Rating: G

Category: Max / Liz

Summary: Liz has a daughter after Max leaves Earth. Don`t worry, it`s much happier than my other fanfic.

Disclaimers: I don`t own anything, boo hoo. I own Kathleen Evans but not Kathleen Topolsky.

Spoilers: Crazy

Author`s Note: Takes place when Liz is 27. Max is previously long gone from Earth since five years ago.

***

Liz named her Kathleen.

She and the group hadn`t realized that Topolsky wasn`t an enemy until it was too late. To this day she felt like they all owed her something. So she named her child after her.

Too bad Max wasn`t there to agree, or disagree, for that part. Too bad he had left Liz on earth before she had their daughter. Too bad he wasn`t there to see how Kathleen had her mother`s sleek, deep brown hair that she always wore in long, thick pig tails over her chest. Too bad he wasn`t there to see that Kathleen had his own deep brown eyes.

Too bad he wasn`t there to help Liz when she found out there was something else Kathleen had got from her father.

***

"Kat!" Liz shouted across the inside of Prairie Gardens. "Kat, where`d you go?"

"I`m here, Mommy," a tiny voice said to her right. She turned to see Kathleen next to a section of Orchid pots.

"Honey, I told you not to loose me again," Liz said as she came over, steering her daughter back in the right direction by keeping her hand on the five-year-old`s head. "Now help me find some damn pansies."

Kathleen giggled at her mother as they started looking around at all the flowers.

A few minutes later Liz was distracted from Kat again, skimming over some sick looking forget-me-nots with disgust, when she heard something shatter on the ground behind her.

She turned around and saw Kathleen in front of a pile of ceramic remnants of what had been a five inch tall flower pot. Liz rolled her eyes and came over to her daughter. "You break it you buy it, you little bitch," she said playfully.

"I`m sorry," Kathleen said with remorse. "I didn`t mean to."

"It`s okay, we can afford it," Liz said as she bent over and started to push all the pieces together into a pile. Kathleen bent over to help her, but liz stopped her. "No, honey, you`ll cut yourself. I can do it."

"But Mommy..." Before Liz could stop her again Kathleen waved her hands around the mess of flower pot pieces and they suddenly started to swirl around in the air, rising up and around and fitting together piece by piece until it was pushed completely back together in front of Liz`s eyes.

Liz stared wide-eyed at her daughter as she said, "Wow, look what I did."

"Kathleen!" Liz said in shock, darting her eyes around the greenhouse to see if anyone had seen. People seemed to be going about their business, ignoring her, but she wasn`t going to stick around any longer just in case someone had seen.

"Honey, it`s time to go," Liz said and scooped up Kathleen.

"Mommy?" she said, confused, as Liz made her way out of the place. "What about the-"

"Never mind getting anything today," Liz said as they reached their car. She put Kathleen in the passenger seat next to her and got inside.

"Kat," Liz said. "We need to talk about what you just did."

"I`m sorry, I didn`t know I was doing anything wrong. I was just trying to fix it-"

"Sweety, it`s okay, it`s just that..." Liz didn`t know how to explain it to a five-year-old. She`d told her daughter about how her father left somewhere he had to go before she was born. She`d never known how to tell her that her father was different. She didn`t Max`s daughter to always know of him as just "My dad the alien." She wanted her to have a better impression of him. But now she knew their daughter was different, too. Or at least half different.

"Listen, Katty," Liz scooted over to the edge of her seat to get closer to her and put her hand on her shoulder. "I don`t know how else to tell you this now, but I just need you to understand that you`re just a little different than me and other people."

"What do you mean?" she asked, her eyes glittering. "Why am I different?"

"I can`t explain it to you now," Liz said. "You wouldn`t understand. But I`ll tell you when it`s the right time, I promise. Now I promised you that but now you have to promise me that you will never do anything like that again."

"Break a pot?"

"No, Kat, fix it."

"Oh."

"Don`t do anything you`ve never seen anyone else do." She figured that would be enough. She could understand that. Couldn`t she? "Don`t fix things, don`t put anything together, don`t open holes in anything that way, you know?"

"I think," Kathleen said, sounding unsure.

"Oh, I`m making this sound hard. I know you can do it. So you promise?"

