The Dreams of Others

(Or, Play it Again, Louise)

By Kara (AnyaLindir@aol.com)

Disclaimer: Neither the show The Young Riders or Roswell belongs to me, otherwise, both would've ended a LOT differently. But kudos and many thanks to the creators of both.

For Joy, who didn't laugh, and for my sister, who always a Palomino named Jimmy

set right before “Independence Day”

February 14, 2000

Michael had been some strange places in his dreams, and always at the back of his mind was the question of whether or not any of these was his home planet. He'd seen a bloody sun setting over softly rolling hills, a double moonrise on a lavender sea, and the most incredible swirls of galactic arms in the night sky, but he knew that they could be the power of his imagination, the sheer result of years of wanting to belong somewhere. So when he found himself in what looked like a room in that cheesy ghost town they'd taken a field trip to back in elementary school, he wasn't too surprised.

What did surprise him was the tall man that occupied the room-a lanky fellow with sharp features that somehow reminded him of Alex. His golden brown hair hung to his shoulders, and there was something about the blazing grey eyes that warned Michael that this was no man to be messed with.

"You're the one?" The man's voice was deep, almost gravelly. From the lines on the man's face, it was obvious that the years had not been kind to him. But there was something in that voice, something in the grey eyes that said that the man wasn't as steely as he looked.

"The one what?" Michael couldn't help being suspicious. This man was a stranger, he was dressed like some Old West fruitcake, dusty Stetson and all, and even Michael's unpracticed eye recognized the familiarity and ease with which the stranger stroked the mother-of-pearl hilted pistols slung around his narrow hips. There was something about his stance that reminded Michael of Sheriff Valenti, and it wasn't just the worn badge that was pinned to the stranger's faded denim shirt. "Your name isn't James, is it?" It would figure that some Old West relative of Valenti's would haunt him. Only Michael Guerin's shitty life.

The man looked surprised. "Yeah, they called me Jimmy once. Most people forgot it was my real name, but it was Jimmy"

Michael folded his body into a chair, figuring he might as well sit, if this Jimmy guy was gonna lecture him. "So, what's the mystical wisdom you're supposed to give me then? Don't smoke? Don't drink? Don't play around with handguns?" He was the town's favorite charity case-every institution had a hand in trying to convert the heathen hooligan from the trailer park.

Cowboy Jimmy looked annoyed. "If you think that I wanna be here any more than you do-"

"Then why don't you just leave?" Michael gave the older man the uncaring smirk that had disarmed every other adult in Roswell. "It's not like you care. No one cares. So what's the point in trying, huh?"

The cowboy sank down on his heels, until he was looking up at Michael. "They hurt you somethin' bad, didn't they? Someone beat you."

Michael automatically shrank back inside himself, hunching his shoulders inward to better protect his chest from any incoming blows. It was something he learned--learned fast--when an adult gave him that scrutinizing look. That look from Hank usually meant he was about to be smacked senseless. Not that he could admit that to anyone. Isabel knew. Max suspected. And the others had enough on their plates without being dragged into his own fucked up homelife.

He opened his mouth to deny it, the words on his tongue, but as usual, nothing would come out.

And then there was a small smile on the older man's face, almost as if he understood. Almost as if he knew. "You're hunted."

Michael closed his eyes, afraid that if he looked into the grey eyes, he'd betray too much--or that the stone wall inside him would give a little more. It was bad enough that Hurricane DeLuca could occasionally slip through the cracks.

But then he did open his eyes. And he studied the grey depths before him. This guy had eyes that were as bottomless as Max's. Or as tragic as Maria's.

"You were too."

Jimmy stood again, stepped back a few paces, and then sat on the bench that lined the wall. "Yeah."

"Cause you were different?" Had there been aliens back in the Old West?

And the man smiled slightly. "Cause I could do things they couldn't." And before Michael knew it, Jimmy had drawn his silver-plated guns, lightening quick. So quick that he didn't even have time to piss in his pants in fright.

Sensing Michael's discomfort, the guns quickly went back into their holsters. "And cause they feared me. I wasn't like them. Any of them."

"They killed you?"

Again, that grim look appeared on the cowboy’s face. “Yeah, they did.”

