Words
and music from the Road
By
Withnail K
Category: PG 13 only if bad language offends
Spoilers: Post Graduation so yeah
Category: C/C, M/M, M,L etc.
Disclaimer: I own little more then a scary collection of Buffy
DVD’s and the tattered shreds of my
dignity and sanity.
Authors Note: My first fic, so please be kind. I wanted to explore
how each character felt about leaving
Maria- All I want by Joni Mitchell
I
am on a lonely road and I am traveling, traveling, traveling, traveling
Looking
for something, what can it be?
Oh
I hate you some, I hate you some, I love you some,
I
love you when I forget about me.
Anyone would think I was crazy, of that I’m pretty sure. Six
months ago there I was, all ready to go out on my search for myself, to leave
the non-stop alien hootenanny as I like to refer to it and give over some time
for a little Maria DeLuca discovery. I had a possible music career lined up
(okay, so that turned out to be completely bogus but..) I was in
That reason sits next to me. Michael, my very own spaceboy who is
currently having some sort of mind numbingly boring argument with Kyle. In
between displaying his detailed knowledge of some sort of machismo ball, stick
and face mask sport, he keeps trying to look over my shoulder and peek at what
I’m writing. It was Liz’s idea for us to keep journals, she said it could
come in handy, like her journal did in explaining the pod squad scenario to our
parents. I can just see Amy’s reaction right now. She’ll be needing about a
gallon of grief relief and a good dose of lavender oil. Anyways, I decided it
was a good idea, I have so much going on in my head and lets face it, when
you’re driving through the desert there’s only so many games of eye-spy
before ‘rock’ and ‘sand’ become somewhat redundant.
All I really really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you too.
All I really really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you
I wanna talk to you, I wanna shampoo you
I want to renew you again and again
Applause, applause, life is our cause
When I think of you’re kisses my mind see-saws
Michaels arm is resting lightly on my shoulder, and I know he’s
fairly preoccupied at the moment, even more so then usual. His long shaggy hair
is tucked behind his ears and he’s wearing some scruffy old t-shirt that could
be gray, or black or blue, with Michael’s clothes it’s a little hard to
tell, especially since they all get washed together. Despite the stubble on his
chin and the worn, driving-all-day look we’ve all developed since leaving
Roswell he looks beautiful to me, and I have to stop writing for a minute to
lean over and kiss his neck. His brown eyes flicker down to mine, he look’s
partly pleased, partly confused, and wary. I hold his eyes and try to radiate
all the love I have for him through that gaze, I need to reassure him.
When I broke up with him it was something I really needed to do, I
needed to just be me, be Maria on my own. It’s like since he kissed me that
night, like a lifetime ago in the Crashdown I feel like a huge part of me has
existed solely for him. I mean come on DeLuca, could you have been more pathetic
the summer after Tess rocked up and in her blonde skanky alien way fucked
everything up?! Apart from the pure evil that was Tess, the murdering, best
friend’s boyfriend stealing, what’s up with that hair on top of that makeup
alien bitch… oops, off topic DeLuca, where was I?
Oh yeah, me and my embarrassing ‘pining after Michael’ phase. I
should have known then what I know now, that chasing that guy is a futile
endeavor. Even though I guess it really wasn’t, I mean he came back to me
didn’t he? With a brief side trip to my other least favorite blonde alien he
did come back to me. The whole point is that I was really REALLY pathetic, I
just couldn’t think straight. I spent my every waking minute aching for
spaceboy, and I think part of me got lost in the process. At sixteen no one
should have to deal with a guy who needs you so much one minute, and then pushes
you away the next. It’s like the song I wrote, Behavior, the one that
Dominique and that Dean guy butchered, it was when he was mean that I needed him
the most.
Do you see, do you see
Do you see how you’re hurting me baby,
Then I hurt you too
Then we both get so blue
Being here now is different. That mindless obsession I had with
him, with just keeping him mine has been replaced with something that feels
older, more permanent. Don’t get me wrong here, I know that the love between
me and Spaceboy will never be perfect, we are both too different for that. We
are soo not Max and Liz, but it works for me, and I want it to work for him too.
I want him to realize how sure I am about being here, about how it took the
rockiness in our relationship for us to get here. I know he was really hurt by
me, I mean it took the guy like nearly two years to open up to me and I left
him. I guess I’m just trying to explain why.
The night that they were supposed to leave, the night he opened up
to me and we slept together for the first time, god, I don’t think I’ve ever
been so happy and so sad all in one go. When I saw myself as he sees me in the
flashes I felt like my heart was gonna burst. After two years of trying to
unravel the mystery that is Michael Guerin, having him so open and vulnerable in
front of me, I just felt like I’d done it, I’d made him mine. Then he left
and the ache I had for him was unbearable.
