Not Perfect (M/L M/T) One Parter- [COMPLETE]
Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2003 12:39 am
Not Perfect by m14
This is my first one part fic- I'm really excited.
Disclaimer- the idea is mine, yet the characters remain entitled to Jason Katims and Melinda Metz
Rating- TEEN
Couples- M/T but in Max's heart and Liz's- M/L
Summary- The gang never figured it out that Tess killed Alex. Now it's one year and a month after Liz broke it off with Max and Max and Tess have been married for that twelve months. That is, until Max finds out that the gang from Roswell is mysteriously dying off, one by one. He thinks he knows who the next target is and he races off to save her. But is it too late? Can the killer's plan really be that perfect?
<center> NoT PeRfEcT </center>
Webster’s Definition: perfect, adj. 1) flawless and complete 2) unmodified 3) Grammar. Denoting completed action.
Liz Parker was not perfect.
Max Evans saw her as beautiful. Pure. Exceptional, and beyond the rules. She was the blueprint of his dream girl.
But Liz Parker contained one flaw. Liz Parker became that flaw. And it consumed her very being before Max’s eyes.
He had stood by and watched; did nothing. Yet, there was nothing he could have done. And that guilty residue stuck to him. It was further than any place that he could cleanse with simple soap and water. Max would never be rid of that feeling.
Because Max Evans wasn’t perfect either. He had had his share of humiliation, pain and loss. Tragedy had struck not once, but twice, in his life. And as horrible as it was to have lost his best friend, it was all that more painful to lose his heart. To let it shed out of hid ski and merely walk away after eighteen years of confusion and turmoil.
He didn’t have a choice in the matter. That time. But this time he did. This time he was a witness, the one to make or break the case. This time he wouldn’t let himself down.
He had done that so many times. more times than Max could bear to count. It seemed like life was one large disappointment. Maybe something left as a challenge to the Stock-Market and the government in Japan or the children working China to the top. Max Evans wasn’t going to go anywhere; do anything with his life; make a name for himself. It was barely obvious to his family, his neighbors, his colleagues.
So when he drove down the highway that evening, on his way back to that empty apartment, he cursed himself for being a bachelor. He punished himself with heartache for letting Liz go. And mostly, he reminisced on past times; precious moments that were left to corrupt his thoughts in the office, his bed, his car, and even at the bar, where he spent almost every Friday night.
This Friday he’d be away. This Friday he would be busy. Friday was for Liz.
Even if he let himself down again and again, he would always allow himself that one white lie. The smudge of truth that promised to get him through anything. “His” Liz. For she wasn’t his. She had never been any sort of property. No one could ever own a woman such as Liz. There wasn’t a man alive that was good enough; caring enough; worthy at all.
So Max refused to be selfish. He wouldn’t allow himself permission to think that she even held a special place in her heart for him. She never had and, if Divine Providence didn’t step in, then she never would. Lucky for him that it did. Lucky for her that he hadn’t given up hope on love. Only perfection.
<center>* * * * </center>
The air was cold and crisp. The sun had set over an hour ago and only the crazies were left out on the street. The bums wrapped in their stray strips of cloth and the junkies out for one last deal before heading in. And her? She wasn’t in New York anymore. She wasn’t in Roswell. She was heading home to Arizona from that “business trip.” She laughed to herself softly. He was so gullible; so naive to think that she went on a business trip again and again each week for the past month.
Tess Harding-Evans was playing Max for a fool. And she was right.
He hadn’t noticed. Perhaps he never would have if she hadn’t come onto him that evening. If that clear voice that was destiny hadn’t told her to turn him on, to make him want her, than maybe Liz Parker would have been alone and vulnerable.
But Tess knew nothing about that. She was still experiencing the rush. The thrills of evil coursing through her veins. Why hadn’t she turned this way before? The highest level of excitement and exhilaration evolved in her body. Why was it that Khivar held this entirely new perspective of life over her?
Somehow Tess knew that wasn’t it. It was the fact that she was married to Max Evans. The Max Evans. And little Lizzie Parker was left alone. Alone in her hopes that she was saving the world.
“So gullible,” she laughed, wickedly. “All of them, until the very last Crashdown waitress.” Something about Liz being left in the dry, hot, lonely town of Roswell, New Mexico seemed to turn Tess on. It could be that she was high in the world these days. She was known for her being Tess Harding-attorney at law. The law of the United States. There was something sexy about that to this alien temptress.
“Oh, yeah,” she remembered, aloud, “it’s the fact that I know the rules. I recognize the loopholes,”-she blew at her finger like a cowboy to his gun in the Old West movies-“and I get away with it.”
