Roswell Fanatics

Winner - Round 4









Lolita Behrbuns



Best Medium-Length Fic

Title: Searching for Liz Parker
Author: Karen
Rating: Mature
Disclaimer: In all of my delusions, it's mine. In reality, none of it is
Summary: Liz Parker has apparently vanished from the face of the earth; Max and Isabel are searching for her, slowly putting together the pieces of the puzzle. Did Liz run away from home, or was she abducted?
Author's Note: Takes place after the gang has graduated, S2 happened but S3 didn't. No baby story. Flashbacks are in italics. Thanks SO MUCH to Lolita Behrbuns for my wonderful banner!


Part One

Max Evans climbed from behind the wheel of his light blue Chevelle and shielded his eyes against the sun. He wore sunglasses, but it was mid-summer and the desert sun was high in the sky, pounding mercilessly down on the small, ramshackle town. On the other side of the car, Max’s sister Isabel climbed out as well. Blowing out a tired breath, she wiped some sweat from her forehead as she took in the surroundings.

“Where should we start?” Isabel asked, glancing away from Max and down the dusty street.

Behind the glasses, Max’s eyes shifted from one poorly-maintained storefront to the next. All of his senses were on alert – there was nothing good going on in this town. As a matter of fact, if Isabel hadn’t been an ‘unusual’ woman, he wouldn’t have felt comfortable with her being there.

“You try that thrift store over there,” he finally suggested, thinking his sister would be safe in that place. His gaze shifted to a bar a few doors down and across the street from the store. “I’ll try the pub.”

Against her will and in light of the mood, Isabel snorted a giggle. Max turned questioning eyes to her. “People in Ireland call them pubs, Max. Out here, that’s a bar.” She shrugged. “Or a dive. Or a hole.”

Max gave her a half-hearted smile and issued his usual warning before they parted ways, “Keep your guard up.”

As he walked toward the door of the bar, he felt a thin line of sweat running down his spine and soaking his T-shirt. Since the Chevelle had no air conditioning, his and Isabel’s journey had been rather dusty and quite hot. But he had to give her credit – never once did she complain about the discomfort. She’d signed on for this task knowing full well what it entailed and so far had kept her end of the bargain.

Shades in place, Max pushed open the door to the bar and was greeted with the smell of cigarettes and stale beer. He didn’t hesitate or loiter in the doorway; mustering all of his confidence, he walked straight to the bar and took a stool. On his way, however, he took in all of his surroundings in a very short span of time. There was a grizzly, fifty-something bartender at the far end of the counter. There were two men at the pool table; as soon as Max had entered, the one taking his shot had straightened, while the other man’s hand had gone to his belt – he was packing. At the bar sat three men of varying ages, all of them with empty shot glasses and full beer mugs before them.

Max slid onto the stool and stared straight ahead. He could hear muffled whispers coming from the pool table, but remained motionless. From the corner of his eye, he could see the bartender and the three men at the bar staring at him. Eventually, the bartender threw his dish towel over his shoulder and approached Max.

The man wasn’t entirely sober himself, Max realized, as he placed his hands on the counter palm-down before the young alien and leaned his weight forward. Max guessed that was supposed to be a maneuver of intimidation, not that it worked.

“What do you want?” the bartender spat. It wasn’t an offer to get him a drink – it was a demand for information.

“I’m looking for someone,” Max said quietly.

“They aren’t here,” the man snapped, gave Max a threatening look, then started to walk away, his step deliberate and slow.

Max sat motionless, but behind his sunglasses, his eyes moved carefully over the scene, taking in movement with his peripheral vision. He could hear the men at the pool table mumbling to one another and he drew in a deep breath. He needed to be ready for anything that might come his way.

“You one of them city folks, ain’t ya?”

Max turned slowly to see that one of the men who had been sitting at the bar was now hovering behind him. It was a godsend that his man had come to confront him – now he had the excuse to pivot around and get a full view of the place. The men at the pool table had moved closer as well, one of them holding his cue like a ball bat.

“I’m from New Mexico,” was all of the information Max offered. They could tell that much by his license plate.

“What’s with them shades?” Pool Cue Guy asked.

Max turned his head slightly in his direction.

“You hidin’ somethin’?”

His motions slow, calm, Max reached up and slowly pulled the glasses from his eyes. He met his accuser’s gaze steadily, unintimidated. “I’m looking for someone,” he repeated.

“They ain’t here!” the bartender barked from the other end of the bar. Max ignored him.

The first man to approach Max didn’t seem as abrasive as the others. In fact, he looked a little concerned; Max reasoned that maybe the alcohol had dimmed his sense of strangers being a threat to this tiny, dead town.

“Who?” the man asked.

“My girlfriend,” Max replied.

Pool Cue Guy burst out laughing, mocking him. “Ain’t that sweet, boys? He got a girlfriend!”

The other pool player started to laugh with him, until the interested man snapped in their direction to shut up. Both of them immediately backed down and Max quickly calculated that his helpful “friend” carried some weight in the dynamics of this establishment.

The man turned his attention back to Max. “Why do you think she’s here?”

Max shrugged. “I don’t know for sure. I was hoping she’d passed through here and somebody would remember her.” Actually, he was hoping that his last tip had been false and she hadn’t passed through here – Max shuddered to think of Liz in a place like this.

Another one of the men from the bar staggered over. Max guessed him to be about his father’s age and from the worry lines on his face and the sudden sickness he saw in his eyes, he had to wonder if he’d lost someone once, too. “Got a picture?” he asked.

Max nodded once. He rose from the stool and reached into his back pocket for his wallet, all of his movements intentionally slow so that none of them would think he might be reaching for a weapon. He’d also had the good sense to lock most of his money and his credit cards in the glove box of the Chevelle in case one of them decided to liberate him of his wallet.

Keeping his fingers from shaking, Max pulled the now-worn photo of Liz Parker from its plastic sleeve. He didn’t look at it but for a split second – her wide smile and happy eyes quite simply drove a dagger into his heart every time he looked at them. He held up the picture.

“Her name is Liz Parker,” he said, letting the first man take it from him. “She’s small, about five feet tall, thin.”

The first man studied the picture for a long moment, then gave his head a shake and handed it to the second man who had joined them.

“Hey, we wanna see the broad, too,” Pool Cue Guy called.

The first man growled in his direction again and he and his pool mate retreated to the pool table, scowling and muttering under their breath.

The second man shook his head and handed the picture back to Max. Hopes deflated again, Max glanced to the end of the bar, where the last man who’d been drinking and the bartender were looking at him suspiciously. He wanted them to look at the picture as well.

“You best be going now,” the first man said, following Max’s line of sight. “There are better places for you to be.”

Max shifted his gaze to the man and gave one nod of his head – he understood completely.

Across the street, Isabel moved silently through the aisles of the thrift store, trying to look like she was shopping. Truth was, she wouldn’t take anything home out of this dank, filthy little store. But she wanted to get on the storekeeper’s good side, so she could ask her questions. Time to whip out the Sunshine Committee smile, she mused.

Smiling broadly, showing all of her beautiful teeth, Isabel made her way over to the cash register. The woman behind the counter was fiftyish, dressed rather frumpy for her age, her hair in need of a good bath. Isabel tried to look past all of that as she reached over and picked up a soiled sundress.

“Do you have this in an eight?” she asked happily.

The woman raised one eyebrow, her eyes traveling down to Isabel’s leather boots. Then she looked at her manicured nails and the emerald ring that her father had given her on her sixteenth birthday. There was no way a classy – or perhaps ‘uppity’ to this person – woman like Isabel would wear that gaudy gauze dress.

Isabel dropped the smile and shoved the dress back onto the rack. She wasn’t fooling anyone. “Okay. I’m not here to shop,” she confessed. “I’m looking for someone and I was hoping you could help me.”

The woman reached below the counter, pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, letting the smoke drift into the alien’s face. Isabel remained where she was, refusing to let this woman’s rudeness win.

“A friend,” she said, reaching into her back pocket and pulling out a photo Max had given her. She held it up to the woman. “Liz Parker.”

The woman took a long drag on the cigarette and stared at Isabel for a long time before she turned her eyes to the photo. She barely glanced at it, then met Isabel’s eyes again.

“She’s short. Maybe she came through on the bus,” Isabel offered.

The woman remained motionless.

Isabel sighed internally and felt her inner bitch rearing its ugly head. She stuffed the picture back into her pocket and headed for the door. Before she left, however, she turned back to the woman. “By the way, it’s called shampoo – look into it.”

As she stepped back outside, Isabel realized it was as hot in the open air as it had been in the store. Apparently air conditioning was as foreign to that shopkeeper as good hygiene.

Max was leaning against the door of the Chevelle, his boots crossed at the ankle. Isabel could tell even from the other side of the road that they’d reached another dead end. Neither of them said it aloud, but just climbed into the car instead.

“Let’s go back to the freeway,” she suggested as Max started the car. “I don’t want to stay in this town tonight.”

He nodded in agreement. “I doubt if they even have a motel,” he said as he pulled onto the road. Mentally, he mused that he’d probably just met a whole group of men who would give Isabel a place to stay for the night. The thought made him shiver.

Isabel reached into the glove box and pulled out a worn Texas road map, its corners torn. She studied it for awhile, then put it down and looked wearily at her brother. “Max, maybe it’s time to move on.”

His head whipped in her direction, his lips pressed tightly together.

“I’m not saying we should give up,” she said quickly, shaking her head in denial. “I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying maybe we should move out of Texas. We have no evidence that Liz was ever here.”

Max frowned and turned his attention back to the road. The fact they had no evidence was the problem. It was almost as though Liz had disappeared off the face of the earth. It was as though she’d been abducted.

“So, do you aliens come with a handbook or anything?”

Max laughed. “A handbook?”

“You know, so you know all of the things that you’re supposed to do,” Liz said, smiling.

“Oh, and what am I supposed to know how to do?”

She thought for a moment, her dark eyes turned to the ceiling of the eraser room. They weren’t there to make out like most visitors to that room – they were there waiting for Topolsky to return to her office so they could spy on her.

“How to perform an anal probe?” Liz finally came up with, then burst out laughing as her cheeks turned crimson. Her hands flew to her mouth in embarrassment.

Max’s mouth was open in astonishment at her outburst, but then he had to laugh at her.

“Sorry,” she laughed, dropping her hands. “Forget anal probes. What about abductions?”

He lifted his eyebrows. “Abductions?”

“Yeah, aren’t you supposed to abduct people?” Her eyes settled on his lips, then returned to his eyes.

She was showing interest in him…or was she? Max tried to tell himself that she was just being grateful for him saving her life. Why would she be interested in him? He was some alien mutant that up until ten minutes ago she thought was three feet tall and green when he was born.

“It wouldn’t be so bad,” Liz finally said, filling the uncomfortable silence Max’s reflection had caused. “At least I don’t think it would be so bad to be abducted by an alien.”

Max sighed, willed away that memory of innocence from what seemed to be so long ago. “We’ll go back to the bus station,” he offered to Isabel. “See if we can talk to that baggage handler again. Maybe we got something wrong.”

His sister nodded and appeared to be relieved that they were leaving Texas.

Max watched the road ahead and realized that if they didn’t find Liz, he’d never feel relieved again.

tbc

Why, thank you everybody

As for timeline, this is after S2 and after they have graduated, but S3 never happened. The baby story never happened because I'm too lazy to deal with it

Hmm, I seem to have a thing for "road" fics


Part Two

“Let's just keep running, you and me, away from here, away from everything. I see everything so clearly now. We'll go someplace where no one knows us. As long as we're together, nothing else matters.”