And then he came back. That stupid granolith thing opened up and he
came out and I just thought, ‘he stayed for me’, you know, before reality
came crashing in and I remembered the murdering alien slut about to race my
friends off to Antar. The upshot is, Michael was always a struggle to get, to
keep. He was so erratic, so unreadable. And then bam! he gives me everything I
ever wanted from him and more in one massive gesture. Typical Spaceboy, when he
decides to be sweet, to give a little, he goes so way above and beyond it’s
just unbelievable. I think that’s why I love him so much. Like I said to him
on the way home from Marathon, underneath it all he’s so wounded, so
vulnerable. How could I not love him?
That’s the thing, I never, not once, stopped loving him. I just
realized after over two years of living just for him I needed me, I needed to
know who I was. I just felt like I had nothing to give him, because he was all I
was, without him I was nothing. I know I hurt him and I hate myself for that.
And that whole sleeping with him thing before I went to New York, I know that
was wrong, I knew that when it was happening. But that guy just makes me weak, I
just couldn’t stop myself. See now, after New York and him becoming the
monster king from hell I realized I could maybe do the whole alien thing, and I
was strong enough to do it on my own. I would have bled for him that night when
he got all glowy on his gorgeous chest and became the King of Antar. I would
have bled from my fucking eyes to bring him back.
And the Tess came back and Liz said no to the whole “turn Tess in
to the F.B.I. plan”, I felt his anger, I felt my anger. I get why Liz did
that, we’ve spoken about it so much. Liz has this little steel core, and
she’s not like me or Michael, she’s not a revenge person, but I was pissed.
If it had been Courtney I would have sent that bitch to hell, and she was on our
side. I fell asleep that night on the floor in Isabel’s apartment and when I
woke up Michael’s hands were on me and we so nearly just went for it, right
next to Kyle as he snored and dreamed of free cable porn. The thing is I
realized I can do this on my own, and that makes me feel like I can do it with
him properly. I feel like I can finally give him everything he needs.
I thought I wanted normal, and I know Liz did too. We just wanted
to see who we were in the real world, the real, boring, mundane,
aliens-don’t-exist world. But I want here now, I want in all of this, not just
him, but Isabel and Max and my best friend blasting people and having
premonitions and glowing green energy in her little hands, you know, the whole
alien hootenanny. I want to be around to see how happy my Liz finally is, how
happy Max is. Lets face it, she deserves it. I want to be there for their
serious, dark-eyed children and just to watch them finally be able to really
love each other.
I want to see Isabel smile again. She has this plastic looking grin
plastered on her face at the moment and every once in a while when she thinks no
ones watching her it drops and her loneliness is just unbelievable. I keep
trying to reach out to her, but it’s hard. Me and Isabel are kinda different.
Poor Isabel, I just can’t imagine what she’s going through, losing Alex and
then giving Jesse up. I cant imagine how it feels to make that kind of
sacrifice, and I tell you, it makes the whole ‘leaving my life behind for the
man I love’ thing seem waaay less important. Looking at Isabel all stoic and
sad makes me feel less sorry for what I left behind. I mean, even if things
between us are often, shall we say, slightly tempestuous, at least he’s here,
and I’m with him.
And hey, it’s never boring when you’re on the road with the pod
squad, it may be time consuming and it never lets up, at least it’s never
dull! (I say this with some irony as Kyle and spaceboy are now arguing about
some sort of sport related play station game. I mean c’mon boys! You’re not
twelve anymore! All we need now is an armpit fart competition and hooray, back
in grade school!)
As for now, I think it’s time we get the make-out twins outta
that back seat. I want some relaxing and maybe a little mack time myself!
Michael is looking at me again and wow, how gorgeous are his eyes, I lean over
and kiss him, long and lingering. If he has any doubts I plan to banish them
a.s.a.p. We need to be right with each other, all of us, and he needs to realize
that I wouldn’t be anywhere else in the world… anywhere else in the
universe.
I am on a lonely road and I am traveling
Looking for the key to set me free
Oh the jealousy, the greed is the unraveling, it’s the
unraveling
And it undoes all the joy that could be
I want to have fun, I want to shine like the sun
I want to be the one that you want to see
I want to knit you a sweater
Want to write you a love letter
I want to make you feel better
I want to make you feel free
I want to make you feel free.
Isabel – Bad Light and Historical by The Paradise Motel
Came out spinning
Twisting like a knife
Like a gutter gorged with night
Pale wet hair,
Veining like the rain worms down arms;
Smile hung like a leaden charm
I can feel myself slipping into ice queen mode, putting on lip
gloss that feels more natural to me then my own smile. I stop myself and return
the concerned smile that Max has been throwing at me every five seconds since we
left Roswell and I left my husband. I love my brothers, even if Michael isn’t
really my brother, I do love them, and I love Liz, Maria and Kyle, but none of
them can possibly understand how I feel. Max has Liz, Michael has Maria, they
haven’t lost a love, let alone two. And Liz and Maria have tried so hard to
sympathize with me but how can they? Apart from the fact that they both have
their loves they’re also both human, and lets be blindingly honest here,
I’ve never been particularly close to either of them. I keep people at bay,
it’s in my nature. I feel mean but I just can’t fake being happy, joining
in. I just want to sleep until the pain goes away, only I know that it never
will.
