Archive of Our Own ^beta

She grips the steering wheel. It feels like the only fixed point, the only true thing she can hang on to while the world shatters and falls apart in a thousand little pieces around her.
She can’t even look at it, at the ruins and the sharp pieces left at her sides, all the things she wanted, she could have had.
The life, the trust. The love.
It hurts so much she can’t think, can’t move. Can’t breathe.
She looks in her rearview mirror and doesn’t see the road she knows so well, the one she could walk with her eyes closed, the one she ran on with Rosa ahead of her back when they were kids and didn’t have a care in the world, the one she drove in with the windows down and the radio playing the latest hits. She sees her childhood and her past and everything she was, everything she stood for, and Max.
Sweet, sweet Max. Who looked at her as a child and became her friend, who used to read books no teenagers would have patience for and quote them back at her, Max who sat down on the square’s steps with her on prom night and took a look at her tears and decided he never wanted to see her hurt again. Max who held her swaying slowly to a song playing from his truck in the middle of a New Mexico desert knowing full well that she would never be able to stay. That even that massive desert was not big enough for her ambition, for her dreams. Max who loved her for ten years, Max who saved her life despite vowing he never would, Max who didn’t want to kiss her before his handprint was gone, Max who sacrificed himself to bring back the one person he knew she missed more than air, Max who loved her even when he didn’t remember her, Max who was going to follow her anywhere she wanted.
Max, Max, Max.
He fills her lungs and her bones and her body in a way she never thought was possible and she wonders, she wonders deeply how someone that held her heart with such care could break it so easily.
She hates herself a bit, she really does. What happened to the Liz that swore she would never trust anyone? Where was she while this Liz, the heart broken one sitting in her car with her bags packed and a grip closing on her heart, slowly tore down her walls, put down her defenses, gave up on protecting herself?
She should have been better, should have been smarter, but it feels so good doesn’t it, to believe someone when they tell you they love you. And believing Max was so easy. With his honest gaze and his gentle words and strong hands. He looked at her and Liz didn’t know which way was up anymore, seeing herself through his eyes was a drug she gave in to too easily – the big expectations, the trust she wouldn’t hurt him, how much he believed in her.
But that fight in his bedroom, that was the second the whole thing crashed onto her.
Yes, she had been mad at Max before, having to bring him back from the dead because he had made a very selfish decision, though out of love, was not that long ago after all, but this was different. This was a knife deep in her chest and she could feel cold radiating from it filling her lungs. Standing there, so close to the man she so fully loved and had trusted, in a room that meant so much to both of them, the only thing out of her mouth were half broken words of pain and grief. She couldn’t believe her lab was gone, everything she had built, worked for, fought for. There was a wound between them now, one that she wouldn’t – couldn’t – repair. Not now, maybe not ever.
She had been so dumb, she sees herself in that rearview mirror now – a Liz that has lost everything, her work and her soulmate. And she hates herself for still thinking of Max as her other half. Hates herself for waiting, hoping, holding her breath, in that old car, in the slim chance that he might run up the street and apologize and everything would be okay. It wouldn’t though. Because trust is not there anymore, and you can build back almost anything but not that.
Her hands are shaky as she pushes her hair back and then brings them back to the wheel, holding on for dear life. She looks up one last time, a desperate last wish to the stars that fill the sky that night.
It goes without an answer.