She wasn’t perfect either. Max would cuddle up with her at night and think about how nice everything seemed on the outside. How cozy a facade it was. But that’s all it was. Just an outside that looked pretty. Something for the neighbors and his family. And Tess. But he didn’t love her. How could he?
<center>* * * * </center>
“Oh, Max,” she breathed huskily in his ear. She wanted him tonight. Connection and all. If she couldn’t have him, she thought, then no one else will. That was why she did it. So many reasons to justify her actions.
“I enjoy the thrill,” she murmured, mainly to herself.
“What’s that?” Max asked her, kissing her neck softly. They lay in the king sized bed that they had bought together, their honeymoon night. Nothing like a new mattress to get him in the mood was Tess’ way of thinking.
“Give me a thrill Max, let me feel it,” she begged, lamely thinking of a way to disguise her previous statement.
He raised his hand until it became level with her heart and let himself delve deep inside. Quickly the images flew towards his body. He wrapped them up inside, wishing that this past year of marriage had been with Liz. Wishing that he hadn’t given up on Liz. Although Liz had given up on him first. Max tried to let himself concentrate on sending love to Tess. He wanted to make her happy, he couldn’t ruin another woman’s life because of the way he was feeling. He was a hybrid, since when did he know what was what with emotions?
Suddenly an image struck out amongst the others. A car accident. A bizarre car accident over a cliff and into a lake below. Why did that look so familiar? Max asked himself.
It looked familiar because he and Liz had jumped off it almost two years before.
Yet the images wouldn’t stop. There was a death scene. Two bodies floating aimlessly inside the vehicles. Their heads bobbing the water, blood dribbling from every outlet possible.
Max tried to shut his mind out. He tried to close his eyes. But he was captivated. The images came quickly from a high view. Like Tess had been there. She had stood over the bridge. Somehow he couldn’t put his mind on it. He couldn’t let himself see or feel who the two people were. He didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to come face to face with his wife’s true identity. He wasn’t that strong.
But the images weren’t following Max’s heart. They were following a path that wasn’t long forgotten by this simple-minded man. They followed a path of love. One that had been avoided for months now. Ever since his wedding day that past June. He had coped without her. But that wasn’t what fate had planned. There was nothing he could do to change the events in line for him.
A flash of light ran through his eyes, across his nose, blinding him for a mere instant. Long enough for the connection to end. A failure waiting to happen.
“What was that Tess?” he asked her, rubbing his temple furiously. Somehow the bright light had produced a massive headache and all he wanted at the moment was for it to fade away and for him to pretend that it had never happened. So he could just lay there with her, oblivious to the pain of others as he was cozy in a phony lifestyle.
“What?” she replied, not sure of how to answer. There had been nothing unusual to this connection. Everything that she saw in his eyes was love. Pure love. Maybe that was why she wanted this baby more than anything. Max had agreed that within the year they would plan to start a family. Once her work settled down. Nothing had happened yet, and it didn’t even seem like he was willing to take the initiative. If she had to straddle him in the middle of the night, then so be it. She had to take a baby home to Khivar. Proof that she was meant to be the queen of Antar and Max, her king, made to be with her.
“Umm, nothing, just must have blacked out for a second,” he told her. He frowned and stood from the bed.
“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” she teased him, grabbing his hand with her’s, pulling him down to the bed for a short kiss.
“I need something to drink,” he told her, motioning at his dry throat. With a nod and a sigh she let him leave for the kitchen.
<center>* * * * </center>
“I need her dead,” Tess whispered into the pay phone around the corner. “I don’t care how you do it, it just needs to be at the Crashdown Café. That’s where this hell started.”
The man on the other end was speaking louder, clearer; he wasn’t afraid of getting caught. This was a game to him, a vicious game of life and death. He was the champion after all, something to be confident about.
“Oh yeah, tomorrow night,” she told him. Tess glanced around the street, checking for signs that she had been followed. The night before had been disastrous. After her connection with Max, and his cold milk, he had fallen asleep before ravishing her body like she hoped he would. Now she was tense and irritated. The concern that someone would catch her etched into her features and her skin held a pale ghostly appearance. She couldn’t sleep until the job was over. She wouldn’t be able to eat until the word of Liz Parker’s death was in her ear. Then, and only then, would Tess be happy.
<center>* * * * </center>
“There was another mysterious death in the area today. It happened just outside of Las Cruses as the lovely singer, Miss Maria DeLuca was struck by something that appears to be dry lightning. The local police are investigating this death which they think is tied to two other casualties recently. Sheriff Jim Valenti, who was only promoted just a month earlier from his year-long deputy position, and his son, a local contractor, Kyle Valenti, were driving down the old bridge on 1-230 when a blast hit the edge of their car’s tires, and as speculated by the police, pushed them off of the bridge and into the water below. They drowned there, only to be discovered earlier in the morning by a hitch-hiker...”
