~~~~~
Part Three
Maria POV
~~~~~
I wished that I could say that the fact that I was only hours away from
seeing my long lost best friend was enough to raise my spirits to an all
time high, but honestly, the thought of Liz brought back an inner turmoil
that only years of denial and regret had put to rest. Yes, she was my best
friend, and yes, I had loved her like my own sister, but I also saw what
she did to everyone. She abandoned us without any kind of solid
explanation, and I couldn't just forgive her for that.
She only really said goodbye to Max (something that I had only learned
after years of pestering about a letter that he used to keep in a box
beside his bed that had handwriting that had looked strikingly familiar,
and yet unknown until he finally told me about his last encounter with
Liz). All she had given as offerings to Alex and me were letters that
basically said she would miss us and she didn't want to go, but she had to.
I read it so many times the first year after she left, I don't think I'll
ever forget a word of it. Still, it was a shallow replacement for a real
goodbye. It was a Dear John letter to people who thought they meant more
to her than that. It was random answers to the questions we didn't really
want answered that badly. It was a reminder of all that we hadn't gotten.
Except for the letter that I believe she left on Kyle's doorstep, I think
that that was the extent of her goodbye to Roswell. Four letters and tear
filled break up. Well, I suppose it was better than nothing, but to a
heartbroken seventeen year old who had lost her boyfriend and best friend
in just a matter of nights, it wasn't nearly enough.
I could almost feel that girl within me, slowly gaining strength as the
ground slowly became hidden beneath the rain clouds of the northwest and
Portland stopped feeling so very far away. She was going to be the one
meeting with my old friend, and, though years had passed for me, she
brought the pain and betrayal back so strongly it could have happened just
yesterday.
All I knew was that Liz was in for one hell of a day.
~~~~~
Max POV
~~~~~
I quickly realized that there was nothing that anyone I knew would really
enjoy in the Roswell airport except for possible the little bit of wine
that was arranged on the wall, so I grabbed a few bottles for the welcome
home that I knew was coming that night and then, just as I was about to pay
for the wine, I grabbed a set of wind chimes from a little counter beside
the register. At least I would have something to offer Isabel. As for
Michael-well my plan was to get him drunk enough that he didn't really
think about the fact that I had practically insisted on escorting his
girlfriend or that I was the only one that she had talked to between when
we pulled into my driveway and her announcement about having to leave.
It's not that I don't I know that Michael knows that Maria loves him and
that I wouldn't ever do anything to come between them, but do I know that
our friendship still bothers him sometimes.
The whole drive back to the house was a fight to stay awake. Without Maria
beside me constantly talking about something to fill the gaps of silence,
sleep was a lot more demanding. Still, with the help of some hard rock
radio stations that I hadn't listened to since the years when I had sped
through the desert behind the driver's seat of the old rusted jeep that I
had only come to part with about a year ago, I managed to pull into my
driveway relatively straightly, without hitting Isabel's car, and stumble
into the house. I left my gifts on the table beside our old brown couch
which, if you asked me, had seen a few too many coffee spills. It was
still holding the springs in though, and that was enough to dub it my bed
for the next few hours.
~~~~~
Isabel POV
~~~~~
Michael and I were just waking up when we heard Max stumble into the house.
After a look at the clock and then a baffled look in my direction, Michael
gestured to the door and then fell back onto the pillow that he had tossed
on my floor the night before. Apparently Maria had woken him at three
buzzing about her trip, and, since my room was closer to the guest room-
also known as Dad's old study-it was there that he stumbled into somewhere
after three. He was lucky I saw his hair, still untamed, even after all
the years. Otherwise the alien count might have fallen to two.
I tossed my pillow at Michael when as he closed his eyes to return to
sleep, but he simply shoved it under his head without so much as opening
his eyes. I sighed, rolling my eyes at the heap on my floor and made my
way into the hallway. The soft snores that emanated from my parents' room
told me that they were still comfortably asleep, so I tiptoed down the
stairs, careful to avoid the one that my teen years had taught me would
give away any movement. Once I was at the bottom, I couldn't help but
smile at the sight before me. Max lay sleeping on the couch, his mouth
slightly open as he murmured incoherencies. I felt deeply sorry for anyone
who had to share a pillow with my brother. I knew for a fact that his
pillows were just about as dry as Michael's hair had been when he thought
that spikes were in.
