DISCLAIMER: I do not own the television show "Roswell." If I did, I would pity the cast and crew because of the horrible wrath to which I would most likely subject them.
SUMMARY: Eleven years have passed since the four aliens set off to fulfill their destiny. Michael, Max, and Isabel return to discover that the ones they left behind have fulfilled their own.
CATEGORY: This is a Michael-and-Maria-angsty, Unconventional Couple FutureFic. Leave it to me to mess up people's filing systems...
RATING: PG-13.
SHOUT OUTs and THANK YOUs: Massive props to the Radish Twins and the Radish List for their patience and understanding; I may have been gone, but thank you for not making me forgotten. =) Radish Power! Mr. Raddish lives! Hugs all around for E. Amos, Sam Bermise, Lah-nee, A-man-DUH, Allison Anteater, and Phil; tangerines are the life for me, and "'01, baby!" Thanks, Dr. R. How YOU doin', Josh? ;) Thank you to the writers and producers of various television shows for finally getting a clue and listening to my pleas, i.e. Pacey and Joey's union, Doug and Carol's reunion, and Monica and Chandler's engagement. It's been a wonderful season; thanks for me making me laugh, cry, and holler at my TV set. Thank you to various "Roswell" fanfiction authors whose work inspired me to end my hiatus, get off my butt, and start writing again, namely Elizabeth (the brilliant and beautiful "Persephone's Footfalls"), Katjen (the awesome "Riding Waves of Doubt [I Tremble for My Beloved]"), and Kara and Emily (RE forever! ::echo:: Ever... ever... ever...). Undying gratitude is sent out to everyone who has sent me feedback on my work, every single one of you. Each letter brought the much-needed smiles, support, and inspiration I've needed to continue writing. Love you all, and peace out.

--- Broken hearts heal in time. Someone once said something along the lines of that, but I can't remember whom. I never seem to remember things like that. My mind often fails me. It has an endless capacity for completely useless and random information, but it never seems to grasp things very tightly. Important sayings, that is. I can recite every line from Sleepless in Seattle, but I can't tell you who said, "God is dead." Not immediately anyway. I'd play the alphabet game for hours trying to figure out, biting my upper lip thoughtfully, slumping into my office chair, totally and utterly consumed until I found the answer, the name, the place, the time, or whatever. You know the alphabet game, don't you? When you can't remember something, you start with the letter A. You think of all the words that start with the letter A that are related to what you are trying to recall, and move on to the next letter when you've exhausted it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But I'm digressing. Where was I? Oh, yes. Broken hearts heal in time. Most people laugh at that. Most people disagree and say a broken heart can never be mended, that the scars live on but learn to fade with the memory.

Most people are full of shit.

I mean, come on, my family is living proof. No, no, we're not living proof that most people are full of shit. Living proof that broken hearts heal in time. But, I'm getting really, really ahead of myself. I mean I already gave you the moral of this whole story. I have this tendency to let my mind wander to the point of no return. And look, I'm digressing again.

Damn it.

Enough small talk, I'm just going to begin now before I start telling you about my intimacy issues and why I can't seem to concentrate on anything unless I'm chewing on a pencil. I'll start in the beginning. Oh, wait, if I start from the very beginning, it'll take eons. And mind you, this is *without* the commercial breaks. So I'm just going to skip ahead a couple years. The prologue is pretty simple. The basic gist of the first few chapters is this: boy meets girl, boy and girl hate each other, boy's best friend and girl's best friend hook up, resulting in the boy and girl having to spend more time with each other, boy and girl hook up, boy and girl fall in love, boy leaves girl to pursue his destiny with another girl. Yeah, just peachy, isn't it? Your typical romantic-comedy- tragedy. Except there's that part I left out about the boy being an alien. As was the boy's best friend. And his sister. Who also happens to be the girl the boy ran off with. Actually, they all ran off together with another alien girl who was fated to be with the boy's best friend. Are you following? Maybe it wasn't so simple after all. I have to admit, it took me awhile to make sense of it all, too. It's Jerry Springer with an X-Files twist, what can I say. Except Mulder never ran off with Scully's sister.

But now that all the basic information is covered, I can start.

---

Sometimes, Maria de Luca would get this look on her face. It was hard to describe, but that one expression would captivate my interest for years. She'd be in the middle of completing something, like washing the dishes or fiddling with piano as she wrote a new song, and suddenly she'd freeze into position like some great and beautiful ice sculpture. Her lips would be pressed firmly together, and her naturally large blue eyes would grow even greater in size. Standing before the sink or sitting on the piano bench, for one spectacular moment, she would become a porcelain doll. It was astounding. She looked so afraid... she could *sense* something coming. But about a nanosecond later, she would snap out of the haze and move on with her life. It came and went as fast as lightening. Even she did not notice those moments of psychic phenomenon. But I always did, and I'd always brace myself for the oncoming.

There was, however, one instance that she was aware of her gift of intuition. It had been dreary day, I remember... it had rained all morning, but gray clouds still filled the sky and refused to leave their new home. They dominated the space above with such a steadfastness that it was difficult even to locate the rainbow that was supposed to be worth all the suffering the rain had brought. A slight mist hovered above the street pavements, and the lawns of all the suburban homes could have easily passed for sees of green. You could smell the scent of stale rain everywhere. You could even smell it on your clothes, in your hair, on your skin.

