Disclaimer: Well, in truth, I know who owns "Roswell" and it ain’t me...so why do I even write these things? This is so pointless! I mean, honestly!

Author’s Note-Anything in italics represents a thought or past event.

Also, contains spoilers for season finale, (spoilers found at www.crashdown.com).

***

"Don’t you ever wonder why she cries, Lex?" I looked over the doorway, where my twin sister, Molly, stood, and she looked back at me with an intense gaze I knew she did not inherit from my mother’s side of the family.

"Molly, it’s the same this day every year," I sighed. "Of course it hurts, because I don’t know why, but I’ve gotten used to it." She rolled her eyes, stood up, and walked into my room.

"Alexandra!" She took my hand firmly, and again acted her role as the calm and rational leader. I know when she assumes that role because that is the only time she calls me by my full name. She dragged me out of the room and across our house to our mother’s.

"Mom?" Molly opened the door to her room and she looked up at us. Her eyes, red and puffy, overflowed with fresh tears. She was surrounded by a sea of used tissues and was curled up in bed.

"Yes, Molly? Charlotte?" she answered, her voice cracking. "What’s wrong?" We walked over to her and she cast her gaze to the floor. As if our gaze hurt, as if there’s something wrong with our eyes.

"Mommy, why do you cry this day each year?" I asked her softly as another tear trickled down her cheek.

She finally looked up at us, with all the wisdom of her 34 years. She reached out both hands to cup one of each of our cheeks and I suddenly saw a flash, and I know Molly saw it too...

*flash
My mom and a tall, dark man dancing. My mother was laughing and smiling...but she never smiles like that anymore. Why? What devastating tragedy left her so sad and barren?
*flash

Molly and I got those flash things a lot but never knew why. We can also take out stains and fix things. We had always wanted to talk about it with our mother, but what could we have said? "Hey Mom, I think I have superhero powers!" I’m sure she would love that.

"Let me tell you a story, Alexandra Marie Elizabeth, Molly Isabel Maxine," she began, as she patted the spaces next to her and we went to sit next to her. She only called us by our full names when she was serious. "It was in a small town in New Mexico, where rumors filter about and are believed by everyone. A tourist town."

"Roswell," we said together. Somehow I knew where she was talking about, and Molly did too, and she looked at us with her big doe eyes, startled. But she recovered quickly and continued.

"I was your age, and I was a waitress at Grandma and Grandpa’s café. One day, in the beginning of my sophomore year in high school, there were two men who were arguing. Eventually, the argument led to a gunshot, and it hit me. As I lay dying on the ground, a boy who I had known since third grade named Max ran up to me, ripped open my dress, placed his hand over the wound, and healed it." I looked at her and my eyes widened. "The next day at school, he told me that he wasn’t from around here."

"Where was he from?" I asked, and she pointed upward. "What was he, Canadian?" She shook her head and pointed higher. "He wasn’t...an alien, was he?" She nodded, and both Molly and I looked at her incredulously.

"I fell in love with that boy, but I knew that one day, he would find a way back to wherever he was from. A home...and maybe even another life that did not include me." She looked up at both of us and I saw her eyes were glassy with tears. "Did he ever...?" Molly began, and she looked away.

"The day came when we were 16, a little over a half of a year after the shooting. A new girl, Tess, came to town, and Max started having visions about her that he could not control. Under complicated circumstances, Max found out about his home and about his life before this one. He found that he was a brave leader and Isabel, his sister, a warrior. They were also sent with Max's bride, Tess, and with Isabel's fiancé and Max's second in command, who, in this life, a best friend, Michael. They were all killed in the war that enslaved their planet. Their essence was cloned and combined with human DNA and they were sent to Earth to conquer their enemies." A tear trickled down her cheek, and more followed. "He found he and Tess were destined to be together." My sister and I wrapped our arms around our mother.

"So?" I asked, my tone bordering on eager.

"So we tried so stop it, we tried to keep it from being true. He loved me, but how can you compete with destiny?" She sighed. "So, the night before we graduated from high school, he was ordered to go back to his home planet with Michael and Isabel, and was allowed to bring one person. Michael brought my best friend, Maria, and Isabel brought my other best friend, Alex. Both pairs had fallen in love over time, but the leaders from Max’s planet didn’t like how everyone was fooling with destiny. However, they were allowed to bring one person."

"Why didn’t you go with Max?" Molly asked.

"I had just found out I was pregnant with you two, and I didn’t know what would happen. It would have been too devastating to lose you, because you are Max’s children." She brushed her hand against my cheek. "Lexie, you are named you the three humans: Alex, Maria and me." She turned to my sister. "Molly, you are named for the three aliens whom I loved: Michael, Isabel and Max. And that is why you may see things, like memories, or are able to heal or change things. I refused to go, so Max told me he would come back for you and me one day...but it’s been 16 years, and he hasn’t returned." I felt tears stinging my own eyes, but I fought back. I have to be strong, I reminded myself. Strong for Mom, strong for Molly, strong for Max, strong for the hope that one day he may return.

"I’m sorry, Mommy," my sister and I told her quietly in unison.

"Don’t ever be." She smiled at both of us. "You have brought me more happiness than you can ever know. You left a piece of Max to sustain me while he is away...you were sent down from heaven to be my babies." I buried my face in my mother’s shoulder and my sister buried hers in the other and we began to cry. I cried for the losses of my mother, my sister, and me. The loss of Max, my mother’s love and my father, her best friends, a chance for life somewhere else...

And later that night, I heard a soft, almost vibrating hum-a familiar sound that I knew human vocal chords could never generate. The sound was calming, like a lullaby. It was practically like I knew the sound by instinct...a hum, maybe, that my father, aunt, surrogate uncle, and an almost enemy from the past knew, too. And an almost memory of strong, dark arms and pure love surrounded me, as something I knew must be my father reached out across a galaxy of space, time, and pain to tell me, "Yes, Lexie, I know about you. And yes, Lexie, I love you."

Back to Area 51 (Section I)