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Exposure
Author: Bennie
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I own nothing Roswell.
Spoilers: S1, S2
Category: AU/Crossover Roswell and Sixth Sense
Character Focus: CC
Author's Note: Oddly enough, I really like the characters I’m about to do this to. I mean, I get ambivalent at times, sure, but overall, I don’t really hold any ill will against them. But I was re-watching some S1 episodes and this idea just came to me, and my muse got an attitude. Sigh; how do you fight your muse’s evil twin when you can’t tell them apart? Lol … and thanks, Reese. I really appreciate your input!
Warning: Character death
He sat in his chair and wept, unable to believe she was really gone. But she was, and he felt incomplete, knowing he would never again feel whole. Not without her.He shuddered at the thought – shivered really, as a chill ran over him.
“Mister?”
He looked up and hastily wiped his eyes. There was a young boy, maybe twelve years old, standing in front of him and holding out a leather-bound book. It was red.
“Yes?” he asked, gently, because she’d loved children.
“I’m supposed to give you this.”
He looked down in wonder at the book shoved into his hands. It was her journal. He’d looked for it after she died, wanting to keep some part of her close to him, but he’d never found it.
“September twenty-fourth,” the boy said gravely.
He nodded, not really paying attention, and it just happened that when he opened the book it fell open to that date. It was, he saw, the last entry made.
And as he read the chill around him deepened until his breath hung in the air, but he barely noticed.
I cried the night I found out.I never told anyone, least of all him, but the day I found out that his family hated me, I had to drive out to the desert and cry.
Oh, not his adoptive parents, they were wonderful. They love me and I love them too. I wish I could always be here to take care of them and let them take care of me. That’s family, and it’s wonderful.
No, I mean his real family. Michael and Isabel. They hate me.
I knew they’d resent me, after he risked them to save me. And I knew that bringing me into their lives was a complication they just didn’t want, but I thought time would take care of that. After all, I’m not an ogre, right? I’m basically a good person. I even get along with ex-boyfriends and their friends; that says something, doesn’t it?
I’m not a saint. I fight with my parents and I’ve taken my friends for granted and used them, but I’ve thought about this a lot, and although I can’t really defend those instances, I can say they were few and far between, and I never did it casually. There was always a good reason. Or at least, I thought there was, and really, how do we ever truly know the difference?
And it’s not like I meant to invade their privacy. It’s these powers. I’m not telepathic or anything, thank God, but there’s definitely some kind of empathy thing happening. I can sense strong emotions, and sometimes it hits me hard enough that I don’t need words to tell me what a person is thinking. So I knew exactly how the two of them felt about me that night.
Picture it: Roswell, March 15. In the CrashDown, surrounded by a couple dozen friends and co-workers in the dark, waiting for Kyle to get Max in here for a surprise party that I hoped was actually going to be a surprise. I’d turned off the lights and told everyone to get ready.
Maybe it was something about being in the dark, but my other senses felt heightened. I was suddenly aware of the sounds people make when they’re trying to be quiet, and the smells that usually get lost in the crowd, and all the things we normally ignore but right then were as bright as neon signs to me.
And I could sense what everyone was feeling.
For a minute there, I thought I was going to throw up. Not just because it was overwhelming – all those emotions shoved together like that – but because after I’d spoken and turned out the lights, I understood that there were some strong feelings in the room, and they were directed right at me.
Someone in the room hated me, with an intensity that took my breath away. And then it seemed to split somehow, and I realized it was actually two people, and they hated me equally, and it was all I could do not to faint.
I thought our enemies had come back, and had someone infiltrated the party preparations. But I heard Kyle and Max at the door, and I didn’t have time to do more than pinpoint where the negative feelings were coming from, and then the lights were on and everyone was cheering and I could feel whoever it was move past me … and I watched Isabel hug her brother and Michael punch him in the shoulder the way guys do, and I was smiling but it was all I could do not to sit down and cry right there.
