Late for the Sky

by ibshafer

With their enemies on Earth finally eliminated, Max, Isabel and Michael prepare to head back home, but Max can't leave without seeing Liz one more time. Future Fic AU This story was written between seasons 1 and 2, before the Skins, before Tess's betrayal

3. Chapter 3

Title: Late for the Sky
Chapter: 3/4
Author: ibshafer
Category: Max/Liz (with some great Michael/Maria thrown in!)
Rating: R (light)
Summary: Heavy AU future fic. This story was written between seasons 1
and 2, before the Skins, before Tess's betrayal, before Michael and Isabel
lost respect for Max. It was written with Liz's sacrifice -- Max's destiny
over her own happiness -- in mind. Most of the characters are involved
(including Friggin' Eddie!), but I am a Dreamer first and foremost. . .
Though not originally intended, the story has a pretty strong Candy
storyline, as well. Maria just wouldn't be ignored or down played. g
Author's Note: This story appeared in the first issue of the Roswell
fanzine, Late for the Sky. © 2000 MadSeasonPress

Maria DeLuca loved New York City.

It was loud and smelly and alive. It was everything that Roswell, New Mexico was not—as far as you could get from Roswell without falling off the face of the earth. It was the place to find yourself.

And it was the very best place to get lost.

That's exactly what Maria had done. It was almost ten years since Liz had tearfully called her from the dormitory at Columbia where she was living and begged that she come join her here, and Maria had not regretted a single minute of the move.

Aside from the culture and commerce and other signs of civilization that thrived within its borders, New York was a place that almost visibly buzzed—no, vibrated—with life. Life so big and boisterous it could, if you wanted it to, and if you let it, obliterate everything in your own life, more specifically in your own past, replacing that everything with its own particular brand of frenetic energy. All the warped and painful items that you carried with you in the Baggage that was your Past. All the things that plagued you, that left you awake and alone late at night wondering what you'd done wrong, done to deserve the angst that had become your life. Who you'd pissed off or unwittingly flipped off amongst the gods. Who you'd failed to pay homage to. Who hated you enough to want to see you miserable. . .

Gone.

If you wished it. And Maria had wished it.

New York had been a quick and handy life Band-aid and she wore it proudly, like a child would—as a badge of honor hiding the gash on a knee or elbow caused by a fall from the high slide, from some dangerous something.

Which is exactly what Michael Guerin had been. A dangerous something.

May he rest in. . .

So, Maria had let herself be absorbed into New York's vibrating life. Strike that. She'd rushed headlong into that life. Straight into Greenwich Village. Into the kind of bohemian existence she was genetically predisposed to, one that had not existed in dusty Roswell, New Mexico.

That first week, slogging through the filthy, grey slush that constituted the Big Apple's version of winter, shoulder to shoulder with the miserable masses on their way to miserable minimum wage jobs, Maria had felt more alive than she could ever remember being.

She'd been drawn to the Village, by the art, by the boutiques, by the people, by the lifestyle. She found herself a tiny job in a tiny shop on St. Mark's Place and commenced a tiny, all-consuming life.

The years passed and Maria still worked in the same little boutique, now as manager and sometime-designer. She sold cool clothing and accessories to the tragically trendy, occasionally appeared at CBGB's and the Asylum with the little pick-up band she'd joined, and once a month, like clock work, she made the trek out to Columbia for Chinese with Liz at Ollie's.

She hadn't thought of dried-up dusty Roswell, and the misery attached to the name, more than maybe twenty times since she'd left and then only at Christmas, in this case recently, when Amy's eclectic, sometimes tacky, always useless Christmas gifts would arrive, sweeping into her cluttered apartment like a dusty desert wind.

She'd moved out of the tiny place she and Liz had shared on 170th Street when the commute and the monastic lifestyle proved more than she could bear. Liz Parker would always be her best friend, the one who understood the things she didn't say, the things she couldn't say, but the weight of those things, of both their things, was just too much.

They'd long since graduated from tubs of ice cream to bottles of cheap wine, but the conversations, and the miseries shared, still bound them together. Maria's was a constant litany of failed, but often raucously sexy relationships, of customers dissatisfied with satin pants two sizes too small, of taxi cabs stolen by day-trippers from New Jersey, of vegetarian Moo Shoo arriving with shredded pork.