Max remembered speaking those words. He’d lied to Liz when he claimed he didn’t. But at the time, he was trying so desperately to set her free, so that she could live a life without all of the alien madness that was yet to come. The alcohol had made him so much more open, so unabashed at saying what he meant – at that moment, he did believe if they distanced themselves from everyone that everything would be okay.

But they had to be together. And now they were separated.

Max enjoyed this part of the journey, if there could be any enjoyment out of it – it was the time when Isabel went to her room and he went to his and he could be by himself and just think. Or grieve, although he hadn’t let himself do so just yet. To grieve was to give up and he wasn’t giving up.

He lay on his back on the bed, his forearm over his eyes, and tried to concentrate on Liz. If only he had Isabel’s dreamwalking power! He’d asked his sister to try to dreamwalk Liz, but so far she’d come up empty. That was one of the things that troubled Max the most – that Isabel couldn’t even locate Liz. Usually she could find someone and maybe just not be able to get in. But now, she couldn’t even conjure up Liz’s subconscious.

All of the worst scenarios had already raced through Max’s mind – the worst, of course, being that Liz was dead. But if he concentrated really hard, if he dug deep enough into his heart, he could still feel her there, however weak that presence might be.

As he did every night, he clenched his eyes tightly shut and concentrated on Liz, on every part of her face, the sound of her voice, the heavenly sound of her laughter. He offered all of those memories up to whatever powers that be might be out there and listening, begging for just a glimpse of his love. Maybe he had a dormant cerebral power that he wasn’t aware of. Maybe if he did this every night, he’d be able to find her.

A knock on the door interrupted Max’s mind games. Letting out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding, he called, “Come in,” and opened his palm toward the door, ready to blast any unwelcome intruder.

But it was only Isabel who entered, a white carry-out bag in her hand. Her long, blond hair was wet and combed straight, and as she neared the bed Max got a whiff of something sweet – she’d recently showered the dust from the road from her body.

“Burgers,” she said, plopping down into a chair by the bed.

The room was standard budget-rate motel – a bed, a chair, a bathroom and not much else.

Max sat up and wiped his hands across his eyes, brushing away the weariness. He reached for the bag and took out one of the burgers. “Thanks,” he said.

Isabel nodded and took the last sandwich for herself. She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a bottle of Tabasco, giving her brother a knowing grin. His eyes widened and he grinned happily back.

“Carry out store by the burger place,” she said, twisting open the bottle and squirting some of the hot sauce on her food. “That’s the thing you gotta love about south westerners – they love their spicy food.”

Max nodded his agreement and took the bottle from her, anticipating the burning sensation the sauce would soon bring. Their diet had been poor – mostly eating whatever was around when they got hungry. One day their meals had consisted of ice cream from Dairy Queen and not much more. He could feel the effects in his body already – he was tired most of the time and felt like he was getting run down.

They ate in silence for awhile, then Isabel asked, “Talk to anyone?”

Max shook his head. “You?”

She nodded. “Michael. Nothing new.”

Internally, Max sighed. He was glad Michael had agreed to stay behind in Roswell in case the sheriff was able to locate Liz, but he also wished that he’d been able to join Max and Isabel. It had always been the three of them, looking out for one another, covering each other’s backs. It had always been the three of them – until Liz came into his life.

And then it had been four of them, five of them, six of them…at some points remembering who did and didn’t know the secret became a chore. Sometimes Max wished there was a way to go back to those simpler times when it was just the three of them, but that would mean he would have to give Liz back, too.

“Max, I’ve been thinking.”

He was broken from his internally musing by Isabel’s voice. “About what?”

“Well, we know that Liz bought that bus ticket to Boston.”

He dipped a fry into some Tabasco. “Yeah?”

“We’ve been assuming that she got on the bus but didn’t stay on the bus.”

Well, since she’d never reached Boston, it was pretty safe to assume she didn’t stay on the bus. Max gave her the “well, duh!” expression.

Isabel gave a light laugh and waved her hand. “Bear with me. How do we know she ever got on the bus?”

He stopped before the fry ever reached his mouth. It was a possibility they hadn’t considered. Instantly, he kicked himself for not having thought of that. “But why would she buy a ticket and not get on the bus?” he asked. He wasn’t confronting his sister, but rather asking her to prove her theory.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Nothing has made sense so far, Max. But we’ve tried to follow the bus route and no one remembers seeing her.”

Max thought about that for a moment. Would someone working in a bus station really take note of someone like Liz? Would they notice her enough that she’d stick out in their memory a month after they’d seen her? Make no mistake – Max thought Liz was a beautiful woman, but there was nothing extraordinary enough about her to mark her permanently in peoples’ memories. It wasn’t like she was exceptionally tall, or walked with a limp or even liked to draw attention to herself at all. Liz would blend in with the countless other faces the bus station workers had seen.

“Do you think we shouldn’t go back to the bus terminal?” Max finally asked.

Isabel shrugged again. “We don’t have any other clues, Max. I think we have to go back there. Maybe we can get some other information that might help us.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know that either.”

Max stopped eating, his food slowly turning cold. He should mention to Isabel that they shouldn’t talk about stressful things over meals – it did nothing but spoil his appetite. “Iz?”

“Mmm hmm?” she answered through closed lips, chewing her dinner.

“Have you tried to walk her lately?”

Isabel swallowed and nodded, her eyes softly regarding her brother. “Every night like I promised I would, Max.”

He raised his eyebrows hopefully. “Anything?”

She shook her head slowly. “But I’ll keep trying.” She crumpled up the burger wrapper and tossed it back into the bag. “I’d better go back to my room and let you get some sleep. We’ll go to the bus station tomorrow and see if we can dredge up anything.”

Max watched her leave, then despondently tossed the remainder of his dinner into the bag with the rest of the trash.

“Give me your hand.”

“Max, I don’t want to.” Liz’s eyes turned nervously to the abyss below her.

“Just give me your hand,” Max coaxed, trying to make his voice reassuring.

There was a gap in the rock between them – a gap that he’d been able to jump easily. But Liz’s legs were shorter and there was a good chance she wouldn’t make it.

“It’s a long way down,” she protested, turning her flashlight into the hole. She couldn’t see the bottom.

“It will be okay,” he said, stretching his hand closer to her. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“Why do we have to do this?” In the dim light of the cave, he could see the fear in her eyes.

“Because I heard there is something up the trail that is not to be missed,” he said excitedly.

“What is it?” she asked warily.

“Supposedly the most amazing stalactites you’ve ever seen.”

“You’ve never seen them?”

He shook his head. “No. I wanted to be with you the first time I saw them.”

She looked back to the hole, then to Max’s outstretched hand. “But what if I fall?”

“I’ll catch you, Liz. I’ll always catch you.”

****

“Ugh! Why do all bus stations smell like piss?”

Max lifted one corner of his mouth in a half-smile at his sister’s spot-on evaluation. The humor was fleeting, however, as he looked desperately around the interior of the Albuquerque bus terminal. She’d been here. Six weeks ago she’d been here, with her bags, buying that ticket to Boston. If he tried hard enough, he could picture her standing at the ticket counter.

The thing he couldn’t imagine, however, was her state of mind. Had she been upset? Happy? Excited to be going on a trip? Or was it as Isabel had claimed – had Liz never made it onto the bus at all?

Fear twisted Max’s insides as he imagined Liz stepping away from the counter, checking her ticket and not noticing that she was being followed. He saw her stalked, assaulted, beaten and left to die in an alley. He shuddered visibly.

“Are you okay?” Isabel asked, her brow furrowed.

Max nodded. “Fine. Just a chill, I guess.”

She looked at him curiously – it was 110 degrees outside that day. “Right. Well, I’ll go work the magic with the counter clerk. You poke around and see if we missed anything the last time we were here.”

Max watched as his sister walked away. As she moved, she adjusted her hair, reapplied some lipstick and in a move that totally floored him, adjusted her boobs. Shaking his head in embarrassed disbelief, he walked in the opposite direction, toward the storage lockers.

He walked the length of the lockers, eyeing them and wondering if something of Liz’s could be in one of them. They were the small, square cubicles that travelers could rent for a quarter. He’d seen many movies and TV cops shows where the bad guy had stashed the money from the bank heist in such a locker.

Looking over his shoulder to see if anyone was around, he raised his hand to the flat metal surface and slowly walked back the way he’d come, trying to get a feel for what was inside. He could sense nothing concrete, only the molecular makeup of the lockers’ contents – metal, plastic, liquid…and a dead rat in one of the bottom ones. Withdrawing his hand as if he’d been stung, Max look down to the locker in question and shivered. No wonder Isabel hated these places.

He checked a few more places and found no clues of Liz’s whereabouts. It had been such a long period of time, he really hadn’t counted on it anyway. When he returned to the ticket area, he saw Isabel leaning against a wall with a rather self-satisfied grin on her face. Immediately, his hopes skyrocketed.

“You found something, didn’t you?” he spouted as he neared her.

“Sh, little brother,” she chided cheerfully. “I don’t want the authorities to know what I’ve done.”

His eyes narrowed. One day she was going to get them thrown in jail. “What did you do?” he asked warily.

She tossed her long hair, just as punctuation to her latest performance. “Well, Attila the Ticket Master over there wasn’t being very helpful,” she said, jerking her head in the direction of the ticket booth.

Max’s eyes followed her movements and he noted a pudgy, middle-aged man working the window. The guy looked friendly enough. He seemed sort of happy, really.

“So, I showed him my boobs,” Isabel confessed.

Max cocked his head. “Are you kidding me?”

She shook her head. “Well, not all of them, just enough to get him flustered.” She tipped her body forward and although Max didn’t look for himself, he imagined that her breasts were practically straining at the top of her tank top. “Then I asked for some bus schedules – to Montreal – and while he went into the back to get them, I reached through the window and worked my magic.” Victorious, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “You know, they really should keep computers out of the reach of the customers.”

Max’s dark eyes fell excitedly on the piece of paper. “What is that, Isabel?”

“This, my dear brother, is Liz’s credit card number.”

Unable to contain himself, Max quickly grabbed his sister into a joyous embrace. He knew with that number, they could track everywhere Liz had been.

