A/N: This chapter is a bit on the shorter side, but is still very important as it will get us one step closer to our resolution. Sort of.
Chapter Eleven: So All Alone
I'm just wondering why I feel so all alone,
Why I'm a stranger in my own life.
-Sheryl Crow, Every Day is a Winding Road
Just a little while ago, they would have run and not looked back. Before Tess had come to Montana, Liz's words would have provoked an automatic response that she and Michael knew by heart. It had happened once or twice while the others were still alive. Not frequently enough for it to become habit, but that didn't mean that they didn't have a plan for these circumstances, one that had been repeatedly drilled into their skulls by and over-caffeinated Isabel.
Isabel had always been a fan of planning.
Just a little while ago, Liz would have known what to do. The premonition wasn't entirely unexpected – they knew the government would still be after them – but everything was still complicated.
Michael started and pulled away from her, mouth falling open. The expression of surprise lingered on his features for only a moment, then it was replaced by grim determination.
He rose, and pulled her to her feet as well. "Pack," he said simply, firmly. "I'm going to call the garage, tell them a family emergency came up and I need to be gone for a few days. At least that way people won't think anything is wrong… yet."
It was a small town. In small towns, people noticed when someone did something uncharacteristic. People had noticed when Michael and Liz arrived, and they had accepted it with the kindness and courtesy that was a trademark of the Midwest. But a sudden departure for no reason…?
That would start quite a few rumors they couldn't afford.
A family emergency would provide a decent explanation for a few days. By the time anyone realized that they weren't coming back, they'd be long gone.
And hopefully the government wouldn't have a trail to follow.
"How did they even find us?" Liz demanded as she moved automatically towards her room. Michael was pulling out his cell phone – they'd have to dump those, too, and get new ones – but he paused and gave her a half-shrug.
"We knew they would be looking," he said quietly.
He didn't say anything else, so she left him standing in the living room and walked into her bedroom. The suitcase was under the bed, half-filled with essentials. All she had to do was stuff some more clothing into it, and anything she had in her desk that could be sensitive or traceable, and she'd be ready to go.
She looked down at her journal. It was still sitting on her desk, unused. It lay on top of receipts and scraps of paper and newspaper clippings and some of the information she had used when planning Michael's rescue from the white room. Those would all have to be taken with her or destroyed, but the journal…
She picked it up and dropped it in her suitcase more out of habit than anything else. She doubted she'd be writing in it again.
She heard Michael moving around in his bedroom next to hers. His footsteps were loud and angry, and echoed with the same frustration that she felt. They had just settled in, they had just built a life for themselves, and it was being pulled out from underneath their feet.
It wasn't fair.
It didn't take long to finish the task – that was the entire point of practicing, after all, so that they would be able to do it quickly and without hesitation if needed – and Liz emerged from her bedroom a moment later to find Michael dragging his own suitcase into the hallway as well.
He glanced at her. "Did you destroy everything you couldn't take with you?" he asked, scratching at his eyebrow with his free hand.
Liz nodded mutely. It hadn't taken much, just a wave of her hand, and everything of importance was ruined beyond recognition. "You?" she asked.
Not, of course, that there was really any need for the two of them to check in with each other about this particular detail. They knew what to do, and neither was likely to forget the importance of destroying everything that was left behind. They could not take the chance that the government would use it to find them.
Michael nodded distractedly and glanced towards the window. Although it was incredibly unlikely that the men Liz had seen in her premonition were going to come bursting through the door any moment, Liz could tell that he was worried that they may be running out of time.
Sometimes her premonitions told her exactly when something would happen, but most of the time they did not.
"Come on," Michael said, and they walked towards the door of the apartment.
The task should have been easy. It should have simple and straightforward, and even if there was bitterness and resentment, even if there was annoyance, even if they both hated that they were forced to do this again…
It should have been uncomplicated.
It wasn't.
Because Michael paused at the door and, turning towards Liz, said, "We need to warn Tess."
Michael swallowed back his uneasiness as he scrawled a brief note on a piece of paper and left it on the coffee table in the center of the apartment. That look in Liz's eyes, the utter disbelief and implied accusation of betrayal, had cut through his defenses. Her mouth had opened but no sound had come out, and that was even worse. If she'd yelled or screamed or even just argued with him…
But she'd given a resigned sigh and turned away.
He knew it was a stupid idea. They had no clue how to find Tess now that she had moved out of her old apartment. It was far too dangerous to stay in the town and look for her, or to wait around for her to find them. Not with the government there, searching for them.
Liz was waiting for him in the car, and he knew she hated this plan. It was dangerous to leave a note, to leave anything. They were running from the government, and they knew all too well just how good the government was at putting together bits and pieces of information in order to find them. They'd done it before, after all, and Maria, Max, Isabel, and Kyle had paid the price.
They never left anything behind.
Until now.
When Tess realized that Michael and Liz weren't in town anymore she would come here for answers. And she would see the note on the coffee table and understand why they had left. Hopefully she would heed the warning and leave too.
Unless the government got here first. Unless they saw the note before Tess did.