My heart hurts for Jesse, it really aches. I know that I made the
right decision though, I just know it. I know it the way I know that he would
have left me if I’d let him come on this squashed van ride from hell to god
only knows where. He couldn’t have coped, it’s not in him.
I love Jesse but he’s just not that strong, he’s too rational.
He needs normalcy and stability. To go to work and come home and watch T.V. and
drink beer and all that mundane crap that’s so important when you don’t have
it. That’s not what we’re going to have now, any of us. The thing is, Liz,
Kyle and Maria have been a part of this for so long that they’re used to the
craziness, the instability of our lives. Jesse’s not, he never signed up for
any of this.
He would have run, he would have left me and my heart would have
died again anyway. And even if he hadn’t run, if he’d found the strength to
stay with me, to be patient with me like Alex was, he could have ended up hurt
or dead, just like Alex. I couldn’t do that to Jesse, I just love him too
much. I only hope he moves on now, and does it quickly. I hope he doesn’t try
to find us, not only for our protection, but for his. I don’t want to hurt him
again, I don’t want him to ever be hurt again and with me it seems hurt is
just inevitable.
Set a course for the shore lights
Run me to ground for double-crossing
Traveling with me has left a taint,
Of dirty blood
I’ll stain you, ‘til you lay this all to rest
Maybe I’m paying, some kind of karmic retribution for the things
I did as Vilandra. Although it hardly seems fair for me to pay for mistakes that
were made by a stranger, even if in some way that stranger was me. Even now,
whenever I think about Vilandra, about Kivar, about the whole other life I used
to lead I feel a sickness in the pit of my stomach. Whether or not I remember my
life as Vilandra is redundant, knowing it happened, knowing I was this terrible
person who betrayed my family just makes me ill.
I guess it’s Karma, Kyle could probably explain this all to me in
excruciating detail. Then again, maybe Lonnie is the evil part of Vilandra. She
did the same thing as our ancestor, she betrayed her family and killed her
brother. I wonder if Lonnie has to pay? Probably not, how can you’re heart be
broken when you don’t even have one?
I wonder about her, like I know Michael wonders about Rath. We
spoke about them the other night, you know, about the existence of others from
our planet here on earth. I think Michael was going to suggest finding them, I
know his thinking, they are other aliens. He’s lost some of the acceptance he
had of his human side since Maria broke up with him. I wonder if she knows how
broken he was without her? She made Michael human, she’s the only person apart
from Max and Myself he’s ever really loved. They’re arguing at the moment,
Michaels driving and Maria wants to hear some sort of girl-angst guitar rock, I
think P.J. Harvey? And Michael’s insisting on Soundgarden. My votes with
Maria, she’ll win in the end. She still has Michael on his better behavior and
I know he’s not up to full confidence with her yet, but give him time.
Max and Liz are sleeping on the side seat, wrapped in each other
like the world depended on it. I still can’t believe we nearly left the
planet, that he nearly left her. It took me a long time to trust Liz, to trust
any human, but that girl is a pillar of strength, an absolute rock. What she has
done for my brother amazes me, I trust her implicitly because of her love for
him. The only time in the last three years and the chaos that has ensued that
she went right off rails was when Alex died, and in the end she was right about
everything anyway, even if her methods were a little insane.
She wasn’t the only one. I never told the others about my visits
from him, about the way sometimes even now I feel him watching, just like his
presence there. That’s the only time I feel like I can breathe properly, like
I’m not drowning. I ache for Jesse, to feel his arms around me and see that
cheeky twinkle in his deep brown eyes that means we’re about to make love. I
still ache for Alex, for the way he made me feel like I was the only girl in the
room, heck, the only girl in the universe when we were together. I ache just to
be loved and not be afraid. Afraid that they’ll either find out about my
secret, or that me being who I am will hurt them somehow. I wonder if I’ll
ever have that, have it with someone who knows me, knows my secrets and sees
past them to know me.
I look up again at Max. I’ve never seen him so happy as he’s
been in the last few days. We’ve been through so much, and even if I feel
alone in my grief at the moment I know that I’ll be okay as long as I have
him. Ever since he grabbed my hand in the desert when we came out of the pods
he’s been my life. I sometimes think that if anyone truly knows me it’s him.
Max holds us together, all of us. It’s not that he’s the king, or our
leader. It’s that despite everything his heart is so good. He loves all of us,
even Kyle. I watch him with everyone, his devotion to Liz, his quiet joking with
Maria, even his bickering with Michael, he does everything he does for us. I
know my brother has made some mistakes, but he can admit to them, he can accept
his faults and that allows him to get past them.
Maybe that’s what’s wrong with both me and Michael, we have
this darkness in us that we can’t accept. I look over to the front seat at my
other brother. I know Michael’s not the most sympathetic person at times but
he keeps looking at me with so much concern in his eyes that it almost makes it
worse. Michael and I will always protect each other, we have to, For so long Max
and I were all he had. I know he doesn’t see it, but he’s so loyal and true
to those few he loves. Maria and he have stopped arguing now. She’s chatting
away to him in that aimless way of hers and I can tell he’s not hearing a word
she’s saying, he’s just letting her voice wash over him.
