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1.
“What you’re feeling is an…echo of what I feel for you.”
God, he’s an idiot. She’s here, in his arms, inches away from him. Her body heat seeping into his. She knows the truth and she hasn’t freaked out, she’s only tried to kiss him.
But. He can’t. It doesn’t matter how much he wants to—the one thing he’s wanted most in his life, right here in his arms. It doesn’t matter because he knows the old saying is wrong: it’s not better to have loved and lost. For her to kiss him and then change her mind in a few days would be worse than never kissing her at all. Worse than her never coming back to town. If they kiss, it has to be because she wants it. Because she means it.
So he can’t. Won’t. Doesn’t.
But she leaves him with a spark of hope. The first true sliver of warmth he’s felt in a decade. Like somebody’s lit a candle in his soul.
2.
“She had no right to do that! God, the thought that she was in my head, just doing whatever she wanted.”
Liz is yelling again. He’s kind of used to it by now. At least he isn’t the object of her wrath: Isobel is, and he’s happy to take the brunt of it so his sister doesn’t have to. She’s too fragile at the moment.
“I don’t think it was that simple, or easy,” he says, offering a hesitant defense of his sister.
“That doesn’t matter. What matters is that I had choices made for me. Taken from me!”
The truth is, he’s angry at Isobel too. He had so much stolen by what she did all those years ago, but it cannot be undone, and if all they have is each other, he has to forgive her. Sooner or later. “I know.” Softly. Remembering his own pain at Liz’s abrupt departure and the weight of the years that followed.
But Liz is not so easy to calm. “You know after we went for that drive into the desert, I’d decided that I was going to kiss you the next time I saw you?”
He did not know. He can only shake his head, his breath caught in a sharp spot behind his ribs, the revelation adding time to the penance Isobel owes him.
“And I never did see you again. Thanks to Isobel and her violation of my mind. So maybe I should kiss you now!”
The possibility hangs between them, and Liz looks as shocked for suggesting it as he does hearing her make it. But then she gets that glint in her eye—the steel that says she’s committed to something—and she takes a step forward.
“Yeah,” she murmurs, gaze locked onto his. “Maybe I’ll kiss you now.”
She steps right up to him, and he cannot back away, still fighting against the knife between his ribs. Her nose brushes against his, and he can feel her breath brush his lips.
That’s not a blade in his chest—it’s his heart, trying to escape its cage, trying to reach her.
“Liz, I can’t.”
“Won’t.”
“You’re angry.” Because she is. There’s still that thrum of tension that says she hasn’t calmed down at all.
“What difference does that make?” But she’s stopped coming any closer. That’s good. Isn’t it?
His heart doesn’t think so.
“When you calm down you’ll regret it.” He holds up a hand before she can protest. “Even if you don’t, I don’t want it to be like this. Not revenge against Isobel. Not because you thought you felt something ten years ago. Only if you feel something now.”
She takes a long pause, considering him, before she nods. “Okay. That’s fair.” And there’s something like regret in her eyes. Maybe it’s sympathy. Maybe it’s pity.
Maybe she’s just plotting how to make Isobel suffer. It’s too late for him to change his mind, because she’s already gone.
3.
The way Liz is weaving as she walks is not a good sign.
At first he panics, rushing up to her, thoughts of concussion or worse welling up. But the brilliant, dopey smile she flashes him stops the worry.
“Max!” she says, flinging her arms wide. “You found me!”
Not injured. Drunk.
He offers her an indulgent smile in return, and she continues.
“Was hoping you would. Knew you would. You always manage to find me when I want you to. I like it.”
“Glad I could be of service.” Technically he’s on patrol, and she doesn’t need to know that he often makes a loop around the Crashdown on foot at night to make sure everything’s still okay. “Why did you want me to find you?”
She shrugs, still giddy, though her arms are no longer aloft. “Just did.”
The concern rushes back. “Have you walked back from the Wild Pony? Alone?”
“M’drunk. Wasn’t going to drive.”
Right. Ever sensible Liz. And if anyone has enough reason to never drive drunk, it’s her, even if she knows the truth about Rosa now. “It’s not safe for you to do that. You could’ve called me—”
“Didn’t need to, see? Because you came anyway.”
Liz steps closer, and he recognizes the dance they’re doing by now. But she moves quicker than he expects her to, arms looped around his neck before he can get out of the way.
She has no idea what this does to him. At least the streetlights only dip momentarily, rather than blow out entirely.
“Liz—”
“I know, I know. I’m wasted, I can’t consent.” She cocks her head, casting him a sly look. “What if I said please?” She even pouts, and the lights flicker in time with the stutter of his heart.
“Still doesn’t count.” He gently disentangles them, making sure she keeps her balance now she isn’t leaning against him. “Come on, I’ll make sure you get home.”
“But you won’t tuck me in?”
He groans. “You’re lucky you’re prettier than Michael. Even he doesn’t flirt this outrageously when he’s this drunk.”
4.
Another explosion rocks the ground they’re on. It seems further away, but it’s hard to tell when the space they’re in is so dark.
