VARIABLE

 

By Chicky

 

Title: 'Variable'
Rating: NC-17 (someday)
Spoilers: Well, I'm pretty thoroughly spoiled, and there might wind up being vague references even into Season 3, but consider all of Season 2 in here. I'll try to warn if I put in something that hasn't aired in the US yet.
Category – FutureFic, M/M, CC/UC
Disclaimer – In case you're confused, None of this belongs to me.
Author’s Note – Ok, this fic is my red-headed step child. It was actually begun a few months ago, before my last fic, and has been abandoned more times than I can count. I'm not proud of it, it's first person, and it's honestly not at all my best (my Michael narration comes off as being a little feminine, ok, not a little a lot) - you probably think I'm joking, but when you start it you'll understand. Anyway, I'd consider this more of a warning than anything, this fic is gonna' be in minor circulation, it's not very good, it's certainly not gripping, probably the only good thing about it is that a good chunk of it is already written so updates will actually be regular *gasp*.

Oh - by the way, this could be considered heavily angsty, and may or may not involve character death, I'll let you find out for yourself.

Note: The slashes // // indicate flashes or memories.

  

PART 1

 

 

Damn.

It’s nearly 11:00 and I haven’t showered yet. I reluctantly drop the brush in my hand and take a step away from the wall where my new canvas is mounted.

Not again.

There they are, luminous green eyes. Staring at me. Haunting me. I know there is paint on my hand, but I run it through my hair anyway. When will I stop doing this?

The digital clock on the corner bookshelf blinks from 10:56 to 10:57. Gotta’ go shower. Can’t be late.

I hate schedules. For years I’d been without one, and I liked it that way. Now, I have to be up by a certain time every morning, have drop-off and pick-up times. Living by the clock sucks.

The bathroom is completely filled with steam when I step out of the shower. I know I switched the fan on before I got in, but I can’t hear it now. Must be on the fritz again, I’ve done the ‘hand-wave’ over it a dozen times, but it always breaks after a day or two. Maybe I need to actually call a repairman. This reminds me that the two sprinklers in the back corner of the lawn also aren’t working, and there are two brown circles in the otherwise green grass to prove it. There’s always something. No one ever tells you that the ‘dream’ of owning your own home is actually a ‘nightmare’ of endless hassles. Of course, no one forced me to buy an eighty-year old house.

Sliding the closet open, I’m about to reach for a favorite pair of jeans when I remember they probably wouldn’t be appropriate. I slide the other side of the closet open. The Gap side, and take out a pair of khaki pants that fit too tightly for my taste, and a black short sleeved shirt. This is all Isabel. About every four months she hauls me to the mall and insists I buy some ‘grown-up’ clothes. I nearly make the mistake of putting on my work boots but think better of it and opt for a nice looking pair of black leather boots (also from the Gap side of the closet). Isabel hates it when I call it the ‘Gap’ side, she informs me that many of the clothes are from Banana Republic and AX – I don’t really care where they’re from, I hate them.

The mid-day sun beats down on my head when I walk out the back door, and I glance at my watch to see how I’m doing for time. Yeah, should be able to make it by 12:15. It’s strange, the California sun. Somehow it’s a little more yellow here than it is in New Mexico. The Roswell sun is white, piercing. This sun is a little softer.

Inside the SUV the heat is stifling, and I roll down the windows waiting for the air conditioner to start making a difference. It’s not a long drive, but the traffic is a pain. By the time I pull into the parking lot I’m not a happy camper. Not that I’m ever a happy camper. I try to wipe the scowl off my face as I pull open the door to the building, but it’s taking more effort than I’m willing to put out, so the expression remains. She won’t like it. She’ll make a face and roll her eyes. Oh well.

These stupid shoes make squeaking sounds as I walk down the hall, and I’m kicking myself for not wearing my work boots. I round the corner of the hall and walk the last few steps to the room, and taking a deep breath I throw the door open. Every head turns to see who has entered, and for a moment I feel overwhelmed. Twenty-five pairs of curious little eyes watch me as I join the small cluster of adults at the front of the classroom. Of course, there is one pair of not-so-curious eyes glued to me, begging me to try not to embarrass her.

“Mr. Guerin,” the teacher, Mrs. Smith-Johnson or John-Smithson or something, looks at me with a smile, “we’re still waiting for two more of our parents.”

I give her a polite nod, and something close to a smile, and she turns back to the class to whom she’d been giving instructions before I walked in and interrupted them. The woman to my right turns to me and introduces herself, and I shake her hand and tell her my name. She smiles knowingly and turns back to the other two women and introduces them as well. One of the women gives me the knowing smile like the first, and the other actually bats her eyes.

God, this is ridiculous.

I’m trying hard to remember why I wanted to do this. She certainly didn’t want me here. When she brought the permission slip home last week she’d tried to hide the part of the note asking for parent volunteers. I’d had this feeling, like it was what a good ‘involved’ parent would do, so I’d filled it in and sent it back with her. Well, maybe I shouldn’t have. Now it was clear why she hadn’t wanted me here, I didn’t fit in. And, by not fitting in, I was making her not fit in. She was glancing nervously between the speaking teacher and me. I don’t know what she thought I was going to do. It’s not as if I’d suddenly burst into song or start break dancing or something.

The other two ‘parents’, who also turned out to be ‘mothers’ walked in and stood with us at the front of the classroom. Thankfully, the last one looked like she was at least under thirty, which made me feel a little better.

“Ok,” the teacher said, “let’s assign everyone to their cars. First off, if your moth- or rather parent is here please go stand in front of them so that your friends will know who they’re riding with.”

She rises out of her seat, reluctantly, and furrows her brow painfully, as if she doesn’t want to claim me. I don’t know why. They all already know who I am. I’ve come to this classroom to pick her up after school everyday for the last three weeks.

Standing in front of me and facing the classroom she crosses her arms, and even though I’m behind her, I know she’s got the ‘defensive face’ on. As I’m looking down at her, I notice that my arms are crossed as well, and I realize I’m probably wearing the ‘defensive face’ too.

The teacher pulls out a sheet of paper, “Ok, with Ashford’s mom are…”

She doles out the assignments, and the kids hop out of their seats to go stand with the people they’re riding with.

“And, with Allie’s dad we have…” she calls out the names of three kids, I’m not sure if they’re boys or girls until I finally see three girls standing in front of me, staring up.

I must have tuned out, because I was a little lost when everyone started filing out of the room. The teacher handed me the directions, and called something about ‘caravaning’ over her shoulder as she walked out of the room.

“Ok, I guess you’re all with me,” I said looking at them. My voice must have frightened them because they all jumped a little and Allie tensed. I tried a softer tone, “Uhhh, I’m parked out front.”

I turned and walked out and I heard them following behind me. As my shoes squeak down the hallway, I try to remember my first fieldtrip when I was in school. Nothing really pops into my head, but I know there must have been one. Of course, I certainly didn’t have a parent with me, I probably rode with Max and Iz. Don’t really remember.

We reach the parking lot, and without even thinking I hold my hand out to Allie. Rule: she doesn’t set foot on pavement without holding an adult’s hand. I look down when she doesn’t grab it and I see the horror on her face. Oh, not cool to hold father’s hand in presence of classmates. For a moment I’m stunned, and I can’t believe how old she looks. First grader going on Senior in high school. Great. This is not the time to get sentimental.

I don’t want her to think it’s suddenly ok for her to cross the street by herself, so I put my hand on the back of her shoulder instead, steering her toward the vehicle. I’m herding the other three in front of me to keep an eye on them. Parking lots make me nervous, people are stupid in parking lots.

Opening the back door of the SUV, I drop down the second seat and two of the girls climb into the third seat, then I pop the seat back into place and the last girl climbs in beside Allie. They don’t really say anything as we start on our way to the bakery they’re touring, and I suppose they’re waiting for me to say something. I don’t know what, though, and I’d rather be quiet than say the wrong thing.

For a moment I look at her in the rear view mirror. She’s wearing her customary t-shirt and jeans. Her blonde streaked brown hair was, as usual, springing out of the ponytail I’d pulled it into that morning. My hair. I know she doesn’t quite realize it yet, but some day she’ll curse me for it. Glancing again, I catch her profile and marvel at how like me she is. My cheekbones, my chin, my forehead, my mouth, even a feminine version of my nose. Then, she turns to me, and I see her eyes… her eyes. I’ve had an affect on them as well, because they’re brown like mine - but despite the color, those eyes are all her…

The girl in the seat behind mine finally broke the silence, “So, why didn’t your mom drive, Allie?”

Hasn’t she told them? I stare at her in the rear view mirror and I see that she’s staring out the window, working her little fingers back and forth across her eyebrow. The silence stretched, and I was about to answer the girl when Allie sighed and did it for me.

“Don’t have a mom,” she sounds disinterested, as if the girl had asked if she had a dog.

“Why not? Everybody has a mom,” the girl said. I know she’s not being malicious, kids are just like this. They say whatever they’re thinking. I’m watching this conversation closely in the rear view, and I have a feeling that the girl thinks I can’t hear her.

Allie looks sharply at the girl and shrugs, “She’s dead.”

“Oh,” the girls raises her eyebrows.

“I don’t have a dad,” one of the girls in the third seat chimes in. “Well, I mean, I do, but I never see him.”

“I have a dad,” the girl next to Allie says, “he’s lots older than Allie’s dad, though.” She raises her voice to make sure I can hear her, “How old are you, anyway?”

Great.

“Twenty-five,” I say, pretending to see something interesting on the street.

“Wow,” the girl in the third seat said, “my brother is twenty-five.”

I dare a look at Allie, hoping she won’t notice because I’m wearing sunglasses. She doesn’t like this, her jaw is clenched.

“My mom says you’re like a rock star,” this time it’s the other girl in the back, she’s been silent until now.

“No,” I run a hand through my hair as I pull to a stop at a stoplight.

“You look like a rock star,” the girl next to Allie says.

“He’s not a rock star. He’s a painter,” Allie says tersely.

For a moment I notice how bubbly the other girls’ voices are compared to hers.

“What do you paint? Houses?” I couldn’t make out which one of them asked.

“No, pictures,” I reply, thanking my lucky stars that I’m pulling into the parking lot of the bakery.

While the kids all take a tour of the facility, I sit in the little coffee shop with the ‘mothers’. If the teacher hadn’t suggested that we ‘all wait here’ I think I would have hidden in the car. They’re talking and laughing around me, occasionally sending a question my way. ‘Do you have any other kids?’ No. ‘You’re a widower?’ Yeah. I don’t want the hassle of explaining that we were never married.

I’m starting to re-think my decision to enroll her in school. Isabel nearly killed me last year when I didn’t send Allie to kindergarten. I told her it would be an insult to Allie’s intelligence, and had promptly received a lecture about school being an important social experience. Max understood, he even backed me up. I think he knew the real reason. I didn’t want to let her go.

I knew I couldn’t avoid the first grade, so I’d looked for a good school to send her to. It was tough. I’d finally opted for a small private school, they had all of these ‘hands on’ teaching methods to nurture creativity, and I thought it would be best for her. Not that she wasn’t smart, in fact she was brilliant, I just wanted her to be somewhere interesting. The school had a six-year waiting list, which basically meant you had to enroll your kids the minute they were conceived. My business manager set it up so that Allie could skip the waiting list, in exchange for me giving them a quote they could put in their brochure.

