While Max and Liz took solace in each other, Olivia was still with her grandparent. She knew from a text that her mother made it to the prison. She did not want to think about what they might be doing right now
seventeen years being apart is a long time as she tried to get a sense of her grandparents in the wake of the news that she was pregnant. Her grandparents had been dodging her question.
A question that had surprised even her when it came out of her mouth. It did make her wonder. She knew her grandparents loved their children. Despite their actions. They had done it out of love because they could sense their son was different. The had not known the same could be the same with their daughter, and only when they took methods into her own hands did, they find out the truth. More than a decade after adopting the kids they had found out by the desert. “I am sorry about blurting that out. Mom has told me that I am too blunt at times” she mused. “I try not to be, but sometimes I cannot help myself.”
“It’s alright,” Phillip said impressed by the inquisitive nature of his granddaughter. An inquisitive nature that was not so different from her parents but still was her own, and she was self sufficient and had a sense of herself and he admired her for it. “It’s not something we tend to talk about Olivia”
“I know, and I am sorry” Olivia sighed. “I wish this all could be so simple. And I did not have to ask they questions. Because adoption sounds so normal. Giving a child a chance at a life that I might not be able to provide them because of my age. If only I was five, ten years older than this might be a different question. Still thought, to know I am different. I am not like any other girl out there who finds themselves in my situation. Neither Alex nor I are. But I come from the fact that both my parents are different. Alex is the way only because of his father.”
“Your mother is still the same woman she was when she met your father” Diane asked, not sure what to say to granddaughter. It is not like they had not had those thoughts come through their minds once they found out the truth. They just had not vocalized it to each other. They accepted the truth that they found out and loved their daughter and supported their son before he was taken away from them, and in his place, then they loved his daughter, and now that little girl was on the cusp of adulthood, a few years too early.
“She is, and it does not change the fact my mother is different. Which makes me different because of them both. If I did not already have the genes from my father. Still though this child could be different, or they could be completely normal and have abilities limited to some areas of their life that are not that visible to outside world. You usually cannot tell with one of us until we are older, and we have more control of our lives. So, I do not know how I can choose to do it, and take the chance…”
“Your father was able to do it?” Diane asked.
“I know,” Oliva muttered. “And Dad doesn’t regret it. The whole situation was incredible unique for him. It does not change the fact that at the time he chose giving up his son. He was under the assumption that he was human, completely normal,” she sighed. “But that was all a lie because he was operating under faulty information. Tess lied to him. So, how can I do the same thing if eighteen years from now, the child is different and comes looking for us because they don’t know their situation?”
“What do you mean, Tess lied to your father?” Diane and Philip asked together and in almost perfect unison. While Phillip knew Zack was in town, still, he did not know much more than just seeing a glimpse of him, and what his daughter was able to tell him. It still seemed to weird to know the baby he had helped place for adoption was back in town and asking questions. Or that he was nearly eighteen. Because of the unbelievable life his grandchildren were leading. He and his wife could never know what it was like to be part of the life. They were spectators. “Max’s son is in town” Phillip muttered as Olivia looked surprised that her grandfather knew that Zack was in town. Because Diane looked shocked, Olivia could sense this was something else her grandfather had not told her grandmother before he turned his attention to his wife. “I don’t know much more than simply that he is in town Diane, and I was trying to get some more information before I filled you in. I saw him with you Olivia,” he sighed as he turned back his attention towards his granddaughter. “I saw you talking near the Crashdown?”
“What,” Diane asked shocked.
“Yes, he is” Olivia confirmed. “His name is Zack Mason. He grew up in New York with his adoptive parents, and recently came to town to find out more about his origin story. And yes, Tess lied or deliberately misled my father into believing he was human when he chose adoption. I do not know how many powers or how powerful he is, but he has some gifts, and so it has been a wake-up call and makes me weary about what to choose for my own child.”
“Oh god,” Diane whispered. “How is he?”
