She knocked several things over when she tipped her mirror in surprise. I said her name, and now her eyes are huge, staring at me in shock, and I find I can’t say anything.

All I can do is stare back at the girl, and wonder how the hell I am going to survive this.

***

She’s arguing with me, and in my head there’s another sound, another voice, older, more familiar. It’s distracting, and suddenly I’m holding her arms and she’s panicking and trying to push me away and I can’t seem to get her to believe who I am, to focus on the problem at hand. I let go of her slowly, aware of her panting breaths, her shoulders hunched up under my hands. I pause awkwardly and look at her face, unlined, so young. It's her, but she looks so different.

You will grow even more beautiful, I want to tell her. I moved too fast, I know that now, I saw her and she was so familiar. How could she not know me? Hadn’t I just let her go?

And I’m trying so hard not to imagine what is happening this very moment in another world. The seconds tick by, and I force myself away from wondering when the pain will start, and when it will end. I count the seconds for her and hope that when I’m done, it will be over and she will be at rest. I can hear her voice again, telling me she didn’t have any regrets.

But I do.

I hear the music start, but the lyrics were already in my head, and I had almost forgotten where I was, and that she was there. I sing along softly, and feel the coolness of the wall behind me as I back away and let her go and see for herself what a fool I was, so long ago.

***

I just climbed through the window and suddenly I can’t think; my heart is tearing out of my body, because I can feel, suddenly, abruptly, what is happening to her, in the future I just left. I stop and stare blindly at this young girl, and feel her dying at the same time, somewhere far away.

I can feel it all, every moment, every sensation.

I carefully take it and put it aside for later. I have to answer a question now, and I focus on each word, to take me away, far away, from what just happened.

“We need to change the future. What we do here must be precise, and surgical.”

Like the way you just died, dearest.

I talk to her. I tell myself I’m trying to keep her attention focused, but I’m also trying to distract her from what is happening below. I can hear my own voice, and it sounds strange to my ears, like an unexpected recording of yourself that you didn’t know had been taken.

I’m also keeping time again. Three, two, one. Her father is coming.

I move in choreographed precision to the alcove by the window and wait for him to pass, and then I slip inside her bedroom and hide. When she comes in again, she gives me a long look, and then leaves without a word.

***

I wander around her room, touching things. I remember this place but the memories are faded, and it’s comforting and disconcerting at the same time to see everything the way it was, so long ago. It seems smaller than I remembered, and more cluttered. I touch her clothes hanging in the tiny closet, and notice a scarf draped over the lamp. I look at the photographs of us on her dresser. I look so young.

My hair is so short in the pictures and self-consciously I reach up and feel the heavy weight of it now, and smile. I like it long, she said once. It gives me something to hold onto when we make love.

I still can’t believe she said that. But I feel the same reaction in my body now that I had then.

She picked a great time to walk in.

“That’s private.”

Private? What is she talking about? Oh.

I hide my reaction. She has apparently accepted that I am who I say I am, but it hasn’t occurred to her yet what that really means. I can give her time, but not much.

She has some questions. Of course. I understand. Again I have to hide a smile. She has gone into scientist mode, gathering facts and data and trying to create a coherent theory to test against them. It’s her way of trying to remain calm when she is scared inside. I know it well. It served us in times ahead and I came to love her even more for it.

But then I realize something is different, and it takes me a second to realize what it is.

She’s angry.

Relief floods through me. Already she’s different, different than she was. And I guess it was a change that I needed to see, any kind of change. I wasn’t sure until this moment that anything could be different. My Liz didn’t get angry at me, really angry, until nearly five years after we met, almost two years after we were married, and the war started in earnest. We were twenty one years old.

Max, stop putting me on a goddamned pedestal. I’m not perfect and I can take care of myself. You need to stop thinking that I’m the only thing that matters to you. And see? I bleed, just like everyone else. This was completely my fault, I wasn’t paying attention. So just leave me alone and let it hurt for a while, so I don’t do anything that stupid again.

I remember that day so clearly. I left her alone. I stopped living in a fantasy world then, though I didn’t realize until many years later that it was already far too late.

And I never stopped thinking that she was the only thing that mattered to me. I didn’t tell her that.

But this girl is angry and I want to believe that it’s a good sign. I talk to her more gently now; I don’t want her to lose the fragile hold she has on this new reality I’ve brought to her private room.

I tell her what I think she can handle. But I still tell her the truth.

At least as much of it as I can handle.

“Things between us are about to change . . . grow deeper.”

I can’t tell you more than that. You don’t need to know more than that.

“The closer that you and I grew, the worse it got with Tess, and she eventually left Roswell.”

I wince inside, because I know that she will ask the next question, the question I don’t want to answer. But I have to. It’s the truth, and now my Liz is gone and I have nothing left but the truth about why.

“Because of me, and how I treated her.”