tbc

~~~~~~

* dialogue borrowed from "Blind Date" (as if I had to tell you guys that )

Comments to follow

Part Three

“Do you love me?”

“Yes,” she answered breathlessly.

“Tell me,” he urged, gasping. “Tell me how much you love me.”

Her reply was to close her eyes tightly, her body moving with a natural, carnal rhythm. She let out a groan deep in her throat.

“Tell me,” he commanded, his voice a hot whisper. “I want to hear the words.”

She moved faster, the sweat beading on her flawless skin. Her breath came in a quick hiccupping sound. “I love you, Max” she gasped. Then her voice turned into a cry of release as she threw her head back, “Oh! I love you!”

“Earth to Max.”

Max jerked, the memory fading away quickly and rudely. Isabel was looking at him impatiently, her hands poised over the keyboard.

“What was the bank name on the card?”

He flipped open the piece of paper Isabel had written Liz’s credit card information on. “US Bank,” he said, deciphering his sister’s hurried handwriting.

Max watched as Isabel’s fingers flew over the keyboard, performing an internet search. Within a few seconds, a list of possible sites relevant to “US Bank” and “customer service” were displayed. He leaned a little closer, quickly scanning the items.

“Try the first one,” he suggested.

Isabel clicked on the link and a website popped up. She and Max studied it for a few seconds until they found the link to the account information page and clicked on it. Near the right hand upper corner, there were boxes for the account number and a password.

Max referred to the paper again and read the sixteen digit number to Isabel. When she tabbed to the password, they both stared helplessly at the screen.

Raising her head slightly, Isabel looked over the wall to see if any of the library’s patrons were within earshot. It would be a bad thing if someone caught them trying to access credit card data that wasn’t theirs. Reassured that they were alone, she dropped her gaze back to Max.

“Any ideas?” she asked, her hands hovering over the keys. “We have to be careful – too many wrong tries and we might suspend her password.”

Max worked his mouth, trying to think if he knew any of Liz’s other passwords, and realized he didn’t. “Try Gomez.”

Isabel eyed him curiously.

He gave a wan smile. “Liz likes Gomez.” As Isabel typed in the suggestion, he closed his eyes as the memory and the lyrics played through his mind.

The same, the same, the same again
To steal the time and haunt the graves
Just because it's there
Don't mean you see it anywhere
Maybe it's a trick of the light

“That’s not it,” Isabel said, nodding toward an error on the screen.

Max opened his eyes and read the message. It wanted letters and numbers both. “Try Gomez918.”

As she typed, Isabel asked “What’s 918?”

“It’s the day I saved her life.”

She eyed him with sympathy while her pinky hit the enter key. This had to be so hard for him and it somewhat amazed her that he was holding it together so well. A bleep from the computer drew her attention back to the screen.

Max stifled his shout of joy as he realized could still predict at least part of Liz’s mind. More importantly, they were about to find out where she was.

There were quite a few options. By accident, Isabel clicked on “Payment Information” first and they found that Liz’s payment was overdue. No surprise there, since Liz herself was overdue these days.

“Pick account activity,” Max suggested, willing away the urge to take the mouse from his sister and do it himself.

“Good idea,” Isabel said, clicking on the link.

There was a pause as the search retrieved the information, a search that seemed like a decade but in reality was only a few long seconds. When the screen displayed the information, both Max and Isabel deflated.

On the page were three line items. That was it.

Sensing Max’s impending gloom, Isabel cleared her throat and decided to narrate their findings. “Well, the first charge is the bus ticket. Guess we already knew about that, huh?”

Max nodded solemnly.

“The next looks like she spent twelve fifty at the newsstand on the day she bought the bus ticket. Probably readying materials for her trip, eh?” She was asking him rhetorical questions, trying to prevent him from withdrawing into a shell-shocked lump of alienhood.

Max nodded again. Liz liked to read.

“Well, let’s see what we have for the last item.” Isabel used the mouse to scroll down so the full charge could be seen. “Fifty four dollars for a motel room…in Colorado Springs three weeks ago. That’s it – there aren’t any more charges after that.”

Max cocked his head. “Colorado Springs? How did she get to Colorado Springs?” Panic flared within him for about the hundredth time in the past four weeks. Colorado Springs was decidedly north. Boston, on the other hand, was extremely east.

“I don’t know, Max,” Isabel confirmed, clicking the print icon to send the credit card statement to the printer. “All I do know is that we’re going to Colorado.”

Max watched her tiredly as she left her seat to get the copy from the printer. Why was she still here? Why was she helping him still? She could be home, taking classes, finding a boyfriend, being burden-free. But she was here with him instead.

As Isabel slid her lithe body back into the seat before the computer, Max watched her silently.

“You can go home,” he finally said.

She glanced up at him, one eyebrow raised. “Sorry?”

“You don’t have to do this, Iz. You don’t have to go to Colorado with me. I know there are probably other things you’d rather be doing…”

She snorted. “You’re kidding, right? There’s no way I’m leaving you out here on your own. Besides, Liz helped bail us out more than once – I sort of feel like I owe her one.” Her lips turned upward slightly at the ends, a sad smile.

He returned an identical smile, then took the paper from her, folded it in quarters and slid it into his back pocket.

“When you were little, tell me what you wanted to be when you grew up.”

Max stared up at the ceiling, thinking. Outside, it had begun to rain and he could hear the steady tapping of the showers on Liz’s bedroom roof. Every now and then, there was a flash of lightening and in that brief snap of light, he could make out her features as she lay beside him, her head propped up by one elbow.

“Come on,” she coaxed playfully. “You wanted to be a doctor – or a lawyer like your daddy, didn’t you?” Her fingers made a swirling pattern in the center of his bare chest.

He kept himself from frowning and came up with a diversion tactic. “I’ll bet I can guess what you wanted to be.”

“You think so?”

He nodded. “I’ll bet that you knew from the moment you took your first step that you were going to be a world famous scientist. Didn’t you?”

If there had been light in the room, he was sure he would have seen her blush. “Well, not right when I took my first step…but shortly after.” She let out a little laugh and he found himself falling even deeper in love with her. “But you didn’t answer me. What did you want to be?”

Max looked back to the ceiling and worked up courage to put voice to what he’d been ashamed to tell her.

"Come on," she prompted teasingly. "What did you want to be more than anything?"

“Human.”

It didn’t make sense. Liz was a college student. She had no money. Max had seen her bank statements – she barely had enough cash to cover tuition and rent for her tiny apartment. If she didn’t have cash and she wasn’t using the credit card, then how was she living?

He didn’t want to ponder the obvious answer to that one.

“What was the street address again?” Isabel asked from behind the wheel of the Chevelle. Max had finally given in and let her drive, and it wasn’t half as irritating as he’d anticipated it to be.

He twisted his body and pulled a page from the Yellow Pages from his pocket. When they’d reached Colorado Springs, they’d found a phone booth and looked up the name of the hotel on Liz’s credit card statement.

“1806 Old River Trail,” he read. He looked up at some of the buildings whizzing past the car and tried to catch a street sign. “Is this Old River Trail?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Isabel said. “But I haven’t seen a hotel yet.”

She pulled the car into a strip mall so that she could study the addresses without the distraction of driving at the same time. She noted the order of the numbers, then pulled back onto the street, reversing her direction.

“The even numbers are on your side,” she told him. “Watch closely.”

Max watched the numbers slowly ascending, then called, “Stop!”

Isabel hit the brakes and pulled the car over into a metered parking spot.

Max pointed to a barbershop. “That’s 1804,” he said. They both turned their heads toward a gym the next block over. “That’s 1808.”

Together, they turned to where 1806 should have been. Max felt his stomach fall to his toes and Isabel felt an overwhelming sense of dread.

1806 was nothing but a vacant lot.

tbc

~~~~~~~
Lyrics from "We Haven't Turned Around" by Gomez

Part Four

Isabel and Max stood side by side on the sidewalk in front of the empty lot that held the address of 1806 Old River Trail. They were stunned into silence, the only sound being the cars passing on the street behind them.

Max’s dark eyes traveled over the ground, which was rough, as though it had recently been bulldozed. Isabel followed his gaze and drew in a long breath.

“Sure this was the right address?” she asked carefully.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the sheet from the phone book again, checked the address and nodded his head.

“No other motel with the same name?”

He shook his head, folded the paper and shoved it back into his pocket.

Isabel kicked at the ground, which was starting to be cast in shadows from the sun setting behind the gym. “What do we do now?”

Max looked at the expanse of the lot, mused that it was probably big enough to have at one time been home to a motel. Then his gaze shifted to the barber shop. “Follow me.”

His sibling did as she was told, walking close in his footsteps. Max opened the barbershop door and stepped inside.

An elderly man, older than Max and Isabel’s grandparents, pushed himself to his feet from one of the barber’s chairs. He was wearing an old-fashioned white barber’s shirt, his fingers gnarled with age.

“Will you be wanting a cut then?” he asked Max, his voice aged and hoarse.

Max shook his head. “No, not today, thank you.” He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. “Do you know what happened to the motel? My sister and I had reservations there.”

The old barber’s eyes shifted toward the door as he slowly registered the question. “A shave, then?”

Isabel snorted a little laugh behind Max – the man was senile.

Max managed a polite smile and shook his head. The thought of this tottering old man taking a razor to his throat was not an appealing one. “No thank you,” he said a little louder, considering the man might be hard of hearing. “We wanted to stay at the motel.”

“Oh,” the man said, sinking back into his chair. “No need to yell – I’m not deaf, you know.”

From the corner of his eye, Max saw Isabel tip her head and hide her mouth with her hand, barely containing her laughter. He was about to apologize and reiterate his question when the old man cut him off.

“Burned. A few weeks ago.”

Max exchanged a worried glance with Isabel.

“Burned?” she repeated. “Do they know how?”

“Damn near lost my business, I did,” the man answered, his words slow and wistful. “Flames lapping up the side of the building. Good thing she was made of brick.”

“Was anyone hurt?” Max asked, swallowing past his fear.

The barber met his eyes for a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t know. I wasn’t here when it happened. Middle of the night.”

Max nodded. “Okay. Well, thank you.” He started to back away, but the man stopped him.

“There’s another motel up the street about a mile. They usually have room.”

“Great,” Isabel said. “We’ll try there.”

The old man was still mumbling something as they exited his barber shop. Outside, Isabel looked over her shoulder, then back to her brother.

“Do you think he’s sane?” she asked cautiously.

Max shrugged. “Well, obviously there was a motel here and obviously now it’s gone. He’s at least got that part right.” He sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Dead end,” he sighed.

Isabel looked at the ground between her feet. “What now?”

He shrugged. “I guess we get a room for the night and then head home. We don’t even know if she was ever here. What clue is there left to follow?”

“What’s this?” Max asked as he picked up a letter from the kitchen table.

In the living room, Liz was seated on the floor behind the coffee table, doing her homework. “What’s what?” she asked, her tone a little weary.

Max gave her a curious look and unfolded the letter. “The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution?”

She scratched her upper lip but didn’t look up from her work. “Yeah. Robert Ballard does his research there.”

Max blinked. “Who’s Robert Ballard?”

Liz sighed, looked up in semi-irritation. “He found the Titanic,” she explained, then returned to her work, cradling her forehead in her hand.

“Oh.” Max skimmed the first few words of the letter:

“Dear Ms. Parker - Thank you for your interest in the summer internship at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. We are proud to offer…”

Max looked up quickly, surprised. “Liz? Are you going to Maine for the summer?”

Heaving an irritated sigh, she dropped her pencil onto her notebook with a thud. “It’s in Massachusetts, Max.”

“Oh, sorry.” His brow furrowed. “Are you okay?”

She sighed and shook her head. “I just have this headache. It won’t go away.”

Refolding the letter, Max walked into the living room and sat down on the arm of her sofa. “Liz, I thought we were going to spend the summer together. You know, hiking and stuff.” His words were gentle, inquisitive as to why she hadn’t discussed this with him.

“It’ll be good for my career,” she answered, returning to her homework.

“But, I thought –“

“There are no buts about this, Max!” she snapped. “I came to this second-rate school so that I could be with you and you could be near Roswell! By all rights I should already be on the east coast!”

Max withdrew, stung into speechlessness by her comments and behavior.

Angrily, she shoved herself away from the table, papers and books scattering to the floor. As she stomped toward her bedroom, she tagged on one last parting shot, “Jesus Christ! Not everything in this world is about you!”

Isabel sat on the edge of Max’s bed, swinging her legs back and forth while she waited for him to get off the phone. He was talking with the sheriff, a frown on his face. Her brother was losing hope – she could practically see it dissolving before her very eyes.

“Is there nothing you can do?” Max asked.

On the other end, the sheriff’s voice was soothing. “Unfortunately, Liz is an adult now, Max. Adults have the right to go missing if they so choose. Without any evidence of foul play, I can’t even issue a missing person’s report. And even if I did have the evidence, it’s out of my jurisdiction. If she had still been living in Roswell, then that would have been a different story.”

Max sighed and rubbed his forehead in exhaustion.

“Have you considered that maybe nothing has happened to Liz, but rather that she just went away for awhile?” Valenti asked.

“It seems unlike Liz,” Max countered.

“I agree, but you never can tell what motivates people to do the things they do.” There was a pause, then the sheriff added, “I’ll do what I can. I’ll do as much investigation as I can without drawing any undo attention.”