The voice went on but Max droned it out. The other morning news couldn’t have been nearly as important as this. Alex. Michael. Kyle and his father. And now Maria?
Max would have started crying if hadn’t been in a crowded office space. The radio was coming from a small corner near the coffee maker in their staff lounge. It wasn’t anything big or even fancy, just good enough for Max to enjoy coming to work every morning a half an hour early to half his bagel and coffee.
“I can’t believe her,” he thought out loud, coming to the realization that Tess wasn’t telling him everything that needed to be told.
<center>* * * * </center>
“Tess!” he called out into their apartment that night. It was Friday night and he had refused to go to the bar with the guys and celebrate their weekend off for the first time in a long time. It had seemed so surreal to him, listening to the news in the car, hoping beyond hope that his connecting vision hadn’t been real. That the deaths weren’t true.
They were though. And Tess was coming from the bedroom, in her silky red lingerie. Ready to give him one more try and make their child. This time it would be an option. Next time, it would be force.
“Hey baby,” she said seductively, wrapping her petite body around him, kissing his earlobe softly.
He pushed her away gently and proceeded to ask her what was going on.
She opened up about everything. And as Max watched her, disbelief and guilt laying in his eyes, he heard the details of how she had killed them. One by one. They lay dead in various positions. Various states. Michael cut apart by wolves after being blinded by lightning. Kyle and Jim Valenti, a car accident and drowning after being hit by lightning. And Maria, struck by this same lightning out in Las Cruces. Michael out in the desert where Liz had run from him two years ago after hearing their destiny as the royal four. Kyle and the Sheriff where he and Liz had jumped when being chased by the FBI and the Special Unit. And lastly Maria. Out where...
“What happened in Las Cruces Tess?” he asked. His voice was struck with grief and worry. The members of their group that knew about them. The humans of their group. Alex, Maria, Kyle, the Sheriff. Michael had died too. That meant Isabel and Liz were left.
Besides me, he thought.
“That’s where I mind warped Alex.” Her gaze was cold and hard. Her hands, if he could feel them, were icy and struck into fists. She was ready to fight; stretching out her fingers and cracking her knuckles one by one. Yet Max seemed oblivious. Tess had practiced her powers for months in secret. Their abilities stretching every day. Yet he wanted a “normal” life. One that didn’t involve healing and mind warps.
Sorry, Maxie, you don’t always get what you want, she thought to herself, smiling wickedly.
<center>* * * * </center>
His marriage was over.
Tess tried to attack Max that night. She tried to mind warp him. Him! Her own husband!
It was all over for him. But it didn’t have to be for Liz.
Max was exhausted as he fled the apartment building and hopped into his car. It was a black BMW, a gift from his office of research technical support. He loved his car almost as much as Tess loved seducing him.
He shuddered in disgust just thinking about her grimy hands all over his body. If only he hadn’t given up on Liz. If only he hadn’t married Tess. Time couldn’t go back and things couldn’t change between them now. She was evil. He needed to save his sister and the love of his life from her.
And as he drove down the interstate he found his emotions lodging in his throat. He wiped his eyes fiercely as he raced at seventy mph down the road. It was dark and empty but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything but finding Liz and explaining, or crying, to her about how screwed up things had become. It had all started right there in a small town called Roswell. That was where his life had began and ended. He had been filled with so many hopes and dreams when he had saved Liz Parker that day in the Crashdown Café. It was like his entire future was flashing before his eyes as he connected with her. He saw what could happen. What might be.
He had felt Liz that day. He had seen her for who she really was. And who she had been. Who she could be.
Why was it that Max had abandoned that? Why had he let Liz sleep with Kyle that night. Why couldn’t he have convinced her that they were perfect for each other?
And there was that word again. Perfect. What exactly did it mean? If no one was perfect then was everyone ugly, or stupid, or fat, or naive? Was everyone so caught up in themselves that they failed to see the obvious?
Were they normal? What was normal? What if normal was perfect? Did Max want to be perfect; he wanted to be normal.
His whole life he had wanted to be normal. There was no getting that off his mind.
<center>* * * * </center>
Dear Diary,
It’s June 17th. I’m Liz Parker and lately I’ve been thinking: what happens when you’ve lost your desire in life? What happens when everything seems to just fade away? All of your hopes and ambitions. Your goals and motivation. My muse. My soul mate.
Max got married a year ago. One year and one month. And I’m still not over him. Why can’t I take the hint? Why can’t I leave this small town and start over?
Maybe the force he put over me is still there. I know there’s something keeping me. Why can’t I summon Future Max to come back and guide me to my place? Because I know I must have a place. I can’t wander around aimlessly. Forever.