She had been roaming the halls of her home, her bare feet slapping against the adobe tile, her head snapping back and forth as she glanced into room after room, searching for her misplaced daughter. "Jordan!" she called out with as much anger and frustration as possible. She knew it was perfectly hopeless to act annoyed, for the moment her little red-haired girl would step out in front of her, bat those emerald eyes, and smile her father's smile, all would instantly be forgiven and forgotten. But nonetheless, she yelled. "Jordan!" she called out into an empty guest room. "Get your dead little behind out here!"

And then it happened.

Years later, when I tried to tell her of those seconds of clairvoyance, she would always laugh it away with jokes about having a "sixth sense," but there'd be a glint of remembrance in her eyes. And I'd know she'd be recalling that one moment in time, when in that hallway her limbs had frozen and her she felt a cold chill run up against her back, when her subconscious jumped into the near future and all she could sense was an overwhelming sense of sorrow.

She broke out of the trance quickly and tried to place it in the back of her mind. She shook it off, forcing her feet forward. "Jordan!" she yelled, turning a corner. "You know that mommy doesn't it like it when you play hide-and-seek without telling her first! Come out n-OW!"

Maria was facedown of the hard floor. She twisted her head around to see the object of her demise: a small toy car. Typical.

She heard the pattering of small feet and looked up to see a despondent little girl, her head peeking from behind a halfway-closed door. "Mommy, you okay?" Jordan said quietly.

Maria gently pushed herself upward to examine her leg. A purplish contusion was beginning to form just above her right knee. "I'm all right," she told her, smiling at her reassuringly. "Just a small boo-boo. See?"

Jordan came towards her tentatively, and eventually kneeled before her mother. "Lemme kiss it and make it all better," the four-year-old said, planting a small peck on the bruise.

Maria's smile grew wider as she pulled her into a hug. "Thank you," she said, tousling her auburn ringlets. "But you know what would make me feel even better?"

"What?"

Maria leaned forward so that their foreheads touched. "If you promised to never, ever, ever hide from Mommy ever again."

"I promise."

Maria extended her pinky finger. "Pinky swear?"

Their pinkies linked, and the small child grinned up at her. "Pinky swear."

Maria kissed the entwined fingers with a loud smack and brought herself and Jordan up to their feet in one fluid motion. "Okay, Jordy," she said, leading the child to her bedroom. "Time for your nap."

Jordan pouted and tried to tug her hand away. "But Mo-o-o-o-o-o-o-my-y-y-y-y-y-y," she whined, dragging out the vowels.

"Uh, uh, uh," Maria replied. "What did you promise Daddy?"

The young girl let out an exaggerated puff of air, sending her bangs upward momentarily. "I promised Daddy that I'd be good and do what you said," she sighed. "And that if I did, he'd come home sooner."

"Righty-o, Munchkin," Maria said, sweeping Jordy into her arms and carrying her into the cluttered room, careful not step on any of the scattered books or toys. "And Daddy never goes back on his word. So you can't go back on yours." She gingerly placed the child on the twin bed and tucked her beneath the flannel blanket.

"When *is* Daddy coming back?" asked Jordan as Maria sat down on the edge of the bed beside her.

"The day after tomorrow," she answered, smoothing out a wrinkle in the bedspread. "And then he'll be all ours."

"I miss him," confessed Jordy.

"Me, too, kid," Maria admitted. "A whole bunch. But let's not try to think about that too much because it'll just make the days go by longer, okay?"

The child nodded, unusually silent.

"Okay," Maria reaffirmed. "So, how about that lullaby?"

"Later? When I go to sleep tonight?"

"Will do," she smiled, kissing her on the forehead once again and adjusting the blanket further before standing up to close the curtains. "Sweet dreams," she told the child before disappearing behind her door.

Outside her bedroom and alone in the hallway, Maria released a shaky breath. She hated acknowledging that she needed people. She felt weak. Even after the countless times her husband had taken her into his arms after she had confessed the very fact and whispered into her ear, "What's so bad about needing people?" In his tight embrace, needing people didn't seem so bad at all. It was when he was away that she felt so goddamn stupid and pathetic. Thank god he was so patient with her. Thank god he understood. She wasn't the only one who had lost somebody. After all, Liz had lost Max, and he had lost...

"You *know* what's bad about needing people," she would often say to him in reply, her head buried in his chest and her voice muffled. "People leave. People suck."

And he would chuckle at that, and respond, "Not *all* people suck. Some people stay."

And then they would laugh together, and hold each other, and try their best not to think about the people who lad left them behind, literally in the dust. The dust of Roswell, a place full of memories and secrets that longed to be buried, never to be resurrected. The dust of the forgotten.

There lies a common bond between The Forgotten. They never have to explain their actions to one another. They simply know. They speak in half-sentences, one-word answers, never needing to disclose the full truth, the entire story. They simply know.

"Do you sometimes wonder...?" Maria would ask him every once in a while.

"Sometimes," he'd answer simply. And that was that. He never had to ask her The Question. He knew that on occasion, she would lie awake in their bed, wondering, what if-ing. What if they had stayed. What if they didn't believe in their destiny. None of this would have happened. None of it. She wouldn't have slacked off the rest of her high school years, only to end up barely being able to graduate with her class. She wouldn't have quit classes at community college after one single semester and run off to the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. She wouldn't have done the unmentionable things she did in order to jumpstart her music career. She wouldn't have recorded the hit records, won the awards, schmoozed with rich and famous. She wouldn't have married him, she wouldn't have had Jordan. None of her present world would have existed, not in the slightest.

