Destiny Chapter 3: Part Three: Burned, a roswell fanfic

Title: Burned ( Destiny part three )
Timeline: All of Tess' life up until Sexual Healing.
Perspective: Tess/Ava
Spoilers: This goes right to the third without going to the third.
Disclaimer: Don't sue me, I own nothing.

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Sometimes Tess is Tess and sometimes Tess is Ava and when she's Ava, she just wants to go home. Heck, when she's Tess she just wants to go home. But when she's Tess she doesn't know where home is. She's heard that home is where the heart is and home is where your feet are but all she really knows for sure is that home is in a car with Nasedo on the way to a place that isn't close to home. It isn't close to Ava's home, at least, because Ava's home is with the stars. Both Tess and Ava want to go to Ava's home. Ava wants to go because she wants to rule again and Tess wants to go because she doubts they'll ever find what they're looking for driving around the States like idiots. You see, Tess and Ava are the same person sometimes and two different people sometimes. Not in the way Nasedo and Ed Harding are different people because Tess didn't kill Ava and take over her body, but in the way that when Tess is Tess, Ava's in the back of her mind.

Tess remembers Antar, or at least, Ava remembers Antar and Tess can see what Ava remembers. Tess sees Vilandra and Rath and she can see Zan; her Zan. The love of her life. And that's why she hasn't run away or killed herself, because as soon as she is old enough to understand, she wants to find Zan and just. Just. She doesn't know what she'll do if she found him, but she wants to. She doesn't know if the other three are together or where the first batch are, and Nasedo doesn't know either or he would tell her. At least, that's what she'd like to think. Sometimes she thinks he keeps her on the road driving further and further away from something real because he doesn't want her to leave him. She doesn't want to leave him either because he's all she's ever had and nothing can really change that. Nothing except for Zan, because Tess knows that once she finds Zan, Ava will take over and she will be okay. They will both be okay. She won't need Nasedo anymore and that will make her happier than she can ever be.

But then there's the matter of the deal. Nasedo was supposed to be their protector, he was supposed to protect them from anything and everything that came their way — especially Kivar. And the first thing Nasedo did when he found Tess' pod alone in the desert was make that stupid deal. The only thing preventing her from killing him and going out on her own is the idea of not knowing what to do next. Ava would know what to do if she had Zan or Rath or even Vilandra but Tess is in charge because the second batch is more human than alien and Tess is technically a sixteen year old human with no ideas and no sense of direction.

Ava has killed before, Tess knows this. She killed a dozen rebels in order to get to Vilandra and kill her. Tess never figured out why because Ava's memories ended there and Tess guesses that Ava's life ended there as well. She asked Nasedo once but he told her not to meddle in the affairs of her past and live in the present. Ava wanted to kill him and Tess wanted to cry. They both wanted to find Zan so they could leave him and live happily ever after. Before, Tess would lay awake at night and replay all the memories of Ava and Zan and she would wonder if her Zan will still be called Zan. Nasedo named her Tess after Ed Harding's wife, even though she wanted to keep her original name, and it's grown on her, but she thinks she'll change it back to Ava when she find Zan. Unless his name is something equally silly, like Lloyd or Clifford. She knew a Lloyd for a moment in time. He served her scrambled eggs and burnt toast and orange juice with far too much pulp. Clifford is the big red dog on television that she watched as a child and always wanted to own but Nasedo said that dogs don't like cars and she cried all the way home from the mall while Ava thought up a plot to kill him.

When Tess turned ten she had her first crush, a boy named James who had bright blue eyes and blond hair. He looked nothing like Zan and perhaps that was what made her like him so much because at that time she didn't believe in destiny and she didn't think there was any way she'd find Zan. At that time, she really didn't care if she found him or not because she had found out about the deal and she didn't want to go back to Antar and watch Zan being killed again. That's what scared James off. She kissed him once and saw a million flashes of her life on Antar and her death on Antar and called him Zan. He called her a freak and was dating a pretty redhead when Nasedo drove the car out of the driveway and away from Rockford, Illinois. That was the first time she and Nasedo had a real house for a home and she had to call him dad because the neighbours called him Ed or Mr. Harding and they would ask questions about who Nasedo was. The night after she kissed James she went over Ava's memories again and cried herself to sleep.

It was rather heroic of Zan to die for his wife. Stupid, but heroic. She went over the image of Ava lying in bed with Zan's arms around her for the last time and the distant sound of screaming. She went over crashing into the door trying to get in — the rebels have stormed the palace and made sure there was no way to get out — and Zan forcing it open. Rath is alone, fighting off rebels at the command of none other than Kivar. Vilandra is rocking herself back and fourth like the coward she is watching her husband being killed. Zan and Larek rush to help their friend and Ava, seeing clearly what the others have not, rushes toward Vilandra. There is power in her that she has not felt before and as Tess watches the scene she feels it too. Heat overcomes her, her body feels electric and it seems as if the lightning from outside is suddenly inside of her. It is surging through her and simultaneously surging through the rebel fighters, but it is killing them and their pain is making her more powerful. She can see the fighting stop around her, stretches her arm out at Vilandra and watches Zan leap in front of her to receive the life ending blow from Kivar. She killed a dozen rebels in order to get to Vilandra and kill her. And she had failed.

