Title: The End of the Beginning
Genre: Roswell
Rating: Teen
Pairings: Have to read and see
Disclaimer: I own it all! I do I tell you! I also own live on ocean front property in Arizona... in other words I own nothings -sobs- well I own Juan, Cassie, Susie, Jamie and Stephanie... oh and Katrina, and Maria's aunt and uncle - and the horses... yeah I own a lot actually don't I? yea me!!
Summary: Max, Michael, Isabel and Tess left after Destiny. Fourteen years later they're coming back to Roswell, finding everything they knew different. Maria has a daughter, Liz is married and has a son... Is there a place for them in this new world? In the 'family' they left behind?
Author's Notes: Thoughts are written in brackets like this/-/ thoughts /-/ Stressed words are italized, as are Journal entries.
My name is Beth Whitman, and seventeen years ago, my life changed completely. Back then, I was Liz Parker, straight A student, perfect daughter, and waitress. I had my own Prince Charming, and my life was great. Or so I thought. But, I guess I had better start at the beginning, September 1999.
The beginning of my sophomore year, my life was planned to a tee. I was dating the star quarterback, Kyle Valenti. It didn't even bother me that his dad was the town sheriff. My best friend Alex was always around to make life easier, and I worked at my parents' café with my other best friend, Maria De Luca. Life was perfect. Then that fateful day happened, and everything changed.
September 17, 1999, the day I died. I was at work around four-thirty, Kyle was going to stop by in half an hour, and Alex was due at six to study for math. Maria and I were covering the floor, and it was pretty quiet. The school crowd had left, and the tourist crowd wasn't due to about 5:30. In my section, like usual was Max Evens and his best friend Michael Guerin. They always sat at the same booth and ordered the same thing everyday. They were ok, Max and I were lab partners, Maria swore he had a thing for me, and Michael stayed to himself most of the time. I was by the coke machine when it happened. Two guys in Maria's section were fighting when one of them pulled a gun, something about money. Then I heard a shot go off, and the next thing I knew, Max was leaning over me asking if I was ok. Then he broke a ketchup bottle, poured the contents over me, and begged me to say that I had broken the bottle when I fell. He looked so desperate that I did what he said. Later in the bathroom with Maria, I realized what had really happened, I had been shot, and Max had brought me back from the dead.
The next day I confronted Max, and found out that he was an alien. Talk about the shock of a lifetime. Also, his sister Isabel and Michael were aliens too, or Czechoslovakians as we called them. They had survived the crash of 1947, and had been in incubation pods till sometime around 1987, when they came out looking like normal six year olds. I told Maria, and after a confusing couple of days, the five of us were tied together with the secret. I also broke up with Kyle, which had him following us for a while. After a confusing couple of months and a number of close calls, I was dating Max, Michael and Maria were together, and Alex and Isabel were together, and the six of us were closer than we were to our own family. Then Neusedo showed up with Tess.
We found out from Tess that she and Max were destined to be together, and Michael was suppose to be with Isabel; which of course made none of us too happy. Also, the sheriff had found out the truth, and an FBI agent was chasing us. During a fight with the agent, Kyle was shot, and would have died except Max saved him. Michael ended up killing the agent that day to save all of us.
That day, Michael and Maria broke things off because he didn't want her hurt. Isabel and Alex had ended things a couple weeks earlier, and only Max and I were still together. Then, I went with Max and the rest of the Czechoslovakians to the 'pod chamber'. There everything changed again. Max and Isabel's mother appeared and told them about their destiny, I ran out of there as fast as I could. That was the last time we saw them. Max left a note for us; they had gone back to their planet to save their people. The Evens' were devastated. Sheriff Valenti concluded that they had run away. Neusado himself posed as the FBI agent. After disbanding the special unit and pretending to commit suicide, Neusado returned to Roswell to tell us that the four of them were going to be fine then he left. Fortunately, only Kyle was there to hear Neusado's story.
