So this was written for the Femslash Todays Porn Battle as a last minute entry. The prompt I took on was Roswell, Liz/Tess, stars and I really like how this came out.
PS: Tess's return in season three totally didn't happen.
I'll Take A West Coast Winter To Remove My Splinters
by BoarderKC
Liz doesn't let herself dwell much on the past. Not for lack in desire, but because remembering, liking new clothes and going back to school, is a luxury she cannot afford. Roswell is three years behind her, hazed by open highways and running, and there are days when she feels like Michael Darling in Neverland; she knows she had a mother, but the contours of her face have begun to fade.
It burns at her, knowing that she's lost everything that tells the story to the present. A town and a girl and some aliens that all lead to inhuman displays of power, displacement and loss. A bullet hole lodged in a body that doesn't exist, a headstone barring a friend's name she doesn't remember, a once familiar face from the mirror splayed across wanted posters in post offices across the nation.
It's December in California and she wears shorts and a tank top to work and the heat draws references to a place where UFOs hung from every store front. She drifts, from work to home, on repeat and it's enough to constitute a life when you've got no past and a dead-ended future.
The first time she sees blond curls, she staggers in the super market because the blue eyes that focus on her are confused, but more than that, they're focused, confirming Liz still there and not just a figment. But apples drop and she looks down and the blue eyes are gone and Liz drifts to the background again.
There are incidents later and she wonders if she's being watched or if she's doing the watching or if coincidence has finally found her hiding out in a near-deserted coastal town. She's done waiting before, had a lifetime of plans that involve never making the first move and she's tired, so she takes matters into her own hands and does what she does best.
She waits.
There's a stretch of beach, empty to only dedicated surfers, where her sightings seem to revolve and she waiting, knees to her chest, eyes on the water and with the tide licking at her toes, a body appears beside her.
"Is this an ambush or coincidence?"
Liz laughs, hollow and amused. "I was sitting here first. How could this be an ambush?"
Tess doesn't waste time or venom. "Is it always about where you were and what was yours first?"
Somehow, she ends up back at Liz's apartment, sitting tensely on the couch, but Liz is a hostess first, enemy second and they have tea to relax the tension. "Didn't expect to see you back on Earth."
Tess breaths Early Grey, wrapped in a faded gray sweater that is too thick for the California heat. "Antar is less inviting than you would think." Her legs found under her and her blue eyes are clear. "Didn't expect to see you in a wasteland. Thought it was Harvard or bust, egghead?"
If she meant it to be scathing, it came out as endearing and Liz shrugs. "Out running the FBI didn't impress the application review board."
There is silence where there should be hatred, arguing, even death, but motive is lost on Liz and her feet drift on the carpet. It isn't for Tess and the stain on the carpet from her tea as she drops it brings a frown to Liz's mouth. "Okay, I can't do this. Why haven't you asked anything?" Liz can only look at her confused and Tess is on her feet. "After everything I did, the way I hurt everyone. Where are Max and Michael to finish me off like I should have been?"
Liz stands and turns to grab a towel for the tea. "Is that what you'd like?" she asks like a joke.
"I don't get you, Liz Parker," is the reply and Liz stops in the doorway because she can't remember if that's her last name. She turns on Tess and touches her finger tips to the blonde's cheek and the connection is instantaneous.
Show me everything you remember. It forms in her head and she pushes it at Tess, who obliges because Liz is in her head and can't stop it. There's a high school in the middle of a desert, colors yellow and blue, a restaurant with a UFO above the door and shiny uniforms, a man with a sheriff' star pinned to his shirt and a boy with intense eyes and slightly too big ears.
Liz is touching the surface, barely affecting the ripples, but it's not enough and she surges forward, mouth on Tess's. This is how it happened before, with Max and the flashes and the physical trials they put themselves through to help him remember. There's no resistance on Tess's end, only a hand on the small of Liz's back and the kiss deepens and Liz's sees stars and time is moving backwards.
Earth is getting smaller and she's feeling claustrophobic in the confines of a ship. There's a planet under her feet before she can breathe and it foreign and there's a man that Liz has never seen, but she knows without doubt Khivar, the overlord king. He's bearing on her and she's kneeling with the planet under her knees and a bump for her stomach.
She feels fear, honest to god fear, and she grasp for Tess, hands slipping under her shirt. Tess follows, but is quicker, pushing her tank top up, but not off, unwilling to break the connection.
A feeling of cold and damp spreads across Liz's skin and she's in a cell and it's dark and empty, save herself. Then there's a crowd and she flinches in the sunlight as people filter around her, subjects, her subjects and they reach to touch her, captivated.
