Meteora

Part 1: With No Apologies

Disclaimer: I don't own Roswell. All original characters and concepts are the property of someone other than me. The lyrics are from Linkin Park's Meteora album and are also not mine.

Category: Liz POV

Summary: Liz does some thinking over winter break.

Author's Note: I was driving in my car listening to Linkin Park's Meteora album when it hit me that a lot of the songs could be used as a backdrop to how certain characters felt. Hopefully this will be the first story in a series of stories I plan to write (I hope to make one for each of the other characters).

Author's Note 2: Because I didn't like a lot of the things that happened in season 3 the only things that happened for the purpose of this story (these stories?) are Isabel and Jesse's wedding, Maria and Michael breaking up, Liz getting her powers, Max dying and coming back to life, and Michael becoming the king and Max taking it back. Liz and Max getting back together, Tess coming back with the baby, and the gang leaving Roswell never happened.

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Liz tried to do some studying. She wanted to get a head start on the following semester. She was on winter break from Harvard. It was weird sitting here in her old room. She had only finished her third semester of college, but this was the first time she had been back to Roswell in over a year. She had stayed at Harvard over the summer, opting to take summer classes instead of going home. She felt she just needed to stay away for a while.

At first, she felt relieved to be home and back at the Crashdown. That was, until Max Evans showed up. She was helping her father wipe down the counter when he came in. She caught his eye for a moment but quickly darted out the back, muttering to her father that the jet-lag was catching up to her and that she didn't want to be disturbed. She thought she was ready to face Max, that the time spent apart would be good for him, that he would finally be over her, but the look in his eyes told her he wasn't. Ever since Tess's betrayal he had tried to get her back. She guessed that since she had "betrayed" Max with Kyle, Max thought his betrayal of Liz with Tess put them even with each other. But Liz hadn't really betrayed Max, and he knew it!

She couldn't concentrate on her studying with all these thoughts of Max in her head. And the way she left things back in Boston with Michael wasn't helping either. All she wanted was for him to come home to Roswell with her. Maybe it wasn't the ideal place for him as it was for her but she had still expected him to come with her. Over the last year he had become her rock. After he joined her in Boston, going to art school not a mile away from her the two had become increasingly inseparable. He was her best friend these days. Liz was beginning to think that maybe he could be more than just a friend, but that was just a thought. There was no way Michael would ever think of her that way. Still, it hurt that he had stayed back at school.

'I'll just put on some music' Liz thought. She rummaged through her suitcase until she found her CD case. But when she opened it, she was shocked to find that these weren't her CDs.

"Dammit, Trixie!" she said out loud. Her roommate Trixie had bought matching CD cases for the both of them. Liz had to laugh. 'Trixie' may have seemed like a Barbie-girl name, but Trixie was far from it. She was a border-line Goth/Rock chick. Despite their different tastes in music, the two got along great and had a lot of things in common.

Liz sighed and flipped through the CDs anyway. Nothing was really catching her eye, until she came to the Linkin Park section. Liz had to admit, that Chester guy really had a set of pipes on him. She popped in "Meteora". As the beginning notes came on, Liz felt a sort of ease settle over her, as she listened to the lyrics, her thoughts began to fall into place…

Sometimes I

Need to remember just to breath

Sometimes I

Need you to stay away from me

Sometimes I'm

In disbelief, I didn't know

Somehow I

Need you to go

It was exactly how Liz felt. It was like she had forgotten how to breathe when she was with Max. That was why she went to Harvard; it was as far away as she could get from Max without a passport.

Don't stay

Forget out memories

Forget our possibilities

What you were changing me into

Just give me myself back and

Don't stay

She just wanted him to forget what they had once had together. The possibility of a future together, for Liz, did not exist.

Forget our memories

Forget our possibilities

Take all your faithlessness with you

Just give me myself back and

Don't stay

That was it; Max had no faith in her. How could he when he so easily believed she had slept with Kyle. He didn't even put up a fight with the exception of the incident in Copper Summit; he barely tried to get her to say it wasn't so.

Sometimes I

Feel like I trusted you to well

Sometimes I

Just feel like screaming at myself

Sometimes I'm

In disbelief I didn't know

Somehow I

Need to be alone

He saved her life, so she just placed her trust in him. It just seemed like the right thing to do. She could just scream at herself for all she had put up with from him. Every time things got intense, when she wanted to take a step forward, he took two back.

Don't stay

Forget our memories

Forget our possibilities

What you were changing me into

Just give me myself back and

Don't stay

Forget our memories

Forget our possibilities

Take all your faithlessness with you

Just give me myself back and

Don't stay

She felt that Max had not only altered her physically, but that he had tried to change who she was. It dawned on her that Max was out of her system. He had been for a long time.

I don't need you anymore

She didn't need him to prove herself.

I don't want to be ignored

He had ignored the person she wanted to be, always trying to bend her to his will, like when Alex died. He tried to get her to quit her investigation. And even when he came back in time, again he was asking her to give up something. She was always giving up something, always sacrificing a piece of herself for him. But it ended tonight. Tonight she would finally be able to look Max in the eye and tell him…

I don't need one more day

Of you wasting me away…

With No Apologies.

But the more she thought about who she did trust…

Don't stay

Forget our memories

About who trusted her…the memory of a young man standing way too close to her as he handed her journal back…

Forget our possibilities

What you were changing me into

The one person who hadn't tried to change her, the one who let her be herself…

Just give me myself back and

Don't stay

Forget our memories

Giving her journal back, "Thanks for giving me one more reason to envy Max Evans"…the look he gave Max when she showed up after telling Max he was only thinking about what he had to lose in Roswell…trying to apologize for anything Hank had done to her when she told him about Topolsky…pulling her close after Max had been taken off to the White Room…telling her they'd figure out what to do after the congresswoman's death…she would never forget all that…

Forget our possibilities

The way he grabbed her instead of Maria when he found them in the street in Las Cruces…the look in his eyes when he got rid of the booby trap…his hand wrapping around her wrist trying to take her back to Roswell…

Take all your faithlessness with you

But he was never faithless with her. He had proven time and time again that he did trust her. If he didn't then he never would have asked for her help with school…

Just give me myself back and

Don't stay

Could there be a possibility of her and Michael?

Don't stay

Without even realizing it she had let him into her heart. It wasn't because she thought it was the next logical step, like it had been with Kyle or because she thought she owed him, like with Max…

Don't stay

She wanted him to stay with her simply because he was Michael.

The End.

Well, that's my story. Sorry to all you Liz and Max fans out there, but I never understood how she could just forgive him for what he did. Feedback will be appreciated and tell me if you would want to read another story about one of the other characters.