I’ve been wondering. If Max and Tess must be happy together, does that mean that I have to be broken in spirit and mind? That I can’t have anyone to myself?
I think I was let into this world of special powers and secret agents for a reason. But here I am. Guiding destiny by staying out of it. Liz Parker- a girl at home. A girl without a reason for being. A girl without faith or hope. A girl without love.
That’s who I am. Because three years ago I died. And then an amazing thing happened. I was brought back to life. And then... well here I am. Alone and safe. Was it worth it?
“The jury’s still out,” she whispered into the warm night air. She was sitting atop her balcony. It must have been the same time as every other night that she had sat out there this year.
So many images to remember. So many memories to keep. So many keepsakes to treasure. Too many treasures for her.
“Liz!” her mother called from the Crashdown. Jeff and Nancy Parker were finishing the cleaning from the huge mourning that had taken place in their restaurant earlier that evening. The relatives and friends of the Valenti and DeLuca family had invaded the café with the motive of grieving and eating.
Somehow Liz was struck deaf and blind to the events. Somehow she couldn’t come up with the evidence that it was alien related. Somehow she couldn’t seem to care.
Her best friends were dead. Her first boyfriend and his father were dead. There was nothing normal about it. There was nothing she could do but lay there and cry. So she had locked herself up in her room for days now. Days without contact with the outside world. She couldn’t cope.
What if it was her fault? What if she was connected? This was what Future Max had described, word for word, despite the skin attack. She couldn’t do anything. She was powerless. Yet there were three people who weren’t. Max and his wife and his sister. They could fight it. And for the first time since she had died and been healed. Liz would stay out of it.
<center>* * * * </center>
Max arrived at the Crashdown in a rush. He accelerated the whole way there; chasing past other cars and burning the rubber off of his tires in an attempt to make it there in time. There was no way that Tess could have passed him. There was no way that she could have gotten there any faster than him. He had only left -looking at his watch- an hour before. And as the first feelings of doubt and fear crept up his spine he found himself worried. That was a whole hour for anything to happen to Liz.
“Liz!” he called out. He was standing in the alley below the fire escape to her balcony and realizing that it would be the first time he would set eyes on her in twelve months. Twelve long agonizing months without the first woman that he had ever loved.
He wasn’t prepared for her lovely face. He wasn’t prepared for her angelic spirit. Or the way that she smiled and tossed her head into the sunlight. He wasn’t ready for those brilliant dark eyes, or the smell of strawberries and hint of vanilla off of her skin. He couldn’t think of a way to face those hands, that touch, the whispers that drew him in.
Any way would have been better than the way he saw her now. Sprawled onto the floor like a discarded piece of laundry. Hands laying at her sides and blood trickling everywhere. Her lips. Her hands. Her stomach.
It wasn’t too late years before just downstairs. It had opened him up into her world. It had opened her eyes to him and the aliens.
It wasn’t too late now. She peered out at him from beneath her heavy eyelids and murmured his name into the dark desert air as if she would never say his name again.
“Liz, Liz. I’m here,” he told her, “open your eyes. I can heal you again.” He tried desperately to make her listen to him, to make her open her eyes and look at him again. He needed her there now. And as much as he had been fooling himself for the past year, now he could admit it to himself. He needed this girl. He needed Liz in his life.
She shook her head sadly and whispered, “my letter.” Two last words spoken from those delicate lips until she closed her eyes for good and rested her head onto Max’s lap. He was kneeling beneath her small frame and weeping softly. All of his emotions creeping out into the light, showing themselves for what they really were. One by one. Guilt and anger. Sadness and fear. It was up to him now. Him and Isabel to defeat Tess. To hurt her the way that she had hurt him. The way she had hurt Alex and Liz. Maria and Kyle and the Sheriff. The only humans that had ever known about them. And to punish her for what she did to Michael. The one woman that he thought he could trust because he was meant to. Because it was etched into some metal book from a planet galaxies away.
Destiny wasn’t perfect. Tess wasn’t perfect. And now, as Max Evans clutched Liz Parker’s lifeless body to him and prepared himself for the battle ahead, he realized that life itself, had its flaws.
<center>* * * * </center>
Dear Max,
If you’re reading this now, it means that I followed through with his wishes. I couldn’t tell you what happened with Kyle because the weight of the world depended on me. I’m not even sure I can tell you now. Just know that everything I did was for you. It was related to you, Max.
I hope Tess is worthy of you. Because you were my everything. And to know that I can never have you, or be with you, is the hardest thing that I have to live with.
I’ve loved you. You were everything to me. And if you hadn’t have let me into your life that day... then I wouldn’t be alive to write this. I owe my life to you.
Thank you Max, for being my hero.