He tried not to think about her thinking that. He also tried not to play the what-if game with himself.

Maria walked around their Spanish-style home in a daze, subconsciously gathering Jordan's things about the house into a wicker toy bin. She somehow found herself in his office, staring at his computer. About an hour after he had left for the airport the day prior, she had discovered that he had typed in an entire computer screen full of LOVE YOU LOVE YOU LOVE YOU LOVE YOU LOVE YOU. It always made her smile, his little messages. The morning after they first made love, she was the first in the shower, and underneath the powerful rush of hot water, she worried that it all had been one gigantic, inerasable mistake. But stepping out onto the cold bathroom tile, water dripping from her skin, terrycloth towel wrapped tightly around her body, she saw the message he had scrawled in the fog of the mirror. "Morning, DeLuca =)" was the modest message. The second she read it, all her doubts and anxieties disappeared.

Their first date was to a Grammys ceremony, believe it or not. It technically wasn't even a date, seeing how they regarded other as nothing more than friends and Maria's original escort had cancelled on her the morning of the awards. He had stepped in without a hesitation. They were living in the same city now, after he had been transferred to the LA branch of the software company, and were spending more time together then they did in high school even. They had dinner together every night, shared vacations, went rollerblading every Sunday afternoon. They were comfortable with each other, secure, safe. Every now and then, she would look at him and see the striking, incredibly kind and compassionate man he had grown to become, and she would have to force her eyes away out of fear of the emotions that would arise. But that night, she could not tear them away. That night, the two of them had decided against attending the after parties and headed for his quaint apartment. They sat together in his backyard patio, sharing a lawn chair, both their shoes off, his jacket discarded and his top shirt buttons undone, her hair taken down and her jewelry put away. Her head lay on his chest, and he was stroking her fine blonde hair. They sat in a comfortable silence, and she never felt more at peace. She looked up at him, and studied every nuance of his slim face in the shadows of twilight. The point of noise. The jut of his chin. The warmth of his eyes. He caught her staring at him, and he smiled. Just smiled. Said nothing at all. He just knew. And suddenly they were sharing the most tender of kisses.

The morning after, the morning she had read that simple message on the foggy bathroom mirror, they got married. Two years later, they had Jordan. Beautiful Jordan.

The sound of the doorbell jolted Maria out of her reverie, her arms dropping the bin in her hands and its contents spilling out onto the floor of the home office. "Shit," she muttered, trying to scoop up all the toys off the ground into one armful. The doorbell rang again, and fearing another would wake her daughter, she placed what she had managed to gather back into the bin, and hurried to the foyer of the home.

She pulled open the heavy oak door only a small crack. "Look, I don't know how you got past the front gate and I don't care, but whatever product you're hawking, I don't need," she told the unwanted visitor as forcefully but as softly as possible. "Or whatever organized religion you're selling... well, that, too, I've been doing fine without for the past twenty-nine years." Maria began to push the door closed. "Goodbye, good day, good luck."

"Wait!" the man said, beginning to force the door the opposite direction.

"Listen, buddy," she said to person on the other side of the entryway. "I am about a millisecond away from calling security and--"

"*Maria*," she heard the man plead.

Her heart stopped. She knew that voice.

Slowly she began to open the door, inch by inch, a long squeak accompanying it. Finally they stood face to face, nothing but a doorsill separating the two. He looked older. Of course he did, it had been eleven years, but... his face seemed worn, so battered. A few wrinkles underlined his eyes, which had become even more closed off and guarded. His skin was darkly tanned, his hair lighter and tinted with blonde. He was taller, more sturdy...it was him though. It was definitely him.

"Mi-Michael..." she gasped, not completely certain that the words had escaped her mouth.

He nodded slightly. "It's me," he whispered gruffly.

She thought he might have expected her to take him into his arms right then and there. But she didn't budge. She held onto the edge of the door, partially covered by it, like a life preserver. "How are-- how are things back... back home?" she stammered.

"The war's over," he said plainly, with no emotion in his voice. His voice softened at his next words. "We came back to tie up some loose ends."

She didn't know how to reply to that; she just continued to stare at him blankly.

"Do you think I could come in for a minute?" Michael asked after another awkward pause.

It took a moment for the question to register, and when it did, the nothingness in her expression was replaced with sheer panic. "No!" she said abruptly, surprising both him and herself with the tone of her voice. She tried to even it out with a long breath. "No," she said more calmly. "You can't. My daughter's inside taking a nap and-"

He couldn't conceal his astonishment. "Your... your daughter?"

Oh, god. He didn't know.

"How did you find me?" she asked him. "I mean, if you tracked me down, how could you have missed the fact that I'm... that I'm married?" He moved backward slightly, and at that point in time, the word seemed foreign to her as well.

"We went back to Roswell. Talked to Valenti," he replied, still trying to digest the information, still trying to decide how he should react. "He told me that you were in LA, but he didn't mention..." He let his voice trail off. "As soon as I got the address, I sort of just went for it."