“Normal for what I can see,” Olivia smiled. “We have had a rough beginning, but we are trying to be civilized towards each other”
Neither knew what to say about the fact Max’s son was in town as it was a weird situation for all involved and they did not know what to make of it. Phillip could sense the confusion in the room, and in his granddaughter. “Honey, any parent takes a chance when they place their child up for adoption. No one knows if a baby who looks healthy at birth might stay that way. Or how they will grow up to be, and their abilities. Of course, 99.9% of the population does not have the abilities you and Alex have, so you need to decide what it best for your child, and what is right for you. Your father did that. Even if he did know back then if his son had powers. He was not in the place in his life where he could provide for your brother and given how life did work for him. He made a wise decision.”
“So, you would have still adopted Dad and Isabel if you had known?” Olivia asked as she brought back the question, she originally had for them.
“We love your father, and you aunt, and we cannot think what our life would be if we did have them in their life. Even if they came with abilities. Although we only wished they had come to us earlier, and we might have been able to help, and things would have escalated in the matter they did…” Phillip smiled as he had deep regrets about how the situation had escalated, and how it had changed all their lives.
If only we had known earlier. “Right Diane?”
“Right,” Diane nodded. “We were happy to be their parents. Every parent finds surprises with their kids. Even if they give birth to them. Your father and aunt were great kids, and while things did not go as we hoped with your father. But we know the boy your father was, and know we were lucky to have them in our lives” she sighed. “When you make your own decision. You should think about what is best for you, and most of all, the baby.”
“Thanks Grandma,” Olivia smiled as she helped clean up the dishes. “I wish I could know the future?”
“We all do,” Diane smiled. “But sometimes we learn more from the hard decisions and living through them…”
Olivia nodded. “I guess I better get going” as there was a knock on the door. And she volunteered to answer it, “Why don’t I get that for you” and she went and was surprised by who was at the door. “What are you doing here?” she demanded of the visitor to her grandparents’ home.
“Picking you up,” Zack smiled as he presented himself “Amelia sent me…”
“I doubt that,” Olivia muttered even though she knew it was something her friend would have done, but she was not going to admit it, to Zack of all people.
“Then you do not know your best friend,” Zack smiled. “She is all about playing matchmaker these days, so I figure why not come by and get you where you are supposed to be” he laughed as he did what Amelia asked because he was amused by the idea of picking Olivia up and dealing with her hostility when she was visiting her grandparent’s home, or should he say, their mutual grandparents.
“If you have your motorcycle?” Olivia warned…
“Do you think that I am stupid, or have a death wish?” Zack asked. “We can walk…” he murmured as he stopped talking when two elderly people came to join their granddaughter at the door.
“Olivia, who is this?” Phillip asked as he stopped when he recognized the gentlemen at their door.
“Zack,” Olivia said simply.
“And who would he be?” Diane asked as she did not make the connection from the name their granddaughter had told them to the boy in front of them.
“Diane, this is Max’s son” Phillip said simply.
*
In their world, it was like no time had elapsed, and nothing had separated Max and Liz and everything right about the world could come from being together, as they laid in bed and in each other’s arms. “We should be talking?” Liz murmured as she revelled in the arms of the man who she had spent seventeen years dreaming of and now was in his arms, as it did not matter who they were today, but only that they were together.
“We did too much of that and not nearly enough of this,” Max said softly as he could not believe his luck to be able to lay in the arms of the only woman he could love. The fact their connection was so explosive even after all this was one of life’s mysteries for Max because they had not done enough of this, because circumstances or other people got in the way. “
If only we had, then maybe half the stuff would not have happened?”
They would have been different people if they had done it. And they were the results of their choices, but their choices had been made, and they were the people were, and they had this opportunity to be together. Feeling like no time was lost. When too much time had been lost, and too much had been taken from them.
“I don’t want to talk,” Max continued to revel in having her together. “We can talk later,” he murmured as he felt entranced by her, as they came in for another kiss as they continued to live in another world, and a different reality.
*
“You were good with them,” Olivia muttered a bit hesitantly twenty minutes later as she and Zack walked towards the Guerin home as it was awkward minutes that they endured as Phillip and Diane came to terms with the boy their son had helped create and yet had been raised elsewhere, and it was clear that he didn’t feel an attachment to know his biological fathers’ parents. Yet Olivia did have to give Zack credit for not being his usual standoffish self with her grandparents. Zack instead stayed standing and took their natural curiosity of him and was genuine and accepting them while Olivia grabbed her jacket and bag and started the walk over to the Guerin home.