“Well, why?” Without realizing it, Michael leaned forward. It was rare that he found an adult he could be open with. But somehow, this ghost of some ancient cowboy didn’t threaten him. Then again, the guy was already dead--

“Because I didn’t sit with my back to the door, like I always did. Because I didn’t listen to her.” Jimmy leaned forward, his grey eyes seemingly searching the depths of Michael’s soul. “Listen to Maria, Michael. Listen to her. Love her. It’s the only thing that’ll save you from being shot in the back.”

“But I’m a stone wall. I can’t let anyone in. And it’s too dangerous. If anything happens--” But from the look on the older man’s face, Michael knew that this Jimmy didn’t need to be told the excuses. The cowboy may have written this book himself. He half-smirked. “You said all these, didn’t you?”

Jimmy gave him a half-grin back. “Son, these excuses have been around since Adam and Eve, and probably longer. I knew a man who’d been married six times, and he still used the same ones.”

“Was that legal then?” For some reason, history had always fascinated Michael. Maybe because he didn’t have any of his own. He hated thinking about his own family tree, and science fiction bugged the hell out of him, but there was something about old stories that sucked him in...something about the psychology and the games that had been played in the past, and how little they’d changed over time-- It wouldn’t be so bad to be human, if he had to be anything. They had a decent history--

“Yeah, it was legal. It wasn’t done a lot, but Teaspoon wasn’t most men either.” A fond smile softened the sun-leathered face. “He was like a father to me. I loved him so much, and he told me so many times to let someone get close, otherwise I’d end up...”

“Alone,” Michael finished softly. “But the chick...the girl...the one you loved? Wasn’t she safe though?”

The fond smile washed into a look of incredible sadness, as if the cowboy was intimate with the path of might-have-beens. “Lou was never safe. It had never been safe for her. She was a fighter.” A slight smile creased through the sadness. “She was so tiny, but so full of strength...she could whup us any time she tried. And she loved so fiercely--”

“You never told her.” Michael could almost see an image of the woman in his mind...smaller than Maria, all big brown eyes and chestnut hair, stubborn chin. There was a fierceness about her that reminded him of the whirlwind cheesehead that had haunted most of his life.

“No, I didn’t.” The older man turned away. “There was one point where I had a chance...we kissed one night by the fire, and I should’ve told her. But I didn’t. She even asked...tried to talk about it, but I didn’t wanna-- I didn’t wanna risk it. Just in case.” He shrugged. “She had someone else anyhow. And Kid took care of her. He protected her. She fought him every step of the way, but he took care of her the way she ought to’ve been. Better’n I ever could.”

“Is that it then? That’s your mystical wisdom? Tell Maria that I love her...which I don’t...and it’ll keep me alive?” Michael stood up so fast that he kicked the chair over. “Come on! Do you think I’m a little kid or something? This isn’t getting shot in the back. This is the government after us, and hunters, and people who want to take me apart piece by piece just because I’m...” v “Different,” Jimmy finished softly. “And if anyone gets close to you, they’ll automatically get hurt. But it’s not your choice, Michael. Don’t you know that? I never gave Lou the choice. And now I’ll never know.”

Michael pressed his lips together, ran his fingers through his hair. Briefly, he wondered if one of the reasons why his hair defied gravity so easily was that old habit of his. But instead of kicking the wall, or blowing up the wooden chair he’d sat in, he just stared at Jimmy’s grey eyes. What if it was true? “But what about when I go home? I don’t wanna leave her here, alone, crying, because I broke her heart.”

There was the ghost of a smile on Jimmy’s narrow face. “Do you really think it’s your choice, Michael? Take her with you. You can always use a good friend riding at your side.” He shrugged. “Going home, dying...it’s basically the same thing. It’s leaving her behind. But your Maria’s strong, and she’s been left alone before.” That bit of a smile appeared again. “And sometimes, that one moment...that one kiss in the firelight, holding her body to mine-- That’s enough. We had just a couple little moments, but it’s almost enough.” And in the grey eyes, Michael could see a storm of tears.

“Don’t you see, Michael? It’s not just you anymore. From that first moment you touched her, your fate wasn’t your own.” Jimmy stood up and took Michael by the shoulders, his grey eyes burning into Michael’s dark ones. “Don’t let her go. Don’t make the mistake I made. Always remember that she has a choice too...because it’s too late now. She’s already a part of you.”