Liz didn't so much complain about her life as she did list its occurrences, in desiccated, often graphic detail: Gross Anatomy classes that made "Night of the Living Dead" look like a Saturday morning cartoon; the colleague from Neurobiology that cheated off her paper that final year and then went on to ace her out of the top spot in the school standings; the little girl she was treating for complications from HIV who had missed her own birthday celebration; the landlord; the cold; the long hours. . .

Maria knew one thing for certain: whine though she might, Liz would be lost without these complaints in her life. She needed that little life Band-aid just as much, if not more, than Maria did.

Liz Parker needed desperately not to think.

That's what had, after two semesters, driven her from Columbia's molecular biology program. Too much time spent in quiet laboratories behind cold, lifeless microscopes. Too much time alone to think about how she'd walked away from him. And how she'd never told him she was sorry she'd left. And now it was too late.

It was too late for all of them and it had been for ten years now. Ever since the fire. Or for Maria, ever since the bike wreck in the Colorado Rockies late that same spring.

And though the years had passed and Liz's life had swelled to fill the void in her heart where Max had once been, Maria knew that this Liz, despite being devoted to her patients, was slowly, but very surely, dying inside.

Back when she and Liz had first become involved with the three of them, when this nightmare/adventure had begun, Liz had tried to explain to Maria just what it had felt like—the day Max had healed her. The day he had first touched her soul.

That's when she'd starting keeping a journal. (Not a diary, she'd clarified. Diaries were for the love-sick and the brainless. Maria had wanted to comment, but Liz had looked so serious, and so clearly in love, that Maria had bit her tongue.) She had wanted to remember every detail of that day, about the way Max had come to her as her life was bleeding out onto the Crashdown's worn linoleum. She said she wanted to remember what it had felt like so that if anyone ever touched her that way again, she'd know "what it was supposed to feel like."

It had seemed so innocent then. And so sweet. It had almost made Maria cry and that was saying a lot for Maria.

If she'd known then that that simple little statement would ruin Liz for life, she'd have grabbed the stupid journal-slash-diary and burned it.

Liz was a medical student then and a doctor in her residency at Columbia Presbyterian now. Her days were full, but she was not without her social life—or at least her version of one. There'd been boys, as an undergrad. And then, after that, there'd been men.

And no one, not-a-one, lived up to that her expectation of what love should be.

It never did "feel like it was supposed to." And as worthy as some of them might have been, Liz could never quite get past that. It was as though she'd sacrificed so very much of her soul to Max's destiny, she felt the Fates owed her the full-fledged Real Thing. And if a friendship or flirtation or a relationship didn't feel like that real thing, she'd pull the plug right then and there.

Or maybe she was just searching for the impossible; looking for Max in every man she met.

Then again, maybe she didn't think she deserved anything. Maria strongly suspected Liz sabotaged all of these so-called possibilities, that some small part of her wanted the life of a nun. Liz didn't have to say it—Maria had been reading her mind almost since they'd met. Liz felt responsible for Max and Isabel's deaths.

That night, that awful night of the fire, Max had tried, vainly once again, to get Liz to at least come and talk to him. To them all. Just to catch up. . .

They were all home on break and Alex had tried to organize a sort of reunion thing for them at the Crashdown. He and Isabel had remained friends. (Maria suspected they'd remained more than that, but she'd never been sure and she never got the chance to ask because just two years later, it was Alex's funeral they were all traveling back to Roswell for.) Liz had begged off, claiming jet lag and stomach flu and head ache and you name it. Maria was glad of it, though. The lie. It gave her a reason to stay away, too. To nurse her ailing friend. Michael was still away at UC Boulder, working through break, but the last thing Maria needed was a little alien reminder in the form of Isabel Evans.

When Liz had missed the dinner, Max had tried to get Mr. Parker to let him up to see her, but her father had staunchly followed the orders she'd given to refuse all entreaties. Taking a different tack, he'd climbed the fire escape to her little balcony, only to find Liz's room darkened and empty. They knew this because they'd camped out in her parents room above, expecting him to do just as he had. It had clearly broken Liz's heart to watch him hang his head and climb back down to the street, but she said she knew she was doing the right thing. And when she tossed the letter he'd left without reading it, again, she thought she was doing what had to be done. For his sake. For hers.

Maria had read the letter and it said exactly what she'd expected it would—that he thought Liz was wrong and that it didn't have to be this way, that he still loved her, that he'd always be there for her, if only she'd change her mind.

