-Soundgarden, Fell on Black Days

Tell me what you see.

It has been a long time. It has been forever. I don't know how long it has been.

I'll tell you what I've done, and what happened after.

Tell me what you see.

***

It had been two years, since that day in the cave. Two years.

We were back in Roswell, preparing to leave. We had gone away, and found what we were looking for. We had fought hard. One of us had died.

Actually, don't ask me where we were. I don't want to remember.

Roswell seemed so much smaller, when we came back.

She was still there. She looked different.

I avoided her because I couldn't see her without feeling a shock, like she had touched me. I noticed that my heart didn't ache, or beat faster, when I saw her, like it used to. But my body tugged toward her like there was an invisible thread between us. If she actually had touched me I don't know what would have happened, maybe nothing, but I kept a safe distance.

I could sense her, though. More accurate would be to say that I could smell her. I could tell when she had been nearby, even after she was gone. I would lean my back against the brick wall, staring up, hearing the scratching sound of her pen as she wrote in her journal, the air carrying her scent down to me, full of stories. I could tell a lot about her, what she was feeling, from the traces of her in the air. They haunted my dreams.

It was amazing what we could do, the powers we had. Maybe it was part of our alien sides emerging; our senses sharpened, while our human sides, our emotions, our feelings, were shed like a second skin. I don't know the answer. I don't care.

***

We didn't need to talk anymore, the ones who were left. We could speak in each other's minds, if we chose. And by that time, we didn't have much to say to each other anyway. We had work to do.

Most of the time, I didn't need to think. I knew what to do, and how to do it. We all knew what to do.

***

After a while, after the cave, I didn't feel at home in my skin.

Or maybe I felt like it was all I was. Skin. Muscle. Bone. Blood. Nothing else.

We all decided to follow our destiny. Michael and Isabel, me and Tess. I fought it longer, but Tess waited patiently. She looked at me with her unearthly blue eyes, clear as water, narrowed and fierce and incongruous in her pixie-blond head. She watched me, and I slowly grew tired under the weight of her gaze.

And one night, she came to my bed, and I let her in.

With heightened senses, everything was much more defined, the lightest touch a precise sensation, the softest kiss a shimmer.

But we were rough.

I watched myself, saw my bare back arching above her, muscles knotting and shivering with every touch, my hands denting the sheets, her legs crossed behind my hips, pulling me in deeper. I heard my hoarse cries, saw her eyes, open and unfocused, as her body convulsed under mine.

After that, it was easier.

She loved me, I know that. Not that love has much to do with what we are. With Tess, at least I didn't have to think about who I was. I didn't have to think at all, at least for a little while.

When Tess died, part of me died with her.

I held her body in my arms and felt the emptiness where her heartbeat should have been, and smelled her blood, and thought, distractedly, that her love was bleeding in my hands.

And I wondered where I was, and how I had gotten there.

***

I kept watching her, from a distance. I know she felt me watching her.

After a while I noticed a difference in the traces of her in the air, and she looked more haggard, worn, dark circles under her eyes.

I wondered if I saw the same look in her shadowed eyes that was in mine. I wondered if I had sensed her thoughts, or if they were just my own.

***

The dreams. They came more often. They grew worse.

We were in the chamber and Nasedo was finally showing us how we could get out of here. There had to be a proper alignment of the constellations again, though I didn't understand all of it.

We used our powers in a new way, it took all four of us, and we opened a doorway, I don't know how else to explain it. Suddenly I realized that she was there, watching us, and that the others knew she was there and kept me from seeing her until it was too late to turn back. They held my arms and body as I fought to get away, screaming her name, watching her disappear.

I woke up, sweating and shaking. I had that dream often.

I slipped away and found myself at her window, and she put down her journal and let me in, and without a word we made love on her bed, quietly, urgently, never taking our eyes off of each other.

I woke up, crying silently, my body convulsing.

I left them, and found her, and we ran, as far away as we could get, though her planet was too small to hide us for very long. We knew it, but we ran anyway. We hid, we kept moving, we were ready to die together. We ran.