When my eyes wandered to the table just beyond Max's feet I almost laughed.
Presents from Roswell's airport. Well, it's the thought that counts,
right? I wondered how much of it was green.
A peek inside revealed three bottles of wine, one tipped and lying on the
table, kept from rolling to the floor only by the weight of the other two
and the thin plastic that it fought against. The last thing in the bag was
a little white box. I began to reach for it, wanting to know what my
brother had brought, but the annoying little voice in my head started
blabbering about personal privacy. I was just in the process of shrugging
it off and reaching for the box when my brother's sleepy ramblings became
all too clear. It wasn't the sound of his voice that stopped me. No, had
he simply mumbled something about apple pie, I would have known what was in
that box long before he even knew that I had seen him sleeping down there.
His mumblings were not that simple though, and while they may have caught
me off guard at that moment, five, six years earlier, the words would have
been so common, all I would have been able to do was look towards my
brother's room and wonder when he would heal. I thought that he had. I
thought that that piece of our lives had been put away.
Apparently I was wrong, because I don't know many people who scream out for
things they no longer long for. When Liz's name tore out into the darkness
of our living room, silhouetted by the early morning lights, I finally took
the time to do what I had neglected to do the first time around. I really
looked at my brother. I wish that I could say that what I saw was
comforting.
~~~~~
"And you're sure he called out for Liz?"
"No Michael, he was screaming for Pez candies," I said, exasperated. "Of
course it was Liz." I looked up at him. "Of course, if you would have
gotten up with me then you would have heard it yourself."
"Look Iz, don't yell at me, and don't blame me for not being down there."
He ran his hand through his thick brown hair, making the front spike up
just as it had all those years ago when discussions about Liz Parker were
not quite so uncommon. "It's just... God, it's been years since he's done
that Isabel. Why would the dreams come back after all these years, and why
now when we have the first threat that we've had in years?"
"I don't know Michael," I mumbled, bringing my tone down. My parents were
still asleep down the hall, and they didn't need to know about this.
"Wait." Michael looked up at me as I sat on my bed, desperately trying to
remember any of the psychology class that I had taken in college. "I
remember them talking about this in psych. Maybe it's because of the
threat."
"What?" Michael looked at me, not confused because of the sleep he had
lost with my wake up call, but because he was utterly lost, and I knew it.
"Well do you remember when Liz left?" It was a rhetorical question. Liz
had left in the middle of everything. She had been one more tragedy in the
whole mess that was out lives for those few months in our junior year. She
had left during the big showdown without so much as a goodbye. The day we
forgot about Liz Parker's exit was the day we all got Alzheimer's. Still,
Michael nodded in the affirmative. "Well that was the last threat that we
had. Maybe it's all coming back to him because we're back in the same
position, possibly." Michael looked skeptical, but I couldn't think of
anything else.
"Well, come up with your own answer then."
"I say we take Max's. We'll just ask him about it when he wakes up."
"Michael," I said in a warning tone. "It's not like he's going to know why
he's dreaming about what he's dreaming about."
"He's going to know better than us."
I rolled my eyes, knowing that Michael wasn't going to back down and not
really wanting to fight this fight anyway. "Fine, talk to him, but
Michael, use tact, please. Don't just blurt this out. You know as well as
I do, Liz is still a sore subject for him."
Michael just nodded and dropped himself back onto his sleeping bag. I
looked at him incredulously. "You're going back to sleep?"
"Yeah. Max got up near five this morning, he didn't get on last night
until ten or so and then he spent an hour using his powers. I think that
I'll have some time to catch some shut eye." I just rolled my eyes and
walked out.