But I couldn’t do that. Me? Make a scene? As if.
I smiled harder and kissed my boyfriend, made sure he was surprised – he said he was, although he may just have been humoring me – and for a little while the glow of Max’s love was enough.
He loved me, and I felt loved, and safe, and when he looked at me I felt beautiful, and I loved him so much. I thought that was enough. I really did. The rest, I decided, would just take time.
But that night Michael was helping me clean up, and he was actually being pretty decent, the way he has been since he and Maria got back together, you know,’ responsible’ and ‘not rude’ and that sort of thing, and I felt it again. It was hard to reconcile what I felt coming from him with the way he was being so ‘not mean’, but I couldn’t deny it.
Someday soon after that I made a point of inviting Isabel out for a ‘spontaneous’ cup of coffee, and we chatted about this and that, laughing every now and then and she asked if I wanted to go shopping with her and I said yes, and I was in awe the entire time at how well she could act.
How could anyone feel so strongly about something and yet hide it so well? I never did figure that out.
I tried not to let it bother me, but instead of getting better, it got worse. It got so that if I was even in the room with one of them, I got a headache. Sometimes, in my more cynical and silly moods, I imagined that their minds were targeting mine, like some kind of alien laser beam, slowly but surely burning away at my mind until some day, there’d be nothing left. And despite myself, I started avoiding them when I could, although suddenly it seemed like they were everywhere, being so friendly that I couldn’t avoid them without it being obvious.
Then the headaches stopped going away at all, and I found out the truth: I was sick. Dying.
He looked up to see the boy studying him, and it struck him that he’d never seen a child so solemn, with eyes so knowing and sad.“Who are you?” he asked. Then he winced, hoping it didn’t sound accusatory.
The boy didn’t take offense. “Cole.”
He didn’t want to look back down, to keep reading, but something about the look in the boy’s eyes compelled him to see it through, despite the heaviness in his chest and the taste of bile in his throat.
The other day I felt so sick it didn’t seem to matter anymore, nothing did, and I asked her why she didn’t just finish it already. She actually looked a little sorry for me. Not really, you know, but in that detached kind of way scientists feel bad for the lab mice before putting them out of their misery. She said she’d see what she could do, patted me on the hand and then left.Him? He came by today to bring me some things I’d asked Maria for, and I asked him the same thing. He just looked at me with this weird smile, like he was trying to act confused but couldn’t quite pull it off. He didn’t stay long either.
Good. Now I have more time to write this down and to figure out where to hide it. And this time, I’ll make sure it’s nowhere he can find it. I know I’m taking a chance writing this all down, but if I don’t do something I’m going to slip up and say the wrong thing to the wrong person because I won’t be able to stop thinking about it.
I’m writing this because I can’t tell anyone. If Max knew, everything would fall apart and they can’t afford that, not without risking the fate of the world. They can still use Ava to complete the foursquare, we think, but there’s no replacing the two of them. That’s the only thing that keeps me from telling Max the truth. Max, who I swore I’d never lie to again. God, I love him. And I hate that he’s going through this because of me, I hate it.
I hate them.
I don’t care if they didn’t like me. I don’t deserve to die this way, I don’t. Shoot me, drop me off a bridge, give me some dignity. Make it clean. Just don’t leave me wasting away in a stupid hospital bed, having to watch my friends be strong for me and hating the look in my parents eyes that tells me the truth they won’t, that the insurance isn’t covering enough and they’re going to lose their home and it still won’t be enough to save their only daughter.
If someone is reading this, I don’t know who you are or how you got it or if you even believe. I have to trust that I haven’t put anyone else in danger, and that’s why I’m going to hide this where you found it, because I don’t think anyone would look here for a long, long time, if ever. But wherever I am, I’m glad that at least one person knows. It doesn’t make it worthwhile, or any more meaningful, but it means they didn’t win, not all the way.
Thank you.
