AUTHOR'S' NOTE:
I DO NOT OWN THE CHARACTERS OR THE SHOW; this is fan fiction written to write an angsty scene where Max and Liz would work through their layered emotions about the lies between them and their feelings for each other.
By the end of the summer, the hospital threw a fundraiser for the research her team had been doing. Despite Kyle offering to go as friends, she insisted she wanted to go alone, conscientious of the politics behind a date. Her father insisted on not wanting to go because he'd feel out of place, despite her best efforts at trying to convince him.
She spent most of the night talking to Kyle, who arrived with another colleague, and her research team colleagues until her supervisor asked her to talk to private donors about their progress. When, her supervisor asked her if she knew Isobel, who was standing across the room, Liz shrugged and said, "Vaguely," trying to keep her composure in contrast to the tornado brewing in her gut. It didn't help that Max had come with her, taking her breath away because of the way he looked in a black suit.
Once Liz caught Max's eye, she knew she wouldn't be able to stay long. She made her rounds after Isobel's speech and then made her way gracefully out of the event. In the parking lot, however, after 3 months of not talking to each other, she couldn't help but turn around when he called out her name, "Liz."
She paused in her tracks and he approached her. She regretted stopping but, try as she might, she couldn't move forward. "I gotta go check on my dad," she blurted out, trying to find a reason to tell herself to leave, "if I am away too long he works too hard and-
"I just wanted to apologize," he interjected as he took in how breathtaking she was in her dress, "I thought-
"You thought, what, Max?!" She hissed not wanting to draw attention to either of them. "I haven't forgotten. And with all that happened, I didn't-I couldn't put anyone else in harm's way. That's why I haven't said anything," Liz concluded swallowing her tears, "you saved my life. Twice," she said trying to keep the cage around her heart intact, "so your secret's safe with me."
Despite her angry speech, she appeared frozen in place eyes locked on Max even as he moved closer to her. With the silence looming between them, he couldn't help but bring himself closer to her till they were only inches apart. Their closeness reminds him of their date, the date of which she has no memory.
He was as close to her, then, slow dancing by his old jeep, providing them the ideal opportunity to kiss. That time, she was smiling, she was looking at him the way he couldn't help looking at her.
Now, he could see her blinking eyes trying to hold back tears. Despite wanting to with every fiber of his being, he doesn't reach out to comfort her. The pain in those eyes awaken a yearning to comfort, but he can't take her in his arms like he did that day in the desert, that night. There is too much hurt between them.
Liz sees the same flicker of emotion, which she understood to be a mixture of love, guilt, and shame, that he had held in looking at her when she first got back after Memorial Day weekend earlier that year. She searches his eyes for something else, something that could help her move on, and the internal conflict of her bones and her guts are too much. Grateful that her own unease and emotional confusion gives her a reason to move, she hisses "Goodnight, Max," to override the ache missing him begins to stir.
Despite a rough night of sleep, she finds herself walking down to the Crashdown kitchen before her father the morning after the fundraiser. On grabbing utensils from the kitchen to begin setting places at diner benches, she stumbles a few paces back to find Max sitting at the far end of the counter.
Max takes a beat, absorbing Liz clad in the Crashdown uniform that still makes his heart flutter and says, "I didn't like how we left things. Not last night. Not," Max pauses as she continues to set places around him, "not this summer. "
"Liz," her father called out, "con quien hablas?"
"Nadie, Apa," she answers as her hands empty of cutlery. Turning to Max, she whispers, "Not here."
She goes to grab the jacket she leaves in the kitchen. She removes her headband and confirms she has her keys in there. On returning to the diner area, she whispers, "Let's go."
As she follows him out of the diner, she reminds herself that her gut and bones agree that he isn't going to hurt her. She knows that, no matter what fucked up shit he's done, he loves her. He claims to have loved her since high school.
Max walks to his car and she waits on the passenger's side for him to open her door. Once he unlocks it, she slides in without looking at him and begins to say, "So," she takes a bit as he turns on the ignition, "what do you want, Max?"
"I want to finish telling you what happened," he answers as he pulls out of the parking space.
"Let's review," she begins as they turn towards the main road, "Your sister killed my sister and two other girls; you and Michael covered it up because she somehow forgot what she did and because you thought that what happened to you would have been worse than death," she then asked, "what am I missing?"
Hearing her, he must admit that she is still grieving her sister. The truth that he gave her that summer probably felt like losing Rosa all over again. The closest he has ever gotten to losing Isobel had been that night, but she was still alive.