And in that time when Max and Liz would have been, could have been, should have been talking (or more), he and Isabel were driving home to their deaths. Because she'd turned him away.

And there began a lifetime of "if only's."

She didn't say it. She didn't have to say it. Maria knew what she was thinking. She knew what little mental stick Liz was beating herself with.

After ten years of trying to talk her out of it, through it, over it, she'd decided she could no longer be a front-row spectator at Liz's downward spiral. She loved her. She couldn't watch her rob herself of life any longer. So she moved out. And Liz had understood. She wasn't going to change, but she understood. They were still friends. They were still there for each other. They just lived in different worlds.

Worlds that came together once a month for dinner at Ollie's.

Which, Maria just remembered, she was going to be late for.

Because a reporter from some dusty tribune out west had seen an ad for the boutique in the Village Voice, done a little research into the shop and, oddly, her band as well, and wanted to meet to talk.

What a chance to promote the boutique, she'd thought. And the band.

She should have done the paranoid thing and waved him off, but her vanity got the better of her and she set up a meeting over coffee at Baxter's which was just up the street. On a busy corner in a very public coffee shop. At rush hour.

She'd be fine.

Shut up, Amy, she warned the phantom, disembodied voice of her mother that always chimed in whenever she ventured to take a chance. It's just an interview. I'll answer some questions about the shop, talk about the band, even say "Hi!" to my dear old mom in Roswell, NM. What could be wrong with that?

Maria was just locking the cash drawer into the stock room safe when she heard the wind chimes at the front door tinkle someone's arrival.

"We're closed!" she called, muttering something under her breath about people needing to learn to read. She'd flipped the Check Us Out Tomorrow! sign 20 minutes ago. And had obviously forgotten to the snap the lock at the same time.

Great. Just great.

She was meeting that reporter, Ken Whatshisname, in ten and she didn't have time for last minute browsers right now. When she didn't hear the chimes signal the illiterate's departure, she sighed, swore softly and finished up what she was doing. Reaching for the baseball bat she kept—just in case—she hefted it once, then stepped out of the stock room and back onto the selling floor. For once, she was sorry they'd found such a large space when they moved the shop. It was a security nightmare. Lots of nooks and crannies. No really clear line of sight. And racks friggin' everywhere.

It's a boutique, Maria, she chided herself. We're about excess here, not minimalism.

"I'm sorry, but we're closed," she said smoothly, trying to keep the tension from her voice as she searched for her "guest." "We'll be open again tomorrow at 9 if you'd like to come back then," she continued, peering around the too-high racks. Damn! She made a mental note to have Jesse take them down a level when he came in on Monday. Screw the inventory!

There was still no response from the interloper and she was really starting to get spooked. She heard a soft rustling of taffeta as someone walked by the rack of dusters she was sorry she ordered and the sound of it nearly made her jump out of her skin. Someone was here. Close by now.

A sharp intake of breath. Not hers. Then someone was speaking.

"Hello?" A man. "I have an appointment?" he said in a hesitant and vaguely familiar voice. "We . . . we were supposed to meet at Baxter's, but I thought it might be better if we talked here."

"Oh!" Maria said, her voice brightening. "You're the reporter." Instantly, she relaxed. She was still holding the bat, but she now knew who was here, anyway. And from the direction of his voice, he was right by the front counter. Rounding the corner, she smoothed her hair with the hand not holding a weapon and prepared herself to be effervescent and charming and interesting

And was totally unprepared for what she found waiting for her there.

"Max!" she screamed, clutching her chest. The bat fell to the floor. "You're—"

Max looked as though he had not expected this exact reaction from her. "Yes. I'm Max," he said, nodding. There was a faint hint of amusement in his voice, but he reached for her hands to calm her. "It's okay, Maria."

Maria pulled away, shaking her head almost convulsively. "That's not what I was going to say. . . I was going to say—you're alive." Feeling the room begin dip off kilter, she backed up against the counter and fished out a vial of something calming from her pocket. "Or are you alive? And what are you doing here? Am I dead, too! Are you here to take me to heaven?" She took a deep breath, shivered, then wailed. "Are you here to take me to Hell?"

His face crinkled slowly as he attempted to stifle a laugh. "You haven't changed a bit, Maria." Max found a pitcher of water, filled a glass, handed it gently to her. "You're not dead. I'm not dead. I have some explaining to do. And you need to calm down."

