Many of the characters within this story, and the universe they inhabit, are the intellectual property of Jason Katims Productions.
Roswell: Re-Imagined
Written by Horatio Jaxx
Chapter 36: New End, New Beginning
By the time Max and Liz became free of their groundings the school year was two weeks away from being over. They both endured their punishments amicably with their parents while providing them with excellent academic reports. The parental units for the Parkers and the Evans had nothing to complain about during the whole of that time. They still had their concerns about the relationship their respective child had with the other while they were at school, but they concluded that was something they would have to live with until a new event necessitated some form of reaction. For Max and Liz, the constraint imposed by their groundings frustrated their relationship. The only time they got to see one-another was at school. To maximize their time together, they took to eating their lunches outside beneath a shade tree. Once the grounding was over, Liz was slightly more eager than Max to take advantage of their newly reacquired freedom.
Liz's affection for Max was not confined by concerns of future consequences. As time went on, her passion for him grew stronger, and she had no desire to constrain that. Max, however, was very much motivated to restrain himself despite his growing ardor for Liz. He felt guilt for engaging in a relationship with her. His fear was that he would hurt Liz when the purpose behind his being there became known to him. The recurring dreams that he was experiencing felt like a forewarning that the day was coming when everything would change. Max dreaded the thought that he might someday have to leave Liz, but his dreams continued to forewarn that this was likely an event to come.
As soon as their groundings ended, Liz began pushing for an intimate meeting. Max gave responses that suggested he was not opposed to that, but he made no effort to make it happen. He was aided in this by the restriction that Jeff and Nancy Parker imposed to his association with their daughter and by the same restriction that Phillip and Diane imposed on Liz. Over their first free weekend Max limited their time together to a late night, double date, movie with Michael and Maria.
Max spent much of that weekend hiking segments of the surrounding wilderness with Michael in tow. Max's consecutive groundings had put their practice of examining the myriad of rock formations around Roswell on hold. He quickly picked up where he left off with only a little reluctance from Michael. The interest in finding the outcrop that was haunting their dreams was still present in both their minds. For Michael it had fallen from a preoccupation to an occasional pastime. For Max it had risen from an intriguing search to an excuse to be away from Liz.
Maria was not greatly displeased by Michael's return to the search. She and he had spent the past month very much in each other's arms. Their mutual desire to not be, overly, carnal in their relationship was complicated by the excess of free time that Michael had. Without Max's jeep for transportation, Michael did not have the means to traverse the distances and reach the search locations in any reasonable amount of time. That free time and Amy DeLuca's infrequent presence at home made their attempts at abstinence a failed effort on numerous occasions.
In their spare time Liz and Maria often discussed their relative situations. Surprisingly these opportunities increased after the grounding. They were twelve days away from finishing their junior years of high school. Max and Michael were spending the bulk of their Sunday's hiking through the wilderness. After finishing their tour of work in the café, Liz and Maria spent the afternoon in the upstairs apartment studying, listening to music, eating, and talking. It was during the latter when Liz brought up an issue that had been plaguing her thoughts.
"I think I'm ready to do it with Max," Liz announced with a hint of surprise in her voice.
Liz was sitting up in her bed with her legs crossed in front of her. Maria was seated in a chair with her legs propped up on Liz's bed when she looked up from her book in response to her comment.
"You mean sex?" Maria questioned with an inquisitive inflection.
"Yes sex, Maria. I can't believe I'm saying this," Liz responded with a surprised expression.
"Me neither," Maria quickly seconded. "What about the master plan, college, graduate school, molecular biologist, aren't you afraid you might be putting all of that at risk?"
"I know," Liz acknowledged with a look of shock. "It's just that … sometimes, when I'm with him, I don't want to stop. Do you know what I mean?"
"Hey, you're preaching to the choir," Maria answered dryly.
"Do you think I should get some protection?" Liz questioned with a hopeful inflection.
"You mean like a condom?" Maria questioned back.
"Yeah, Maria, like one of those," Liz insisted with a stern look.
"Well … if you're not sure then you probably shouldn't," Maria countered in a matter-of-fact tone. "Then you won't go all the way."
"Yeah," Liz vaguely agreed as she pondered to herself.
After several seconds of thought she tossed out an alternate position.
"But what if one day I really want to do it?"
"All the more reason why you shouldn't have one," Maria reasoned back to her, "so, you won't go all the way."
Liz took a pause to consider that with a look of agreement on her face. After several seconds she pondered out her thinking with a hint of excitement in her voice.
"But what if I really, really want to do it?" Liz stressed with a strained expression.
Maria suddenly gave up on this discussion with a look of exasperation and a wave of her hands.
"Okay, Liz," Maria announced as she reached down and retrieved her backpack off the floor. "You decide what you want to do."
Maria opened a zipper pocket to her backpack and pulled out a condom. She then extended it towards Liz.
"I'm not saying any more about it," Maria declared with finality.
Liz studied the condom in Maria's hand for a couple of seconds before snatching it up into her own. She then continued to study it.
"Yeah, I should be prepared," Liz reasoned out loud more than she spoke to Maria.
Maria watched Liz with a contained grin on her face, half expecting her to give it back. After another few seconds, Liz grabbed her backpack and tucked the condom away in a zipper pocket.
"You sure you won't need it?" Liz questioned with a mix of surprise and concern on her face.
