Title: You're in my Dreams

Author: Cate8

Distribution: Ask me first.

Rating: PG-13 There might be a little R later on, but those chapters will be specifically marked.

Category: Roswell, Max/Liz. A little Michael/Maria and Isabel/Alex too.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything associated with Roswell the TV show, Jason Katims, and the Roswell High Books by Melinda Metz.

Spoliers: None

Summery: This is an AU. There are still aliens, but Max is not the king and the politics are very different from the show. Tess does not exist. Max and Liz have never physically met. They live separate lives, Liz in Washington and Max in New Mexico. However, someone has been kidnapped in Roswell and Max and Liz are about to find out just who is in charge of their destinies.



Chapter One

His legs had become a machine, running endlessly to the beat of his ragged breath. His whole body was working in tune to a steady rhythm that propelled him around the trees and through the wet grass. He had lost feeling in his body over half an hour ago; his only concern was the thoughts that were spinning through his mind, like laundry inside a washing machine. Over and over, his anxieties flopped over one another, trying to gain his attention like they wanted to be the first to bring Max into a panic attack. Max, unable to clear his mind, took in each individual concern as he ran. He thought about how he would get his sister, Isabel, off his back, how he would help the children at the hospital without revealing his alien side, and if he would ever find Her.

Her. She. Liz. It was an imaginary woman, someone Max dreamt about almost every night and thought about all through the day. For years Max had felt the absence of love in his life. He had divided his attention between his work at the hospital and with leading his alien race. They were tough jobs but Max knew that if he wanted to, he could make romance part of his life. Not that he'd admit that to Isabel. She was constantly on Max's case trying to act the matchmaker. She would convince Max into going on dates with these skinny, blond women in modeling that had nothing to talk about but fashion and gossip. Max hated Isabel's insistence that he go out with this woman and that woman- surly she would be The One. But the women never did make it into Max's heart. Instead, they only managed to make Max more sure that he would never find Her. He was pretty convinced he had made Liz up, created the world she lived in and the way her brown hair flew in the wind. But Max still felt the hope that maybe there really was a Liz out there in the world that would reciprocate his love like no other woman could.

Max's dreams were like storybooks, they held endless chapters of a life he could share with Her. The dreams had started nine years ago when Max was seventeen. They had started out with images of a petite woman with shoulder length brown hair and wide, brown eyes. She was full of life and curiosity. She had fun, dancing with her friends at nightclubs, but was serious too, studying hard to gain entrance into Harvard's science program. Max had seen her cooking dinner for her little brothers, and swimming on the beach when she was a small child in a Little Mermaid bathing suit. He felt that if Liz was real, he would know her whole life, and everything she cherished. If only he could get a sign, something to show him that there was hope.

Out of nowhere, someone came colliding into Max hitting him flat in the chest and ridding Max of his previous thoughts. Max fell to the ground having gotten the wind knocked out of him. He looked around startled to the see the body of a young boy panting on the dew-scattered grass.

"Hey, are you okay?" Max asked, picking himself off the grass, "I didn't see you coming." Max reached out his hand to the boy who was still breathing heavily.

The boy grasped Max's outstretched hand to get up, and for a second, Max felt a pang of unexplained feeling. Yet the emotion that ran sharply through his blood at the hand contact lasted only a second, and Max wasn't able to place it. "Are you okay?" Max asked again, looking into the boy's eyes. "I'm Max, Max Evans."

"I'm okay, thanks." The boy outstretched his hand politely and Max shook it. "I'm Charlie. Sorry I banged into you… Mr. Evans," Charlie wiped some sweat from his brow. And as took his hand away from his forehead Max noticed a deep gash that was bleeding.

"Charlie, you're bleeding. You must have banged into one of the buttons on my t-shirt. Here, if you'll let me take you to the hospital we can clean it up and help prevent any infections."

"You work at the hospital?" Charlie asked, looking at the blood that had wiped off onto his palm.

"Yes. I'm a doctor there. I work with children like you. If you like, you can call your mom on my cell phone so she won't be worried you're running off with a stranger. She can meet us there." Max bent down to be level with Charlie's head. He was a thin boy with light brown colored hair and long legs. He was probably about ten or twelve, Max decided.

"Um, okay," Charlie shrugged his shoulders and took the small cell phone as Max handed it to him. He dialed a number as Max took a few steps back to give him some space. Max heard him speak softly, "Go get Mom, Freddie. I need to ask her a question." He paused for a while. "Mom? Ya, it's me… Where am I? I'm in Geisford's Park… Ya, I was trying to find Joshua… No, I didn't see him. Why? I bumped into this man…" Max sat down on the bench next to the park entrance and waited for Charlie to finish. "His name's Max. He's a doctor at the children's hospital…. it was only a small cut…on my forehead. Ya, he wants to help me clean it up at the hospital. I think so…normal looking…okay. Okay. Bye, Mom." Max saw Charlie press the 'end' button on the cell phone and then hand it back. "My mom says to tell you that we're very trusting people and that you shouldn't even think of tacking advantage of me." Charlie said all this with extreme seriousness and it took all Max had not to laugh. Instead, Max grinned at the boy and told him that they would walk the two blocks to the hospital.