"He didn't know. We don't really keep in close touch with him. But you could have talked to Liz's parents, or even the Evanses," Maria said. "They knew. I mean, did Max and Is even go see their mom and dad?"

"We have to keep a low profile," Michael answered sharply, as if that were a sufficient answer, and she winced slightly at his bluntness. And suddenly they had fallen into their old routine: her making lame attempts to understand, him dodging the question.

She licked her dry lips and sighed tiredly. "What do you want, Michael?" There was a coldness in his expression now, but still she forged on. "Because we've been standing here for nearly five minutes and I still have no idea what you want with me now. If you came to say you're sorry for leaving, it's unnecessary."

Silence filled the air once again, and Maria became acutely aware of the prickling she felt on her skin, certain it was not a result of the moisture that still hung in the air. There had always been a dangerous electricity between her and Michael, most powerful when surrounded by the quiet. Standing before each other, only a foot apart, not saying a word, she was fifteen years old again, being drawn closer and closer to the edge of bottomless abyss. Those familiar emotions rushing back into her veins, she knew exactly what he had come for. He had come to take her away. Realizing this, her expression changed to a softer one, as did his. He slowly inched his way towards her, and she could swear she could already feel his skin on hers.

"Her name's Jordan," she suddenly blurted out, as if the mention of her name would quench all these unearthly and impractical desires that were coursing through her body. She quickly added, "My daughter, that's her name."

She thought she saw a glint of something in his eye, but he still was unfazed. Maria took another shaky breath and tried again.

"Jordan Whitman," she said her little girl's full name.

He stopped dead in his tracks, the look on his face a single question mark. "As in..."

Maria simply nodded her head. And though it was completely unnecessary, she held up her left hand with the palm facing towards her to show him wedding ring.

He didn't even look at it. His eyes were set firmly upon her face, his gaze unshakable. He was trying to search for something, a reason, an explanation.

"So I guess this changes everything," Maria said vacantly, desperately trying to sort her emotions. Was she regretful of her actions? Angry that he had expected so much from her when he had disappointed her? Happy that he had come back? Furious that he had the nerve to? He stared at her, needing to know what she was thinking. But he failed miserably. Even she didn't know what she was thinking, what she was feeling. What else could one expect after more than a decade of suppressing violent emotions and cheerless memories, only to have all of them emerge in one confusing jumble a single instant. Her head felt like gelatin. She needed to sit down. She still clung to door for dear life; it was the only thing that kept her standing upright.

He looked away when he knew it was hopeless. His gaze wandered toward the pebbled ground. For a moment, Maria wondered if this was it. If this were the end of the reunion she had played in her head constantly those first few lonely years. But suddenly his head snapped up again. "It changes nothing," he told her. "We still need to talk."

Her eyebrows knit in confusion. "We are talking."

"I'd prefer it if you weren't hiding behind a door," he replied dryly.

The corners of her mouth turned up slightly. Taking it as a sign that she was slowly letting the wall down, he reached into his pocket and held out to her a folded piece of paper. "This is where I'm staying."

She gazed at the piece of paper, her body frozen.

"Please, Maria."

Hand slightly trembling, she took it from him. She began to say apologetically, "I would invite you in so we could talk here, it's just..."

"You don't want to your daughter to wake up to find a strange man in the house," he completed, slighting tensing. "I understand."

Minutes later after his departure, she still stood in the empty foyer, leaning against the closed door. She began to sink down to the cold adobe floor, and she soon was clutching her knees to her chest and crying softly. The tears flew freely; she didn't bother to stop them. It had been a while since she had allowed herself to cry. But it seemed more appropriate now than ever. You know that feeling you get when you have absolutely no idea what lies in the future? High school seniors get that feeling as they near the end of their final year. New parents often struggle momentarily with a similar emotion as they prepare for the birth of their first child. You feel as if your old life is breaking away, and all you can really do is mourn its death.

Maria could help but think back to the night after the Michael, Max, and Isabel had left. For twenty-four hours, she had refused to cry. She hated how she felt afterwards. Empty. Tired. Exposed. She outright rejected the very thought of shedding a tear. So instead she wandered around the small town aimlessly, hoping to walk off everything she denied feeling. Around midnight, she ended up at the Parker residence, finding Liz alone out on the terrace that lay beyond her bedroom window. She was standing before a small metal wastebasket, tearing pages out of a book and throwing it into the fire she had started within it.

"Hey, you need a permit for that," Maria joked, climbing through the open window.

Liz smiled weakly and ripped out another page.

"What are you burning there?" she asked gently, joining her side.

"My journal," Liz replied, her voice scratched and weary. She threw another paper into the flames. "Back to front."

"You can't burn your journal," Maria said. "You're supposed to keep those things forever and cherish the memories you recorded. Otherwise you'll forget them all."

Liz said nothing for a moment. "That's kind of... that's kind of the point." She coughed in an attempt to clear her clogged throat, and fed another page, the second-to-last.

"You look about almost done," Maria noted lamely.

Liz ripped out the final page, which was the first to be written. Instead of immediately throwing it into the basket, she stopped to examine the opening words. "September 23rd. Journal entry one," she read out loud. "I'm Liz Parker and five days ago I died." She paused a moment and turned to her friend. "Can I tell you something?"

"Always."

