Title: On My Knees

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Summary: Five years, and she's still struggling just to survive.


Chapter One: Memories of Sand

Five years later…

She dreamt of Roswell often. Sometimes she would wake up in the middle of the night, and for a moment be convinced that she was back there, with all of them. In her dreams, Roswell was always covered with sand as though a great tornado had deposited the entire desert over the town and buried everyone underneath.

Sometimes, she would dream of walking over the half-buried town. She would see Alex's body, lifeless and still, half-hidden beneath a sand dune. Try as she might, she could never dig him free of the heavy weight before the dune collapsed and buried them both alive.

She'd wake up crying out in fear.

Once, when she took her son to the grocery store to buy bread and milk, she saw a boy who looked so exactly like Nicolas that her first thought was to attack him. Sometimes, she'd heard footfalls on the cement behind her and when she turned around, caught a glimpse of a shadow disappearing into the alley. A cat slinking away, a stray dog looking for a place to sleep through the night, but she'd think of Rath and Lonnie and end up trembling with overwhelming emotions.


Tess woke with a sudden start, momentarily blinded in the dim light. As her eyes adjusted, she took in the familiar surroundings of the small bedroom. Moonlight cascaded through the grimy glass, casting shadows along the threadbare rug and the whitewashed walls. The man in the bed next to her groaned and opened his eyes, giving Tess a bleary and confused look.

"Tess? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, Nick," Tess replied, pulling herself from the bed. "Just a bad dream. Go back to sleep." She turned her back on him and walked to the window. Her thoughts were, as usual, a jumbled mess that she couldn't quite sort out.

Nick pushed himself to a sitting position and gave Tess a skeptical look. "Something's wrong," he said, refusing to believe Tess' reassurances. "Tell me what it is."

Tess glanced over her shoulder, studying Nick's face. He had light brown hair, a sort of sandy color that reminded her of the beach near where they lived. His eyes, blue as hers, were filled with concern and love. His chin was slightly pointed and his slender nose gave him an aristocratic look.

She thought idly that he would have fit in well at the royal court on Antar.

"I was just… it was just a bad dream," Tess repeated, swallowing her own fears and forcing a smile.

Nick clearly doubted her words, but instead of pressing the subject, he rose silently and cross the room until he was standing directly behind her. She was looking out the window again, and he wrapped his arms around her waist and felt her lean back into his embrace.

Out of the window, they could see the distant mountain ranges rising over Lake Washington, and Tess thought to herself that she absolutely loved Seattle. She loved everything about it from the constant drizzle of rain to the lousy public transportation, to the beautiful Mt. Rainer, outlined against the sky in the southeast.

But, as usual, the beauty of this view and the warmth of Nick's arms were interrupted by the shiver that ran down her spine, the beginning of memories she wanted to forget. She could not block out the look of pain and betrayal on Alex's face as he fell.

Nick released his hold on her and turned with a slight frown. "Alex is waking," he said quietly, and a moment later the sound of soft footsteps on the hallway floor outside their room signaled the approach of her five-year-old son. The door pushed open, and a little head poked around it, unruly brown hair falling over blue eyes.

"Mommy? Daddy? I 'ad a bad dweam," the boy said in his high-pitched voice.

Nick crossed the room and lifted Alex into his arms. He glanced over at Tess, then said to Alex, "Do you want me to read you a story?"

Alex nodded, his head bobbing up and down, and then he added, "And fight 'way the mons'ers under my bed?"

"Sure, buddy," Nick said with a smile. "Come on, let's go scare away those monsters." And he carried Alex from the room, shutting the door softly behind him.

"You destroyed my mind. How could you do this to me?"

In the darkness of the room, Tess rubbed her weary eyes and let out a slow breath, listening to the tap of the light rain now falling against the roof.

"I didn't kill you," she whispered, her words lingering in the still air. "I didn't…"

The desert glistened underneath the soft light of the moon. Her feet crunched on the sand and rock as she stepped out of the car and looked around.

He was standing there. She wasn't surprised by his presence, but it also meant little to her that he was there. He was in her mind, constantly, and she no longer needed to see his physical form to hear his cold and cruel voice.

"Push the car off the road," he ordered calmly.

She shook her head, blonde curls bouncing, eyes opened wide and pleading. "Why are you doing this, Nicolas?" she asked. "Why did you have to kill him?"

