Disclaimer: *evil frackle* When I learn how to dreamwalk, these characters will be mine, and then I won't have to worry about being sued...er, I mean...*blush* Hi, Mr. Katims, Ms. Metz, Roswell writers, etc. :)

"Once upon a lifetime, you know that you've been blessed..." -Alabama "Once Upon a Lifetime"

Max looked at his son as the door closed, leaving them alone for the first time in quite a while. "Well, Josh, looks like it's just the Evans' men today." He cracked a smile, but his son only stared solemnly back at him with wide amber eyes.

He sighed, picking up the baby in his arms. Joshua Alexander Evans was 15 months old, and almost steady on his feet, but he still had yet to say his first word. Max wasn't worried, because Claudia had talked late too. Of course, her first word had been more like a sentence ("Pick me up, Daddy"). But all of the Guerins had talked early--especially Nicole. And he still wondered sometimes if his oldest niece would ever stop talking...

"So, Josh, what's on today's agenda? I don't have any patients to see, and your sister is still at school, so we have the whole afternoon while Mommy talks with her publisher."

He couldn't help smiling, remembering the way his Liz's eyes lit up when she talked about the hypothesis of her new book. Her first had been rather well-received by the scientific community, proving that Dr. Elizabeth Evans hadn't let motherhood soften her scientific drive. And Liz could occasionally be caught fondling the squat hardcover, with the same dopey look on her face that Michael had accused Max of back in high school--back before their secret was blown.

It gave him grounds for gentle teasing, which he still loved to do, even if his humor was quirky at best. But it was worth it to see that indulgent little smile in her doe eyes, and her that inflection of his name that only she used--"Max!"

"So, Josh? Is it a block morning, or are we more in the mood for tinker toys?"

They settled on the floor of the family room, Max making a careful sweep of the floor with a practiced eye before he set Josh down. He wasn't as nervous as he had been with Claudia. But then, he'd also handled scores more children in the sixteen years between first and second children. And though he'd watched his nephews grow up, there was still something completely new and special about going through it with his son. He crouched on the floor, watching Josh carefully chose between a red arch and a green wooden cylinder, and wondered again why creation had chosen to give him a second miracle in his life.

"No, thank you, Mr. Evans, I don't feel like chewing today," he said gravely as his small son took the drooly arch out of his mouth and offered it to Max. It was funny how both of his children happened at the hardest times of his life--almost as if to remind him of his love for Liz, and how that love was the strongest force on Earth. Destiny meant nothing when he looked into his son's light brown eyes, and saw himself reflected there.

"I wonder what you'll be, Joshie. I hate to say it, but there's a lot you have to live up to." Max picked up a square block and stacked it on top of another. "It's not just what we are, or who your father is..." He cracked a slight smile. "Intergalactic hero or patient pediatrician--you can pick which side of me you want to look up to." Two more blocks joined the first ones, forming the basis of a wall, or maybe even a fortress.

"And it's not even what was given up to create you, Josh. We love you more than anything, and you're worth the cost." Max couldn't help swallowing, reminding himself that the walls of the family room were a soft a soft blue, with Michael's trademark skyscape of swirling galaxies on the ceiling. "I'd pick you again any day." The walls of his fortress grew higher.

"Uncle Michael said once that he felt guilty for creating Nikki--because of everything she--and you--will have to face. You'll never live a normal life." But at least their lives would be safer. No feds, no alien hunters, no destinies chosen for them. Max had never realized how important choice was until he'd discovered he could make something other than destiny. Not that Josh would understand any of this yet. But it helped to say it out loud, even if only a toddler was listening.

Josh looked up from where he was trying to shove a square block through the half circle of his little red arch as Max continued. "No matter how hard you pretend, you'll always be the other. And there will always be a danger, because we're different." And there would always be white rooms, and cold-eyed sadists by names other than Pierce. "I'm sorry, Joshie." He scrunched his eyes shut, trying not to feel the prick of needle against his skin, the silk-smooth cut of steel into his flesh. "I hope you never know..."

He heard a soft shuffling as the tears he couldn't control slipped down his cheeks. His block wall clattered to the worn hardwood floor. And a soft baby weight plopped into his lap with a squish that most certainly meant wet diaper. "Shh, dada. Shhh." And he felt the wet kiss of baby lips on his cheek. "Shh, Dada. Mama loves. Mama make it better."

Max opened his eyes to stare into his son's, seeing in that owl-eyed chubby face a wise old soul, almost as if a hero looked back at Max from his son's eyes. Maybe he didn't feel adequate sometimes, for all that life had asked him to do. But somehow, Max knew that his son's quiet strength would be able to bear the burden. All their children would. If anything, they'd inherited that strength to survive from their parents. It wasn't something that they'd need to learn, as Max and his generation had done.

Maybe that was their blessing. That love that had somehow managed to thwart destiny and keep them strong together. Max tipped his son's face up to look into those unearthly eyes again. Josh would never know peace, or normal. And he would be asked to bear many things, because he was his father's son.

But Josh would know a love to keep him strong, would find a doe-eyed soulmate who made it worthwhile. And maybe then, once upon a time in his own lifetime, Josh would know that he too had been blessed.

Back to The Future Arc