~~~~~
Maria POV
~~~~~
My plane landed in Portland's PDX airport at nine thirty that morning, and
I spent a half hour wandering around through the little stores. It was
probably twice the size of Roswell's airport, and had three different
coffee shops, just in the section that I had to walk through to get out. I
had found my home away from home.
At around ten I decided that I probably shouldn't be completely caffeinated
when I went to meet Liz. We were meeting at a coffee shop, after all, and
she hadn't seen me in ten years. I didn't think that scaring her away with
my sometimes frightening levels of energy would be the best way to start
things off again, so I decided that I would wander around the city for a
couple hours. According to the on flight magazines, Portland was a
beautiful city.
After another half an hour spent getting a rental car and the fifteen
minutes finding out where Liz's coffee shop was, I was off, wandering
aimlessly down the streets of the foreign town.
The man in the Hertz office had told me that the coffee shop was somewhere
in downtown, and so I decided that, rather than getting lost trying to find
my way to our meeting place from anywhere that wasn't the Hertz office, I
should just go and hang out downtown for a while. Shopping malls and food
courts. Obviously I was crushed.
After making sure that I could find the coffee shop by driving past it once-
well, make that twice. I may have gotten a little confused in the one way
traffic-I found the nearest 99 cent parking garage and started my
excavations. Oregonians beware. Maria Deluca's in town and she has a
credit card.
~~~~~
Shopping was a bust. For once in my life, I couldn't lose myself in the
racks of clothing and mobs of people. I just couldn't stop thinking.
(Somewhere, I know that all of my teachers just felt the need to laugh and
they don't know why.) Finally, I gave up on that and just went to the
coffee shop where I was supposed to meet Liz, ordered a coffee, and sat in
the corner farthest from the door. Liz was expecting Max, and, as much as
I had wanted to blow them off, Max's words had made me question the
friendship that I had just assumed Liz and I had somehow held on to even
after all of our years apart. It was a fantasy that I had held onto for
far too long, and now that reality had come along and slapped me once
again, I realized that I didn't want Liz to run away from me, even if she
didn't want me to see her.
Part Three
Maria POV
~~~~~
I wished that I could say that the fact that I was only hours away from
seeing my long lost best friend was enough to raise my spirits to an all
time high, but honestly, the thought of Liz brought back an inner turmoil
that only years of denial and regret had put to rest. Yes, she was my best
friend, and yes, I had loved her like my own sister, but I also saw what
she did to everyone. She abandoned us without any kind of solid
explanation, and I couldn't just forgive her for that.
She only really said goodbye to Max (something that I had only learned
after years of pestering about a letter that he used to keep in a box
beside his bed that had handwriting that had looked strikingly familiar,
and yet unknown until he finally told me about his last encounter with
Liz). All she had given as offerings to Alex and me were letters that
basically said she would miss us and she didn't want to go, but she had to.
I read it so many times the first year after she left, I don't think I'll
ever forget a word of it. Still, it was a shallow replacement for a real
goodbye. It was a Dear John letter to people who thought they meant more
to her than that. It was random answers to the questions we didn't really
want answered that badly. It was a reminder of all that we hadn't gotten.
Except for the letter that I believe she left on Kyle's doorstep, I think
that that was the extent of her goodbye to Roswell. Four letters and tear
filled break up. Well, I suppose it was better than nothing, but to a
heartbroken seventeen year old who had lost her boyfriend and best friend
in just a matter of nights, it wasn't nearly enough.
I could almost feel that girl within me, slowly gaining strength as the
ground slowly became hidden beneath the rain clouds of the northwest and
Portland stopped feeling so very far away. She was going to be the one
meeting with my old friend, and, though years had passed for me, she
brought the pain and betrayal back so strongly it could have happened just
yesterday.
All I knew was that Liz was in for one hell of a day.