She’d only been in school for three weeks, though, and it was killing me. I missed her presence in the house during the day. Not that we were constantly in the same room or anything, I just liked the security of knowing exactly where she was. Maybe that was the real reason I’d jumped at the chance to go on the field trip, to have a chance to see if she was really happy there. Now that I’d seen her with the other kids, I wasn’t so sure, she seemed to hang back from the rest of them. Then again, she would probably do that no matter what school she went to. Life with me seems to have affected her. Somehow I’d hoped that spark of perkiness that had to be hidden somewhere in her genetic code would manifest itself in a social setting…

“Look, they’re handing out cookies, they must be almost done,” one of the mothers said as she pointed across the room to the kitchen where the kids were huddled around a man in a chef’s hat holding a box of cookies.

When the tour was over, everyone slowly wandered out to their respective vehicles and we all headed back to the school. On impulse, I pulled over at an ice cream stand and got the girls each a cone. It earned me a disapproving, but amused look from the teacher when we walked back into the classroom. I didn’t care, it was worth it. Before we left to go home, I heard at least ten kids say that ‘Allie’s dad was the coolest’, and I caught her smiling as we crossed the parking lot hand in hand.
 

 

 

 

PART 2

 

 

We were just finishing supper when I felt it. It was like something ruptured inside my head. Allie looked at me strangely when I suddenly pressed my palms against my temples.

“Dad?”

“Ah, headache,” I said, not wanting to alarm her.

“Oh…” she replied, pursing her lips.

Then, as suddenly as it had come, the pain was gone. Replaced by an extremely vague feeling in the back of my mind. I wouldn’t have noticed it at all if it weren’t for the fact that it had been so long since it had been there. A presence that I could feel, and measure in miles instead of light years.

A couple of hours later, Allie was in bed, and I was doing the dishes in the kitchen when Iz walked in the back door a few feet from me. Not surprising, I knew she would come.

She threw her purse on the counter and sat down, glancing around, trying to locate Allie. I pointed at the ceiling and she nodded in understanding.

“He’s back,” she whispered urgently.

“Yeah, I know, I’m glad I wasn’t driving when that happened. It was much worse than the last time.”

“I didn’t notice. So, he hasn’t called you?”

“Don’t you think I’d have said something if he did?”

She ignores me, she always does.

Almost on cue, the phone rings, and I rinse my hands in the sink before walking across the kitchen to grab it. Too late, I can hear Allie’s voice in the hall as she walks down the stairs.

“Uncle Kyle!”

Silence, followed by giggling. I look at Iz and she shrugs and turns her chair toward the hall. We can hear her footsteps coming closer. Allie loves Kyle, he’s the only one who can still coax that unabashed laughter out of her.

“I know, and remember last week I told you that they have a basketball team? Yeah, they do, but it’s boys and girls. Ick! No, I don’t wanna’ play with boys.”

She’s laughing as she walks into the kitchen, and she gives Isabel a little wave before walking to me, “Yeah, he’s here, just a sec.”

The phone is suddenly thrust in my direction and I raise my eyebrows at her. She’s supposed to be in bed and she knows it, so she nods and runs over to give Iz a hug before going back upstairs.

I hadn’t been expecting a call from Kyle, so I put the phone hesitantly to my ear, “Kyle?”

“Yeah, hey,” he sounds rushed and extremely excited, almost giddy, “Max is back.”

“Believe me, I know. Uh, how do you?”

“He’s here, with me.”

“What?” I can’t imagine whey Max would go to Kyle first.

“I’m visiting my dad, remember? I called Allie last week and told her to tell you in case you needed anything.”

“So, does he need us there?”

“No, he’s hopping on a plane to Albuquerque tonight, and he’ll be at LAX in the morning.”

“Kyle, did he…?” I almost don’t want to ask.

“He’s got him.”

I breathe a sigh of relief and turn to Isabel and nod, almost instantly tears pool in her eyes.

“Thank God.”

“Yeah. Uh, look, I tried to call Iz, but she wasn’t at home.”

“She’s here.”

Awkward pause, I know he doesn’t know what to say, and I don’t either.

“Oh, ok,” he says finally, “so you can fill her in.”

“I don’t really know anything yet.”

“Look, I really don’t either. He’s being sorta’ tightlipped. Uh, Michael...?”

"Yeah?"

He sighs, and I wonder if he wanted to ask me something or tell me something when he whispers, "Nevermind."

“Ok, well give me their flight information.”

I scribble everything on the little chalkboard I keep next to the phone, and hang up.

“Tomorrow morning, 9 o’clock,” Isabel reads my writing softly to herself.

Turning around, I look at her and nod slowly. She stands and walks over to the fridge to pull out a soda, then without another word she walks upstairs.

I finish the kitchen clean-up and turn off the lights, then I head down the main hall to my studio and walk inside to straighten up for the night. I try not to look at the eyes on the canvas, but I can feel them following me as I walk around the room cleaning brushes and folding the drop cloth. Just as I’m about to turn off the light and head upstairs I catch sight of them.

Is it stupid to hate yourself for being able to capture something so well? The canvas is calling to me, so I walk back across the room and stand in front of it. I know the look in those eyes, it’s the ‘amused but on the verge of whining’ look, one of the last I ever saw…

//It was August, and it was sweltering. I hated it that our stupid apartment didn’t have an air conditioner.

I was hot, I was just home to change clothes on my way from one job to another, and I was late.

“Michael!” she called insistently from the bedroom.

“God! What? I’m late!”

“ Come here,” she whined.

I huffed into the bedroom. She was laying on the bed in a white tank top that was too small to slide all of the way over her swollen stomach, and a tiny pair of pink underwear.

“What?”

“Weren’t you going to kiss me goodbye?” she asks sweetly.

“ God,” I leaned down and gave her a loud kiss on the forehead, “Goodbye!”

“Wait!” her smile was too big. She wanted something, I knew it, and it irritated me.

I didn’t have time for her to be coy. Being late was something that I couldn’t afford. She’d been on bed-rest for the last two months, I’d been working two jobs and taking all of the overtime I could get – I wasn’t in the mood for her silly antics.

“What?!?”

“Can you stop and get me some Chunky Monkey on your way home? Oh, better make it three pints.”

“Those things are like four bucks apiece!”

She furrowed her brow into a pout, and the ‘amused but on the verge of whining’ look came into her eyes…“ Please?”

I stopped for a moment, and realized how ridiculous she looked, and remembered that it was 110 degrees and that she was ready to pop and she was miserable, and gave in.

“All right, all right,” I muttered on my way out the door.

She laughed and called out a “Thank you!”//

Those are the things that can haunt you. Things like that, stupid mistakes. Once, in a movie I heard someone say never to part from anyone without telling them that you love them. That’s something I can understand now.

Nobody knows how I treated her the last time I saw her. Well, it wasn’t the last time, but it was the time that counted. I didn’t get a pillow to put under her knees, or offer her some iced tea – no, I bitched at her for asking for ice cream. I wonder what they’d think? I mean, they must blame me already. I blame myself. But, what would they think if they knew how I’d treated her? The thought made me feel sick, and I turned and practically ran out of the room.

The light was off in my bedroom, but there was light under the door to the bathroom.

“Your fan is broken,” Iz said, hearing me come in.

“Yeah, I know.”

She walked out wrapped in a towel, with her hair piled on top of her head. I know she’s beautiful, but all I can think is how tired she looks. Sitting on the end of the bed, I kick off my shoes. She stands in front of me and leans down into my arms.

It’s a platonic hug. We have the platonic affection, and then we have the other affection. The affection we never discuss, the one that only exists in this room, only when she comes to me, which is about once a week.

She releases me and walks back into the bathroom, and I stand to finish undressing. As I close my closet, she comes out again, and this time when her arms wrap around me from behind I know what she wants.

This is how it’s been for a while. She dates random guys who have pretty faces and say the right things and then dumps them before their bodies are even cold. I don’t understand it, but I understand her. And she knows that, and she understands me. I don’t say anything when she forgets and sighs that other name, and she pretends not to notice when I keep my eyes closed too long. It’s not what you’d call healthy, but somehow it’s helped to make the last few years bearable.

When it’s over, she lays beside me, and I know she’s crying. I look at her and she looks back at me.

“I wonder what happened,” she says softly, “I wonder what he’s like.”

“So do I.”

“Do you think Max will call Liz?” she asks as she takes a swipe at the tears on her cheeks.

“I dunno.”

I won’t touch the Max and Liz topic with a ten foot pole. Too much there.

“Did Kyle say when he’d be back?”

“No.”

Kyle. Kyle, Kyle, Kyle. Kyle is the only one who knows about what happens in my bedroom. I’m not sure how he knows, I just know that he does. Actually, I’m beginning to think that she’s sleeping with him too. It disturbs me. Not because I’m jealous, but because I’m worried about her. She’s never had a real relationship since Alex, she either loves ‘em and leaves ‘em or she turns to a fuck buddy. When I think about it, I find myself mimicking Diane Evans, ‘I wish she could find a nice boy to settle down with…’ Nice, not like me. I hate to say it, but not like Kyle either. Nice like Alex, but there is no Alex.

Her breathing is even, and I know she’s asleep. I turn over and punch my pillow and wish that morning would come.

There are no happy endings. If there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that.

Look at Max and Liz – I thought those two had happy ending written all over them. Wrong. Every time they start to get it together it unravels again. I don’t really think either of them are to blame, the universe is conspiring against them.

Alex and Isabel? Over before it even got started. I suppose it’s stupid to think that a relationship from high school would ever last, but I think there was something there. Something that probably would have taken years to come to maturity, but something. She’s never even come close to giving her heart to anyone else.

Kyle? Loyal, stubborn, Kyle. Who’d have thought he’d be the one to stand by us through thick and thin? And what’s he gotten for it? He was deceived and betrayed by a woman it turns out he did love. And he’s lost two of his best friends in the world. Now, I think he’s sleeping with Isabel, and judging by the way he’s acting, I think he’s getting attached – but I know it’s not going anywhere. He’ll get his heart broken in the end, and although I’d like to warn him, I think he’d rather punch me than hear me out.

And me? Well, at least I have Allie.

Allie.

// I came home at midnight, with three pints of Chunky Monkey and a 12-pack of strawberry soda (one of her pregnancy staples). I’d thrown the ice cream in the freezer, and the soda in the fridge and started discarding my clothes in the hallway before taking a quick shower. It was only after I was dry, and actually climbing into bed that I noticed she was gone. In a flash, I’d flipped on the light, and what I saw scared the shit out of me. The window had been broken, and the room was in shambles.

No. That was my first conscious thought. No.

I called Max first, and then Jim while I dressed. Panicked, I carefully went over the apartment as I waited for them to arrive. None of her things were missing, none of my things were missing. The TV was still in the living room, her jewelry box had been thrown into the corner unopened.

They hadn’t been after anything. Dread swept over me as I realized what it was that they wanted, no whom it was that they wanted – me, they’d been after me, but they’d taken her instead.

Fear ruled as I began to shake and ran over all of the possibilities in my mind. Who was it? Why did they want me? What were they going to do to her?

Some small corner of my mind brought up the hope that maybe she’d just been pissed at me. Maybe she’d torn the place up and gone to Amy’s. I almost called her mother, but didn’t want to alert her, I decided to wait for Max and Jim to arrive, then I’d run over to her house and see if Maria was just hiding there.

Max came first, “You’re sure she didn’t just go home?”

“I don’t think so,” but I was praying she did. “Look, the window is broken. She wouldn’t do that, we can’t afford it.”

“Did you two have a fight?”

“Not really. I don’t know. She seemed all right when I left.”

“You’re sure it wasn’t the baby? That she didn’t go somewhere for help? Maybe she went into labor.”