*

The night she drives back to Roswell it’s quiet and as she passes the too familiar Welcome sign and starts driving the streets she knows too well; she feels the weight of it all settle slowly back on her shoulders. Time is funny like that, isn’t it? Sometimes a year feels like forever and sometimes barely a second. As she slows down in front of the Crashdown she can almost hear her memories. Her dad shouting up the stairwell towards their apartment, telling her and Rosa to hurry up for school while getting the diner ready. The music coming from the jukebox, dancing along to her favorite songs when Maria would come around and Rosa would let her hang out with them. The laughs while she’d sit in a booth with Kyle and try to cram mathematical formulas into his brain while all he wanted to do was kiss her and enjoy his milkshake.
It’s all so far away and yet she feels like she could touch it, as she steps out of the car smiling.
Then her heart skips a beat.
Rationally she knew the chances of running into Max were quite high, but still, she was hoping for a second to gather her thoughts, possibly confer with Rosa, before having to face him.
She expected the awkward silence, the tension, the second of intense staring. She didn’t really expect it to still hurt like this when looking at him. And it’s not about the lab anymore, it stopped being about the loss of her research a long time ago. Sometime in the last year the anger was stripped back leaving the crack in their trust – that’s what she’s sad for, what she thinks about when she’s lying in bed at night and the cars and the lampposts outside paint a thousand different shadows on her ceiling, when she’s walking back to her house after a day at work in a town she doesn’t fit in, not really, when she pours herself a drink on the floor of a living room without furniture. Rosa jokes about it all the time but Liz knows under the layers of funny remarks there’s genuine concern for her, and she doesn’t really know when her little sister became so perceptive but she doesn’t like the way her jokes about the lack of seating sting a little too much. An empty house, a broken heart – all she has left after running away from the ashes of her life’s true romance.
They stand on opposite sides of the sidewalk now, six feet apart and an ocean they never got to see together in between.
He asks her about it, if she’s seen it, and she considers saying yes, telling him she moved on and saw the ocean without him and it was as great as she hoped it would be.
Once… I’ve been busy
She settles on bending the truth and they both know it. But Max takes the easy way out, he doesn’t challenge it, he feels like he doesn’t have a right to, not after all this time, not after everything standing between them.
She doesn’t tell him in her dreams they’re both on the beach, close enough that they share a breath and he holds her in his arms and despite everything, against every logic, she feels safe like nowhere else.
She asks about his book because it only seems fair and she is indeed very curious to know if he managed to fulfill his dream, unlike her.
Haven’t found the inspiration to finish it.
They both hear it clearly, the meaning behind it, the you were my inspiration and you were gone but Liz just looks somewhere else and nods. She lost her rights to talk about his dreams too.
Her ocean and his novel, their respective dreams, deep down they both know they won’t be complete until they’re apart.
It’s late and it’s not as easy as it seems admitting guilt and faults while standing outside a diner, so maybe they both want to say I’m sorry, but they keep it at good to see you because they can’t bear to hear the truth.

*

When she was in high school they had some sort of lecture on bullying, headed by a teacher who wanted to be anywhere but in that assembly hall and a therapist who had never worked with teenagers in their life and who probably couldn’t remember being one given their old age. Liz remembers sitting through it slightly bored, zooming out of the conversation while the voices became a muffled background noise. She does remember, however, the psychologist saying “the hardest thing to say is sorry”.
She also remembers Kyle laughing and saying actually otorhinolaryngologist was a lot harder than sorry.
Liz went through quite a bit of her life generally agreeing with that statement. The one about sorry being the hardest word, not Kyle’s. She was smart, she was right, and she knew it. But it was more than that. Somewhere along the way she had convinced herself she was smarter, and it was easier to be perfect if she just didn’t admit her faults, hiding behind the strength of her arguments.
This wasn’t hard, saying she was sorry this time was one of the easiest things she had ever done. Everything she wanted to say after that, however, wasn't.
I think about you, every day.
It feels like opening up her heart one stitch at a time with each word. It’s true, it really is, and maybe that’s why it’s so difficult, shining a light on her soul, her heart, and risk getting hurt again. It might be the stupidest thing genius Liz Ortecho has ever done. But she owes it to Max, she owes it to herself to be honest after months of silently thinking about what she would say if she had another chance.
I think about you, every day. And every time I try to go to the ocean, I can’t cause you’re not with me.
It all comes out in a whisper, everything she can muster while telling this man what she’s been thinking about for months.
She can feel her eyes fill up with tears and her voice break slightly.
This is it; this is the chance they have of fixing everything, of starting to mend the fracture they can’t physically see but they both could point at so easily. The world stops for a second, the stars looking down from a moonless sky, holding their breath while Liz so clearly holds out her hand.
I can’t do this anymore.
Max doesn’t take it.
She knows he’s lying, she senses it in the lights flickering, feels it when his hand touches her chest and she doesn’t know what to do, how to get through to him, how to tell him she’s there, she needs him, she still loves him. And she hopes so much that he can still see through her like he used to. Whether he can or not, he still drives away.
She meant it, that apology in the dusty drive-in, and she knows she did the right thing, telling him the truth, no deflection no armor, but it still hurts. It hurts as the Roswell sign speeds past her and fades in the night, while her car lights clear up the road ahead of her. That’s where her focus is now, in front of her, no more lingering in soft memories, no more rearview mirrors.
Maybe they’re just not meant to be. There’s too much driving away from each other, running, lies, protecting. It’s just what they both always do isn’t it? There’s too much past, too much to work through, to get over.
Maybe they can only be strangers again.