As he turns onto his road, he steals a glance of her, thinking about how to tell her about what she doesn't know about them. Even if she doesn't remember, all she's learned may be triggering similar fears to the ones she had when he told her she wasn't shot. "You're missing," he begins as he pulls into his driveway, "you're missing what happened before…"
As he stops the car and turns it off, she gets outpacing by the passenger's side until he walks around towards his door. Then she asks, "what do you mean what happened before?"
He had to take his time and he would need evidence. "Come in and I'll explain," he says opening his door.
She follows him inside, noting that his house hasn't changed much in the months since she was last there. A part of her wants to cry in his arms, let go of control. Another part remembered the lies he kept from her for over ten years. And that part, that part was doing its best to keep her together. She took off her jacket and laid it on his armchair while he walked over to his couch.
As much as he knew he had evidence, he also knew that he needed to take his time before he got there. He looked up at her angry, conflicted face
"Do you remember what we were like before Rosa died?"
She nodded saying, "lab partners in biology, friends for as long as I can remember. Real into Tolstoy, wanted to be a writer-and you became a cop to right the wrongs you did to my sister and those two girls."
"Yes," he said getting up from his seat, "we were lab partners," he walked towards his bookshelves. Reaching out for his yearbook, "We were friends," he continues and as pulls out the yearbook. Walking back to his sofa, he said, "you also signed my yearbook."
On looking at their lab picture, she found her handwriting It's Only the beginning, Love Liz. Looking up at him, following his eyes as he sat back down, she asked, "what was only the beginning?"
He took a deep breath, "the way you left," he said turning to her, "I couldn't tell you what I had learned that morning, right before I found you with Grant Green…"
"What did you learn?" Liz asked leaning forward towards him.
Her closeness was quickening his heart, "my sister can, if she has strength, manipulate memories," he paused, not knowing how she would react and not wanting her to leave, "she decided to change your memory of us."
"She, what?!" Liz cried out, "she changed her memory of us-
"She knew how I felt about you...and how you used to feel about me," he explained closing the yearbook, "and she thought it was just a crush. She didn't know we…
"That day," he began, "we drove out to the desert for more than that bio project," he said, "We drove out to the abandoned turquoise mines for a date," he looked at her expression, one of disbelief and confusion. "We talked, we laughed, we danced," he concluded, a smile organically spreading across his face, "and we kissed."
"We kissed?" She echoed, touching her lips.
As her eyes met his, he nodded, "Yes," he continued, "and we talked about seeing the world. You were supposed to come to get me and, instead," he bowed his head trying to hold back the tears, "you left. You left after burying Rosa without saying goo'bye."
"After she died," Liz said, "however you may have made me smile when my mom left, I didn't know if I could ever find a way to smile again-
"I remember," he interrupted, "I remember you telling me that, that you never knew how I-
"How you what?"
"How I feel-felt-about you," he breathed out.
Liz hid head face in her hands, "And, what...what did I feel for you, then?"
"Then," he said, "you kissed me back," he could feel her eyes on him, so he looked up at her, "you said you wished you'd done it sooner."
Liz stood up, began pacing with the newfound knowledge. The person who admitted to keeping her from knowing how her sister died, after admitting he was in love with her for as long as he could remember, is now telling her that she may have felt something that his sister's murderer kept from her to keep him. "Why are you telling me this? Why tell me something that doesn't really change anything?!"
"Because I-because I wanted you to know everything. I don't want secrets-I don't want lies between us, no matter what," he continued, "I sucked at telling you the truth before, when you first got back. We went rounds around each other because of what I thought you knew, because of what I was afraid to tell you, and I didn't want to keep anything else from you."
"That night," Liz began, "at the drive-in movie, you said to leave the past in the past," she began to explain, confused about what feelings for him she had been guarding and the weight of the grief she wouldn't let go, "why not leave this? Why not let me go on believing we could never have anything? Why tell me that we had started something? That all those times before the lies came to the surface, all those times I looked at you my bones were remembering something I could not-
"What were they remembering, Liz?" Max asked not wanting to hear something that they couldn't do anything about.
"That it is more than safe I feel with you, Max," she answered, "more than a spark."
Their eyes met, and her skin quivered for the distance between them to disappear.
"And I can't," she said, "I can't do anything about that with all of this-with Rosa, with Isobel, and I can go now," she said standing up, "take me home. Take me anywhere but here."
"Okay," he said getting up. "I'll take you."
As she grabbed her jacket, Max's arms accidentally brushed up against her. All the weight she had been carrying with all the secrets came down on her. She buckled under knees, landing on the ground, holding herself up with her hands. He stood over her, wanting to console her but not wanting to provoke her. "Liz," he said reaching his hand down to her head. She grabbed his legs and cried into his knees. "Liz," he pleaded, pulling her arms up, holding her as she steadied her feet.