"When I wrote this entry, I was really happy," Liz confessed, staring down at the lone sheet in her hand. "I was so happy that my life, my stupid, boring life was finally becoming extraordinary. But now..." She stopped to choke back a sob. " But now I read those words and I can't even remember the person who was writing them. And I don't know if that's a good or bad thing."

"So what now?" Maria asked, her voice beginning to crack.

"I get a new journal," whispered Liz brokenly into the still night air. She crumpled the page and tossed it into the hungry fire, along with the leather cover, the orange blaze consuming both. "I start over."

That's when Maria started to cry. Because she had no idea how she would go about starting over. The future seemed so blank.

So there the two girls stood, huddled together, contemplating the rebirth, their tears feeding the fire.

Eleven years later, it was happening again, but for the opposite reason. Another life was forming, and she had no choice but to go along with it. For that reason, she called a last-minute baby-sitter and drove to the motel. She got of the car and walked up to the door. But she didn't knock. She didn't have to. The door swung open before she could even raise our hand.

"You came," he said somewhat breathlessly.

"You asked me to, spaceboy," she replied, amused by how amazed he was.

He smiled when her special nickname for him rolled off her tongue so naturally, and she had to look away. Michael smiling at her was a rarity, and, above all, a very dangerous thing. Maria walked past him into the small room, their shoulders brushing slightly, and she tried to ignore how the air caught in her throat and the dizziness she felt in head.

She stood in the center of the barren room. It looked like it hadn't been touched. The bed was still perfectly made, there were no belongings scattered about. She was about to ask why when she felt his presence behind her. She froze again, knowing that if she turned around to face him, self-control would be a thing of the past.

"Why did you ask me to come here?" she asked.

"We need to talk."

"So talk," she replied, refusing to move.

"Not with your back facing me."

She turned slowly, and their eyes locked. And suddenly, there was no space between them. Their lips were touching, and they became lost in each other, she became lost in the sea of images he was trying to feed her through touch. He was trying to show her why he had asked her to come, why he had left all those years ago, why everything. She saw everything through his eyes, all those lost years and moments.

Flash.

She saw a pool of blinding white light. She watched as figures moved into it, only to disappear through the bright haze. Noise pounded into her ears, but no particular sound could be differentiated from amongst the deafening boom of clamor. She could feel his excitement, his nervousness, his awe as he looked at the radiant glow. Someone lightly touched his arm, and a bright-eyed Tess mouthed to him the words, "Isn't it amazing?" All he could do was nod in agreement and smile.

But then he turned around to see Max and Isabel, their arms linked, their eyes empty. Maria could feel his smile disappear and a sense of hesitation rise in his chest as he remembered what and who the three of them would be leaving behind.

Flash.

She saw a battle. All the warriors were faceless, and the thunderous noise she had heard from the last flash of light was replaced with cries of anger, pain, and suffering. Inhuman cries that echoed into the blood-red morning. Bodies were stacked upon each other on the desert ground. He couldn't see very well, he was so overwhelmed with fear, exhaustion, and confusion. All he could make out were figures moving toward each other for a fatal result, all he could feel was an emotional and physical ache that traveled up and down his body with an incessant flow. He was drowning in blood and sweat, most of which he knew did not belong to him. "Tell us what to do!" he heard someone call out to him in hysterics. "Give us a command, general! Any command!"

He looked up at the sun of his home planet, much larger and closer to the atmosphere than that of Earth's sun. The fire of the star seemed to mock him, and he hated it for it. He longed for the darkness. He longed for an embrace that was light years away.

Flash.

She saw the night sky. He was gazing up at it from the metal roof of some sort of community building, his legs dangling over the edge as he stared above him, at the endless expanse of stars, planets, and the black space between them. She saw an older Isabel--her expressive brown eyes more sad and lonely than she had seen them last--sit down beside him, the strands of her soft blonde hair braided and tucked into a bun, dressed in a simple beige shift that most likely was the dress of the women there. "We don't have to go through with the wedding," Isabel told him, gently laying her hand over his. "We both don't want this."

"They want us to marry," he replied somewhat robotically.

"No, they want freedom," she corrected. "We gave it to them. And now we can go back."

Flash.

She saw Max, and almost did not recognize him. His once-somber chocolate eyes had become hard and difficult to read, and his face was more angular and his features more pronounced. He had adopted the profile of a great leader, as well as the expressions and mannerisms, and it was almost startling how well the role suited him. He sat in the driver's seat, as always, in a rental car that sped down the desolate New Mexico highway. "They have lives of their own now," he was saying to his sister, seated next to him in the passenger side.

"We're just going to say hello, Max. That's all," she insisted. "I mean, after all these years, haven't you ever wondered...?"

"Sometimes," Max mumbled, looking into the rearview mirror to see a quiet Michael staring out the window into the desert landscape, preoccupied with his thoughts. Thoughts Maria could hear. He was practicing what he would say to her on her doorstep. 'Come away with me. Let me do what I should have done years ago,' the words reverberated in her own mind. 'I should have always known that home was wherever you were.'

Maria broke away from kiss then, and she gasped for breath. Michael, his hands still around her waist, looked at her expectantly, half-frightened and half-liberated that she had heard and seen those things, that he had exposed himself so fully. He had never done that before, allowed people to look into his soul and grasp the pictures and sounds inside, but he owed it to her. God how he owed it to her.

