Title: Breathe ( Destiny part five )
Timeline: Sexual Healing, or, I suppose, after it. Before Crazy. Dips into Independence Day.
Perspective: Maxwell
Spoilers: Nothing relevant to be spoiled about. Just brooding and thinking and more secret hating of Liz.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue. LOVE!
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Max doesn't even think twice about what Liz is thinking when Michael utters "I wonder what Maria is thinking right now" and Isabel adds her input with "Alex must be so confused. He never did understand this alien stuff, just sort of went along with it." They both look at him like he's going to mention Liz, but he doesn't, just shrugs and offers a weak smile and goes back to staring at the passing road, getting dizzy and liking it. He likes being blurred, not knowing what's going on, and lately he has no clue what's going on. The life of Maxwell Evans usually isn't too complicated, but lately. Lately the confusion is invading every aspect of his world, both alien and human. And even though he likes being blurred, he doesn't like it this much.
Isabel rolls her eyes and is playing Honestly Okay so close to her ears Max is sure she can no longer hear. Michael's rolling the stone over and over in his hands, tossing it up and around like it's not the only thing they have from their home planet and they can stand to damage and or lose it. Max is just staring at the passing road, not wondering where Liz is right now and seriously, honestly not caring. Only maybe he is wondering where she is and maybe he is caring, but only a little bit. The littlest of bits. And he stops thinking about it anyway, by choice, because he figures he's thought about it enough. Liz. Maybe in his moment of drunkenness he had a moment of clarity. He finally notices that the music has stopped and both Michael and Isabel are looking at him like he's green. "Whatever, fine, brood. We're used to it anyway."
Isabel turns back to the road — which is a good thing, because Max doesn't want to get into another car crash — and the stone once again is tossed up carelessly. "I'm brooding? You think I brood?" There is a chorus of stifled laughter from the front of the car and he furrows his eyebrows in that disapproving way that he does. "You think I brood." This time it is not a question, quite unfortunately, and he sinks into the back of the jeep and tries to forget about, well, everything. It doesn't work very well and he ends up thinking about everything to the tenth degree. Among his thoughts there is the unknown alien rock that Maria helped find, though Max is still uncertain how that came about. Uncertain but with a fairly good idea. Maybe he should talk to Michael about it. And then there's the fact that his sister and best friend think he broods, which he does, but not to the extent that they think. They're blowing the whole thing out of proportion. Well, of course he broods, he has reason to.
And his reason, well, if that wasn't obvious, is Liz. Liz Parker. Elizabeth Parker. Driving down the highway in the desert heat on a day that started out in panic and fear, Max Evans comes to a realization. Perhaps it's an epiphany. He realizes that Liz is the reason for a lot of things and not all of them are good. In fact, most of them are pretty bad. She's the reason Valenti has become Max's shadow, the reason Topolsky was sent to the school, the reason Michael doesn't trust Max with anything nowadays, the reason Isabel silently hates him — he sees it, even if she hides it — and the reason their quiet alien life of being unnoticed and under the radar has been turned upside down. Granted, she makes him happy and there hasn't been a moment in his life where he's been as happy as he is when he's with her, but Max has never dealt well with his life being in someone else's hands. In Isabel's hands would be more than fine. In Michael's hands he may have to worry about him playing catch with it, but it would be okay. But in someone else's, someone who isn't alien, the concept has always been pretty difficult to grasp.
"Michael?" He looks up to the front seat and Michael catches the stone and looks back at him with a look of raised eyebrows and unfamiliar happiness — Michael isn't usually this happy unless he's been watching Bewitched or reading those big complicated books he likes. "Are we okay, you and I?" Isabel joins in on the awkward exchange of stares, looking back and fourth between the two of them and Michael smiles again — What's with him today? Oh, right, that— and nods. "Course we're okay, Maxwell. But don't look at me like you're going to ask why I'm so happy, cause your head would explode if I told you." Max and Isabel simultaneously break into laughter, the music fades as Isabel puts it down beside her and they pull into town, past the Crashdown where Alex's car is parked and keep on driving. "Hey, since Hank's still, you know, you mind if I crash at your place?" He flashes his patented Michael smile and Isabel and Max both nod as the boys do the secret alien handshake they invented in the fourth grade.
