Author's Note: This story is a being written on request for a friend. She's been going through a rough patch, and she wanted something to take her mind off RL. I had to watch Roswell, because I'd never seen it, so I'm brand new to that fandom. I'm taking a few liberties with various time lines, so please just go with it. For Roswell, this takes place after Season 2. I'm pretending for the purposes of my tale that the events following Alex's death dragged on all summer and the final showdown with Tess in the Granolith didn't happen until a week before Thanksgiving of their senior year. None of the events of Season 3 have happened. For The Covenant, this takes place partway through the movie. I'm pretending that Caleb's birthday isn't actually until December, so when Chase came to Spenser Academy, he pretended to be a normal student for a longer period of time than he did in the movie. Caleb and Sarah are dating, and went to Homecoming together, but since Chase hasn't started terrorizing them yet, Caleb had no reason to tell her about the Covenant.
Liz descended the stairs to the Crashdown, feeling reluctant to enter the bright, loud atmosphere of the cafe. These days, it seemed as though the world around her whirled by in flashes of light and sound, while she was stuck in slow motion. The worst part was, she had no one to blame for the current situation but herself. She had willingly fallen into the Alien Abyss; had allowed the thrill of her first brush with romance to overwhelm her sense of logic. That was the biggest crime: she'd lost her compass; the way she viewed and analyzed the world around her. Now that the Shakespearean drama that was her love life for the past year had played itself out, she was set adrift.
The rift between her and the Pod Squad had started last year when she refused to believe that Alex's death was an accident. It stung that after all the proof she'd given them of her intelligence and good instincts over the course of their friendship, they wouldn't even consider the idea that she might be right. Their behavior didn't make sense. Normally, all it took for them to become suspicious was for someone to so much as breathe wrong. They'd jump all over it, and the gang would investigate to the bitter end. The group dynamic had shattered: first pitting aliens vs humans, and then Pod Squad vs Liz. Now, Max seemed to think that with Tess gone, they could all just go back to the way things were before, as though every action and harsh word in between could be erased.
Michael was the only one that had believed her about Alex. He'd come to her during that dark time and reassured her that she was doing the right thing. But his primary focus had to be keeping the group together, and one more dissenting opinion at that point would've turned the aliens against each other, too. So his support had been silent, and their friendship relegated to shifts they worked at the diner together, and late night visits he'd make to her house.
She pushed open the door to the backroom, seeing Michael's lean frame in the kitchen flipping burgers. He paused, mid-flip, and looked over his shoulder at her. The only positive outcome of the whole Tess debacle was that, as Max started to go more and more off the rails, Michael started coming into himself and stepping up. He was more in tune with himself and his powers than he'd ever been as a result. The fact that he could tell Liz apart from all the other employees that came and went was a testament to that control.
"Hey Michael," she greeted quietly, gracing him with a smile that was so rare to see on her face these days. She was proud of him, though, and wanted him to know it.
Michael nodded stoically. "Liz." His lips twitched slightly upward, making her own grin widen.
"Busy today?" she called, as she moved to pull her apron from her locker. She paused to run a brush through her long hair and tie it back.
"Nah." He pushed the latest order through the window and called it, then moved to the kitchen doorway to watch Liz get ready.
She eyed him warily, wondering what was making him go out of his way to prolong their conversation. He caught her expression and shifted a bit on his feet.
"His Royal Highness is on a tear," he said finally. He met her eyes briefly and looked away. "Seems to think you should play Bonnie to his Clyde."
Liz closed her locker and fussed with her apron strings while she translated his statement. "He wants me to help him find Zan?"
"Yeah. He wants the Pod Squad back in action," Michael said. "Just thought I should warn you."
She met his eyes. "He's coming in tonight, isn't he?" she concluded, putting two and two together.
She'd spent the previous week since the incident going directly home from school and hiding out from everyone. Since Jeff and Nancy hated Max, they'd happily fielded her calls and turned him away when he dropped by. Liz had a feeling they could sense something was off about him, and there was nothing they despised more than abnormality. They felt Kyle was a nice, perfect normal boy for her to date. She'd realized that was why she'd let herself get so caught up in Max: it pissed Jeff and Nancy off and gave her a way to rebel. This week was Thanksgiving Break, and she'd just dropped her parents off at the airport for a four-day conference. She'd been hoping to avoid the Pod Squad and use the time to catch up on all the schoolwork she'd neglected while investigating Alex's murder. Her eyes threatened to fill with tears at the thought of her lost friend. Michael patted her awkwardly on the shoulder before turning back to the safety of the kitchen.