So there they stood, waiting for her answer.

"I... I can't," she stammered.

His heart dropped, and he remembered again why he never let anyone in so deeply before. When you shield yourself, you can't get hurt. You can't get disappointed.

You can't feel stupid.

"You can't," he echoed back her words

Maria shook her head vigorously. "No, I can't. I can't leave him. He's--" She stopped mid-sentence, and brought up her widened eyes to his face.

Maria wanted to slap herself for her stupidity, for forgetting that the world did not revolve around her. For being so caught up in trying to decipher her conflicted heart that she did not bother to recall in those moments of emotional struggle that her own husband had also been, at one time, in love with someone else, someone who had disappeared.

Someone who had returned.

"He's with Isabel," she realized out loud.

When he said nothing in reply, she pulled away from his arms. "He's with Isabel, isn't he? He's with..." She fixed on him an incredulous stare. "You came to see me, Max went to see Liz, Isabel went to see him..."

Still nothing.

Her eyes narrowed at his silence, and started to back away from him slowly as fury and jealousy seeped into her. "I don't believe you... I don't believe any of you..."

"Valenti told her that he was in New York, that's all he said," he told her, his air quickly returning to its custom indifference and detachment. "But since you two live in LA, she probably gave up after not finding him there--"

Maria buried her face in her hands. "He used to work at the executive branch in New York before we got married. But he's there now for a company conference." She dropped them down and crossed her arms across her chest. "But he's not at the conference. Nope," she continued, her tone hurt and accusing. "He and Izzy are probably fucking in some hotel room right about now. Am I right? Am I?"

Michael glared back at her. "I don't know," he seethed.

She wanted to kill Michael for still loving her. She wanted to strangle him for it. "Damn it, Michael," she said, rubbing her temple. "Why did you all have to come back and screw things up? We were doing *fine*. It took a while, but we got there." He looked away and sat down on the lumpy bed, focusing his utmost attention on a blank, chipping wall.

"Liz is *engaged*, the wedding is in a *month*," Maria continued, her voice rising in anger. "Do you know what Max showing up at her doorstep will do to her? *Do you*? And you and Isabel, my god... we are married. *Married*." She grew frustrated at his lack of eye contact and moved in front of him, trying to recapture his gaze. "Michael, look at me. *Look at me.*" He looked up at her sullenly. "He and I have a child. We've worked so hard to achieve some sort of normalcy, and now things are going to fall apart!"

"So what?" he shouted back at her. "You don't love him!"

"*What*?"

"You don't love him!" Michael repeated, rising to his feet. "Not the way you love me. You just love him because he stayed and I left!"

"That's right," she agreed, catching him off guard. "That's why I love him." She released a long breath to calm herself, and her tone became softer. "Do you know who spent all his time with me during the days I couldn't pull myself out of bed? Who practically spoon fed me when I didn't want to eat? And when I first came out to LA, he called my every single day. He kept me level, grounded. Sure, I still fucked up a couple of times, but I would have done so much worse without him." He tried to look away again, but she wouldn't let him. "I *do* love him, Michael. You're right, I may not love him the same way I love you. But I do love him. I love him for how strong he is, I love how much I need him. I love how I can't imagine my life without him."

Michael wordlessly returned to his seat on the bed, staring down at the open palms of his rough, blistered hands. Maria sat beside him, and gently told him, "It's better this way, Michael. It really is. Because what would happen if I did leave him? We'd have an amazing few months together, I don't doubt that at all. But then you'd finished tying up your 'loose ends' here and get called back home... and I wouldn't be able to go with you. I couldn't drag Jordy away from her here, from her own father. And I couldn't live my life without Jordy. So then you'd leave me behind in the dust once again. Forgotten."

He turned to her abruptly. "I could never forget you."

"I know," she said, smiling sadly. "But you have to. Otherwise, we'll be just keep going around in the same circles. And I don't have the stamina to do that anymore. I'm getting too old for this game. And I have far too much baggage to play."

"This is goodbye," he whispered, not quite believing it.

Maria shook her head. "This is good luck," she replied, wrapping her arms around him for one last embrace.

Flash.

He saw an abandoned bowl of cereal, sitting atop a cluttered dresser. In the reflection of the vanity mirror, he saw the figures of two people watching television from the bed, and recognized them instantaneously. Fifteen-year-old Maria, her hair undone and with bags under her eyes, was still in her pajamas and partially buried under the comforter despite the time of day. Alex, in his custom uniform of a buttoned-up plaid shirt and cargo pants, lay next to her on top of the covers, his arm comfortably around her shoulders. Together, they watched the noon news, not really paying attention to it all. They just needed something to fill the silence.

Flash.

He saw a pair of strappy high heels that had been tossed carelessly onto the floor. A hand reached down to pick them up, and he realized it was Maria's. She was older now; he guessed around eighteen or nineteen. Her hair was disheveled, and her dress looked wrinkled, as if it had been lying on the floor all night. Her make-up had worn off: only faint traces of color could still be seen on her lips and there were black smudges along the edges of her eye. With her shoes, purse, and jacket in her hands, she tiptoed past a sleeping form in the queen-sized bed, a balding, regal-looking man in his late forties with a gold Rolex watch around his wrist. Michael could feel her weariness as she slipped quietly out of the hotel room, as well as the self-disgust that was blindingly difficult to ignore.

