Title: Ocean of Dreams
Author: Lilah
Email: [email protected]
Summary: Maria tries to find what she's missing...
Category: M & M
Disclaimer: Roswell and all associated images in my fic aren't mine.
Damn. The song is The Goo Goo Dolls 'Name'...beautiful song.
The car door creaked loudly. Maria made a mental note to oil it when
she got home. She knew it wouldn't happen. Mental notes weren't like
post-its. They didn't stick, at least not in her head.
The sand was warm beneath her feet, and she was grateful for the unusually
humid weather. This trip she indulged herself once a year inadvertantly
always ended up with her in bed running a temperature. 'This year it
might be different. Please let it be different.' She wished.
The ocean hadn't changed. Still there, still blue. Still meeting the
sky in the distance. You could rely on the ocean. It was a stable thing
in a world of change. It came in and went out, always on time, never
missing a beat. Maria liked the ocean.
And even though the moment passed me by
I still can't turn away
'Cause all the dreams you never thought you'd lose
Got tossed along the way
And letters that you never meant to send
Get lost or thrown away
This had been the very place she had spent her last day with Michael.
Three years ago, three trips back. His eyes had been so sad, so empty,
that it still made her shiver. He had looked defeated, when it was supposed
to be his moment of glory. She hated herself for that. She hated herself
for a lot of things. Maria had finished high school and never gone to
college. She worked in her mom's small store, making the alien knick
knacks that her lover had despised so. It was her last act of defiance.
But most of all she hated herself for lying to him. For letting him
go without a fight.
Liz had moved away to got to college. Maria had never resented her for
that, it was only natural for Liz to want to get away from all the memories.
The old haunts. Times when laughter was the ruler, not depression.
Alex had stayed near, moving only to the dorm of New Mexico University,
but Maria knew it hurt him to see her. Reminded him of what could have
been.
The wind was getting up, she'd probably jinxed it. What was another
few days in bed anyway? Lately there hadn't been much worth getting
up for. She worked, she ate, she slept. Her blonde hair had become
long, and bounced when she walked, alluding to happiness, youthfulness.
Everything she did was an allusion.
Her mom had passed away in the last new year. Cancer had taken it's
toll on the young vibrant woman, and thankfully took her quickly. Maria
had barely shed a tear. She felt grateful her mom hadn't suffered too
much. People said that she wasn't a good daughter, didn't do the obligatory
months of wearing black and tell-tale circles under her eyes. Little
did they know. She had become a master in the art of disguising grief.
And now we're grown up orphans
That never knew their names
We don't belong to no one
That's a shame
Michael would have rocked her to sleep on those nights when the dark
was unbearable. He would have held her tight. But now there was noone
to hold her. She'd managed to push everyone away. Sometimes she thought
she heard the door open, and imagined his musky smell. Everytime she
would race downstairs, to the empty kitchen and find noone.
But if you could hide beside me
Maybe for a while
And I won't tell no one your name
And I won't tell em' your name
He had told her he would come back for her. Michael, the dork face with
cute hair and bad clothes. Michael, the only man she had let herself
fall in love with. Michael, the father of her child.
Anya had been born six months after he left, a fiery baby with a tuft
of spiky brown hair on her head. Maria had wept when she first saw her
child, not only for Michael, but for the fear of Anya never meeting her
father. And as the months had passed, and silver handprints covered
the floor when she crawled, and then the table tops as she walked, she
had grown to look more and more like her father. Now two and a half,
she was fiercely independent, stubborn and lovable. And she still made
her mother weep at night.
And scars are souvenirs you never lose
The past is never far
Did you lose yourself somewhere out there
Did you get to be a star
And don't it make you sad to know that life
Is more than who we are
So Maria made the trip every year, on the exact day, and wished that
he'd come home. To the people that loved him, to his child. And every
year things kept moving, Anya grew and Maria clung to the memories.
And the hope.
As she made her way back to the car, the red paint glistening with the
grains of silver sand, she thought of how things would be, if he came
home. Walks in the park as a family, not only a little girl and her
mother, but a father to swing her in the air, to hold her high. The
tap in the bathroom would get fixed. Maybe she'd even remember some
of her mental notes to herself.
We grew up way too fast
And now there's nothing to believe
Reruns all become our history
A tired song keeps playing on a tired radio
And I won't tell no one your name
And I won't tell em' your name
I won't tell em' your name
Turning back to look at the ocean once more before the drive home, Maria
pushed a strand of blonde hair out of her eyes. If she squinted hard
enough, the horizon and the sea mingled, and everything became blue.
And through the haze of azure she imagined Michael, his leather jacket
still on despite the warm sun, walking towards her, his hand outreached.
Michael, coming home.
"Baby, please. For Anya." She said the words quietly, under her breath,
and then blew a kiss into the wind. "May it reach you safely and tell
you I need you." As the door squealed in protest, Maria was sure she
heard a whisper back.
"I'll be home soon. Cheesehead."