A Thousand Flooding Memories
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Roswell or any of its characters in any way, so don’t sue. I only own the characters that I create.
Song Excerpt: Staind, "How About You"
Rating: R, for sexual and adult themes.
Word Count: 2459
Summary: Post – ARCC. This is what should have happened during the second half of the 2nd season. There will be a few twists and turns here and there. All CC, mainly A/I.
‘The first day back is always slowest while the rest of the week flies by in a
millisecond,’ Isabel thinks to herself, unhurriedly making her way to her sixth
hour. Once class has begun, she zones out, only tapping into key words of the
teacher’s lecture, letting time tick away hoping it will make the hour go by
faster.
She meets Max and Michael out by the Jeep, placing her purse and backpack in
the back and climbing in. She notices Michael glaring at her from the front seat,
almost as if he knows something is wrong, but she responds with one of her ice
princess stares and relaxes as Max pulls out of the school parking lot. The
school gets smaller as they drive farther away from it.
‘He knows something’s wrong, but I cannot show weakness. I can’t let him
know how much I am missing Alex.’
Liz sloshes her feet along the linoleum floor, serving customers with a plastered
smile across her petite face and not letting on anything. Everything has been
hell. She hates this tiny rift in her life that’s slowly turning into a big gaping hole,
and all because of Max. Well, her feelings for him at least. She can’t help but to
contemplate how life would have been if Max hadn’t saved her that fateful
day…but that’s not a happy thought. She doesn’t enjoy the pessimism in
that.
She looks over to her best friend, Maria, and frowns at the dull look in her
friend’s usually bright green eyes, knowing that she and Michael are having
relationship problems once again. She wishes she could help, but first she
needs to get her life to where it used to be before everything went to hell. Who
knows how long that could take though?
Liz shakes her head angrily, ‘Boy, does that sound selfish. You know what,
screw my life. Right now, Maria needs me. We can help each other through this
whole fiasco.’ When done serving customers, Liz jogs to the back, says hi to
Jose on the way and changes into her street clothes, feeling a lot comfier
now.
Noticing Maria stare through the diamond-shaped window in the door, she gives
her a smile, her cheek muscles tingling and flooding with encouragement
towards her relationship-suffering girl friend. Maria smiles with the same
enthusiasm as she had previously and goes back to servicing hungry
people.
‘Yep, it’s definitely time for a girls’ night.’ Liz runs up the stairs, two at a time,
wanting to rid herself of any homework, and to take a long hot bath for the rest
of the night.
Max brushes his teeth and spits, rinses, and looks into the mirror and smirks,
making sure he got every piece of salad out of his teeth from dinner earlier that
night.
Flipping the pages of his American History book, not really in the mood to read
about the Civil War, he slams it shut and throws it onto the floor. Turning over
to lie on his back, he runs a hand through his messy hair and lets out a
frustrated sigh.
“What’s wrong?” Isabel stands in the doorway of his bedroom, shuffling her
feet. She’s noticed his behavior for a while now and knows that he misses Liz.
Plus, he’s worried about how quiet it has been and the lack of alien activity in
the past few months. To her though, it’s like a holiday from the past year and a
half of running, murder, and hiding.
Max looks up from where he’s at to see an upside down Isabel and turns back
over onto his stomach. “Nothing; I just don’t want to read this stupid history
assignment for Archibald’s class.” He half-lies, but notices her skeptical look,
“Fine. I’m worried.” His face-plants into his pillow and stares back up at her.
“But, it looks like I’m not the only one.”
“What do you mean?” Her shocked look tells him his answer and he can’t help
but to shake his head pathetically at her endeavor to hide her worry.
Max sits up and points to the corner of his bed for her to sit. “You can’t keep
that wall up forever, you know,” he warns her. “It’s gonna get you into a lot of
trouble one of these days.”
They stare at each other for some time, Isabel’s cold brown eyes staring into his
worried ones until she leaves in a huff, realizing that he said the wrong thing
when he hears her door slam, but knows that he’s right.