"Calm down. Right." She regarded him, dubiously. "You come back after ten years, apparently from the dead, and you expect me to just be cool about this? Are you serious?"

Max found a funky-looking chair by the dressing rooms and carried it over for her. She waved it away, then slid down the counter to the floor, fanning herself with a hand.

"Obviously a good choice to meet you here, then, huh?" He set the chair next to where she'd dropped and sat down, regarding her with concern on his face.

Her breathing was slowing somewhat. "I don't remember you being funny, Max." She glanced up at him, gaze narrowed. "Now I know why. . ."

At this he did laugh, though faintly. She saw what looked like age at the corners of his eyes as he did, marveled at how he'd done the human thing like everyone else and accumulated years. But then, she didn't know what he'd been through since he'd "died." Maybe hell? Maybe worse. Maybe it was more than years she was seeing there.

"Wait," she said, holding up a hand. "You're the reporter? Ken Something?"

Again, a smile. A nod. "Kenneth Thomas Clark. From the Trib. New Mexico. . ."

Something about the sound of that snapped her brain into gear. There was a riddle there. . . Then she had it. Ken T. Clark. Clark Kent. She almost grinned. It was almost funny.

"Superman complex?" she said archly

Max shrugged. "Isabel's idea. . . You're the first to pick up on it."

"Lucky me. Do I get a prize?" And did you have to bring up Isabel?

"Listen, Maria. We need to talk. I—"

"Damn straight we do!" She pulled herself up off the floor, started pacing around the racks. "You let us think you were dead, Max. You let Liz think you were dead. Do you know what that girl has been through? Do you!"

"Yes, I do," Max said softly, something that sounded like regret thickening his voice. "That's why I'm here."

"Why? Why now, Max? Liz has got a life here. She's got a profession."

"I know. I've been following her . . . her career. I know she finished med school—two years early. That she got an appointment to the emergency medicine department at Columbia Presbyterian. That she lives near the hospital. That she's still single. . ."

Was that it? Was he still in love with her?

Oh, wait. Of course he was. Just like her. . .

Old soulmates don't die. They just pine away.

Maria felt her Liz-protectiveness kick in. "What are you trying to say, Max? That she's single because she's missing you? That she's become a nun because of you?" Oh, wait. That is what happened. . . She backpedaled. "A doctor's life is a busy one, you know. And she's in the middle of her residency so her life belongs to the hospital. She has no time for. . ." She stopped ranting, blinked once. "Why am I telling you this?" She shook her head, tried to clear it. "Why are you here, Max? What do you want?"

He took a deep breath, started to speak, but then her mind jumped to another riddle and she cut him off.

"Michael!" Her face flushed with a variety of emotions—realization, anger, pain, joy. "Michael isn't dead, either, is he?"

Max regarded her silently for a moment, pressed his lips together tightly, then shook his head.

"He's an engineer now, working on our systems on the reservation. He's also an art teacher, part-time."

Maria tried vainly to cut and paste these new bits of information into her mental Michael document, but the fit was jagged. Didn't work. "An engineer. An art teacher. On the reservation," she repeated blandly.

"We all live on the reservation," Max continued. "We've been there since . . . the fire."

Did his voice just catch? Was that the infamous Max angst she was hearing now?Maria took a step back, suddenly aware that there were other lives involved here beyond just her own and Liz's. What was real and what was fiction? And what had they been through? Foggy, her mind scanned the archives.

"So . . . so then the fire. . ." she stumbled over her words now, realization dawning quickly. "Your parents."

Max turned away from her, but she saw him wave a hand near his eyes, heard him draw breath in quickly through his nose. When he turned back, his face was set, but she knew what it had cost him

"My parents died in that fire. It was supposed to have been us. We just let them believe that they succeeded."

Oh, God. How awful. They've been living with that for ten years?

"And Michael?"

Of course, Michael would have to play dead, too. Of course. . . Her heart, already working overtime in the beating department, stepped up the rhythm anew. Michael was alive. Alive. . .

Max looked up at her now. "Michael 'died' in a bike accident on his way home from school after finals that year. With Nasedo's and Jim Valenti's help, we got new identities, new lives. It bought us a little time. They still came, but we were ready for them. And we fought. And—"

"Wait," she cut him off again, her mind still running the history. "Is that how Alex died? Was he . . ."

Max regarded her grimly, then relented. "He'd found out we were alive, tracked Isabel down at a shoot."