I woke up, panting, a knot of fear in my chest.

***

Sometimes I stood in front of the mirror, staring, staring.

I didn't understand what was in front of my eyes. It wasn't me, and I didn't know where I had gone.

***

One night I dreamed that I left them, they didn't notice I was gone until it was too late, and by then I would be on my way back and I wouldn't have to explain anything, not until later.

She was waiting with candles burning.

Suddenly I couldn't breathe and I drank in the sight of her like it was the last thing on earth I would ever see. I wish it had been.

Maybe, in my dreams, she will be.

I started to say something, and she put her finger to her lips and said, shhhhhhh. She said, I knew you would come. She said, I want this too. She said, my life changed when you found me, and I don't want to be anyone different.

I could smell her, the scent of her skin, the chemistry that made her what she was. I could smell the fact that she was ovulating and I knew that this time was coming, and I had planned so carefully and deliberately, even though I didn't know if she would ever agree, if she would even have been here when I arrived. But somehow she knew, and somehow I knew she would.

She whispered, if you don't come back, at least I will have a part of you always.

She whispered, we will wait for you.

I ached, I ached to touch her. I hadn't felt her skin in so long and part of me was afraid of what would happen. I couldn't move. She slowly walked toward me and the universe narrowed down to just her. I could feel my nostrils flaring as she came close, so close, and her scent overwhelmed me, I could hear her breathe, I could feel her blood racing through her body, I could feel the heat from her against me. I looked at the curve of her waist, the delicate flare of her hips, and felt my body react to the thought of being inside of her.

But then I looked in her eyes, and a cold wind blew through me and I was suddenly an empty shell where I used to stand. I looked in her eyes, and realized what we were about to do. She looked at me, and if my life had ended right at that moment it would all have been worth it to have someone look at me that way.

Something broke inside of me and I reached out, my hand shaking, and came within a breath of touching her soft cheek, and then I turned and ran.

I wish I had been able to shed my skin.

***

I was pulled by invisible hands.

Her bed was empty when I looked in. I climbed in her window and lay down, surrounded by her, and fell asleep, waiting.

I dreamed. She walked in my dreams, a wispy warm girl who was in my soul even before I met her. She drifted through my mind, touching things as she went, brushing past my life, her scent trailing after her. I followed, at a distance, watching her light step, watching her look over her shoulder at me, her eyes soft and sad. Her back was to me when I heard her say my name, faintly, then again, louder, and I could hear tears in her voice, and my heartbeat was suddenly loud in my ears and my eyes opened and I took a deep breath and stared at the ceiling.

"Max."

I came to rest crouched in the corner of her room, as far away from her as I could get without running, my heart pounding in my ears.

I couldn't move, I couldn't speak. If I said anything it would be wrong. If I said anything, it wouldn't be me saying it.

She looked at me, her eyes big and scared, standing near the window. She must have climbed in while I was asleep.

Maybe I was still dreaming.

But my dream got scary as she took a step toward me, hesitant and trembling, and then she said my name again, and her voice echoed in my head. I pressed my fists to my eyes to block out the sight in front of me in the hopes that she would disappear. I wouldn't be able to stop from touching her, and I knew I would die if I did.

Suddenly the scent of her overwhelmed me and I felt hands close over my fists, I heard her voice whispering my name, begging, please.

My hands clenched tight, tighter, and I tried to curl into myself and disappear, I tried to fight what I wanted, but there was nowhere to go, and suddenly I couldn't fight myself anymore and I reached out and caught hold of her and shuddered helplessly, shaking against her body as we sank to the floor.

But then I turned her face to mine and kissed her, and it was an act of violence.

I know what she saw in that kiss.

She gasped and pulled away, her hands against my arms, but I wouldn't let her go. I wanted to erase the boundaries between us so that I could take her with me, inside me, and never be parted from her again.

Actually, I just wanted to erase my own skin, just for a while, and feel hers instead. That's all I wanted.

I looked at her eyes, and watched her struggle with herself, struggle to understand what was happening, struggle to hide from the truth that was right in front of her.

