bonds1 Title: Unbroken Bonds
Author: Mel (e-mail me at cosmic_quest@yahoo.com)
Disclaimer: The characters of 'Roswell' are all the property of Melissa Mentz, Jason Katims and Warner Brothers and no profit has been made by my utilising them in this story. All the other characters belong to the author of this story (i.e., me!).
Rating: PG-13 for language and angst.
Pairings: Liz/Max
Summery: Forced to watch as Max decides to pursue his 'destiny' with Tess, Liz leaves Roswell hiding a hefty secret from him. When they meet again twelve years later, he finds both Liz and her life have changed more than he could ever have imagined...
Author's Notes: The beginning of this story is set shortly after the second season episode 'Cry Your Name' then it follows a different timeline from the show.
Archiving: As long as you ask first and inform me of where it's going, it should be okay.
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Liz Parker faced at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, her brow furrowed at the stranger with puffy red eyes and limp hair staring back at her. Barely seventeen years old, and anyone would assume she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders.

And that analogy was not far wrong.

In a space of two years, her life had altered dramatically. Aged sweet sixteen, Liz had been shot in her parents cafe by an armed robbery attempt only to be saved by Max Evans, alien royal and the love of her life. If that wasn't traumatic enough, she had been forced to give him up to save the fate of the future lest their love be at the cost of Michael and Isabel's lives.

Watching Max draped all over Tess- his 'true' love- was not only nauseating but also heart-breaking for Liz. The boy she thought she loved was like a different person and if she didn't know any better, she would have assumed the clones had taken real Max's place. But no, Liz had to accept that this was the new Max and he was here to stay- or at least stay until he and his little Royal Troop found their way back to his alien kingdom located God only knew where.

And now there was this new development; one which Liz could not trust Max with. She had finally comprehended that fact with the way he handled Alex's death and his stubborn refusal to believe his precious alien ties were someway connected with the so-called suicide of one of her closest friends.

No, the only way to deal with this was to leave. To runaway and leave Roswell and Max far behind; to start a new life where aliens and psychotic FBI agents were only a distant memory.

As an unusually bright girl for her years, it would be easy for Liz to graduate school early and attend a university in some distant state. It would be difficult, especially with her special 'circumstances', but she had little choice. She couldn't allow Max to discover her secret and destroy what little she had left. She could do this alone, she had to.

Yet even as the teenager planned this new beginning, deep within her lay the knowledge that she would have to one day face Max Evans once again. But, for now, so long as she guarded her secret with her life then the ball was in her court...

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TWELVE YEARS LATER...

Sighing heavily, Max Evans forced himself not to slump at the steering wheel of his Land Rover. It had been yet another long day of splitting his time between work and lounging in his house, doing nothing except brood for what might have been, and he was minutely gratified the twilight hours had finally arrived.

At least now he had the chance to do something, even if all he did was patrol the desolate streets of the Roswell.

Though some of his personal effects were still in storage in New York, he spent much of the past nine years back at his childhood town of Roswell. He had even gone through the motions of becoming a deputy sheriff, a job he had now held down for close to six years. The young man wasn't sure why he stayed in the small town, what brought him back to it, but after he divorced Tess there was certainly nothing but dismal memories in New York so he saw little point in remaining there.

"Hey, no more brooding," a stern voice warned.

Max looked up to meet the iron-willed, blue-eyed gaze of his sister, Isabel. He wasn't sure what he would do without her presence. When he had returned to Roswell after the divorce, it was Isabel and his best friend Michael who forced him to move on at a point in his life when all he wanted to do was walk over the nearest cliff.

As the leader of the Royal Four, Max had felt it was his responsibility to be the first to accept his 'destiny' with Tess and lead the way for Isabel and Michael to follow suit. Things hadn't worked out the way it was meant to, of course; when was life ever predictable? As it was, over the past years since the beginning of the end of his disastrous relationship with Tess, it was Isabel and Michael who were his life line to sanity.

It hadn't worked that way; instead, he had succeeded in hurting his only true love Liz Parker to the point of forcing her to leave Roswell forever. And ironically, it had been Tess who had relinquished her responsibilities and left him for a biologist she had met from his college biology class. It was then he finally realized that all he had sacrificed was really for nothing, for a world he didn't know and didn't want to know.

Now he was alone, his continual attempts to track down Liz in vain.

It was hard watching Isabel make a new life for herself while his was falling apart as each day wore on. No longer the aloof teenage girl he once knew, his sister had begun teaching first grade at Roswell Elementary School soon after gaining her teaching diploma, and was now considering of starting a family with her husband of two years, Kyle Valenti.

Hell, even the rebellious Michael was more settled than him, carving a half-way normal life with Maria DeLuca. Watching his friends become happy couples only seemed to emphasize that everyone was moving on except him.

Of course, as with him, Isabel and Michael was still part of the Royal Four. With that burden always hanging over them, they did accept their alien roots might play a part in their future. Nonetheless they would always keep their human lovers and friends close to their side. Unfortunately for Max, he learned too late to learn that no matter what his DNA says, his home would always be Earth. That was something that of all people, Tess had taught him.