“I appreciate that,” Max replied, giving his sister a defeated glance.

“You hang in there,” Valenti said. “I’m sure this will all work out okay in the end. Usually does.”

Max nodded. “Thanks, sheriff.” He flipped off his cell phone and sat with his shoulders slumped downward.

“Nothing, huh?” Isabel said softly.

Max shook his head. “Not a damned thing, Isabel.” The weight of the situation suddenly bore down heavily on him and a small burst of claustrophobia raced through his body. Jumping to his feet, he announced, “I’m going to take a walk.”

Isabel’s eyebrows rose sharply. “Oh, okay. Just let me get my –”

“I’d like to go alone…if you don’t mind.”

Sadness filled her as she realized Max was going somewhere to grieve. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll be down the hall if you need to talk or anything.”

She stood up and put her arms around him, squeezing him tightly.

“I could come to Boston with you.”

“I want to go alone, Max.” Liz’s words were strained, like she was on her last thread of patience.

“I mean, I don’t have any plans for the summer. I’ve never seen the ocean. You’d be gone all day at the Institute and we’d probably never see one another anyway.” He punctuated his words with a smile, trying to ease whatever it was that had been bothering her of late.

She didn’t return his smile. Instead, she rubbed her forehead vigorously.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I have a headache,” she said, annunciating her words carefully.

Max’s brow furrowed with concern. “Do you want me to try to get rid of it?” he asked even as he was reaching across the seat of the car toward her.

Quickly, her hand shot out and slapped his away. “I don’t want you to touch me,” she said, and he realized she was near tears.

“Liz?” He shook his head in confusion. “I don’t understand…”

“I’m trying to tell you I’m going to Boston alone, Max. I want to be by myself. I need to be myself. Please leave me alone.”

Max watched the toes of his work boots as he walked. The night air was quiet except for the crunch of gravel beneath his feet and the occasional car passing him on the street. Inwardly, he was sobbing. Outwardly, he appeared numb.

How had it come to this? So many dreams for their future together – he’d given her a ring just last Christmas. They were so happy together, making plans, dreaming of a family someday.

But then he’d watched her slowly turn into someone he didn’t recognize. It didn’t happen over night. It was gradual – a little crabbiness he’d attributed to PMS one week, a little more abrasive the following week, up to outright hostility the last time he’d seen her.

Was the sheriff right? Had Liz just run away? Had she run away from Max?

He passed the vacant lot where the motel used to be, not having realized he’d walked that far. Deciding he should turn back, he passed the gym and turned down an alley between it and a bakery. He snorted – another one of the ironies of life.

Max continued to stare at his boots as he walked the alley, contemplating what his empty future now held. Soon something caught his eye, nothing more than a spot on the concrete. It wasn’t just that spot in particular – it was the series of spots that followed it.

Max’s brow furrowed in confusion as he followed what appeared to be a trail of blood, though in the dim lights the spots could have been any dripping liquid. But something about the shape and the size of them led him to believe they were definitely blood stains.

He followed them the length of the alley to the point where they culminated in a brownish-red pool. Looking this way and that, he tried to find the source of the stains, or if the pattern continued, but could find no evidence of that. Whatever or whomever had been bleeding had stopped here.

Max looked around the alley, helplessly searching for another clue. When he found it, his blood ran cold and his knees threatened to buckle beneath him. On the brick wall of the gym was a long streak of smeared blood, as though a person with considerable blood on their hands had rested there, then slowly slid to the ground. But it wasn’t the blood stain that was troubling.

Beneath the reddish-brown stain, Max could just make out the fading glow of a silver handprint.

tbc

Part Five

Max’s fingers trembled as he reached for the blood stained handprint on the brick wall of the gym. He hesitated once, then touched it with his fingertips.

Instant, unbearable pained invaded his body and he fell to his knees in the alley. In a agonizing barrage of images, he smelled smoke and felt the heat of fire against his back. Around him there was chaos – sirens, people shouting, pieces of the building tumbling to the ground. He clutched his ribs and coughed up congestion that wasn’t really there.

Slowly, the pain and the images subsided and Max lifted his head to look at the spot on the wall. His eyes were filled with tears of pain and he could still smell smoky residue rising from the demolition site one lot over. His eyes settled on the handprint and he knew for sure – Liz had been there.

***

Isabel rolled over onto her side, the worn picture of Liz Parker cupped in her hand. It was time for her nightly ritual, the one she’d promised Max to do until they found his fiance. Where are you, Liz? she thought. Why can’t I find you?

As the need for sleep started to cloud her mind, Isabel was about to give up on her dreamwalking quest. But then she received just a momentary flash of something she couldn’t ignore – it felt like a huge cry for help, but then it fell silent as fast as it had come up on her.

Gasping, her heart thudding in her chest, Isabel sat up quickly and flipped on the lamp on the nightstand. Eyes wide, she looked down at the picture in her hand in amazement. She’d broken through – sure, it had only been a few seconds of indecipherable gibberish, but she’d made it through somehow. After having done this for countless nights, why all of a sudden this night?

Because she was close.

Isabel drew in a quick breath. Liz Parker was somewhere near. Her body or her mind – or maybe both – must be weak and while Isabel had been sending out her dreamwalks from as far away as central Texas, Liz hadn’t been able to receive them. It all made sense! It was like trying to pick up a radio station out of range.

“I have to tell Max,” Isabel said quickly to no one but herself. She jumped off the bed and shoved her feet into her shoes – no time to get dressed into her street clothes. They’d been waiting too long for a breakthrough and now that it had come, she didn’t care that the whole of Colorado was going to see her in her pajamas.

Excited, nervous, anxious and exuberant, she rushed to the door and threw it open – only to have Max nearly tumble into the room. She pushed her confusion at his presence away and both of them at the same time blurted out, “She’s here!”

Both siblings stopped, their brows furrowing in identical confusion. At times like these when their expressions were mirror images of one another, an outsider would find it hard to believe that their human donors had not really been related.

“What?” they both said at the same time.

Max shook his head. “You first. What did you say?”

“Max, Liz is somewhere nearby. I know it – I felt it.” Isabel was doing everything she could to keep her excitement under wraps.

“You felt it?” he asked, his eyebrows rising slightly.

“I tried to dreamwalk her and I felt like I got in for just a second. I think maybe…” Her voice drifted off as she realized she had no way of gently telling Max that Liz might be in some kind of mental or physical peril.

“You think what?”

She worked her mouth uncomfortably. “I think maybe she’s not quite herself,” she said delicately. “I think maybe she couldn’t receive the dreamwalk until I got closer to her.”

Max’s shoulders sagged and he drew in a tired breath.

“What is it?” Isabel asked. “What did you find?”

He let out the breath slowly. “A lot of blood in an alley over by where the motel burned.”

She waited a beat, then gave a little shrug. “Doesn’t mean anything, Max. It could have been a wounded animal or –”

“And a silver handprint.”

Isabel’s mouth hung open in surprise and what Max thought looked like a little bit of fear. “Oh,” was all she managed to say.

“I touched it,” Max admitted. “And when I did, I think I may have relived what Liz experienced in the fire. She was there when it burned, Iz.”

“My God, Max.” She looked away, toward the closed curtains of her room. Could an alien have hurt Liz? Could an alien have been the one to burn down the motel? “A silver handprint. Only you and Nasedo could leave those.”

Max nodded. “I know. Nasedo is dead and I’ve never been here before.”

Isabel gulped. “What are you thinking? Do you think she’s been abducted?”

He met her eyes and slowly shook his head. “I don’t know what to think. I’m not even sure what to do. We think she’s near, we think there might be an alien on the loose. What should we do, Iz?”

The room was filled with silence as the two stood there staring at one another, lost. Finally, Isabel drew in a breath.

“I think we take the optimistic approach.”

Max raised an eyebrow. “Which is?”

“We assume no aliens were involved,” she decided.

“But, Iz, the handprint –“

She held up a hand. “Forget the handprint for now. We’re being optimistic, remember?”

He nodded, patronizing her.

“So, we go to the library tomorrow, get the newspapers from the last month and learn all we can. Hopefully, we can find out where Liz is.”

“And if the optimistic approach doesn’t work?” Max asked warily.

“Then we move on to plan B.”

“What’s plan B?”

“Scream and run like hell,” she answered bluntly.

“Do you like it?”

“Like it?” she asked, her eyes sparkling. “I love it.”

He smiled warmly at her as she slowly fanned her fingers, the diamonds of her new ring catching the light from the Christmas tree. “The jeweler thought I was crazy when I asked that he make the V crooked.”

She pulled her gaze away from her new jewel long enough to meet his eyes and give him a loving smile. On her finger was Max’s wedding proposal – a beautiful marquee stone surrounded by five smaller stones, positioned in the shape of the infamous V constellation.

“I think he thought I was one of those art hippies who thinks symmetry is evil,” Max laughed, adjusting the blanket he’d pulled up to his waist.

Liz laughed.

“Did you read the inside?” he asked.

She shook her head, but made no move to read the inscription.

“Aren’t you going to?”

She shook her head again.

“Why not?” he laughed.

“Because I’m never taking this off, Max Evans. Never.”

He laughed with her and pulled her down next to him, cradling her nude body against his, her dark hair fanning across his chest. He kissed her slowly, at great length, then whispered against her ear, “Read it.”

She saw the seriousness in his eyes and pushed herself up on one elbow. Delicately, she removed the ring from her finger and turned it toward the dim, colorful lights of the tree. As she read the words, her eyes filled with tears and she put her arms around him.

“I love you, Max,” she breathed between her tears. “I love you so much.”

“Did you sleep at all last night?” Isabel asked, sipping out of her Styrofoam coffee cup.

Max shook his head. He was slumped over at a table in the library, his elbow resting on its surface, his chin cradled in his hand.

“Yeah, me neither. I kept trying to dr…” She glanced around at the library patrons and changed her words. “I kept trying to call our friend again last night.”

“And?” Max asked.

“There wasn’t any answer.” She winced. “And now I have a headache. Anyway, I talked to the librarian and she said that the papers are too recent to be on microfilm. So that means we get to go back to the stacks and get covered in newsprint. Follow me.”

Max did as he was told. His whole body was trembling – from lack of sleep, lack of food, too much coffee and an uncontrollable anxiety over what they would find in those newspapers.

Isabel led him to a back room filled with stacks of periodicals waiting to be filed or put onto film. She pointed to the newspapers. “Let’s get started.”

A half hour passed by before there was even the slightest shred of a clue in any of the papers. Going was slow because they had to flip through all of the pages and not rely on the motel fire being a big enough news event to warrant front page coverage.

“Hey, look here,” Isabel said, drawing her brother’s attention. He slid over beside her and looked over her shoulder. “Motel fire under investigation,” she read aloud, then scanned the article silently. “It says the fire was three days earlier than this print.” She quickly turned her attention to the stack of papers in front of her and flipped to the third edition in the pile.

On the front of the paper, the headline read, Historic Inn Burns To the Ground.

Unable to control himself, Max snatched the paper from his sister, skimming the article for any key word that held a clue. He was too impatient to read it word-for-word and would only do so if skimming didn’t produce what he was looking for.

He muttered a couple of words from the column, then read out loud in an excited voice, “Several people with injuries were taken to the County Medical Center on Old River Trail.” Glee pouring from his expression, he dropped the paper and embraced his sister tightly, crushing her in the process. “She was right down the street!”

*****

Max’s delight had been fleeting. Sure, there had been victims taken the hospital and they knew which hospital, but all that did was raise more questions.

Was Liz one of the victims?

If she had been somehow involved in an alien attack – which was all but confirmed by the presence of the handprint – would said alien drop her off for stitches at the nearest medical facility?

