Disclaimer: I do not own anything from Roswell. Those rights belong to Jason Katims, Jonathon Dukes, Melinda Metz, and the WB.
Author's Note: One-shot, drabble. I always wished these two had more moments on the show. Anyway, enjoy!
Pairing: Michael/Liz
A girl has been shot.
Michael can see the blood that pools around her stomach, the cotton of her uniform blending into a medley of scarlet, periwinkle, and violet. She lies trembling on the ground, her breaths coming out in short, whispering gasps, her skin already donning an ashen-like hue.
In this moment, time seems to come to a standstill, the waves crashing to a halt at his feet.
He can see everything clearly, like a map that's already been charted out and the markers are just racing to catch up. His path seems to glow the brightest, his next actions a given at this point; secret, everything must always remain a secret.
He can see brothers fighting (why would you do this to me?), a girl crying as she watches the lights flicker (flicker?) in the night sky, the blue (blue) body of someone taken too young, the gleam in a traitor's eye (so familiar) as she stabs the knife deeper into the belly of the beast, the broken hull of a ship lost amongst terracotta sands (… find a way back).
But what's most jarring is the absence he sees by his side, a void that's yet waiting to be filled, empty matter buzzing around vacant spaces.
His eyes drift back over to the girl, her lashes fluttering as she tries to wake, a cold sweat blossoming over her crown.
Time is not destiny, something irrevocable and foreign and cold.
He pushes himself off of the booth and rushes to her side, his hands shaking as he desperately tries to stop the wound, muttering soft, calming phrases under his breath, the sounds foreign to his brash tongue.
Time, he realizes, can be changed. It is not a singular entity, flooding through his hands like grains of sand; it is malleable, metal to be worked with, to bend and twine as one sees fit.
He sees nights filled with hot cocoa and stargazing, his arms wrapped tightly around a smaller frame; a young woman cradling her stomach, smiling mischievously up at him as she dangles a card just out of his grasp; a boy running across the sands, his eyes glowing as he looks up at the night sky, his lips curving up to the heavens and far beyond.
But, most importantly, he sees a home.
"Stay with me, Liz."
Her eyes flash open at the sound of his voice, soft, doe eyes peering into his, as though they know the secrets that lurk behind those doors. They know, because they've seen them too.
And for once, he thinks, fate may not be such a fickle creature after all.
She runs a trembling hand down the expanse of her stomach, her fingers tracing the warm edges left by his own as he scurries away, the crescendo of glass echoing behind him. The patrons whirl around her, concerned voices washing over her as she stares out of the window, her gaze never once straying from a boy whose name she barely knew.
Time did not stop when he met her; it began.