Flash.

He saw a microphone, and a twenty-something Maria singing into it with an amazing amount of passion and grace. She held her hands tightly over her earphones, and her eyes were closed. Her head moved to each beat of the rhythm as she belted out each lyric with great fervor. As the melody of the song faded away, she slowly opened her eyes to find the few people behind the sound booth smiling at her with great satisfaction. "That was great, Ria," a red-headed woman said into her headpiece.

Maria grinned and gave her a thumbs-up, but Michael could still detect some melancholy and fatigue in her eyes.

Flash.

He saw Alex, and almost did not recognize him. He no longer was the scrawny geek West Roswell high had all those years before come to know and take for granted. He was taller, more solid, yet he still held onto the gentle and compassionate air that had always made Alex... Alex. He was wearing beat-up, faded jeans with a scrubby, gray Knicks T-shirt and looked like he had barely slept. But one barely noticed his appearance, for he wore an expression of such awe and wonder as he awkwardly held a newborn in his hands. "You know what this means, right?" he said, grinning at his drowsy wife, who had been blissfully watching the scene before her. "We can start over. *Really* start over."

"Start over," she murmured, her eyelids drooping. "That sounds wonderful."

Alex smiled as she began to slip into slumber, and leaned over to kiss her damp forehead.

It was then that Michael knew that she had made the right choice. It didn't ease the pain, but in comforted him on a different level, that the one person he ever truly loved would have the happiness for which he had always searched. It was then that he understood what it meant to let go.

She turned around and walked away that afternoon, and never looked back. Driving down the streets of Santa Monica, streets she had passed through hundreds times, she felt like she was taking everything in as a tourist would, and, as the sky took on an orange glow, it suddenly it occurred to her that she had never watched the sunset, not one single time in her life. For some reason, this absolutely amazed her. She found an empty spot along the crowded streets and parked, and moved through the throngs of people and street vendors of the Boulevard, paying no attention to the double-takes and the whispers of "Hey, isn't that Ria DeLuca?"

Maybe she had nonchalantly seen one or two sunsets in her lifetime, but she had never truly *watched* one. Sitting on one of the metal benches near the edge of the pier, she hugged herself against the cold ocean breezes as the horizon swirled with color and the orange-red sun dropped down to the other side of the world.

"I pray you'll be our eyes, and watch us where we go," she softly sang the lullaby she used to soothe Jordan into sleep. The ball of fire sank deeper and deeper into the quickly blackening ocean. "And help us to be wise, in times when we don't know. Let this be our prayer, when we lose our way. Lead us to a place, guide us with your grace, to a place where we'll be safe..."

...

A world where pain and sorrow will be ended
And every heart that's broken will be mended
Reaching out to touch you
Reaching to the sky
We ask that life be kind
And watch us from above
...

Maria closed the door behind her as quietly as possible. After lightly setting down her keys on the hallway table, she poked her head inside the den, where she usually found the baby-sitter when she returned. "Anna?" she whispered, but found the room empty.

She heard the squeak of a swivel chair coming from inside the home office, and she knew with certainty who was home. She took a moment to steady herself, and walked as calmly as she could towards the open glass double doors. With each step, the image of who sat behind the desk became fractions larger.

"Hi," she said softly when she finally stood in the doorway.

Alex looked up at her, and Maria gazed at her husband from her place a few feet away. His tender brown eyes were slightly glazed, and his slim face was somewhat gaunt and haggard... the wrinkles that had been beginning to develop these past few months along the lines of his eyes seemed more prominent and noticeable now. His suit jacket had been tossed onto the back of his chair, the sleeves of his white dress shirt were messily rolled up to just underneath his elbow, and his striped tie hung loosely around his neck. His hair desperately needed a brushing and a five-o-clock shadow had long been formed.

In other words, he looked like hell.

"Hi," he said back to her, not rising from his seat, his tone carefully kept even.

Maria crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe. "You're home early," she observed.

"I didn't feel like staying in New York," he replied, continuing their game of "Who's Going to Mention It First?"

She pursed her lips and bit the side of cheek. They stared at each other for a long while, searching in each other eyes some kind of evidence of infidelity.

"How's Isabel?" Maria inquired at last. She watched carefully for a change in his expression.

"She's doing fine," he answered, his voice and demeanor still cool. "How's Michael?"

Her emerald eyes moistened and her jaw began to quiver. "Are you leaving me?" she asked shakily.

His expression softened instantly, and he dropped his composed façade. "Are *you* leaving *me*?"

Unable to speak, she shook her head her head no. A tiny smile appeared on his face, and he dropped his head into his hands. Maria wasn't sure if he was laughing or crying. Maybe it was both, as insane as it sounded.

Suddenly Alex felt weight in his lap and his hands were pushed away. He opened his eyes to see Maria gently cup his face and kiss the wet trails along his cheeks... slowly and surely their lips found each other, and as the mouths moved against one another, tears flowed from the eyes and met in the melding of skin.

Sitting in that office together, it easily could have been six years prior, the night when they finally embraced as lovers. That night, lying together in his lawn chair and watching the stars that had robbed them of another future, they felt they could be able to move on.

This night, however, was different. It was different in that they *would* move on.

...