When Tess woke up from Ava's memories, the room was electrically charged and something had burned. The sound of a storm was resonating outside the window and she felt as though for a moment in time, she actually was Ava. Nasedo told her she caused the storm, and after that she stopped visiting Ava's memories, tucked them and her away like a neat package in the back of her mind. She wouldn't bring them out again for a long while.

Maybe it's because she's died three times — though all in memory and all in someone else's memory and Ava didn't technically die all three times but Tess watched it and that was just as bad as living it — that she knows what it's like to live. Nasedo finally puts her in school, finally let her interact with other kids and she's the only thirteen year old who can answer what love is. So maybe she's loved, not lived, but you have to live to love, don't you? And you have to live to die and love to live and die to understand love and life and all that. All that doesn't matter.

"Love is knowing that forever isn't going to get in the way because forever is what you're willing to offer. Love is knowing that no matter where or when or for how long you'll be together in the end. Love is dying for each other and living again if only to die once more. It's hurting when you're not together, crying when you miss each other, not wanting anything else in the whole wide world and the other star systems. It's finding a way to be together so you can relive what you've already experienced and make it better. Love is the strongest emotion you can ever feel at any given time and it connects you no matter what the circumstance. Love is unconditional, it is never ending, it is simple and complicated and it hurts. But it's worth it because one moment of love is greater than all the happiness the world has to offer. Love is seeing the stars when you kiss and the three moons when you make love. Love is what you get when you take on the world."

Apparently thirteen year old children shouldn't know what "making love" is like. The teacher called her troubled, the students called her a slut and Nasedo said he loved her for the first time when he drove the car out of the driveway and away from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. In New Orleans, Ava stops showing up as often and Tess makes a friend, one who reminds her of Vilandra. It is ironic that the one person who befriends her reminds her so much of the person who betrayed her in the first place, who is the reason she is here and not there and apart from Zan. It all came down to Zan. Her name was Jessica and Tess wanted to know why Nasedo hadn't named her Jessica instead. Sure Tess has sentimental value but Tess never saw Nasedo's emotions before or after they left Hattiesburg so she really didn't understand it. Sometimes she wonders who Nasedo was before he was Ed Harding and she wonders if he knew Tess Harding and if she was sentimental to Nasedo and not just Ed.

Nasedo moved them to Odessa, Texas in the middle of the night and Tess cried herself to sleep for a week. Sure, Jessica reminded her of Vilandra and sure, Vilandra had betrayed them to the death but Jessica was her only friend and Nasedo took that away from her. She wasn't silent about hating him after that. She was fifteen years old and Ava was back. Ava freely used her powers, though she couldn't use them at school because Nasedo didn't trust her enough to put her in school anymore. She lit the kitchen on fire in his mind and snuck out of the house while mind warping conversations in her beloved father's head. She thought real hard about running away when she would take long walks by herself but the idea of being on her own wasn't something she could bear at the moment. She needed someone. She needed Zan.

The fact was, though, that Zan wasn't there and she probably wouldn't find him and she would die alone — or with Nasedo by her side which was just the same as being alone — in her too human body and her too human world and without anything she loved.

Before they leave Texas, Nasedo leaves Tess alone in the house in Odessa for a week and she packs all her bags to run away. She sits on the edge of her bed staring out the window, into the stars, and wondering if Zan is somewhere looking up at the same stars. Maybe Rath and Vilandra are still lovers in this world, maybe since Kivar isn't here, they are happy together. Maybe they aren't even together. For some reason, that thought comforts her because if they are alone, when they come together it will mean so much more. She thinks at least if they are alone she won't be the only one. If she enters their world and it is already built she would feel as she felt all her human life. Left out. Ava was never left out on Antar, Tess knows this. She had friends and a family; her mother had the bluest eyes and her father was sternly handsome but carefree and loving — nothing like Nasedo. She had sisters, two of them, who were flower girls at her wedding. They moved into the royal palace when she became Queen and she often would walk in the gardens with the mothers and Vilandra talking of the men in their lives and the calm that had been in Antar for so many years.

