Disclaimer: This is totally not mine. The idea belongs to Diana (Touchedbyanalien) and is actually ghostwritten for her, because she has no confidence in her brilliant Max/Liz ideas. We dove you, Diana. :) And this is also for Dani, who again let me play in her backyard. :)

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He loved that moment after lovemaking, when he got to explore every dimple of her soft body that was hidden in the light of day. He'd only done it once or twice, so there was still inches and inches of her smooth flesh to memorize and worship. His fingers ran over her carmel-colored hip--it amazed still amazed him that her skin had the same deep color of rich cream throughout her body. As he traced the line from her smooth thighs to dimpled knees, his fingers caught on a long, wicked scar barely visible on her kneecap. "What's this?"

Her dark eyes blinked drowsily at him from where she lay splayed against his chest, dark hair blanketing them both in brown silk. "It's from when Alex and Maria and I were first learning how to shave when we were eleven. My razor slipped. I bled everywhere."

"Alex?" He tried to stifle a chuckle but failed. He could see the three of them in their bathing suits in Liz's small bathroom, an eleven year old Maria sitting on Alex's skinny chest while Liz lathered up one of his long legs.

She gave a little grin as she wrapped her arms around his waist. "He was always easy to coerce..."

"And this one?" There was another shiny white mark, just inside the soft flesh of her elbow. "Where did you get this one?"

"Maria jabbed me with her pen when we were playing knights when we were little." Again, he could see the little girls, hair flying, dancing about each other and jabbing with ballpoint pens. "The tip of her pen gouged my arm and it tore the flesh. Maria screamed bloody murder."

His fingers ran over the scar, kissing it lightly with his gentle touch. "I could..."

Her hand found his lips, tracing them before he caught them in a kiss of a different kind. "No, Max." She raised herself up, her dark eyes meeting his seriously. "It's a part of me. It's...me."

His fingers traced their way up her spine and over her shoulder, finally finding their way to the mark between her eyebrows. "Like this?" His voice was teasing. "I still remember that day...I hated that I wasn't there for you."

"You would've healed me, wouldn't you?" In her eyes, he knows that she knows the answer to that. "Even then?"

He smiled, kissing the faded white mark where Kyle Valenti had once held what remained of his favorite shirt to her bleeding head. "I would've moved heaven and earth to stop you from hurting, Liz. From the day I first saw you." His hand caressed her face, sliding down her neck to the sensitive spot on the base of her neck. "I would've erased any scar I could have." His long fingers tickled their way across her collar bone, between her breasts. "Even this one..."

She took her hand in his, placing it on her stomach in the exact spot where a silver handprint had once glowed. There was a barely noticable ripple in the skin where a bullet had once pierced her stomach. That was the only physical reminder she had of that day... "But if you erased that one, then you would erase everything, Max. Because that's a part of me too. It's a part of us."

He rolled over on top of her, carefully positioning his weight on his elbows, admiring her tiny frame and the incredible strength it held within. "There are some scars I could do without," he whispered to her hair. The walls of her bedroom were cream, not white, but that still didn't change his memories...

"This one? How did you get this one?" Her hand stroked his cheek, finding the fading scar there. "It must have happened when you were too young to fix it."

"We were nine or ten, in the backyard playing on the swingset, and I fell down and cut my face. Like you did." He kissed her temple. "Iz screamed for Mom, and she came running out and cleaned it up before I could heal it or anything. We knew, then...we knew we were different, and that we shouldn't do stuff like that in front of others, so I never healed it. It's one of my scars."

Her fingers found his other scar--the almost invisible line that ran from his sternum to the top of his breastplate. It was ironic that his only recent physical scar lay over his heart. And only she could have found it. No one else ever got this close to him, feeling flesh upon flesh. Just as no one had gotten close enough after that knife had cut into him to erase the scar--and the memory.

"Max..." Her voice was gentle as her lips traced the scar on his chest. "At least it's not a visible scar..."

He rolled over onto his side again, spooning his body against hers, resting his head on her shoulder. "Too bad we can't erase the internal ones. I think Izzy could, if I let her in my mind long enough." He gave a half-laugh that sounded harsh and bitter even to his ears.

Her fingers wound themselves through his hair, playing with the short hairs at the back of his neck. "But that's a part of you. It's your scar, but it's part of what I love about you, Max. You can go through so much, and still have the strength to survive." There was a soft smile on her face. "You can even beat destiny."

He closed his eyes, silent for a moment, just letting himself breathe in her soft rose scent, basking inthe warmth of her body. "It's hard to forget sometimes. And I hate--"

Her cool fingers traced the tear tracks on his cheeks. "But it's who you are, Max. And it's a reminder of everything we've been through together. If I could take that away...if I could take any of it away, we'd lose what we are. We'd lose that strength." She lifted his chin to meet her eyes. "If we gave that strength away, we would never have survived."

And in her deep brown eyes--eyes that knew more sorrow than any woman should, he knew she was right. If he hadn't healed her that day. If there had been no white room. If there had been no destiny. All of that--the fact that they survived all of that--had finally convinced them both that they were meant to be. If they could survive what the universe through at them, they could make it through anything. They'd already been to hell and back. After that, an interspecies relationship and suffering through college was a piece of cake.

"You're not perfect, Liz Parker." His eyes met hers, and he let himself drown in their bottomless brown depths. "But that's what makes me love you." His fingers traced the narrow white scar on her hip again. "Scars and all."

"Because they're a part of you," she whispered against his lips. "And you're a part of me, because of them."

Time heals all wounds, except the ones that make us who we are.

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