She folds silently
Into midnight rain
Bad light led to her -
Twenty years without a word
No sun to wipe away
Bad light followed all the way
Salvo of pennies raining down
Details from a missing town
Bad light led to her –
Twenty years without a word
No sun to wipe away
Bad light followed all the way Wail.
Kyle is reading one of his infernal books on Buddhism, and I’m
thankful that he’s not quoting any of it, even though, lets face it, Kyle
rarely offers an actual Buddhist quote, they’re more likely to be his own,
rather personal slant on his religion of choice. He’s probably surprised me
the most of all the people in this van. He was the enemy not so long ago.
Even after Max healed him and he found out our secret I know Max
still didn’t trust him, I guess none of us did. But we were wrong, Kyle is
like Liz, like Alex, he has such strength, such acceptance. He keeps cracking
bad jokes and he and Maria have invented games at the toxic diners we’re
forced to eat in like “rate the bathroom” and “guess the meat”. He
glances at me and I feel a little bit safer. Kyle probably understands my
situation better then anyone. Like me he has no one. Like me he lost someone he
really cared about, I mean, he probably cared more for Tess then any of us, and
he was the one most betrayed by her. Like me he has found himself in this
situation alone. I move over a little and curl up with my head on his shoulder,
knowing that even if Kyle can’t understand exactly what I feel, how I feel, he
can offer some support, some solidarity. After all, Tess did to him what I do to
the human men that love me. She ruined his life. She was like me, like Vilandra
and even Lonnie. She was poison.
Set a course for the shore lights
Run me to the ground for double-crossing
Traveling with me has left a taint
A favorite touch
I’ll stain you ‘til you lay this all to rest
I’ll stay on you ‘til you lay this all to rest
Max – Come Away With Me by Norah Jones
Come away with me in the night
Come away with me
And I will write you a song
Come away with me on a bus
Come away with me where they can’t tempt us
With their lies
What can I say, here we are, on the run, everyone’s lives in
danger. All I can think about is Liz, her silky dark hair shining in the
passenger seat next to Maria while she drives. Liz and the diamond only I know
exists that she has in her pocket. Maria is talking with her hands and Liz is
gesturing wildly to the steering wheel, her teeth flash in her perfect face and
all I can think is that I’ve never felt so at home. My bride to be, my life
mate, my world. We haven’t stopped driving as yet, apart from to eat and to
buy some clothes with alien changed money. Thank god for our powers or we might
be holding up a convenience store for real.
We always said we’d never use our powers for financial gain but I
don’t think we have a choice, it’s kind of life or death right now. Since I
relinquished power I feel so much freer. I never wanted any of it, destiny,
leadership. I never wanted to be hurling glass at my brother’s face. Even now,
just the thought of it nauseates me, makes me feel so wrong.
Michael has taken on much of the leadership role now, and I’m
happy for him to do it. All I want is to stop for the night somewhere and be
together with Liz like we’ve wanted to be together since she started getting
the flashes. I know Michael and Maria are eager to stop too. We took a vote on
them having to sit separately since a very embarrassing under-the-blanket
incident which I don’t want to elaborate on.
I’m so glad Maria’s here. Apart for my friendship with her,
I can always count on her to say it like it is, and lets face it, Michael
needs her. I love Michael, I always have. We’re two different sides to the
same coin, we balance each other out. But he scares me sometimes. The alien side
of him scares me, just like my own alien side does. Maria represents everything
that is human in Michael. She brings it out in him. She’s managed to do in
three years what Isabel and I struggled to do all the time we’ve known him.
She just refused to let him hide behind his wall of indifference. And look at
him now. Arguing with Kyle Valenti about some kind of computer game (not really
my thing) and smiling at the back of her head like she’s the center of his
world.
I wonder if that’s what I look like when I’m looking at Liz. As
much as Maria represents Michael’s human side, Liz is mine. She’s my heart.
Ever since I first saw her in second grade she’s just shone to me. She was
always like the brightest star in the sky, only she was here on earth.
I think the thing that still most impresses me about her is how solid,
how faithful she’s been to not only me but to all of us. She represents
everything about this planet that I never want to leave behind. And now she’s
here and she’s mine forever. We have this long dusty road to travel and it
feel like a magical adventure all because we’re doing it together.
I want to wake up with you
On a cloudy day
In fields where the yellow grass grows
Knee-high
So won’t you try to come
Come away with me and we’ll kiss
On a mountain top
Come away with me
And I’ll never stop loving you
And I want to wake up with the rain
Falling on a tin roof
While I’m safe there in you’re arms
So all I’ll ask is for you
To come away
with me in the night
Come away with me.
Kyle – Under the Milky Way by The Church
Sometimes when this place gets kind of empty
The sound of the breath fades with the light
I think about, a loveless fascination
Under the Milky Way tonight
Buddha teaches us that in order for us to reach spiritual
enlightenment we must deny the physical; sacrifice the body to fulfill the needs
of the soul. Buddha help me, if I have to spend another night sleeping next to
Isabel Evans I’m gonna go freakin’ insane.