After Max and the others left, Maria and I found out we were pregnant. Kyle was furious with Michael for leaving his eventual sister with a kid. (Still hard to believe that Jim and Amy are married.) Alex stood by me through thick and then. After we finally told our parents that we were pregnant, mine being shocked when Alex claimed responsibility for my state, the two of us went to Maria's Aunt and Uncle's home in Ireland. We were home schooled our Junior Year, and one day Alex just walked out of class and came to join us. He went through Lamaze with us and went through two months hell when the babies came.
I went into labor a month early on December 15, 2001, a day after I turned seventeen. I had a boy with dark hair and his father's brown eyes. I named him Juan Alexander after my papa and Alex. The next month was hectic while Juan was in the hospital because of his premature state. He finally came home February 11. The next day Maria went into labor, right on time. Sixteen hours later, Alex was having his hand treated, and Maria had a baby girl named Cassandra Marie. Cassie has her mother's blonde hair and her father's brooding brown eyes. They were the only two babies the doctors had ever seen that weren't born with blue eyes.
After we graduated from high school, Alex and I got married on October 19, 2002. Our folks came out with Jim and Amy Valenti, Mr. And Mrs. Evens, and Susie Rice who was dating Kyle. Kyle himself had come a week earlier. It was a beautiful ceremony, and we could never have been happier. Maria stood as my matron of honor, and Kyle was Alex's best man. My mom and Amy watched the babies during the ceremony, and Alex sang the song 'I Will Be Here'. Maria sang 'From this Moment On' for our wedding dance, and Maria's Aunt made a small cake.
Then we started collage, I followed my dream to molecular biology, and Maria majored in the arts, specifically music. Alex went to med school and reformed the Whits. After collage, we settled down, and I got a job at the collage while Alex finished med school and did the clubs with Maria. We never planned to go back to Roswell other than the Valenti weddings when Amy and Jim married, and when Kyle married Susie.
But, in the end we did go back. My job at the collage fell through, and at the same time the gigs dried up for the Whits. My folks were in a car accident and had left the café to Maria and I. So we went home, Maria and I took over the Crashdown, and Alex finished his last year of med school at New Mexico State. By this time, Alex and I were simply Al and Beth Whitman, and Maria went by Marie Valenti. The names suited us now; we weren't the same people we used to be. Only the Valenti's, Evens, and Whitman's know the truth of who we are. And they leave us be with our decision.
It's been ten years since we returned; Juan and Cassie are freshman at West Roswell. Alex works at Roswell Memorial, and Marie and I run the Crashdown. Kyle's the sheriff now, and Jim owns a ranch out in the desert. We have a safe house hidden out there for when the war comes. Cassie and Juan have the visions too, of a war encompassing the world. A war that is not of this world. When they left, they didn't know the dangers they left behind. Kivar will come for us. For Juan, Cassie, and I. But mostly for me. Katrina came too late to help them, too late to truly help me. All she was able to do was help train us, in preparation.
I guess that brings us to today. September 17, 2016. Cassie and Juan are working tonight, and Marie, Susie, and I are going out for a girl's night. Alex is working at Roswell Memorial, and Kyle's working till ten. Amy is getting Susie's two girls, and Jim promised to check on the kids during the night. Who knows, maybe we will finally find Marie a guy. Maybe now, with their help and this book, I can finally put the past to rest.
Writing has always been my way of feeling, and now that I have finally written all this down I can forget the hard times and concentrate on the good times both past and yet to come. And, I can finally let them go. The four of them who were so much a part of my teen years, even now when I see the kids do something that reminds me of them. Cassie does thing like Michael all the time, I can even catch a glimpse of Tess in her when she fights us over something. And Juan had parts of Max and Isabel in him too. I guess they will never truly be gone. Yet, only Maria, Alex, Kyle, Susie, Jim, Amy, Cassie, Juan, and I know the truth. All of it. And this way, I can finally let everything go. The End of the Beginning. Well journal, got to go. Time to start anew.
Beth Whitman closed the book and locked it shut. Setting it in the wooden box on the table she locked that and put the keys back around her neck. /-/ The secrets safe for another day. No one can get in there if they wanted to. /-/ She thought and giggled as she left the room to join Marie for their afternoon out. Back in the room, the box glowed softly while Beth laughed, then it returned to looking like a simple box.