<center>Love always, Liz</center>
THE END
~-Wow-my first one parter! Lol, well that was fun!
-~
This is my first one part fic- I'm really excited.
Disclaimer- the idea is mine, yet the characters remain entitled to Jason Katims and Melinda Metz
Rating- TEEN
Couples- M/T but in Max's heart and Liz's- M/L
Summary- The gang never figured it out that Tess killed Alex. Now it's one year and a month after Liz broke it off with Max and Max and Tess have been married for that twelve months. That is, until Max finds out that the gang from Roswell is mysteriously dying off, one by one. He thinks he knows who the next target is and he races off to save her. But is it too late? Can the killer's plan really be that perfect?
<center> NoT PeRfEcT </center>
Webster’s Definition: perfect, adj. 1) flawless and complete 2) unmodified 3) Grammar. Denoting completed action.
Liz Parker was not perfect.
Max Evans saw her as beautiful. Pure. Exceptional, and beyond the rules. She was the blueprint of his dream girl.
But Liz Parker contained one flaw. Liz Parker became that flaw. And it consumed her very being before Max’s eyes.
He had stood by and watched; did nothing. Yet, there was nothing he could have done. And that guilty residue stuck to him. It was further than any place that he could cleanse with simple soap and water. Max would never be rid of that feeling.
Because Max Evans wasn’t perfect either. He had had his share of humiliation, pain and loss. Tragedy had struck not once, but twice, in his life. And as horrible as it was to have lost his best friend, it was all that more painful to lose his heart. To let it shed out of hid ski and merely walk away after eighteen years of confusion and turmoil.
He didn’t have a choice in the matter. That time. But this time he did. This time he was a witness, the one to make or break the case. This time he wouldn’t let himself down.
He had done that so many times. more times than Max could bear to count. It seemed like life was one large disappointment. Maybe something left as a challenge to the Stock-Market and the government in Japan or the children working China to the top. Max Evans wasn’t going to go anywhere; do anything with his life; make a name for himself. It was barely obvious to his family, his neighbors, his colleagues.
So when he drove down the highway that evening, on his way back to that empty apartment, he cursed himself for being a bachelor. He punished himself with heartache for letting Liz go. And mostly, he reminisced on past times; precious moments that were left to corrupt his thoughts in the office, his bed, his car, and even at the bar, where he spent almost every Friday night.
This Friday he’d be away. This Friday he would be busy. Friday was for Liz.
Even if he let himself down again and again, he would always allow himself that one white lie. The smudge of truth that promised to get him through anything. “His” Liz. For she wasn’t his. She had never been any sort of property. No one could ever own a woman such as Liz. There wasn’t a man alive that was good enough; caring enough; worthy at all.
So Max refused to be selfish. He wouldn’t allow himself permission to think that she even held a special place in her heart for him. She never had and, if Divine Providence didn’t step in, then she never would. Lucky for him that it did. Lucky for her that he hadn’t given up hope on love. Only perfection.
<center>* * * * </center>
The air was cold and crisp. The sun had set over an hour ago and only the crazies were left out on the street. The bums wrapped in their stray strips of cloth and the junkies out for one last deal before heading in. And her? She wasn’t in New York anymore. She wasn’t in Roswell. She was heading home to Arizona from that “business trip.” She laughed to herself softly. He was so gullible; so naive to think that she went on a business trip again and again each week for the past month.
Tess Harding-Evans was playing Max for a fool. And she was right.
He hadn’t noticed. Perhaps he never would have if she hadn’t come onto him that evening. If that clear voice that was destiny hadn’t told her to turn him on, to make him want her, than maybe Liz Parker would have been alone and vulnerable.
But Tess knew nothing about that. She was still experiencing the rush. The thrills of evil coursing through her veins. Why hadn’t she turned this way before? The highest level of excitement and exhilaration evolved in her body. Why was it that Khivar held this entirely new perspective of life over her?
Somehow Tess knew that wasn’t it. It was the fact that she was married to Max Evans. The Max Evans. And little Lizzie Parker was left alone. Alone in her hopes that she was saving the world.
“So gullible,” she laughed, wickedly. “All of them, until the very last Crashdown waitress.” Something about Liz being left in the dry, hot, lonely town of Roswell, New Mexico seemed to turn Tess on. It could be that she was high in the world these days. She was known for her being Tess Harding-attorney at law. The law of the United States. There was something sexy about that to this alien temptress.
“Oh, yeah,” she remembered, aloud, “it’s the fact that I know the rules. I recognize the loopholes,”-she blew at her finger like a cowboy to his gun in the Old West movies-“and I get away with it.”
She wasn’t perfect either. Max would cuddle up with her at night and think about how nice everything seemed on the outside. How cozy a facade it was. But that’s all it was. Just an outside that looked pretty. Something for the neighbors and his family. And Tess. But he didn’t love her. How could he?