Nicolas frowned and looked at the car. Through the grimy window, he could see the still body, slumped over in the driver's seat, waiting for the inevitable. "He wasn't supposed to die," Nicolas admitted. "We didn't know how strong your mind-warp was. We didn't…" Then he seemed to start, as though realizing that he was justifying himself to his enemy, and his face twisted into a sneer. "Do it," he ordered again.

"Please… just let Alex rest in peace."

"I am," Nicolas answered, and now his tone was bordering on impatience. "But we can't very well have you get caught, can we? How will you bring the other royals to us if they find out the truth?"

"I won't," she cried, her face flushed with passion. "I won't betray them. I won't let you use me to get to them."

"Oh, but you will," Nicolas answered. "You'll betray them all, Ava darling." His eyes narrowed. "Now… do it," and he pointed at the cliff.

Against her will, she felt her body start to move. One hand extended out in front of her, now glowing with a fiery red and white. Inside her own mind, her voice screamed, over and over, but her body kept moving. Against her will, she watched helplessly as the car sputtered and jumped, then slipped over the edge.

When it finally smashed to a stop at the base of the cliff, a swirl of dust rose into the air, golden and red like the sand that stretched out all around them. Her eyes burned with unshed tears as she thought of the devastation that was sure to follow tomorrow when the body was found. If she could have, she would have confessed it all to Max and let him simply kill her before she could do more damage. But her mouth would never obey a command to reveal the truth, and she was still left living a nightmare.

When she turned back to Nicolas, he was gone, the only remnant of his presence two footprints in the sand.

"Tess?"

She pulled herself away from the painful memory and turned to Nick, who had appeared in the doorway to the room again. With a weary sigh, she asked, "Is Alex asleep?" As always, when she spoke of her son, her eyes began to glitter slightly, to be filled with a light that was often absent.

"Yes, he drifted off the moment I started to tell him about Aladdin," Nick answered. He studied her pale and drawn face, and said, "You should get some sleep as well."

She tried to smile, but she had the feeling that it came out more as a grimace. "Alex isn't the only one having nightmares," she remarked, the light in her eyes fading slightly. She walked over to the bed and sat down, sinking into the mattress.

It wasn't easy for Tess, and Nick knew that. She saw danger everywhere, in everyone. Try as she might, she would never be able to outrun what had happened, never able to escape from the past. Roswell still hung over her like an all-encompassing shadow.

Nick sat down next to her and wrapped one arm around her slender shoulders and she leaned her petite frame against him.

Sometimes, late at night, Nick wondered if she ever looked at him and wished he was someone else. He'd catch her, on occasion, staring out into nothing with that faraway look in her eyes, the look she had whenever she was thinking of… Max.

There, he's thought the name. The name no one mentioned. The name no one dared to say aloud.

There were many names they didn't say. He knew all of them now, knew what to avoid, knew who she was speaking about when she refused to refer to people by their names, but merely talked in vague and disconnected thoughts.

Max. Kyle, Jim. Michael, Isabel, Maria, Liz… Alex.

She never mentioned anything about her son's namesake. She never explained why she had named him that, never explained why she had been forced to leave Roswell, never explained any of it.

When Alex first started to call Nick 'Daddy,' Tess had flinched and looked away. It took Nick months to realize that she was not upset with him for pretending to be Alex's father, in fact she was thrilled that her son would have someone to look up to, someone who could provide all the parental roles generally associated with fathers. No, what upset her so much was that every time Alex said 'Daddy,' she thought if his real father, and that only served to bring back memories of what had happened, of what had been taken from her.

She never sought them out. She'd never even once expressed any interest in finding them again. She was running, and Nick had no idea what she was trying to avoid, what she wanted to forget. Just that it was painful. Just that it was in the past.

Just that it had to do with Roswell.

Whatever it was, it had Tess scared. Terrified. Because she knew… it was all so easy…

One simple mistake and the entire world could come crashing down.


Nick drained the last of the coffee from his cup and glanced around the small Starbucks. The two people sitting across from him were watching him cautiously, waiting for him to explain why he had asked to see them. But he really couldn't put into words just what he was concerned about, so he procrastinated by studying the people passing by outside the window.

