Roswell Fanatics

A/N: I really hope this doesnt feel rushed. Enjoy!!!! FEEDBACK GREATLY APPRECIATED.

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Part Forty - Max POV

“For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Max Evans. I’m the “leader” of the West Side, and I have something to say.”

Ask me how I got to that point and I wouldn’t be able to think of an answer. It wasn’t what I had planned at all, but somewhere along the way my plans changed. Weeks ago, at the beginning of the football season, I would’ve never even dreamed that one day I would be at this point. I was just a simple boy, living a life I didn’t really like, but getting along well enough. I had been in love with a girl named Liz Parker for longer than I could even remember but I had never even dreamed that one day I would be thinking about being with her and see it as anything other than an impossibility.

That’s how she changed my life though. She made me believe. And after everything that has happened, the one thing I can say without any doubt is that I believe anything is possible. I stood in front of a crowd consisting of probably the whole town of Roswell. That’s something I never though would happen, but it did.

I’m going to get back to that later. The more important thing is how I got there.

When she had been in the hospital, I had stayed by her side for as long as I could. Her mom had tried to come in, but I wanted to completely refuse her entry. She was the one that put Liz there, and I knew it, even if everyone else believed she just took a bad fall down the stairs.

I didn’t say anything, only because I knew Liz was strong enough to stick up for herself against her mom, even if she hadn’t been before or didn’t think so. I was going to let her deal with the situation however she wanted too, and I was going to be there for her every step of the way.

“Do you think she’s going to be all right?” Michael asked as he sat in the chair next to her bed.

I looked at my best friend, and then looked back at Liz. She looked so beautiful. Her long dark hair was tied back, and her face was peaceful. There was a bruise above her left eye, but to me it didn’t matter. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life, and I was so lucky that she had picked me.

“Of course she is, Michael. She wouldn’t miss what’s going to happen for the world.”

Michael was probably the only person, other than the sheriff, who knew what was going to happen before it actually did. I had needed his help planning it, and I would need him for the most important task of all. He had to get Liz there.

When it was finally time to leave, I was reluctant. I didn’t want to spend a moment away from Liz. But I forced myself to go; knowing that we would be together soon gave me the strength. “I have to talk to the sheriff before tonight,” I told Michael as we walked from the hospital. “You know what to do right?”

He nodded. “I’ll be here.”

I stopped walking and turned to him. “Thanks, Michael.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I think it’s great what you’re doing. It takes a lot of strength and I know you’re the one for the job. I’m just glad I get to help.” Michael’s not really the affectionate type, so I had to force him into a hug. It lasted about two seconds before he moved away from me. “Don’t start going soft on me, Evans. You’re going to need your strength for tonight.”

I laughed and we continued walking to his jeep. “As long as you get her there, I have nothing to worry about,” I replied truthfully, thinking of Liz.

He smirked, getting my point. I thought I saw him roll his eyes but I ignored it. There was nothing that could stop me now. Michael dropped me off at the sheriff’s house and I went inside, sorting everything out with him.

When we both felt everything was set, I went home. I wasn’t prepared for what was going to happen there. Isabel was in front of me the second I walked through the door, anger in her dark eyes.

“What are you doing, Max?” she asked me furiously. “Are you trying to ruin everything!?”

I walked past her, not even bothering to answer her question. I just turned to give her a little advice before I headed to my room.

“If I were you Isabel, I’d be a little bit happier about the fact that you won’t be going through what Maria’s about to face, just because you’re my sister. As far as I’m concerned though, the last thing you and I are, is family.”

She kept her mouth shut, and I just walked away. I knew that she had been involved in the plan to tear Liz and I apart and that was something I could never forgive her for. Pushing the thoughts from my mind, I grabbed my uniform from my room and went outside. It was almost six o’clock and I had a game to get to. I drove off in my mom’s car, getting to the field a few minutes before six.

Sitting in the car, I tried to take a few deep breaths. I needed to gather my strength for tonight. I thought of Liz, of everything we had been through together, and I knew that she would be by my side. That single thought gave me enough strength to get out of the car, ready for what I was going to do. When I got there, our coach was beginning his lecture. By the time seven rolled around, I was feeling a little nervous.