*

She always knew life was going to be hard, started to understand it when her mom pulled a disappearing act and when Rosa would scream at her father over the dinner table. She never thought it was going to be this hard. Saving the world, the people she loves, all while holding it together long enough to make the right choices and not get burnt in the process? It’s too much.
Here they are, pointing fingers and cutting each other with words too sharp not really meant for each other.
The implication she let herself be betrayed again was the last straw.
Just because you sabotaged me when you were mine… it hurts to even say it, to bring up the memories and the past.
I wouldn’t let anyone break my heart like you did– is what Liz really had wanted to scream in that house, so far from their home, from their safe places.
So yes, she throws the lab exploding back in his face because she’s always been too smart for her own good and she knows it’ll cut deep and right now, standing in the middle of a living room that’s not theirs, rushing against time to save everything and everyone they love, she needs to win this battle. One out of a hundred that form a war she really doesn’t want to be fighting with the one person she thought she’d never have to defend herself from.
Just because you changed the wallpaper doesn’t mean you’ve mended your blind spots.
It’s a blaming game they shouldn’t playing now, but they can’t stop.
Liz hates wallpaper she always has, maybe she should tear it all down and paint over the walls, but it takes so long to get rid of it. It’s so sticky and hides so many layers underneath, previous tenants with no intention of doing too much work just sticking the newest layer on top.
Forgive me if I felt the need to go and change the wallpaper.
She’s lost in a metaphor she doesn’t even fully understand – maybe her life and her heart are the bare walls and she keeps sticking layer upon layer of ugly wallpaper on, in a quick effort to hide everything she’s afraid might be hurt. She keeps painting and gluing on her vulnerability, hoping if she buries it deep enough no one will see it again, no one will exploit it, no one will hurt her again.
And she knows it’s unfair because Max never exploited her, he never could, but he still hurt her, that’s why she drove away that night, why she changed the wallpaper, if they stick to this metaphor she’s getting tired of.
There’s another life, the one she wanted when she was sixteen and believed in the good in the world, the one she still mourns in moments like these. She’d be worrying about groceries lists and being on time for dance rehearsals, maybe she’d have a dog and a small garden, just big enough for summer dinner parties with friends when the air gets a bit chilly and the laughter fill the air. Rosa would stop by every few days and they’d chat about her latest art exhibition, Liz’s shows and try to sync up schedules to surprise their dad back in Roswell. Maria and Alex would hug her forever when she would come home for Christmas and they’d spend hours in each other’s living rooms talking about their lives and they’d be so happy. An easy life, a good life. It hits hard in the middle of her chest and takes her breath away thinking about it though – a life without Max Evans.
Max who is looking at her from across the room and would let the world fall to its demise if it meant taking it off her shoulders.
I wouldn’t trust anyone like I trusted you – she’d wanted to say – because I would never love anyone like I loved you.
Maybe if an easy life meant one without Max, she wanted none of it.

*

Liz has fought tooth and nails in her life for everything she wanted and everything she believed in, and Max being a good person has always been one of the things she never stopped believing in.
She wishes Max could see himself through her eyes, the selflessness, the patience, the care he treats people with. Maybe then he will believe her when she tells him what a wonderful person he is. He doesn’t. The only thing he feels is his tether to Jones and the only thing he sees his destiny written out for him, laid out in front of him.
She doesn’t.
I love you, Max Evans.
It’s five words whispered in an empty university and so much more, it’s their destiny.
It’s no more space for lies, betrayal, or running away. It’s support, affection, trust.
It’s the truth.
Liz is not going back to a city that was never really hers in a house without a couch and wallpaper she has no intention of seeing again.
Maybe what Liz was really afraid of was tearing down the wallpaper down to find hope. Hope for the future, hope for a different ending, the same hope she’s tried so much to push down in a promise to herself not to make the same mistake twice.
Hope for love and trust. Trust in Max.
Max who after thirteen years kept his word and changed her tires, who listened to her tapes while he missed her, who wrote her a letter knowing he was dying, who was willing to slip away in silence if it meant not hurting her again. Max who fills every fiber of her being and is so entwined in her life she wouldn’t be able to break free of his image even if she wanted to. And she doesn’t want to. She longs for it, for their tether, their connection. She wants to fight by his side again, whatever life throws their way, doesn’t matter how hard. To just trust him again knowing he’ll catch her if she falls, if she fails.
She wants the love, the hurt, the pain, the hope.
All of it.