ROSWELL SUMMER VIGNETTES
Title: Dead Star
Author: purplemud
E-mail: purplewitch10@yahoo.com / mudcandies@hotmail.com
Disclaimers: Roswell does not belong to me. Standard Disclaimers apply
Rating: Mostly PG 13 for language.
Summary: Liz writing on her journal.
Author's Note: Please feel free to leave your reviews,
comments, criticisms, flames; you can tell me anything and everything you want.
I appreciate them all. Thanks for your time and hope you enjoy reading! Many
thanks to Diane who patiently beta-reads for me!
DEAD STARS
Her journal entry was short. Too short actually and Liz Parker wondered if she
was indeed having fun.
Having fun.
They were the exact words she had written on her journal. Liz Parker, the
journal keeper - woman of few words. She snorted at that. Not her. More like:
Liz Parker, the girl who won every Science Award during her middle school days
and even as far as her Junior High days. Liz Parker, the one who lived to
tell...or not to tell the truth that yes, people of America, the whole world
even, they are among us. And she was in love with one of them.
She sighed and tucked a stray brown hair behind her ear. She banished all
thoughts about the alien king, tried not to think that it sounded oh, so
fairy-tale-ish to her. She reminded herself that she didn't believe in tales of
princesses and dragons and wicked stepsisters and magic spells. She believed in
atoms and molecular bonds, in friction, gravity, energy and chemical formulas.
She wondered instead on how the inhabitants of Roswell, New Mexico were
surviving the summer heat. She wondered if nature was again breathing down its
hot fiery breath on the desert floor and air of Roswell. She wondered, if at
night, it ever got cold there. She wondered how her parents were doing. She
last talked to them an hour ago and they seemed to be quite alright. Happy in
fact, they weren't asking her to go home or anything. They had insisted that
she have fun. She wondered if the Crashdown Cafe was doing well. She would
guess that there would be about a hundred tourists now walking across the oh-so
fabled town of theirs. Taking pictures of the front of the UFO Museum, buying
postcards that have aliens with green skins wearing bright Hawaiian T-shirts dancing
the Hula; maybe some of the tourists are visiting Mrs. DeLuca's store and
getting alien key chains and Maria's favorite - the little alien dolls that
were just about the size of Voodoo dolls. She sighed, Florida's a beautiful
state and all, but it bored her. No jumping off the bridges here. No dodging of
FBI agents.
And then with a shrug, she allowed herself to think of Max Evans. And with that
another list popped into her head. No late-night kisses on the rooftop, no
heavy making out at the Crashdown, no necking in the eraser room...
She sighed and berated herself for thinking of him and of course, automatically
bringing misery down upon her. And maybe even regret.
No, no. Regret is such a heavy word, it's so...so painful. Like goodbye. And of
course, Destiny.
Before she went away for the summer she had talked to Maria about Destiny and
they shared the same passion in hating it. She hated it because she knew that
she has to succumb to it. There was no other way to defeat it. She would be
fighting against something that was so strong, so final...and because all she
ever wanted for Max Evans was for him to find his real home, his real self, she
walked away and let him have his Destiny, no matter how painful it was knowing
that his past, his future, and now his present lies not with her, but with
Tess. Max's Queen.
Maria on the other hand hated Destiny because it was crap, it was a lot of
bullsh*t to her and she hated it with passion because Michael believed in it.
At least that was what the spiky-haired alien had told Maria, that and I love
you and then walking away.
Liz had asked Maria what she would do about Michael and Isabel's destiny. Liz
remembered the way Maria thought about it. Long and hard and then, smiling her
Maria-smile, she told her that she intended to show Michael what real Destiny
means.
And what would that be? She had asked, knowing that Maria, not always that
articulate would go on babbling about Destiny lying within the charts of stars
and moons and planets...one of which the Pod Squad could actually belong in.
Oh, but no one has discovered planet Antar yet. Maybe it even exists in another
solar system, she thought idly.
Well that wasn't her problem then. She sighed and remembered Maria's answer.
What Maria had said stayed with her. In fact, at times like this, it haunted
her and she berated herself for being weak and succumbing to the angry claws of
Destiny that tore her away from Max Evans. The guy who saved her life so that
she could finally live.
Maria had told her that Destiny, their Destiny, hers, Max's, Michael's,
everyone's destiny was made from choices.
It wasn't ordered around, it wasn't planned and it wasn't based on a life two
million light years away from earth. What mattered was now...the choices that
they will make - that will shape their Destiny. Their real Destiny. Maria had
said it with such conviction that at that time, Liz had felt sorry for her. And
now, a thousand miles away from home, she felt the exact same way, this time
for herself.
She wished she had Maria's courage. She wished she could risk her heart like
that. But she couldn't. In a deeper sense, she knew that more than anything it
was for her own good. She didn't want to be blamed. She couldn't imagine how it
would feel ten years from now with Max Evans standing in front of her, blaming
her, hating her for not giving him the freedom to choose. For insisting upon
him her feelings, her heart, the Destiny that she wanted them to have.
If she gave in and looked away, it was because she decided that there was no
other choice for her.
She wondered if any of the aliens were ever regretting what had happened to
them this year. Granted that it had been Max's decision to heal her and tell
her the truth, she knew it had been a lot to take for Isabel and Michael, and
maybe even for Tess too.
The night before she left Roswell for the summer, being the science-girl that
she was, she had looked at the situation in every possible angle to process, to
examine and evaluate.
She wrote the pros and cons. Saw to it that in some way she could draw out a
conclusion, one that is based on facts, and therefore, could provide her with
something logical, something concrete, something to keep her sane. She decided
that the best way to deal with the situation was to be logical and probing. And
although her experiences from last year were far from being logical, sometimes
even defying Science, (at least the Science that she thought she knew so well),
she was driven to seek for the scientific explanation for everything. To be
detached from everything and everyone. And in that way, she had pounded the
truth inside her head: Max has his own Destiny apart from her.
Sometimes, she even wished she wasn't like that.
But she was and that was why she opted to run away. Because despite what she
told Max, she knew that she couldn't deal with seeing Max and Tess trying to
figure out their Destiny. She also knew that with her hovering about, a silent
shadow, Max and Tess would never be able to realize and understand their
Destiny.
She understood this much: Max's responsibility, his life, rested within that
planet, with his people, beside his wife, his queen. She shouldn't feel
betrayed, she shouldn't think of herself, because if she did, then she would be
selfish and she would be taking something away from Max. His choice. To choose
between her, their love and his Destiny. Max was sure he had already made the
choice, that it was the right one. But how can he be sure when he was thinking
with his heart and not with his mind? And so she opted to be the one who'd be
blind and stubborn or logical, as she would like to call it.
Deep down, she knew it was unfair. For her, for Maria, for Max, at some level
maybe even for Tess.
She shook her head and stared at the words scribbled so languidly at her journal:
"I'm having fun."
She didn't feel like she was having fun at all. But she ignored that feeling.
If she stopped and let herself feel for that long she would have packed her
things and flown home, telling Max Evans that she was wrong and Maria was right.
Destiny is in their hands and not written across dead stars.