<center>* * * * </center>
“Oh, Max,” she breathed huskily in his ear. She wanted him tonight. Connection and all. If she couldn’t have him, she thought, then no one else will. That was why she did it. So many reasons to justify her actions.
“I enjoy the thrill,” she murmured, mainly to herself.
“What’s that?” Max asked her, kissing her neck softly. They lay in the king sized bed that they had bought together, their honeymoon night. Nothing like a new mattress to get him in the mood was Tess’ way of thinking.
“Give me a thrill Max, let me feel it,” she begged, lamely thinking of a way to disguise her previous statement.
He raised his hand until it became level with her heart and let himself delve deep inside. Quickly the images flew towards his body. He wrapped them up inside, wishing that this past year of marriage had been with Liz. Wishing that he hadn’t given up on Liz. Although Liz had given up on him first. Max tried to let himself concentrate on sending love to Tess. He wanted to make her happy, he couldn’t ruin another woman’s life because of the way he was feeling. He was a hybrid, since when did he know what was what with emotions?
Suddenly an image struck out amongst the others. A car accident. A bizarre car accident over a cliff and into a lake below. Why did that look so familiar? Max asked himself.
It looked familiar because he and Liz had jumped off it almost two years before.
Yet the images wouldn’t stop. There was a death scene. Two bodies floating aimlessly inside the vehicles. Their heads bobbing the water, blood dribbling from every outlet possible.
Max tried to shut his mind out. He tried to close his eyes. But he was captivated. The images came quickly from a high view. Like Tess had been there. She had stood over the bridge. Somehow he couldn’t put his mind on it. He couldn’t let himself see or feel who the two people were. He didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to come face to face with his wife’s true identity. He wasn’t that strong.
But the images weren’t following Max’s heart. They were following a path that wasn’t long forgotten by this simple-minded man. They followed a path of love. One that had been avoided for months now. Ever since his wedding day that past June. He had coped without her. But that wasn’t what fate had planned. There was nothing he could do to change the events in line for him.
A flash of light ran through his eyes, across his nose, blinding him for a mere instant. Long enough for the connection to end. A failure waiting to happen.
“What was that Tess?” he asked her, rubbing his temple furiously. Somehow the bright light had produced a massive headache and all he wanted at the moment was for it to fade away and for him to pretend that it had never happened. So he could just lay there with her, oblivious to the pain of others as he was cozy in a phony lifestyle.
“What?” she replied, not sure of how to answer. There had been nothing unusual to this connection. Everything that she saw in his eyes was love. Pure love. Maybe that was why she wanted this baby more than anything. Max had agreed that within the year they would plan to start a family. Once her work settled down. Nothing had happened yet, and it didn’t even seem like he was willing to take the initiative. If she had to straddle him in the middle of the night, then so be it. She had to take a baby home to Khivar. Proof that she was meant to be the queen of Antar and Max, her king, made to be with her.
“Umm, nothing, just must have blacked out for a second,” he told her. He frowned and stood from the bed.
“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” she teased him, grabbing his hand with her’s, pulling him down to the bed for a short kiss.
“I need something to drink,” he told her, motioning at his dry throat. With a nod and a sigh she let him leave for the kitchen.
<center>* * * * </center>
“I need her dead,” Tess whispered into the pay phone around the corner. “I don’t care how you do it, it just needs to be at the Crashdown Café. That’s where this hell started.”
The man on the other end was speaking louder, clearer; he wasn’t afraid of getting caught. This was a game to him, a vicious game of life and death. He was the champion after all, something to be confident about.
“Oh yeah, tomorrow night,” she told him. Tess glanced around the street, checking for signs that she had been followed. The night before had been disastrous. After her connection with Max, and his cold milk, he had fallen asleep before ravishing her body like she hoped he would. Now she was tense and irritated. The concern that someone would catch her etched into her features and her skin held a pale ghostly appearance. She couldn’t sleep until the job was over. She wouldn’t be able to eat until the word of Liz Parker’s death was in her ear. Then, and only then, would Tess be happy.
<center>* * * * </center>
“There was another mysterious death in the area today. It happened just outside of Las Cruses as the lovely singer, Miss Maria DeLuca was struck by something that appears to be dry lightning. The local police are investigating this death which they think is tied to two other casualties recently. Sheriff Jim Valenti, who was only promoted just a month earlier from his year-long deputy position, and his son, a local contractor, Kyle Valenti, were driving down the old bridge on 1-230 when a blast hit the edge of their car’s tires, and as speculated by the police, pushed them off of the bridge and into the water below. They drowned there, only to be discovered earlier in the morning by a hitch-hiker...”
