A/N: I suppose this is where my story will diverge from the series a bit. I didn't anticipate learning what we did about Alex's duties in the Air Force last week, so that sadly won't be included. But I hope you're enjoying it as much as I'm enjoying writing it. And if you like, please leave a review. Thanks!
...
March 1, 2018
It was a long drive, back and forth from Roswell to the hospital. But Michael didn't mind. He liked driving, with the window down and nothing but a long track of asphalt ahead of him. And it wasn't like he could afford a motel room near the hospital anyway.
He got back late that first night and stopped at Max's house to borrow some books. Luckily the deputy was out working the night shift, so Michael didn't have to explain what they were for. He was sure there would be pointed questions and teasing comments about his sudden desire to read Kerouac or Dickens. In the end, he wasn't sure what Alex would like and picked a few at random based on their level of wear and tear. He figured if Max had read them more than a few times, they couldn't be that bad.
The next morning he set out early, before the sun was even fully above the horizon. He stopped at the bakery for a donut and coffee which was the only splurge he could really afford that week. His lunch in the brown bag on the passenger seat was a bean burrito and an apple - not the worst thing he'd ever eaten. And then there was nothing but 125 miles of sun-baked dirt to look forward to.
He passed a few big trucks but very few cars, which just proved he was up earlier than usual. After the long drive and the quick break-in at Max's (he didn't feel it qualified as breaking and entering if he turned the deadbolt with his brain), Michael had crashed into bed. No drinking; no sitting by the fire, brooding; just sleep. Very deep sleep.
It was… weird, actually; but weirdly nice, too. It was rare that he could fall asleep and stay that way for a decent number of hours, without chemical help. Sleep was easy to come by with enough acetone or other substances, but for Michael it was never restful.
In contrast, this morning he felt bright, sharp and un-clouded. Again, not something he was used to, but a nice feeling all the same. He refused to think too closely about the reason. It certainly wasn't because he was on his way to see Alex.
Nope. Not thinking about it.
Instead, he concentrated on the horizon in the distance, and the way the sun felt on the back of his head as it streamed in from the east.
The same nurse was at the central, round desk when he got off the elevator with his lunch and shopping bag of books.
She glanced up at him, and then returned to the chart in her hands. "He'll be glad to see you're back today."
Michael just rolled his eyes. "Still unconscious."
"Doesn't matter," she replied with a smile.
He took a deep breath before walking in but didn't let his nerves hold him at the door. Alex was just where he'd left him. The hospital gown had changed to baby blue, and the sheets were newly tucked-in. But other than that, it was like he'd never left.
After swinging the door nearly shut, Michael leaned down to kiss Alex's forehead through his bandage.
"Mornin', Private."
The sun was glaring in through the windows, warming Alex's skin. But Michael was worried it might be hurting his eyes, so he carefully tilted the blinds.
"There, that's better. Don't want to fry your retinas."
Once he was sure there was nothing else he could do to make Alex more comfortable, he took up his previous position in the chair.
"So, I thought, rather than listen to home town facts again, maybe I could read something? At least then we won't have to resort to talking about the weather or some crap."
He dug around in the bag and picked the first one his fingers could grab.
"Seriously?" Michael muttered under his breath. "That's some twisted, cosmic karma."
He stared at the paperback's cover, disbelieving. He really should have just brought one of his physics texts. But it would be a long day of one-sided small talk if he didn't read something. With that in mind he turned the yellowed pages until he got to the beginning of the story.
"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy…"
He read to the end of the first chapter, rolling his eyes at Adams' descriptions of alien beings and planets.
If only he knew.
For an analytical mind like Michael's it was too many made-up words, too much comedic fantasy. And it felt ridiculous to read out loud. Slartibartfast, for god's sake?! He hated tripping over the names, hated sounding foolish in front of Alex and anyone else that might hear him from the hall.
He had just snapped the book closed when the nurse came in with a smile on. He avoided her eyes, in case she was also laughing at his expense over the damn book choice. But she acted like he was another piece of bland, hospital furniture, checking Alex's temperature and various other things just the same as she had the day before.
And then she tapped the heart rate monitor's screen.
"Something wrong?"
"No," she said absently. "Just making sure it's correct. His rate is up from earlier this morning."
"Oh?" Michael's feet came down from their perch under Alex's bed, his own pulse speeding up.
She must have heard the worry in his voice.
"It's good, actually. A little faster, a little more even." The nurse then turned and looked right at Michael.
"Whatever you're doing, it's working. Keep it up." When she left, she pulled the door closed behind her, latching it all the way.
Yeah, she'd definitely heard him reading the stupid book.
Michael rubbed his face with both hands and leaned forward in the chair, chuckling.
"You couldn't react to the Journal of Computational Physics or Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy or something? It had to be this Hitchhiker shit?"
He sighed and got to his feet, pacing around to look out the window and stretch the kinks from his legs. When he turned around, he noticed that Alex's upper arm had goosebumps. It did feel a little drafty on the window side of the bed. He rooted through the tall cabinet and the drawers in the side table, but couldn't find an extra blanket. The thermostat near the door was similarly useless, locked at the bottom to protect against tampering.
Ok, fine. He wasn't going to go chasing down the hall for the nurse, either. So, he shrugged out of his grey hoodie and tucked it around Alex's shoulder, down to where his left arm disappeared under the sheets. At least that side of him would be warm.
Michael's shoulders shivered under his t-shirt in the air conditioning and he settled back into the chair. He sighed when he looked at the book again.