“I don’t know…”

I punched the wall and then sat down on the couch, holding my head in my hands. As if I hadn’t done enough, as if her life wasn’t screwed up enough because of me… Pregnant through her high school graduation, then confined to bed after she started bleeding when she was on her feet too long. Stuck worrying about money and parenthood, and life, not to mention aliens and the FBI…The fights with Amy, moving out, not being able to start school in the fall…God, her life was a living hell thanks to me, and I’d shouted at her when she asked for ice cream. Such a simple thing. Couldn’t I have smiled and said ‘Sure!’?

Jim arrived a few minutes later, “She’s not at Amy’s, I stopped there on my way over.”

The two left me on the couch while they surveyed the damage, and that was when Max saw the blood on the windowsill.//

 

 

 

PART 3

 

 

“Dad, please?

I glanced at Allie in the rear view mirror and gave her the ‘that’s enough’ look. She doesn’t want to be early for school.

“Daaaaad…” she whined.

I turned and looked at her, “ Alexandra, it’s only ten minutes.”

Isabel sighed and looked out the window, and Allie pouted but didn’t argue anymore. She’s a good kid, all I ever have to do is say her real name and she stops arguing – I wonder what I’ll do when that stops working?

I pull up next to the sidewalk in front of the school and she opens the door to get out.

“Allie…” I say softly.

She turns around and gives me a kiss on the cheek, and then she gives Isabel a kiss and hug.

“I love you,” I say as she’s putting her feet on the ground.

She doesn’t look up, but she knows I’m waiting, so she mumbles, “Luvyoutoo,” before closing the door

We watch her until she’s inside the school and then we’re on our way to the airport. Isabel and I are comfortable with silence, neither of us is big on ‘chit chat’.

As we make our way down the concourse, I realize just how long it’s been since I’ve seen him. Nearly ten months. A long time. At least he contacted us right away this time. When he left a few years ago, he was gone for six months and then didn’t get in touch with us for two weeks after he got back.

It’s strange to be picking him up at the airport, I could almost pretend that he’s just been out of the country. Isabel sits in a chair near the door of the appropriate gate and I sit beside her. No need for words, I know what she’s feeling. She’s happy, but she’s nervous because she’s not exactly sure what has happened or what will happen.

The plane arrives and the passengers begin shuffling off. We both stand and look down the hallway, waiting for a glimpse of them.

I see them first, and I nudge her arm. He looks tired, like he hasn’t slept in months, but he has a small smile on his face when he catches my eyes. Next to him, I can see the top of a blonde head, but there are people in the way and I can’t make out anymore. When they finally walk out the door and over to us, Isabel launches herself at him. She’s crying, and so is he.

Shoving my hands in my pockets, I look down at the blonde boy in front of me. His eyes are blue and piercing, and he doesn’t smile – I get the feeling that he’s examining me. I raise my eyebrows at him and try to smile, but this just makes him furrow his brow more, so I give up and turn back to Max.

Isabel is turning to the boy and smiling at him.

Max looks at me, and his eyes are sad for a moment almost as if he pities me or something. I hug him briefly, making certain to do the manly back slap and end it in under 3 seconds.

“Do you know who I am?” Isabel asks the boy.

He nods at her coolly, as if her question was irritating or insulting, I’m not really sure which.

“Well, how is everyone?” Max asked.

“Fine,” I say, staring at the boy.

“Allie?”

I turn back to look at Max, “Oh, she’s great. She’s in school.”

Max laughs softly and looks at the boy, who is not responding to the hug Isabel is giving him. I don’t know what to say. Obviously the kid is a little weird - well, who wouldn’t be under the circumstances – but still…

“Jak?” Max speaks softly to the boy.

“Yes?” his voice is childlike, but his tone is mature.

“I’d like you to meet Michael.”

“Rath,” the boy says.

“No,” Max smiles and shakes his head slowly, “ Michael.”

He looks at me and scowls, and I’m trying to keep in mind that this is my best friend’s son.

“How’s it goin’?” I say trying to be friendly, well, as friendly as I get.

Jak stares at me for a moment and then looks up at Max, “I want to leave this place.”

“Ok,” Max says, and I’m wondering how he can be so patient. Then again, if someone had taken Allie away from me, and I’d been looking for her for 8 years and had just gotten her back I might be a little lenient too.

It was a frightening thought, and naturally it occurs to me that it nearly happened.

//A week after she disappeared, I was on the verge of losing my mind when Max found a message from Nicholas on the dashboard of the jeep.

The little prick was back, and his note sent chills down my spine, it read: “I’ll make an exchange. Meet me at the rock quarry, tonight 10 pm – Nicholas”.

We went, and he confirmed that he had Maria, but the deal was the three of us in exchange for her. Max did the talking, he told me if I valued her life I’d let him handle it, and I did. He told us we had a week to think it over, that Kivar would get us one way or another, and told us how to contact him. That was when absolute pandemonium set in, and we had to send everyone into hiding for fear they’d be used as pawns.

The Evans, they had to be told. Amy had to be told. The Parkers had to be told. It was terrifying. I was scared to death for Maria, and I was worried about everyone else, and I had no idea what we were going to do to get her back. I couldn’t ask Max and Iz to give themselves up to Nicholas, I just couldn’t. We tried everything to find out where he was keeping her, Isabel tried dream walking, none of it worked.

After a couple of days, I contacted Nicholas on my own. I tried every argument I knew, as I pleaded with him, “Isn’t one better than none? Isn’t killing me enough to boost your people’s morale for a while?” Amazingly, Nicholas had agreed, and I said my good-byes to everyone.

Max and Isabel insisted on coming with me to meet Nicholas. At first, I resisted, but Jim had explained hostage exchanges to us, and told me I needed someone there to make sure Nicholas lived up to his end of the bargain.

The day of the exchange, I told him to let us see her, as Jim had instructed. He gave us some crap about taking me with him and then sending her later. I’d have gone, I’d have done anything, but Max stopped me, told me it would be a waste – the look on his face told me he thought she was already dead.

I was frantic, so we followed Nicholas after he left, followed him to his underground compound in the desert.

I couldn’t wait, I was afraid Nicholas would kill her now that the deal was off, so I went in, they followed me for a while, but then someone finally spotted us and Max and Iz got stuck holding them off.

It felt like I searched for hours through dimly lit concrete tunnels, but I knew it was only a few minutes. Amazingly, I found her, in a room with two large swinging doors. She was inside a glass cell, lying naked on a hospital bed, and her feet were tied up in stirrups. It was obvious that she wasn’t pregnant anymore. There was blood everywhere, between her legs and on her stomach, and there was a large red pool of it beneath her on the floor.

At first I thought she was dead, but then when I started trying to open the door, she looked up at me. I could hear her weak voice over a speaker above my head. The room was sound proof, but someone had left the speaker on.

“Over there,” she said, and pointed into the room I was in. I turned and for the first time saw the sleeping baby lying in an incubator in the corner.

“I need to get you out first!” I said and stood back, holding my hand up to open the door. Nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. I couldn’t feel anything, no energy, no surge, nothing. Now I was terrified. This had happened once before. “Did they use one of those devices? Like Brody had?”

She was staring at me oddly, and she motioned at her ear, “I can’t hear you.”

Frantically I searched the room, for either the device or a two-way speaker switch but never found one. In fact, nothing in the room was written in English. Finally, I’d taken a chair and started beating on the glass with it, but didn’t make a so much as a scratch.

It was like those nightmares, when the bad guys are on your tail, and you just can’t run fast enough. I couldn’t get her out, I couldn’t figure out what to do, and I knew the bad guys were probably on my heels.

The baby had started to cry, and suddenly alarms started going off everywhere and the building started to shake.

“Go,” she said, “get out of here.”

“No! I won’t leave you!”

She didn’t have to hear me to know what I was saying, weakly, she pushed herself into a sitting position and pointed at the baby, “Go! Now! Before it’s too late!”

I was shaking my head and beating on the glass again, I couldn’t leave her. Then, a piece of the ceiling fell to the floor a few feet from the baby. Suddenly, I was paying attention to the now screaming infant who was vulnerable to a falling ceiling, and ran to the corner to pick it up. I didn’t even know how to hold a baby. Careful to keep the blanket tight, I picked it up and went back to the glass wall, cradling the bundle the best I could in my left arm.

“Dammit, Michael, if anything happens to that baby I will never forgive you. Now GO!”

The shaking was getting worse, and the lights blinked off for a few seconds. I couldn’t leave her.

I couldn’t.

“Michael!” she screamed when the lights came back on. “Go! The baby, go!”

She threw herself back onto the bed and stared at me, enraged, as the rumbling continued and another piece of the ceiling fell.

I was paralyzed, my free hand pressed against the glass, staring at her, trying to come up with a way to get her out.

"Go, go, go," she was moaning. Tears were coursing down her cheeks, and her face was full of agony. Turning her head to the side, she spotted the instrument tray on her right, and reached for a scalpel.

Holding it to her own throat she screamed at me, her eyes crazy and terrified and desperate, “If you don’t take my baby out of here right now, I’ll do it! I swear to GOD! GO!”

I was shaking my head. This couldn’t be happening, I couldn’t be this helpless, the baby was crying louder, things were falling apart…

Another violent quake, and she pushed the blade into her neck slightly, drawing blood. There was something wild in her eyes, and I knew she would do it.

It was something primal, she’d actually kill herself to save the baby.

So, after giving her one last glance, I ran. I thought I could give the baby to Iz and Max and then come back for her.

Running down the corridors, I re-traced my steps to where I’d left them, but they weren’t there. So I continued on the way that we’d come in, hoping to run into them somewhere around the next corner, but I never did. It was as I was running up the steps to the outside that I heard it. The whirring. I’d heard it before. With everything that was in me, I sprinted up the steps and emerged just in time to see the craft launch.

Iz and Max pulled up in the jeep and told me to get in. I was about to hand the baby to Isabel and go back for her, but then I felt it, a sudden ripping pain inside my head. I knew what it meant, and so instinctively I jumped in the passenger side, cradling the baby. Max had barely started to drive again when it blew. There was an enormous fireball above the compound, and then the ground above it started to cave in.

We drove for ten miles before we stopped on a ridge overlooking the valley. There was a gaping, rubble filled hole where the compound had been. I handed the squalling infant to Max and said, “Make sure it’s all right,” then I’d stumbled out of the jeep and fallen to the ground, puking.

She was gone, I knew it. I’d felt it right before I got in the jeep. A horrible pain in my head. I’d never realized that I felt her there, didn’t know until she was gone. Her presence wasn’t as strong as those of Max and Isabel, but it had been there.

Wretching, I ground my face in the dust, and screamed her name over and over…//

“Michael? Michael.”

Isabel’s voice startles me and I look at her. She’s staring at me, and I realize I’m sitting behind the wheel of the car in the airport parking lot.

“Oh, sorry,” I mumble as I shove the key in the ignition.

Max is in the back pointing out the sights to a less than impressed Jak.

“So, Jak,” Isabel turns around, “I was thinking that you could sleep on the couch and your dad could have my spare bedroom.”

Jak just stares at her and Max clears his throat, “Actually, Iz, I was kind of hoping we could stay with Michael.”

I’m a little surprised, so it takes me a moment to respond, “Uh, sure. I don’t know what I’ve got those extra bedrooms for anyway.”

Isabel leans back into her seat with a quiet, “Oh.”

She’s upset, I know, but Max must have his reasons. Not that we’re privy to those very often anymore.

 

 

 

PART 4

 

 

“Dad,” Allie whispers as she crawls up on the couch beside me.

I look down at her, and she takes a quick glance around the room. If I didn’t know it would hurt her feelings, I’d laugh. This is some sort of covert operation, I can tell.

When she’s satisfied that no one is around she looks at me and scrunches up her nose, “Jak is really weird.”

