Title: I Will Love You
Author: Maggie
E-mail: dmclapp@strato.net
Rating: NC-17
Category: M/L
Disclaimer: Roswell is owned by 20^th Century Fox, Jason Katims and the rest of TPTB, and Melinda Metz. Dont sue me please.

I Will Love You

"I thought I'd find you here," she whispered, coming around the end of the building.

He wasn't looking at her. He was looking up, up at the heavens. He was always looking up. That's what scared her. His voice had been so hurtful lately, his gentle manner, his soft touch gone. The Max who had saved her life, the Max who adored her, who wanted nothing but to be with her, love her, seemed gone. It was her fault. When things get too big, too overwhelming, sometimes you just have to hide behind words like she had done. She had told him to go..on that hilltop, in that alleyway, on her balcony, at the prom. She had pushed and pushed and he had finally gone. She had held tight and yet pushed him away. Crazy, but it had finally worked. His heart was crushed.......hers was shattered and all for what? To save the world? Maybe it was time to tell him the truth, give him back his sense of honor, his dignity.

He didn't acknowledge her standing there, staring at the sky. His words, spoken in pain, in agony over what should have been, what he had lost, poured over her like diesel fuel, igniting her sadness.

"My whole life I've wanted to be this person, this normal person. Human. My whole life I've been thinking that this alien side of me was a bad thing, this thing that made me a freak. This monster." His gentle voice quivered with the injustice of it. He hadn't asked for this, this untenable position, not human, not alien..........."I realize that I haven't just been hiding from the government and the law all this time. I've been hiding from myself. I don't know what's going on anymore. I thought I knew but I don't. I've lost everyone."

She wanted to run to him, hold him close, tell him everything would be all right. But it wouldn't help.....not right now. He was balanced on a fine line.......a line he'd been walking all his life. To fall would mean the end of him........she knew she held the key to his life. Did she want that? Was it this boy Max she loved, for himself alone or the mystery, the forbidden excitement of his other life? Standing there, outside the observatory where he often stood, she searched her heart.......and found the answer.

"Max, Max," she said, her voice a whisper, her tone a question. "No, Max. You haven't. You haven't lost me." Her hand found his, clutched in his pocket, as always. He was like a child, trying to hide, always trying to hide himself away.

"I'll be here forever.......and a day."

He finally looked at her, his cheeks shining with his tears, his beautiful eyes crushed under the pain. "And a day?" he murmured.

She did touch him then. Did take his hands in hers, did step up close to his body, finding that niche where she always fit. Where she had wanted to be for so long. "Come with me, Max. Come away from here."

"I have to.............you don't understand...," he sighed.

"Yes, Max. I do understand. More than you know, I understand," she answered softly. "Listen to me now. I can't help who you are. I can't change what's been done, but....but I can tell you I love you. I can tell you that I'll always be here. I can, Max," she whispered, "I can just love you, if you'll let me. Let me, Max."

He looked into the eyes he had loved for so long, the eyes that had known him as a friend, a savior, a lover. It was all he had ever wanted. Liz was all he had ever wanted. "Yes, love me, please," he asked, in a voice so low, she barely heard it.

Letting out the breath she'd been holding, she tugged him gently away from the dark building with its huge telescopes and its false promises of happiness, away from thoughts of that alien planet, the home he'd never known. She tugged him toward her, toward Earth, toward the life she knew he craved, toward a love that would last forever.......and a day.

There was only one way to make him sure, make him human, make him trust again. The desert wind was soft, the sand warm, the old blanket rough as she began to love him, the one thing that would make him remember...make him know that he wasn't lost.

Max felt her hands on his body, skimming his shirt from his shoulders. He felt his body quicken, his need for her, for this, overwhelming. "I love you I love you I love you," he whispered over and over, like a mantra.

"Shhh, I know," she answered, her voice a soft sigh against his lips.

For the first time, just as he thought his heart would burst, his breath coming in sharp jagged gasps, he saw her, her smooth body outlined in the moon's soft light, standing still, waiting for him. Waiting for him to love her, to make her his.

"I don't deserve..,' he groaned. Her hand covered his mouth. "Yes, Max, you do. You deserve everything. Love me, Max."

He laid her down then, on the warm sand, on the rough blanket, there in the desert, under the stars he had stared at for so long. It was all he'd ever wanted, to love her. His tears were hot, her lips were warm as they kissed his tears away. "No tears, Max. This is the beginning............for us...........for you."

"Will you leave me, Max? Will I have to cry?" she whispered.

"No, I'll never leave. I belong to you," he answered. "My heart, my soul and now my body all belong to you. There is nothing else for me but you."

She looked at his face, the face she had loved for so long. Her hands found him, caressed him, felt his power, his need. She pulled him to her, opened herself to him, heard his last sigh as he rose above her. "Love me now, Max. I need you to show me. I need.............," her voice was cut off by his lips as they showed her, showed her his love.

As he eased himself into her body, as she felt herself filled, they whispered all the words, everything lovers say. "Love you.....Oh God, love you...I can feel... You make me.......I want nothing else....Love me?....Yes....."

"Will you stay with me? Will you leave me?" she whispered, his body embedded so deeply in hers that they were one person. "I would die if you left me," she said, knowing he might, knowing she would.

"I'll never leave. I belong here, with you. Where would I go when my world is you?" he spoke softly in her mouth.

As the gentleness changed to passion, as the sighs became moans, as his power filled her spirit and they became one heart, one soul, one body, he promised her forever..........and a day.