"You know," one of his companions said with a slight quirk to her lips, "no matter how long you stay silent, you are going to need to tell us what is going on at some point." She ran a hand through her fiery red hair and waited for an answer with an impatient air.

"Leave him be, Kate," the other man said, giving her a sharp look. "Obviously, this is not easy for him to talk about."

"Then why did he call us, Charlie?" Kate hissed pointedly.

"Because I'm worried about Tess," Nick interrupted before the two of them could get into an argument. "Something's wrong, and it isn't… well, it isn't something I can help her with. At least, I don't know how to help her."

Kate gave Nick a guarded look and asked, "Do you want me to talk to her?" At twenty-five, she had already completed her Masters of Social Work degree, putting her in the perfect position to hand out psychological advice.

"I don't know," Nick admitted. "Do you think it would help?"

He and Kate had met while they were both getting different degrees at the University of Washington. He had gone into biochemistry and worked as a lab technologist in a biotech engineering company. Charlie, two years older than them, worked in a law firm, and had met Kate at a company party a few years ago. Sparks had flown, and within a few weeks they were dating.

"What exactly is wrong with her?" Charlie asked, pushing his cup back and forth between his hands.

Nick shrugged. "She hasn't slept through the night in forever. Every time she wakes up, she tells me it is nothing and to go back to sleep, but the look on her face when she first comes out of her dreams…" He trailed off and sighed. "I'm worried."

Tess had shown up in Seattle five years ago with a newborn son and a past she refused to talk about. She was a few years younger than all of them, but something about the way she talked and acted made her seem much older. Although Nick had had some reservations about dating something who had a child at such a young age, he had still been drawn to Tess. She had enrolled in classes at the University of Washington upon arrival and completed a Bachelors of Arts degree in history. Unlike the other three, she had not pursued graduate school or a career, but had instead taken a part time job at one of the local libraries and immersed herself in raising her son.

"There's always been something different about her," Kate mused, "and I don't mean just the whole running from the past with a son. Something else…"

"Maybe she's really a witch sent to corrupt us all," Charlie suggested with a yawn.

Kate glared at him.

"Kidding," Charlie muttered, holding his hands up in surrender. "Just kidding." He slanted a quick look at Nick and said, "I can talk to her too, if you want. Maybe get her to open up about it."

"I'm the social worker," Kate pointed out.

It was a very argumentative relationship, Nick reflected. He had never met two people who enjoyed debating each other as much, although Tess had mentioned once that they reminded her of a couple she had known back in Roswell.

It was one of the very few times she mentioned her past.

"She doesn't want a social worker," Nick answered finally, rubbing his hands together to warm them up. "And I don't want her to think that I don't trust her to deal with everything on her own."

"But you don't trust her to do that," Charlie countered. "Otherwise you would have just left it all alone."

Nick bit his lip. "I love her. I'm worried. That's all."


"I'm sorry, Ms. Parker," the doctor said sympathetically as he glanced over her chart, "but the prognosis is not good. There are some new, radical treatments, but… They aren't proven to work."

Liz sat on the edge of the hospital bed, swinging her feet over the side, and listening to the doctor with a heavy heart. Max stood behind her, one hand resting on her shoulder as though to keep her steady.

"These new treatments," Max asked with a strain in his voice, "who offers them?"

"There is a doctor who teaches at the University of Washington Medical School. He's a friend of mine, I can put you in touch with him," the doctor said. He frowned and added, "I know of two doctors at Harvard as well, although they don't have quite as successful a record. And, you would have to fly to Boston."

"Seattle is closer," Liz agreed.

"But Isabel is in Boston," Max pointed out.

"Is this Isabel a friend of yours?" the doctor asked curiously.

"My sister," Max replied. "She and her husband live in Boston."

"Well, you will want to consider Boston then because it will provide a better support system, having your sister and brother-in-law there. On the other hand, Seattle has the better medical record." The doctor shrugged and placed the chart down on the table. "It's really your call, Ms. Parker."

Liz nodded and shared a concerned look with Max. "What do you think?"

Max ran hand through his hair and sat down next to her. "Seattle has better medicine…" he murmured. "But Isabel…" It was a difficult decision, especially since there was no guarantee that Liz would survive this anyway.

"Why don't I give you two some time to think this over?" the doctor offered with a small smile. "I'll be back to check on you in a few minutes."