It sounds impossible as I say the words, and I feel ashamed. The despair I have kept at bay surges up in me, constricts my throat, aches behind my eyes as I force myself to hold her gaze and tell her why I have come here, what she needs to do.

“I need you to help me fall out of love with you.”

Because I’m the reason you died.

***

If only I could go to my own self and . . . what? What would I do?

If I could give myself a few swift kicks, that might be a good start. It would be a hell of a lot easier than this.

She’s sleeping, and I’m out here on the roof. It’s a good thing I got used to sleeping on the ground. She did too; in fact, she seemed to like it, seemed to like the rugged life after a while, despite the danger and fear and bloodshed. She was so strong.

I haven’t been able to sleep since I came here, though. I don’t want to. I keep thinking that it’s only a matter of time. That I have to do this thing, and when I do, it will all be over.

But there is something I need to do now. Slowly, I let myself remember what I saw, and felt, a few hours ago. I take the memory and handle it carefully, like it’s a precious, fragile thing. I hold it up to the light behind my eyes, and it’s the color of blood.

Oh god.

She stood, oh brave girl, she stood and faced them and waited. She was so strong. She faced them and didn’t close her eyes when the light struck her body and they didn’t close when her flesh parted cleanly and the blood started to flow, they didn’t close as she stared into the eyes of her killer and stopped breathing. They didn’t close, but I felt her focus shift away, and saw what she saw. Me. Somehow she saw me, watching her, my soul in my eyes.

Liz, I would have died for you. I wish I could have been there with you. I would have held you and we could have died together.

My vision blurs, and I close my eyes against the darkness. I feel the tears, and I hear them fall.

***

The night is so long. I had forgotten how long the hours are. I just sit here, shivering, but the cold feels good, and the hard surface of the roof feels good. It reminds me that I’m alive, at least for a little while longer. I don’t want to sleep. I want to do what I came to do, and then I will disappear, or something, and all I can hope is that it will not be long. I want to be awake for the last few hours of my life. I stretch my arms out, shoulders straining, and then lace my fingers together, drop them into my lap, and look up at the stars.

What will disappearing be like? Will it be like dying? I try to stop myself from wondering these things. I don’t want to feel afraid. But the thoughts creep in sometimes, the questions flash across my mind and I can’t stop them. I hum a Mexican song, softly, under my breath, and look up at the stars.

But my thoughts won’t be still. I try not to think about what might happen. I can’t even think about the possibility that this will not work. But I do, and then I feel the adrenalin rise in my body, the panic set in, that sick feeling of fear on an empty stomach.

What would I do? I couldn’t go back. I’m certain that the chamber was destroyed soon after I left. And even if I could go back, there would be nothing there but death waiting for me. I could only pray that it would be short.

But not painless. I wouldn’t want it to hurt me any less than it did her.

My focus turns to the window. I can see her shadowy form under the covers. She is restless. I can hear her now, fighting dreams.

I have to tell myself that she's not Liz. I mean, she is Liz, but she knows so little. There is so little time, and what I have to do is change what happens. If I do that then there’s a chance that everything will be alright. That’s what I tell myself.

I shiver, and pray that it will be enough to save her.

***

If I were a different version of myself, I might laugh.

I watch myself, spying on Tess as she tries to capture me in her buxom web. It is funny, I guess. I look at the girl next to me. She notices, and I tell her what I was thinking, and then I look away again.

“Um, did we get married?”

Her question is unexpected and painful and catches me off guard. I react without thinking. She accepts what I say without question, though, and turns back to the window.

I guess I’m not surprised. If she only knew what an irrelevant and pointless question that was.

Dammit. Silly romantic girl with silly romantic dreams.

But I remember.

I turn to look at her, and when I speak, the memories speak through me.

“We eloped. We were 19.”

“We were 19? That is so young. That is too young.” She says, her voice soft, surprised.

“That’s what I said, but you said that Romeo and Juliet were even younger than us.”

She looks at me in surprise and again the pain sharpens, because in her eyes is just a glimmer of the woman who stands clear and strong in my mind, her eyes velvety and deep, her hands open and beckoning. I move away from her. I have to. The girl in my head is calling to me and I have to go to her for a while.

I hear my voice from a distance and just let it go and give her the memories she is asking for. I remember. I even do my best Elvis impression. It helps. In my head, she laughs out loud and I remember, I remember, and then the pain gets worse and I can’t stay still, I can’t look at her anymore, and I go back to the window and stare out into the darkness.

“If this works . . . I’m not gonna have that day.” She says, and there’s a thread of pleading in her voice.

“No, you won’t.”

The words sound cold and hollow but I can’t help it, I can barely control the pain now. All I can hear in my head is: No, you won’t have that day. But you’ll live. You’ll live.

***

I’m so angry, so angry with myself I could scream. I was so stupid then, so selfish. So blind. I press my lips together, remembering the kiss, hating myself for it.

“You’re supposed to be breaking up with him, not kissing him.”

