I own neither the story nor the characters of Roswell.

It's February 25th and I'm Liz Evans... I still get goosebumps thinking about that.

Why didn't anybody ever tell me about this? Mom and I had "the talk" when I was about nine. It seemed to be mostly about... plumbing. Then 5th grade Health class. More plumbing. Sixth grade Sex Ed. Plumbing... plus how to cover a banana with latex. And when we all started dating we'd talk at slumber parties about... first base... second base... how to keep him interested without letting things get too far. And even... thirty-six hours ago, when Max just reached out to help me with my cramps... I was ready to take his head off, worried that he was trying to steal a base.

Every time I've ever accidentally bumped in to a boy or one has accidentally bumped in to me since sixth grade I've been told to worry... was this a sexual advance. You seem to spend your entire teen years worrying about what the other one's doing, what the other one's thinking... is the other one trying to get you to go someplace that you're not ready to go...

Why don't they tell you about this? Last night I fell asleep with Max's hand on my breast. Today I woke up... and it was still there. I don't have to worry that he's starting out the day on second base. Today, we are on the same team.

We woke up in each others arms. Not like two days ago, when we both kind of knew we didn't really belong there. This morning I woke up in his arms... and I was home.

Max is in the shower this morning so I'm going to write a little more in my journal until it's my turn.

I was thinking about showering with him, but he discouraged me. 'Liz,' he said, 'I don't think you are going to want a shower that cold...' Poor dear. But I warned him if he kept playing with my... well, never mind. Where were we?

I knew Max was brilliant, but when he told me the plan yesterday... at first I was just too overcome by what he was asking me to do to really appreciate it. His wife... forever. Wow!

But then I could tell he was a little tentative... I finally coaxed it out of him. He was worried that maybe our chemistry wasn't compatible... that we wouldn't be able to... you know... make babies. He looked so embarrassed talking about it... he was so sweet.

I told him 10% of couples aren't fertile... like his folks. I told him we could adopt if need be, they had... and they'd gotten a couple of pretty good kids. I think he was embarrassed to bring the subject up... so I told him, in four or five years we'll study the issue of whether or not Max and Liz Evans are capable of having kids scientifically... do exhaustive experiments, if necessary. I've never seen him blush so much.

Anyway, getting back to the story, Max got on the internet yesterday morning and did some research. Marriage is a big industry in Las Vegas. Actually, they'd have given us a license with notarized approval from our folks, even at 16. But they'd have kept those permission letters. The folks are none too pleased with us right now, and leaving that kind of a paper trail would have only irritated them worse... plus made it easier to get it annulled, because they'd have evidence of forgery. By just adding two years to our ages on our own driver's licenses, we got the marriage license and got the altered licenses back. It's neat that Max is a lawyer's kid, he found the loophole real quick.

Nobody in Las Vegas wants to get sued, so they made the laws so it's never the state's fault. Thousands of people get married here, from all over the world. There isn't any waiting period and the chapels in the casino go 24 hours a day. Even the Clark County Clerk's office goes 18 hours a day... just for marriage licenses. They have to deal with driver's licenses from 50 states, passports from the whole world, military identification cards, everything. Of course they make mistakes. But it doesn't matter, under state law. If they issue a license, it's valid, as long as we aren't already married. If we take it to someone authorized to perform weddings and get married, it's valid. Even if we used altered ID... like we did... I really am legally Mrs. Max Evans.

Now comes the problem. It can be annulled. It's legal until it is... but it can be annulled. But they have to catch us first. By already being legally married we create something called a "rebuttable presumption" that the marriage is valid. Oh, the folks can get it annulled... by demonstrating that we were underage when given the license, that the clerk's office somehow misread our ages, but they've got to do that in court, and the judge has to approve it. The key thing is, we have to be there. They can't do that, 'in absentia', because the presumption is that we are legally married and until the court has heard our side... it can't act. And if it can't act... we stay married.

So the trick, obviously, is going to be to avoid anyone catching us until we are legal age... about 18 months from now. Even if we can't... well, the longer the better. I really don't think... maybe I'm wrong, but I really don't think my parents would get an annulment if they caught us... say... a year from now. I really think I could look my folks in the eye and say, "I love him. I've shared his name and I've shared his bed, and you just can't make that go away. And I'll marry him again in 6 months anyway." I can't believe, even if they were real mad at us... that they'd keep us apart then. Or his folks either.

So that's how we are going to get our lives back. In 18 months I'll be 18 and Max... good Lord, who knows how old Max is, but he'll legally be 18 too by then. We can go back to Roswell, be with friends and family. Sure, maybe they'll be mad for awhile, we were both real mad at them day before yesterday too. They'll get over it. The only problem is we'll have to stay in Nevada, because if we get caught in another state... well, the laws aren't necessarily the same. We wouldn't HAVE to be heard at the annulment, if we weren't of legal age. But it's a big state, and we are both used to the desert. Whoops, the shower's off. My turn I guess, so I'll have to go.

I'm Liz Evans (sigh)
and it's a wonderful world...