The voice went on but Max droned it out. The other morning news couldn’t have been nearly as important as this. Alex. Michael. Kyle and his father. And now Maria?
Max would have started crying if hadn’t been in a crowded office space. The radio was coming from a small corner near the coffee maker in their staff lounge. It wasn’t anything big or even fancy, just good enough for Max to enjoy coming to work every morning a half an hour early to half his bagel and coffee.
“I can’t believe her,” he thought out loud, coming to the realization that Tess wasn’t telling him everything that needed to be told.
<center>* * * * </center>
“Tess!” he called out into their apartment that night. It was Friday night and he had refused to go to the bar with the guys and celebrate their weekend off for the first time in a long time. It had seemed so surreal to him, listening to the news in the car, hoping beyond hope that his connecting vision hadn’t been real. That the deaths weren’t true.
They were though. And Tess was coming from the bedroom, in her silky red lingerie. Ready to give him one more try and make their child. This time it would be an option. Next time, it would be force.
“Hey baby,” she said seductively, wrapping her petite body around him, kissing his earlobe softly.
He pushed her away gently and proceeded to ask her what was going on.
She opened up about everything. And as Max watched her, disbelief and guilt laying in his eyes, he heard the details of how she had killed them. One by one. They lay dead in various positions. Various states. Michael cut apart by wolves after being blinded by lightning. Kyle and Jim Valenti, a car accident and drowning after being hit by lightning. And Maria, struck by this same lightning out in Las Cruces. Michael out in the desert where Liz had run from him two years ago after hearing their destiny as the royal four. Kyle and the Sheriff where he and Liz had jumped when being chased by the FBI and the Special Unit. And lastly Maria. Out where...
“What happened in Las Cruces Tess?” he asked. His voice was struck with grief and worry. The members of their group that knew about them. The humans of their group. Alex, Maria, Kyle, the Sheriff. Michael had died too. That meant Isabel and Liz were left.
Besides me, he thought.
“That’s where I mind warped Alex.” Her gaze was cold and hard. Her hands, if he could feel them, were icy and struck into fists. She was ready to fight; stretching out her fingers and cracking her knuckles one by one. Yet Max seemed oblivious. Tess had practiced her powers for months in secret. Their abilities stretching every day. Yet he wanted a “normal” life. One that didn’t involve healing and mind warps.
Sorry, Maxie, you don’t always get what you want, she thought to herself, smiling wickedly.
<center>* * * * </center>
His marriage was over.
Tess tried to attack Max that night. She tried to mind warp him. Him! Her own husband!
It was all over for him. But it didn’t have to be for Liz.
Max was exhausted as he fled the apartment building and hopped into his car. It was a black BMW, a gift from his office of research technical support. He loved his car almost as much as Tess loved seducing him.
He shuddered in disgust just thinking about her grimy hands all over his body. If only he hadn’t given up on Liz. If only he hadn’t married Tess. Time couldn’t go back and things couldn’t change between them now. She was evil. He needed to save his sister and the love of his life from her.
And as he drove down the interstate he found his emotions lodging in his throat. He wiped his eyes fiercely as he raced at seventy mph down the road. It was dark and empty but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything but finding Liz and explaining, or crying, to her about how screwed up things had become. It had all started right there in a small town called Roswell. That was where his life had began and ended. He had been filled with so many hopes and dreams when he had saved Liz Parker that day in the Crashdown Café. It was like his entire future was flashing before his eyes as he connected with her. He saw what could happen. What might be.
He had felt Liz that day. He had seen her for who she really was. And who she had been. Who she could be.
Why was it that Max had abandoned that? Why had he let Liz sleep with Kyle that night. Why couldn’t he have convinced her that they were perfect for each other?
And there was that word again. Perfect. What exactly did it mean? If no one was perfect then was everyone ugly, or stupid, or fat, or naive? Was everyone so caught up in themselves that they failed to see the obvious?
Were they normal? What was normal? What if normal was perfect? Did Max want to be perfect; he wanted to be normal.
His whole life he had wanted to be normal. There was no getting that off his mind.
<center>* * * * </center>
Dear Diary,
It’s June 17th. I’m Liz Parker and lately I’ve been thinking: what happens when you’ve lost your desire in life? What happens when everything seems to just fade away? All of your hopes and ambitions. Your goals and motivation. My muse. My soul mate.
Max got married a year ago. One year and one month. And I’m still not over him. Why can’t I take the hint? Why can’t I leave this small town and start over?
Maybe the force he put over me is still there. I know there’s something keeping me. Why can’t I summon Future Max to come back and guide me to my place? Because I know I must have a place. I can’t wander around aimlessly. Forever.
I’ve been wondering. If Max and Tess must be happy together, does that mean that I have to be broken in spirit and mind? That I can’t have anyone to myself?
