Rating: PG-13 (can't even get through the disclaimer without gratuitous cussin')

Disclaimer: I don't own Roswell. And screw everyone who does. Nyah!

Disclaimer Part 2: Without many wonderful writers and producers, this show would not exist and I wouldn't have this website. Thank you, Katims and co, for your brilliance. Disclaimer Part 3: Brilliance?? You're kidding, right? Disclaimer Part 4: Shut up, I'm trying to cover my ass.

Spoilers: all season two

Author's Notes: I wrote this (somehow... trust me) in response to Selkie's fifth wheeler challenge.

Rules:
-Tess/Alex
-inspired by Alex and Tess flashback scene in Departure
-turns out it was a lovers' quarrel
-Tess and Alex were working on translating the book together
-Alex's death was natural, caused by something unrecognized inside of him
-Tess freaked out and thought she had killed him
-feel free to totally change around Departure
-Tess's baby could turn out to be Alex's, writer's choice
Email Nicole Anell

The stars are watching me.

I'm disrupting the universe, ripping through their home, destroying their space. I'm going home no matter what they say.

Well, I know stars can't actually *say* anything. They don't talk, they just look. And the stars are watching me with blue eyes.

His. Sad and confused.

Why did you do it, Tess?

Well, look at that. They have something to say after all.

The baby moves and I'm tired. But if I sleep, the eyes are there. Sometimes I wake up and expect them to stay.

Or if not eyes, then maybe a smile, a hand, a kiss. A voice to answer me just once.

Alex.

I want him to go away, stop haunting me. I want him to stay and not ever leave again. I'm feeling my hybrid-ness today.

The closer I get to the stars, they become suns, and they burn.

They burn with his eyes. Not with intention or violence or accusation, which I saw enough of in my last hours on Earth. They burn with comfort and warmth and hope. And love.

But they still ask the same questions they can't understand the answers to, any more than the stars know why I'm here in space instead of on the ground obeying the laws of gravity.

Why did you do it, Tess? they ask.

Why did you lie to them?