Category: M/L
Summary: This fic is in response to a challenge by Clueless. I don't want to write down the terms at this time because it would give away too much of the story. SO for now the summary is—AU no aliens.
Disclaimer: Jason Katims owns everything Roswell…come on now if I owned it would I be writing fanfic??? I'm just borrowing this stuff and I'll put it back when I'm done I promise. The original idea for the story belongs to Clueless…this is my take on it. I guess the character of Julie belongs to me…
Feedback: always appreciated, and it does help to relieve writer's block!
A/N: think of this first chapter as an inner dialogue okay? The rest will be normal…I just didn't want anyone to get confused.
Playing by HeartAs I lie here, staring at my ceiling, the thought hits me…today is the fourteenth…
I can hardly believe it's actually been four years. Sometimes it seems like a lifetime ago. In some ways, I guess it was a whole other lifetime. In that life, I was a shy and quiet teenager whose biggest worries revolved around my next math test. All that changed four years ago, when I suddenly and unexpectedly became a father. If I were to be honest though, the whole chain of events was set into motion long before that.
To say I had a normal high school experience would be a lie, a major one at that. It all started off innocent enough really; I joined the wrestling team freshman year, received decent grades in all of my classes, and spent most of my free time hanging out with my best friend Michael and later on, his on-again/off-again girlfriend Maria.
For some reason, Michael and I have always understood each other and been the best of friends, even though we are so different. He's always irritable and a little unstable, while I have always been calm and quiet. Sophomore year though, we finally had something in common, though not by choice. You see…Michael has always been an orphan. He never knew his parents and was bounced through foster care and quite a few abusive homes, until he finally filed for emancipation when he was seventeen. I, on the other hand, lost my parents suddenly and unexpectedly that second year of high school. They had been on their way home from a business trip when their plane ran into a storm and crashed. Michael and I became each other's family that year, spending most of our free time together instead of with our respective foster families. We would have these contests sometimes, to see who had the better 'foster family horror stories.' Unfortunately for him, he usually won. I can't say that any of my 'families' ever hurt me, as a few of Michael's did, but I never felt like they were really my family.
Eventually graduation came, along with my eighteenth birthday and my freedom from the foster care system. I had never been into the party scene in high school, but Michael convinced me that I just had to go to the biggest party of the summer "to celebrate my newfound freedom." In reality, he only wanted me to go because for some reason, Maria wanted to go and was dragging him along with her. Needless to say, with my low tolerance for alcohol, it didn't take much 'celebrating' before I was no longer sober and a little out of control. Michael and Maria were too busy arguing outside to notice my condition and I was too drunk to care what was happening.
I don't know how exactly, but I suddenly found myself in an upstairs bedroom with Julie Wilson, a girl I vaguely knew from class. Julie was considered one of the "nice girls" in school. She was never in any trouble and had a reputation for being quiet and distant. She was almost the last person I had expected to be at that party, at least as drunk as I was, and in and upstairs bedroom making out with a guy she barely knew. Nevertheless, there we were…two strangers losing their virginity to each other at a drunken graduation party…the ultimate high school stereotype. I'm not sure how, but we both managed to find our way home that night, her with assistance from her friends, and me with a very confused and surprised Michael and Maria.
I received a call from her several months later. At the time, I was sharing an apartment with Michael and working for a local construction company to save enough money to eventually go to college. I had at one time hoped to become a doctor. I was blown away when she told me she was pregnant. I know I shouldn't have been surprised…we had both been way too drunk to think about using protection. But I was. I realized then that I would likely never get to go to college, or do any of the other things that normal people my age were doing. It was a bit of a shock, but I had never been one to ignore my responsibilities and I didn't want my child to grow up without his father…I knew how hard that could be after-all. I assured her that I wanted to be a part of my child's life and suggested that we live together, as roommates and fellow parents, to make it easier on both of us.
In the months that followed, we prepared as best we could for the baby, and surprisingly became close friends. We found that we had a lot in common and our personalities complemented each other. It was never anything other than friendship though. We both acknowledged that we didn't really feel that way about each other, without the help of a lot of alcohol, and never took it any further than that.
I think that's why I still miss her so much. Besides Michael, she was one of my best friends and a constant source of comfort and stability in my life.
"Complications during delivery" was the only explanation the doctors would give me when they came to me in the waiting room. The blaring noise of all those beeping machines with their alarms sounding, as the nurses pushed me out of the delivery room, stays with me to this day, mostly in my nightmares. Thankfully, they are much less frequent than they used to be. They are still present though …most likely because I have always felt partly responsible for her death in a way. Perhaps if I hadn't gotten her pregnant, she might still be alive…
What she left me though, is the only thing that keeps me going these days…my son, Ryan Wilson Evans.
