Title: Everything
Background: Future Fic…
Category: M/L…what else is there?
Author: Anne
E-mail: dreambehr@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: They’re not mine. The characters of Roswell belong to Melinda Metz, the WB, Jason Katims, and all the wonderful people who we all love for starting this wonderful story. I’m just borrowing them!

She walked down the streets of San Francisco, shivering as a cold wind blew, stinging her nose, and bringing tears to her eyes. It was always cold on the Embarcadero, especially on foggy evenings like the present one, but she still enjoyed taking the long walk from Ghiradelli Square, through Fisherman’s Wharf, where she sucked in the strong scent of fresh fish, past Pier 39, the tourists running rampant, shopping and taking, and all the way down to the Ferry Building, cutting through Justin Herman Plaza, and down Market Street, where she hopped on Muni and rode the train all the way back to her little apartment on Castro Street.

She chuckled as she walked down the rainbow-lined street. Liz Parker always found it amusing how she was probably the only straight girl living in the Castro District, but she liked it there, and she was comfortable with her life in San Francisco.

Liz had been living in the Bay Area for 10 years now. First 4 years of college at Stanford, where she got her teaching credential in biology, and then an internship, which eventually led to a comfortable job teaching at San Francisco State University.

In that entire 10 years, Liz had never once returned to her hometown of Roswell, New Mexico. She couldn’t go back…the entire town was filled with memories, images…everything there reminded her of him.

It had been 10 years since she had seen him…since she had heard his voice whisper soft, loving words in her ears…since she had felt the gentle touch of his skin, tasted his sweet lips…

They were supposed to go to college together, she and Max. They were supposed to spend the rest of their lives together.

He had been accepted to Stanford as well, and with a great deal of excitement, they had planned the next four years of their lives together, everything from where they were going to live, what classes they were going to take… They did everything they could possibly do to protect their relationship. Together they had agreed that nothing was worth jeopardizing their love for one another…

Nothing…except for what actually happened that is.

Everything was destroyed when a week before they were to move to California together, Max had to leave.

That was when the message came, from his home, begging him to come save them. Max couldn’t ignore the pleas of his people…so he went.

Liz begged to come with him, crying about how she needed him and she couldn’t live without him, but Max refused, insisting that she stay. It was too dangerous, and he couldn’t live with himself if something happened to her.

So they both left Roswell on the same day…Liz to California, and Max to some planet millions of light years away.

The first year had been the hardest for Liz, as she had a single dorm room. They had planned it that way, so that she and Max could have a place to go alone. In reality, it isolated her from the world, giving her a place to drown herself in her misery and loneliness. She cried herself to sleep every night, sobbing and begging the stars to return Max to her…but her plea fell on deaf ears. Liz used to sit out on her balcony late at night, staring up at the stars for hours on end, wondering which one was his.

She almost flunked out of school that year…which was when she realized that she needed to pull her life together. She wasn’t Liz anymore…she wasn’t the girl that Max Evans had fallen in love with…just a shell of the person she used to be.

So Liz Parker summoned up all of the courage within her, and decided to start fresh. She made some new friends, began to socialize, and explored the entire Bay Area. Her grades shot back up to the top. The school that once seemed as a prison to her, suddenly brightened into a whole new world of possibilities.

But she never dated. Not once.

Maybe that was why she finally settled down in the most prominently gay neighborhood in the state of California…because in the Castro District there was no sexual pressure on a single, straight woman.

Liz made her way up the three flights of stairs to her apartment, unlocked the door, and stepped inside, taking in the soft evening light filling the simple rooms that she called home. Immediately she went through the motions of finishing off her day: making dinner, washing the dishes, getting ready for bed, and eventually crawling between the sheets early, hoping to get a few extra hours of sleep for the big day ahead of her in the morning.

The fall semester of the year 2012 was starting in the morning…summer was now over.

Butterflies of excitement filled Liz’s stomach as she anticipated the next day. A new semester meant new students. Liz loved meeting new people…especially in a culturally diverse city like San Francisco…everyone was so different and so interesting.

Liz was young for a college professor, and often times she had students who were her peers, and even those that were older than her. She loved interacting with her students…getting to know them on a more personal level. Some of them, Liz related to all too well…while others made her feel old. It wasn’t unusual for her to develop close relationships with a number of them, though. She had made quite a few friends and acquaintances, just in her classes.

She never slept well the night before a new semester, and this night was no exception, as she tossed for hours after turning in. Tonight it wasn’t just the normal jitters though…something else had her mind alert as well.

Every time Liz closed her eyes, she was plagued by Max’s face in her mind’s eye. . It wasn’t unusual in and of itself…Liz thought about Max often…constantly even…but tonight it was something more than the usual loneliness. She was plagued by the image of his deep, dark eyes, soft hair, rough skin…at times she could almost smell that familiar scent of him, that she had gone so long without. Liz could feel his presence…almost as if he was there with her, or somewhere nearby.

Liz sighed, and crawled out of bed, slipping into her robe and slippers, and heading to her balcony, the chilly night air hitting her face as she slid open the glass door, and softly closed it behind her.

As she stared up at the few stars twinkling dimly through the blanket of fog, Liz chastised herself for the feelings that were possessing her mind. It was impossible of course, that Max could be anywhere nearby. He was up there, millions of miles away, on some distant planet, near some distant star…and for the millionth time, Liz wondered if one of the stars she could see tonight was his…

Liz sighed, overwhelmed by the loneliness buried deep in her heart. She would never see Max again….she just needed to accept it and move on with her life…

The problem was that she couldn’t. When she was sixteen years old, a handsome, kind, loving alien saved her life, captured her heart and claimed it as his own…he had changed her whole life…and she could never go back. Max would always be a part of her…whether they were apart for 10 years, or an entire lifetime.

For the first time since her freshman year of college, when Liz swore to never let her loneliness take over her life again, unwelcome tears began to rain down Liz Parker’s cheeks, and Liz allowed herself to swim in the full out anguish that she felt every time she thought of her lost lover.