I left the lockers, and walked out to where I could see the stands. All of Roswell had to be there. I could see the two divided masses of the town. Our side, head to toe in red and black, and the other was just a undistinguishable crowd of blue and gold. People had their faces painted, carried huge signs, and some were already screaming and chanting their team cheers.

I gulped. This was it. This was the point where I would do what I was meant to do. I was the leader of the West Side. I had a power that some people didn’t have. I was looked up too. And all I had to do was count on one person to be right there with me, and everything would go as planned.

“Max, are you ready?”

I looked at the sheriff, who had just run up to me. He was looking a little nervous, but underneath it was excitement and anticipation, but most of all, there was hope. That’s what I needed to see. I needed to see that other people wanted what I was working for just as badly as I wanted it.

“I’m ready,” I said finally, feeling my confidence renew at the look on his face.

Together we walked out on the field, the sheriff two steps ahead of me, until we were standing on the fifty-yard line. What I hadn’t seen before was the microphone that the Sheriff had brought out there. He picked it up and cleared his throat.

“Quiet down people! This is important.” He repeated himself a few times but finally it seemed like everyone was quiet. That’s when he handed the mic to me. “Here you go, kid.”

I took it from him and cleared my throat like he had done. “Um, Hi. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Max Evans. I’m the “leader” of the West Side, and I have something to say.” The problem was I didn’t know how to start.

I looked towards the gates where Michael was walking in, right on time. And there she was beside him, staring at me intensely. I felt all the strength I would ever need fill my body, and I knew exactly what to say.

“Last week, a terrible thing happened. Serena Wilson, a girl that was only seventeen, was killed in a fight. The thing is, it could’ve been any of your sons and daughters.” I paused, wanting to let that sink in. “She was killed because of this town, because of a rivalry that goes back farther than I can remember. I’m standing before all of you right now, because I refuse to let anyone else be hurt, or worse, by something as stupid as a town’s competition.”

Liz was moving toward me, and that’s when I noticed the people on the field, coming to stand behind me. The Sheriff was there, along with Kyle and Alex, Michael and my parents too. They came to stand behind me and I felt the Sheriff’s hand on my shoulder before I continued.

Liz was standing right in front of me, and I stared into her eyes, ready to end this town’s fighting once and for all. “I’m standing before you all today, because I know what it’s like to hate. I’ve been at the center of it for too long, and I don’t think it’s worth it to lose our friends,” I smiled at Liz, “ and our loved ones,” I looked at Kyle, and he smiled at me, nodding his head in encouragement. “I know you all agree.”

That’s when I saw Sean walking toward me, the entire East Roswell football team behind him. He came to stand in front of me, and the rest of the team moved to stand behind him. For a second I thought he was going to do something stupid, but I looked down and there was his hand, held out for me to take.

I extended my own and shook his hand, and that was when it happened. Looking around, I saw the stands rise slowly, almost row by row until everyone was on their feet. I looked at Liz, amazement in my eyes at what was happening, and she had tears shining in her own. The clapping started as a single tear rolled down her cheek and she catapulted herself into my arms.

“I love you, Max Evans,” she whispered into my ear, as the clapping grew louder.

I pulled back, looking into her eyes and feeling happier than I ever thought possible. “I love you, too, Liz Parker. And I’m never going to let you go again.”

“That’s what I was hoping for.” And for the first time in weeks, as the entire town of Roswell cheered and swarmed the field around us, Liz’s lips met mine and everything was right in the world.

The End

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Epilogue to Follow

A/N: I hope this clears everything up!

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Epilogue - No POV

Three years later

For the town of Roswell, New Mexico, change wasn’t something that came all too easily. When Max Evans stood in front of the town on the night of the Championship game, he had high hopes that the people of Roswell would see things from his point of view. By forcing them to see that their own children were in danger, he appealed to the parts of them that wanted this rivalry to end.

