Title: Kindness of a Stranger
Author: Kerry
Email: [email protected]
Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue. I don't have anything
you want anyway.
Rating: PG
Category: Max and Liz - Alternative Universe
Summary: Life sometimes takes an unexpected turn -
sometimes from the most unlikely of sources.
Keywords: Max and Liz (Sorry, not sure what to put
here)
Feedback: Yeah! I would love it! Please don't flame
though, I'm fragile.
Comments: I was listening to my Savage Garden CD, when
this fic popped into my head.
Author's Note: The lyrics are "Two Beds and a Coffee
Machine" by Savage Garden - the boys who are still
proud to call Australia home.
Two Beds and a Coffee Machine
By Savage Garden
And she takes another step
Slowly she opens the door
Check that he is sleeping
Pick up all the broken glass
And furniture on the floor
Been up half the night screaming
Now it's time to get away
Pack up the kids in the car
Another bruise to try and hide
Another alibi to write
Another ditch in the road
You keep moving
Another stop sign
You keep moving on
And the years go by so fast
Wonder how I ever made it through
And there are children to think of
Baby's asleep in the back seat
Wonder how they'll ever make it through this living
nightmare
But the mind is an amazing thing
Full of candy dreams and new toys and another cheap
hotel
Two beds and a coffee machine
But there are groceries to buy
And she knows she'll have to go home
Another ditch in the road
You keep moving
Another stop sign
You keep moving on
And the years go by so fast
Wonder how I ever made it through
Another bruise to try and hide
Another alibi to write
Another lonely highway in the black of the night
But there's hope in the darkness
You know you're going to make it
Another ditch in the road
You keep moving
Another stop sign
You keep moving on
And the years go by so fast
Silent fortress built to last
Wonder how I ever made it through
A roadside caf�, a haven for wanderers..the last place
of rest before she went on, hitch hiking her way into
a new life, a better life.
She sat at the booth alone, a picture of misery and
loneliness. Huddled around a steaming cup of coffee,
she guarded it as jealously as one would with a most
treasured possession.
In a way, it was.
It signalled the last of her money gone and the time
for her old life to end, and her new life to truly
begin. She had gotten away.with a strength that
surprised her, she walked away from him without
looking back, with no regrets.
She should have done it sooner, but she had been
afraid.too afraid to stay, too afraid to leave.
But now, she was lost and in a way, just as scared as
she was before. She had no money, no friends, no
ride.but she was free. That was what counted.
She was so hungry.
"Top up, hon?" a kindly waitress asked, looking her
over with all too knowing eyes. The waitress had seen
her type before. A runaway, an escapee from a life so
brutal she had chosen to flee to nothing.
"Yes, please," the traveller relaxed her tigress
stance, and allowed more coffee to be poured into her
cup.
A stomach growled loudly. A sympathetic smile creased
the waitress' lips.
"Can I get you something to eat?"
The slight young woman shook her head softly,
unknowingly revealing something she had sought to
hide..a scar that ran down one side of her face, faint
but still noticeable.
"I have no money," she replied quietly, almost
whispering as though in fear someone would overhear
her confession of strapped finances.
The waitress opened her mouth but before she could say
anything, a husky voice beside her said, "I'll pay for
dinner, if she would allow me to join her."
The waitress smiled, noticing how the handsome young
man's eyes lingered on the dark head bent downwards.
Her eyes flashed quickly upwards, lingering over warm,
expressive eyes full of friendliness and natural charm
and a sweet smile that seemed to know its power of
being instantly trusted.
"Oh, no," she protested, also seeing an underlying
sympathetic glint in both the waitress and man's eyes
and hating the fact she had put it there.
It was too late. Her rescuer was sliding smoothly into
the booth across from her, not too close yet close
enough for her to tense with undisguised wariness.
"What are you wanting?" he asked softly, gesturing to
the waitress. She shook her head slightly, looking up
and meeting his eyes briefly. "You don't have to do
this, you know," she murmured, yet looked out of the
corners of her eyes at the waitress, order pad in
hand, longingly.
"I want to," he replied.
She smiled slowly, tentatively as though unused to
such a simple motion. Her ability to smile had felt
lost over these past years, with tears and sadness
taking its place. It felt good to smile, despite the
fact that it was only fleeting.