This isn't what Liz wants, she doesn't understand what's happening or where she is and she strives for more, going for Tess's jeans and the buttons open easily. Tess moans into Liz's mouth as Liz's hand slips inside her underwear.
Another ship, a window of stars, endless, lifeless stars and then there's Earth, getting bigger and there's a voice, mocking in her head. It's wrapped around her mind, holding still to her limps and it promises to see her soon in a whisper and Liz is alone. There's shaking in her body and it moves into the ship and she's standing in a chamber, the chamber and Liz stares at a boy with intense eyes.
"They're not my enemies, Max," the words slip from Liz's mouth, but they're not her words, not Tess's words and her mind is livid, but captive and she can't move. "Nasedo made a deal," it's a lie that makes her gasp, not in memory, but into Tess's mouth and there's Tess's tongue in her mouth. The fingers inside Tess's jeans are slick and Tess is desperately trying to undo the buttons on Liz's shorts.
Liz's shorts slide down her legs and she kicks them away, distractedly as a single digit slips inside of her and she sees stars. Not stars from memory, her own or Tess's, but electric sparks that comes from need and arousal and she rocks on Tess's hand.
Things rewind too fast and there's a gun pressed to her temple and Brody is standing over her, demanding answers then reminiscing as Larek. A few steps back and she's lying on the floor, doubled over in pain. The baby, her baby. She can feel the boy whose eyes are still intense and scared, whose ears are a little too big for his head and holds himself like a king, touching her belly and something's wrong.
Tess calls out as Liz slips two fingers inside of her without warning and Tess moves inside of her erratically. Her heart is racing and she's consumed and choking.
The images slow and there's fire. An explosion, a cliff and a car parked precariously on the edge and there's a voice in her head telling her to push it over. There's a figure in the front seat, lifeless and submerged in shadow, but there were tear tracks on his face and Tess is leaning into Liz's shoulder and biting back a shout into her shoulder.
Back a little further and Kyle is smiling at her sweetly, but there's a body in his hands. Twenty steps back and she's in her bedroom and there's a boy curled on her carpet and before she can touch him, he's on his feet screaming. "You've destroyed my mind. There's nothing left for you to warp."
"Please, Alex, let me fix it," Liz begs, Tess begs, but he's moving away and she can't reach him and he's sobbing so hard his body shakes, but there's a voice in her head that knows this is how it had to end.
Something tugs at her and the rest blurs. Sleeping with Max, junior prom with the gang and hanging off Kyle's arm, hanging out in Vegas, running from the skins. She's gasping, rocking on Tess's fingers, wrist cramping from its awkward angle inside Tess's jeans and it's like a punch in the gut because suddenly she can't breathe and around them the air stills. The connection can go no further, no deeper and there is no end of Liz and beginning of Tess as their heartbeats join in time and Liz feels as if each breath is drawn into a single set of lungs.
She doesn't climax, but it's alright because her body is humming with electric energy and Tess's face is buried in the crook of her neck, breathing hard in shuddering gasps that Liz matches in even time. Liz's hand is wrapped around Tess's neck, holding her close and Tess's other hand presses to the small of Liz's back, but there are fingers still inside of each other, but the connection is broken and with open eyes they see, for the first time, the compromising position they've put themselves in.
Tess doesn't move her forehead from Liz's shoulder and Liz can feel sweat on her lip as they tremble. "You're Liz Parker. You were shot in Roswell, New Mexico and you lost your life to the alien abyss." She pauses. "His name was Alex. I killed him." Her fingernails press into Liz's back. "How could you forget him?"
"Khivar killed Alex," Liz corrects and she kisses the behind Tess's ear. "He was in your head. Mindwarping-"
"He used me."
When they move, it hurts and they dress slowly. When clothes are back in place, they stand and there is a silence that isn't at all comfortable, but the room smells of sex and Liz is the first to speak. "It's not to remember. If he didn't exist, he didn't die," her words are bitter and biting and it's an anger that's displaced because what she's seen changes everything.
"It doesn't work like that." Tess touches two fingers to her stomach. "I lost the baby. He was everything to me and I lost him." Her hand drops. "I wish I could have saved him."
Liz doesn't know if she means Alex or her baby, but her shoulders give a jerk of movement as she shrugs. There's fresh pain from old wounds and she wishes for her blinders, but the haze is gone and all she can do is remember. "Doesn't change that we can't."
Tess nods and stands, sore and slick, and Liz watches her. "I came to make peace on Earth, Liz Parker." She's reminding Liz, bringing back who she is, despite her fake IDs and fake life and fake past with its dead-ended future. "I hope I get to find you again." Her words are honest and endearing and the press of her lips to Liz's feels too natural, but the connection is gone.
When she leaves, the haze returns, self-induced and memories of another life sit in the corners of her vision.
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