I'm already gone, I should have told her. It's already over. It was over a long time ago.

And then I felt her mouth press hard against mine and I was lost.

Our clothes were suddenly in the way and I pulled and tugged at them feverishly, and suddenly she was helping, our hands everywhere, pushing, pushing against each other. I slid her jeans roughly down her hips as she knelt in front of me, and then I leaned forward and laid her down onto her back, my teeth bruising the skin of her throat.

Suddenly I sat back on my heels, breathing hard, and looked at her. She was lying, disheveled and naked from the waist up, dark jeans half off her body, her white panties crooked and pulled down on one side, her body flushed and writhing slowly, working her jeans down her legs.

I slid them the rest of the way off, more gently this time, then hooked my fingers in the small pieces of fabric on her hips and slid them down her legs, feeling the shock of her bare skin under my fingertips, feeling warmth and dampness as I crumpled them up in a ball and tossed them across the room. I stood up, pulling her with me, and we slowly took off the rest of my clothes. Then she sat down on the edge of her bed and hitched herself back onto the quilt, and lay down across it, watching me, her knees up and turned slightly to one side, hiding the triangle of dark curls between her legs, but revealing her hips, the tender curve at the back of her thighs.

She looked at me, her eyes dark and fathomless and staring into my own as I slowly came to her, touched her legs lightly with one hand and then slid my body down between her thighs. She closed her eyes and opened herself to me, simply, taking my hand in hers and leading it to the warm place between her legs. I leaned down and brought my mouth to hers, feeling her, warm and wet and open, under my mouth, under my hand.

Our bodies met and the soft skin inside her legs brushed excruciatingly against my hips as she eased herself under me. I took my hand from between her legs and stared down at her, watching her breasts rising and falling with her ragged breaths. I gently cupped one, painting it with her own silky slickness, watching her arch up into my hand.

I wanted to save that image of her. The dark smudges beneath her eyes just made their velvet darkness bigger in the moonlight. For a moment I was mesmerized by the fact that she was there, willing, soft, alive, warm, breathing. I wanted that moment to last forever.

But then she reached down between us, and I breathed in sharply at her touch, and I suddenly remembered what I was, what I had become, and then I didn't hesitate or wait or pause or ask permission first as I moved forward and slid into her, my body shuddering as I heard her gasp in shock, felt the sudden, rigid tension of her body, my eyes closing as her inner muscles tightened around me, deep inside of her.

And at that moment I knew that I belonged there. I knew at that moment that I had been here before, before I even knew who she was.

I belonged there.

And then it was gone, like a wisp of air.

I opened my eyes and she was crying, her tears flowing out of the corners of her eyes and across her temples and into her dark hair. I brushed my hand over her eyes, and tried not to move, knowing it had hurt, and then she whispered to me, her voice full of pain and wonder, words that I had heard long ago, words I had never spoken out loud, words that I would never hear again.

And then she moved, and then I had to move, and the boundaries between us disappeared. But only for a little while.

***

Afterwards, it was when we rested, our foreheads touching, our breathing slowly returning to normal, when I felt it. It was like a small flame kindling inside her. I felt it, like a small stone dropped in the water, the ripples spreading outward. I felt it, like a tiny beacon. I could almost hear it.

And then I sensed it another way, a faint scent that slowly grew stronger as I held her, my body still inside hers, the buttery warmth of our lovemaking now joined by something new, different, clear. I gasped, I couldn't help it.

And at that moment she knew. And it was too late, far too late to change things.

My nostrils flared and I could smell her blood. I reached my hand down and dipped my fingers into the wetness between us and brought them to my lips, and then brought my mouth to hers.

We made love again, shivering, silent, and then again, and fell asleep near dawn. I woke with my hand resting on her, just below her navel. She turned her head toward me, her dark eyes quiet, and looked into my eyes, and I heard her voice, soft and clear, for the last time.

I saw her again, a few months later, just before we left, and she was pale, and had dark smudges beneath her eyes, like bruises. She looked right through me.

I realized that she was right, I wasn't really there.

I could smell them both.

It was a girl.