Holding her head careful so that her disfigurement
remained hidden by her dark hair, she turned to the
waitress and asked for anything she wanted to bring.
It didn't matter to her, one way or another. It was
food.that's all she cared about.
He smiled gently at her and, eyes never leaving the
figure across from him, asked for coffee.
The waitress withdrew, feeling as though the air was
static with awareness.and that life had just changed
for two wandering souls.
They sat in comfortable silence for a couple of
minutes, he blatantly staring, she casting shy, wary
glances.
"My name is Max Evans," he said abruptly, wanting the
slightly fearful look on her face to disappear. She
looked far too innocent to feel such an emotion.
She jolted slightly, unprepared for the reality in his
voice when things seemed so surreal.
"I'm Liz," she softly replied.
"Just Liz?" he asked, a smile teasing his lips.
"Just Liz," she agreed, gracing him with a soft smile
in return.
She accepted him, accepted his kindness, his
friendliness. As impossible as it sounded, with all
life's previous lessons drilled into her brain, her
actions.with him, with Max, she felt as though she was
truly.free.
She didn't know how to explain it, and she didn't know
where this feeling originated from but for some
reason, she trusted in it, trusted in him.it was
something instantaneous.and not questioned.
She had never felt like this before.not even with him,
the one she left, the one she had loved..or thought
she did.
A hand waved in front of her face, breaking her from
her morbid thoughts and causing her to flinch back
wildly. "Not again!" she thought, bracing herself.
The hand stopped mid-motion, its owner shocked. He
wasn't dumb, he knew what a movement like that meant.
"Hey," he said softly. "I'm sorry..I didn't." he broke
off and ran his hand through his hair, clearly
frustrated with himself. "Should I go?"
"No!" she said, grabbing his hand and clinging
desperately to it, she didn't want to lose the first
person who made her feel as though she was something
worthwhile.for the first time in years.
Unwillingly, a tear leaked from the corner of her eye,
followed quickly be another. Years of surpressed
emotions.fear, anger, frustration, desperation.it was
though a dam was about to burst.
All because of freedom.and the kindness of a stranger.
She looked into his eyes and saw understanding,
compassion. He turned his hand in hers, linking his
fingers with her trembling ones.
"I'm here to listen," his eyes seemed to say.
And listened he did.
Without really knowing why, she told him. Through the
tale of the darkest period in her life, her years with
her boyfriends, his anger - ever present and always
taken out on her. Liz's bewilderment and anguish, she
had only wanted to love him, to have someone to call
hers.
He listened as she told him of her breaking point,
when enough was enough.
"He got his revenge," she said quietly. "I will always
remember him, he made sure of it.every time I look in
the mirror."
She turned her face and showed him her shame, the
proof that nothing she ever did was good enough.
Liz stared at the table top, not wanting to see
revulsion in the face of he who was her confident,
whom she could trust without a doubt.and without
really knowing why.
This stranger whom she somehow knew without never
meeting him before in this lifetime.
Fingers brushed gently over her scar and she turned
disbelieving eyes on him.Max was looking at her with
such.could she actually believe it? Was that love?
Did she even know what love was?
"This isn't who you are, this mark.this despair," he
told her softly. "You have buried yourself under so
much pain that the real Liz isn't shining through, the
Liz I can sense beneath all this."
"You don't really know me," she said, leaning into the
hand cupping her cheek almost instinctively.
He shook his head. "Yes, I do. In a way, you are me. A
part of you is scared to change, unsure in your newly
found freedom. At some stage or another, we all feel
like that. Believe in yourself, Liz..believe in what
you can do."
His words sunk in slowly. It was as though a weigh had
been lifted from her shoulders, like a cross she had
unknowingly put on herself. It was just what she
wanted to hear, at this pivotal moment. It was just
the support she needed.
She was free..it was her life, her good days, her bad
days, her future. She could do anything she wanted to.
She was Liz Parker.and she believed in herself.
She smiled fully for the first time in years, a smile
of eagerness and innocence.
Despite it all, she had overcome.
And she had seen herself as she truly was.
As the waitress set her food down in front of her, she
reached for his hand and felt her heart open.
All because of the kindness of a stranger.
The End.