"A shoot?"

"She's a photographer," he answered, nodding. "Diana Clark." His voice was almost reverent. "She's very good. Works mostly with Native Americans. Children. She put out a book, anonymously, of course, to benefit the Native American Children's Fund. Raised a lot of money."

"That was Isabel?" She'd seen that book, almost bought it. "Wow. . ."

Max seemed to stutter here, not wanting to continue. "They'd tracked her down, too. And . . . and Alex got caught in the cross-fire. They used him to try and get to her. . ."

Oh, God. . .
"So, it wasn't a car crash." A statement, not a question.

Max's answering headshake was stiff, pained. "It wasn't a car crash."

Maria worked her jaw for a moment, for once at a loss. Blindly finding her way to the chair, she felt her way into it. Breathed slowly for a while. Felt her eyes begin to fill.

"Sweet Alex. . ." she murmured as the tears began to flow in earnest.

Moving to her side, Max's hands were on her shoulders, then cradling her head as she wept. "Alex wasn't supposed to die, Maria. None of you were. That's why we couldn't tell either you or . . . or Liz. Anything."

She reached up and found his hand, squeezed it in genuine pain, genuine support. "Jesus, Max. I can't . . . I can't believe you've all had to go through this. Alone." Again, she felt herself struggling with divergent emotions. Again, she felt the tears start fresh.

Suddenly she needed more from him, needed to give more to him. On her feet in an instant, she slid her arms around his neck and held him close, feeling his warmth circle her as he did the same. He was breathing hard against her, and she knew he was fighting to keep control, knew he couldn't afford to lose it now. Somehow, dear God, she knew that.

"It'll all be over soon," she said softly into his ear, her arms tightening around his strong back. "I know it."

When Max pulled away, his face was an open book. Was that relief she saw there? And if it was, why was it mixed with pain?

"It's all over now," he whispered.

Not for the first time since this "interview" had begun, she felt the confusion fight to take over.

"I've still got a lot to explain," he said, taking a deep breath. "And I'm going to need your help with something. But for now, I think we both need some time. And maybe some food. You hungry?"

Maria's laugh was a short burst of air through her nostrils. "Food? I need a drink. . ."

Taking her hand, he pulled her towards the door. "C'mon," he said. "I'm buying."

Max watched Maria through the window of the employee lounge. Liz was due to start her shift in a few minutes and Maria was waiting in the hallway while he stayed in here out of sight.

He hadn't realized there'd been windows in this room when he'd seen it before. In Liz's dreams. Probably because they'd been drawn against the light of the hall so she could sleep. He'd pulled back the heavy, insulated drape so he could see her when she arrived, but left the gauzy sheer in place to shield him, hopefully, from view.

The ER was pretty much as it had appeared in so many of Liz's dreams, a little less crazed, perhaps, but instantly recognizable. It sent a shiver of memory through him. The last dream he'd walked.

The playground. The blood. The transformation. The transference of wounds from his young self to Liz. The look on her face when she'd seen him there in her dream. Had she realized it was him or had she just taken the confusion and the seeming double images as a natural part of her dream. Had she felt that jolt of electricity when she'd touched the real Max's face? And how exactly was she going to react when she saw him standing there in the flesh?

Alive.

Max had been hashing this out in his head for over three months now, debating the rightness of it, debating the approach, debating his motives, even. Was it just that he desperately wanted to see her again? Or was it more?

In the years since they'd been forced, by destiny, by necessity, to go their separate ways, Liz had never been far from his thoughts. He'd learned how to hide his still-deep feelings for her from Michael and Isabel, but they were still there, torturing him with the most painful "if only" of all.

If only it weren't so dangerous.

There was no way he could reveal himself to her. It wasn't safe, for either of them. Had it not hurt so deeply, Max might have thought it somehow amusing that the same rationale that kept them as "just friends" for so long, now had him playing "just dead."

But these "if only's" existed during the Confrontation. Now that it was over, all bets were off. . .

Max slipped a hand into his jacket pocket until he found the cool metal disk there, smooth against his fingers. He flipped it over to trace the symbol on the other side with his finger, and nearly jumped out of his skin when his cell phone, which was in the same pocket, rang.

Silencing it quickly, he did a quick check out the lounge window to see if Maria, or anyone else,like Liz, might have heard it, but the ER raged on, oblivious, as did Maria who was still standing there by herself, pretending to read the notices on the bulletin board and impatiently tapping a boot heel against the linoleum. He saw her steal a glance towards him and he nodded in return, wondering if she could see him.

