Roswell Fanatics

AN: I love my computer...writing at work. what a beautiful thing. Thank you all for reading and remembering this story.

<center>~*~Part 80~*~</center>

The plans fell together quickly after that. We decided that I would go to my top choice school - NYU to major in creative writing. I had been accepted as Alexandra Parker, and now thanks to some fancy hacking by Alex, I was accepted as Darcy Miller. Mom was so excited; she had always secretly hoped I would go to Harvard but she understood my pull to New York. We were planning a family trip up to New York to find me someplace “suitable” to live. I was afraid to see what my famimly would call “suitable”.

I did some dream walking and found out that Megan would still be attending NYU. I hoped we could be roommates, but Megan was more cautious than me and said she was afraid that if someone followed her or kept an eye on her they would start wondering why she was living with someone from Mexico whom she had never met before. We were already planning our first meeting by organizing our schedules for the same classes. No one could fault us for making friends in a new city.

I felt like everything was falling together. Mom, Isabel, Maria and I constructed the appearance I would take while at school. I felt kind of silly with blonde hair, but Isabel assured me that it would feel natural as long as I had some confidence in me. We shopped for weeks to get all the stuff I would need for school. Isabel especially enjoyed the shopping, although she said it wasn’t fair that I got all the cute clothes while she just kept getting bigger.

But while I was packing the majority of my room, just to be prepared, I started realizing how much i was going to miss once I finally realized I was going to be going away to college. Alex and Isabel’s baby would be born--and I might not be here. What if Michael and Maria got married? What about my parents’ baby? Would I be there for his or her birth? How would I ever live with myself if I missed that? What else would I be missing?

God, hadn’t I come to this place with the intention of not missing out on my family anymore?

“Hey, now,” Maria walked into my room and sat on my bed, “don’t be thinking like that.”

“Like what?” I said as I packed a blue Rubbermaid crate with books and pictures.

“Like you are right now.” She leaned back onto my pillows. “I may not be an alien, and I may not have that funky mamma-baby connection, but, darling, I have known you since the minute you were born, and I can certainly tell what you’re thinking.”

“Oh really?” I tried to laugh it off even though I knew that Maria could tell. “What am I thinking?”

“You’re thinking about Isabel and Alex’s baby and your soon-to-be sibling. And you’re second guessing your decisions.”

I sank onto the bed but wouldn’t meet her eyes. “And so what if I am?”

“Don’t, Xan. You don’t need to.”

“Maria--,” I didn’t know how to say what was going through my head. “I just--I mean, I came here because I was tired of missing out on all the little stuff that made me part of a family. And now, when it’s all about to happen, I’m choosing to leave? Talk about inconsistent behaviors!” I flopped back against my pillows.

Maria laughed. “I think that’s what they call being a girl, darling.”

“Maria, I’m serious.”

“I know, and I don’t know what to say. Yes, things will be happening while you’re gone. But Xan, you won’t miss them.”

“If I’m in New York and Isabel has the baby, yes, I will miss it, Maria.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Maria, I cannot change laws of time and space. I’m smart but I can’t change physics.”

“Why not?” She reached out and moved some of my hair off my shoulder. She ran her hand along the chain I wore around my neck. “What are the uses of alien powers if they won’t work the way you want them to?”

I felt the pendant the granolith had produced for me move against my skin. I generally forgot about it; it had become like a wedding ring to me--it’d been there for so long I’d forgotten about it. Maybe it was made to do that, though, become a part of the person who wore it. Whatever the cause, I just rarely remembered it. I looked down at it now and wondered what it made possible.

AN: Remember me? Or this story? I'm not sure that I do either.

anyway, this update came to me while I sat in training for work today...and it's not particularly great or anything. It's mostly there to tie up some loose ends that have been bugging me...well, the beginning of tying them--which will continue through the next part, i think.

if you're still reading, thank you. this story has meant so much to me.


Jennifer

<center>~*~Part 81~*~</center>

I ran to my father’s office. The idea of using the granolith for good was taking shape in my head. I just needed to know the parameters of what the granolith could actually do. Was it like Maria suggested--practically invincible, capable of doing anything I asked? That would be amazing. Could I use it to travel back and forth so that I would never be far from home? Could I use it to communicate safely with my family so that no one would know who I was talking to? What was its exact purpose, anyway?