And if she had been a victim of the fire, much time had passed since the blaze. Why would she still be in that hospital? Could she have been hurt that badly?

Max thought about the blood in the alleyway and Isabel’s prediction that Liz wasn’t “quite herself” and shivered.

“Can you drive any faster?” he chided his sister.

Isabel gave him a sideways glare.

“I could have driven,” he said.

“In the condition you’re in?” she snorted. “We would have made it to that hospital alright – as car crash victims rather than visitors. Just chill. We’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”

Max pumped his leg nervously. Again he tried to close his eyes and throw himself out to Liz, calling out to her that he was coming. But it was no use – he lacked his sister’s abilities.

Isabel had barely pulled the Chevelle to a stop outside of the hospital when Max jumped over the door, not bothering to open it. She watched in disbelief as he raced for the doors of the building and found that she had no choice but to match his pace.

The hospital was small, only three floors and Isabel got the sinking feeling it was only used as a place from which to disburse patients to bigger facilities. She hoped beyond hope that this wasn’t another dead end – neither of them could take that.

Inside, Max screeched to a halt at the front desk. The receptionist looked at him quizzically and gave him the once-over, probably trying to determine if his urgency was injury-related.

“I’m looking for my girlfriend,” he spouted.

The woman smiled gently at him as Isabel finally caught up. “What’s the name?”

“Parker,” Max said hurriedly. “Liz – Elizabeth Parker.”

The woman turned to her keyboard and typed in the name while Max’s anxious eyes followed her movements. Couldn’t she move any faster? She swiveled back around in her chair, her sweet smile still on her lips.

“No one by that name, sir.”

Isabel watched Max deflate, his head hanging in despair. Even though she was feeling the same disappointment, she pushed in beside her brother so she could address the woman.

“We think she may have been involved in the motel fire,” Isabel said. “Maybe you saw her then.”

“Yes!” Max agreed eagerly. “She’s short, dark hair – she has a scar above one of her eyes!”

Isabel laughed lightly at his exuberance. “Maybe this will help,” she said, sliding Liz’s picture across the desk toward the woman.

The woman picked it up, studied it, then put on her glasses and looked again. When she spoke, both Max and Isabel felt like God himself had smiled down upon them.

“Oh, yes! I remember her. She’s still here – on the third floor.”

tbc

Part Six

Max Evans had seen and experienced some horrific things in his life. He’d been the one to touch and see his friend Alex’s dead, cold body before any mortician had had the opportunity to make him presentable. He’d been subject to physical and emotional torture while under custody of the FBI Special Unit. And once he’d even seen the love of his life in bed with a rival, her ex-boyfriend.

But nothing could ever prepare him for what he was now seeing. No torture or gruesome sight was ever going to be as heartbreaking as the one before him.

In a room, isolated from the rest of the world, Liz Parker sat slumped in a chair. Wrapped in a white robe, her chin on her chest and her feet spread wide apart, Max would have mistaken her for a mannequin if he hadn’t known otherwise. Her skin, usually a warm, vibrant hue, was plaster white; her dark hair had been lopped off to her shoulders and obviously hadn’t been combed that day. Max would have thought her dead if it hadn’t been for the occasional rise and fall of her chest.

He wished she would look up at him, smile like she’d been waiting a lifetime for him to come rescue her, throw her arms around him and kiss him like nobody’s business. He wanted to hear her speak his name, the words of love that she’d saved only for him.

But this person was barely managing to keep from slipping out of the chair and onto the floor. This person was not his Liz.

Max was standing outside of the room, his hands on either side of the door’s window. His nose was about an inch from the glass and occasionally his breath fogged the pane and obscured his vision.

Beside him, Isabel stood rigidly, her hand on the small of his back, offering comfort. When the desk clerk had informed them that Liz was on the third floor, Max had taken off running without any further explanation. Isabel had followed and on their way had seen the ward sign - Max hadn’t, and she knew that when it dawned on him just what Liz’s condition was, he wasn’t going to take it easily.

“Oh, Maggie has visitors,” a cheerful voice said from behind them.

Isabel turned to look at the nurse, but Max remained stoically in place. “Maggie?” she asked.

The nurse shrugged. “It sounded better than Jane Doe. So we named her Maggie.”

“Her name is Liz,” Max said quietly, his voice barely perceptible.

“Are you from the Sacred Heart, then?” the nurse continued, obviously not having heard his correction.

Isabel shook her head. “No. We know her.” She pointed to the door. “I’m Isabel and this is my brother Max.”

The nurse looked at him, still facing away from her, then back to Isabel. Her eyes were round with interest. “Are you family?”

Isabel shook her head, but Max’s answer was conflicting.

“Yes. She’s my fiancée.”

The nurse broke into a wide smile. “Oh, that’s wonderful! Finally, Maggie has a real name!”

Max turned sharply. “Her name is Liz,” he repeated a little harsher than the nurse had expected.

Isabel cringed and stepped between them, running interference. This woman was kindly, but her brother was about two centimeters from plummeting over the edge of all emotional control.

“We’re a little shocked to find her here,” Isabel explained gently.

The nurse nodded as she watched Max returned to his vigil. “I understand.”

Isabel glanced over her shoulder and dropped her voice, even though she knew that Max could probably still hear. “Why is she like that?”

The nurse looked crestfallen. “She’s sedated. She had a bad night.”

“A bad night?”

“It’s best that you talk with Dr. Lewis. She can explain everything.” She looked at Max, then raised an eyebrow in Isabel’s direction.

The tall blond alien gave a little shake of her head and tried to wave off the nurse. “When can we see this Dr. Lewis?”

“I can take you to see her now, if you have the time.”

If you have the time?! Max thought. Fuck time. He reached down and tried the doorknob, scowled when it refused to turn. Frustrated, he turned to the nurse and pointed to the door. “I want to see her,” he demanded.

The nurse shook her head. “Please. Talk with the doctor first. Then you will be better prepared to deal with matters as they are.”

Isabel felt a distinct sinking feeling in her stomach. She watched Max turn back to the door and for one crazy moment she thought he was going to use his powers to open it. God, don’t do anything stupid to expose us, she thought. Reaching out, she took him by the arm - the arm closest to the doorknob.

“Come on, Max,” she urged soothingly. “Let’s go talk to this doctor, and then we can come back, okay?”

“What happened to her hair?” he demanded, barely keeping it together.

The nurse gave him a sympathetic smile. “When she came to us, her hair was in bad shape – it was very uneven from the fire. One of our nurses worked as a beautician while she was in college, so she trimmed it up for her.”

“Trimmed it?” Max spouted.

“She did a nice job,” Isabel interjected, smiling and trying to play UN Peace Keeper. “We appreciate her help. Don’t we, Max?”

He withdrew, stared down at his boots.

“Come with me,” the nurse said gently. “You’ll feel better once you have some of your questions answered.”

*****

“I want to take her home,” Max demanded hotly, his leg pumping up and down nervously again.

“I know you do,” Isabel agreed in a hushed tone. “But we want to do what’s best for her, don’t we?”

He hesitated, then nodded solemnly.

They were sitting in Dr. Lewis’s nicely furnished office, waiting for her to return from her rounds. Only a few minutes had passed, but it felt like a decade.

“Isabel, I want you to go home.”

“What? I’m not going home.”

He leaned toward her conspiratorially. “I’m taking Liz home with me, Iz. If they don’t let me take her, then I’m breaking in here and taking her myself.”

Isabel was about to protest when the door swung open the doctor entered, a warm smile on her face.

As she rounded her desk, she held out a hand to her visitors. Isabel took it in greeting, smiling graciously, and Max even remembered he was supposed to stand when greeting a lady. As she settled into her leather chair, Isabel assessed that she was probably around fifty, an intelligent, caring woman.

“So,” she began, clasping her hands before her. “I hear that you know the identity of my Jane Doe.” There was more than a hint of curiosity and excitement in her eyes.

“Liz Parker,” Isabel said, knowing her brother wasn’t in the condition or the mood to answer questions. “Elizabeth, actually.”

The doctor repeated the name as she wrote it on a piece of paper. “And you are?”

“I’m a friend,” Isabel stated. “But my brother is her fiancé.”

Dr. Lewis shifted her attention to the distraught, anxious young man before her. “Is that true?”

Max nodded.

She appeared to think for a moment, then sat back in her chair again, clasping her hands before her face. “Do you have any proof of that?”

Inwardly, Max collapsed. He could see where this was leading – he wasn’t a legal or blood relative, so this person wasn’t going to let him take Liz home with him. “I gave her a ring,” he said, his voice soft and full of sadness.

The doctor smiled knowingly. “What did it look like?”

Max gave a little sigh. What did it matter? “Six diamonds. A marquee cut and five smaller ones, set in the shape of a crooked V.”

Dr. Lewis’s eyebrows rose. “That was intentional?”

He looked at her quizzically, then watched her pull an envelope from her desk. Turning it over, the flap opened and the ring fell onto the surface of the desk. Before he could pick it up, the doctor retrieved it instead. Anyone on the street who had seen Liz would be able to identify such an attractive jewel, but only someone who knew it intimately would know one particular detail.

Holding it a fair distance away, Dr. Lewis asked, “What does the inscription say?”

Isabel thought she saw Max flinch and wondered if he was close to tears.

“I shall believe,” he managed to choke out.

The doctor smiled gently and reached out to pat him on the hand. Then she handed him the ring. “Keep it in your pocket,” she advised. “It seems to upset her.”

Max bit his lips and struggled with the irony of it - the symbol of his promise to love and care for her for the rest of their lives was upsetting to her.

Isabel placed a hand on her brother’s knee, patting gently as she addressed the doctor. “What can you tell us? How did she get here? What’s wrong with her?”

“Maggie – Liz – was found wondering the streets the morning after the motel burned. Some good Samaritans brought her here.”

“Was she hurt?” Isabel asked, reaching up to Max’s arm, constantly offering support to him.

“She had some flesh wounds – some minor burns and a head wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding for anything.” Dr. Lewis’s small smile let them know that the wound wasn’t serious – just a nuisance. “The burns have practically healed and the abrasion on her head is coming along nicely.”

Isabel cleared her throat. “Then why is she still here? Why is she sedated?”

The doctor studied them carefully, then spoke slowly. “I’ll explain in layman’s terms so that you’ll better understand. Liz has experienced some form of severe emotional trauma.”

“The fire?” Isabel questioned.

“Maybe. But I’d rather think it was more than that. Sometimes when we are under much duress, our minds and/or our bodies will just shutdown, a defense mechanism. I think in Liz’s case, it was her mind that decided to sleep.”

Max stiffened. Was this woman saying Liz was crazy?

She turned to address him directly. “I know what you’re thinking, and no she isn’t crazy. I think she’s retreated into her head, that the real Liz Parker is lying low until it’s safe to come out again.”

Isabel’s brow furrowed. “If she’s not Liz, then who is she?”

The doctor shrugged. “Who knows? Probably some safer portion of Liz’s real personality has come to the front.”

Max finally found his voice. “She has a split personality?”

“Not in the classical sense. The Liz that you know is not a dominate personality at this time, but I feel she does still exist. The Liz who is with us now has blocked out the memories and thoughts of the old Liz in an attempt to protect herself from whatever it is she’s afraid of. She’s still Liz, just different.”

The room was silent while the doctor gave her visitors time to digest the information.

“Does she have to stay here?” Max asked, his voice wary.

The doctor shook her head. “No, but she should stay somewhere. She’s not a threat to herself or anybody else, but she’s going to need help to be healthy again. And she’ll need help when the seizures come.”

“Seizures?” Isabel asked, her eyes wide and frightened.

“Spells, seizures, episodes – whatever you want to call them. They’re not unlike night terrors in children. She hadn’t experienced one in quite awhile, but last night she had another one.”