"Hello," he said warily into the receiver. "Ken Clark."

"You can drop the act, Max. It's me." Michael. "Where are you?"

Max stopped short, unsure of what to say or how much he wanted to tell him.

Michael went on before he could respond. "Look, I know you're in New York. Why? We're leaving in two weeks, Max. You already quit the paper. You're not covering any story out there."

His life in hiding had given him a healthy list of alibis. He ran them through his head, for a moment unable to choose one. At the last minute, he ditched them all.

"You know why I'm here."

There was a pause before Michael answered and when he did, there was something in his voice Max hadn't expected. Was it sympathy? "Yeah. Yeah, I do."

"Don't try and talk me out of it, Michael," Max said quickly. "I can't leave things this way."

"I know you can't, man. I just wanted to. . ." Michael trailed off, sounding uncomfortable. "So . . . have you seen her yet?"

Max cut a quick look out the window. Maria was still alone, dancing from one foot to the other now.

Maria. Max shook his head. Man, am I slow."Maria seems good, Michael," he said softly.

He heard Michael fumble with the phone for a moment. "I was asking about Liz, Max. Have you seen Liz yet?"

You called about Liz. Right. . . Max smiled softly, but didn't challenge him, allowing the man his illusions. He knew better, though. He knew Michael's dreams were just as tortured as his were. Necessity doesn't affect the heart. Silence isn't silent on the inside; he knew Michael thought about Maria just as much as he thought about Liz.

"Not yet," he whispered. "Soon, though."

There was another pause and Max could hear Michael breathing into the receiver. "What are you going to do?" he asked finally.

What am I going to do? Max thought. "I don't know," he said aloud. "Go somewhere and talk. See if things are as—see if things are how they seem."

More silence and Max could picture Michael chewing his lip "And Maria," he asked finally, saying her name aloud for the first time, maybe, in years. Max could hear the word catch in his throat.

"I was going to go back and see her. Afterwards."

"Don't," Michael said quickly. "Let me."

"What do you mean?" Max asked.

Michael sighed. Probably more lip chewing. "I'm in New York. I followed you."

Max nodded. Of course, you did. You couldn't stay away any more than I could.

"Okay," he said, quietly. "Do you need. . . did you take the other one?" He knew, though, already.

"Yeah . . . I did."

There was an awkward silence and Max knew Michael had the same running argument going through his head that he'd been fighting with. Was it right? Was it wrong? Was it selfish? Wouldn't it be better to just leave well enough alone?

He heard voices in the hallway coming closer and looked up just in time to see Maria heading his way. With Liz. They paused outside the door, near to his window. "They're here. I've got to go."

"Good luck," Michael said, and Max heard that sympathy again. He was momentarily sorry he'd never thought to have this conversation with Michael before. It might have done them both some good.

"You, too," Max said softly then flipped the phone closed.

". . .No, really, Liz. I'm fine. I just wasn't hungry tonight," Maria was saying, her voice muffled by the wall. "How are you feeling? Any more of those strange dreams?"

Liz's answer was tired, strained. "Not in a few weeks." She's right there. . . . Max tried to get a glimpse of her through the window without getting too close to it, but had no luck. "What's up with you, Maria? You're acting odd."

"Odder than usual, you mean?" A beat. "Sorry. I'm a little nervous. It's just that I have to tell you something, Liz. Or, I mean, I have to show you something. And it's going to be a shock. And I can't think of a good way to do it."

From the other side of the wall, Max could almost see Liz's smile. Knew she'd want to reassure her friend. Even if being reassuring weren't a part of her physician's training. "How bad can it be, Maria? Another tattoo? Did you get something else pierced?" A soft laugh. "I'm sorry. I can tell this is serious. Maybe you should just show me."

Max held his breath, then braced himself as the lounge door swung slowly inward.

"It's dark in here, Maria," Liz said, warily. "What are you hiding?"

"More like who," Maria breathed, gently guiding her around. To face him.

He'd expected shock from her. A Liz Parker version of Maria's near-fainting hyperventilation. She'd have a right to it, after all. He'd been prepared to revive her with a touch, to bring her around, to breathlessly explain himself and how he'd come to be alive.

He hadn't expected the silence.