Isabel throws herself onto her bed, grabbing her leopard-print pillow and
hugging it tightly to her chest, not wanting to let Max’s words penetrate her like
that. Almost as if the pillow is a shield to keep all the pain from her heart; she
can still feel her resolve beginning to break.
The silent tears roll down her cheeks and she buries her head into her pillow,
thinking desperately of Alex, but not wanting to give way to a total breakdown.
She shuts down her mind and stares vegetable-like into space. Her last thought
being, ‘Why do I keep doing this to myself?’
Michael eats a late-night TV dinner after closing the Crashdown and watches
highlights from tonight’s football game, which he missed. He finishes chewing
the nasty enchilada dinner and decides maybe it’s time to do some homework,
like reading for APUSH He may not be an A-student in math or science but he’s
absolutely fascinated by history.
As he reads about tactics of the North during the Civil War, he thinks about how
maybe on Antar he was that general that was coming up with tactics for his
army. How he may have been the praise of an entire nation, being admired and
pampered by his people. Eventually, Michael falls asleep, but not fantasizing
about being the jewel of his race’s eye, but about a short, blonde, green-eyed
young woman.
Tess lies awake in her bed and checks her clock to see that it’s 12:37 AM, and
rubs her eyes with the heels of her hands. Angry that her mind won’t let her
sleep, she lazily gets up to get a glass of water from the kitchen.
As she walks past the living room, she looks over and notices Kyle sleeping, his
blanket half falling off and his arm slung over the side of the couch. She smiles
at the sight and continues to the kitchen.
She takes a few sips of water, the coldness hitting the dry spot in her throat
just right, and closes her eyes then reopens them slowly. Placing the glass on
the counter to wash in the morning, she heads back to her room, but not before
taking another glance at the wildly sleeping Kyle.
‘You know, maybe it’s about time I forget about Destiny and succumb to these,
er, human feelings.’
Isabel sleeps peacefully in the security of her blankets, holding a stuffed animal
from childhood, but is soon rudely awakened by a blinding light and someone
shaking her.
“Honey, wake up. It’s seven o’clock and you need to get up to go to school,” her
mother coos in her ear, pulling the covers off of her and gently rocking her
daughter’s shoulder.
“No, I don’t want to go,” Isabel states into her pillow, making her voice muffled.
Grumpily, she gets up, squints her eyes at the ceiling light blinding her and
throws her legs over the right side of the bed.
“Well, at least you’re up. Now hurry up, breakfast is ready and yours is getting
cold. Max is already at the table and eating. He says he wants to be out of here
by 7:45, so be quick.” Diane gives Isabel a smile and walks out of the room, but
not before taking a second glance and noticing the dark crevices under her
daughter’s eyes. “Honey, did you forget to wash off your make-up before you
went to bed last night or did you not get much sleep? You look like a
raccoon.”
Isabel’s eyes widen in horror and she flies in front of her mirror and groans, “Oh
no!” She definitely forgot to take off her make-up the night before. ‘It’s only the
second day of school and Alex has only been gone for four days, what is wrong
with me?’
Diane leaves the room and heads back to the kitchen where her two boys are
eating, leaving her daughter to get through the dilemma herself. Not really
wanting to know the reasons behind why she could forget to do such a thing
before bed, knowing that she’ll look like a zombie in the morning.
Max and his father sit at the table, the lingering silence and aroma of coffee
roaming about the room. His father reads the Roswell Daily Record, intently
looking at stocks and business reports of the day while sipping his coffee. Phillip
gazes over his paper to see his son staring blankly at his cereal, swirling the
spoon and making the milk ripple.
“Is there anything wrong, Max?” his father asks concerned, placing the paper
flat on the table and staring Max directly in the eye. ‘I wish he would talk to me.
I feel as if I don’t exist in his life anymore.’ He takes a deep breath, staring
downward then looking back up to see Max still unresponsive.
Still engrossed by the fascination of his cereal he responds, “Nothing. Just tired,
is all. I was up late studying American History.” He can feel his dad’s worried
glare burning him as he semi-lies, not really wanting to tell the full reason as to
why he’s being like this.