And, as the saying went, Max had made his bed twelve years ago and now he had to lie in it...not matter how lonely it was. Besides, the dark-haired girl who had once held his heart then had probably washed her hands of him ages ago, especially given the atrocious way he had treated her.

Max sighed, attempting in vain to push away unwanted memories. "It's okay, Issy, I'm fine," he reassured his sister. "And I wasn't brooding, I was thinking."

"Yeah, sure you were." She opened the door, and taking a moment to muster up the energy to move, he stepped out into the chilly night air. "If 'thinking' was an Olympic sport along with brooding, you'd be a double gold winner."

He shrugged. "Then at least I would have achieved something," he muttered. "The troops inside?"

Not waiting for an answer, he began to traipse toward the front door of the modest, two-bedroomed bungalow that was the Evans-Valenti residence. Isabel took in his slouched shoulders and depressing aura, he looked like he was carrying the weight on the world on his shoulders.

Determined not to give in to her brother's sullen mood, she ran to catch up with him. "So what have you been up to?"

"Huh? Oh, nothing much." Well, that did not surprise Isabel- when did he ever do anything?

Isabel's frustrated squint informed him that she was once again on her mission to force him to take some pleasure in the world. She worried for him, she couldn't help it. They may not have seen eye-to-eye over that rocky period years ago when 'King' Max tried to throw his weight around, but he was her brother and she would always cared for him. That would never change. Only, it was like a role-reversal of the old days where it was who he now occupied the Ice King of the relationship and she was the relaxed and understanding one.

"Oh, Max, you should be out there doing things, living..."

"I am living," he pointed out.

Isabel pursed her lips in suppressed amusement. "Okay, but you should be doing the things other alien pod people do when they're not fearing for their lives from the FBI."

"There's nothing I *want* to do, Is," Max admitted. "I know I should be grateful we're safe and free...but now what?" He sighed, looking up into his sister's deep blue eyes. "Nothing interests me anymore."

There was a perfectly obvious reason why nothing really interested him; there was nothing or no-one in his life that matched up to his template of what he wanted. Isabel knew that in the last decade years all that Max did was scrutinized against what his life would have been like if he had remained with one woman- Elizabeth Parker, Roswell's former first class student and his ex-girlfriend.

During the brief two-and-a-half years Max and Liz were together, striving to maintain a balance between being normal teenagers and hiding the pod squad's alien heritage from the authorities, it was blatantly evident the pair were so much more than childhood sweethearts. They were soulmates who would do anything for the other.

Isabel had come upon this realization a few months after her brother and Michael had returned to Roswell after achieving killing off the rest of the Skins. She had found him staring mesmerized at a photo of him and a laughing Liz, frozen in happier times before all the trauma of Tess' arrival and Alex Whitman's death.

In her younger days, Isabel was consumed with resentment over Alex's tragic death and with that fact that Max's domineering manner was just his way of punishing the others for the fact he was putting Tess and destiny before his own happiness. As she matured and settled into a happy marriage with Kyle all she could feel was pity and sorrow that her brother had lost whatever chance he had with Liz the day he walked out on her.

Although Max denied it, Isabel knew her brother would sometimes pine for Liz for the time that had passed was not enough to separate soulmates. That was an old lesson. Now free for their so-called destiny as the Royal Four and released from Tess, try as she might to make Max to show an interest other pursuits and other women, she knew it would never be enough.

Isabel could only pray he would find happiness elsewhere when- or should it be 'if'- he learnt to let go of a girl he would probably never see again.

Suddenly, an idea popped into Isabel's stubborn mind. "Hey, I've got a great idea!" she exclaimed, grinning broadly.

Max's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Okay, I'll give. What's your 'great' idea?"

Biting back a smile, Isabel had to admit how well Max knew her. "Well, the guys and I decided to go out tomorrow night, do something interesting. Would you like to come? It'll be fun and you can do the patrolling while we're there since half the town will be there."

Max wasn't really getting a choice in the matter, Isabel was determined to bring him into the real world even if she had to resort to bullying and blackmailing.

Sighing heavily, Max could see the young woman's resolve. "Where are you going?"

Momentarily stunned at how easily he agreed, Isabel hesitated then pulled out a leaflet from her pockets and smiled. It was advertising a carnival being held in the town in aid of funding the elementary school library. "*We're* going to the fair, it'll be good to pretend we're young again."

"The fair? I haven't been to a carnival since I was fourteen years old and got sick from the beer we manage to pinch from Dad's drinks cabinet."

Isabel wrinkled her nose in disgust, recalling how her brother had spent half the night hanging from the toilet after that little escapade. "Come on, Max, there's something at the carnival for everyone, and this time you can handle your drink. You'll enjoy yourself." Deliberately, the young woman added a pinch of sisterly pleading into her tone.

Max rolled his dark eyes and sighed once more. "Oh, okay, but just for a little while." A slow and rare smile crept across his handsome features. "So 'something for everyone', huh? Well, I'll be holding you to that."

TBC...

End Of Chapter One