Chapter One

~*~Part One~*~

The sun was already bright in the sky by the time Liz Parker walked with as much confidence as she could muster up the sidewalk to the Valenti’s house. She paused just outside the door, hand poised as if to knock, her stomach doing flip-flops. This had all seemed like such a good plan last night. A little crazy, sure – what about her life hadn’t been crazy since that day in the Crashdown when Max healed her? But in the warmth of morning it was. . .just plain crazy, and not in a good way. Not in a way that made jump with excitement.

Nothing about this could make her jump with excitement. It was all too painful.

Still, it was the only plan she had been able to come up with so far that even sounded like it –might- work. Pushing Max to follow his destiny had proved fruitless; he only persisted with telling her that she was the only one for him, that they would be together forever.

Words that she would have loved to hear, had the situation been different.

She knocked, letting her arm fall back down to her side as she waited for someone to answer.

“Hi,” the words fell off of Tess’ lips as they turned down into a frown. She crossed her arms over her chest, eyes narrowing into a glare. “Oh, its you.”

”Yeah, its me,” Liz smiled into her face, trying to at least –appear- unaffected by the general disdain that the blonde had for her.

“Hold on, I’ll get Kyle.”

“I’m not here to talk to Kyle.”

Tess stopped in mid-turn, raising her eyebrows in confusion. Her mouth opened and closed once before sound finally emerged. “The sheriff already left for work.”

Liz sighed, rolling her eyes. “I’m here to talk to you, Tess.”

“Riiight,” Tess nodded as if in sudden understanding. “If this is that whole ‘stay away from my boyfriend’ speech, then you can just forget it. He’s mine and one day very soon he’s going to wake up and realize that.”

Maybe sooner than you think, Liz sighed silently.

“Tess, who’s at the door?” Kyle’s sleep-filled voice called from within the house.

“Liz,” the blonde haired alien snapped.

“Look – it’s not about me telling you to stay away from Max, I promise,” Liz rushed, frustrated by the open hostility she was receiving. What had she really expected, though? To be welcomed with open arms by a girl that she, admittedly, had disliked herself from the moment she first laid eyes on her? That wasn’t the way the world worked, and she knew it.

But she was never going to get anywhere if Tess wouldn’t let her explain what was on her mind. All the planning in the world was pointless if she didn’t get to implement it.

“It’s just the opposite, really,” she murmured, meeting Tess’ eyes.

“What’s the opposite?” Kyle appeared behind Tess, hair still rumpled from the sleep he’d apparently just pulled himself from.

“Nothing,” Liz forced herself to smile at her one time boyfriend. “Nothing at all. Tess, walk with me?”

“O-kay,” Kyle muttered. “I’m still asleep. Or this is the twilight zone. . . Because Liz is not asking Tess to go walking with her. . .” He paused, blinking at the two girls. “I’m going back to sleep now – wake me when things aren’t so weird anymore.”

Liz put her hand to her mouth, watching him go with wide, amused eyes. She met Tess’ gaze and found herself giggling behind her hand as the blonde cracked, soft laughter filling the air.

“C’mon, then,” Tess managed. “Let’s let Buddha Boy get his beauty sleep.”

The morning was warm, but not overly so. The day itself would turn out to be a scorcher if the weather report that morning was to be believed. Just another lovely summer day in Roswell, Liz told herself. And she had it all to herself. School was out and she wasn’t scheduled to work. It was the perfect opportunity to set her plan into motion, provided she could get Tess to agree to it, first.

“So, okay,” Liz sighed, taking a deep breath as they neared the end of the Valenti’s block. “This is going to be a hard thing to say, so if you’ll just let me get it out, I’d appreciate it.”

Tess’ eyes narrowed, but the blonde nodded anyway. Liz could see her natural suspicion lurking, as if just waiting to be made justified by any little word or gesture.

“Don’t get me wrong – I love Max. I have loved him for. . .well, it seems like forever,” she sighed, turning away from the other girl. “But destiny is a big thing. You know that. I know that. Max just. . .doesn’t. He wants to live in this safe little world and not prepare for what could be around the corner. You guys have enemies. Enemies that will be coming for you. I don’t want to see him get hurt because I couldn’t be strong enough to do what had to be done. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

She turned back to Tess to see that the other girl looked just as, if not more so, confused than she had to begin with.

“Um, not really,” the blonde shook her head. “You don’t want Max anymore?”

“No,” Liz shook her head. “Well, yes, I do. I don’t think its possible to stop loving someone like that. But, no. The answer is no. I don’t want Max anymore. I want him to do his destiny thing. . .with you.”

The words burned like acid over her lips, eating their way down into her heart with lightning quick speed and efficiency. She felt the pain as if it were physical, her heart skipping one terrible beat as the full weight of what she was saying and doing bore down upon her. She took a deep, shuddering breath, hoping that Tess wouldn’t hear it, and waited for the other girl to answer.

“You’re –“ Tess paused, literally stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to stare at Liz. “You’re just giving him up. Like that.” She snapped her fingers.

“No, not like that,” Liz imitated her gesture of a moment before, her snap cracking through the air. “I love him, Tess. So much that it hurts. But he has this big destiny – with you. And I can’t come between him and that. If it means he’ll live to see ten, twenty, a hundred years from now – then this is the right thing. You’re meant for him – I was just a fling on the side while he got his act together.”

As the words left her lips, she felt something twinge inside of her. Like a startled negation to what she’d just said. As if the words couldn’t have been further from the truth. She pushed it away, shrugging it off.

Tess’ brow crinkled as she drew her eyebrows together in confusion. “I. . .don’t know what to say.”

Liz could imagine. Here she was, handing her everything she wanted on a silver platter. No apparent strings attached. Just. . .take him. It was all she could do to keep from crying as she played through with the plan she’d envisioned.

“So. . . What we need to do is make Max see that he’s meant for you,” she breathed before the pain she was feeling could make the words impossible. “And I think I’ve found a way to make it work. It won’t be quick – but I think we both know that when it comes to Max, quick and easy isn’t an option.”

“Right,” Tess shook her head once to clear it, before nodding. She looked up at Liz. “So – how do we do this?”

“Well – that’s the hard part,” Liz gave her a tremulous smile. “For me, and you – because its no secret that you don’t really like me and I don’t really like you – but for this to work we need to be friends.”

“Friends?”

“Yeah,” she found herself grinned at the look of shock on Tess’ face. “I know, hard to swallow. But it won’t be that bad.”

Tess’ frown was back in place. “And how does me being your friend play a part in this?”

“Because – the more time I spend with you, the more time Max is –forced- to spend with you. And the more time he spends with you, the better he gets to know you, the more likely he is to start pulling on those memories of when you and he were . . .together,” she last word came out as a whisper, her heart clenching painfully in her chest. “And then, I’ll slowly start pulling myself out of the equation – until its just him and you. This is his destiny, so instinct has to take over at some point, right?”

Tess nodded emphatically. “You’re right. It . . makes sense.”

“Good,” Liz sighed. “So – we can start today, if you want? Shopping or something?”

Half of her wanted Tess to turn her down, but another part of her knew that the blonde doing so would be in direct contrast to everything they’d agreed to work upon together. It would only be putting off what she had come to view as the sad, inevitable state of things.

And what would one more day really grant her in the scheme of things? Time in Max’s arms? Another twenty four hours during which she could – what? Dream of a future that would never, ever be?

“Sure,” Tess nodded, ending the internal debate that had been raging in Liz’s mind.

So it was that it begins, Liz thought with a sad mental smile. The beginning of the rest of her life. Her Max-free life.

Or, the end, as she liked to call it.