Special thanks to the reviewers of the previous chapter: juliecollard87, Storyteller906 , cjsl8ne and lkaplon. I love getting feedback:)
Disclaimer: I don't own Roswell, or anything related to it..
Pairing: Max still wants Liz and oh, Liz is dating Kyle right now and he'll appear in the next chapters.
Author's note: Hope you like chapter four :)
"Lizzie, wake up."
Nancy Parker softly called out to Liz, who went to sleep half an hour ago. "Liz!" She said again, her voice a little bit higher this time.
"I'm awake." Liz opened her eyes and reached for her nightstand, turning on her desk lamp. "What happened?"
"Well, Amy DeLuca just called." Nancy said smiling. "Apparently Maria woke up tonight."
"What?" Liz jolted upwards and got up quickly. "When? Is she fine? I need to go there as fast as possible." She babbled as she looked for clothes in her wardrobe crazily.
"Calm down honey." Nancy stepped into the room and shut her closet. "You can't go to the hospital now. Visiting hours are over. But, I can take you there in the morning if you get up early before the school."
Liz stopped and stared at her mother. When she finished her words, she sat on her bed and nodded obediently. "Okay mom. I'll call Alex now, he may want to come too."
"Sure." Nancy said looking at Liz's face. She seemed relieved. Nancy knew she was worried about Maria too much. It wouldn't be appropriate to call Alex that late but Nancy didn't say anything to ruin her daughter's excitement.
After she quietly closed the door and left Liz's room, she bumped into Jeff. "You know, I was feeling guilty." Jeff murmured. "Maria got shot in our restaurant and poor Amy has nobody other than her daughter."
"She will be fine now." Nancy assured her husband, lightly touching his arm. "Liz is calling Alex, I'll take them to the hospital in the morning."
"Good." Jeff nodded. "Maria's like a sister to Liz. If something happened, Liz would be really devastated. And I hate to see her upset Nance."
"Me too." Nancy answered. She always thought Jeff was a little overprotective to Liz, but she knew it was because he loved her more than anything in the world. "Let's go to bed." She said clutching Jeff's arm. "I'll get up early in the morning."
x x x x x
"Here's my girl." Alex shouted as he and Liz went into Maria's hospital room.
"Liz! Alex!" Maria shrieked putting down the magazine she was reading quickly. "Oh my god, I was expecting you to come visit me after school."
"We possibly couldn't have waited that much." Liz said hugging her friend tightly.
Maria laughed. "Liz, chica, you're choking me." Then she turned to Alex as Liz continued hugging her. "Please save me Alex."
Alex burst into laughter. "She deserved a hug Maria. She was constantly thinking about you when you were in coma."
"Yeah." Liz finally let go of her and sat next to her. "You had us really really worried 'Ria."
"I know." Maria shook her head. "Mom said that too. I guess the doctors were saying I may not make it? Anyway, they are surprised to see me healing that fast now."
"Hi." Nancy walked into the room with Amy by her side. "I was just talking to your mother outside. How are you feeling honey?"
"I'm good Mrs. Parker." Maria gave her a smile. "I wanna go home but they will keep me here for another 4-5 days."
"Yeah, she's really fine." Amy said. "The doctors weren't expecting her to recover so fast. I think they could let us go sooner than that."
Nancy turned to her daughter. "Liz, Alex, say goodbye to Maria. You're gonna be late for the first period." Then she threw a warm smile to Maria. "I'm really glad that you're recovering quickly Maria. Jeff felt really guilty when you were shot in Crashdown. He had to open the cafe this morning but he'll come visit you later."
"Thanks Mrs. Parker. Tell Mr. Parker I say hi." Maria said. Nancy left the room with Amy, waiting for Alex and Liz outside.
"We need to go now." Alex said. "But we'll come visit you after school, okay?"
"Yeah." Maria yawned. "It's pretty boring here, plus I'm missing everything happening at school."
"I'll fill you in. "Liz grinned. "See you Maria."
"Wait wait wait." Maria piped in. "The Crashfest is in two days and I'm gonna miss it. I already have my costume so why don't you take it Liz?"
