Author: becky  rttavi@aol.com
Rating: PG
Pairing: Michael POV
Disclaimer: I don't own anything to do with Roswell or the characters of Roswell.
Spoilers: S2 from Meet the Dupes on…
Improv #12--Angsty with an unhappy ending


~*~

It was an accident.

It was just an accident. It wasn't really my fault, but I'll be damned if I don't feel like it was and that's the part that hurts most of all. I am the reason behind the pain. I am the reason that everyone else is hurting. I am the destroyer.

I'll never forget the day, the hour or the minute it happened. It seems like it was years ago, but still so fresh in my mine. But it wasn't years, it was barely a month ago and nothing has changed since then.

It was a Sunday, not unlike any other Sunday or Monday or Thursday for that matter. We were sitting in the park, on a picnic table; a basketball in-between my ankles. We were just bullshitting about life. Nothing too deep. Nothing like the conversations we've had in the past about life, love and destiny-crap. This was just us sitting there bullshitting about movies, music and pretty girls.

Nothing too exciting.

We started talking about plans for the future and his were so alive with what he wanted to do. We tried to stay away from subjects such as this mysterious quest for a son (real?) and kept our dreams earth-bound. With humans. With specific humans.

I told him things that I never thought I would. Things that I kept inside. I told him my plans of marrying Maria someday and living a life as what I felt like, a human. I still didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew-up. Hell, I don't know if I ever want to grow up. His plans were similar to mine.

His eyes grew distant as he conveyed the steps in life he planned to take. He would be with his one and only love, Liz Parker, no matter what. He was going to go to college wherever Liz wanted to go. He said he'd follow her to the ends of the earth or beyond. He loved her so much.

I can't even look at her.

He said he was going to plan a huge wedding with all their friends and family. I was to be the best man and Maria DeLuca the maid of honor. He described his tuxedo and I swear he had the stars in his eyes when he told me how Liz would look. She was his entire reason.

He surprised me when he said he wanted to do something medical. Although he didn't quite say it, I got the feeling he wanted to help wherever and however he could. Leaving a silver handprint on patients wouldn't be good; but saving lives in a human way would.

Human.

Remembering that day, the way he talked about this elaborate future he had, I can't stop myself from getting sick. Mentally and physically.

It was an accident.

We talked for what seemed like days, but in actuality it was barely two hours. Two hours with my best friend planning a future that wasn't going to happen.

I destroyed it.

It was like I knew it was going to happen in some way. In some deep dark recess of this thing in my head I sometimes call a brain, I knew what was going to happen but I had no freaking control over it.

We were going to meet the women we declared as ours for dinner. A new kind of bond had foraged between us that day; as close as brothers can be, we became closer. I didn't think it was going to just end; all of our lives, we were going to be together. Through every milestone each of us conquered we would always have each other.

Then I destroyed it.

It was a short walk, hardly more than two blocks. A walk we've taken a million times before, maybe even more than that. Liz and Maria were meeting us in that stupid restaurant. From there we were going to go to dinner. I can barely eat anything anymore.

It was barely dusk, still plenty of light to see by. Looking back it was so stupid, but hindsight is always 20/20, right?

He was a few feet in front of me and I called his name. He looked at me as I passed the basketball to him. He was never as athletic as I was and he missed it; or maybe I overshot it. It was too far in front of him for him to even have the chance to catch it.

I saw the truck barreling down the street out of the corner of my eye, but I don't think it registered. I saw the back of Max's head as he leaned forward and stepped off the sidewalk chasing down the ball.

I didn't have time to react. I was frozen. It was an accident.

The truck hit him, then ran over him. I saw the truck bounce as it ran over his broken body; then stop. The driver got out and was as frantic as I was frozen.

I don't know what happened next.

I was in a daze for so long, then I knew I had to find Isabel and tell her what happened to her brother and then Liz. Liz, the woman that Max wanted to spend the rest of his life with. How was I going to tell her that Max was killed chasing down a basketball that I threw too long?

I keep telling myself the same thing over and over.

It was an accident.

I don't know why I try to talk myself into making it something more than it was. I didn't do it on purpose, I could never… But there, somewhere in the back of my brain I think I knew it was going to happen. It was almost as if I had done it before.

The month that's passed since we lost Max has been horrible. I can't face anyone anymore. I don't want them to look at me and tell me it wasn't my fault because I know they still blame me. I blame myself.

I destroyed a life before it had time to really begin.

I destroyed all the plans for a future.

I destroyed everything and everyone because I couldn't aim a basketball.

I am the destroyer.


end