Last night – when Max received the flashes and Isabel had dreamwalked her.

Dr. Lewis glanced at some paperwork. “I can find a contact in New Mexico if you’d like,” she offered. “What city?”

“Roswell,” Isabel answered, assuming that Max would return Liz to her parents.

“Albuquerque,” Max corrected, drawing a surprised glance from his sister. “Liz and I just moved into an apartment in Albuquerque.”

“Good,” the doctor said. “Familiarity will be good for her. Now, are you two ready to visit her?”

Deep inside his chest, Max felt anxiety grip his heart and make it pump faster. He felt like he was off to meet someone he’d spent his life with, but never really knew.

tbc

~~~~~~~~~

Wow, we have some smart Roswell fans out there, don't we

Thanks to everyone for your feedback True, the search for Liz is far from over. I think it's going to be a long road...

I will write something fun someday...at least I keep telling myself that If you knew me personally, you'd know that I'm not half this depressing

Hmm, Gigo's crystal ball is malfunctioning... Good! Maybe SOMETHING will be a surprise to you for a change!!

Thanks to everyone else for reading and leaving fb! Here's another uplifting part


Part Seven

“Max,” Liz giggled, looking down at his hand covering her left breast. “I’m trying to do my homework.”

He shrugged. “I’m not stopping you from that.”

She eyed him with amusement for a few moments, then went back to her work. “Suit yourself, but I’m not stopping this to do…whatever it is you want to do.”

“Okay.”

Liz always did her homework at the coffee table; Max had slid in beside her, watched her for awhile, then made contact. Now he watched while she obviously struggled to ignore his hand, which wasn’t roaming or even moving at all. He waited patiently while his body heat soaked through her sweater, through her undergarment and to her skin below. His eyes ever left her, and his satisfied smirk never left his lips. She worked her mouth, trying to shut out his hand and his constant stare.

“Your heart is beating faster,” Max said matter-of-factly.

Liz stopped writing momentarily, cleared her throat and did not look up. “It is not.”

Beneath his palm, he felt the thump quicken more even as the words left her lips. But still he waited, like a tiger stalking its prey. It was ridiculous really – someone coming to Liz’s back door would have found them sitting there, Liz studying and Max holding her breast. An odd sight indeed.

Finally, Max felt Liz draw in a shaky breath, then she dropped her pencil and abruptly jumped to her feet.

“All right, you win,” she breathed, then reached down and pulled her sweater over her head. Together they ran down the hallway toward the bedroom, Liz leading and Max close on her heels.

As Max walked down the stark white halls of the hospital, following in Dr. Lewis’s footsteps, he had an extremely unwelcome memory visit him. The night had been dark and wet, the air chilly. Only hours before, there had been laughter and picture-sharing and jokes among friends. But as the events of the night turned into something so much less joyful, he’d found himself walking across a dark parking lot, toward a coroner’s van.

It had taken every ounce of his energy to force his feet to move across that pavement, to demand that his hands open the doors, to insist that he climb in beside his dead friend. His body had been objecting to everything he wanted it to do and never before had he had to issue a command of mind over matter when it came to his own body. He’d hoped that he’d never have to do it again.

But here he was, forcing his knees to lift and move his legs forward, forcing his ankles to hold up his weight. He had a sinking feeling he was going to lose control and pass out or something, and that’s the last thing he wanted right now. He needed to maintain control, to be strong for Liz.

Dr. Lewis stopped at Liz’s door and spun through her ring of keys.

“Why do you lock the door if she’s not a threat?” Isabel asked.

“Because Liz isn’t capable of taking care of herself,” the doctor explained, inserting the key into the doorknob. “If she were to wander away, there’s no telling what might happened to her.”

Or who might get to her, Max thought, remembering the handprint he’d seen in the alley. Even though he hated seeing her caged like an animal, maybe it had turned out to be for the best.

Inside the room, they found that Liz had moved to a chair facing the window and appeared to be sitting up straighter; it was possible some of the drugs were wearing off.

“Maggie?” Dr. Lewis called gently and Max cringed. He hoped to never hear that name again as long as he lived. “You have visitors.”

Slowly, Liz turned her head and looked up at the doctor. For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, Max caught a glimpse of her beautiful brown eyes and immediately felt his knees turn weak. Mustering all of his strength, he forced tears away.

“Yes, someone has come to see you,” Dr. Lewis encouraged. “Why don’t you say hello to them?”

Isabel took Max by the arm as a gesture of support and encouraged him to circle Liz’s chair so that they were standing before her. She looked up at them and Max’s heart plummeted to see that there was no recognition in her eyes.

“Are you here to take me for my walk?” Liz asked.

Under her hand, Isabel felt Max start to tremble. She tightened her grip on him, but addressed Liz in a soothing tone. “We can, if you’d like.”

Liz’s eyes shifted to the doctor.

“It would be okay,” Dr. Lewis agreed. “You can go out to the courtyard with them, if you’d like. Do you want to do that?”

Max swallowed hard in anticipation of her answer. If she didn’t want to do something as simple as take a walk outside with them, how were they going to convince her to come home with them?

Slowly, Liz nodded, her actions lulled by the remnants of the medication. For the first time, her eyes settled on Max’s and he was stunned into immobility. Her expression was so vacant, so empty. There was no evidence of the person he loved in those dark pools.

But then she gave a drunken giggle and said, “You have funny ears.”

“If you could change one thing about your appearance, what would it be?”

“My ears. I hate my ears.”

“Are you kidding me? I think they’re adorable.”

Max closed his eyes against the memory, against the person who had once taken him by those ears and kissed him mercilessly.

Isabel gave a nervous laugh and found herself running intervention again. “Do you need to change clothes?” she asked.

“The garden is private,” the doctor explained. “She’ll be perfectly presentable in her robe.”

“Okay, then. Let’s get going,” she said in a chipper voice. She was still smiling, smiling through the awkwardness of the whole situation. She reached down and started to take Liz by the arm, but stopped. “Is it okay if I touch her?” she asked the doctor.

Dr. Lewis shrugged. “Ask her.”

Isabel turned to her attention to Liz. “Liz, can I –”

“My name is Maggie,” Liz corrected.

We can discuss that later, Isabel thought, but decided to play along regardless of her brother’s broken heart. “Of course, I’m sorry. Maggie. Can I help you?”

Liz nodded and let Isabel pull her unsteadily to her feet. Max was there too, his hand poised beneath Liz’s elbow in case she should need him, but he never allowed himself to make contact.

“Do you know how to get to the garden?” Isabel asked.

Liz nodded.

“Great – then you can show me. I haven’t a clue.”

As they shuffled toward the door, Max hesitated a moment, his heart and head filled with grief that Liz hadn’t even recognized him. He’d hoped that one look at him would have sparked her memory, that she’d come back in a rush and they could go home and live happily ever after. But now he saw that there was no spark, no rush, and probably no happily ever after.

“Max,” Dr. Lewis said once Liz and Isabel had made it to the hallway.

He turned to look at her with sad eyes.

“It will take time,” she assured him. “She needs you now. I know this is difficult, but if anyone is going to get through to her, it’s going to be you.”

*********

“Don’t they let you have a brush?” Isabel asked, sweeping some of Liz’s mussed hair away from her face.

Liz shook her head.

They were sitting on a bench in the garden, their “walk” consisting of moving from Liz’s room to this perch, without much physical activity in between.

Isabel reached into her purse and pulled out her brush. “Can I fix your hair?”

Liz eyed her with uncaring eyes and shrugged.

Max watched solemnly as his sister gently pulled the brush through his fiancée’s matted locks, mourning the loss of their length. When she reached the back, Liz flinched and pulled away.

“Did I hurt you?” Isabel asked.

Liz shook her head. “Not yet.”

Isabel exchanged a glance with Max, then nodded knowingly – Liz had a head wound. “That’s right,” she said. “Let’s take a look at that.”

Obediently, Liz tipped her head and Isabel parted her hair carefully with her fingers. Max was perched behind Liz and leaned in a bit to check out the wound. There was a small, two-inch square section of hair missing toward the crown of her head. Inside the bare spot, there was an L-shaped scar that appeared to still be healing. All along the scar were small, evenly-spaced dots – staple marks.

In an instant, Max remembered the flash he’d received in the alley – debris falling all around as the fire raged. Some piece of that debris must have taken Liz in the head.

“Well, that doesn’t look so bad,” Isabel said, her voice still in its calming tone.

Max shook his head in amazement. He had no idea his sister could be so strong under so much stress.

“We’ll just be really careful with that spot, okay?” she said to Liz.

Liz nodded, letting her continue her grooming.

“I’m taking care of that once we’re out of here,” Max announced, his tone somewhat defiant.

“Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Isabel said, using the same I’m-taking-to-a-child tone she’d been using all afternoon, only definitely addressing her brother this time.

“Why not?” There were no baby tones for Max.

Isabel looked up over Liz’s shoulder, gave her brother a stern glance. “Because maybe some things aren’t common knowledge anymore.”

Max’s mouth slowly dropped open. Isabel might be right – maybe this Liz didn’t know about the aliens. He’d become so used to being free with this powers around Liz, it was possible that he might have to re-learn how to be with her.

Once the knots were out of her hair, Isabel reached into her purse and pulled out an elastic hair band. She used the brush to pull back the sides of Liz’s hair, then wound the band around it. She sat back, satisfied.

“I think that looks cute,” she said. Then she reached over and turned Liz’s shoulders toward Max. “Show Max. Doesn’t it look cute?”

Max swallowed hard. Yes, Liz would always be cute. But with the vacant look in her eyes and Isabel’s grade-school hairdo, she looked all of twelve.

“It looks great,” he managed.

Liz looked at him for an agonizingly long time, then turned her attention back to Isabel, turning her back on Max.

Isabel watched the hurt pass across his face and wished she could do something to make him feel better. “You know,” she said, addressing Liz. “I saw on your charts that your middle name is Elizabeth.”

Liz looked at her curiously. “It is?”

Isabel nodded. “Uh huh – Margaret Elizabeth. And that’s why I called you Liz upstairs –that’s what we always called you.”

“Oh.”

“So, do you mind if we call you Liz?”

She pondered for a moment, then shook her head.

“Great!” Isabel beamed, glancing up in time to see just a hint of sad victory on her brother’s face. Small, tiny steps – that’s what life was all about now.

“I’m tired,” Liz said. “I want to go back to my room.” She rubbed her eyes sleepily – the drugs were claiming her once again.

By the time they reached the door, the exhaustion had become so great that she could no longer support herself. Reaching down, Max picked her up in one motion, cradling her against his body. She wrapped her arms around his neck for support, but he felt none of the closeness, none of the passion coming from her as he had before she’d left home.

He carried her into the hospital and placed her in a wheelchair by the door, then he pushed her back to her room, Isabel following behind. When they reached the third floor, he lifted her from the chair, already asleep, and gently placed her in her bed. As he pulled the blankets around her, he felt like a fist was tightening in the middle of his chest, like he couldn’t breathe at all.

In the parking lot of the County Hospital, in a dusty, road-weary Chevelle, Isabel Evans held her brother tightly while he finally wept, grieving for a love he feared was gone forever.

tbc

thankgod 4 isabel, being so stong and helping max through all of this. im feeling depressed now, but thats good, i have a habit of loving depressing stuff.
o i hope liz gets better really soon, i can't stand seeing max like this.

great new part!!!!

Lolita, the funny thing about the Ros writers is that they didn't even TRY to hide all of their phallic tendencies That extremely happy little alien shooting green stuff all over Roswell was so in your face I literally stared at the TV thinking, "Are you kidding me?"

Fallen Magic - welcome back!

ezriboots - Here's another part for ya


Part Eight

“Do you know what size Liz wears?” Isabel asked, holding up a pair of jeans.

Max looked at her helplessly. “25? 26?”

Amused, Isabel lifted one corner of her mouth. “Max, women’s pants aren’t sold by waist sizes like men’s are – a women’s size 26 would wrap around Liz at least twice.”