“They are your grandparents, not mine” Zack smiled. “They obviously love you, and you were raised to love them. They do not know me, and therefore I do not know them. That is okay because that is how our father wanted it, still, I do know how to be a gentleman you know even if their stares were little off putting.”
“They come with the story,” Olivia muttered. “Still, I do appreciate that you were kind to them because they didn’t ask for this to have happened to their family. They loved my father very much, and he was lost to them, and until they met you,
I am their only link to him, so they are curious.”
“The love him even when he was accused of something so terrible?” Zack wondered.
“They knew he was innocent, just like the rest of us do” Olivia sighed. “They didn’t know what they were getting when they adopted my father and aunt, and it took more than a decade for them to know the full of extent of it, and unfortunately for them. The truth came out before everything went haywire and Dad was lost to them…”
“He’s not dead you know” Zack muttered as Olivia was speaking as if their mutual biological father was dead and had departed this earth.
Olivia knew this.
In some many ways it might be better for Mom and me if he were dead, she mused to herself. Then Mom could move on, and we would not be forced to reckon the past in the way we have. But then Olivia knew her mother might still be in love with a dead man and would not allow herself to move on because to her, Max Evans was the only one she could love. To Olivia, that kind of love was off putting and unrealistic. “But he does not want them to visit him, and in a lot of ways, to them, he is dead because it is better to think that than know he is prison and does not want to see them. We are his only links to him, so that makes them curious about you…”
“You are a link to him, but I was adopted out” Zack sighed. “And even then, our father was adopted himself so it’s not even like we are blood to them?”
“To them, we are blood” Olivia muttered. “Whether they signed adoption papers or not still to Grandpa and Grandma Aunt Isabel and our father are blood to them, and they love them, and they take everything personally. I am sure you grandparents on your Mason side think of you the same way?”
“That is true,” Zack muttered because he did know his grandparents thought of him and Helena as true Masons. Biology did not matter to them.
It did to me which is why he was on this track into the past but to the grandparents he had been lucky to find himself attached to because of his adoption. The Masons side, and Owen’s side which was his mother’s side were incredibly good to him and had helped finance his trip into his origins or at least the beginning days. Now, he was still using his funds from jobs he would work on his way to Roswell. And knew he would have to find a job one day very soon
if he stuck around Roswell, he mused to himself as he focused on their conversation. “So, they didn’t know when they adopted our father and his sister?”
“No,” Olivia shook her head. “Dad was afraid of what they would think if they knew he and his sister were different. They were six when the were adopted, and they did not even know they were special. It was not until later did our father and aunt have a suspicion that things were different for themselves and they were afraid to be upfront with their parents, and it cost them big time later when they things spiraled of control.”
“How so?” Zack asked as his eyes widened at the thought of his father being that old, when he found himself adopted. “They were really six?”
“Yup,” Olivia nodded. “They woke up on this planet as different people, with different structures, and different DNA along with their alien genetic material and eventually they were found wondering around in the desert. Alex and Amelia’s father, Michael was found days later and put in the foster system which of course our father and Isabel also went into it. The three had no sense of each other. Not until they started school. In the meantime, Grandpa and Grandma were the ones who had found Dad and Aunt Isabel wondering in the desert, and they immediately put in a request to adopt them both. So, their stay in the system was short-lived while it became a heck of a lot longer for Michael.”
“How long?” Zack asked as he was curious about Amelia’s origin story
“He eventually got emancipated by the court with my grandfather’s help when he was sixteen,” Olivia murmured. “So, he was stuck in the system from the time they came to this land until then, and so he had a lot of baggage from the awful foster families he lived with until he got out on his own. His final home only wanted him around to collect the monthly check. Fortunately, in high school, he would find Alex and Amelia’s mother, at the same time Dad found Mom, and as they say, the rest is history.”
“Interesting,” Zack asked surprised. “That he didn’t get same life as our father and his sister?”