She seemed to be holding her breath as she studied him, trying to process the sudden, rather huge, bit of information his presence there constituted. He saw confusion played out across her face, mixed with several other emotions, all battling for air time. Joy. Pain. Surprise. No, not surprise. Strangely, not surprise.

He regarded her as calmly as he could muster with his heart pounding double-time in his chest. The years had been both wondrous and cruel to her, gently sculpting the lines of her face into graceful and beautiful planes, but fading the glow of her skin (too many hours spent in artificial hospital light) and etching stress lines around her still wide, still clear eyes. Her hair was longer than he'd known it and just as lustrous as he remembered. He could imagine the feel of it between his fingers, the scent of it jasmine or possibly almond. Her expression, though, was becoming painful to him; the confusion; the conflict. He wanted to cross the room, gather her into his arms and kiss the look from her sweet face, but he held back, afraid it would only scare her more. Afraid, too, that she wouldn't want him to. After all this time. That he no longer had the right.

It seemed, though, that she didn't agree, because she was suddenly standing so close to him he could hear the faltering breaths she took. She reached out with a shaking hand to touch his face, testing his solidity and once that was proven, tracing his jaw line with first one hand, then the other. At the touch of her fingertips on his skin, there was an echo of that electric jolt he'd felt from his last dreamwalk. The way her eyes widened, he could see she'd felt it, too.

"I knew it," she said simply, wonder on her face.

He searched her eyes and saw the truth of it. Had she known all along? Or just since that night? Didn't Maria say she'd been having strange dreams? Had she realized they'd been more than that?

"How did this—How are you here?" She wouldn't take her eyes from his face, as though afraid he'd disappear if she looked away. There was a knot of pain, or something else, between her brows and he longed to smooth it away, to erase the guilt. "All this time, I thought I'd—I mean, everyone thought. . ."

"I know," he breathed, apologetic, aching. "I'm so sorry. . ."

She seemed to be cataloguing his features now, searching for changes, insuring all was well. Her eyes ran carefully from one to the other—eyes, ears, nose, lips—and when his face was completed, she let her gaze wander down his body for a similar check. He felt his skin flush and everywhere her eyes moved, there was a tingle and a warmth, as though she were following each with a fingertip. Or a kiss. . .

"Um, guys?" Maria said gently, from her place at the door. "We're approaching a shift change. This room is gonna be swamped in a few."

Suddenly shy, Liz smiled and finally looked away from him. It took her a moment to find her voice. "She's right . . . Maria, have you got your cell on you? I've got a favor I can call in, someone who owes me a shift. And then we can get out of here."

Before Maria could move, Max drew his phone from his pocket, held it out for her. She took it from him, her hand lingering on his for an extra second. Again, the tingle. He fought the rush of images, at once surprised at the ease of the connection. From the briefest of touches. All those years apart, had strengthened, rather than weakened it. Had concentrated the energy.

Max shivered, fought for control. He needed to get out of here now. With Liz.

Oh, God, he thought. This is not why I'm here. He forced himself to look away from her. Isn't it?

Phone in hand, Liz moved to the side to make her call. "Jerry? It's me. Liz. I need you to come in and work for me tonight. . ."

Maria was still standing by the door, a faint smile on her lips, looking like she knew everything he was feeling. What they both were feeling. Max smiled softly at her in return.

"I think I'm gonna head out, if that's okay," she said. "You two have a lot to talk about."

"Maria," Max said, pulling her to him and squeezing her shoulders warmly. "When I told you before that you hadn't changed, I meant that as a compliment." He felt her laughing as he held her close.

"Sure you did, Max," she said, kissing his cheek.

"Thank you for your help, Maria. All of it."

She fixed him with a meaningful look. "Take care of her, Max," she said.

Liz wrapped up her phone conversation.

Maria drew Liz to her briefly, silently mouthed the words, "Call me," then left.

Alone for the first time since she'd left Roswell, Max and Liz stared at each other, for a moment unsure what came next.

Liz was the first to speak.

"Let's go back to my apartment."

Groovy.

As if the sudden downpour hadn't been enough, Maria had spilled a container of egg drop soup while she fumbled with her keys. It splashed down the front of her straight black skirt and made a mess of the floor.

Note to self, she thought. Get a little table to put outside the door. It'll save you on dry cleaning bills later.