I’m trying not to smile, and I know I should probably say something stupid like ‘no he’s not’, but I make it a habit to be straight with her, “Yeah, I noticed.”

“He told me to tie his shoes for him.”

“Tie his shoes? Maybe he doesn’t know how.”

“No, he knows how, because he did it when I wouldn’t. He told me to do it for no reason, he said, ‘You there! Re-connect the laces of my footwear’. I didn’t even know what he was talking about, but he was pointing at his shoes.”

I should probably be amused, but I’m a little irritated. Nobody, including the prince royal, orders my daughter around like she’s their servant. They've only been here for a few hours, and already we're both sick of him.

“Just ignore him,” I say turning back to the book in my hands.

“Well, how long are they gonna’ be here? ‘Cause he’s gettin’ on my nerves.”

That’s a question I don’t know the answer to, “I don’t know.”

“Do I still have to be nice to him?”

“What do you think?”

“Um, no?” she smiles sweetly, and my heart almost breaks. Different face, same expression.

“Allie…”

“Ok, ok. Why does Max look so weird?”

“You noticed that?” I look down at her, and she nods. “I don’t know to tell you the truth. Maybe he’s just sad that he hasn’t had Jak with him all these years.”

“Where was Jak?”

“With his mom,” I can’t exactly tell her the truth, “sort of.”

“He said his mom is dead.”

Now I’m curious. I haven’t gotten any of the details out of Max yet. I suppose it’s possible that she’s dead.

“Well, I don’t really know if she’s dead or not.”

“He said he never knew her, just like me.”

“Oh,” I said softly. That’s news. I’d always assumed Tess had him with her. I’m really going to have talk to Max.

“Are you sure that Max knows how to be a dad?”

Now I am smiling, “He’ll probably figure it out.”

“I don’t think so,” she glances around again to make sure we’re still alone, “I told him what Jak said, and he told me to just do whatever he told me. That he’s used to being obeyed.”

I don’t really like the sound of that, “Max meant that you should ignore him.”

“I don’t think so,” she sing-songed. “Dad, if I told someone to tie my shoes you’d give me ‘the look’ and tell me to do it myself, you wouldn’t tell the other person to do it for me.”

She’s right, and I don’t want to contradict her, “Yeah, that’s probably what I’d do.”

“So, see…Max doesn’t know how to be a dad.”

Actually, she’s got a point if that’s what really happened, but I can’t very well say that, “Allie, all dads are different.”

Hopefully that will get me out of it. She’s eyeing me, she knows evasive answers mean ‘subject closed’.

“Uh huh. What’s for supper?” she asks, hopping to her feet.

“Haven’t thought about it yet. What do you want?”

“Hamburgers.”

“Don’t have hamburger buns.”

“Spaghetti then.”

“Don’t think we have any spaghetti either.”

“Pizza?” she smiles.

“Yeah, ok, go get me the phone.”

***

Allie and I aren’t much for dinner conversation, so when Max moves on to his fourth topic I start to get a little annoyed. I can see what he’s doing, he’s trying to make this seem like a normal family meal. If he wanted normal, he probably should have stayed with Isabel.

“So, Allie, how do you like school?” Max asked, his smile a little too broad.

“Fine,” she says over a bite of pineapple and jalapeno pizza.

“Made a lot of friends?”

“Not really.”

“What do you think of your teacher?” Max’s happy grin is starting to look a little tight.

She shrugs and dips her pizza in the pool of Tabasco she has on her plate. You’d think that being half human she’d like it less than I do, instead she likes it more.

“Michael, how was that show last year?”

“Fine,” I say, taking a gulp of grape soda, wishing he’d shut up and let me eat.

“Got plans for another one soon?”

“Not really.”

“Have you been getting much work done lately?”

I shrug. Please God, let him shut up for five minutes.

Jak decides to speak up, pointing across the table at Allie, “I dislike that one. She has a facial abnormality.”

I let my soda can hit the table with a resounding thud and look over at Max. He’s staring at the kid, with a worried look on his face, “Jak…”

“There it is again,” Jak pointed at her, and I looked over just in time to catch her sticking her tongue out at him.

“ Alexandra.”

“Yeah?” she’s suddenly extremely interested in her food, and her tone is sheepish.

“Apologize.”

“Sooooorrrrrrry, Jaaaaak,” she draws out the words as she rolls her eyes.

Trying not to laugh, I stuff a bite of pizza into my mouth and nearly choke. Thankfully, Allie didn’t see it. Max did though, and he looks a little amused.

After both of the kids are in bed, I push Max into the living room.

“All right, tell me everything. I’m not gonna’ wait around for months while the information slowly dribbles out.”

He looks at me, and I know he’s a little surprised. I think he almost looks a little frightened.

“Well, Michael, it’s over. Everything. The war – over.”

“When did you finally get him back?”

“About a month ago.”

“He wasn’t with Tess?”

“No, not exactly,” he seems lost in thought for a moment, then starts to speak again, “they were raising him on a base. That’s why we had such a hard time locating him.”

“Is Tess dead?”

“No.”

“Why does he think she is?”

“Because that’s what they told him.”

“Where is she?”

“Here.”

“ What?!?” I’m nearly on my feet before I stop myself.

“Calm down. She doesn’t want to hurt anyone.”

“Yeah, that’s what she’d tell you. She doesn’t know where I live, does she? Or Iz or Kyle?”

“Michael, you’re going to have to trust me, she’s not going to hurt anyone.”

“Why did you bring her back with you?”

“It was the only thing to do,” he states simply.

“So, just like that – hey, past forgotten.”

“No. It’s not as bad as we thought it was, Michael.”

Either he’s gone looney tunes or my hearing is going.

“Maxwell, she killed Alex. Alex. Remember? Your friend and mine. The incident that turned Isabel into a walking, talking iceberg. Not to mention what she did to you and Liz. How is it not bad?”

“Michael, it just isn’t. There was some mind control involved, and she’s changed. Just trust me, please,” he looks off to the side, and he looks almost forlorn when he turns his eyes back in my direction. “I’ll make sure you never have to see her. She’ll never be an issue.”

He’s not telling me anything specific. I wish I had the right to force him, but I don’t. It’s sort of an unspoken truth that I lost a lot of my say-so in all things alien when I didn’t go back with him three years ago. I don’t think that it’s because he resents me for it, I think it’s just because he has a much better understanding of the situation than I do. Doesn’t make it any easier though, I hate being kept in the dark.

“Kivar?”

“Dead.”

“Nicholas?” I don’t even attempt to disguise the venom in my voice.

“Presumed dead.”

Not good. I want proof that the slippery little bastard has breathed his last.

“How 'presumed'? Have you got somebody looking into it?”

Max rolls his eyes just slightly, ok so maybe he does resent me a little.

“Michael, of course I’ve got somebody looking into it,” he’s barely keeping a civil tone. His eyes narrow, and he mutters, “Maybe you should go handle it yourself.”

“Yeah, maybe I should,” I retort, knowing I should just let it go.

If he wants to resent me, that’s fine, but I’ve got my own responsibilities. I did everything I could to help here. Jim, Kyle, Isabel and I eliminated the last fragments of Kivar’s force on earth while he was off looking for Jak. Not like I didn’t do my part, and not like Jak wasn't his first priority.

“All right,” he sighs, “that was out of line. I’m sorry, I’ve just been a little tense.”

Uh huh. I’ll let it go, but I don’t know if I’ll forget it. Next subject.

“So, what about Jak? He was raised with the silver spoon I take it.”

“Yeah,” Max sighs.

“He seems to have adapted to earth pretty easily.”

“Well, he’s been around humans most of his life.”

“What do you mean? They had him here on earth?”

“No. Kivar kind of quit returning his abductees a couple of decades ago.”

“What, you mean he took humans back with him and kept them there?”

“Yeah.”

“And, Jak was raised with them?”

“Yeah,” he sighs again, and I can see there’s more to this story.

“What?”

“They were his slaves, Jak’s. Even Tess. He didn’t know who she was, but he saw her all of the time.”

“Geez, well, can you bring them back?”

“I did.”

“Oh. Where are they?”

“Well, depends on where they were from and what they wanted to do.”

“What do you mean ‘where they were from’?”

“Most were Eastern Europeans, there were a few South Americans, the rest were from the US.”

“So, you’ve sent them home.”

“Mostly.”

“How many were there?”

“About seventy.”

“ God.”

“I know,” he nods wearily.

“But some of them were there for twenty years?”

He nods his head, and his eyes seem old, like they’ve seen enough for ten lifetimes, “Some of them don’t want to go home again. They’re changed.”

“So, if Tess is here, are you going to share Jak with her?”

“No. I don’t think she’s interested in that. It’s obvious that she cares about him, but she’s changed too. They’re all changed. They were enslaved. I don’t really know how to describe it.”

“So, there are others with her? Others that didn’t want to go back to their homes?”

“A couple.”

“Where are they?”

“I left them in Roswell.”

“Is that a good idea?”

“They’ll be fine,” he says sharply, apparently his majesty isn’t in the mood to be questioned.

“If you say so,” I take a deep breath, this one I really am going to let go.

He sighs and puts his head into his hands for a moment, “I don’t know what to do with Jak. I don’t know if he’ll ever be happy here.”

“I’ve noticed he has some, uh, problems.”

Max looks at me angrily for a moment, but he knows I’m just telling the truth, “I’m going to get a place here I think. I don’t want him in Roswell, I know he’ll stick out much more there.”

“Yeah. You know, he wouldn’t exactly stick out in New York either.”

He looks at me, knowing what I mean, and he shakes his head wearily. Well, I’ll leave that up to Isabel then. That’s as close as I’ll come to mentioning Liz.

“How do you do it?”

I’m not sure what he’s talking about, “Do what?”

“Be a father.”

“I don’t know. You just do it.”

“I feel like everything I do is a mistake.”

“Well, you kinda’ got thrown into a sink or swim situation. So, I guess that’s a normal feeling. You know, when you’re there from the beginning the tough stuff comes on slowly so you learn how to handle it."

He nods, and looks down at his hands. Something about his manner seems hopeless.

Now I feel sorry for him, so stupidly I open my mouth again, "Not that I’m holding myself up as a model father or anything. Look at Allie, I mean, here she is only – well as of next week – seven, and she doesn’t really even laugh anymore.”

He gives me a confused look. I’m a little surprised by what I just told him, so I’m glad when he glosses over it. Not really in the mood to go into my multiple failures as a parent.

We both wander off to bed without much more being said, and I wonder how it must feel to be in his position. I remember how I got my act together with the whole fatherhood thing, it wasn’t exactly textbook.

//For the first few days of her life, Allie stayed with Amy.

I didn’t even know she was a girl until a day after we’d found her. The families had all stayed in hiding for a few more days while Max contacted Larek and tried to find out if Nicholas was back on the home planet. When the message came that he was, everyone came out of hiding.

I didn’t speak to anyone for nearly a week after that, somehow managing to avoid them, until Amy caught me outside her house one night.

“Michael,” Amy said as she opened the window of Maria’s old room.

“Yeah?” I whispered, taking a step backwards, wishing I hadn’t been staring up at the stars so she wouldn’t have caught me off guard. I’d been there every night for a week, but I must have gotten careless.

“You could come inside you know.”

I looked pointedly at the baby asleep in the bassinet in the corner, “I don’t want to wake her.”

“She’s already awake.”

“Oh.”

“Come inside.”

The look on her face told me it was more of a command than a request, so reluctantly I climbed through the window. Silently, I watched as Amy picked up the baby and held her out to me.

Slowly, I began backing away, shaking my head, “I don’t want to hurt her.”

