You Can Never Go Back

Author: Sunnycouger (foolofatook_@hotmail.com)

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: You all don't honestly think that I own any of this do you? Roswell and all its characters are property of Melinda Metz and Jason Katims..I just take them out to play sometimes...

Category: CC

Summary: This is a future fic when the aliens get a chance to go “home” and the story follows each of their reactions to the news and their final decision.

Authors Notes: Follow up to When It's Time To Leave Home and The War.

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Bridges Chapter 3

The sun shone brightly in the sky and cast a shadow over the man standing staring at the sky. He had never thought that he could take as much joy from the simplest of things. Looking at the clouds as they rolled on slowly and feeling the gentle breeze of summer, he realised how he had missed the little things that he had always taken for granted in his life. It wasn't until he had almost lost them indefinitely that he truly began to appreciate them all- it wasn't until he nearly lost EVERYTHING indefinitely that he began to appreciate what was truly important. He looked towards the house at the petite blonde who was jumping up and down excitedly on the phone to someone, in that second his heart began to ache and jump at once. He had nearly lost her, he knew that leaving her was the right choice to make but being severed from her as abruptly had torn his heart to shreds. The prospect of that happening again terrified him: he would never survive it. The prospect of loving someone so deeply that you couldn't imagine functioning without them scared him and his first instinct was to run and hide his head in the sand and pretend he was 16 again. He had done it before to her, but he wasn't a kid anymore. And he knew from experience, distance didn't stop him from loving her...nothing could stop him from loving her! And, he smiled to himself; nothing would stop her from loving him. She had waited for him after all and she knew that he was coming back to her. Planets couldn't separate them- neither could fear.

Maria was on the phone; her mother had called her. She felt really bad about not getting in contact about them being home.

"Mom, Mom, I'm sorry..No I am! I told you, I was going to call you but I didn't want to have to call you late last night and I've just been a little.. pre-occupied this morning...no! Not just with that.. God! We've just been catching up. No..I don't think he'll want to talk on the phone but we'll come over later ok? OK..I'll try but..."

She cradled the phone in one hand and took a deep breath as she turned towards the garden. She began to smile as she seen him staring at her- they had been apart for 4 years and only back together for a few hours and he could still make her feel giddy with just a look.

"Michael? My mom wants to speak to you."

Michael looked at her pleadingly, Amy, in all the years him and Maria had been together had never gave him an easy time on the phone. He saw Maria smile back at him with a desperate look and she whispered the word please at him. Against his better judgement he walked towards the kitchen and reluctantly stretched his arm out for the receiver.

"Ok, here's Michael mom, but don't give him a hard time like usual ok?"

She passed him the receiver and reached up and kissed him gently on the cheek as she walked over to the kettle and put it on.

"Hi Amy, how are you? I'm great, thanks...just, just really glad to be home. I know, we didn't want to..you know? Umm, yeah...dinner at yours tonight. Good. Um..how's Kyle and Tess? Good...they will be tired. I guess we'll see you all tonight then. I'll just give you back..oh ok, I'll tell her. Bye"

With that he turned towards his wife as he replaced the receiver. She looked at him puzzled as he walked towards her.

"Your mom said I've to tell you that "you have no excuses now." and that we better not cancel on her...and you better come in a halfway decent mood for a change."

Maria looked at him with embarrassment...she didn't know how to explain to him how stupid she had been when he was gone. How isolated she had felt. She knew that he might start again about Isabel and how it was her fault.

"I was a bit self absorbed for a while. I didn't really talk to my mom and it hurt her..a lot. I should have done a lot of things differently when you weren't here."

"Well, I guess there is plenty of time for you to sort everything out with your mom. You'll just have to put the hours in."

She smiled at him gratefully before quietly adding.

"Yeah..both with my mom and Isabel..."

He looked at her wearily and began talking to her in a calm, slow voice.