Serena had been lost tragically, and there wasn’t a day that went by that Liz or Kyle or anyone didn’t think about her. Her father, the town’s mayor, had been there when Max made his speech, and he had joined them on the field, agreeing to do anything he could to stop this destructive rivalry once and for all.

There was no need for anyone else to go through what Serena had gone through, or what her friends and family had dealt with, and Max knew that, so he forced everyone else to see it too.

It started slowly, with restaurants and stores on both sides of the town being open for everyone. People who had once been enemies took the time to get to know each other, and realized like Max had the moment he had met Serena, Alex, and Kyle, that there were great friends to be made on any side of the town.

There were the occasional mishaps, when people who had been imbedded in the town’s hatred for such a long time found it difficult to pull themselves out of it. Some of the students got in fights, or still made fun of the people on the other sides, but after a while, everyone just found it easier to get along. After a while, hatred becomes something that sits inside of a person and destroys them. That wasn’t something that anyone wanted after they realized it had been happening to them.

Liz Parker, who had since left and gone to college, was back to visit her mother for the first time in three years. After the incident that had landed her in the hospital, she had found it difficult to forgive her mother for all the things she had put her through over the years. The guilt that she had felt over the deaths of her sister and father weren’t so paralyzing when her mother wasn’t there to push it in her face.

When the school year was over, Liz left for Harvard, to study molecular biology just like she had always dreamed. She probably would’ve gone longer without speaking to her mother, but the voice of reason in her life, and the person she still loved more than anything had convinced her to make amends with her mother, because he knew that Liz would come out a better person than she already was by doing it.

She had gone to her old house, the surroundings still familiar after three long years, but it felt different. At one point in her life, this had been a place of comfort, a place she looked forward to going into. Her dad and sister had made it that way, but the night they had been taken from her, everything good about this house had been taken too.

Liz walked around the side of the house, looking at the familiar ladder that her sister had helped her put there so long ago. Anna had been right, this ladder had played a part in her life during high school. It had been the escape she needed on those nights when being with her mom was too unbearable. It had led to her first kiss with Max, and her first heartache when he climbed up the ladder to find her in Sean’s arms.

Her sister would always be a part of this house, and that’s why Liz didn’t hate it. Though her feelings for it were different, as long as the memories she had with her father and sister remained, the goodness of the house would always be there for her.

When she walked up those steps, her mom had opened the door before Liz had even gotten a chance to knock. She could tell right away that her mom was at least a little different. She was sober for one thing, though Liz didn’t know how long that was going to last. Her mom brought her into the house, and they talked for about an hour about a lot of things. Liz told her that she forgave her for what she had done to her when she had been a teenager, but that she could never forget.

While her mom professed words of how much she had changed and how sorry she was for everything, Liz couldn’t help but feel affected by it. The hope that someone would change though, doesn’t always mean that they did. Just because Liz wanted her mom to be different, didn’t mean that she ever really would be. Liz had to accept that fact, and give her mom one last hug before she walked away, back to Max, and back to the life she wanted to live.

As for Max Evans, he didn’t go to Harvard, but stayed in Roswell, New Mexico. He went to college in Albuquerque, and majored in business, with plans to take over the family business and raise his family, when he finally settled down for good to have one, in a town that he could feel safe raising his children in. He still loved Liz more than anything, and just like he had promised, he never let her go.

They spent every night while she was in college pissing off Liz’s roommates as they stayed on the phone for hours. He went up to visit her every chance he could, and she came down to visit him and everyone else. Max and Kyle got extremely close, and they, along with Michael, who stayed in Roswell too, remained friends over the years. Kyle was going into Law enforcement, just like his father had, and Michael was going to culinary school. Turned out he had a knack for cooking that nobody really knew about, except for one person.

It was a cold day in July, when Michael and Max went to visit Maria in jail. After being charged with assistance in a murder, she was placed in a woman’s correctional facility, with a sentence of 20 years to life. Michael wrote to her once, a year after everything that had happened, but he hadn’t had the courage to go visit her until Max had suggested it.

A part of him wanted to see her, because he thought he might be able to finally forgive her for what she did, but then the other half of him never wanted to see her again, because he couldn’t imagine forgiving and forgetting. But they went together.

