E-mail: _agal@excite.com
Category: Angst/Angst
Authors Note: A Work In Progress
Rating: R /All Conventional couples
Disclaimer: No I don't own any one of them! Happy?
Summary: TThis story takes palce a little before Departure, Tess never
left and even tough now that she dead's somehow after killing Alex he
still hasn't left Rowell. Liz, Max, Michael, Isabelle, Kyle wake up to an
empty one day trying to understand what happened but they do
know...it's never too late for revenge.
~~**~~
Chapter 1
Liz turned to him with fragrance of heated scenery her throat clogging up with memories of before Alex and after him and what Max and Tess did during Alex and still she failed to throw words out in spite.
"Max, please stay away from me…haven't you destroyed enough of my life already?"
So I sat down again, the rest of them seemed undisturbed and non too scattered they were sitting with me on the same table only they seemed frozen without any sign of snow falling on them. Their stares were blank and devoid of Liz and mine confrontation a few seconds ago. Even Liz seemed to have disappeared from the entire scene.
People around me were eating,
The music was playing over my head,
People around me were talking,
The music kept on rippling through the air,
People around me were blind & the music playing over head sounded so unforgiving.
They were all there. Isabelle, Michael, Kyle in there usual booths, alone Maria was around somewhere wading through the crowd with a filled up tray & with Michael watching her. Blindly
Isabelle sat alone with the window staring through the glass, blindly
Kyle was sitting with his friends, not so blindly… He sneered a couple of times, smiled and after a while just looked really, really sad.
I timed his expressions, they repeat in cycle every 20 minutes so I try remembering if it would take 20 minutes to remember the entire two months after Alex's death.
And it took me more than 20 minutes…
Hearing it from sheriff Valenti about Alex dying
Me trying to heal Alex in the van, constantly looking into his dead eyes
Leaving Alex dead in the van.
Leaving him dead.
Seeing their expectant faces outside that van
All of them were there looking blind & sad really, really sad.
Few days & with Alex Whitman's funeral over Liz hated me, Isabelle hated me.
Michael didn't know what to do, Kyle didn't care he just said he was starting to like Alex.
They were already friends…Kyle was sad & he hated me for it.
Tess cared, she didn't hate me, she was still by my side.
Then Liz wanted to punish someone for Alex. She became like Michael rash determined, willing to kill before dying.
And I started trying to figure out if she'd lost her mind. Whether everyone else was crazier then her or was I just starting to lose it myself?
Maria didn't come over to talk any more. She just said she was busy.
I didn't much have anyone else except Tess. I kept wondering how come I never noticed how caring or attentive Tess was?
How come I never noticed how vicious Liz was or what her dark side was like?
How come I never noticed how dumb Michael was when it came to dead business or he still hadn't gotten over killing Pierce?
Or how much Kyle and Alex were friendly of for that matter what a bitch my own sister was.
Then it was always Tess and me walking home from school, walking at night.
Lunching together, smiling together.
Life went on Michael and Maria got better and better together they fought less snuggled more.
I watched from a distance pecking nipping at each other, smiling holding hands, the usual I'd always imagined with Liz. When I turned she was there too watching them we looked over at each other for 3 seconds maybe then she turned and went upstairs to her room.
She wasn't too angry but she was sad & blind. I heard her crying upstairs so then I left too.
Kyle played more football and ignored me more.
Isabelle became friendlier with Kyle Valenti and blinder, her vision seemed to be secluded up to one image and one name…Alex Whitman.
Liz became crazier whenever she saw me for some reason she looked more heated then she was from her own frantic schedules of school and following leads to Alex's killer.
She wasn't done blaming me for Alex either.
Tess and I became even closer…and I began thinking after all this time my world had shrunk down to one person, and the one person I'd last expected myself to end up with.
I decided what I had with Liz was never meant to be, it was like the light house effect. like a mountain tip with a snow cap in danger of slipping away for ever and not coming back for a long time.
We just kept trying to shine the light where the we knew the wind never really did blow or where it rains only very rarely in the desert.
With all that done, over with I decided I should probably be more caring and grateful with Tess.
She was still living with the Valenti's. Close to them, much more closer to me.
And then one night we just…we were together in her room and she was talking. Mostly about what our planet should be like, what we were like.
Her words were colorful, her voice comfortable and soft. She didn't mention Alex or my responsibilities her fingers across my face were soft and cold. I just wanted to warm her up…so I did.
The next day I woke up with Tess in bed and our clothes were missing.
I'd slept with Tess, Not shocking just surprising how it didn't happen any sooner.
I had to tell someone, of course so I went to Isabelle first and what do you know?
She didn't give a damn, Michael just kept staring at me like I'd grown another head.
Telling Liz or the others could have waited but, there's always a catch and there was one a few days after…
Tess was pregnant.
She was going to have a baby and I was the father not shocking just very convenient how things had gone from usually bad to the worst.
Nacedo was dead, Alex was dead and somehow it was my fault I just had to figure it out how yet. No one wanted to have anything to do with me anymore. So there was no help and I had no idea of what to do this wasn't a normal pregnancy because Tess told me it took her a few days to get over the shock and tell me.
