A/N 1: I originally posted this in the drabble thread in Polar Stories but I feel it deserves it's own little space, hehe. I hope you enjoy.

Part 1 of the I, Soldier series! I might come up with a better title later, lol.

Title: Hesitate
Author: Kristin aka KiaraAlexisKlay
Disclaimer: Roswell belongs to Katims and Metz: Dark Angel belongs to Cameron and Eglee.
Genre: Prompt
Category: Drabble and Crossover with Dark Angel
Rating: MATURE to be safe

Prompt#22 - Hesitate -

"Parker, hurry up! I want to go home and catch the game! Let's go!"

There was no answer, not surprising, and Michael growled in frustration. If it wasn't Max, it was Maria, or anything else in his screwed up existence. He did not want to have to deal with brainy perfect Lizzie Parker not doing her fair share.

Michael was just about ready to bellow for Parker to hurry up when a tremendous crash from the diner proper had him rushing through the double doors. His eyes quickly flickered over the scene, and he felt his blood run cold. The busboy full of dirty dishes was sprawled across the floor, shattered dishes littering the area around it. And there, in the center of it all, was Liz Parker, spasming like crazy.

"Liz! Liz," Michael reached over and froze as she literally hissed at him.

"M-Mi-Michael...g-go away," she ground out, already struggling to get up and move away from him and the mess her spasms had made.

"Liz," Michael ground out helplessly, watching as another tremor hit and Liz crashed back to the linoleum.

"That's it, c'mere," Michael reached over and hauled Liz off the ground, shifting his body to accomodate her undulating body. Carefully, he carried her to the break room, setting her on the couch and pulling away. Just in time, Liz's eyes rolled to show the whites and she screamed as her back arched off the cushions, her body rigid with pain.

"I'm calling Max," Michael was already reaching for the extension on the wall when Liz's frantic "NO!" halted him.

"Liz," he began.

"Fuck it, Michael, listen to me! Do NOT call Max, understand?"

Michael's eyes widened, he didn't know which shocked him more: Liz's use of 'adult' language or the firm, commanding, and surprisingly strong tone in which she'd addressed him.

"Well damnit Parker, what can I do?"

"Pills."

"What?"

"My m-medicine," Liz grit her teeth against the pain and the betrayl of her body, her will the only thing keeping her from curling into a ball and crying the agony away.

"Medicine! Great, where?"

In a voice that trembled with each word, Liz told him where her emergency stash was located, and fortunately it was nearby. Michael watched with unfamiliar anxiousness as Liz downed what seemed to him to be an enormous of amount of the innocous looking pills, they looked like some of those herbs that Maria was always trying to get him and everyone else to take.

He cussed softly but vehemently under his breath as he waited impatiently for the pills to take affect, growling as each minute passed by that Liz still shook and whimpered. Sweat had drenched her hair into twisted strands on her forehead, and her breathing labored as she literally fought for each breath, trying not to swallow her tongue as she shook, rattled, and writhed on the couch.

"Michael, just...go clean up the front, it'll take a bit for the pills to kick in. Go."

It gave him something to do, and Michael found he couldn't take seeing Liz so weak. Liz was never weak. Liz was strong, she didn't take shit from anybody...except maybe Max. A wave of his hand and the dishes were resurrected in a way to make the King's men and horses jealous, and it wasn't long before he was back with his trembling friend.

Finally - finally!- her shaking form wasn't so jerky and it seemed as if they were passing. Occassionally there was a brief flare up of tremors, but for the most part, Michael could tell that whatever the hell this was, it was passing and almost through.

Liz groaned, holding her head, and with a muttered but heartfelt thank you to Michael, she made her way slowly up the stairs to her apartment, pill bottle firmly in hand.

Michael paused, staring up at her slow moving form, wrestling about with what he should do and what he could do, and then came to a decision. Parker was not going to get away with this stunt that easily. Telling himself he was just making sure she was okay so he wouldn't hear about it from Max and Maria, he followed her up the stairs and into her room.

It felt weird being in Parker's room period, even more so that the elder Parkers were absent on one of their usual convention run.

Liz was so tired, exhausted mentally and physically, she didn't even bother taking shoes or garments off, she just collapsed into bed. Michael hesitated only the briefest of moments before coming over and taking off her shoes, slipping her legs under the covers and pulling the blanket up over her lightly trembling body, taking care of her skin, realizing it was overly sensitised after hearing her soft hiss of pain at his light touch.

Her breathing was just easing out, too tired to deal with Michael and his unnervingly intense, probing stare, when she felt the bed dip under his weight. A heavy silence ensued, and Liz closed her eyes, not just from the pain. She was waiting, and Michael didn't disappoint.

"So what was that all about, Parker? Something not right in that brain of yours," he tried to joke.

"As a matter of fact, that's exactly what's wrong. My body doesn't produce enough of a chemical called serotonin and it causes the seizures...I haven't had them since the day that Max...that Max healed me, when I was shot," she admitted, painfully aware of a time in her life she hated.

A time when she was weak.

Prey.

And Liz Parker was never anyone's prey, ever.

"Oh. But that's not all, is it Parker?"

"Damn you for being so fucking observant, Guerin," Liz moaned, inwardly smacking her head against a wall.

"And that's another thing. Since when are you a graduate of Guerin Speak 101?" he prompted, lightly teasing to get rid of the tension in the room his not-so-innocent question had produced.

"Who says that you influenced me? I could have just been hiding it under illusion," she quipped.

"So tell me oh great magician, what's your secret? You know mine."

Liz hesitated, debating the question of whether or not to tell Michael, something she'd been wrestling with ever since she'd learned the alien's secret. But Michael wasn't everybody, or even just anybody, and out of them all she felt he might even be the only one who could truly understand her position and what she was going through.

Grunting with slight pain, Liz turned over to lay on her back and turn her head to look at the scuffy man-child sitting on the edge of her bed.

"Fine...but come over here, I'm too tired to speak up."

Liz shifted only slightly as Michael crept over to lean up against the headboard, helping to prop her up.

"Okay...first off, my name hasn't always been Liz Parker, not before Jeff and Nancy adopted me."

"Whoa, wait! You were adopted?"

"Kinda," Liz smirked. "Now shut the hell up and let me get on. Understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," a cocked eyebrow and curved lips greeted her, and she rolled her eyes.

"Good. My name was Jondy, and I grew up in a little place called Manticore..."

TBC...?