~~~~~
Max POV
~~~~~
I quickly realized that there was nothing that anyone I knew would really
enjoy in the Roswell airport except for possible the little bit of wine
that was arranged on the wall, so I grabbed a few bottles for the welcome
home that I knew was coming that night and then, just as I was about to pay
for the wine, I grabbed a set of wind chimes from a little counter beside
the register. At least I would have something to offer Isabel. As for
Michael-well my plan was to get him drunk enough that he didn't really
think about the fact that I had practically insisted on escorting his
girlfriend or that I was the only one that she had talked to between when
we pulled into my driveway and her announcement about having to leave.
It's not that I don't I know that Michael knows that Maria loves him and
that I wouldn't ever do anything to come between them, but do I know that
our friendship still bothers him sometimes.
The whole drive back to the house was a fight to stay awake. Without Maria
beside me constantly talking about something to fill the gaps of silence,
sleep was a lot more demanding. Still, with the help of some hard rock
radio stations that I hadn't listened to since the years when I had sped
through the desert behind the driver's seat of the old rusted jeep that I
had only come to part with about a year ago, I managed to pull into my
driveway relatively straightly, without hitting Isabel's car, and stumble
into the house. I left my gifts on the table beside our old brown couch
which, if you asked me, had seen a few too many coffee spills. It was
still holding the springs in though, and that was enough to dub it my bed
for the next few hours.
~~~~~
Isabel POV
~~~~~
Michael and I were just waking up when we heard Max stumble into the house.
After a look at the clock and then a baffled look in my direction, Michael
gestured to the door and then fell back onto the pillow that he had tossed
on my floor the night before. Apparently Maria had woken him at three
buzzing about her trip, and, since my room was closer to the guest room-
also known as Dad's old study-it was there that he stumbled into somewhere
after three. He was lucky I saw his hair, still untamed, even after all
the years. Otherwise the alien count might have fallen to two.
I tossed my pillow at Michael when as he closed his eyes to return to
sleep, but he simply shoved it under his head without so much as opening
his eyes. I sighed, rolling my eyes at the heap on my floor and made my
way into the hallway. The soft snores that emanated from my parents' room
told me that they were still comfortably asleep, so I tiptoed down the
stairs, careful to avoid the one that my teen years had taught me would
give away any movement. Once I was at the bottom, I couldn't help but
smile at the sight before me. Max lay sleeping on the couch, his mouth
slightly open as he murmured incoherencies. I felt deeply sorry for anyone
who had to share a pillow with my brother. I knew for a fact that his
pillows were just about as dry as Michael's hair had been when he thought
that spikes were in.
When my eyes wandered to the table just beyond Max's feet I almost laughed.
Presents from Roswell's airport. Well, it's the thought that counts,
right? I wondered how much of it was green.
A peek inside revealed three bottles of wine, one tipped and lying on the
table, kept from rolling to the floor only by the weight of the other two
and the thin plastic that it fought against. The last thing in the bag was
a little white box. I began to reach for it, wanting to know what my
brother had brought, but the annoying little voice in my head started
blabbering about personal privacy. I was just in the process of shrugging
it off and reaching for the box when my brother's sleepy ramblings became
all too clear. It wasn't the sound of his voice that stopped me. No, had
he simply mumbled something about apple pie, I would have known what was in
that box long before he even knew that I had seen him sleeping down there.
His mumblings were not that simple though, and while they may have caught
me off guard at that moment, five, six years earlier, the words would have
been so common, all I would have been able to do was look towards my
brother's room and wonder when he would heal. I thought that he had. I
thought that that piece of our lives had been put away.
Apparently I was wrong, because I don't know many people who scream out for
things they no longer long for. When Liz's name tore out into the darkness
of our living room, silhouetted by the early morning lights, I finally took
the time to do what I had neglected to do the first time around. I really
looked at my brother. I wish that I could say that what I saw was
comforting.
~~~~~
"And you're sure he called out for Liz?"
"No Michael, he was screaming for Pez candies," I said, exasperated. "Of
course it was Liz." I looked up at him. "Of course, if you would have
gotten up with me then you would have heard it yourself."
"Look Iz, don't yell at me, and don't blame me for not being down there."