“You won’t hurt her. Isabel told me you were the one who carried her out, so you know you can do it.”

I put my hand on the window, “I’ll just keep an eye on things from outside.”

“Michael.”

The stern tone of her voice was enough to make me pause.

“You are this baby’s father. You are the only parent she has. You cannot watch her from outside a window for the rest of her life.”

“Yeah, I can. That way she’s safe,” I say, trying to keep my eyes on Amy, and not on the baby who was stretching her arms with her tiny fingers curled in a fist.

Amy looked like she was ready to give me a thrashing, but I stopped her before she could speak.

“I know it’s a lot to ask of you, but there isn’t anybody else. I’ll give you all of the money you need, and I’ll always be right here. I won’t let anybody hurt her, I promise.”

“ You’ll hurt her. If you do that, you will hurt her,” she looked at me, her conviction unwavering.

For a moment, I pondered her words. Nobody knew better than I did what it was like to grow up without parents, but then I looked down at the helpless baby in her arms, and my resolve returned, “I ruined Maria’s life. I killed her. It’s all my fault. I don’t want that to happen again,” I pointed at the baby, “I can’t undo the fact that she’s related to me, or the fact that someone may try to hurt her to get to me, but I can promise to do everything I can to make sure it doesn’t happen.”

With that, I’d gone back outside through the window and stared back inside. I knew I wasn’t expressing myself well, and from the look on Amy’s face, I knew she thought I was immature. She didn’t understand, she didn’t know what it was like to be the reason that someone you loved was dead. So, I stood outside the window for the rest of the night just like I had for the previous seven nights and then went home and slept in the morning.

When I woke, it was to a baby crying. I rolled over on the bed and looked down at the floor to see the baby, my daughter, lying in a baby carrier.

“Hey!” I said sharply, putting my feet down next to the carrier and quickly walking into the living room. I saw a shadow outside, and knew it was Amy. She ran off, and I was left with the baby. It took me a while, but I finally figured out that she was hungry after I’d tried changing her diaper and talking to her. At least Amy had the foresight to write down detailed directions on how to do everything.

I didn’t have a car, just my bike, so I couldn’t take her back. No one I called would answer the phone or return my messages. I knew what they were trying to do, and it pissed me off, it was a group effort to force me to do something I didn’t want to.

But it worked. Two days later, they couldn’t have gotten her away from me if they’d tried. I finally decided that the best way to protect her was to be with her 24/7, and so that’s what I did.//

 

 

 

PART 5

 

 

It’s Saturday morning, and Allie and I are sitting on the couch with a box of cereal between us watching cartoons, like we always do.

Max has been up for a while, and he’s pacing around the kitchen, occasionally wandering upstairs to see if Jak is awake yet.

Hearing him sigh for what seems like the hundredth time, I look over the back of the couch and into the kitchen at him, “Just go wake him up.”

“What if he’s tired?” Max asks.

“You can’t let him sleep all day, he went to bed twelve hours ago. Just go wake him up, if he’s tired, you can have him take a nap later.”

For a minute, he seems to ponder what I’ve said, and then wordlessly he walks out into the hall and climbs the stairs, and returns with the boy a few minutes later. He listened to me, and I can hardly believe it, so I decide to pay careful attention to the TV when he walks back into the kitchen.

“Michael, uh, what have we got for breakfast?” Max calls at me.

“I dunno,” I reply, glancing into the kitchen briefly to see a very unhappy looking Jak, staring at a nervously smiling Max. “There’s cereal in the pantry, and I’ve got eggs and bread and stuff.”

“Thanks,” Max calls back less than sincerely.

“He better not eat my Frosted Flakes,” Allie says under her breath as she hears Max announce to Jak that they’re having cereal for breakfast. She looks a little more tired than usual, that must be why she's in a bad mood.

“I heard that,” I say looking down at her.

“Sorry,” she mutters as she makes a face and turns back to the TV.

A few minutes later, Isabel walks in the back door. Allie and I call a greeting from the couch and she calls back, but stays in the kitchen with Max and Jak.

Allie gets up on her knees and turns to look back at them, so I look too. Max and Iz are sitting at the table with Jak, and they’re carrying on a conversation and trying to include him. It’s something about parks, and playing, and fun, but I’m missing most of it. Jak looks like he could care less what they’re saying and only looks up from picking at his cereal to give them condescending looks occasionally.

Resting her chin on the back of the sofa, Allie looks at me out of the corner of her eye, “Maybe he’d like to go to the beach?”

I know who’d like to go to the beach, and I give her a look that says so. She sighs disappointedly, and we turn back to watch the mini-drama in the kitchen.

***

“I think you should call her.”

“It’s not that simple, Isabel.”

“It is that simple, Max.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is.”

I’ve heard enough, they’re going around and around and getting nowhere. I jump to my feet, “Anybody want something to drink?”

“No, thanks,” Isabel gives me a look that’s probably supposed to mean something, but I have no idea what.

“I’ll take a soda,” Max says as he leans back into the sofa and runs his hand through his hair.

Did I just see gray? Dammit, Max has gray hair.

As I get the sodas, I keep my eye on the two of them - Isabel with her plastic exterior, and Max with his broken look. For the first time in years, I wonder what I look like. Am I as changed as they are?

Here we are again, just the three of us, well, with a few offspring thrown in. Of all of the places I expected us to end up, in my living room arguing about why Max still isn’t with Liz while his son is asleep upstairs and my daughter is in her room playing with clay just wasn’t ever one of my scenarios.

I’m just about to sit down in my easy chair when Max stands and announces he has to go check on Jak who went to sleep right after supper.

After he was out of the room, Isabel turned to me, “He needs some sort of normal life.”

“Max?”

“Jak.”

“Oh.”

“Well,” she raised her eyebrows, “Max too. I just thought maybe if he got Liz involved...”

“Yeah…I don’t really know, Iz…”

“He’ll never be happy without her,” she stated simply.

I can’t really disagree, but I don’t want to encourage her to get wrapped up in what I suspect is a lost cause, “I don’t know why you let it bother you so-.”

“Because,” tears fill her eyes, and she looks at me with more true emotion than I’ve seen in years, “Liz is still alive. Does it matter what their problems are? God, at least she’s still alive.”

My jaw tightens and I have to look away from her. I’d never thought about it that way, but for a few minutes her logic made sense to me. How dare they throw away their chance at happiness? At least they had a chance, which was more than we had…it almost seemed like some bizarre betrayal. Those weren’t really rational thoughts, though. It was their life to live and fuck up as they chose.

“I’m not getting involved,” I tell her, hoping she’ll drop it, or at least wait until I’m not around to approach Max again.

Surprisingly, she answers me by bursting into tears. It isn’t long before huge sobs are wracking her body, and I’m doing my best to comfort her. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her break down like this.

No matter how well she conceals it, she still aches for him. I can relate.

***

I close the book I’ve been reading to her and toss it onto the bookshelf.

“Goodnight,” I whisper, as I start to turn toward the door.

“I don’t want to go to sleep,” Allie says, looking up at me with big brown eyes from underneath the sheet I’ve just tucked up under her chin.

“You have to sleep,” I say frowning down at her.

Slowly she shakes her head. Occasionally she protests bedtime, but it’s been a while, and it’s normally because she wants to play or eat or watch cartoons.

“I can’t, Dad.”

“Yeah, you can,” I reply, moving again to leave.

“Please?” her voice is soft, and sounds very young again. She’s been sounding so much older lately.

Turning to look at her, I see tears in her eyes. Those eyes…hers, but not hers.

“Allie,” I try to sound firm, “you have to go to sleep.”

“Daddy…?” her little chin starts to quiver, and she’s pulled out ‘Daddy’ something I only hear rarely now. She’s getting to me, she never cries.

“What is it?” I sit back down on the bed beside her, reminding myself that she really does need to go to bed.

She stares at me for a while, and then she puts on a fake smile. The brave smile. What’s she got to be brave about?

“What is it? Are you sick?” my hand reaches out instinctively for her forehead. She’s never been sick a day in her life, like me when I was a kid. In the back of my mind, there’s always been a fear about her strangely mixed DNA, and I’m beginning to get worried. This isn’t like her.

“I had a bad dream last night,” she says, somehow holding back the tears that were threatening to spill. I wish she’d let them spill, I know little kids are supposed to cry.

“A nightmare, huh?” I’m trying to keep my voice even, I don’t want her to know I’m worried, I don’t want to scare her.

“Yeah,” she nods, and puts on the brave smile again.

“Ok, stay here, I’ll be right back,” I pat her hand awkwardly, and quickly leave the room.

This isn’t a ploy, and I know it. Something scared her, and I’m wondering why she didn’t wake me up when she had the nightmare last night.

Popping my head in the living room, I say goodnight to Max and Isabel who are arguing over what channel to watch. Something about it is strangely comforting, and I stop for a moment to listen to them before running upstairs, grabbing the book off my nightstand and returning to Allie’s room.

She watches me as I come in, and I hold the book up, “I was planning to do some reading anyway, so I’ll just read in here until you go to sleep tonight.”

Her little head nods, as I sit in the worn old rocking chair, and I can feel her eyes on me as I open my book. The chair creaks as I begin to rock, and it reminds me of the early days, back in my apartment in Roswell.

//I came home from Amy’s after my shift at the Crashdown and threw the diaper bag on the rocking chair.

Allie had been crying the whole way home, and I’d been helpless from the front seat, only able to watch in the mirror as she screamed in the back, her tiny hands clenched into fists.

Plopping the carrier down on the bed, I quickly unsnapped her, and lifted her into my arms, trying to make her calm down.

“Shhh…” I made the sound over and over. Amy always murmured things to the baby when she cried, like ‘Grandma’s here, Grandma loves you, Grandma knows’. Eventually, Amy would just give up and hand her to me.

All I could ever say to her when she cried was ‘Shh…’ with the occasional ‘don’t cry’ thrown in. I figured it was more the tone than the words anyway.

Normally, she stopped crying not long after I picked her up. What I’d heard on the car ride home was the ‘upset’ cry, I knew it well, so I simply paced with her, holding her up against my shoulder and patting her back softly to re-assure her. It’s amazing what you can learn in the space of a month. She wasn’t quite six weeks old, and I already knew everything about her. Everything. I knew what every face she made meant, I could hear her starting to cry before she even knew she was starting herself, I even knew exactly where to touch her nose to make her ‘coo’. She fascinated me.

In all of the time Maria had been pregnant, I’d never really stopped to consider what it was to be a parent. I knew how much money it would take, and I read about which car seat to buy, and what stroller was the best, and all of that, but the actual everyday reality of it had never occurred to me. Maybe it’s because I wouldn’t have been doing most of the things I did if Maria had been there. Or, maybe that’s because I was never excited that the baby was coming. At first, when we found out, I was just scared, then I got really obsessed with logistics, after that when Maria started bleeding and could hardly leave the apartment I stopped really thinking of the baby at all.

Maria had been excited, though. Not at first, but after a few months, right before graduation, she really started to get into it. I just wrote off everything she did and said to hormones, emotions, and just the general fact that she was Maria.

One day in late May, she’d shown up on my doorstep and dragged me out to help her with something. She had an old second hand rocking chair strapped to the roof of the Jetta, and she was babbling about how important it was to have a rocking chair when you had a baby. I’d made some comment about rocking chairs being much better for babies when they weren’t covered in lead paint, and she’d just laughed and told me to ‘wave’ it away.

The rocking chair sat in my bedroom. I’d ‘waved’ the old layers of paint and varnish away, but she’d insisted that I put the varnish on myself.