When they pulled up to the jail, Max was a little nervous about seeing her. Liz had refused to come only because she said that if she were faced again with the person responsible for ruining her life during her senior year it wouldn’t be pretty.

“If you want to become a frequent visitor to that jail cell then sure I’ll go with you,” she had said seriously. Max laughed, so she continued. “I’ll just be in there for murder, so you might have to come back to see me,” Liz replied casually, leaving the room.

Max hadn’t brought it up again, only because he had a feeling that a part of Liz really wasn’t joking. So he had gone with Michael, and Liz had gone to lunch with Kyle and Alex.

Seeing Maria had been different than he had expected, only because he hadn’t planned on feeling bad for her. After everything she had done he wanted to just live his life hating her, but he was the one who had preached to the entire town of Roswell on how hate was a bad thing that only hurt people. So, he wanted to be able to back it up when he said he was through hating people, and that’s why he was there.

Michael said he wanted to talk to her after Max did, so Max went through the doors, unprepared, but ready to be the bigger person. He sat down at the picnic table, and waited as Maria was brought out to where he was. When she was sitting in front of him, saying what he wanted to say was a lot harder than he thought it would be.

Clearing his throat, he looked at her and said, “I don’t hate you.”

She looked up, surprised by his comment, her eyes still holding a little bit of anger, but mostly filled with guilt and sadness. Max knew why she had done what she had done, the hate of the town had gotten to her in the worst way, and she had reacted because of it. It didn’t excuse her actions at all, but he did know why she did it.

“I’m not ready to forgive you though.”

She nodded, tears in her eyes. Max had never seen her like this, so vulnerable. Maria had always been a tough girl, and stubborn as anything until she got her way. Maybe she had changed too. They talked for a few more minutes, and then it was Michael’s turn. Max left the visitor’s area and walked outside.

He pulled out his cell phone, not knowing how long Michael would be in there talking to her, and dialed a familiar number. The phone rang twice and then he heard her on the other line. “Hello?”

“Hi, Liz. I just left,” he told her, waiting for her reaction. Things between them were so good right now, and he knew she exactly how she was going to react to the fact that he had just faced his old best friend and the person responsible for the death of her best friend.

It wasn’t in Liz’s nature to hate, just because she was such a good person. Which is why it didn’t surprise him at all when he heard her soft voice asking, “Are you okay?”

Max smiled, his love for her growing with every second that he spent with her, or even just talking to her on the phone. “I’m okay. It was a little harder than I thought it would be, but I said what I wanted to say. Michael’s in there right now.”

“I’m proud of you, Max. What you did took a lot of strength, and not a lot of people could have done that.”

There was one thing that Liz didn’t understand. Through out all of this, throughout everything that had happened, from saving her life, to standing in front of all those people, there was one thing that kept him going, and kept him strong. “Thank you, Liz. It’s always been because of you,” I said into the phone, wishing I were with her right then.

Max could practically hear the smile in her voice. “I love you, Max. I’ll see you when you come home.”

“I love you, bye.” Hanging up the phone, knowing that as soon as he was with her what she said would be true. He would finally be home.

Michael came out then and we got into my car and started the drive home. He turned on the CD player, changing it to a specific song. As the words filled the car, Michael rolled his eyes at Max and he just smiled. He was a sap and he knew it, why not torture Michael a little too. At least Max was making Michael smile, and he was glad that it finally felt like it was okay to smile. Each of us had found the strength to stop hating, and we got through it with the help of each other.

“Deliver me, courage to guide me. All of my life, I was in hiding, wishing there was something just like you. Now that you’re here, not that I’ve found you, I know that you’re the one to pull me through…”

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HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY! I LOVE YOU ALL! THANK YOU FOR A GREAT JOURNEY AS I FINISHED MY FIRST LONG STORY. YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOUR SUPPORT AND FEEDBACK HAS DONE FOR ME. I HOPE TO SEE YOU ALL THE NEXT TIME I WRITE A FIC BECAUSE I'LL DEFINITELY NEED YOU TO GET ME THROUGH IT! THANK YOU.