We slept on this stink hole of a van last night, me barely able to
breathe and her with her perfect head on my shoulder. I just sat there like an
idiot, like I did last New Year’s, wide awake and shitting myself that she’d
be able to hear my heart racing like I was having a coronary. I keep telling
myself that no good lies here, that falling in love with Isabel is a surefire
ticket to the good old heartbreak hotel, but it’s impossible.
I think she’s even more beautiful now, more perfect with that
scared sad look in her eyes she’s had since we left our home town and she left
her husband. I know how bad I’ve got it for her because if I had to walk over
hot coals all the way back to Roswell, but I was guaranteed to get Jesse back
here, back with her for good, I’d do it. I’d do anything to make her smile
so that the smile actually reached her eyes. However for the time being all I
can offer her is my wacky, yet brilliant sense of humor, and a shoulder to cry
on.
Well Liz has decided in her usual calculated way that we should
keep some sort of log of stuff that happens. She didn’t say we had to but in
all honesty what else are you gonna do while stuck in a moving vehicle. From
what I can see everyone’s doing it, even though Michael gave her a hell of a
glary look when she suggested it. He probably just realizes that the second he
writes anything down Maria will be searching through his stuff trying to unlock
the inner mysteries of his mind.
Of course Max agreed it was a good idea, but Liz could suggest that
we all go naked and Max would probably agree. That boy’s just as whipped as I
am, but at least he’s getting some. I can’t even rely on Mr. hand and my
porn collection in a van with five other people. My porn is by the way, is all
still under my bed back in Roswell. Jim will be thrilled when he unearths that
stash, then again with his recent very scary mid-life crisis he might enjoy
it…okay Kyle, not a good place to go in you’re head. Although it could come
in handy next time Isabel gets my motor revving, probably in the next ten
seconds.
Its kinda ironic really, the two girls who’ve affected me most in
life have been aliens. In all seriousness though, Isabel is in a totally
different arena to Tess. Just thinking about her makes my chest feel tight. It
was only a few weeks ago that she came back. Seeing her again was like having a
really big scab pulled off, and then having salt rubbed in the wound.
It’s so hard, she killed Alex, she made me a part of the whole
thing, she stole into my mind and a part of me still can’t hate her, a part of
me will always love her. Every time I think about Tess I not only see Alex dead
and Liz going crazy with grief, I also see her making Christmas for us, potato
bake with bacon on the bottom, and her sitting on the couch with me in her fuzzy
socks and one of dads old shirts laughing at Jerry Springer.
When I saw her standing in Michaels apartment, saw the way her face
lit up when she saw me, like I’d keep her safe, my first instinct was to race
over and hug her. And then it all came flooding back. Alex, the lies, the way
she used me and my dad like we were expendable toys in her desire to get home.
And then I just wanted to hurt her. I still couldn’t do it though. I still
couldn’t turn her in. The thought of her being tortured in some government
lab, no, I could never have let that happen to her. I still feel in a way like I
screwed up, like if I’d been able to reach her, to make her human, she could
have stopped herself from fucking up all our lives before it was too late. But
it is too late and she’s gone forever now. I may have lost Tess, but there’s
no way in hell I’m gonna lose Isabel.
I’ve decided to take it upon myself to make sure even if she’s
not having a great time, that she’s at least being semi entertained. I know
Max and Michael are there for her, but they seem kinda preoccupied with their
own romance angst, Max and Liz are going for some kind of world record for
making goo-goo eyes at each other, and I’m getting the impression that the
longer we spend in this van, the more eager Michael and Maria are getting to get
down to some serious romance rekindeling, if you catch my drift. I’m starting
to worry that if they don’t get some alone time soon they might just go for it
right there on the back seat, which I was under the impression they were not
supposed to be sharing after the whole very scary blanket incident. While I’m
usually all for some porn action, anything that involves Michael and Maria just
gives me the severe wiggins.
Speak of the devil, I just heard a giggle from the back seat where
they’re currently residing. If I hear slobbering smooching noises Buddha help
me, I’m gonna puke. I mean it’s bad enough listening to the dysfunctional
couple of the year make out, but doing it while the girl of you’re dreams
sits, like, less then an inch away from you, could there be a better definition
of hell?
I’ve got no time for private consultation
Under the Milky Way tonight
Wish I knew what you were looking for
Might have known what you would find
And it’s something quite peculiar
Something shimmering and white
It leads you here, despite you’re destination
Under the milky Way tonight
She shifts in her seat every now and then, and she’s leant on me
a few times, to get comfortable. Each time she touches me I feel like I’m on
fire, like she’s using her powers to dissolve me from the inside out.
The thing is, I freaked when I first found out the truth about her,
Max and Michael. But now, knowing just a little of they have gone through I not
only admire her for her strength, but for her humanness. She is capable of all
sorts of things, and all she wants is normalcy, something she’s not gonna get
a whole lot of now.