As I stood there, trying to calm my crying baby, I stared down at the chair her mother had bought for her. I hadn’t sat in it since I’d finished fixing it up in the summer. Taking a deep breath, I cleared away the diaper bag, and my basketball and sat down in it and started rocking.

Before I even knew what was happening, Allie had stopped crying, and was laying against my shoulder, her breathing still uneven from her tiny sobs, but seemingly content. I was all she had. Well, maybe not all she had, but I was the one she wanted to hold her when she cried. It was sort of a revelation. She needed me. Not just for things like food, and clean diapers and clothes. Allie actually needed me.

That was the moment I decided what I was going to do. Sitting there in Maria’s rocking chair, holding our tiny daughter in my arms, I knew that I always wanted to be able to sit down and rock her when she cried. I wanted to be there for her anytime she needed anything.

The next day was Saturday, and I showed up on Amy’s doorstep at 6 a.m. to drop Allie off one last time, and took off for a day trip to Nevada.//

***

I don’t know what woke me in the middle of the night. It wasn’t a noise, and it wasn’t a dream. Just a feeling or something. I opened my eyes to see Allie hovering under the covers, only her eyes peeping out at me, the night light leaving a soft glow on her face and hair.

Glancing at my watch, I realized it was three a.m.

“Allie,” I sat forward and looked at her groggily, “why are you still awake?”

Her eyes dart my way, but she doesn’t say anything. I notice that her hands are gripping the edges of the sheets where she’s pulled them up over most of her face, and her knuckles are white. In an instant, I’m on my feet, and I’m sitting next to her on the bed.

“ Allie,” my hands immediately go to her cheeks and forehead, “are you all right, are you sick?

She’s shivering, but she looks at me and shakes her head. I pull back her covers and reach down for her, pulling her up into my arms. It’s been a long time since she’s let me hold her, but she clings to me now as I cradle her. My chin is resting on the top of her head.

“You need to tell me what’s wrong,” I say, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. She’s acting strange, bizarre even, and while she’s not a talker, I’ve never had trouble getting her to answer me before.

Her shivering gets worse, and suddenly I feel a breeze on my arms. Looking up, I notice that the window is open. That’s not right. It was closed when I fell asleep. In fact it’s always closed.

“Allie did you open the window?”

Against my chest, she shakes her head, and curls herself into a tight little ball in my arms.

Sometimes she does things without realizing she does them. Not like she’s forgetful. Her powers are just now beginning to fully develop, and before this point she never realized what she was doing, she just did things. When she was a baby, she was able to keep the mobile above her bed spinning even when it was completely unwound, as a toddler she’d turn the TV channel when I was watching a game to cartoons or Sesame Street, when she was four, I found the bag of M&M’s I hid on the top of the refrigerator on the floor three times before I caught on to what was going on

“Did Max come in and open it?” I ask, grasping at straws, knowing that was unlikely.

“Maybe she opened it,” she whispers.

I’m not sure if I heard her right, “Isabel?”

“No,” she shakes her head, and buries her face in my chest.

Something suddenly seems very wrong, and I’m starting to get pissed at myself. Where are my instincts? Without a second thought, I wave the window down and lock it shut, then quickly stand with her in my arms, running for the room Max is in.

“Max!” I bark as I burst into his room.

He sits up in bed, and is on his feet faster than I can blink, “ What?”

“Get Jak, someone’s been in the house.”

Without another word, he blows past me, and I make a beeline for my bedroom, intending to grab my wallet and keys so that we can get out of there. I find Isabel stretched out, fully clothed on my bed.

“ Isabel! Get up!”

I shift Allie so that her arms are around my neck, and her chin is resting on my shoulder.

“What is it, Michael?” Isabel asks from the bed, obviously disoriented.

“Get up, now,” I say, motioning her toward the door, “someone broke in.”

“Wait, stop, what?” she says, groggily getting to her feet.

“Someone broke in,” I say, trying not to upset Allie, but wanting to hurry Isabel.

“How do you know?”

“The window was open.”

“The window was open,” she repeats acting as though I was crazy.

Max appears in the hall, literally packing Jak over his shoulder. That’s when his cell phone rings. He’s looking at me, and I’m looking at him, and Isabel has laid back down on the bed.

Reaching into his pocket, Max clicks his phone on and as he begins to talk, he walks down the hallway away from me, still packing a now squirming Jak over his shoulder.

I’m wondering when I lost control of this situation. One minute, I’m evacuating my family from a threat of danger, the next everyone is pretty much ignoring me. Isabel is snoring again, and Max is chit-chatting at three in the morning.

For a moment, I stand there planning my next move, kicking myself for not realizing what an easy target we all made. The entire royal family in one house, ripe to be knocked out in one sweep…stupid, stupid, stupid.

“It’s ok, it wasn’t anything,” Max says walking back down the hall.

“Huh?” I ask, turning to stare at him. Who possibly could have called him to say that everything was ok?

Max doesn’t answer me, he seems to have realized the significance of Isabel’s presence on my bed. She seems to feel his gaze, because she opens her eyes and stares back at her brother, not saying a word.

“Wait, hey,” I’m worried, and I’m not going to watch their staring contest, “what’s going on? Max, how do you know it was nothing?”

He convinces me to leave the kids with Isabel, and after taking a sweep of the room to make sure it’s safe, I accompany him outside and we quickly search the perimeter of the house. We spent a lot of years living with real and imagined threats like this, and I can’t believe I’ve let myself get this complacent.

Max is silent, and I know he’s wondering how long Isabel’s been sleeping with me, but he doesn’t ask. Another thing he doesn’t do is tell me how he knows that everything is ok. I’m pissed at him, and I don’t hide that fact – there’s no reason I can think of that I shouldn’t be able know what was or wasn’t a threat to my daughter.

 

 

 

PART 6

 

 

Max drives carefully up to the airport terminal, and pulls over so that we can pile out and grab our gear. It’s Friday night, and Allie’s birthday is tomorrow. I’m taking her to see Amy for the weekend. It’s sort of a thing, we always spend her birthday with Amy. Traveling is a good thing to be doing, it distracts me from dwelling on the fact that the birthday is also the anniversary of the worst day of my life.

The four of us, Max, Jak, Allie and I are standing awkwardly on the sidewalk next to my SUV.

“So, I’ll be here to pick you up on Sunday evening?” Max asks us with a smile.

Allie pulls on her backpack and nods, as if she’s the one with the travel itinerary.

“Yeah, our plane gets in at 6:25,” I tell him.

“Right, and I’ve got the flight details,” Max smiles and holds up the paper he made me write down all of our travel plans and phone numbers on. He’s still totally anal, maybe more so than ever.

“Well, have fun, Allie, tell your Grandma ‘hi’ for me,” Max picks her up and gives her a hug.

“Ok, Max,” She pats him on the back and makes a face at me over his shoulder.

I give her a warning look, and she puts on a fake smile. My being pissed at Max isn’t a reason for her to be rude.

“Yeah, later, Jak,” I say to the boy who is looking around at the crowds with distaste, we’ve learned he doesn’t think much of humans.

I know that he heard me, but he doesn’t acknowledge my presence, let alone my farewell. Shaking my head, I grab the handle of my carry-on and catch Max’s gaze for a second. He knows what I think about Jak’s behavior, and probably thinks the same thing but doesn’t like it that I let my distaste show on my face.

I look at Allie, “Tell Jak good-bye, Allie.”

Her face breaks into a grin, and she drawls out a thrilled, “ Good-bye!”

Quickly, I tap her on the shoulder, and she looks up at me. I narrow my eyes, and she huffs a little and looks down at her feet while she scuffs her shoe on the sidewalk, giving a lackluster, “Good-bye, Jak.”

“Uh, see ya’,” I say as I grab Allie’s hand and make for the doors.

“Have a nice birthday, Allie!” Max calls out to us as we escape into the building.

We’ve got a good five hours of flying ahead of us, LA to Albuquerque, Albuquerque to Roswell, so I try to read while Allie colors. We don’t make this trip everyday, but we do it often enough to have a routine. I think we’re both in a pretty good mood, because the last week with Jak has been one of the longest in both of our lives. ‘Difficult’ barely even touches this kid. Sure, he was raised without parents or friends or anything, and yeah he’s had it rough in a lot of ways, but knowing that doesn’t make it easier to live with him.

When we finally step off the tiny plane onto the runway in Roswell, we’re in surprisingly good moods, considering the annoying trek we’ve just made.

“Allie!”

Looking up, we can both see Amy waiting for us when we walk into the small airport. Immediately she runs over and scoops her granddaughter into her arms.

‘Grandma’ is really an interesting title for someone like Amy. Sure, she’s a little over forty now, but she looks like she’s still in her early thirties. She leans up and gives me a strange smile before planting a kiss on my cheek, then she gets absorbed in Allie.

The drive to her house is made considerably shorter by the barrage of questions Amy throws at us, well mostly at Allie. ‘How is school? Like your teacher? Made any friends? Is recess fun?’ she goes on and on, as Allie pipes up with answers from the backseat.

An hour later, we’re all in the living room talking. Well, Amy’s talking and we’re along for the ride. She’s already pulled Allie’s hair into two perfect french braids finished off with ribbon on the ends, I’ve always marveled at the way Amy manages to tame her hair.

“Allie, time for bed,” I say after I take a look at my watch.

Amy and Allie both give me a disappointed look, but I simply raise my eyebrows, it’s already way past her normal bedtime.

“Ok, sweetie, do you want to sleep in my room?” Amy asks her.

“Yeah!” Allie smiles and jumps up. She adores Amy, and it’s noticeable from the expression on her face that she’s happy here, in this house. That realization gives me a painful feeling in my chest. I know she doesn’t look like that very often when it’s just the two of us.

After she’s tucked Allie in for the night, Amy comes back out to the living room.

“So, how are you?” she asks me as she sits down in her easy chair again, leaning back and giving me a worried look.

I look up from studying my hands and shrug, “Max is back, that’s a relief.”

“Oh, yes, I know,” she smiles at me. “His little boy is adorable.”

I nod. Apparently Amy saw him during his brief stop in Roswell. This reminds me of the conversation Max and I had about the fact that Tess was now somewhere around here. No amount of reassurance about her ‘transformation’ (which I wasn’t allowed to know the details of) could put me at ease.

We sit in silence together for a while, and then I stand, “I think I’m gonna’ get some sleep.”

She nods, but her face holds concern. I know she’d like to say something motherly to me, but she doesn’t, instead opting to give me an understanding smile.

Running a hand through my hair, I turn to walk down the hall toward the shrine.

Maria’s room, untouched by the time. Still the same as the day she packed up and left it in frustration. Everything is just where she kept it. She had to leave a lot of her things behind when she moved in with me. Her stuffed animals, her posters, her bedding. There’s even an old half empty bottle of her perfume on the dresser. Movie stubs stick out of the frame of her mirror from where she stuffed them as keepsakes, and I know that if I open the closet, I’ll still find every piece of her non-maternity clothing hanging just where it was the day she moved out.

As I undress and get ready for bed, I notice subtle differences in the room. Some of the stuffed animals are missing. The necklace that hung from one of the drawer pulls on her desk is gone too. I can’t imagine that Amy has moved to this point. It’s not that she hasn’t dealt with her daughter’s death, she has, but I never thought I’d see the day when she’d want to pack up this room. It seems wrong somehow, and as I lay down in the bed that was hers, I close my eyes and try to sleep, doing my best not to dwell on the desecration of the last place in the world that was still almost purely Maria.

//For a few months after I quit working, nobody said anything. They were curious, I knew, but I wasn’t about to volunteer any information.