We ignored each other for a while
I didn't show up at school for few days, I had a feeling that Tess stayed at home too.
I stayed in the pod chamber over night thinking. Tossing, turning in my sleeping bag, smiling a little at the prospect of having a baby.
We kept our distance and came to one mutual decision one morning and in response the jeep was already waiting outside…
"Maybe we should drop it...Tess" I look up and she's there in the doorway for a good 5 minutes before brushing away hair from her forehead, maybe a lone tear as well from sleepless eyes it passed to quick to be noticed but I did. I noticed her cry
"I'll wait in the jeep"
So she went out of the doorway a lonely figure along the walls downstairs, out the door…
Mom and Dad were at work they didn't know I've missed school for a few days they might get a call from school pretty soon if I don't.
So I did, all in the name of kingship of what I thaught should be good and done for the best, pulling my jacket over my shoulder and feeling it’s wieght.
Leather must have never felt heavier than it felt now in my hands.
Not because i had a right to, it’s just that no one else was there to help me decide what to do for them & in either way Tess didn’t protest.
I got in the jeep and drove off with Tess blindly, out of Roswell in search of a clinic.
Half way there I decided I should atleast have the decency to explain myself to her, not because she was sacrificing so much but because I was making her do this and it was wrong but there wasn’t a thing or two we knew about rasing a child.
‘And let’s forget about raising him/her for a second we didn’t even know how the pregnancy would progress from here on earth, niether of us know anything about alien pregnancies or what to do in case something threatning comes up.It’s like a disaster in the making’
“Whatever you say Max…” Her head was tilted to a side leaning on the window and she didn’t seem to be listening because her eyes were mostly closed.
But It didn’t stop me from going on ‘Tess, In a way we’re on the run all the time aren’t we? I mean none of us are really safe at any time let’s say if we do go ahead with it, what sort of world would we be bringing our son or daughter into?, we can’t risk some thing like that ’
“Hmmmm…” she felt so far away now … and I still had something else to say but I didn’t because she couldn’t hear me or if she could she didn’t want to listen to my reasoning right now. And I wanted save that thought for the worst.
No I guess I can’t understand what it’s like for a mother to agree to drop her own baby just because the king told her to and she can’t disobey him and now in a about 45 minutes Tess was just going to do exactly that… or warp my mind into beleiving that she’s let the baby go.
The jeep almost hit rubble when I thaught about it, she could do it couldn’t she? Warp my mind.?
Running over the pile of rubble made us both jump a bit.
Then her hand came over my wrist a little “Careful…Max”
Didn’t feel so far away right then...
I turned my head to look at her and smiled “I know… sorry”
No I thaught looking back on the road she couldn’t be that bad, she just couldn’t be.
I knew how a person who’d been forced to do something they didn’t want to do felt like.
I’ve been there, first with Pierce last year when I didn’t want him to hurt anyone else.
Then with Alex dying 2 months ago because I didn’t want to leave him without healing him.
And then with Liz now when I don’t want to stop loving her.
But they ‘all’ made me choose…
Then Between myself & my friends
There Between life & death
And finally now between love and loneliness.
We got there by 1P.M. sharp.
The clinic was deserted mostly except the one nurse that passed us by to take Tess away said
“It’s a little late … don’t you think?”
Then it happened …Tess turned to look at me, and I guess we both knew it then…
‘It’s always late…for us anyway’
She smiled slightly and turned back to go with the nurse.
I sat down in the chair thinking I knew, I knew all this time…that this wasn’t going to work…that we weren’t going to last toghether ever. Somehow I realised that I was cursed or Tess and me were both cursed. I imprinted a still image of Tess, her eyes in my mind the glazed over burnt blue outline around them.
I had a feeling we were probably never meant to be together from the beginning maybe that’s why I died, why Michael and Isabelle died on our planet.because we were cursed from bieng toghether. That’s why nothing between Tess and Me ever felt right…Maybe it’s why I kept telling Liz that she was my destiny and that I’d never be with Tess again because with Liz it seemed always seemed right.The nightmares of failing seemed more like nightmares then faraway reality.
With Tess? With Tess everything was almost too real. And how?… I knew it.
Why did we fail in the first place?…Why did we fail to rule our own planet back then 65 years ago?.
Because we were toghether and it was the wrong decision, and here now 65 years later in Roswell we made the same mistake all over again.Coming to this clinic for an abortion wasn’t erasing a mistake it was another Mistake but it was right to be done than it was 65 years earlier.
When it was over Tess came out looking weak …a little confused, I knew she was a lot more lost than that, and a lot moer pain because I felt the same, not in denial…like I said with Tess everything was almost too real and I knew this was real ...because it was happening to Tess and Me or to both of us, individually.
She sat down next me silent for a long time, then I felt her starting to shake and the next moment sobbing softly on her own. I didn’t try and stop her. I never stopped Liz from crying over some decision I made, how could I stop Tess then, after what I made her do?
