WORK IN PROGRESS
        Rating – PG-13
        Category – M/L, M/M, A/I
        Disclaimer – Not mine
        Summary – Sequel. Twenty years ago the aliens left Earth. As they return, they are confronted with everything that has happened and the realities of their lives.
        Distribution – Please take, but if you do, take the whole series.
        Dedication – This is for Linda and Patti who both helped me personally through some of the toughest things in my life and for constantly being sources of encouragement for my writing. Thank you for being such wonderful friends. I have no idea what I would have done without you guys. Hugs.
        Author’s Notes – This is the last in the series and this time I mean it. The previous stories are “Believing the Lie,” “Trying to Lie,” “Needing the Lie,” “Shades of Truth,” “Avoiding the Truth,” and “Facing the Truth.” They should be read first if you want to understand this. Check them out at the Roswell stories index.
        Please let me know what you think. Feedback is my drug of choice.
 

    He knows they’re coming. He’s not sure how he knows it, but he does.
    It’s almost instinctive, an intergalactic homing beacon or something. He wonders, idolly, if it’s genetic.
    Probably.
    He hasn’t told his mother that they’re returning. He doesn’t know when, exactly, they’ll arrive and he doesn’t want her to be all anxious and nervous until they do.
    He told her that he was going on vacation to California for Spring Break instead of the truth that he was waiting out in the desert, alone, for his family to return.
    She’d believed him, told him to have a good time.
    Somehow, he’d know that was what would happen.
    She’s always believed him about everything.
    She’s always believed whatever she most wanted to be true.
    He sits alone in the dark in the midst of an expansive nothingness in the New Mexican desert. There is no glow of far-off city lights on the horizon. There is no sound of a car rattling down an old highway.
    There is nothing.
    Nothing to keep him company but the desert and the brilliance of the nighttime sky and his hopes, dreams and fears.
    He has always wondered silently about his father. His mother told him stories over the years of a perfect man with an unwaveringly caring, loving heart and a wisdom beyond his years.
    Her pictures were unrealistic at best, he knew, and he’d wanted to know about his father as a person, not as a god-like superhuman. That was never something his mother could provide him with.
    So he sits, by himself, with thoughts of a man he’s never known and waits in the middle of nothing for everything to happen.
    When the moment does come, it isn’t at all what he expected. There are no loud, booming noises, no flashing colored lights. The ship doesn’t clumsily plow into the earth like they always do in sci-fi movies.
    A small star in the constellation Aries slowly grows larger as he watches it.
    It’s a slow process, the “star’s” travel to Earth. It isn’t visibly a ship until hours after he’s spied it. But it does come.
    It hovers in the atmosphere for a moment before slowly, careful lowering itself to the solid ground of Earth. It’s like an intricate and beautiful dance, the ship’s decent, as it adjusts to land softly on the rocky terrain.
    It doesn’t set down right in front of him. In fact, he wonders if it even knows he’s there. He watches the craft with his flashlight trained toward it as an opening forms and human-like beings begin to emerge from the ship.
    They look to him with concern and uncertainty before starting to approach him.
    He’s so excited and nervous that he can feel his hands start to shake and his breath quickens to an incredible pace. Before he realizes he’s moved, he’s walked and met them halfway.
    He knows instantly who Max is and it’s wildly evident all of the sudden exactly why his mother sometimes just stares at him with a pained, far-off look in her eyes.
    He looks a great deal like his father.
    But his father knows none of this.
    His father nervously begins asking him questions. About what he saw and what he was doing out in the middle of nowhere.
    “My name is Evan Parker,” he says suddenly, a secret smile across his face.
    The other man, who Evan can only guess is his Uncle Michael, uses his body to shield the two young women standing behind him.
    “Parker?” The man asks.
    Evan nods back.
    “Are you… do you…” Max finds himself unable to choke the words out.
    Evan smiles and raises his glowing palm for Max to see.
    “I am your son.”
    All of the fears and hopes and resentments and desires Evan has ever had for a father doubled over upon him as he watches the surprise and joy spread across his father’s face.
    “My son?” He asks, his voice breaking.
    Evan nods and finds himself pulled into a hug. It’s a moment before he realizes his father is crying. It’s another moment before he realizes he is, too.
    “Is she all right?” Max asks his son.
    There is never a question as to who he’s asking about.
    “She’s fine,” Evan reassures him. “She misses you, very much. She always has. But she’s also always known you’d come back. She’s told me that every day of my life.”
    The relief is evident upon Max’s face and Evan suddenly feels far more comfortable with the father he’s never known.
    “She doesn’t know you’re back. I didn’t tell her. I didn’t want her to be worried or anything, in case I was wrong,” Evan explains.
    Max just nods.
    “Smart idea,” he whispers.
    The other man clears his throat and begins to approach the duo.
    “I’m your Uncle Michael,” the man says, “and these are your cousins Alexia and Whitney.”
    He looks back at the two young women standing nervously a few feet away.
    “It’s wonderful to finally meet you all,” Evan says, shaking his Uncle’s hand and nodding to his cousins.
    “Where’s my Aunt?” Evan asks, immediately regretting his question as sorrow echoes on the faces of everyone around him.
    “Mom died a month ago,” his blonde cousin snaps while hugging her sister tightly.
    “I’m sorry,” Evan mumbles.
    “It’s all right. You didn’t know,” Max reassures him, keeping his arm around the younger man’s shoulder.