Liz Parker,
September 24, 2002
He looked up but the boy was gone.Suddenly his eyes focused on a tall blonde woman across the room, wearing red and standing out in a crowd of black. She was talking to a tall brown-haired man, and both of them looked just a little too morose, a little too openly mourning.
To his jaded eyes, their concern looked phony and overdone, and he wondered why he’d never noticed it before.
He just watched them, and he didn’t say anything.
2012
They tumbled out of the interplanetary transmission portal onto the desert floor.
Isabel was the first to recover.
“We did it!” she shrieked joyfully, jumping up and down in a decidedly un-princess-like fashion. Michael grinned and swung her around, tired but equally exhilarated. Together they turned to share their happiness with their family … and froze.
Max, Kyle and Maria were watching them, and they didn’t look quite as happy. Ava came to stand next to them, looking even less so.
Actually, Max looked sick, Kyle looked furious, and Maria looked broken but determined. Ava glared openly. And despite the heat of the desert sun, everyone present felt a sudden chill in the air.
“Max?” Isabel tried, stuttering when he continued to eye her in the same baleful manner. “We won! We saved the universe – let’s celebrate!”
Her grin faded when Max just shook his head. “How could you?” he asked, voice hoarse.
Isabel and Michael looked at each other in confusion.
“Do what?” Michael asked in turn. His eyes turned briefly to Maria, but they’d grown apart a long time ago and he wasn’t surprised to meet only coldness.
“We know,” Kyle said bleakly, unable to look away from the woman he’d once adored beyond reason. “We know what happened … what you did …”
Maria stepped forward to continue when it was clear that he would not. “We couldn’t do anything before, because we needed you to win, but I say it’s about time we settled this.”
“Settle what?” Isabel wanted to know.
Max lifted up the red leather book he’d carried with him for so long, and made sure they saw it clearly. Isabel still looked confused, but Michael’s brow flattened in his ‘oh shit’ way.
“Why do you have Liz’s journal, Maxwell?”
“Evidence,” Max replied. “A reminder.”
“Like we’d forget,” Ava muttered, edging closer.
Isabel was beginning to look irritated. “Evidence? Of what?”
“Her journal,” Maria said softly. “She figured out what you were doing to her and she wrote it down.”
“Brain tumor!” Max burst out. “How could you give her a fucking brain tumor? After everything she did for us –“
The six of them stood in a circle for a minute, but it wasn’t a real circle. It was more like two arcs, and then like two opposing lines.
Suddenly Isabel fell to her knees, holding her head in her hands. “Ow! What is that?” Michael bent to help her up but just as quickly fell next to her, moaning and breathing hard.
“Oh, that’s right,” Maria said mockingly. “You don’t get sick. Probably never had a headache in your life. Gee, I wonder how you’ll stand the pain. Can you imagine, little human Lizzie lived with that pain for months before she died. It’ll be interesting to see how you measure up.”
And the four who were still standing turned and walked away.
Almost unnoticed, the chill in the air lifted, so all could feel the full strength of the midday sun.
“It’s gotten pretty hot,” Ava said thoughtfully.
“Don’t worry,” Max said, face white despite the heat. He was resolute, but it still hurt. All of it. “They won’t die from exposure.”
Kyle grinned, but it was a nasty, tired grin. “What are you talking about? They already have.”
Maria let out a bark of harsh laughter despite the tears that ran down her face. “You’ve got a point, bro.” Her pain was plain to hear, but also her determination. For as much and as long as she’d loved Michael, she’d loved Liz first.
“Come on,” Ava said, not unkindly. She knew her friends were hurting. “Let’s go home.”
They walked the rest of the way in silence.
“What name are we registered under again?” Ava asked as the roadside motel came into sight. They’d reserved several rooms in anticipation of their return. “Max? You picked this one, right?”
He nodded, and for a moment his face held a strange, pensive expression.
“Cole.”
The End
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