We hope each soul will find
Another soul to love
Let this be our prayer
Just like every child
Who needs to find a place

...

Things changed after this night. My mother and father have always loved each other, there was no question about their devotion to one another, don't get me wrong, but up until this particular night, they always seemed a little off in things they did and said when in the other's presence. They were holding back from each another, the way that they fell into and relied on routine so easily, how they sometimes spoke in carefully chosen dialogue... They were so watchful and cautious not to offend, not to upset, not to cross any lines. They were like ghosts trying to co-exist in a space for the living. Even a four-year-old could tell. But one morning, I woke up to sunlight and a changed world.

My mother and father were happy. Happy, carefree, and actually *cheerful*. If any other person saw this, they'd be downright disgusted at their contentment. But it was me, lucky for them. I had walked downstairs aching for a bowl of Trix and found them laughing and dancing together in the sunlit kitchen to some old Billie Holiday song. Well, my mother was dancing. My father would snap his fingers every once in his while and sway his hips, occasionally twirling my mom around. You know that saying that white guys can't dance? My dad was the living manifestation of that belief.

Light poured through the large kitchen windows and beams played with the crystal mobile that hung above the sink, sending out pieces of rainbows along the floors and walls. It was a gorgeous, almost magical sight. A myriad of colors skipped along the two dancing figures, and they didn't notice my presence until I started giggling at the picture that lay before me. Dad glanced over at me, his eyes twinkling. "What are you laughing at, Shorty?" he grinned. He scooped me into his arms. "You owe me a dance, a... *tango*!" he cried out, extending one pair of our joined hands as he shimmied from one side of the kitchen to another. My mother laughed hysterically and joined us in our whirl across the linoleum floor. That was the beginning of it all. The three of us dancing amongst the rainbows.

A little sister would soon join us. She was given the name Phoenix Whitman-- no, not after the Arizona city, or the dead actor. There's this legend from the Middle East. According to the ancient Egyptians--and I'm quoting my father on this-- a phoenix was a servant to the sun god, and only one could exist at a time. When it felt its final days coming, the phoenix would build a nest, then be consumed in flames and burned to ashes, and from these very ashes a new phoenix would arise. This was said to represent the rising and setting of the sun, resurrection and life after death. It was an appropriate choice for a name, and quite beautiful actually, despite the many torturous years my baby sister endured with this moniker. Our younger brother got away with a nice, normal, non-geographical name: James, after a teacher they both once had. But that's an entirely different story, and it's not mine to tell. Sometimes I envy my siblings for having names that are rooted in my parents' pasts. But I just remind myself that I was born during a time when they were trying to forget where they had come from.

You're probably wondering what became of Michael, Isabel, and Max. Truth is, I never knew that a Michael, Isabel, and Max existed until my mother told me this very story some twenty years after she and Michael had parted ways, on another rainy day, when I was home visiting from grad school. She told me everything, going all the way back to Liz's gunshot wound at the Crashdown that one fateful afternoon. Needless to say, I was fairly amazed. No one truly is aware that their parents have lived completely differently lives before he or she was born. I don't think even Phoenix and Jimmy are.

My mother assumed that the three had gone back to their home. Mom and Dad never heard from Michael and Isabel again, and it appeared as if Max had never visited Liz, strangely enough. My parents did not know where there their alien friends were and what they were doing, and they did not want to know. And I couldn't blame them. But I've always hated not knowing and living by assumption.

Driving back to the University of New Mexico on 285 North, I saw the exit to Roswell and took it on whim. I didn't expect to find anything, really I didn't. But there it was. In the tattered gas station phone book, I found a M. Guerin living in the far outskirts of the small town. And I went to his house and knocked on his door. And he opened it and squinted at me through tired eyes. "You look just like her," he murmured before welcoming me into his humble abode.

Turns out Max had gone to see Liz all those years before. He watched from a safe distance as she had a late lunch with her fiancé. He choked back the hurt he felt as the man fed her a dollop of whip cream from his coffee drink and her pretty pink mouth accepted it from his finger. He suppressed the ache that rose in his chest as the man brushed a loose strand of her long, dark hair away so that he could kiss her. And he pushed away his jealousy when the lovers' lips met. Then he walked away and went home with his sister in tow, without even a hello or final good-bye. Or so Michael tells me as we sit together on his back porch, drinking the instant lemonade he has prepared. Michael, on the other hand, did not leave with his surrogate siblings. It's the irony of ironies, the one who wanted to get away from Roswell the most was the one who ended up staying. I tell him this, and he smiles slightly. "Yeah, it is, isn't it?" he says. "I wonder about that a lot."

"Why did you stay?" I ask him tentatively.

"Isn't it obvious?" he replies, turning away to watch the dust sweep across the landscape before him. "I came here to forget, to be forgotten. There are so many ghosts around here I thought I'd blend in real well."

"Is it working?"

He turns away even further, and all I can see is the back of his head. "I don't think so," he answers, his voice carefully kept low and soft to conceal its waviness.

Maybe most people *are* right. Maybe broken hearts don't heal no matter the span of time given, and me, my sister, and brother are merely living proof of some lucky draw. If that is the case, then I do not know what the moral of this story is. Perhaps there is none. But if one does exist, and you've figured it out by now, please tell me.

Oh, and be sure to write your name down, because I never seem to be able to remember things like that.

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