Diane stops mid-step, glancing from the entrance in the hallway to see her
husband trying to conjure up a conversation with Max. ‘Maybe I should go help
Isabel with her make-up crisis so that Max and Phillip can have a little father-son
bonding time.’ She quietly creeps back down the hallway to her daughter’s
room.
Phillip knows that that could be true but feels that there’s more to his son’s
silence than being tired and having studied late. He decides just to be
straight-forward with him. “Max, does this studying late have anything to do
with your Liz quandary by any chance?”
Max stops twirling his spoon in his fingers and looks up, deciding maybe it’s
about time to ask his dad for some advice. “Dad, what would you do, say, if
there was this girl that you loved and you know that she loved you back but
goes behind your back and does something with an ex that you know was
committed in spite of you, but you can’t figure the rationale behind it?” Max
takes a deep breath having said that in one.
Phillip stares at him momentarily, contemplating a way to put what he wants to
say in words that Max will understand, “Well, first off, let me just state that I’m
not as insightful as your mother but I’ll try my best.” Max nods. “I’m thinking
that she used that so called ‘doing something with the ex’ as a way to get you
to pull away. Maybe you were not giving her enough space or there’s something
behind it but she’s not ready to reveal it yet. I don’t know the inner workings of
the female mind, but I do know that in time, she will talk.”
“But it’s been two months! How much more time can she take,” Max
exasperates.
“Unfortunately, it can take years.” Phillip consoles his son and changes the
subject to sports, talking about who they think will make it to Super Bowl XXXV
this year.
Max smiles at his dad as he animatedly speaks about how it’s going to be the
Ravens versus the Giants, even if Max thinks differently, but is happy that he
and his dad had this little chat.
3:30 PM Stockholm, Sweden
Alex walks through the interior of the Storkyrkan, a royal cathedral in the old
town, Galma Stan, staring at the many gothic elements of the breath-taking
church. He’s lucky that his first day of tours is just going through this cathedral
and going to the town center, Stortorget. He takes a few photographs at
different angles of the stained-glass windows and listens to the father of the
family, which he’s staying with. Fortunately, this isn’t an actual place that has
tours set up, so he doesn’t have to listen to some guy talk in Swedish while he
struggles to translate it himself, even if he does have a family that speaks both
languages to translate it for him and after having a full day of school with it
constantly spoken.
As he listens to Mr. Olson and leisurely strolls down the entrance hall of the
church, he wonders what the others are doing right now. If he’s calculated it
right, the bell should be ringing soon. Just a half hour ago, he finished getting
through his second day of school, which wasn’t half bad; met some new people
and some hot Swedish girls too.
He mentally slaps himself for bringing up the female species, making him
automatically think of Isabel.
‘The reason I came here was to get away from the pain and alien crap, but I
seem to be already thinking about the unpleasantness.’ He shakes his head
and takes a deep breath, ‘be cool, Alex. You came here for change and cultural
outlook, and that is what you’re going to get out of this! Isabel made the
mistake, not you.’
“Alec, are you coming?” Mr. Olson’s accent heavy, pronouncing the ‘x’ in Alex’s
name as a ‘c’, which Alex hates but will get used to. The burly man waves Alex
over to where the rest of the family has already gathered.
“Sorry.” He runs over to catch up with the rest of the Olson’s, his camera
swinging from around his neck.
12:25 PM West Roswell High Quad
Maria sits propped against a big tree outside at Lunch, her mind preoccupied
and pen-in-hand, on the breakthrough of scribbling down the lyrics of a new
song. She looks around only to notice Liz and Kyle approaching and decides she
can boggle her mind some later for those oh-so-perfect lyrics. Folding the paper
and placing it in one of the compartments of her messenger bag, she smiles and
greets them.
“Hey Maria,” Liz states, sitting down next to her friend and taking out her
Chemistry book so she can do tonight’s homework now since she’s closing
tonight.
“How can you do that now after we have just come out of that class?” Kyle
looks incredulously at her and shakes his head.