"Ok, here's the deal. I'll keep reading this, because for some strange reason you seem to like it. But if you tell anyone, you're in serious trouble. You hear me?"
I hope you can hear me.
He flipped to the page where they'd left off, taking a deep breath to find his patience. At least the book wasn't that long. And he was getting used to hearing nothing but his own voice. Well, mostly.
"One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about human beings was their habit of continually stating and repeating the obvious, as in It's a nice day, or You're very tall, or Oh dear you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you alright?"
Michael snorted at the joke.
"At first Ford had formed a theory to account for this strange behaviour. If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths probably seize up."
"Too true," he muttered.
"After a few months' consideration and observation he abandoned this theory in favour of a new one. If they don't keep on exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working."
He slapped his leg and laughed outright at the sarcastic truth, finding some camaraderie with the character.
Michael had always felt apart from all the other people in Roswell. It seemed like a logical reaction, considering he wasn't like all the other people in Roswell. But where Isobel and Max had assimilated, more or less successfully, he had always stood apart. An outsider. An observer. Much like the book, polite small talk had always infuriated him since it was, in his outsider's opinion, a waste of time.
Ok, maybe this book didn't completely suck.
And then, a few pages later, he finally read something that resonated with him.
"I don't know if this sounds like a silly question, but what am I doing here? Well you know that, said Ford. I rescued you from the Earth. And what's happened to the Earth? Ah. It's been demolished. Has it, said Arthur levelly. Yes. It just boiled away into space."
Michael cleared his throat, suddenly choked up.
"Look, said Arthur, I'm a bit upset about that."
He snapped the book closed and dropped it in his lap. And he wondered, not for the first time, what had become of wherever he came from. It was a regular preoccupation with him, cursed as he was with what passed as genius on this planet. Was his 'home' an atmospheric rock orbiting a star, like the place he was now? Had it been destroyed by a cosmic explosion, or rendered unlivable by war or famine or disaster? And were there others like him? Like Max and Isobel? Or were they the last 3 of whatever creature they were?
So many questions, but never any answers.
He rubbed his eyes and squeezed Alex's fingers. It would be nice to have someone to share his questions with. Max and Isobel never talked about it anymore. They had both accepted that their situation on Earth was static. They had made lives for themselves and never seemed to struggle to find meaning and fulfillment like he did. Michael was less accepting and more resigned about it all. But that didn't mean he didn't still wonder.
He wondered if perhaps he'd been singled out, sent away for some unknown reason - perhaps because he was a little too brash, too loud, too angry. Too much. Deep down, he secretly worried that he was sent away because he was unworthy, or because no one wanted him.
Not so unlike his present circumstances.
He also wondered sometimes what it would be like to share who and what he was with someone he trusted, someone he cared about. But there was really only one person that fit that description, and he was lying in the bed beside him.
Unconscious.
Michael's mind jolted at the realization that, things being as they were now, he could spill his secret to Alex in complete safety if he really wanted to. But that was a ludicrous, dangerous train of thought. It was never truly safe to tell someone you were an alien. Never. They had lived their whole lives in fear of being discovered. If anyone knew about them, they would be caged, dissected, or worse. The only way to stay hidden was to keep their mouths shut. And he wouldn't be the one to break their oath.
He cleared his throat and adjusted in the chair, opening the paperback again. Some secrets just shouldn't be told. Even the stupid book was better than continuing down that road.
He nodded off sometime later, dozing uncomfortably with his head at an odd angle, the book falling down on his chest. The nurse's shoes woke him with a start around four in the afternoon.
"Sorry, dear. I didn't mean to scare you."
Michael wiped his hand across his face, relieved that he wasn't drooling. He cracked his neck and swiveled his shoulders around stiffly.
"Geez. Too many more naps in this chair, and I'm going to need a hospital bed myself."
The nurse rolled her eyes and made an adjustment to the IV bag.
"The pillows in the cabinet across the hall are for patients only. But it's unlocked, just so you know," she murmured with a sideways glance at him.
Not that a simple lock would be a problem for him, he mused. He smirked back at her, and caught her smiling briefly before she turned away.
"Is there a coffee machine around here somewhere?"
She nodded. "End of the hall, up one floor. But it's horrible."
He laughed. "Is there good coffee anywhere?"
She stopped, halfway out the door. "This is a hospital. The only good coffee is in my travel mug, which I bring with me."
Michael laughed again, but headed down the hall to get some from the machine anyway.
On the fifth floor there was less quiet convalescing and more active recovery. In contrast to Alex's ward, the patients were generally upright, moving around in their rooms or shuffling down the halls holding precariously to their IV stands or walkers. It was strange, he thought, to see soldiers thick with muscle mass being helped along by nurses and other staff. The public usually never saw this side of war, the slow loss of life and long recovery. Not unless it was their loved one that was injured. Would Alex ever get here, he wondered.
He leaned against the wall and sipped his coffee, which was indeed awful, and thought about what the future could hold. If he woke up, how would Alex deal with the obvious changes to his body?
When he woke up.
Michael clenched his fist and refused to think otherwise. He had no idea how the world could go on turning without Alex in it. And the simple answer was that his world wouldn't. Even if they weren't together, weren't friends - a future without Alex looked eternally cold.
He crushed the paper cup in his hand and stalked back down the stairs. This world could beat him up all it wanted, even more than it already had. But it wasn't taking Alex away. Not if Michael had anything to say about it.
.