"Sure, Mommy." With that Kathleen stared up at Liz with her sad looking eyes.

"You`re looking more like your father every day," Liz said with a smile.

Kathleen smiled back.

***

Seven months later Liz was sitting in her bedroom at 9:30 reading a book with the television on softly. She wasn`t very tired tonight at all, she hadn`t even gotten under the covers yet. She was just sitting cross-legged against the back of her bed.

After the TV got obnoxious she reached for the remote and turned it off. After The Pelican Brief got boring she threw the book out onto the floor and turned her lamp off. She sighed and put her head in her hands. Maybe she should take a sleeping pill. she was supposed to be relaxing, it was summer. She didn`t want to stay up late groaning and trying to get some sleep when she didn`t have anything to get good sleep for.

She heard someone walking around in the house. "Kat, if you`re sneaking around the house again this is your last warning before I run out there and attack you."

She looked over at her phone, thinking maybe she could call Maria, and then her thought was interrupted when she heard, "Hello?"

Liz perked up and looked toward the door. She should be scared, she thought, but she wasn`t. Something about the voice was comforting, inviting. Besides, since when do prowlers say greetings when they come in?

Then a figure appeared in her dark doorway. She could see from the silhoutte that it was a tall man. She slowly reached over to her night stand and turned her lamp back on.

The man had brown hair and deep, sad eyes. Liz gradually slid out of bed and made her way over to him.

"I`m selling...boy scout popcorn," he said, smiling.

"Really?" Liz said with the same look on her face. Then she giggled and flew forward, throwing her arms around him. "Max!"

He hugged her back and swung her around in circles in the bedroom. "How`s my Liz?"

"I`m thrilled now!" Liz said with a huge smile. "You came back. How did you-"

"No, I never left," Max explained. "Valenti caught us headed toward where we would leave. By the time we broke out of the compound it was too late, and I came looking for you but you`d already moved away."

"But now you`ve found me!" Liz exclaimed.

"Yeah, and now-"

"Mommy?" a voice said from the hall.

Max stopped in mid-sentence and stared at Liz. With that "You`re kidding me" look on his face. Lix just smiled.

Max turned around as Kathleen came in through the doorway. "Mommy," she said sadly. "Max`s seam is busted again."

"Oh, Kat..." Liz said sympathetically.

Huh? Max thought first. My seam busted open? Then he understood as he saw the girl lift a teddy bear from her side that had a rip in it`s back, little bits of stuffing ready to fall out.

He recognized the teddy bear very well. It was the bear he`d given Liz on Christmas the winter he`d left. Liz had named it Max, he guessed, and later given it to her.

She`s such a pretty little girl, Max thought as he admired her. Such cute little eyes. Just like Liz.

Max bent over in front of the little girl and said, "Can I see Max for a second?"

Watching them both interact so sweetly melted Liz`s heart. She had dreamed of this moment ever since she had had Kat.

She stared with a cute little pout. "Who are you?"

"I`m an old friend of your mother`s," Max said with a smile.

"Hi," she said politely. But before she did anything she looked up at her mother for approval, and Liz nodded with a smile, and then she handed her teddy bear over to Max.

Max examined the ripped open line right down the middle of the bear`s back. "Well, that would be a problem, wouldn`t it?"

She nodded. Max smiled back at her. "Kat, watch this."

Max held up the bear and pulled the seam together with his fingers, and then a moment passed as he focused on it until the seam started to reattach back together. Max handed Kathleen back a repaired teddy bear.

Kat looked at the bear with her eyes wide and excited, and then looked up at Liz. "He`s like me, Mommy!" she exclaimed. "He`s just like me."

"I know, Kat," Liz said with tears streaming down her cheeks. "He`s your daddy."

Kathleen Evans looked back at Max looking shocked, and then her expression turned happy. "My daddy?"

Max smiled and rubbed Kat`s back. "Hello."

"Hi," Kathleen said back. And then she gave Max a big hug.

Max looked up at Liz as he hugged his daughter and smiled. "I never imagined I really had..."

"I know," Liz said, dropping down next to him. "I never imagined we would. But then it happened."

"Well, it`s nice to know I didn`t leave you completely alone."

Liz smiled again. She couldn`t stop smiling. "I guess we have a family now."

"Yeah," Max said. "I guess we do."

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