She fell into him and he, on auto-pilot wrapped his arms around her. "Liz, I'm so sorry."
She wrapped her arms around him, gripping him as tight as she could. She couldn't talk to Kyle about the pain, as safe as he was there was always, always something missing. However perfect Diego had been, she couldn't give her all to him, the secrets she learned revealed that much. She let him know as much within days of that summer night. The secrets between then and now, on top of all the work it took to keep it from her dad, she couldn't have another person in her life who couldn't know her truth.
And no matter what Max had done for her, no matter what they had been through together, no matter how it felt to carry the weight of the secrets, being in his arms had provided the only source of comfort she had felt in months, years even. She buried herself deeper in his arms, digging her fingers in his sides, prompting him to hold her tighter. "Liz," he whispered leaning his chin on her head, torn between the relief of her vulnerability and the responsibility he carried for most of it.
She pulled her head from his chest, the air between them still warm with grief and yearning. Looking up at him, she found his eyes as watery as hers. In his eyes, she sees a hint of the conflicting emotions she used to feel about her sister's behavior. Rosa caused a lot of trouble in ways for reasons she couldn't understand. Max's sister, Isobel, did the same. What wouldn't she have done for her sister? Wouldn't she have buried her bodies, too? In looking in his eyes, she admits to herself answer was yes. "What are you thinking?" he asked tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear.
"Max," she whispers because, for the first time, there are too many yet not enough words to explain what she's thinking. She smooths her hand across his cheek, hoping to slow if not stop his tears. In unlocking her heart from its armor, she finds herself feeling all the Max has been trying to explain: the conflict that loving her, and his family produces; the ache of the time they unknowingly and possibly unwillingly spent apart; the guilt and shame for not knowing what the right decision had been. Holding his cheek is the only way she feels she can express what she's thinking.
He leans into her hand, not knowing what it means. He reaches his hand towards her face, still producing tears and rests it there as she presses his cheek to his hand. Kissing her forehead, he asks, "Liz?".
Liz lowers her eyes from looking into his, trying to find a way within her heart to move past the grief towards something different, something better.
Because she doesn't say anything, he lowers his hands, unwraps his other arm from around her and approaches the door handle behind her.
Liz lets go of her jacket and, with her other hand, lays a hand on his wrist, and sniffles, "Wait."
He lowers his hand from the knob. "Liz?" He says more like a question.
Liz slides her fingers between his and says between continued sniffles, "You are carrying-you have been carrying a lot-and I wonder who you can talk about all of this."
As he allows his eyes to meet her, he finds her eyes looking at him differently than they had the night before. She is looking at him the way she did after he saved her life. Still, he doesn't want to say anything because he doesn't have the right to talk about his pain, which doesn't compare to hers.
"You don't need to worry about me," he says in response to her tenderness.
Despite what he says, she doesn't let him go.
She pulls him to the couch where he was sitting. "But I do," she says as she sits on the couch.
He looks down at her. On meeting her pleading eyes again, he slowly lowers to sitting next to her.
Once Max sits next to her, she grabs his other hand.
"Liz," he says leaning back into his couch, "We did what we needed to do to survive," he says pulling her hands out of hers.
"I know," she says turning up her empty hands, "and as a human with a father I want to protect from authorities, I know I can't begin to understand what your fear is like."
He shrugged resisting meeting her eyes again, he says "I can barely live with what I or we have done to you and your family. It's not fair."
She sets a hand on his leg and says, "You're right, it's not fair," adding, "But you do live with it, Max," she says, "I can't imagine what that pain is like. Knowing what you lost; knowing that the person you loved disappeared from your life because of the choices the people you have spent your life protecting made without you."
"They were scared," he said smoothing his hands against his legs and still finding one of hers there. "All we've ever had is each other."
"Yeah," she says, "and that must be hard given everything you have learned and everything that you've had to face...by yourself"
He shakes his head, uncomfortable with her efforts at showing compassion. "The lie in Isobel's relationship tore it apart; Michael doesn't get close to anyone," he adds, "you shouldn't be dragged into this..."
"No one's dragging me," she says grabbing his second hand again. "In all this time, the only time it doesn't hurt, the only time I can grieve or breathe about this is when I'm with you."
He allows himself to meet her eyes, and she's looking at him like she looked at him when she shared the milkshake. "I know the feeling."
She runs her fingers through his hair, nodding in silent agreement.
He presses his forehead towards her more, "with you here, I'm tempted to forget, forget all of it and just hold you."
She pulls him down with her and they lay in each other's arms. She brushes her fingers through his hair, breathing him in. Over time, he falls asleep to the steady sound of her heartbeat.
He wakes up with her huddled in his arms and wonders what he did to deserve such a moment of closeness w her.