“Oh.” He looked downcast.

She reached over and rubbed his arm. She’d been doing that a lot since they’d left the hospital – giving him little reassuring touches of comfort. It was like since the dam had broken, he was on the verge of tears constantly. She was doing her best to be the big sister, to keep herself cheerful while on the inside she was aching too.

She held up the pants again, eyed them critically. It was strange for Isabel to be shopping in the petites section – it was stranger for her to be shopping in Target. But they only need one outfit for Liz to wear on the way home, then she’d have a whole closet full of clothes to pick from.

“These will do,” Isabel said, handing them to Max, who took them obediently. Onlookers might have mistaken them for a shopping addict and her poor beleaguered boyfriend, who was only there to serve as a shopping cart. “Let’s check out the blouses.”

Max followed her to the shirt section and stood in one spot while she circled the racks, flipping hangers this way and that. She held up a few items, scowled and put them back.

“Max?”

He raised his eyebrows in response.

“Do you know what size shirt she wears?”

Instead of even venturing a guess this time, he simply shook his head no.

She knew he wouldn’t know – she was just trying to keep him communicating. She didn’t need him retracting into himself the way Liz had. Liz definitely wore a size small when it came to shirts. Isabel picked out a sleeveless summer sweater; it was a soft pink, a very feminine color.

“Do you like this?” she asked, holding it up to Max.

He eyed the sweater sadly. God, he loved the feel of Liz in a sweater. Silently, he nodded his head.

“Good, we’ll get it,” Isabel said, tossing it on top of the jeans in his arms. She gave him a wink. “Now we get to go fondle the panties.”

He managed to snort a little laugh and followed her to that section of the store. They stopped at the bra racks first, and as Isabel was raising her hand to pick one up, she was startled to hear him say, “32B.”

She raised an amused eyebrow – there was no hesitation or uncertainty in his voice on that one. Keeping her thoughts to herself, she flipped through the racks until she found one that looked comfortable but pretty. She didn’t bother to ask Max if he liked it – she didn’t want to go anywhere near how that would make him feel. Then she grabbed a pair of panties and some socks and threw them on the stack in Max’s arms.

“Shoes,” she said.

Pants and shirts could be a little big or a little small and it wouldn’t matter. Shoes, on the other hand, were a different story – too little and Liz would get blisters; too big and she’d be tripping over her own feet. Of course, Max had no idea what size she wore. Isabel resorted to picking up a pair of tennis shoes – if they were the wrong size, they would have to be “altered” when no one was looking.

They waited patiently at the checkout counter and when it came time to pay, Max reached for his wallet in his back pocket. But Isabel waved him off and handed the cashier her credit card.

“I got it,” she said.

Max watched her in amazement. Of all of the bad people that had been in his life, in all of the bad things he’d done in his life, how had he managed to deserve Isabel? Underneath that cool exterior she showed the rest of the world beat a heart the size of the universe. She’d been there every step of the way, supporting him, encouraging him, helping him to find what he had lost. She’d done more than enough – and yet she was still giving.

Isabel took her card from the woman and slid it back into her wallet. A sidelong glance at her brother produced a double-take – the tears were starting to well up in his eyes again. As the cashier bagged their stuff, Isabel snaked her arm around his waist and gave him a gentle pat on the hip, letting him know it would be okay.

Max drew in a shaky breath and willed the tears away. Forcing a smile, he took the bag from the cashier and then they walked back out to the car.

“I was thinking,” Isabel began as she climbed into the passenger seat, “that maybe we should do something special for dinner tonight.”

He lifted a curious eyebrow in her direction as he got behind the wheel.

“Let’s go get steaks or something.”

He sighed. “Iz, I don’t think this is the time –“

“For celebrating? I do.”

He gave her a scowl as he started the car. What was there to celebrate?

“I mean, we found Liz, Max. Don’t you see how big that is?” Her voice was full of wonder. “Of all of the places that she could have been, we managed to find her. It took awhile, sure, but we still did it. And because it took so long, and because we were successful, I think we need to celebrate. I’m not talking about a night of wild dancing and drinking – just a nice dinner.”

Max didn’t look convinced. Sure, they’d found Liz’s body, but where was Liz’s soul?

“Max,” Isabel said. “You’re taking Liz home with you tomorrow. Don’t you realize how big that is?”

He turned sad eyes to her.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she added. “It may be a small victory, Max, but it is a victory. And from now on we have to celebrate the victories – no matter how small.”

He gave her a half smile and finally relented to her idea.

They settled on a small Italian restaurant near their hotel. The atmosphere was nice, but not overly formal. After a month of take out food, drive-thru food and the occasional Dairy Queen sundae, the pasta dishes looked like a feast.

While they waited for their food, Isabel picked up her water glass and regarded her brother seriously. He appeared to have gotten control of himself a bit and there were a few things they needed to talk about.

“Max, why did you lie to the doctor?”

He met her gaze, startled at the question. “What do you mean?”

“You and Liz don’t live together.”

“We do now.” He let out a sigh. “We were moving in together once she got back from Boston anyway, Iz. I was afraid if I didn’t say we were living together, that they wouldn’t release her to me.”

“But why didn’t you want to take her back to Roswell?”

Max adjusted his napkin on this lap and glanced at the nearby patrons. Then he leaned towards her a bit. “Iz, I really don’t want anyone to know that Liz didn’t go to Boston. I don’t want anyone to know that she’s back in New Mexico.”

“Why not?”

He held up his hand. The handprint.

“Oh.” Isabel felt a sickening stirring in her stomach – she’d been so intent on putting Liz’s affairs in order that she’d totally dismissed Max’s findings in the alley.

“We don’t know how she got to be this way,” he said quietly. “From what I’ve seen, there might be some renegade alien out there, and he’s the one that did this to her.”

She nodded. “You’re right, of course.”

“And until we figure out what happened to her, we need to be careful.” He looked down into his lap, let out a tired sigh. “If only she could tell us…”

Isabel dropped her internal musings over the alien on the loose and watched her brother silently for a few moments. “Max, we need to talk about you and Liz.”

His expression turned wary.

“I think you’re probably the one who is going to break through to her,” she started cautiously. “But, you need to try to open up to her.”

He remained silent, listening but not necessarily liking it.

“Did you even speak to her today?” Isabel asked, no accusation in her tone.

Max finally looked away, frowning slightly. She reached across the table and touched his hand.

“I know it’s hard. I know none of this is easy,” she soothed. “But how are you going to help her when you can’t even speak to her?”

“I don’t know what to say,” he confessed. “I don’t…” He drew in a breath and shook his head. “I don’t know her.”

“Sure you do. She’s Liz. Dr. Lewis said she was still there somewhere, so why don’t you try talking to her – the Liz you know?”

He didn’t know how to tell her that he hadn’t seen any evidence that Liz Parker still existed. There had been nothing in her eyes to give him even the slightest shred of hope.

Isabel withdrew her hand. “You know, when you first started dating Liz, I couldn’t believe the intensity between the two of you. Everything – every word, every breath – meant life or death. I’ve never seen love like that before, Max, and I’ve certainly never experienced it. All I know is that if anything is going to bring Liz back, it’s going to be the way that you love her. I know it for a fact.”

Max bit his lip and looked down into his lap as the tears started to sting his eyes again. Isabel watched him silently for a few moments, then drew in a deep breath and shifted gears.

“So, tomorrow we’ll pick her up and take her home,” she said.

Max nodded, sniffing back the latest batch of tears and switching into commander mode. “We need to call Michael.”

“Okay,” Isabel agreed.

“Have him call Maria in London and get her back here. Make sure that he understands no one else is to know about what happened.”

“Yes, captain,” she agreed, grateful that he was recovering enough to formulate a plan. “What about her parents?”

“We’ll let them continue to think she’s in Woods Hole.” He shrugged. “We’ll send them an email from Liz’s email account every now and then or something.” He thought for a moment. “And we’ll get Valenti to get the police report on that motel fire.”

Isabel nodded. She hadn’t thought of that. “Great idea. I can call Michael tonight once we get back to the hotel. I’ll call the sheriff tomorrow morning.”

“Good,” Max said, some of his strength regained.

Their food arrived just then – two huge plates of steaming pasta and fresh garlic bread. A traveler’s feast indeed.

******

“I have a referral in Albuquerque,” Dr. Lewis stated, handing Isabel a piece of paper. “They come highly recommended. And I do strongly urge you to continue Liz’s psychiatric care.”

“Of course,” Isabel said, folding the paper and sticking it in her purse. She knew that neither she nor Max had any intention of turning Liz over to another doctor – it didn’t fit into the whole secrecy plan.

Dr. Lewis reached behind herself and picked up a bottle of pills from the desk. “Sleeping pills,” she said as she also handed those to Isabel. “Nothing strong, nothing narcotic. Just in case she has trouble sleeping. If she starts to get upset on the trip home, you could give her one to sedate her. Won’t knock her out necessarily, but it might to help calm her down.”

“Great,” Isabel said, dropping them in beside the referral form.

The doctor clasped her hands before her. “So, ready to take her home?”

Both Max and Isabel nodded eagerly, then followed the doctor up to the third floor. In her room, Liz was looking a little more coherent than she had the day before. But she hadn’t experienced one of her fits during the night, so the staff hadn’t drugged her as they had the day Max and Isabel had first seen her.

“Hi, Liz,” Isabel said happily, laying the Target bag on the bed. Liz’s dark eyes immediately went to it out of curiosity. “Remember us?”

Liz looked up at Isabel, titled her head a little to the side. Absently, her hand went to her hair, to where the hair band had once been. “Isabel,” she said softly. Then she looked toward Max.

Max swallowed hard, wondering if he would die if she didn’t know who he was.

She blinked a couple of times, worked her mouth, then for some reason touched her bottom lip. “Max,” she said, dropping her hand to her lap.

Max gasped a little sigh of relief and Isabel beamed with happiness.

“Max and Isabel have come to take you home,” Dr. Lewis explained. “Are you ready to go home?”

Liz looked around the white room that had been her home for the last several weeks. Did she care that she was leaving this place? Not really. Would she have cared if she’d been made to stay? Not really. Slowly, she nodded her head.

“Great!” Isabel spouted, reaching for the bag. “We brought you some clothes.”

Liz’s eyebrows rose in interest as Isabel dumped the bag on the bed. Steadier than she had been the day before, she pushed herself up from her chair and walked over to the bed to survey her new clothes.

“I hope you like pink,” Isabel said, holding up the sweater.

Liz reached out and touched it.

“Max helped me pick it out,” Isabel said, prodding Liz to look in Max’s direction, trying to promote some form of interaction between the two of them.

Liz took the sweater out of Isabel’s hands and ran her fingers over it. Then she looked up at Max and gave him a small smile. “Thank you.”

He swallowed hard again, his heart thumping a little harder than he wanted it to. One smile from Liz – any form of Liz – had the most profound effect on his body. “You’re welcome,” he answered.

“Do you need help getting dressed?” Isabel offered.

“That’s a wonderful idea,” Dr. Lewis said, taking Max by the arm. “We’ll just wait outside.”

As they left, Max could hear Isabel explaining everything she bought and how she hoped it all fit. He could also hear Liz thanking her. They sounded like two girls who’d been shopping together, not like an alien and a seriously ill mental patient.

“You know,” Dr. Lewis said to Max when the door closed. “That was the first time I’ve seen her smile.”

Max looked surprised.

“I was right, you know,” she continued. “You’ll be the one to make her better.” She gave him a wink and a pat on the arm. “Let me go finish signing her release papers so you guys can get out of here.”

Max watched her walk away, a little spark of hope flickering in his body. Liz had saved her first smile for him. Unable to resist, he peaked through the small window in her door. Her back was to him as she pulled the pink sweater over her head. He watched the gentle sway of her body as the garment slid down, hiding her beautiful skin from his eyes.