“Xan, what’s going on?” My father looked up as I ran into his study.

“Dad, I have some serious questions that I need to ask you,” I threw myself into the chair across from him, “about the granolith.”

“The granolith?” He looked surprised that I’d asked. “What about it?”

“I just feel like I should know more about it. I mean, I know what Seth told me which was basically not that much. All he knew was a lot of questions, and he didn’t know how to find out the answers for any of them. Do you know what its powers are?”

“I don’t, Xan. None of us do.”

That answer frustrated me. How could he not know the answers? I changed topics. “Why did I get this pendant? Why did the granolith seem to want to connect with me?”

“I don’t know, Xan. I’ve never connected to the granolith; no one else ever has.”

I stood up and started pacing. Unconsciously, I started rubbing the pendant.

“What’s the real reason you want to know about the granolith, Xan?” My father asked.

I looked at him. “Ok. So I connect with it, and I get to see all of Antar and your past and stuff. And it leaves behind this pendant. So my question is, does that pendant give me the ability to use the granolith now? Does it enable me to use it in some special way? Will it do what I want?”

He was quiet for a few moments. “I wish I could tell you, Xan, but I don’t really know.”

“Then I think I need to go figure it out.”

“Xan, you leave for college at the end of the summer.”

“I know, and that’s 2 months away. I’ll figure it out by then.”

“But your mother and I would like to spend some time with you this summer.”

“You will! I just feel like I need to figure this out, Dad.”

“Why are you so interested in this now, Xan?”

“Well, Maria and I were talking earlier about one of my hesitations about leaving for school--”

“Hesitations?” He stood up from his desk. “What kind of hesitations do you have? I thought you wanted to go. This isn’t something your mother and I are forcing you to do.”

“I know that, Dad. I do want to go to college. It’s just that at the same time I’m kind of worried about what I’m going to miss out on.”

“Xan, you’re not going to miss anything--”

“Yes, I am, Dad. Isabel’s pregnant and so is Mom. And I’m going to miss all of that. What if they have the babies and I’m not here? I don’t want to miss out on their baby-hood.”

“You won’t.”

“I’ll be at school! Yes, I will miss things.” I said definitively. I knew that I would, no matter what anyone tried to say.

“So what are you thinking that the granolith can do?”

“I don’t know. Make it so that I can be here without a flight? Make it so that I feel closer than a sister by phone?” I looked at him.

“I don’t kno that the granolith has enough power to do that, Xan. For all we know, it’s just an icon.”

“No, we know it has powers, Dad. I connected with it. I saw Antar. I know the granolith can do something.”

“Well, do you remember anything that would show what it was used for?”

I thought for a few moments. “Nothing directly about the use of the granolith,” I sighed. “But I do remember thinking that the powers we use now are a cheap imitation of the ones that were back on Antar. Do you think the granolith would be able to help advance our powers?”

My father shrugged again, “I guess that’s a possibility, Xan. I just don’t know.”

“I want to go to the granolith and see what I can figure out, Dad.”

“Xan, you know there are no guarantees--”

“I do, but I want to try it anyway. If I could increase my powers, it would just be...amazing.”

“Yes, it would.” He nodded. “I want to go with you.”

I nodded. “Okay.” I’d hoped he would say that.

“And I want Seth to go with us, too.”

“Why?”

“Well, remember when we talked about you going to college? I told you that you’d need to have someone from the ranch here with you. I’ve decided it will be Seth. He’s close to your age, and he was planning on going to college anyway.”

“But does he want to go to NYU?”

“He said he does.”

“Dad, I don’t want to put Seth out. I mean, if he wants to go somewhere else, we have to let him.”

“He’s fine with going, Xan. He and I have talked about it.”

“Is he going to have to like live with me or something?”

“Not necessarily, although I don’t think it would be a bad idea for that. Your apartment will have plenty of room.”

My mind was swimming. Me living with Seth? How in the world would that work?

<center>***</center>