"Thanks for the heads up," she called after him.
For the millionth time over the past four years, she wished the boys were here. Caleb, Pogue, Reid and Tyler: they were her real family. What the Pod Squad didn't know was that Liz was a Daughter of Ipswitch. The only daughter left, in fact. The other four Daughter families had refused to be driven from their homes in Europe, and the ones who weren't executed in the witch trials died fighting a great battle against demons. Liz's real mother had died of mysterious circumstances, and her father, wanting nothing to do with magic, had put her up for adoption. She was supposed to stay in Ipswich with the four Sons, but when Liz turned 13 and gained access to her power, Jeff and Nancy couldn't handle it. They thought she was a freak, and blamed it on her intensely close relationship with the Sons. The Covenant, led by the Elders, had tried to intervene and help Nancy and Jeff come to terms with the changes in Liz, but after a year of chaos, they broke.
The day after Liz's 8th Grade graduation, they pulled stakes and moved to Roswell with no warning. The Elders' hands were tied because the Parkers had legal custody of Liz. Moving, in turn, broke Liz. The only thing that saved her from the madness of having to deal with her growing powers all by herself was meeting Alex and Maria. They were the bright spots in the darkness. Alex was the only one that she'd actually told the truth about herself. He found her one day, eyes black, hands crackling with red sparks that she couldn't control. In his calm, Alex-like manner, he'd ignored all his fears and questions and simply asked, "Lizzie, what can I do?"
The Sons had turned up in Roswell that first summer, knowing how badly she needed them, but Jeff and Nancy had threatened to file a restraining order. Despite the vast legal, monetary and magical power of the Covenant, they couldn't interfere with parents' rights, and Liz didn't want the Elders to do anything drastic just to keep her there. For the first year she was gone, the Sons took turns visiting her in secret every month. Nancy and Jeff had found her entwined with Caleb in her bed one night, however, and had called the police and charged him with every heinous crime they could think of. None of them stuck, of course, but the point was made.
They didn't realize that having sex had been the last thing on the teens' minds at the time. Liz was overflowing with power and had no outlet. Overusing the power could lead to addiction, but to underuse it was just as deadly. They were stuffed full of magic and needed to let it out regularly or it would burn them up from the inside out. Sons and Daughters could also alleviate this need with skin-to-skin contact. Their magic was compatible, and when they touched they could share it without the addictive side effects. Liz had no one after the move, and no safe place to Use. This was the year they all turned 18, and she knew she couldn't handle Ascending alone. As it was, she'd taken to wearing thin leather gloves to cover the telltale glow of power racing beneath her flesh, and to stop her from coming into contact with non-Covenant skin.
Jeff and Nancy laid down the law for her: no more using her powers, no more contact with the Sons. They didn't listen when she tried to explain that not using her powers would kill her, and not being with the Sons would drive her insane. They were certain they could squash the magic and Otherness out of her by cutting her off from it completely. Liz, in a combination of retaliation and desperation, created her Perfect Liz Parker persona. In return for denying her her heritage, Liz gave them their version of the perfect daughter. Only it wasn't that simple. She was perfect on the surface: demur dress and hair, perfect grades, polite and dutiful behavior. But she was also completely passionless and bland. It was the best revenge she could think of. They demanded she change herself and conform to their idea of normality, and they got it in spades. But what they lost was any emotional connection they had forged with their adoptive daughter. She always said and did all the right things, but she was cold and lifeless. The only time she sparked to life was around her friends.
Bringing her thoughts back to the present, Liz stuffed an order pad and a pen in her apron pocket and pushed through the revolving doors out into the café proper. The restaurant was currently in that lull between the lunch and dinner rush, so she set about prepping her station and helping the outgoing waitstaff with their shift change duties. It was better to keep busy and not dwell. She was going to be Liz again, and not allow her need to fill the hole that leaving the Covenant had created drive her actions. No wonder she'd latched on to the aliens and their problems. They were different, and though their powers weren't compatible with hers, being around them was slightly soothing to her senses. She was past that now, and she was going to be with the Sons for her Ascension, even if she had to walk to Ipswich.