Rating: PG? (I have no idea.)
Category: Other (Diane Evans)
Spoilers: Minor reference to The Toy House. Nothing else that I can tell.
Disclaimer: I do not own Roswell. And if you sue me, you'll get squat, because I'll guard my hockey stuff with my life.
Author's Notes: Yay, my first completed fanfic! It's very short, and I have no idea what possessed me to write this (a Diane POV of all things). It just hit me, I wrote it in about 10 minutes, and here it is. Oh, and I know the title stinks, but I couldn't come up with anything more exciting. Feedback would be much appreciated.

~*~*~*~

The moment I saw our children, I knew that they were special. A little blonde-haired girl with a smile that lit up the room, and a little brown-haired boy with serious eyes.

I don't know why I felt so strongly that they needed to be with us. Why I knew we were the only ones who could give them what they needed. I didn't question it. I just felt it.

We brought them home with us, and we taught them all we could about life.

We taught them to smile, to cry, to learn, to love.

When 7 year old Max smiled for the first time at one of Philip's terrible jokes, when 8 year old Isabel cried into my shoulder after her first skinned knee, when 12 year old Max proudly showed off his science fair ribbon, when my 17 year old children kiss me goodnight, I know I was right. We were what they needed that day at the orphanage.

But I also know that someday soon, they'll need something more than what we can give.

I can sense it already; that they are thinking of a life beyond this one they now inhabit.

And I remember well that there is an entire world out there beyond a mother's arms. I left my mother's warm embrace and embraced the world instead, and someday my babies will do the same.

We've prepared them the best we can for life...for a life without us. That's what all parents do, right? We help them grow, and then we watch them fly.

But there are days when I think my babies will have to fly too soon, that maybe they've had to fly already.

I catch the fear and confusion in Isabel's eyes when she glances at me as we wash the dishes.

I watch the sadness and heaviness on Max's face as he gazes out his window at the stars.

It's almost as though they've already seen the future beyond my arms....that it scares them....That the future carries a burden they aren't sure they can bear.

I want to tell them that everything will be okay... But I don't. Because every so often, a whisper of a memory comes to me of a youthful Max and an injured bird, or a sobbing young Isabel murmuring about nightmares full of fire and pain. And I wonder if they are even more special than I ever imagined, if they will have a much more important future than even a loving mother can envision.

But the memories fade like a dream...a dream best forgotten.

And for now, I'll just sit at the dinner table with them, and I will see the only truth that matters. The truth is that I was right all those years ago. They are special...because they are my children. And when you're in a mother's arms, that's all you need to be.

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