Michael opened his mouth to protest, but before he could, the man was gone.

“Mickey! Dammit, Mickey, whereinhell are you, boy?”

He opened his eyes, somehow not surprised to find himself back in his cramped little army cot. Like some ghost would come to talk to him. That would teach him not to eat those Green Tea burritos from Senor Chow’s again before bed.

But when he stood up and pulled on yesterday’s jeans over the day before’s boxers, he swore that out of the corner of his eye he saw the glint of silver, like sunlight off the polished hilt of a gun, or a pair of soft grey eyes.

She walked the lonely shore alone, her footprints making a solitary track in the wed sand. Even the branched palm trees seemed a little droopy. Maria knew she shouldn’t let it bother her. Michael had chosen to be a stone wall. There was nothing she could do. And if Max and Liz could still pretend to be friends, even when everyone knew they were still panting for each other in private, then that was them. She and Michael were completely different. And because of Michael’s choice, they were both destined to be alone. Just because life sucked that way.

It wasn’t like she was being abandoned again. Michael wasn’t the only one who was a stone wall. Who did he think he was, to have beaten down the walls of her ivory tower? It wasn’t like he was Bastian, naming her his Child-like Empress. He wasn’t some prince, come to climb up her golden hair. She’d chopped it years ago, just so that he couldn’t find his way back up into her heart.

“Come here often?” The voice was soft, almost husky. For a minute, it almost sounded like a young boy’s voice. But when Maria turned around, she saw that the slim figure in old-fashioned pants and vest was actually a girl.

Maria crossed her arms. “Isabel, I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t do this anymore. No more genie-alien wiggle your nose powers things, remember? Liz said that Max was gonna talk to you about that.”

The woman’s dark eyes were surprised. “I’ve been called some strange names before, but never Isabel. What’s an alien?”

When Maria looked closer, she didn’t see the same mocking malice that usually seemed to glimmer from Isabel’s dark Czechoslovakian eyes. “But you’re solid, just like Isabel was.” She peered at the girl, who didn’t look much older than she was. “You aren’t the Ghost of Christmas Past, are you?”

A smile creased the girl’s oval face. There was something in her brown eyes that almost reminded her of Liz...some inner strength that said this young woman had taken on the world and kicked ass. In fact, the woman almost reminded Maria of her mother. “Not the Ghost of Christmas Past. Maybe the Ghost of Might Have Been?” Her smile darkened. “We all have ghosts--”

It figured. After aliens, ghosts was the most likely thing to haunt her next. Maybe vampires would start attending West Roswell next. Area 51, the Hellmouth, same diff--

“Why me?” Maria crossed her arms, giving the woman a full-fledged DeLuca glare. “How do I know you aren’t Nasedo, playing a trick on me?” She groaned. “Okay, now I’m turning into Michael--” She shuddered at the thought. Like she could ever relate to some unwashed spaceboy.

“It’s because of Michael.” The woman’s slight Southern accent softened her voice. “It’s because you have to take the chances you have, before you lose him. I had someone like Michael once, and I never told him how I felt.”

“What happened?” Even though there was a golden band on the fourth finger of the woman’s right hand, Maria got the feeling that her story somehow didn’t end happily ever after.

The woman shrugged. “I married someone else. We had babies. I named my first son James...for him. And Jimmy...my Jimmy...he died.” Her strong voice faltered. “He died because I didn’t tell him that I loved him. He was alone, and he turned his back just once, and they shot him. I was going to remind him every day of how good and wonderful a man he was, because everyone else forgot. They couldn’t look beyond what he was. So they killed him.”

“Was he a bankrobber or something?” Maria sank down to the sand, sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest.

The woman settled on the sand. “No. He was a sheriff. But he killed, so he got a reputation when we were young that he never shook off. Everyone thought he was this cold-hearted man, because he never smiled.” She looked out at the sea. “But Jimmy Hickok had the gentlest soul of anyone I ever knew.”

“Hickok? Wasn’t he that guy who had that Wild West Show or something? They did some tv movie about him and that Calamity chick.” Maria seemed to remember one of those old sepia-toned photographs, showing a man with a large nose and a handle-bar mustache. “I thought his name was William though.”