“There are those cases out there but fortunately he had Dad and Isabel to support him once they did become friends” Olivia murmured.
Zack nodded. “You know that is some origin story we have here, is it not sis?” he laughed at the annoyance that came over Olivia’s face. “You might as face it because we are related. We might not feel like brother and sister, but we are. You should think I am going to replace you in the favor of our mutual father. All I want is answers, and once I am satisfied then I am out of this place, and I will head on home to my life.”
“You think you can do that,” Olivia wondered. “I mean, get those answers you want and then just leave and likely pretend that we do not even exist,” Olivia asked as she had a sense that would be what he would be trying to do “Or that you can be normal after all this?”
“I am sure going to try,” Zack murmured. “I will not forget this place, but it is a bizarre town, and it has already shown me how normal has to be better than the stress of being you” Zack muttered as he could see that his half sister was full of unexplored stress, and he certainly did not want to be like her, and be a bundle of pressures, waiting to explode.
“As my Mom found out. Once you have been touched be one of us, well, you cannot find normal again,” Olivia cautioned because it was the truth. She might have lived this life from birth, but it did not take a genius to know that trying to leave it, would be a hell of a lot more complicated once you know the nitty gritty. “Look, you will not catch me saying that this is not a stressful life being who we are, and with the knowledge we have because yes, it is, but it’s on us what we do with the knowledge” Olivia sighed. “My stress does not come from being who I am”
“What does it come from?” Zack asked warily.
“It comes from the way Dad was taken from us,” Olivia muttered. “Not having in my life,” she muttered. “You say that I have a lot of love, and I do, but still I wanted to have a father, and I was denied one…”
“Are you sure?” Zack asked. “Because it seems to be if you were someone normal. You would not have the stress of knowing what you know and having to make sure no one found out?”
“Normal is not what it’s cracked up to be,” Olivia muttered.
“Is that not what you hope your baby is so that if you do put the kid up for adoption than you would not have to worry that they will not one day follow my path?” Zack asked as he could see why his sister would be confused because he figured that Olivia was the type who would have chosen adoption by now because she had too much to look forward to in her life than being a single or a teenage mother at sixteen.
Olivia did not answer, and Zack nodded. “I thought so. Look sis, I cannot know what the future will be, and you do not either. Something tells me whatever you decide, this child will be loved, and you should do what is best for you, and the child. Our mutual father chose a closed adoption because he did not want to know right. But you can choose to know what is going to on with the child, right?” he asked. “You can go on with your life, but still be part of the kid’s life. And maybe if you wanted that, then the new parents can allow you to help with the child one day if say they do start crackling”
“Watch it,” Olivia muttered as her brother was speaking the truth. She could choose an open adoption. “I do not appreciate that snide comment.”
“Well, is it not the truth?” Zack muttered. “It was for me, was it not for you?” he asked.
“Maybe,” Olivia muttered because she knew she had the signs for years before she knew what they meant, or how she had to be careful with her displays. “Still, it is a lot to give a child, who is out there with parents who do not know any better.”
“Which is why I am surprised you would not tell the truth. Let it all out. So, there is no shock and awe?” Zack muttered as they finally reached the Guerin’s street, and moments later they approached the door, as they descended into silence over the last few minutes of their walk as they did not have to knock before the door blasted open and Amelia and Maria appear before. “As you asked” he cracked at Amelia who only nodded and shook her head.
“Finally,” Maria muttered at the amusement on her daughter’s eyes
almost sixteen, damn it as she still had issues with Zack, and Zack knew it, but did not blink his eyes at the dismissive nature of Amelia’s mother’s attitude for him. “I guess I better get going. If you want to talk then you know where to find me”
Olivia nodded as they watched him walk off, and get on his motorcycle that was standing nearby, and drive off.
“Are you okay?” Maria asked simply as he knew how to gage Olivia’s moods and knew the teenager was overwhelmed on many levels.
“Of course,” Olivia smiled as they all knew it was a lie as she walked into the house and saw Alex staying away from the door. She put down her bag, and they smiled.