As he watched Isabel set about fixing Liz’s hair again, Max started to feel relieved. Maybe everything was going to be okay. Maybe this journey was over. Maybe they’d get on the road and Liz would return quicker than they’d thought.

Then dread replaced the relief. There could be an alien out there who wanted to harm Liz for some reason. And without her being able to tell them why it wanted her, maybe nothing was going to be okay. Maybe their journey had only begun.

tbc

See, I try to write something a little more upbeat and you guys say it's too optimistic! Max knew he was being too optimistic (as Gigo pointed out ), but I sensed that having the doctor say Liz hadn't smiled until she'd seen him would be a major high for him, enough to make him get his hopes up. But, I think he quickly realized that wasn't the way things were going to be

Thanks for all of your feedback! The next part is a little bit of everything - We have a flash back, Maria and Michael make an appearance, and we find out what's going on in Liz's head. Enjoy!



Part Nine

Max looked down at the glass shattered across Liz’s kitchen floor, his brow furrowed in concern. Intermingled with the glass were several spots of blood.

“Liz?” he called, waited patiently for an answer. When he got none, he quickly walked through her apartment, surveying the rooms for her. He found her in the bedroom, lying on her bed faced away from him, crying softly.

Max rounded the bed and sat down by her knee, which was pulled up in a fetal position. Her tear-streaked face and red, swollen eyes broke his heart immediately.

“Hey,” he said softly, putting a hand on her hip. “What’s wrong?”

Liz drew in a quick, ragged breath, then sputtered, “I broke it.”

“You broke what?” he asked gently. “The glass in the kitchen?”

“It wasn’t a glass. It was a vase.” She worked her lips and he could tell she was biting back a virtual flood of tears. “It was Grandma’s.”

Max tilted his head sympathetically, rubbed her arm. “I’ll fix it. You know I’ll fix it for you.”

Her actions puzzled him – why was she so upset about this when she knew he could easily restore it to its original state? His eyes traveled to her hand, which was balled up under her cheek. Just below her fingertips, he could see the traces of dried blood – had she tried to clean up the mess and hurt herself in the process?

“Did you cut yourself?” he asked.

She met his eyes, hers suddenly frightened. “It’s nothing,” she said quickly.

He reached for her hand. “Let me see it. I’ll fix that for you, too –“

Immediately she recoiled out of his grasp. “I’m fine,” she demanded.

Max blinked. It was almost as though she didn’t want him to touch her…

“We called ahead to a friend of ours and we’re going to get your place all ready for you to come home,” Isabel said to Liz from the back seat. “So you won’t have to worry about anything.”

Max glanced at his new passenger. Did she even remember where she lived?

“Okay,” Liz said noncommittally.

“Are you happy to be going home?” Isabel asked, the perky smile still on her face. Max wondered if her cheeks were starting to hurt.

Liz turned to look at her with confused eyes and Isabel immediately retracted her words – they couldn’t push her too hard just yet. They needed to get her home before they started trying to recall the old Liz.

“I’m sure you are,” Isabel said quickly. “Any place will be nicer than a hospital, don’t you think?”

Liz turned slowly back to staring out the windshield.

Max regarded Isabel in the rearview mirror – his sister looked terrified that she’d finally managed to do more harm than good.

“I’m hungry,” he announced, bailing her out like she’d done for him numerous times in the last two days. “Sign says there’s a diner ahead.”

“Okay,” Isabel said gloomily. “Sounds good.”

Max glanced at Liz. “You’re hungry, right?”

She nodded barely perceptibly.

They drove in silence until they reached the diner, then Max pulled the car to a stop in the dusty parking lot. They’d been driving for about three hours and were almost halfway back to Albuquerque. As they got out of the car, he noticed that Liz was limping. Was she just sore from sitting for so long?

“Are you okay?” Isabel asked, taking her arm.

Liz nodded, but added, “My feet hurt.”

Dammit – the shoes were too small.

“New shoes,” Isabel said. “When we get done eating, we’ll see if we can stretch them out some.”

Liz nodded again in response, and the trio made their way into the diner.

It was an old fashioned, roadside joint, complete with soda fountains and 50’s-style décor. The quaintness of the place brought a small smile to Max’s face as they slid into a booth by the windows – he and Liz had once talked about driving across the country looking for interesting little establishments like this. Once a customer had come into the Crashdown and explained that he was doing precisely that – and that he was going to compile all of his findings into a book. Liz wanted to get that book and see how many of the restaurants they could hit over the course of a summer.

Max wondered if she somehow remembered that, but when he looked across the table and found her staring absently up at the lights, his smile faded away and he remembered that she recalled nothing.

The waitress stopped by the end of their table and pulled a pencil from atop her ear. “What’ll you folks have?”

Isabel flipped the menu cover over a couple of times. “I want the bacon double cheeseburger and a chocolate shake.”

Max raised his eyebrows. His sister’s fat intake was usually so much less than that. “Uh, I’ll have the grilled chicken sandwich and a Cherry coke.” He glanced at the condiments lined up neatly at the end of the table and was delighted to see Tabasco as one of the choices.

The waitress looked expectantly at Liz, who was now staring out the window without really looking at anything.

Max drew in a patient breath and decided it was best if they just ordered for her. It was like traveling with a child. “She’ll have the same thing I’m having,” he said and felt a pang deep inside – how many times had they ordered the exact same way? The occurrences were countless. “Except give her a vanilla shake instead of the Coke please.”

Liz’s nose crinkled. “I don’t like vanilla.”

Isabel eyed her curiously – once, during that stupid “get to know your subject” history assignment, she’d asked Liz what her favorite ice cream flavor was and she’d picked the blandest of the bland – vanilla. Milk shakes were ice cream, just with milk added.

Max cleared his throat and bit back his surprise. “What flavor would you like, Liz?”

She thought for a moment, then settled on chocolate.

They ate mostly in silence, Liz barely touching any of her food. Max had been ravished, but seeing that even this person’s tastes were different than those of the woman he knew had squelched his appetite. He made himself eat just so that he could keep his strength up.

When they were finished, they used the restroom facilities, then piled back into the car. Liz immediately pulled the shoes off her aching feet.

“Let me see those,” Max said, pointing to the tennis shoes.

She handed them to him and then watched while he handed them to Isabel in the back seat.

“See if you can stretch those out a bit,” he said as he started the car.

********

“I’m sorry, say that again? Did you just say something about amnesia?”

Maria stood in the middle of the large, shabby flat, the phone in her hand. Her brow was furrowed with confusion – surely she’d heard Michael wrong. Surely he hadn’t just said Liz was in a mental hospital. It had to be the over sea’s connection.

There was the typical impatient Guerin sigh on the other end of the line. “Yes. It appears she has amnesia or something. She never made it to Boston – in fact, she never made it out of this time zone.”

“Jesus God, Michael! Why didn’t you tell me before now?!” Maria screeched into the phone. She heard a groan on the other side of the room and turned to see Marcos shifting on his mattress on the floor. In London, it was already the wee hours of the morning.

Another sigh. “Because we didn’t know where she was. We didn’t want to worry you.”

“What do you mean you didn’t know where she was?!” Panic was flaring in Maria’s gut, making her eyes turn toward the bathroom to see if she had a clear path in case she needed to throw up. “What do you mean you didn’t want to worry me?”

Marcos angrily rolled over, snapping the blanket over his body. Maria gave him an uncaring glance and knew that she stood the chance of waking up the whole band if she didn’t keep her voice down. But how was she expected to keep her voice down when Michael was telling her that her best friend was in the looney bin, and apparently had been missing for some time?

“See, this is what I’m talking about,” Michael stated matter-of-factly. “If I hadn’t already known that Liz was safe, I would have had to listen to endless conversations with you in a tizzy.”

“I am not in a tizzy.”

“Close to it. Anyway, that’s not the point. Do you think you and your tizzy could come home?”

Maria’s eyes settled on the Whits, sleeping on mattresses and futons on the floor of the nearly-empty flat. It had once been a warehouse and little had been done to convert it into living quarters other than put up some thin walls between the units and install some indoor plumbing.

It had been Marcos’s idea to resurrect the Whits, to take the band on the road to see if they could make a name for themselves. Maria had only agreed to do it out of a fond memory of her dead friend, and had never imagined that “on the road” would equate to “across the pond” as well. After being a bust in New York City, the band had decided to try the European market.

Success had not found them. They were living communally, in this dirty, drafty flat, and playing weekend gigs that barely covered the rent. She reflected on spending all of her time with a group of guys and found that she didn’t really care for it – she would never be Gwen Stefani when it came to touring and fronting an all-male band.

Often they lived off canned spaghetti, or sometimes didn’t eat at all. More than once, Maria had been tempted to max out her credit card, to use that last little bit under her credit limit to buy food or warmer blankets or something to make their lives easier. But every time she resisted temptation and now she knew why – she was going to need that credit to get a plane ticket back to New Mexico.

Now, as she regarded her sleeping band mates, she realized she was about to leave them in the lurch, without a lead singer.

“I’ll be on the first plane back to New Mexico,” she told Michael.

“Maria,” he said before she could hang up. “There’s something else.”

Dread dropped into her stomach like a cannon ball. “God, what, Michael?”

“No one else can know that Liz is back in Albuquerque.”

She closed her eyes against the knowledge that whatever he was going to say next wasn’t going to be good. “Why not?”

“There’s been some evidence of, uh…another Czechoslovakian”

“Okay, Michael, gotta go now,” she said into the phone. “Because I’m gonna be sick.”

*********

Liz watched the scenery whiz past the side of the car. It was an old car – it even smelled a little funky, like it had been left with the roof down on one too many rainy nights. It wasn’t offensive enough to make her care, however.

She was a little curious about her new companions, though. The woman had been so sweet to her, always kind and helpful. She was very pretty, too, with all of that long golden hair and that flawless skin. But there was something about the man…

Liz may have been looking out the side window, but she was also taking note of the man’s actions with her peripheral vision. There was something so familiar about him, but she couldn’t really put her finger on it. She barely remembered meeting him the first day they’d come to the hospital to see her, so nothing had sparked an interest on that day. But today when he’d entered her room, she’d sensed something unusual about him, almost a sense of déjà vu.

She got the feeling she’d seen him somewhere before, but she didn’t know where. There was a sense of a memory that was just out of reach and although she was tempted to reach out and touch that memory, something in her subconscious was telling her to let it lie where it was. It was a voice of caution rather than paranoia – if she dug up that memory, then all hell was going to break lose.

Liz frowned. She had no idea what “all hell” entailed, but she couldn’t ignore that gut feeling to leave the situation alone.

But she did wish he’d speak more. The woman seemed to be rambling non-stop since they’d hit the road – like she was nervous about something. But the man just drove silently and when he did speak, it seemed like it was an effort. He seemed so shy, so lacking in confidence…

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah! Yeah, I just wanted to say hi. Um…just stepping out from behind the tree.”

“What tree?”

Liz shivered, shoving whatever that was as far from her mind as she could.

“Are you alright?” the man asked from the driver’s seat.

She turned to look at him and gave him a short nod of her head. The concern in his eyes was so genuine that it only reinforced her belief that he was no random stranger come to help her get home. No, he seemed to be much more than that.

And that terrified her.

tbc

* Dialogue borrowed from "Monsters"