I think I was let into this world of special powers and secret agents for a reason. But here I am. Guiding destiny by staying out of it. Liz Parker- a girl at home. A girl without a reason for being. A girl without faith or hope. A girl without love.
That’s who I am. Because three years ago I died. And then an amazing thing happened. I was brought back to life. And then... well here I am. Alone and safe. Was it worth it?
“The jury’s still out,” she whispered into the warm night air. She was sitting atop her balcony. It must have been the same time as every other night that she had sat out there this year.
So many images to remember. So many memories to keep. So many keepsakes to treasure. Too many treasures for her.
“Liz!” her mother called from the Crashdown. Jeff and Nancy Parker were finishing the cleaning from the huge mourning that had taken place in their restaurant earlier that evening. The relatives and friends of the Valenti and DeLuca family had invaded the café with the motive of grieving and eating.
Somehow Liz was struck deaf and blind to the events. Somehow she couldn’t come up with the evidence that it was alien related. Somehow she couldn’t seem to care.
Her best friends were dead. Her first boyfriend and his father were dead. There was nothing normal about it. There was nothing she could do but lay there and cry. So she had locked herself up in her room for days now. Days without contact with the outside world. She couldn’t cope.
What if it was her fault? What if she was connected? This was what Future Max had described, word for word, despite the skin attack. She couldn’t do anything. She was powerless. Yet there were three people who weren’t. Max and his wife and his sister. They could fight it. And for the first time since she had died and been healed. Liz would stay out of it.
<center>* * * * </center>
Max arrived at the Crashdown in a rush. He accelerated the whole way there; chasing past other cars and burning the rubber off of his tires in an attempt to make it there in time. There was no way that Tess could have passed him. There was no way that she could have gotten there any faster than him. He had only left -looking at his watch- an hour before. And as the first feelings of doubt and fear crept up his spine he found himself worried. That was a whole hour for anything to happen to Liz.
“Liz!” he called out. He was standing in the alley below the fire escape to her balcony and realizing that it would be the first time he would set eyes on her in twelve months. Twelve long agonizing months without the first woman that he had ever loved.
He wasn’t prepared for her lovely face. He wasn’t prepared for her angelic spirit. Or the way that she smiled and tossed her head into the sunlight. He wasn’t ready for those brilliant dark eyes, or the smell of strawberries and hint of vanilla off of her skin. He couldn’t think of a way to face those hands, that touch, the whispers that drew him in.
Any way would have been better than the way he saw her now. Sprawled onto the floor like a discarded piece of laundry. Hands laying at her sides and blood trickling everywhere. Her lips. Her hands. Her stomach.
It wasn’t too late years before just downstairs. It had opened him up into her world. It had opened her eyes to him and the aliens.
It wasn’t too late now. She peered out at him from beneath her heavy eyelids and murmured his name into the dark desert air as if she would never say his name again.
“Liz, Liz. I’m here,” he told her, “open your eyes. I can heal you again.” He tried desperately to make her listen to him, to make her open her eyes and look at him again. He needed her there now. And as much as he had been fooling himself for the past year, now he could admit it to himself. He needed this girl. He needed Liz in his life.
She shook her head sadly and whispered, “my letter.” Two last words spoken from those delicate lips until she closed her eyes for good and rested her head onto Max’s lap. He was kneeling beneath her small frame and weeping softly. All of his emotions creeping out into the light, showing themselves for what they really were. One by one. Guilt and anger. Sadness and fear. It was up to him now. Him and Isabel to defeat Tess. To hurt her the way that she had hurt him. The way she had hurt Alex and Liz. Maria and Kyle and the Sheriff. The only humans that had ever known about them. And to punish her for what she did to Michael. The one woman that he thought he could trust because he was meant to. Because it was etched into some metal book from a planet galaxies away.
Destiny wasn’t perfect. Tess wasn’t perfect. And now, as Max Evans clutched Liz Parker’s lifeless body to him and prepared himself for the battle ahead, he realized that life itself, had its flaws.
<center>* * * * </center>
Dear Max,
If you’re reading this now, it means that I followed through with his wishes. I couldn’t tell you what happened with Kyle because the weight of the world depended on me. I’m not even sure I can tell you now. Just know that everything I did was for you. It was related to you, Max.
I hope Tess is worthy of you. Because you were my everything. And to know that I can never have you, or be with you, is the hardest thing that I have to live with.
I’ve loved you. You were everything to me. And if you hadn’t have let me into your life that day... then I wouldn’t be alive to write this. I owe my life to you.
Thank you Max, for being my hero.
<center>Love always, Liz</center>
THE END
~-Wow-my first one parter! Lol, well that was fun!
-~