There was a smile on the woman’s face. “Some writer called him Wild Bill when we were younger, after Jimmy got into this fight and killed this dandy. William was his daddy’s name, but Cody used to tease Jimmy that the Bill came from Jimmy’s nose.”

She chuckled. “Jimmy lit on Cody so fast, pounding his face to the ground. They were all my family, and I loved them so much--” She turned her eyes to Maria again. “You and I are more alike than you realize. My father left my mother when I was young, and she was pregnant with my little sister, Teresa. I had a man I loved, and because I didn’t fight his solitude enough, he left me. And he died.”

They sat in silence...Maria lost to her thoughts, and the woman, to her memories. “Did you love your husband?”

A tender smile crossed the woman’s face. “I loved Kid and Jimmy both. Kinda like that old story of King Arthur and Guinevere and Lancelot. Kid was like my knight in shining armor, coming to rescue me and protect me. And he loved me. We had a good life and five beautiful children. But he always tried to hard to keep me safe...almost like he never saw me as an equal.”

Maria smiled slightly. “That’s Max, the guy that Lizzie loves. He and Michael are like brothers, but neither of them will let us in. Stupid Czechoslovakians.”

The woman reached out a calloused hand and patted Maria’s. Maria was surprised to find the hand smaller than her own. “Jimmy only got proprietary on me once, when he tried to ride off without me. I think he actually forgot that I was a woman sometimes. Teaspoon tried hard to treat me like the other boys, but Jimmy was always willing to let me go. Like he knew I’d do it anyway, in spite of what he said.”

“Were you cowboys?” Maria felt herself get sucked in to the story. She’d loved listening to stories since she was little. Sometimes she thought it was because she felt like half of her history was missing...she loved to tell stories so much to make up for the things she never learned from her father.

And the woman grinned. “We rode for the Pony Express.”

“You dressed up like a boy. Like Deborah Sampson, and all those other women that fought in the wars.” Maria hooted. “I bet you kicked ass too! That’s too cool.” But if the woman didn’t look much older than she was-- “How old were you?”

“I was 18 when Kid and I got married, right before the War started.” The woman’s brown eyes glistened with something that looked like tears. “Jimmy died when he was 45...and if the good die young, what does that make Jimmy Hickok?” She knelt, cupping Maria’s face in her brown hands. “Don’t make the same mistake, Maria. Fight as hard as you can. Don’t let Michael wall himself up so tight that you can’t get in. Don’t give up. Because he needs you, just like you need him.”

Maria started to shake her head. “I don’t...”

But the woman only smiled. “Do you? Does fire race through your veins whenever he touches you? Can you almost feel your body bein’ pulled by his?” And when Maria felt the blush burn across her cheeks, the woman laughed gently. “You need him. And he’ll never admit it, but he needs you too. And one of you has to be stubborn enough not to give in.” The warm brown eyes burnt into Maria’s. “If you fight hard enough, his stone wall will come crumbling down. And even if you do lose him...even if something does happen, baby, it’s worth so much more than you can even imagine--” And in the woman’s eyes, Maria could read years and years of regrets. “Be happy. Be happy for all of us that never got that second chance. Save one young man who would burn out otherwise.”

And Maria nodded, because it was all she could do. Despite aqua bras and fantasy lives and the bottle of Grief Relief her mother had pressed into her hand that morning, she couldn’t give him up. And maybe it was time to fight harder. A wall is only concrete, and she could bust through concrete even with the Jetta, magic alien genie powers or not.

She felt a gentle kiss on her forehead. “Be strong, daughter.”

“I will--”

The woman smiled. “Louise.”

Maria smiled back. “Louise.”

And when she woke up the next morning, Maria unearthed the crumpled family tree her Grandma DeLuca had researched, years ago. She followed the line of mother to grandmother to great grandmother back seven generations. And the seventh name, above Mary Amanda Shannon, was Louise Mary McCloud, married to a man known only as the Kid.

Two nights later, when the spiky-haired young man fell into the arms of the girl with the golden curls, his sobs racking both their bodies, two shadowy figures stood back and smiled.

“At least someone got it right, huh, Lou?”

And a small hand slipped into his larger one. “Yeah. I just wish...”

The man silenced the woman’s words with a gentle fingers to her lips. “And we always will, Lou. Always.”