He left the room, and Liz leaned back against the bed. The tubes zigzagged over her, connection the IV bag at her side to the thin needle in her arm. Another device, strapped to her finger, measured the amount of oxygen in her blood. Two narrow tubes looped around her face and into nose, distributing pure oxygen to her brain and body.

"This doesn't make any sense," Max said the moment the doctor was gone. He stared at his girlfriend's pale face, her usually tan skin now almost white. She looked exhausted, her eyes rimmed with red and accentuated by the dark circles beneath them. "I should be able to heal you."

"You couldn't heal my grandmother," Liz pointed out tiredly.

"It was her time to die," Max answered. "It isn't your time. You're barely twenty-two, I can't…" He threw up his hands in frustration. "I was able to heal Brody's daughter when she had leukemia."

"You tried healing me," Liz responded, "but the cancer didn't go away." She shivered, suddenly cold. She was often cold. Max said it was because there was no muscle or fat on her thin bones. Her body had struggled hard against the cancer and the treatments, but the radiation and chemotherapy had left her weak and ill. Her hair was finally starting to grow in after the last chemotherapy treatment, and now it hung about chin-length. Instead of making her look healthier, however, the contrast of the dark hair only served to emphasize her pale skin.

Max nodded reluctantly.

"Maybe it is my time to die," Liz continued.

"No!" Max hissed. "You can't think like that. You'll get better. Seattle or Boston… one of those places will make you better."

Up until now, life had treated them all well. Liz had followed her dream of being a molecular biologist, although she'd substituted Stanford for Harvard and they consequently still lived in California near the school where she had received her degree. Isabel and Jesse were still in Boston, which was hard on the rest of the group, having them so far away. Maria was pursing a singing career in Los Angeles, and had made a name for herself among the jazz clubs of the city. Michael, in a rare display of ambition and determination, had decided to go into film, and, with a little help from Kal Langley, had found himself as assistant to the director or producer on several different projects.

And then the cancer struck.

And their happy lives had been ruined by the realization that Liz might die.

"I think we should go to Seattle," Max said at last. "It has the better medicine. And Isabel and Jesse can always fly out to visit us."

"Are you sure you can go?" Liz asked softly, reaching up and taking Max's hand. "It isn't a great time for you to leave your responsibilities…"

There was still constant alien activity, mostly from the skins. Kal had been watching it, analyzing the patterns and determining when and where Max was needed most at any given time. Over the past few years, Max had done his best to repair his ruined relationship with the shape-shifter. Although Kal had never completely forgiven the hybrid king for forcing him to lose his hard-won humanity by shifting to the control panel of the space-ship, he had learned to keep his grudge to the bare minimum.

It wasn't a good time to leave his responsibilities. But he couldn't let Liz go through this alone.

"I'll speak to Michael and Kal. They can take care of everything until I get you settled in Seattle. Then I can fly back and forth," Max said at last.

Liz accepted this in silence, then changed the subject. "Have you spoken to Maria yet today? I told her I would call her, but then…" She gestured to the hospital room around them and said, "I guess I got a little side-tracked."

She'd passed out on the floor of the kitchen in their little apartment, and Max had found her lying still beside the sink. He'd rushed her to the hospital, and so any plans they might have had for the day had been put aside.

"I'll call her," Max said, rising. He knew how much Maria would panic if she did not hear from Liz when expected. Liz returned phone calls religiously, and the only time she would neglect to do so would be if she was in the hospital. But she'd been in the hospital a lot lately, as the cancer grew steadily and consumed her body.

Max walked out of the hospital room. Maria would need to know about this new development, and then he would call Isabel and tell her that he was going to Seattle for a bit. Maybe she and Jesse would come visit Liz whenever he had to fly back to California.

A nurse passed by, leading a young child along beside her. The boy was probably four or five, with bright blonde hair and big brown eyes, and he smiled eagerly at Max. Max stopped, staring at the child, and unbidden thoughts of his own son rose in his mind.

He didn't think about Tess much these days, but his son was often on his mind. He wanted to know how the child was faring; was he safe, was he happy, was he well?

About two years ago, they'd spoken to Larek during one of the few times that the alien had managed to successfully possess Brody. Among other things, Larek had told him that Tess and his son were no longer on Antar. He did not know the full details of what had happened, or where the two had gone, and his sources had not discovered any other leads on this new development. It was likely that she had merely decided to sit out the rest of the bloody civil war on a safer, more enjoyable planet.