"Listen, we talked about this earlier and I don't want to spend half of my first day back on this planet arguing with you about Isabel. I will deal with Isabel only because she is my best friends sister and as such I won't be seeing her without there being a damn good reason. I will never forget what she caused me and I will make sure she knows exactly how I feel. I do not want to talk about her anymore today ok?"

She nodded reluctantly- she knew there was more to say on the matter but when push came to shove, she was not going to argue with him because of it. She had waited too long to have him back. He smiled at her and kissed her quickly before he pulled away and walked towards the table.

"Good, now will you fill me in on everything major that has happened since we left? I feel like I'm stuck in a time-warp here..."

In another house a young family sat out in the garden...playing in the sunshine. Max looked at his wife as she laughed at the antics of her children who had taken to grass like they had always played on it. This was the first time they had been able to sit like a family...a human family. He sighed, he knew it couldn't last. They had to get down to business in a minute. While they had been driving earlier Liz's parents had called and told them that they were still on for dinner. That meant the children had to be prepped on what they could and couldn't talk about. Easier said than done when you were talking to 4 year olds. Max was about to talk to Liz about how they should handle it when he saw a flash of light coming from the hand of one of the kids. He looked at Liz and they both got to their feet in an instant and ran over. Tess had mentioned that they had got powers but they all thought it was a one off out of pain but now that they were using their powers in play meant that they could hurt each other. How do you teach a 4-year-old not to do something that they were born to do? As he looked at the smiling children who were now running about again he turned to Liz.

"Did you just see that?"

"Yes..what are we going to do? They are too young to control them..."

"I don't know what we can do...Izzy said that Diane has just developed her powers but Phil is 4 and he hasn't shown any yet."

"Oh god Max, this is terrible. It was already going to be hard enough but now?"

"I think...I think..now would be a good time to tell your parents Liz. No, don’t look at me like that! We can't hide it from them if the kids have developed..it wouldn't be fair and it would freak them out more if they just seen it over dinner."

"Max no! I'm not going to risk my children! You don't know how they'd react. It isn't just our lives anyway- you have 3 other families to consider. I'd never forgive myself if I told them and something happened to any of you."

"Liz, I never told my parents and I haven't been able to forgive myself. Do you want to risk losing them with this secret and distance between you? If they took it badly, we could always get Tess to..."

"Mess with their heads? You think that’s better than lying to them? Manipulation?”

“i.. don’t know what I mean. They deserve to know and we will deal with however they handle it together…but we can’t expect to get away with lying to them. But, it is your parents so it’s up to you. I will go with whatever you decide.”

He took her hand gently and squeezed it..to let her know that he was with her no matter what she decided.

She had heard what he had said and deep down she knew that it made sense…there was no way they would be able to hide it. She wished that she could take back the last 4 years away from here. If they hadn’t left this wouldn’t be a problem..they would be “normal” kids, with “normal” parents and they wouldn’t have to worry about their powers until they were older. She looked at her children playing happily: totally oblivious to anything being wrong. Why did this have to happen to them…why did it always have to happen to them?

“It’s just..just..if anything happened to them. If anything happened to you…I don’t know how I…I’d cope. I can’t lose any of you…look at them…they are just regular kids. Why can’t we just let them be that? Why does everything have to be hard?”

“Liz, if I could make this easier I would but…they will never be “regular” kids. And I will never be a “regular” father. We will always have to deal with this.”

He bent down and looked in his wife’s eyes. He took his thumbs and wiped the tears that had begun to fall away.

“We’ve had to handle more than most people but…I wouldn’t change this..us..for anything. Would you?”

She shook her head and began to talk when he put a finger over her lips to stop her.

“We don’t have to decide anything just now. We’ll take the day and enjoy it with our children. We have plenty of time to decide what we are going to do about everything else…lets just…be “regular” even if it is only for a few hours ok?”

“Thank you.”

“Well, you have to get some perks for being landed with all this right?”

As she smiled he kissed her gently before pulling her towards the kids. They began to laugh as their parents chased them and Liz let out a laugh in spite of herself. Even if it wasn’t real…she could pretend. Even if it was only for a few hours.

TBC

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