Liz leans over him, her hand on his forehead, which he knows is clammy to the touch.
“I need to start carrying acetone around with me,” she mutters.
“I’m sorry,” he replies. “I didn’t have the strength to fix it.” He gestures weakly at the darkness, symptom of a power blackout he couldn’t reverse.
“It’s not your fault.” She brushes his hair back gently. “You shouldn’t have pushed yourself so hard. Michael’s the one who blew up the generator.” A desperate ploy for time that had only trapped the pair of them inside the base.
“I wish you hadn’t followed me down here.” He reaches for her free hand and she squeezes his in return.
“Who else was going to save your sorry ass?” She winces the metal sheeting above them creaks ominously. “Which I’m glad to report is going really well.”
He laughs, but the mirth doesn’t last. “I’m sorry it’s going to end this way. Maybe things would have been better if you’d never come back to Roswell—”
It hurts to even suggest it, and by the stubborn set to Liz’s mouth, she knows he doesn’t believe it, nor has she given up hope just yet. “If I hadn’t, I’d have never gotten to kiss you.”
“Still haven’t,” he points out.
“That’s easily changed.”
“Not like this.” He’s stubborn and he’s a fool, but he can’t. “Later.”
“Max, there might not be a later.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve been waiting too long for it to be like this.”
Yeah, he’s a fool. He’s spent years building this romantic dream of what it would be like to kiss her and he may never find out. Maybe he’s building it into something it could never be. But he’s all too aware of the possibility that she’ll change her mind once the danger has passed. If it passes.
"Estúpido.” She sighs. “I’m finding us a way out of here. You, stay put.”
“Liz—”
She silences with a graze of her lips across his forehead, and he’s too surprised to grab for her as she pushes herself away, to stop her from leaving their little pocket of safety and venturing out into worse.
There’s nothing for it. He shuts his eyes, lack of acetone be damned, and reaches out for any source of power he can find. Doesn’t matter if he survives this. It only matters that she does.
5.
They’re back in his memories. Sharing them through the handprint, flickers of happy times a decade gone or more. He and Liz, out in the desert, sitting in the bed of his truck after the engine died.
Not intentional. Embarrassing how little control he had over it, actually.
Only Max is aware that the perspective of the memory is all wrong. He can see himself this time, passing a bottle of soda to Liz with an openly besotted smile.
Was he always so transparent?
Then he realizes. This is how Liz saw him that day and the smile—goofy and raw—is filtered through a different perspective. She saw it as sweet. A nice smile, one she liked.
He knows this because this is her memory.
How, he doesn’t know. But he gets to watch that afternoon unfold through her eyes, and finally answers the questions which have haunted him for years. Yes, she felt the connection too. Yes, she felt the same way about him that day.
When he’d leaned in to kiss her, and the engine had roared back to life, radio blaring and ruining the moment, she may have laughed, but she’d regretted it too. She’d wanted him to kiss her.
And when he’d jerked away, clambering back into the driver’s seat to sheepishly deliver her home, she’d made a silent vow to herself.
Only it never came to pass: that was the night Rosa died, the night everything changed. She never saw him again to fulfill that vow, because his sister got there first and sent her away.
He wakes with that knowledge, to Liz kneeling over him, a bottle of acetone pressed to his lips and the bond humming between them. He still doesn’t know how. Can’t summon the effort to ask. But she knows what he saw, even if she didn’t choose to share that particular memory, and the weight of it lies between them.
This is what Isobel took from him. From them. The fact it wasn’t on purpose makes it no less bitter to bear.
Max feels weightless. Boneless. Completely at ease, every worry pushed so far away he can longer grasp at them. He’d wonder if he’d died and gone to heaven, if it wasn’t for the line of warmth pressed against him.
Or maybe that’s exactly why he should believe he’s in heaven.
It’s a mistake to open his eyes, one which is guaranteed to shatter the spell and bring all those problems crashing back down on him. But to his surprise, the illusion holds.
Liz. Beside him. In bed. The echo of her kisses on his lips.
She’s awake too, watching him through sleepy, soft eyes. “Hey.”
“You’re here,” he whispers, lifting a hand to reach out to her, then faltering.
“Where else would I be?”
He shakes his head. “I thought it was a dream.”
She arches an eyebrow at him. “You had those kind of dreams about me before?”
“Maybe.” Out loud, it sounds more sordid than it is. Naturally he’d had…urges, and fantasies, and hopes. But he’d also wanted other things, like holding her hand, and dancing together, and waking up beside her. Like this. Only he can’t find the way to articulate it all to her when he’s still unscrambling his thoughts.
Her grin is wicked. “Me too.”
His head thumps back against the pillow. “That’s not fair.”
Her answering giggle sums up the way he feels, a little burst of happiness bubbling between them.
He doesn’t know how long it will last, but he refuses to dwell on that. He’s waited too long for anything to happen between them, and while she’s here, he’s going to do whatever it takes to keep her beside him.
“C’mere,” he says, pulling her ever closer, so he can kiss her again.
After all, they have a decade of lost kisses to make up for.