It was Kivar who upset the calm, attacking Sero for the sheer joy of it. Sero, in turn, attacked Hanar causing Hanar to attack Kathana. It was Kathana, whose armies were then greater in number, who first attacked Zan in Antar. Dozens of peace summits were held in the course of the battles and on the night of the final decision, the last wave of soldiers from Kivar's world invaded Antar and murdered the Royal Four. If Tess or Ava ever found Kivar, they would both kill him in an instant. As Tess sits on the edge of her bed, staring into the stars, she makes the decision to stay with Nasedo. He is not her mother with her bright eyes or her father with his laughter and he was certainly not Zan; her Zan, the love of her life. But it was Nasedo that took her from the pod and gave her a home, whether or not it was on wheels. It was Nasedo who wearily tried to be a father and a mother and two sisters. It was Nasedo who raised her for the years of her life that mattered and it was Nasedo who would eventually lead her to her destiny. That night Ava wants to leave but Tess isn't ready. She hasn't repaid her debt to her "father" as of yet.

Nasedo comes back frantic, excited and laughing. Tess wonders what his reaction would have been if he came back to an empty home. It seems, for as long as they had been on this quest to find the others, they have been searching in the wrong places. Well, Tess could have told him that. But she wouldn't tell him that. Something Jessica said. Something about letting your parents be right. Ava thought it was stupid, but Tess would listen to anything Jessica had said. Tess has to repack her bags since she put all the clothes back in the closet on the fourth day of his absence. She has scrambled eggs and bacon on their last day in town and the toast she eats is only slightly burnt and reminds her of Lloyd. And Lloyd reminded her of Larek because he had curly hair and a silly air about him. And Tess wonders if when they found the others, they would tell her stories of people who reminded them of her.

They are driving to Phoenix, Tess sleeping in the back of the car and Ava's memories swimming through her mind. And Zan is swimming through her mind. Through crimson red water that isn't quite liquid and isn't quite solid. It reforms around his body as he swims on his back, eyes closed and his arms outstretched. Tess can see the moon hanging over the horizon, the cloudless sky is burnt orange, like a painting that's never been painted. And she can see the view of the royal city through Ava's eyes from atop a rock where Ava sits. She is draped in the finest fabric, curls bouncing off her bare shoulders and the water splashing against her feet. Dimaras rock, named after the third moon, it later became their special place. Ava pretends not to notice Zan, whispering secrets to Larek and swimming away shyly. When he is king, he will have to work on his social skills. Larek swims toward her and gives a little wave, "M'Lady, would you do the prince and I the pleasure of telling me your name" She blushes and nods, speaking simultaneously with a voice that sounds both distant and near. "Ava."

"AVA! Wake up!" Nasedo has stopped the car on the side of the road and gotten out. He is staring at the sky with utmost disbelief motioning her out of the car. Ever since he came back to her he had been somehow changed. Everything is different and every night, as they draw closer to their destination, he stops the car and stares out into the stars. She stumbles out and looks, expecting to see nothing but a clear sky and maybe a cloud of two illuminated by the light of the moon. She hates Earth for only having one moon. Instead a voice speaks through Tess' mouth though she had not made to speak. "Rath." Nasedo seems surprised by this because even he hadn't expected there to be such a strong connection between the four. Perhaps it didn't work across great distances.

The iridescent light that shines blue into the sky is something she has seen before, or rather, something Ava has seen before. It is the light from the communicator, but only enough to be one. Tess knows there should be two on Earth because two were left in Antar to be activated when the two on Earth were activated. Nasedo told her this but she doesn't remember the rest of the conversation because she really never paid attention to him. Ava awakens in Tess and she remembers Zan's frequent abuse of the orbs. He would take one set with him on trips to other planets and send her messages when he was supposed to be working. It isn't Zan that she feels, though, but Rath. He was not only her friend on Antar, he was her brother and she missed him just as much as she missed Zan.

Tears fill her eyes as she listens to Nasedo. Zan, her Zan, had been found, under the name of Max Evans, a simple boy with a sister by the name of Isabel. Vilandra. Nasedo had been watching them in the week he was gone, photographing them and following them. They spent time with a boy called Michael Guerin and when Nasedo told Tess this, she and Ava both cried. It was as she had feared for ten years of endless road trips and dead end leads. She had endured loneliness since the moment she had stepped out of the pod and they were together all this time.

Tess hates the desert and she hates the feeling of being burned even when the sun isn't shining. She hated Odessa but she loved New Orleans. She hates wherever it is they're going. "Roswell, New Mexico." Nasedo says when they pull into a driveway of a clean cut looking house in a neighbourhood both Tess and Ava aren't used to. Tess is used to small houses and apartments and the back of the car Nasedo has probably had since before he found her pod. Ava is used to shimmering lights and red water and three moons in the sky. Nasedo has already set up his office and put a few things in the fridge and Tess figures it out that he was here when he was gone. She asks him if they remember anything and he doesn't reply and that night Tess cries and Ava wishes she had killed herself before she let it get this far because now all her dreams and hopes of a reunion are shattered.