An hour went by and I came out of the clinic alone, Tess didn’t want to go, she said she didn’t … She didn’t want to come back to Roswell. She’d sobbed that she didn’t deserve to come back, and didn’t care much about it anymore.
I understood her unwillingness to come back in a way I wished I could stay and not go home too. But I couldn’t, I wans’t allowed to do that.
So I got in my jeep kept my jacket on and started the engine to go, but Tess, her eyes, they were so haunted when I stood to leave.
‘Max after all that, after everything I can’t go back … I keep seeing him’ her eyes closed for a moment and opened with the same tiredness in them.
‘I keep seeing Alex… It was so horrible Max, i was so horrible to him, why did this happen to us?’
I nodded not thinking clearly about what she said right then. But when I drove for a little while it started making sense to me and my eyes sarted filling up beacause then I knew everthing, I knew Liz was right, I knew Alex didn’t have an accident. My eyes were too blurred, The jeep drove into a boulder and the entire work shook like an earthquake, I twisted back slowly and saw the small clinic’s walls falling down on themselves after the roof fell in.
I stood there waiting for the dust to clear away…but it never really did, I kept waiting to see some sign of Tess. But the ground was still again and acrid dust filled my nostril’s with something else … faint burning copper. Blood.
I drove desperately trying to get as far away as I could from the ruins of the clinic Tess buried herself under, I had to get out of there, or I’d lose my mind. I had no know of time of when I got back to Roswell, but I’d driven straight to the Crash down.
They were all there and I guess I must of have lost my mind for a few minutes because nothing made the feeling that I’d been here before familiar, I felt like I’d forgotten my own name,Who I was and where I came from but I remembered them…I remembered Alex, Tess and the rubble she was buried under, the abortion. It’s all I knew then.
When I staggered in through Kyle was the first one to grab me
“Where the hell is she? Where’s Tess?!…Evans?! Where is she?!”
I looked at him and relalized that I had started crying, I knew I was crying because Kyle wasn’t shouting anymore, Isabelle was shaking and Michael was just Michael…Liz kept asking me “whats wrong, Max? what’s happened to you…where’s Tess?”
How could I tell them?…what was I going to tell them…from where was I going to start?
“Tess killed Alex…Tess killed Alex, She was pregnant, We dropped the baby, she killed Alex…”
They shuffled, milled around, didn’t say anything, stared silently, they didn’t ask me anything. I didn’t think there was anything I could say that could make them feel any better.
Because I found myself sleeping on one of the tables later on. They all left, even Isabelle but Liz was still there. She was looked so tired, her eyes were so red rimmed then.
I wanted to reach out and touch her face maybe wave a palm and take that redness away from her eyes but she took steps so many steps away from me that I thaught I must have been under water.
“Liz?…” I feebly cried out worrying this was a nightmare or worse a dream. At least you would want to wake up from a night mare.
“Did you sleep with her?” Liz asked me. Her voice more quivery then her bottom lip.
I sat up finally not bothered by the cold sweat over my forehead and a vision of Tess’s blue eyes, like lasers watching the sun in the desert, wind flapping her dark cape and her golden tresses, waiting in the emptiness flashed somewhere in my heat troubled head and I blurted a sullen “Yes” the vision immedately vanished, replaced by Liz.
“Did you tell her to drop the baby”
I thought of Alex and the pile of rubble and answered “I did”
“Did she fight?”
I looked at Liz and smiled slowly, shaking my head. Some one had piched a nerve inside me and I watched Liz leave upstairs with blurred eyes. She didn’t ask about Alex…
I decided to walk home, leaving the jeep by the crashdown. I couldn’t sit in it right then. So I walked watching myself make tracks in the sand, crunching gravel listening to the night sounds. They were more soothing then cracking walls and rumbling deserts and suddenly home seemed too far away for this night.
I sat down on a bench instead and closed my eyes again feeling peacefully blank with sorrow, a feeling of familiarity crept inside me and I saw Tess waiting in the desert again. Her long flowing blonde hair being the only bars framing her face from recognition. But it was Tess alright.
I imagined myself as invisble as the wind, floating, just an invisble hand going to touch Tess’s shoulder. It felt so real and suddenly the sun felt like it was in my eyes when she turned. When she turned Tess was far much paler her skin glowing un naturally, her eyes set to freeze any one in there path. She wasn’t wearing any make up but her lips were red, almost as red as blood making me wonder where rest of the color from her face had gone?.
She smiled an almost demented smile full of white teeth somehow floating away form me.
“Where are we?” I asked desperately
“Here silly” she giggled and walked further up the empty road.
“Where’s here? Tess?”
Her head tuned to a side as if a hitch hiker would the deserted road suddebly alive with eeriness I stuggled to move ahead to wards her but then she said something I know I’ll ever forget:
“Here Max, is where where you’ve always been…here is where you’ll all be for the rest of eternity now! And pay for what you’ve all done to me!”
The wind blew burning sand into my eyes and I jerked awake on the bench drenched in my own seat and thank god not in blood. It was an odd thought because I didn’t believe in god and I knew Tess was dead.For good now.
End of Chapter 1
TBC