I remember the moment I realized how I felt about her. It sounds so
freakin’ corny but it was like a thunderbolt. At that stupid frat party, last
new years, she just turned around and hit me with that dazzling smile of her and
bam, I just lost it. Ever since that moment I’ve felt like I’d do anything
for her, I’d pull the moon out the sky if I thought it would make her happy.
And the thing is, I know I’m never gonna have her, not like that, and it
doesn’t matter. Just being close to her, just being a part of her life is
enough. I just hope she doesn’t get bored one night and decide to take a
little tour inside my head. If she did I’d be screwed cause she’s in my
dreams, every single one.
I can’t believe how pathetic I am. Kyle Valenti, jock
extraordinaire has become a big moony love puppet. Isabel Evans has me on a
string, has me tucked away in her pocket, and I wouldn’t change any of it for
the world.
Liz – Now and Mystery Song by Edie Brickell and the
New Bohemians
You’re mouth is red – I’m picturing it in my head
I’m picturing you smile at me
I want you to be with me now
You’re hair is brown – I’m picturing it hanging down
I’m picturing it falling round those big brown eyes
I wanna be with you now
You’re much more then this
A spiritual bliss
No matter who I’m with I miss you
You’re magnetism breathes
Through the moonlit trees
It’s in the quiet breeze that’s circling me now..
I’m watching the empty echo of the desert pass by the window. Max
is driving and I feel like if I keep looking at him that I’ll burst or
something. I never thought that I’d feel this way, that he would be so mine.
He turns to look at me every now and then, I can feel his eyes on me, I can feel
him smile that quiet, contented smile of his. There’s this unspoken agreement
now, that since we all left Roswell we’re all part of the conspiracy, human
and alien alike.
Not that I’m really sure what I am now, I guess a bit of both. I
don’t know how I feel about this, it’s all happened so quickly. Since I was
shot in the chest in the Crashdown Café on September the 18th three years ago
my life has been on this completely crazy roller coaster, and I don’t feel
like it’s going to stop any time soon.
I’m just glad I’m here, I’m glad Max is here. I’m glad I
have that beautiful diamond that he made, that is a promise of all our love. He
could have left with Tess, they all could of and then where would we be? I’d
be alone dealing with my new powers, without the one person who I know I’m
meant to be with, Kyle would be even more paranoid about turning green and
developing antenna then he was before and Maria could be anywhere.
I’m so glad she’s here, for a million reasons including her
inane chatter coming in from the back seat. Her and Michael are arguing with
Kyle about whether the bathrooms in the last diner were the worst we’ve seen
so far, and I can’t help but smile. Maria can be flighty at times but in a
pinch she trusts her instincts and her heart, and she offers that to everyone. I
guess that’s why she’s my best friend. She cried for the first day we were
on the road, weeping when she thought no one was looking, then she shook it off
and started her mission of cheer. It’s helped, it’s crazy how simple things
like her and Kyle’s ‘guess the meat’ game can make us forget that we’re
running for our lives.
She’s sitting on the back seat with Michael. I don’t think
she’s stopped touching him since we left Roswell. I wasn’t sure she’d
come, but I always knew that she still loved him. She’s doing everything in
her power to drive him crazy, if it’s not stealing kisses from him it’s her
gentle teasing or just disagreeing with everything he says. I know she’s
trying to reassure him in the best way she knows how. Maybe it’s working. I
know she doesn’t see it, but when she sleeps he watches her with this look of
awe on his face. He’s so hard to read until it comes to Maria, then he just
opens up.
I appreciate it no end, and not just for myself, after all, I have
Max, I have the most important thing in my life right beside me, but she takes
the edge off what could seriously deteriorate into a really tense situation.
I’m worried about Isabel, she’s put her strong face on but I can only guess
at how she feels. I suspect that she feels rather like I did after I made Max
believe that I’d slept with Kyle, I pushed him away for the greater good, even
though it made me feel like my heart was being torn out.
Isabel looks so strong, like she could handle anything, but I know
how vulnerable she is underneath that beautiful, statuesque exterior. Maria has
been trying to reach out to her, but I think it’s hard for Isabel and Maria to
relate sometimes, Isabel guards herself while Maria is the opposite, she shares
everything. I know how guilty Maria and I both feel when we’re in the middle
of a really good gossip, or just having a joke together and we see Isabel
wrapped up in her loneliness. It’s hard to penetrate that wall she has up
around her. I know she really doesn’t want to ‘burden’ anyone with her
problems, but I wish she would share.
I have noticed her becoming closer to Kyle, I guess she feels a
sense of ‘being without partner’ solidarity. However I have to worry, I know
Kyle and I’ve noticed his reactions to her. He’s getting a distinctly Alex
like expression on his face whenever he looks at Isabel, like she’s the sun
itself. I guess there’s not a whole lot I can do, apart form make sure I’m
here for both of them if they need me.