-
He lays on his bed with his eyes focussed on the ceiling and the ceiling focussed on him. The sun is blinding him and yet, he refuses to close his eyes. Something about the yellow green spots that it leaves on his eyelids reminds him of something from a long time ago. A memory, maybe of their home planet, maybe of the crash or the pods or maybe it's completely unalien and he's just letting himself get carried away thinking about it. He doesn't even know what it is he's think about and he doesn't have the opportunity to figure it out because he hears a door close rather loudly somewhere out in the hall.
He can hear the sound of Michael making breakfast and conversation as it breaks out, quiet at first and then louder as everyone starts to eat. Isabel chimes in here and there and there is laughter. He hopes Michael is behaving himself around the parents, hopes Isabel isn't answering questions for him or anything. Maybe Max should give the both of them more credit. Michael did find that stone, after all, which currently sits on his stomach, his hands running over its smooth surface as he thinks, and thinks, and thinks some more to no avail. None. At. All. Questions are all he has, really, and no answers, just a shiny rock that doesn't glow unless Michael touches it? There are so many questions in his mind and he can't sort through them quick enough to answer even one.
There's one question that sticks out more than the rest, though. Not even a question, really, just a situation. The whole Liz situation. It all comes down to one thing. Alcohol is bad for aliens. When intoxicated, aliens do strange alien things without thinking about the consequences. They write initials in hearts on walls and make them glow and then make fireworks and then kiss people, become sober and realize that they just made a complete ass out of themselves. The whole Liz situation only became worse with that. With the drunkenness and the kissing and then with the guilty brooding. Max still isn't off the brooding thing. He didn't think it was that extreme, but apparently, it is. It's Sunday morning and he has been brooding for exactly ten days, or so says Isabel. She says it started with the alcohol. Michael says it started when he hit puberty and realized that Liz was his type. Well, his human type, anyway. He'd much rather like to believe Isabel than Michael. The whole Liz situation is worse now, with the brooding and all, and maybe Max doesn't want to fix it.
What Max wants to do is just close his eyes and float away. Sometimes he does float away. He floats and floats and floats to a place where he doesn't have to pretend. Somewhere where there are people exactly like him, who can manipulate molecular substances but don't explain it in those terms because there is no one to explain it to. Because there, it just is. He floats to a place where being found out isn't something you fear, where being different means you're the same as everyone else. Sometimes he thinks that place really exists, that it's waiting for him somewhere among the stars. And then there's times when something goes wrong and he can't close his eyes and pretend to be normal because no amount of pretending can fix the fact that he's not normal and he never will be.
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Michael's being emancipated has to be the single best thing that has ever happened to their little group. Max decides they should hold meetings, keep each other up to date on the finding outs and going ons of both the alien and human aspect of each of their lives. Maria calls it the "Human/Czechoslovakian Alliance", Alex calls it "Science Club", Michael prefers not to talk about it and Isabel just laughs at the idea of a name for six most clueless beings on Earth. Liz hasn't attended any meetings even though they've been going on for nearly a week — every day after school and if everyone is available on the weekends. If their secret didn't bring the six — well, five — of them closer together to begin with, the meetings sure have.
The apartment is a cross between a hole and a fixer upper that'll never get fixed up. Maria and Isabel have already taken the liberty of putting fluffy pink things everywhere in order to make the place look presentable. The boys are certain they've either gone insane or developed an obsession with marshmallows. "You got a paper towel holder?" Isabel and Michael are loading groceries into the kitchen while Maria kicks Alex's ass in Street Fighter. One thing Max has learned about Maria, never get in her way when it comes to Street Fighter. Max is sitting to the side. He's not brooding, he's not, he's just staring out the window without speaking. Can't a guy stare? "Oh, God! Not even baking soda's gonna help with that." Among the karate noises and Maria's cheering, he can hear bickering. It's like, even with all the alien chaos, they've managed to still be teenagers. Sometimes Max forgets that he is a teenager. Sometimes he feels like he's got the weight of the world on his shoulders, it gets hard to differentiate.