Isabel showed up at my door one night with a suspicious look on her face, and her hand on her hip.

“All right, six months with no job, Michael. What gives?”

“Nice to see you too,” I step back so that she can walk inside.

“Well, what is it, then? What are you doing?”

“Think you could maybe keep your voice down? I just got the baby to sleep,” I stall as I walk into the kitchen and resume fixing my sandwich. I don’t know what I’m going to tell her. I can’t say ‘I’ve taken a couple of day trips to Nevada and beaten the house using my voodoo alien powers’.

“ Michael!”

She’s standing in the middle of the living room growing more livid by the second. I open the fridge to pull out some mustard and notice that my sketchbook is laying on top of it. It’s been my only way to deal lately, sketching.

Suddenly, Isabel’s in the kitchen with me, and I can feel her anger. It’s important for her to know that everyone is safe, and I have a feeling that she thinks I’ve been up to something illegal.

“Michael, I swear to God, if you don’t tell me right now, I’ll-.”

“Paintings,” I murmur, as I turn back to making my sandwich.

“What? Paintings?”

“Yeah, I sold some,” I lie as I slap the mustard on the bread.

“Are you serious?” she sounds surprised, but not suspicious.

“Sure.”

“Wow,” she sounds stunned, and is surprisingly speechless.

I simply pick up my sandwich and go plop down on the couch. She watches me closely, and I know she’s expecting me to say something further.

“Anything else you wanted to know?” I ask her over my first bite.

Shaking her head, she joins me on the couch, and picks at a piece of lint on the cushion for a few minutes before speaking, “There’s something I want to ask you.”

“Let me have it.”

“How do you do it? Why aren’t you consumed by it?” her voice is soft as she watches me.

Isabel and I don’t discuss our grief, it just isn’t something we do.

“Why aren’t you consumed by it?” I answer her with a question, hoping she’ll drop it.

“I am,” she whispers.

“Me too,” is all I can say as I turn away from her and look at the the last bite of food in my hand.

I know that they think I’m doing well. Everybody always says, ‘you seem to be doing well’. I give them a nod, and a half smile, and I hold Allie a little tighter and let them think what they’d like. Of course I’m not all right, I’ll never be all right again. Isabel understands, she’s the same.

“Alex’s mom called me. She’s going through his things, sending stuff to charity,” her voice breaks a little at this point, but she swallows her emotion. “They want me to go through everything first, see if there’s anything I’d like to have.”

“Oh,” I don’t know what to say. I know she’s had a year longer to heal than I have, but I can’t imagine dealing with something like that.

“What would you do?” she asked me softly.

My mouth is dry as I look at her. She really wants my opinion, because she’s torn and she knows I understand.

“I’d go, and take everything that they want to give away and take it home with me.”

Her eyes are steady on mine. I know what people say about grief, and believe me, I know I’m not healing. I don’t want to. She doesn’t either.

Nodding slightly, she leans forward, and I think she’s going to stand up, but she doesn’t. Her lips brush lightly against mine, and then she leans into me a little more.

When she finally pulls away, all I can do is stare at her. Chaste as it was, there wasn’t anything ‘friendly’ about that kiss, and we both know it.

We stare at each other, literally for minutes. For those few minutes, though, there wasn’t any pain, only confusion. After a while, I reach out for her, and pull her to me. If this is what it takes to get some relief, then so be it.//

I roll over in the bed, Maria’s bed, and fight off sleep. It’s after midnight now, and the anniversary has begun. This is a day when I don’t seek respite. Looking around the room I let her presence overwhelm me, I need the pain.

***

“Happy Birthday,” I say with a smile as I sit down to the breakfast table.

“Thanks,” Allie says, pushing her hair out of her face as she takes a bit of cereal.

Amy insists on doing her hair when she’s here. Allie hates to wear it down, hates to have it in her face, but Amy loves to curl it and let it hang.

“Did you sleep all right?” I ask the question hoping it won’t upset her. She’s been having trouble sleeping since the open window incident.

“Uh, yeah,” she nods without looking up from her bowl of cereal.

The back door opens suddenly, and I’m practically on my feet with my hand raised before I notice that it’s Kyle.

“Hey, Birthday Girl!” he cries, effectively ignoring me as he steps in and grabs Allie out of her chair.

The frilly dress that’s she’s wearing flies around her as Kyle picks her up and throws her over his shoulder, while she giggles. I know without asking that the dress is because of Amy, Allie hates them.

“Uncle Kyle!” she squeals, thrashing to be let down as she tries to control her laughter.

“Hey,” I say to him as he sets her on her feet and ruffles her hair.

“Uh, hey,” he doesn’t meet my eyes, instead watching Allie as she climbs back into her chair and continues eating.

Kyle was visiting Jim when Max got back, and he hasn’t been home since. I’m not sure if he’s staying because of Tess, or the other people that Max left here, but I intend to find out this weekend.

“Kyle, Amy asked me to pick up some stuff for the party, you think you could go with me?” I ask him.

He nods as he starts throwing cheerios into Allie’s hair. She scratches her head a few times before she catches on and starts pulling them out of her now tangled hair to throw them back at him.

“Good morning, Kyle,” Amy breezes in and gives him a kiss on the cheek, there's a much larger grin than I’m used to seeing on her face.

“Uh, ‘morning, Amy,” Kyle returns the mysteriously large smile as they both turn to look at Allie. Things are getting weird, and I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I’m sure as hell going to find out.

***

“Where’s Tess?” is the first question out of my mouth when Kyle and I hop into his dad’s old pick-up truck.

“Uh, she’s at my dad’s,” he says in that jerky, defiant way of his, like it’s none of my business.

“If I catch her near my family, I’ll kill her.”

It’s not an empty threat, I mean every word of it. I’ve got a ‘zero tolerance’ policy when it comes to evil aliens.

Kyle exhales sharply, “She’s changed, Michael-.”

“Don’t care. You guys can take her back and make ‘nice-nice’ with her murderous ass all you want – I catch her near Allie, Amy, or Iz, and she gets it.”

His grip on the steering wheel tightens, and I realize this is probably in reaction to me including Isabel in the threat. Oh well.

He opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, but then thinks better of it. I’m guessing that she’s not going to try anything, but I thought I’d better send the warning out just in case. With Max refusing to divulge any information, Kyle’s probably my best bet for relaying the message.

I decide to push for more, “So, what’s the little secret that you and Amy have?”

“What?” he turns to me a little too quickly.

“You. Amy. Making funny faces at each other like you’ve got the 4-1-1 on something.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kyle mutters as he pulls into a parking space at the supermarket.

“You don’t, huh?”

“Michael. I love Allie, I wouldn’t keep anything from you that could put her in danger,” Kyle’s tone is angry, but I know that what he says is true, and so I decide to let it go for now.

***

I don’t know why I bring her to this playground every time we come to Roswell. It’s not that I have any particularly vivid memories here, or anything.

“Dad, watch, I’m gonna’ jump,” Allie calls from the swing.

“Uh, ok,” instinctively, I move closer to where she is, just in case.

She jumps off at the full height of the swing and runs a few feet to keep from falling. When she turns around to look for my approval, all I can do is give her a ‘thumbs up’ and hope she never breaks her neck doing it. I forgot about the daredevil games kids learn on school playgrounds, it probably doesn't help that Allie is completely fearless.

Next she’s off to the jungle gym, and I follow at a distance, watching as she pulls herself up and across the bars hand over hand. She’s the only kid out today, so the woman sitting on the bench on the far side of the play area sticks out to me. Her head moves to follow Allie as she drops from the bars to run for the merry-go-round. The woman is a brunette, and she’s wearing big dark sunglasses.

I glance down at my watch, we’ve got about twenty more minutes before we can go back to Amy’s. The party isn’t a surprise, but Amy insisted I get Allie out of the house so she could decorate. At this point, I’d like to go, there’s something about the woman that I find unsettling. I can’t quite make out her face, partially from the distance, and partially because her hair is hanging close into her face just revealing a thin strip of glasses, nose, and mouth.

“Dad!”

I look at Allie, she’s back on the swing and ready to jump again. I walk toward her, then turn again to watch the woman on the bench, but she’s gone.

 

 

 

PART 7

 

 

“…And, then we went to Disneyland-.”

“I want to go to Disneyland.”

“You’ve been twice this year,” I look back at Allie, “and don’t interrupt.”

Max continues on about all of the things he and Jak did over the weekend as we drive away from the airport. I couldn’t care less, really, I don’t know why he feels the need to share. It’s just the silence that he doesn’t like, he seems to feel a need to fill it. Silence is perfectly fine with me.

“…Right, Michael?”

“Huh?” shit, he caught me not paying attention.

“I said,” Max’s voice is strained as he struggles to maintain his smile, “Isabel won’t be happy if we’re late for dinner.”

“Are we going to Isabel’s?” I really should have been paying attention.

“ Yes,” his control is slipping as he glances away from the road to look at me.

“Right…” I nod.

We walk in the door twenty minutes late, and Isabel does look pissed. For some reason the anger is directed toward me, in the form of glares and sneers.

“So, what did you get for your birthday, Allie?” Iz asks as we sit at the table.

“Stuff,” she answers stuffing a spoonful of rice into her mouth.

“Stuff?” Max prompts her.

Allie nods and speaks with her mouth full, “Shtupff.”

“Well, I’ve got your present in the living room, do you want to open it after we’re done eating?” Isabel smiles at her.

More nodding from Allie, this time with a grin as she continues to chew.

“What is a birthday?”

I almost said, ‘It speaks’, but that probably wouldn’t go over very well with Max and Isabel so I just look in Jak’s direction.

Max has a smile plastered on his face, like hearing the boy ask a question is the best thing that’s happened all day, “Well, son, a ‘birthday’ is the anniversary of the day of your birth.”

“When is my birthday?” Jak asks in a monotone. Well, it’s an improvement over his usual tone of condescension.

Isabel looks like she’s on the verge of tears as her fork clatters to her plate. Max is turning a sickly green color. Allie is just watching everybody with eyes as big as saucers, she has no idea of the significance of the moment, but she’s really perceptive about changes in the emotional atmosphere.

“Pick one,” I say.

Everyone turns to look at me, so I take a quick drink of water and shrug, “What? I picked mine. Just let him pick one.”

“Yesterday was my birthday, then,” Jak says firmly.

Isabel and Max let out a sigh of relief.

I look at the kid, “Ok, sounds good.”

“Yesterday was my birthday.”

I look in Allie’s direction, her eyes are narrowed, and she’s glaring at Jak who’s looking back at her with a slight smirk on his face.

“Alexandra.”

She looks in my direction when I say her name. I’m about to tell her it’s not a big deal if Jak wants his birthday to be the same day hers is, when I notice that her chin is quivering. Within about five seconds, huge crocodile tears are slipping down her cheeks from those big brown eyes.

I’m stunned, she doesn’t really get upset like this, she doesn’t cry - well, I mean, sure, she cries, when she’s hurt or something, but never just out of the blue.

“But, Dad,” she’s choking over her silent sobs, “it’s my birthday.”

This is so weird, I don’t know what to say, I’m just sitting here staring at her. Isabel starts patting her back after a few seconds, and whispering things to her.

“Allie…” I know I should say or do something, but I have no idea what.

At the sound of my voice, she takes a deep breath, and her little hands make quick swipes at her cheeks, and she sniffs a few times, then forces herself to eat again. Her shoulders are still shaking slightly from the sobs, but she won’t let herself cry.

Isabel and Max exchange glances, then both look at me, obviously horrified.

Allie hiccups, then speaks, her red-rimmed eyes plastered to her plate, “This rice is really good, hiccup, Isabel.”