People born and finger-painting the world
Leaving me a silhouette of
my life
Now I’m filling in the negative space
With positively, everything
I do, I do
And it’s all because of you
Max has just put his warm hand on my shoulder, and I turn to look
at him. It just amazes me that after everything we’ve been through, here we
are. And despite the danger and uncertainty I feel completely at ease with this
situation, its like we were made for each other, like two pieces of a puzzle
that only fit each other, or two parts of an equation that need each other to
make up the answer.
The whole Tess thing is over, she’s gone, and even more
comforting then that fact is the knowledge that underneath it all, Tess had a
human side after all. I can’t explain it, but those last few moments that I
spent with her, seeing that side to her, it just made her so much less of a
threat to me, it humanized her. And it’s not just that, but when she told me
that every time she’d kissed Max she’d had flashes of me, that he’d been
thinking of me, it somehow confirmed what I’d always kind of known. Him being
with Tess just felt wrong, despite what future Max said I just felt like we
belonged together.
I remember how Ava had told me that Zan had always held her at arms
length, kept her at a distance. She’d said it was because it was like he was
waiting for something else. Maybe he was, maybe he was waiting for me. I know
how conceited that sounds but I have thought about this so much, and when I look
over at Max driving, with that tiny line he gets between his eyes when he’s
concentrating, I can’t help it. He’s looking at me now and I have to stop
writing and kiss him. He smells so good, like Max. I never want anything other
then this, to be with him. I know that no matter what happens on this journey
into the unknown, Max and I will do this together. We belong to each other,
he’s my home.
You’re heart is mine
I think about you all the time
I can hear you say to me, that you want to be
With me,
Now, Right now
Michael – by
Powderfinger and Bad Fortune by P. J. Harvey
Will you be there to break my fall
To reassure my doubts and faults
And all you’re fables will ring true
They are the lies you cling on to
There’s love on you’re breath
I’d better not say
About the blood on you’re hands
I cant believe after everything that’s happened that it’s over,
I mean our secret’s out. And here we are, the very place I’ve been preparing
to be my whole fucking life; running, and I’m scared. I feel weak and human
and not at all soldier like, not at all like I should be feeling. I know that in
part that feeling is because of the other people that were forced to run with
me, whether we have it or not, all of us are no longer ordinary humans.
But the main thing that makes my stomach knot and my hands feel
shaky at the thought of getting caught, of something hurting any of us, is
sitting in the back seat with Liz, giggling and making more noise then anyone
has the right to.
I turn around to tell her to keep it down, I tell her that she’s
giving me a headache, but in reality the sound of her voice just makes me ache
inside. Part of me wants to yell at her, make her understand the pain she’s
made me feel for the past six months. Part of me wants to grab her warm, sweet
smelling, small body and press her to me, take her, be inside her and make her
mine again. And part of me just wants to close my eyes and let the fact that
she’s here, that she’s in this van wash over me along with her peals of
laughter.
But instead I do what I always do, retreat, put the guards up and
attack. A flicker of hurt crosses over her expressive features, a slight pout
mars those lips, and I hate myself for a moment. Then her beautiful green eyes
sparkle like they always do when she’s giving me hell, and she winks at me,
slow, seductive and then raises her voice a few decibels.
She fuckin’ knows me too well.
You hold the future in you’re hand
And sullen eyes sooth and command
A graceful mouth you’re deadly tool
Too bad the truth has fallen through
There’s love on you’re breath
I’d better not say
About the blood on you’re hands
That’s Maria to a T, making me hate myself and at the same time
making me feel bigger then a mountain, making me confused and scared and weak. I
didn’t lie to her that night in her car when I had my brief reign as king, the
things I said about us were how I felt.
I stayed here for her, I stood in that damn granolith and looked at
Max and Isabel, the only family I have ever known, the only things I have ever
given a damn about, and I realized that I was willing to give everything up for
her. I could smell her on my clothes still, taste her in my mouth, and my dreams
of home, the only things that had kept me going through all the crap that is my
life, just disappeared.
I know if I hadn’t made that decision we’d all most likely be
dead, but I still came back for her, I gave it all up for her. And she left me,
she took herself away from me and left me alone. And now she’s here and just
having her so close, having her smile at me like we share some special secret,
having her look at me with so much love in her eyes, its impossible to keep my
walls up, and I don’t even want to anymore. I just want to get her alone. Once
again she just get in, finds the cracks in my armor and burrows herself right
inside of me.
Kyle’s up front driving. I’m glad he’s here, not only because
he actually likes hockey and can operate a play station, but because he seems to
be the only person who can get a smile out of Isabel. Max and I have exchanged
several worried looks, she’s doing the same thing she did when Alex died,
she’s retreating into herself and distancing from everyone else.
I get that, I guess I understand Isabel better then anyone. I know
how it feels to recoil, to pull back to save yourself. Isabel and I are very
alike in that way, she has guards up too. I know people think Isabel is an ice
queen, just like they think I’m a stone wall (I used that one on Maria once,
and she just stood there and smiled at me in that way of hers, like she was
saying ‘give it time spaceboy’), anyway, they’d be kind of right.