It was a stupid, risky, possibly pointless plan, but he couldn't leave without warning Tess, and he didn't know what else to do. He was risking his life to save Tess. He was risking Liz's life to save Tess.
And now Liz's expression of betrayal was burned into his mind.
He stared down at the note.
The government is here. Run.
Of course, there was also the possibility that the government hadn't been looking for Michael and Liz at all. It was possible that they had been following Tess. It was possible that they'd already found Tess.
In which case the warning would be too late.
And it would do more harm than good, because it would not only fail to help Tess, but it would also tell the government that Michael and Liz had known they were here and that was why they had left. It would give them more clues, more information…
Michael scratched at his eyebrow. He couldn't blame Liz for being upset.
He also couldn't leave without at least trying to warn Tess.
He hurried out of the apartment, closing the door firmly behind him. He paused for a moment at the stairs, taking a slow breath and forcing the tension out of his body as best he could. They'd be in the car for hours, maybe days. Awkward silences would only make this fleeing worse, and he didn't want that. Not for himself, and not for Liz.
He opened his eyes, drew another breath, then walked down the stairs.
He left the apartment – their home, at least for a short while – behind and didn't look back.
Liz already had the car running. He slid into the passenger seat and nodded briefly. She gave him a piercing look, then turned her attention back to the road before them and pressed her foot on the gas pedal. The car pulled away from the curb and into the street. Michael glanced out the window and watched the yellow dashed lines on the street pass by.
Tess had told Michael that she could find them anywhere. Would she follow them now?
"I called Jim," Liz said quietly. "As far as he knows, the government hasn't gone back to Roswell. He's going to check with Diane and Philip Evans, and with my parents, but…" She trailed off for a moment, chewing her lip, before completing the thought, "It doesn't look like they've bothered anyone there."
"Good," Michael said.
He hadn't spent a lot of time thinking about the parents who had been left behind. There wasn't really much of a point because he could never be a part of their lives. He was too dangerous and it was too much of a risk.
He'd already caused them enough pain by failing to protect their children. There was no reason to add to it.
Still, he was glad that Liz had checked in with Jim. He was glad that the people they had left behind in Roswell were safe.
He was glad he didn't have more deaths to add to the ones already weighing on his conscience.
The first night they stayed in a motel by the side of the road, shared a single bed in a dingy room, and tried to pretend that they weren't both being slowly driven insane by the silence that existed between them.
The second night they stayed in a bed-and-breakfast, and were mistaken for a couple by the kind old lady who owned the home. Liz didn't have the heart to correct her, and Michael couldn't bring himself to say much of anything at all. And they still didn't talk.
The third day they sat in the car and stared silently at the landscape all around them, both hoping the other had some idea of where they were going and what they would do now.
Michael kept looking for Tess.
He didn't admit to it – not that Liz actually asked him directly, but every time she asked why he was looking around constantly, he would dodge the question. There were many good and reasonable answers: he was looking for the government; he was looking for anyone who might recognize them; he was looking for Tess because he was afraid she would attack. But when he evaded the question, when he failed to give an answer Liz could accept, she knew the truth.
He was looking for Tess because he wanted to see her. He wanted to know that she hadn't been captured, that she wasn't back in the white room.
He wanted to know that she was okay.
He had risked their lives, their safety, for a traitor and a murderer and it still wasn't enough for him.
By the end of the third day, something deep inside her was cracking. Breaking. Fracturing into a thousand little pieces and falling apart. The silence that stretched between them wasn't a truce. The temporary pause in their arguments wasn't a sign of agreement. If anything, it only proved that they were drifting further and further apart.
And she had no idea how to bridge the gap between them.
She didn't know where they were going. Of course, Michael didn't, either, but that was little comfort. The not knowing made her feel helpless, and being helpless made her frustrated. Irritated. Short-tempered.
The sun was setting over the horizon, and she knew they would need to find a place to stop soon. A place to spend the night before they continued their journey. Before they continued to run.
She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the window. They were traveling southeast, away from Montana and from everything that they might have once fooled themselves into believing they could call home.
How could she have really allowed herself to believe that? How could she have ever thought that they could escape the government forever?
Or had she simply assumed that it would all work out now that she had rescued Michael from the white room? Had she believed that together they were invincible?
Had she really been that stupid?
Her mind wandered to Max.
I've made so many mistakes, Liz. I've been wrong about so many things. But not this. Not you. I love you, I will always love you. I don't know what tomorrow will bring. I don't know when this war will end – if it will end. I don't know if we will ever be safe. But none of that scares me anymore. I can handle the uncertainty and I can handle the fear, just as long as you are by my side.
She sighed. Max had been true to his word. Since that day, since those words, he had faced everything without flinching, without backing down, and without fear.
Right up until the government killed him.
She opened her eyes and glanced over at Michael. He was running a hand through his hair, his eyes fixed on the road, but he must of caught sight of her gaze through his peripheral vision because he glanced over at her for a moment.
There was a questioning look in his eyes, then he cleared his throat and asked casually, "What's up?"
She opened her mouth to answer, unsure exactly what it was she wanted to say, and the words that came out surprised even her.
"I was thinking that maybe we should split up."