***

“ God, Michael, she’s seven,” Isabel hiss-whispers at me.

What, like I don’t know that? Max and Iz coaxed the kids into the living room to watch some crap prime time cartoon I normally wouldn’t let Allie near, and we’re in the kitchen for my whisper lecture.

“I know that, Iz.”

“She shouldn’t be ashamed to cry, Michael,” Max says softly without looking me in the eye.

Guess who I don’t want parenting advice from?

“ Fuck,” I slap the refrigerator, “I know that, and I never told her to be. I’ve never said a word about her crying.”

“She doesn’t laugh anymore, Michael,” Isabel has her hand on her hip, “ everyone has noticed it.”

“When you’ve got kids, Iz, you can criticize.”

That was probably uncalled for. After me, no one knows Allie better than Isabel. If anyone is the surrogate mother-figure, it’s her. It’s even come up a couple of times, making something like that official, and that alone is enough reason for me not to tell her to butt out. Iz deserves a lot better than this, she deserves a lot better than me, but even knowing this doesn’t make me apologize.

“We’re not trying to criticize,” Max says, trying to somehow placate both Isabel and I as we glare at one another, “we’re just worried about her. She’s so much more withdrawn than she was even before I left…”

I know this. I know it’s true, I know it better than anyone, but I don’t know what to do about it.

Isabel is fuming from my ‘butt-out’ remark, “You know what the problem is? You are her role model. She’s turning into you, Michael, and it’s sad.”

She draws in a deep breath and narrows her eyes. Here it comes, I can feel it, someone was bound to say it at some point…

“If Maria were here-.”

“You think I wouldn’t give anything for it to be Maria here instead of me?!?!” I’m practically screeching as I glare at Isabel. “I know she’d be better off with Maria, ok? Believe me, I’d rather be dead.”

“Maybe you should think about letting her spend some time with Amy-,” Max begins.

That’s it.

I’ll be damned if I’ll sit here and listen to this.

Practically running into the living room, I call out, “Allie, we’re leaving.”

***

Allie isn’t really listening to me as I’m reading her bedtime story, but I keep going anyway.

Jak is standing in the doorway listening to me. He and Max walked in about ten minutes ago, I’m guessing that Isabel gave them a ride.

“You already read that.”

I look up suddenly at Jak, then glance at Allie. She’s a little surprised too.

“What?” I ask him.

“You are repeating a portion of the story,” he says staring at me with that disinterested look.

“Uh, sorry,” I look down at Allie, she hadn’t noticed either. I turn back to Jak, “You want to come over here and sit on the bed so you can hear better?”

'Shocked' doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel when he walks over to the bed. Allie sits up and pulls her knees to her chin, wrapping her arms around her legs to make room for him. He sits with us, and I continue to read, making sure to pay more attention this time.

When I’m finished with the chapter, I tuck Allie in, and Jak leaves the room without a word. I tell her to go to sleep, then leave her nightlight on, and her door wide open. This is the first time I’ve left her to sleep alone since the window incident. She doesn’t protest, so I feel a little better. Of course, I’m still planning to sleep in the rocking chair, but I won’t tell her that.

Max is putting Jak to bed, so I go downstairs to watch some TV. I suppose I’ll have to speak to him eventually, but I’m not exactly looking forward to it. We’ve also got things to discuss that I learned while I was in Roswell. Somehow all of it is secondary to him telling me I should let Amy have Allie for a while.

//Amy watches me from the other side of her kitchen table.

“You need to get away from here.”

I look down at Allie who’s fallen asleep propped up against my shoulder, she’s nearly a year old.

“Why don’t you take a few months and go somewhere else, I can keep Allie-.”

I silence her with a look. If I go, Allie goes with me. She seems to see that, and she nods.

The memories are stifling me here, and if it were just me, I think I’d be content to just wallow in them, but it isn’t just me. I look down at the baby again.

“Michael, I know you’re doing well with your painting. There’s no reason you can’t do that anywhere you want,” Amy starts up again.

I really dug myself into a hole with the painting story. I’d had to buy art supplies, and even leave unfinished things laying around for show. It wasn’t that bad, now that Allie had a regular sleeping schedule it did give me something to do, but it was a lie just the same.

“If Max leaves, I’ll go somewhere else, there won’t be a reason to stay here,” I whisper finally.

Amy nods. She’s worried about me, I know. I’m all right, though.

“When will he find out if he can go?” she asks me.

“Next week.”

“Are you sorry that you can’t go with him?” her tone is understanding, motherly.

All I can do is shake my head. Of course, I’d like to help Max, and hunt down every one of the bastards who is responsible for leaving my daughter motherless, but what can I do? Allie needs me more, there’s no question of me leaving her. Not for the home planet, and not for anywhere or anything else.//

The sound of the phone ringing pulls me out of my thoughts, but I’m a little too out of it to get to it before someone else does.

I hear Max pick up the phone in the kitchen, “Hello, Guerin residence.”

His formality almost makes me laugh, and I turn from the couch to look at him in the kitchen, when I see his face distort as he whispers, “ Liz?”

Oh crap, I should’ve known she’d be calling. Max doesn’t talk to her long, he mumbles something about giving the phone to me, and practically runs in my direction to do just that.

“Liz?”

“Michael.”

“Uh, hey,” I scratch my eyebrow, and look over at Max who’s watching me carefully from the loveseat.

“Max is back?” her voice sounds tired.

“Yeah…”

“Look, I just called to talk to Alexandra. I knew you’d be out of town for the weekend, and I called earlier, but no one was home,” she’s rushing, obviously not in the mood to talk to me.

“She’s already in bed.”

“Oh. Will you have her call me after school tomorrow? I wanted to wish her a happy birthday.”

“Sure, ok.”

“Thanks,” she pauses and takes a deep breath, and I know she’d like to ask me something, but doesn’t. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Ok, bye,” I pull the phone away from my ear and click it off.

Max is still watching me, looking eager, and pitiful all at once. If he weren’t such an idiot, I’d feel sorry for him.

***

Allie’s pretending she doesn’t see me as I stand in the doorway of her classroom. The teacher sees me and waves, so I walk over to her desk.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Guerin,” the woman smiles up at me.

“Uh, good afternoon.”

The woman nods in my daughter’s direction, “Allie asked me if she could stay to finish her art assignment.”

“She’s the only one?” I ask looking around at the practically empty classroom.

“You see, she finished one drawing, but wasn’t happy with it, and decided to do another. If she feels like she wants to, I usually encourage that,” the teacher says.

I nod, and stand there, waiting for her to finish. She’s been really quiet over the last couple of weeks since we’ve been back from Roswell, and I’m halfway tempted to ask the teacher if she’s noticed anything different about her, but I decide against it. After few more minutes, Allie stands up and walks up to the teacher carrying the paper she’s been drawing on in her hand.

She hands it to the teacher, and the woman smiles and puts a sticker with a blue fish on it on the paper and hands it back to her.

“Here, Allie why don’t you take your first attempt as well?” the woman calls as we’re walking toward the door.

I turn around and take the paper from the teacher's hand without really thinking, and as we’re walking down the hallway toward the door to the parking lot, I look at it.

“Allie?”

“Yeah?” she looks up at me as I stop in the middle of the hallway.

I’ve seen Allie draw before, hundreds of times, thousands of times, but I’ve never seen her do anything as well as she’s done this. That’s not what has me stopped in my tracks, though.

“Who is this, Allie?”

She swallows and glances around the hallway, “Nobody.”

“It looks a lot like somebody.”

“Who?” she looks up at me, like she’s genuinely curious to see who I think it resembles.

“You’re drawing somebody here, Allie, who is it?” I don’t know why she won’t tell me, it’s strange.

“No, I just made her up, Dad.”

I don’t want to accuse her of lying, I might be wrong, she might not know who it is. All I know is that I’m holding a likeness of Maria in my hand. It’s rough, there’s a big scribbled patch on the cheek, and not all of the details are correct, but I know who it is.

***

I’m scouring my picture albums when Isabel walks in the back door. This is only the second time I’ve seen her since the incident at her house, and we haven’t spoken at all.

She makes eye contact with me briefly, then walks out into the hall and climbs the stairs. Kyle’s been back for about a week, and I’m guessing she’s been spending some time with him.

“Dad?”

I look up to see Allie staring at me curiously.

“Yeah?”

“What are you doing?”

Trying to figure out what picture she saw of her mother that inspired her drawing.

“Looking at the photo album.”

She gives me an odd look, she’s never seen me do anything like this. Isabel's the one who arranges these things. I'd just let the developed photos sit in boxes.

“Well, what’s for dinner?”

“Hamburgers?”

“Ok, good,” she smiles slightly and turns to leave, but then looks back at me for a moment. “Are you looking at pictures of her?”

Allie doesn’t call her ‘Mom’, in fact, Allie doesn’t call her anything, just her or she.

All I do is nod. She watches me for a moment, then turns and walks away.

“Liz is coming.”

“What?” I look up to see Isabel sitting down next to me. She’s not looking me in the eye, and her tone is terse.

“I said…Liz. is. coming.”

“Why?” I ask her, narrowing my eyes.

“She’s been talking to Kyle, about Jak and everything, and she’s coming. I’m not sure exactly why, but she is,” Isabel looks down at her hands and begins to push back the cuticles of her nails.

“Is she staying with you?”

“No,” Isabel looks off to the left, “she’s staying with Kyle.”

She’s angry with me, and I know that, but I could swear she just got more agitated about what she’d just told me.

“Allie drew this today,” I pulled the picture off of the coffee table and turned it over to show it to her. For some reason I want someone else’s opinion, and if Iz is speaking to me again it should be her.

“Oh my God,” she whispers, narrowing her eyes at the picture, “I-I…this is so strange. Yesterday morning…”

Her voice trails off as she touches the picture with her fingers, and I’m starting to freak out.

“ What, Iz?”

She swallows, then turns to look at me, “Kyle’s. I was leaving Kyle’s place yesterday morning, and I saw a woman across the street, and I had the strangest feeling I knew her, but by the time I’d walked to my car, she was gone.”

“What does that have to do with this?” I gestured at the picture.

“She looked like this. Dark glasses, dark hair at her shoulders, she looked like this,” she turned the drawing back toward me.

“ Fuck!” I quickly jump to my feet and run a hand through my hair.

“What?” she asks me.

“Don’t you see, it’s Tess! She’s mindwarping. First Allie, now you. Fuck!”

“Keep your voice down,” Isabel hisses pulling on my leg, urging me to sit back down, “the kids are going to hear you.”

“Where's Max?” I ask her, brining my voice down to a whisper. Max hasn’t exactly been keeping me apprised of his movements lately.

“At Kyle’s, he left me a message, that’s why I came over to keep Jak company.”

“Take Allie and Jak, go to a restaurant somewhere, and stay there until I call you.”

“Michael. You’re not thinking of going after her,” Isabel shakes her head. “It was probably a coincidence.”

“You know it wasn’t.”

She still looks uncertain, but I’m not. I know something is up, so I grab her arm and pull her to her feet, then call for Allie and Jak. They come running. I tell them Iz is taking them out for dinner, and literally push the three of them out the door. If Isabel was mad before, she’s fuming now, but she’ll just have to deal.

“Be good, and do whatever Isabel tells you,” I tell Allie as she fastens her seatbelt in the back of Isabel’s car.

“Ok,” she nods, looking up for a second with suspicion in her eyes, she knows something is wrong.

“I love you,” I say, smoothing her hair away from her face.

Her head bobs, and she looks up at me with those eyes. Dammit, I couldn’t take it if anything happened to her, whatever I have to do is worth it if it keeps her safe.

“Love