*
“We didn’t use anything?” Max said when they finally seemed like they were taking a break and sitting up in bed. Neither wanted to talk about how this was bizarre situation. Seventeen years full of them, and they finally had a chance to be together, and the first thing they did had landed them in bed. “Not like I have anything?” he murmured as they stopped to kiss, and Liz just smiled. “You were right that we should have talked before…”
“There are no worries,” Liz murmured as she smiled at the sense of normalcy that they had crafted in this movie of the week. Although her husband’s question poked at scars in her that she had not wanted to remember or acknowledge. “Chances are nothing will come from this,” she said softly as Max looked surprised. “I had a little problem after Olivia was born?” she revealed to Max’s concern on his face. “Oh, It’s nothing Max…”
“How bad?” Max asked, sensitive to the change in her mood and obviously it was an issue that provoked memories in his wife.
“Some medical issues, which makes it very unlikely that I would be able to have another child” she murmured. “It’s possible, but the way they framed it, it would be a miracle” she murmured. So, that is why I hung onto Olivia so tightly, because she was my link to you, and a gift you gave me, but it was my only shot.”
“God,” Max murmured.
“Don’t, because I have made peace with it” Liz sighed as the tears she did cry when she did hear the words from her doctor in the aftermath. While she might have closed herself off from the idea of more children without Max. Still, the sentence that she was unlikely still was a wound that had not closed.
“Have you told our daughter?” Max murmured as he still found it crazy to utter those words.
“No,” Liz shook her head. “Olivia was too young to remember that time. She stayed with your parents while I recovered, and now, I do not want it to be the reason she chooses to keep the baby for fear that history might strike twice. Fortunately, she is completely healthy, and there is not that fear. But there was not for me, and look how that went with me, so I do not want her to make a choice out of fear. I want her to decide because she wants to make it, and if it is the right choice for her…” she sighed. “Even if she’s a little too young to be having to make this decision?”
“Does she know what she is going to do?” Max asked as he thought of his daughter being sixteen and facing this kind of decision. It was not any easier when he had to make it, but as he was not actually having to deal with the emotions of his body changing.
“She is looking at her options…” Liz sighed as she wished her studious and ambitious daughter were not facing this choose. She knew Olivia had the world at her feet
I was that girl once before. I choose the root because I could not see my life without this man, but I do not want that for her daughter. “What she chooses to do at the end of the day will be up to her. I am not about to push her in any direction…”
“You are a great mother…” Max murmured as once more he was reminded that he had forced Liz into this role by confessing, but then the other side of the argument was that he would have wanted to sign up his wife and daughter to the life if he had not confessed, and they had been on the road, hiding from the law.
Even if we would have been together
“I suck as a mother,” Liz muttered as she was constantly over thinking her motherly choices, and decisions. “I couldn’t put any barriers on her because of what happened to us, and maybe I should have and maybe she and Alex would have waited” she sighed. “But knowing Olivia. She would have rebelled, if I or Michael and Maria had put any barricades in front of them, and she still did, and look where she is…”
“She’s smart, and sensible Liz” Max sighed as he had two short visits to make the assessment of his own blood, but those visits had been memorable and he could tell Olivia was truly someone with a future to look forward to “She will make the right choice for her, and she will not let it detour here which is something you didn’t allow yourself to do after I wrecked your life…”
“You didn’t do that Max,” Liz sighed. “You saved lives with your choice. While I wish you could have made any other choice that would have involved being home with me and raising Olivia. Yet I know what it would have meant.
“Did I not?” Max asked. “Look where I am…” he muttered. “Your words are nice, but I should have been at home with you and our daughter and living a life we both deserved. Back in high school. I might never have thought much of my future, or what I was going to do, but I never imagined this life or that we would get our shot, and for it to fall completely apart. Still, you are here, and I do not what that means for me, except I know I can’t lose you…”
“You are alive,” Liz sighed. “You didn’t lose me, but I lost you, for almost seventeen years…”
“We lost each other, but you are here now…” Max asked as they leaned into kiss once more and the fell back against the pillows and sank into their bubble and tried to forget that time was ticking down. Soon reality would be crashing down on them once again.