Prologue

Title: Where the Heart Is


Author: Jinni (druscilla@cox.net)


Rated: Pg13, maybe R later


Pairing: Zan/Liz


Disclaimer: If I owned this, there would not have been so much angst on the show. C’mon, I’m a sucker for happiness. What does that mean? Well, to start, I don’t own Roswell. Please look to Melinda Metz, Jason Katims, et al for that.


Distribution: The normal places, if they want a Roswell-style non-crossover for some reason.


Author’s Notes: This breaks into an AU starting with Departure, as will become quite obvious very, very soon.


Summary: After Max leaves, Liz must try to put her life back together again.


~*~Prologue~*~


He’s gone.


The thought echoes through her mind, cascading over and over again, building steam as it repeats time and again. It whirls in her subconscious like a tornado, gaining ground over everything else, making it impossible to think about anything. . .outside of that painful, howling wind of destruction in her brain.


He’s gone, her brain screams at her through the whirlwind of agony that is her thoughts.


Max. . .is gone.


Liz Parker shoved her hand over her mouth to stifle the loud, painful sobs that were tearing through her chest; staring up at the sky. The stars looked dimmer tonight, the endless blue that much darker. Something was missing now. That fire she’d once felt for the heavens above was gone, squelched with the harsh waters of abandonment. Somewhere, out there, Max was on his way to his home planet, if not there already. He was going back to save his child. To make a life with Tess and the little life they had created together.


And she never got a chance to tell him about Tess. He never knew that the blonde, conniving bimbo was nothing but a lying murderer.


God, she killed Alex!


Liz leaned against the wall outside of her window, knowing she should go back inside, just go to bed and try to forget about everything that had happened that day. . .night. . .whatever. It was all irrelevant, the time portion of it all. Who really cared if it was morning or night when the one thing in the world they loved had left. But in her bed would, somehow, come sleep. And she didn’t want to dream tonight. Dreams would only turn to nightmares. Nightmares that would send her screaming into the night, she was sure.


She felt. . .empty, broken, torn apart. The little group of friends and support she had built up over the last two years had been destroyed in an instant.


Max was gone. . .Isabel was gone. . .Tess was gone, though she could care less about that one.


Michael. . .was with Maria. She felt a sad smile tug at the corner of her lips. Well, at least there was that. The one relationship she had always questioned surviving had managed to overcome something she would have assumed was insurmountable. Michael chose Maria over going home.


Unbelievable.


Michael chose Maria.


And Max chose Tess.


There they were again, the tears. Hot and stinging, pouring down her cheeks. Making her choke on the pain that she felt welling up from within her soul. She slid slowly down the wall, the rough bricks scraping her back as her shirt slowly rode up to expose the delicate flesh. She didn’t care. Didn’t even really feel it outside of acknowledging that it was happening.


She bit her lower lip to keep the cries that accompanied her tears from spilling out into the quiet night. The last thing she needed was her parents to come check on her, to see her sobbing like her entire world had ended. Because she couldn’t tell them that it had.


“Liz?”


The brown haired girl looked up, blinking at her balcony’s ladder through teary eyes. She hadn’t even heard anyone on the rungs, coming up. The FBI could come and cart her away right now, she realized, and she probably wouldn’t even notice.


Or care.


“Maria?”


“Michael brought me over. . .” the blonde murmured, taking the few short steps from the ladder to where her friend sat, desolate, on the ground; to take Liz into her arms. “I thought you could use –“


Liz didn’t hear the rest of her words as her sobs broke free at last, tearing away the stillness of the night. She felt Maria’s arms around her, holding her tight, and thanked God for giving her that small, minute comfort tonight. She still had Maria. And Michael. And Kyle.


But that was all she had left, and the thought struck her like a knife to the heart, twisting and wrenching its way into her chest with every painful breath that she tried to take.


“It’s gonna be okay, chica,” Maria sighed, and Liz could hear the pain her friend was feeling. Her voice was laced with it. She’d lost something tonight, too; even if it wasn’t Michael. Without another thought Liz put her arms up, bringing her best friend into her arms.


They sat there, holding each other and crying tears that needed to be shed, until the first rays of the sun began to glisten in the horizon.


“We’re going to be okay,” Liz whispered, looking into Maria’s face and knowing that it was the truth.


It had to be.


~*~End Part~*~