She'd done the front door juggling act plenty of times without losing a Macy's circular or drop of soup, but then she'd never had a day this weird before. At least, not in a long, long time. Her synapses were trying to get themselves around some pretty heady stuff right now, shuffling these new bits of Roswellian history in amongst the old.

She also wasn't ready to consider what these reality updates might mean for her. Nope, she'd deal with the "her" part later. Right now, all she could handle was what it meant for Liz.

God, Liz. All those years of believing she'd been responsible for Max's death, torturing herself, sacrificing herself to her profession. And the joy abstinence. Liz had spent a decade denying herself the right to pleasure. As much as Maria tried to be a good/bad influence on her, Liz lived only to work. She was the Queen of Denial. . .

What happens now? Maria thought.

She was trying not to worry about Max and Liz and what happened now. They seemed . . . well, they'd seemed rather wonderful back there at the hospital, but she still had some lingering doubts about why Max had come to New York at this particular point in time. There was something strange in his demeanor that she couldn't quite put a finger on yet, but she would. If she could just get the friggin' door open.

The last lock sprung and she pushed her way inside, then began twisting them back into place. She was about to turn and dump her armload onto the kitchen counter, when she heard a sound she shouldn't have in her empty apartment.

Someone taking a deep breath.

Someone that wasn't her.

She froze. "I have a gun," she managed to croak out.

"You do not," said an amused voice. "You don't believe in guns."

Before she could stop the retort, it had popped from her mouth. "What? Like I don't believe they exist?" She stopped short. She'd had this argument before. Once. A very long time ago.

With Michael.

Screw the kitchen counter. Maria dropped everything she was holding on the floor in front of her and spun around.

Michael sat on her couch, one boot casually crossed against the worn knee of his jeans. He was gazing mournfully at the pile on the floor. "Damn, was that Chinese? The food on the plane was awful. . ."

Guess I'm dealing with the "me" part now, after all.

Fighting every instinct she had, Maria squared her shoulders in what she hoped wasn't a vain attempt at strength.

"Not dead, huh?" she asked, impassively.

She was hoping her face didn't show any of the joy that was mixed in with the shock she was feeling. She was actually hoping the shock wasn't showing either. Cool was what she was going for. After all, she was a City girl now. She worked in Greenwich Village. She moved with a crowd of hip young people. She wasn't the spacey, Roswellian teen she'd been. She was a sophisticated woman of New York. She didn't smile, though she wanted to. She didn't run across the room and leap into his lap, though she very much wanted to. She just stood there regarding him calmly.

Too bad he wasn't buying it.

"Come over here."

His voice was soft and warm and it made the little hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She was standing stock still, solid in her Doc Martens, but she could almost feel her legs moving, feel herself running across the room, feel herself jumping onto the couch.

"No way," she said, taking a decisive step back. Maybe not so decisive. She was starting to shake. "You don't get to come back from the dead and play Mr. Casual with me. Not after all this time." Michael pressed his lips together in a tight line, letting some air escape his nostrils. He looked her in the eye for a moment, then away.

"Fair enough," he said. He uncrossed his leg and leaned forward. "Ask."

Her heart fluttered in her chest. "Ask, what?" she said, trying for casual now herself and dead certain she was failing. "What am I supposed to want to know, Michael?" His name caught in her mouth and she almost bit her tongue. She hadn't realized she'd stricken it from her vocabulary. She tried again. "Okay, here's one; what's it like to not be dead?" She laughed now, feeling the anger rising in her. "Really, Michael, I want to know, 'cause I've been dead since the day you died. . ."

Where did that come from?

And then it all fell apart: the semblance of cool; the façade of indignation; even the anger. She wasn't angry. She understood. She understood everything they'd had to do and why. It just hurt to see him sitting there all nonchalance and attitude. All "c'mere, baby, here's your man" macho. In fact, maybe she was angry. For that. Not for the rest, though. She knew that had the circumstances been different they'd have worked it out.

The circumstances were different now, though,and he was sitting on her couch while she stood dumbly by the front door trying to start an argument with him. Why?

"Maria, I—" he started to say, but she cut him off.

"Come. Here." Her teeth were grit. Her hands were balled into fists.

Michael clearly did not need to be asked twice. He rose from the couch and crossed the room in three easy strides. She noted the solidity of the muscles moving beneath his denim shirt and marveled at how changed he seemed. A man. She shivered. Then he was pressing her up against the closed front door and she could feel the changes. Everywhere. . .

Oh. God.

tbc…