The thing is we don’t keep our guards up just to protect
ourselves, to keep ourselves from getting hurt. We keep them up to protect those
we care about from us, from the things we have inside that aren’t so great.
Isabel and I both have things inside of us that scare us. The big difference is
that her dark side, the part of her that’s dark and evil exists in another
time, on another planet. Isabel would never do what Vilandra, or even that
Lonnie freak did.
The killer in me may well be partly Rath, but it’s mostly
Michael. I know what I’m capable of. Look at Max, he’s been the king for
freakin’ ever, I get the royal seal for one day and I’m trying to wipe out
half the population of Roswell. And I know it’s not just the Rath part of me
because that anger, that fear is there all the time. That’s what freaks me
most now, I’d wipe out the rest of the world to protect the people on this
van, to protect Maria. Knowing that may well become an issue just makes my
stomach turn.
We just stopped the van to stretch the legs and swap positions. Max
is driving with Liz’s head on his shoulder. Kyle and Isabel are sitting in the
middle seat, he’s regaling her with some kind of story, and whatever it is,
it’s working. She’s actually smiling, even if her eyes are still a little
distant.
Maria is sitting next to me, trying her hardest to read what I’m
writing. She’s wearing a very short skirt, long boots and some sparkly top
that’s like every colour under the sun. I really don’t think she’s got the
drift of blending in, looking nondescript. She looks like she’s about to
audition for a host job on MTV. Her brown hair’s all pulled back off her face,
which, now we’re back together again, then something might have to be done
about the colour. I like Maria as a blonde; she makes one hell of a hot blonde.
She smells like some kind of fruit, it’s probably one of her
weird aromatherapy oil things, or lip gloss. I shouldn’tve gone there. She’s
leaning all over me and all I can focus on is the feel of her body pressed
against mine, and her smell. She’s kissing my neck now… That’s it, we’ve
been driving for four days non stop. Tonight I think we can stop, camp
somewhere, and I’m gonna make sure she knows she’s mine again. We need to
make up properly and I know just how to do it. Apart from the fact that I’m
horny as hell anyway, having her in such close proximity, persistently doing
everything in her power to turn me on, is more then a guy like me in his prime
can take.
I guess that’s one of the things about Maria that always gets me,
her persistence. I can’t stay away from her, not usually, not when she decides
she wants me, and especially not when I’m in a confined space with her.
I paint pictures
To remember
You’re too beautiful
Too put into words
Like a gypsy
You dance in circles
All around me
And all over the world
She’s nuzzling into my neck now, I recognize her movements as
those she makes when she’s getting
ready to sleep. I can’t help myself, I kiss her head and wrap an arm around
her. Tonight I plan to show her just how much it means to me that she’s here,
that she’s mine again. There’s no point in even trying to keep my walls up
with her, so I just let her in, let her voice and the smell of her skin and her
open trusting eyes flow into me.
I couldn’t say at exactly what point Maria became so impossible
for me to resist. I know it started on the road trip to Marathon. Up until that
point I’d only ever had rudimentary contact with her, actually, I’d only had
rudimentary contact with any humans. The entire extent of my social life had
been Max and Isabel. I had always thought of her as this slightly kooky girl,
sure, with killer legs, kinda cute, but definitely loud and more then a little
weird.
She surprised the hell out of me on that trip, I’d never met
anyone like her. The way she’d had a comeback for every snide comment I made,
the way she lied to that traffic cop in that rambling way of hers. The way she
pouted when she was scared, I had started putting up walls with her then, cause
I could feel her getting in, making me feel.
I’d kissed a couple of friends of Isabel’s, but it had never
meant anything, it was just something you’re supposed to do. Kissing Maria was
so different, I couldn’t get her out of my head. I think the kicker was the
night I went to her house after the final fall out with Hank, when the
proverbial hit the fan. I remember walking around the streets feeling so fucking
alone, thinking I’d screwed up once and for all when I just found myself
heading to her house.
It wasn’t just the way she let me cry on her, or the way she
touched me, like I was something precious, someone important. She put her hands
on me and I fucking melted. Every wall that I’d ever put up just fell away.
She made herself my family that night, and I pushed her away a million times,
and she just fucking stayed. She gave herself to me, no questions asked.
That’s my Maria, she made herself mine as she made me hers.
It was the feeling that she was mine, she was mine alone.
Everything in my life up until then had felt like it was Max and Isabel’s as
well. I had nothing that was my own. Even the people in our lives had come to me
through them. Maria was, still is my own.
I know the others think we’re crazy sometimes, I mean it’s not
like we have the ideal relationship. It’s not like we always get along. It
doesn’t matter to me though, what we do have is the most important thing in my
life. When she left she left me empty, I remember sitting on that bench with my
insides feeling like those flowers. She’s back now, and I’m making sure she
never goes anywhere again.
So I take my
Good Fortune
And I fantasize
Off our leaving
Like some modern day
Gypsy landslide
Like some modern day
Bonnie and Clyde
On the run again
On the run again