| "The Other" |
| Part 19 by Chrystal Kay |
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| Disclaimer: Roswell, the characters, and the situations are owned by Regency Television and 20th Century Fox. No infringement intended. Category: Crossover Stories Rating: PG-13 |
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| The humans weren’t the only ones experiencing revelations. Tess felt the lifelong yearning for family that was at the core of most of Michaels reactions to life. Afraid to connect with others and needing to desperately. This struck a cord within Tess who had never had a loving relationship with anyone. She had envied Max and Isabel their family. Now she saw the deep fear of rejection by their parents if they should ever find out about them, with the deep yearning for acceptance as they were. She could feel the inner connections all around her. Michael and Maria and Alex and Isabel and Max and Liz and Maria and… Something strange that she didn’t even know she had. Somewhere down inside of her was a connection to a boy that she had never met. Except once upon a dream. For the first time she had a real feeling of what destined love was. Max and Liz had it. She and Max didn’t. But there was that other…. Michael, Isabel and Max basked in the feelings of acceptance and understanding that wove back and forth among the group. They could feel Tess accepting and being accepted, becoming part of the team. And Kyle. There was a bond of family growing: stronger than any that could be made from accident of birth. Tess would stay. Now they could find Liz and bring her home. *** Elsie’s Stop ‘N’ Place: 7:30 AM: Luke woke up and shuffled over to the table where Jarod was working over his computer. “Good morning. You been up all night?” He asked. “Good morning! No I’ve only been up about an hour.” Jarod smiled at the sleepy outrage of Luke. That anyone could get up at 6:30! “I thought I’d wait for you. We can go down for breakfast together.” He leaned closer to Luke and confided, “I thought you might like a little moral support.” Luke grinned at his new friend. “I can see you are going to be a great asset. When do you start to work at your new job? I won’t be making you late, will I?” Jarod explained that he was set up to start in a week. “Then why get here so early?” “Because with a job here, I can have an excuse to poke around where visitors aren’t allowed to. And, since I don’t start till next week, I have a lot of poking around time.” Jarod folded up his computer and neatened up a stack of news clippings and print-outs. “I have a mystery to solve, a starting place and a week to do unmonitored snooping.” He leaned back and crossed his arms, smiling. “What more could a man ask for?” Luke had been trying to keep from asking Jarod what his ‘job’ was, but with the mention of a mystery, it became impossible not to. Jarod spread out the news clippings. These were from five different towns and the articles were all variations on the ‘Home town man missing from vacation.’ theme. He began to tick off some statistics. “All were in northern Arizona around the time of their disappearance, all had the opportunity to visit the Grand Canyon, all were traveling alone, each had a modest amount of money that was taken out of his ATM account, and each withdrawal was recorded within 80 miles of a central point. And no bodies were ever found.” |
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