"Okay, everyone, out. Maria and I have an experiment to do, you know to find out about the visions." Michael is shooing Isabel from the kitchen and catches the orange Maria throws at his head. "Way to be subtle, Spaceboy." The meetings will go on tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that. Maybe Liz will join them, maybe she won't. Max is pretty much uncertain of everything at this point but he's not going to over think and overanalyse everything and, well, brood. He's not going to brood. "Maxwell, I love that you're interested in my sex life, but you gotta pursue your own avenues." Michael is raising his eyebrows and shrugging his shoulders in this completely unnerving way so Max just squints his eyes like he does and follows Alex out, stealing an apple on his way.
-
Even after two weeks, the brooding hadn't stopped, the question of who the hell Ava is still hasn't been answered, the rock hasn't glowed again, the origin of Maria's visions is still a mystery, and then there's the whole issue of eight pods still left to be analyzed. Three is one thing, but eight is just pushing it. It's confusing, too, because where are the other five aliens? All this time they've been looking for Nasedo and now it seems there's five of him or five like him. Five like them, and Max can't help but feel happy about it. That place that he dreams about, it doesn't have to exist because they're here.
But with his happiness comes confusion. Now his thoughts are all jumbled and he doesn't know what to think. Before it used to be all about not using powers in public and not getting close to anyone and not being careless. That was before he healed Liz. After he healed Liz it was about investigating and covering the tracks and making sure nothing happened to the six of them. There was six of them. And now. Well, now it seems like there's five of hem. And now it's about breathing. Finally, for the first time in a long time, Max is able to breathe.
"Max!" Or maybe he's not. He turns around and Alex and Isabel both excuse themselves in unison, one talking about a movie, the other about the park and the stars and Yogi? Why couldn't she have been looking for Alex? Or Isabel? She likes Isabel. Maybe not, Isabel isn't too fond of her. "Hey, Liz, um. Hey." She does that hair tuck thing that she always does and Max mentally kicks himself for noticing. Wasn't she the reason behind all his brooding? Didn't Isabel say he should, what was the expression? Bip it in the nud? That doesn't make sense. He does that hair smooth back thing that he does and they walk together. He's barely listening and in the three weeks since they've spoken she appears to have grown a fondness for speaking. "I don't see any of you anymore. Maria, Alex and I, we haven't talked in forever." Max is just nodding along, not particularly hearing her voice and thinking. Always thinking.
There was a time, just three weeks ago, when all he would be able to hear was Liz's voice. Wonder what changed. He thinks it's probably the fact that he didn't make an effort to speak to her after their brief encounter at school the day he healed Michael, but there are two people in their, you could call it a relationship, and she didn't make an effort either. "We've been meeting up, you know that. Alex said he told you." Liz shrugs and barely rolls her eyes. "Science Club, right. I've been meaning to go, but things have been a little weird between us, haven't they?" Another hair tuck and Max is sure she's batting her eyelashes. He didn't think girls still did that. "I mean, Max, we never talk anymore, and whenever you're at the Crashdown it's to pick Maria up. I miss you, you know?" She smiles at him and Max wonders, he's been wondering this for a while now, what it is about Liz that makes him like her so much. She's just like any other girl from Roswell, except for the fact that she was shot and brought back to life by an alien.
And then it dawns on him, another epiphany. There's nothing special about Elizabeth Parker. She's just a girl who was lucky that a boy like him had a crush on her. She's just a girl who made a few special friends and whose life changed a lot in a short amount of time. But she, herself, is not special. Max thinks his thoughts may be a little cruel, but he's still thinking them. "Liz, I have to go. Isabel and Alex are probably waiting for me." He offers her a smile, the first he's given to her in quite some time, and turns to leave before she has the chance to say goodbye.
It feels weird, leaving Liz behind. It feels weird, but at the same time it feels necessary. Even if Michael and Maria are hell bent on finding out where the visions came from and what they mean — and they've been doing "experiments" to find out, yeah, whatever. Everyone knows what kind of experiments they've been doing — and Isabel and Alex are working on the Ava thing and where the other five aliens are and Liz is, well, Liz isn't really doing much of anything watching him walk away from her, even if all of that is going on, and everything around him is chaotic and annoying and Maria keeps poking the rock to make it glow, Max feels this. How should it be described? A lightness. There's a lightness in the air. And it's surrounding him and freeing him. And it's better than being dizzy or, hell, being drunk.