"We'll talk later." Liz said quickly, almost cutting her words. "Mom's gonna get mad so we should get going. Bye Maria!"
"Bye!" She shouted after them.
"God." Liz moaned after they left the room. "Can you believe she wanted me to wear her costume?"
"What?" Alex asked mockingly.
"You know Maria's style." Liz raised her eyebrow. "I'm sure it's something in ugly green or like that."
"You never know." Alex tried to keep a serious face, already having seen Maria's green costume.
x x x x x
"Let's get rid of your hospital clothes." An elderly nurse came in. "Your mother brought you some stuff from home."
"Do you call these clothes?" Maria said pointing to what she's wearing and wrinkling her nose. "I can't wait to be outta here."
"You will be." The nurse said, giving Maria a nightgown. "Wear this honey."
Maria tried to move her arm but it was sore from all the needles going in. "Can you..." She said expectantly looking at the nurse.
"Sure." She said and helped Maria to take off her old clothes. Just as she was going to put on her nightgown, she stopped Maria. "Whoa! What's this?" She asked.
"What?" Maria said her gaze following the nurse's and she tried hard not to gasp at what she saw. There was a silver hand print on her stomach, just below her chest. She blinked a couple of times before she calmly responded.
"It's a tattoo. But please don't tell my mom, she'll freak. It's temporary, it will wash out in two weeks."
"Alright." The nurse said after she was finished helping Maria. "This will be our little secret."
"Thanks." Maria flashed a smile, as she left the room shaking her head, probably thinking about how teenagers were these days.
After she closed the door, Maria examined the hand print closely. She had no idea what it was, but something inside was telling her to keep it as a secret. She decided not to tell anyone, even Liz and Alex. She hoped it would go away in a couple of days. It scared her but she felt like it was something dangerous, something she couldn't mention to anybody.
Thinking about what it could be, she slowly drifted to sleep. In her dream, she saw a familiar scene, a warm hand pressing to her stomach and a familiar voice, soothingly saying "Stay with me and close your eyes."
x x x x x
Max saw Isabel waiting for him outside the class. He quickly shoved his books to his backpack and left the room.
"What's up?" He asked as they walked towards Isabel's locker together.
"I don't know if you've heard it yet.." Isabel started. "But Maria DeLuca woke up this morning. You can stop acting weird now."
"I wasn't.." Max tried to protest but Isabel stopped him almost whispering.
"I know you felt bad about the situation, not just because of Liz, because you can't do anything when you're able to but she's fine now Max. I also thought she didn't deserve to die but it's not up to us to decide that."
"I know." Max murmured his ears flushing into a bright shade of red. "So, she's alright now?"
"Yeah." Isabel started but Michael cut her words. "What's going on?"
Isabel turned to him gracefully. "I was telling Max that DeLuca woke up last night."
"Great." Michael said sarcastically. "You can stop moping now."
"I wasn't.." Max started again but couldn't finish his words because of the ringing bell.
"I have to go to the class." Isabel said spotting her friends and caught up with them. Max sighed after Michael left too nodding curtly. He stopped by his locker to get some stuff, he was going to be late but he didn't care. He was contemplating between whether or not to tell Isabel and Michael about what he did.
After standing in front of his locker like an idiot, he shook himself and ran to the class. Usually, it was his favorite class and he went early but today he had more important issues. He glided into the lab under the teacher's hard glare and found Liz already working on the assignment.
"Hi." Liz said without looking up from her work. "You're late, I thought you were gonna skip today."
"No, I just had something to take care of." Max lied. "I heard that Maria woke up. You must be happy."
"Yeah." Liz looked up this time smiling. "I went to see her this morning, she looks really good."
"Mr. Evans and Miss Parker." The teacher shouted. "Can you stop chatting and try to actually do something?"
"Sorry." They both mumbled and tried to look busy with the experiment. A moment later, Max shot a sideways glance at Liz. She saw him looking at her and her eyes turned to him. Max gulped loudly, Liz Parker was beautiful when her eyes were shining with happiness.