A/N: First of all I do not own the characters of Roswell; they were created by Jason Katims and Melissa Metz.
It's not every day you wake up in a bed inside a log cabin with an old man holding a shotgun across his knees. But that is exactly what Michael Guerin woke up to, aside from a blistering head ache. Once he realized where was and where he wasn't he scrambled up with his dominant hand thrust out in front of him, ready to take out the man that had deterred his rescue operation. The old man was surprisingly quicker, and now Michael was staring down the barrel of the gun into the craggy features of someone that seemed surprisingly familiar.
"Now, I'd jus' hate tah have tah put a bullet between those eyes of yorn, Michael," A decidedly Southern drawl poured from his mouth, so thick it could have been maple syrup, "Now yew jus' calm yerself down some, son. I ain't gonna hurt yeh. I saved your lives."
A string of profanity broke from Michael's lips until he rewound and realized the man knew his name. How in the hell does he know my name? Maria. Where's Maria?! "Who the hell are you and how do you know my name, Grandpa?" Righting himself on the bed he tossed the quilts off and swung his legs down to the floor.
The old man smiled grimly at the rude inquiry but kept his fussing over the boy's manners to himself. Instead he laid the shotgun back across his knees and gave the filthy kid in front of him a hard once-over. "My name is Jim O'Rourke; I used t'be a Ranger in the great state of Texas 'fore they was fixin' on turnin' crookeder than a dick stuck in a door. I know yer name 'cuz yer girlfriend tol' me who you were."
Choking on the bald-faced crudeness of the man's turn of phrase a little part of Michael seemed to be starting to like this man. Even if he had zapped him within an inch of his life and pointed a gun at him, there was something about this man that rang true even though Michael's every other instinct told him that no one could be trusted. That no one could be let in to their circle because they had made that mistake before and what had come of it had only been pure destruction.
"While this is all very interesting I want to see Maria and the others…make sure they're okay and you're really not a Grizzly Adams axe murderer."
The old man smiled thinly and stood; the traitorous ache and protests of his old bones a constant lamentation to the loss of youth. He understood the boy's reasoning and didn't protest, instead he limped toward the door, "Yer a bit young t'be knowin' who Grizzly Adams was."
Michael swept past him, hand on the iron door knob, "Appearances can be deceiving, old man."
O'Rourke sighed and nodded, watching as Michael opened the door, soon to find himself in a new world that he knew very little about. Things were gonna change once again for these kids and the only thing that he could was to help them get through it.
Oh I know a thing or two 'bout appearances, boy. You wouldn't even believe.
A/N: Reviews and comments are encouraged. I kinda pictured O'Rourke as Kris Kristofferson, y'know...the guy from Blade. He always did strike me as a good mentor. x3