"I keep at least four on me at all times," Maria quickly retorted with an, are you kidding me expression.
"Maria, you tramp!" Liz barely spoke for laughing.
"I know," Maria grinned as she joined in on the laughter.
They both laughed for nearly a minute. At the end of that time, Liz spoke up with a shy smile.
"You know, it's not like any of this matters. I think Max is afraid that he'll hurt me if he we do have sex."
"Don't worry about it," Maria responded nonchalantly. "Michael is the same way. He's afraid he's going to fly off in his spaceship some day and leave me behind with a broken heart."
"Yeah, but you've been having sex," Liz challenged with a shocked expression.
"Well, Michael doesn't have as much self-control as Max," Maria casually tossed back. "And who knows, maybe Max is right. Maybe one day they will fly away, never to be seen again."
"I don't care about that," Liz complained with a hint of sadness.
"Okay then, have you tried encouraging him?" Maria questioned slyly.
"Well yeah," Liz responded with a timid smile. "I mean, I've tried physical things, but he always just pushes me away."
Maria took a moment to think about that, and then she tossed out the result of her musing.
"Well, I guess he could be gay."
"He's not gay," Liz quickly contradicted with a laugh.
"Well, you never know," Maria argued with a grin. "There's no rule that says aliens can't be gay."
"He's not gay, Maria," Liz insisted in a definitive tone. "Trust me, I know."
"Okay, I'm just thinking out loud," Maria reacted with a grin.
"What's it like when you and Michael have sex," Liz asked with a look of curiosity.
Maria took a moment to consider the question before pondering out an answer.
"It's like the happiest moment of my life," Maria mused. "I mean, it's like ecstasy when you do it. But afterwards I feel serenely happy."
"Serenely happy," Liz mimicked back to her with a mocking smile.
"Yeah," Maria reinforced with a grin.
"Serenely," Liz repeated with exaggeration and a larger smile.
Maria erupted into laughter in response to Liz's jape. She composed herself a second later and spoke up with an air of confidence.
"Well, you know what God said after he invented sex?" Maria asked with a haughty expression.
"What's that?" Liz questioned back with a smile.
"That ought to keep the species going," Maria reported with a straight face.
A second later Maria and Liz burst into more laughing that lasted for more than a minute.
LINE BREAK
The next day at school, the student body of Roswell High School was subjected to a medical screening. The purpose behind the testing was reported to the entire community of Roswell the week before by mailings. All its inhabitants were instructed by the CDC to participate. It was decided that school age children would be tested during their home room period and were advised by their teachers how the event would be managed.
"You each have been given a time when you'll be expected in the first aid room," Mrs. Donner advised her home room class. "It shouldn't take more than a few minutes. They're just going to a swab inside your mouths, so you don't have to worry about needles or getting a shot. It's quick and it's painless."
"What's this virus that they're looking for?" Shannon Brewer asked after Mrs. Donner pointed to her raised hand.
"I'm told it's a variant of the Cytomegalovirus," Mrs. Donner answered carefully. "It's been appearing in and around Roswell for the past few years."
"Do they think we have it?" Kevin Gill quickly asked.
"No," Mrs. Donner quickly responded. "You shouldn't worry about this," she continued in a calming voice. "They're just trying to make the people who do have it aware of it," she explained as she looked back and forth into the faces in front of her. "This test is being administered to everyone in the city," she insisted a second later. "And they don't expect a positive result from more than ten to twenty people at the most. They do expect most if not all of them to be adults," she finished in an upbeat tone.
"If so few people have it, then why are they worried about it?" Emily Seitz questioned with a curious inflection.
"First of all, this virus is not life threatening, normally," Mrs. Donner emphasized to calm her class. "It can be, but typically it isn't," she added with her palms out in front of her. "But this particular version of the virus seems to be more infectious than normal and more harmful. I'm told that the typical transmission is from mother to newborn. However, this variant seems to be passing from person to person at a higher rate than normal," she continued to clarify. "This is why the CDC is concerned. The virus tends to remain dormant for long periods of time, and the person who has it can be passing it along, primarily through sexual contact, without even knowing it. So, what they're trying to do is identify who has it to stop the spread," she finished with a hopeful expression.
Mrs. Donner searched the faces of the students staring back at her for any signs of concerns or questions. After several seconds she spoke up again.
"That is why everyone is being tested," she stressed with a wave off with her hands. "There are no exceptions. This is not about you," she continued to emphasize. "No one thinks you have it," she punctuated. "The CDC simply wants to contain, and hopefully stop, the spread of this virus while it's still in small geographical area."
Mrs. Donner paused again to see if she had answered the concerns of her class. After ten seconds a single hand rose. She pointed to it and waited on his inquiry.
"Will these swabs be used to test for anything else?" Max Evans questioned with an intonation of concern.
"No," Mrs. Donner insisted. "They'll be looking for the antibodies for this virus and that's all they'll be looking for."
Max knew that there was something different about him, and that his difference was likely on a genetic level. He, Isabel and Michael were confident that their difference would remain unknown until someone thought to examine their genome, but he had no reason to believe that this screening was anything other than what it claimed to be. Just the same, he could not stop himself from considering the possibility of the test being used to examine their genes. Despite that concern, he, Isabel and Michael, submitted to the test without any reservations and with every intention of behaving just like everyone else.