He ran his hand through his thick brown hair, making the front spike up
just as it had all those years ago when discussions about Liz Parker were
not quite so uncommon. "It's just... God, it's been years since he's done
that Isabel. Why would the dreams come back after all these years, and why
now when we have the first threat that we've had in years?"
"I don't know Michael," I mumbled, bringing my tone down. My parents were
still asleep down the hall, and they didn't need to know about this.
"Wait." Michael looked up at me as I sat on my bed, desperately trying to
remember any of the psychology class that I had taken in college. "I
remember them talking about this in psych. Maybe it's because of the
threat."
"What?" Michael looked at me, not confused because of the sleep he had
lost with my wake up call, but because he was utterly lost, and I knew it.
"Well do you remember when Liz left?" It was a rhetorical question. Liz
had left in the middle of everything. She had been one more tragedy in the
whole mess that was out lives for those few months in our junior year. She
had left during the big showdown without so much as a goodbye. The day we
forgot about Liz Parker's exit was the day we all got Alzheimer's. Still,
Michael nodded in the affirmative. "Well that was the last threat that we
had. Maybe it's all coming back to him because we're back in the same
position, possibly." Michael looked skeptical, but I couldn't think of
anything else.
"Well, come up with your own answer then."
"I say we take Max's. We'll just ask him about it when he wakes up."
"Michael," I said in a warning tone. "It's not like he's going to know why
he's dreaming about what he's dreaming about."
"He's going to know better than us."
I rolled my eyes, knowing that Michael wasn't going to back down and not
really wanting to fight this fight anyway. "Fine, talk to him, but
Michael, use tact, please. Don't just blurt this out. You know as well as
I do, Liz is still a sore subject for him."
Michael just nodded and dropped himself back onto his sleeping bag. I
looked at him incredulously. "You're going back to sleep?"
"Yeah. Max got up near five this morning, he didn't get on last night
until ten or so and then he spent an hour using his powers. I think that
I'll have some time to catch some shut eye." I just rolled my eyes and
walked out.
~~~~~
Maria POV
~~~~~
My plane landed in Portland's PDX airport at nine thirty that morning, and
I spent a half hour wandering around through the little stores. It was
probably twice the size of Roswell's airport, and had three different
coffee shops, just in the section that I had to walk through to get out. I
had found my home away from home.
At around ten I decided that I probably shouldn't be completely caffeinated
when I went to meet Liz. We were meeting at a coffee shop, after all, and
she hadn't seen me in ten years. I didn't think that scaring her away with
my sometimes frightening levels of energy would be the best way to start
things off again, so I decided that I would wander around the city for a
couple hours. According to the on flight magazines, Portland was a
beautiful city.
After another half an hour spent getting a rental car and the fifteen
minutes finding out where Liz's coffee shop was, I was off, wandering
aimlessly down the streets of the foreign town.
The man in the Hertz office had told me that the coffee shop was somewhere
in downtown, and so I decided that, rather than getting lost trying to find
my way to our meeting place from anywhere that wasn't the Hertz office, I
should just go and hang out downtown for a while. Shopping malls and food
courts. Obviously I was crushed.
After making sure that I could find the coffee shop by driving past it once-
well, make that twice. I may have gotten a little confused in the one way
traffic-I found the nearest 99 cent parking garage and started my
excavations. Oregonians beware. Maria Deluca's in town and she has a
credit card.
~~~~~
Shopping was a bust. For once in my life, I couldn't lose myself in the
racks of clothing and mobs of people. I just couldn't stop thinking.
(Somewhere, I know that all of my teachers just felt the need to laugh and
they don't know why.) Finally, I gave up on that and just went to the
coffee shop where I was supposed to meet Liz, ordered a coffee, and sat in
the corner farthest from the door. Liz was expecting Max, and, as much as
I had wanted to blow them off, Max's words had made me question the
friendship that I had just assumed Liz and I had somehow held on to even
after all of our years apart. It was a fantasy that I had held onto for
far too long, and now that reality had come along and slapped me once
again, I realized that I didn't want Liz to run away from me, even if she
didn't want me to see her.