The little boy and the nurse continued on, and Max pulled out his cell phone and dialed Maria's number.


Kyle stood in front of the grave, rubbing his hands on his pants, and staring blankly at the granite slate at his feet. The words etched across the cold stone resonated in front of him, and he licked his dry lips as the heavy weight of grief settled on his shoulders.

Jennifer Lewis Valenti, beloved wife and mother. May she rest in peace.

One month since her death, and Kyle's entire world had been turned upside-down.

Everything that had ever gone wrong in his life started with the appearance of the aliens. Sometimes, when he thought of Roswell, his life seemed like a mixed-up fairy tale where he was somehow always the villain or the fool.

Once upon a time, there was a young boy. And he had a mother and a father and they loved him very much…

Only in his version of the story the mother ran off because she couldn't handle the pressures of motherhood, leaving the little boy to sit in front of the window and stare blankly into the street, waiting for her return.

Then boy meets girl and they fall in love and live happily ever after…

Kyle let out a short hiss as he thought of Liz. He'd loved Liz, in his own way. She was probably the first girl he had ever loved, and she'd ripped his heart out and trampled it, then actually had the gall to get angry at him when he wasn't as understanding of her love for Max as she had hoped.

So really, the story went more along the lines of boy met girl, boy fell in love with girl, girl lied to him and started dating Alien King behind his back while still using him and his father to protect Alien King and his Band of Loyal Followers.

It was starting to rain. The soft drizzle pattered on the ground around him, but he hadn't brought an umbrella, and he had no desire to leave. He let the precipitation slip under the collar of his shirt and soak through his pants, shoes, and socks. His hair was soon plastered to his face, and he continued to stare at the grave.

He didn't like to think about the next part of the story. It was simply to painful to remember that laugh, those teasing blue eyes, the sarcastic wit that had made itself a presence in his home for that year.

Mysterious New Girl shows up. Boy likes Mysterious New Girl. But Mysterious New Girl turns out to be just another one of Alien King's Band of Loyal Followers, and only cares about getting together with Alien King. Boy is used… again.

But it's okay, because boy's father opens his house to Mysterious New Girl, and at some point boy realizes that he loves her like a sister, and so they become one happily family…

Until Mysterious New Girl turns into Evil Alien Murdering Traitor, kills boy's friend and uses boy to carry dead body and stage car accident. Then leaves planet with Alien King's unborn son.

After Tess' departure, Kyle and his father had started pulling away from the group. Jim had lost his job as Sheriff and his reputation in the town. He'd sunken into depression, pulling further and further away from his son as his life spiraled downhill. Kyle had been forced to save himself and his father, and he had never forgiven Max for what they had done to his family.

So when graduation came, he'd left town the next day, and he hadn't looked back. He could occasionally visit his father in Roswell, but he would always take great pain to avoid the parents of anyone else. He had started over, built a new life, and he refused to think over everything he had left behind.

He'd gone to UCLA on a football scholarship, where he had met Jennifer, who was two years older than him. He'd completed his course work in three years instead of the usual four, and then he and Jennifer had been married. They'd moved to Chicago. She'd gotten pregnant and had a beautiful baby girl who they had named Emily, and everything had been wonderful until…

One month ago. The car crash.

And now Kyle was standing at the grave of his wife, commemorating the one-month-anniversary of her death.

Emily was only one-year-old, and she had so few memories of her mother. Kyle and Jennifer had been married for only two years, and now she was gone, snatched away by an unlucky fate. When the police had brought Kyle the news of her death, of the ruined car found near the foot of an overpass, he'd thought of Alex.

It wasn't his birthday. Unlike Alex, she had not died on some important day of the year.

But he loved her, and she was gone, and everything was crumbling around him.

He couldn't raise Emily by himself. He had to go back to graduate school at some point, and right now he still needed to work his job to earn the money to buy all the very expensive things that children need. So he had been forced to do the one thing he had never wanted to do, the one thing he had promised himself he would avoid at all costs.

He was returning to Roswell.

Jim, now on his feet and holding a steady job and a steady life, could look after his granddaughter while Kyle worked as an intern at Philip Evans law firm. Eventually, he would go to law school at some state school in New Mexico. But his life would now be tethered to the desert town he hated so much.