Insanity is relative:

By Mystfaery

Disclaimer: Don't own them...

Summary: memories in a mental institute, it's like a one-sided conversation

NB: this is weird and depressing I suppose, it came to me in a fit of creativity.

It's also my first finished Roswell fic...feedback plz.

I am not insane.

But sometimes I wish I was.

I am not insane.

My name is Maria Rose Deluca-Guerin and I was 23 when they shattered my life.

I am not insane.

They claim I suffer from paranoid delusions. It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.

If I'm not insane then how did I get here? I'm fully human and of little use to their projects. I sometimes think one of them felt guilty and could not kill me, free me. So I was sent here, the Institute. It doesn't live up to its bleak name; it's a nice building with nice staff, like you. Nice enough if you were actually insane...something, which I already covered, I am not. How did I get here, sometimes I wonder, but the truth is I can trace my trip to here from one moment in time. And to be honest even knowing the hell that is my life now, I will never regret it.

I was sixteen when my best friend was shot, a simple bullet from an argument in the Crashdown where we worked. I was sixteen when Max Evans saved my best friend. I was sixteen when I learned aliens existed. Max, his sister Isabel and his best friend Michael, were 'not of this world.'

Shut up. Are you going to listen to me or argue about the impracticalities of that? Just fucking listen.

Max had watched Liz for so long loving her and the thought of her death terrified him so much he was willing to risk them all for her. She loved him back. When she first told me about Max, Isabel, and Michael being aliens I freaked...just a little bit. Things changed over time and I stopped caring about the whole alien thing. We even had a code word for it - Liz and I -Czechoslovakians. I suppose I was still removed from it all until Michael. I helped and covered up but it was only for Liz and I didn't really care about the others. Then I fell in love with an annoying Czech with bad hair...Michael. Damn, the boy annoyed me so much, one minute we would be making out, the next he would either make some stupid comment or freak out because I was coming too close to him. Let me just say, the relationship schizophrenia made me nauseous at times. Tess arrived, I never liked that girl and she brought with her the whole load of destiny bs. Michael used that as yet another excuse to push me away, some shit about loving me too much.

I never gave up on him, love is like that it swallows you whole and then spits you back out, broken and begging to be let back in. Summer came and Max and I bonded over our relationship angst. I was slowly becoming closer with the whole group and I cared about them all, In a year Alex, Liz and I had turned into eight. A whole lot of stuff happened, I doubt you would care, just write it down in your fancy little book as evidence of my alien delusions. Michael and I went to the prom together, pretty much a dream night. Alex finally got though to the Ice Queen Isabel. They fell in love that night, pity it only last three days. Alex died three days later in a car crash, or so we believed. Tess had killed him, mindwarped his brains out. She manipulated Max who slept with her leaving her pregnant with a baby who could not survive on earth. They almost left us, he almost left me. Michael came to me the night, they were going to leave. We made love. He stayed for me, even before they knew of Tess's betrayal. God, he filled my heart, still does.

Things just got better from then on. We believed they had given up on us. That we our big mistake. Liz and Max eloped to Vegas at nineteen. I was the maid of honor and Michael the best man. I like to think Alexis was conceived that night. It was magical. We married soon after and settled into a happy little life. Michael was an artist and I ran the Crashdown. Max and Liz lived in Boston doing their smart people thing and looking for anything to save Max's son. Isabel ...Isabel had a life of pain, she never recovered from Alex, but she loved Alexis so much.

Life was normal and life was good. I was 22 and Alexis two when Max and Liz disappeared. Just disappeared into thin air. For the first time in years we felt the tingle of being watched, the paranoia.

I was 23 when they came. I remember the day Michael and I were taken, it was sunny and bright. Such an odd day for the beginning of hell. Michael and I were ...relaxing. Isabel was taking care of Alexis at her flat and everything seemed perfect. The squad entered the house noiselessly, we felt them only when the cool hard feel of steel on the backs of our necks. Everything froze, y'know how disaster victims say that everything went quiet and they can still see everything emblazoned on their eyelids? I can. I could go into great detail about their voices and the clothes they wore. But what's the point, it haunts me enough already. All that matters is Michael distracted them long enough for me to press the emergency button on my cell, to beep Isabel and tell her to run with Alexis.

They took us to a secret base...or at least I assume it was. You can't see much when you're knocked out. I saw Michael once more before they tore us apart, I held his hand as the hired bullies yanked him away, it took six of them to pull us apart and that was after they had taken Michael's power. They shot him with a tranquilizer, he looked at me one last time and mouthed "I love you." I never saw him again. They kept me long enough to see I was human and then they sent me here.

I am 33 years now, Alexis is 13. She lives with her aunt Isabel under assumed names and you will never catch her. My husband is dead, on an operating table I assume. How do I know this? Isabel told me, she dreamwalks me. My daughter is safe, and she is loved. My husband is dead and he was loved. And me? I do not belong here. I do not suffer from paranoid delusions. Every word I have told you is true, whether you chose to believe or not.

I am not insane.

The End