ... what she and his future self knew.

It simply couldn't end like this.

"No," he said fiercely. "This can't be it. There has to be something we can do."

Liz was startled for a moment by his vehemence, but it struck an answering chord in her spirit. Her eyes grew hard as her momentary lapse into discouragement came to a quick end.

"Agreed," she raised her chin defiantly. "I didn't come this far to give up now."

"We have a lot to talk about, to talk to the others about," Max said carefully.

He saw her eyes fill with alarm, and her demeanor became wary.

"Not everything," he hastened to add. "So much of this is private. You decide what you want to share, how to give the details. Too much of this is personal, between you and ... and him."

Liz nodded, the relief apparent on her face. He wondered for a moment if it was even possible to be jealous of himself, and decided it most definitely was. 'Whose fault is that?' his conscience reared up to ask.

He took in her tired features and knew it was time he left. Max knelt in front of her, once again completely awkward. Her name came hoarsely, and he cleared his throat to try again.

"When I came here tonight, there was only one thing I wanted to tell you," his voice was tight with remorse, "and that was how very sorry I am for how I treated you. I wasn't the friend I told you I wanted to be when I got back from New York," he said sadly. "You were there for me, but I was never there for you, not once, and never after Alex died."

"I'm so incredibly sorry, Liz," his regret was palatable. "For how I tore you down, especially in front of Tess, for hurting you physically and emotionally, for saying that I loved you still, but never acting like I did. And in the end, I wasn't faithful to us."

"Yet, all this time," his voice broke and he looked away, stopping to take a deep breath before turning his sorrow-laden gaze to her again, "all this time, you've been nothing but a friend to me ... to us. And you've had to carry this burden yourself."

Tears brimmed from Liz's eyes at his words, slipping freely down her cheeks.

"I'm sorry for all of it, although I don't know it means much to you now," he leaned closer, although he was careful not to touch her. "There's only one thing I hope for now, even though I don't deserve it. All I wish for is that one day ... one day you'll come to forgive me. That's all I want."

When his words ended, he reached forward to grab the box of tissues, pulling out a few and blowing his nose, before stuffing them into his pocket. He pulled in a long breath, waiting through the awkward moment of wondering what to do now. He gazed at the floor of the balcony in front of him, not sure where to look.

Liz stared at his bent head, more torn than she had ever been in her life. She actually did believe what he said, this time. There was enough of a residual connection between them that it came through to her clearly.

But, it was all just too fresh, too painful, too all-encompassing to simply say "I forgive you" and mean it. Too much had happened, some of it so new that processing it had barely begun ... like his one night stand with Tess and the fact that he had a son. Funny, they hadn't even touched on that. A knot formed in her stomach at the thought, and she rejected it out of hand. She couldn't talk about that now. She felt like she was barely breathing as it was.

"I ... I don't know what to say, Max," she hesitated for a moment. "I won't lie to you. Right now ... I can't. I can't give you an easy 'I forgive you' and mean it. I could try and say the words, but they would just be another lie and I've told enough of them already, even if they were necessary. I just can't do it right now. I'm sorry."

Max nodded his head, his throat tight with regret.

"I understand," he said. "It's nothing less than what I deserve," he rose to his feet, wanting to hold out his hand to help her up as well, thinking she would reject the overture. After a moment's thought, he did so anyway. Liz looked at his awkwardly held out hand, and slowly put hers into it, allowing him to pull her smoothly to her feet.

Max took in her tear-stained face, her slight figure and how weary she was, and gestured to the ladder.

"I should go. I've taken up enough of your time," he said in a low voice.

As he started to move away, her voice stopped him.

"I'll try, Max," she said softly. "That's all I can say ... I'll try."

His eyes closed against the tears that came up. Even now, she was fair, so very fair. He heard her closing the window, and realized that she'd gone back into her room. Desolate, he climbed down the balcony, got into the SUV, and drove off into the blackest night he could ever remember.

Gentle Readers ...




Interlude

Liz felt drained ... totally and completely empty.

She was sure she didn't have any emotions left. They were all out there on her balcony, still lingering in the air, waiting to be wafted away by the warm breezes of the desert.

In some ways, her conversation with Max had been a cleansing experience. She'd finally been able to say some things that needed to be said, confront him on his betrayal of their friendship, tell him the truth of why she'd lied to him. And the end of the world was no longer the burden she had to bear alone.

She'd witnessed a broken, sorrowful Max tell her of his deep regret, asking her to try and find it in her heart to one day forgive him. There was finally a glimmer there of the Max she used to know.

But she pushed all that away for now, unable to trust it, or to begin to try and come to terms with forgiving him. It was just too fresh, and she shied away from even thinking about it.

Exhausted, Liz changed into a tank top and a pair of soft cotton boxers. She went into the bathroom and brushed her teeth, running a comb through her hair. Standing in front of the mirror, she looked at her tired face, and her eyes grew unfocused as she remembered a conversation from long ago ...

"I don't think this is a good plan."

"What are you talking about?"

"You really think this is gonna work? I would never be jealous of Kyle."

"Can you turn around?"

With a sad smile, she remembered his look of startled, gentle amusement, realizing now that he'd seen her naked a thousand times or more.

"If he tries anything ..."

He'd said it with all the possessiveness of a husband who loved his wife above all things. Liz's eyes brimmed with the tears she was certain had long since run dry during the course of the evening. She hadn't thought about him in so long ...

She shook herself out of her reverie, raising her hands to swipe the tears from her cheeks. Liz snapped off her bathroom light, and crawled into bed. She was lost in slumber almost immediately, and her last thought was that she could surely sleep for a week.

When she woke much later, she was unsure of what disturbed her. Liz got up and made her way through the darkness to the kitchen, going to the refrigerator to find a bottle of water. When she went back to her room, she climbed out on to her balcony, as if drawn by the memories.

Every moment of the two days she'd spent with his future self came back to her. And she finally allowed herself to recall those last bittersweet minutes, when he'd taken her in his strong, sure arms and given her her wedding dance.

She'd never told Max about that, during the course of their conversation. Some things, even involving a future version of himself, were just too private to ever be shared. The memory of his eyes, filled with fathomless love, hopeless regret ... and goodbye ... was something that would forever remain hidden in the secret places of her heart.

Tears came, along with wrenching sobs. Blindly, she sat down on her chaise lounge, remembering him. Liz couldn't seem to stop the outpouring of emotion that welled up from the depths of her soul.

Finally she realized that everything she was feeling was grief for the Max that had had no world to go back to. She'd never mourned him, and she was the only one who could. As the tears streamed down her face, she was thankful that, when he'd ceased to exist, the last face he saw was her face, the last sound he'd heard was their song, the last touch he knew was her warm hand in his.

And she took comfort in the sure knowledge that, wherever his future self was, her future self was there too.