I can’t even hear what I’m saying.

I didn’t really tell her the truth, before, about why everything went wrong, why she ended up dying alone and terrified, why I was here, trying to change the history of the world. I mean, I said it, but I didn’t really say it. She doesn’t know that this was really all my fault, that my cruelty toward Tess, and my selfishness toward her, is really what caused all of this. All of it.

She answers, and her voice breaks, but she is defiant. The pain lashes at me as I hear the tears in her voice, the resistance, the fear. Why didn’t I see it all then? What possessed me to treat Tess that way, so lightly, as though she weren’t really one of us? As though she didn’t deserve the respect that I gave to Michael and Isabel, and even Nasedo? God, I was so stupid.

“You’re only making me love you more!”

I suddenly realize I’m shouting at her. Apparently I am just as stupid now as I was then, because I’m yelling at her, as though it’s her fault.

Damn. I swear softly under my breath. Okay, get it together. You have to tell her what happened that night. You have to tell her.

How? She won’t believe it.

Damn.

“You said no the last time, too. I didn’t take no for an answer.”

Whoa, that didn’t sound good. But it’s true. She’s looking at me like I’ve lost my mind.

She knows already what I’m about to say, but she doesn’t want to believe it, so she sets me up, she asks the obvious.

I didn’t want to tell her any more than I had to, but she’s refusing to understand. So I give up, and before I can think about it or change my mind, I tell her, and the shock of the words reverberates through my still body, and I watch it strike hers, and shatter her illusions like glass.

“We made love.”

It comes out more gently than I thought it could. I tried to hide the pain in my voice but it was still there, and I wonder if she hears it too. My heart tightens in my chest as I say the words and remember that night.

I’m not prepared for her answer.

“No. No, we didn’t.”

Unbelievable. She looks at me with absolute conviction in her eyes and now I am angry with her, I want to laugh but I’m too angry to laugh.

I know your body better than anyone ever will.

If we don’t change this, in less than twenty four hours I will be telling her what she means to me, how I don’t care about anyone or anything except her, and I will touch her until her eyes darken and she gives in. In less than twenty four hours we will be together in her bed and it will be sweet and fumbling and awkward, and I will pull out my wallet with the condom in it and she will be thankful, so thankful that I had it with me. And we will stay awake until nearly dawn, exploring each other, and she will have her very first orgasm and I will be so awed by the power of it, and we will be inseparable from that night on.

Until the end. The images rise unbidden and once again I feel the pain slicing through her before I quickly stifle it, stifle the scream that was her voice just before she died, the scream that rises in my heart.

What does she think I’m trying to do here? Ruin her life? I’m trying to save her. Not Michael or Isabel, though I’ll use the information about their deaths if I have to. Not even me. No one else matters.

I haven’t changed. Maybe that’s why I’m here.

That thought tears through me and I react savagely. The force of my anger drives her back a step.

“Liz, I am telling you what happened, and we have to change that.” A note of desperation creeps into my voice, but I can’t stop it. “We have to. And so far, we’ve failed.”

I’ve failed. But what else can I do?

Liz, help me understand. Please. She is there in my mind, in the shadows, and she looks at me, and I love her all over again, and then suddenly I realize the truth. I realize what really needs to happen, and I curse myself for being so blind, for so long.

It’s not the future that needs to change, like it’s something independent of ourselves, something outside of us. It’s in us. It is us.

I try to say it in a way she will understand, but I’m barely coherent, searching for words. “Liz, it’s not just Max that’s the problem here. You are. You are not letting yourself change. Now you have to do something. Before it’s too late.”

I watch her carefully, and see the despair in her eyes, see the tears that filled them start to fall. I sigh, and my gaze drops to the floor.

She’s not there yet. But maybe she’s closer. I just watch her as she turns and walks out. I know where she is going. I sit down on her bed to wait.

My Liz would never deny the truth. She stopped doing that long ago. She grew honest and fearless and never let me hide from what was real. She was my strength. If only it had been enough to make up for my weakness.

I always felt that there were secrets locked inside her that neither of us knew. I wish we’d had the chance to discover them. I wonder if they will come out, if the future changes. I hope that they will.

And I let myself hope that I will be there to see them.

She has to change so that she will not be the Liz she became anyway, the Liz I have loved for so long. She has to change, so that I will change too.

She will change, and maybe I won’t love her anymore.

But there's a voice that whispers in my head that somehow, I will still love her. And even if I disappear, I think my love for her will remain, will leave its trace in what happens here.

It has to, because I’m doing this for her. She is all that matters.

***

A doomed man should get a last request. Mine is a hot shower. I’ve been wearing leather for three days without one.

I stand still, lost in the steamy sound of the water for an endless time, the heat easing the weary tension in my shoulders. But then my memories stir and shift slightly and I realize that she is talking to him, in his room. I stand and quietly watch my memories change.

“Just don’t say anything.”

The steely authority in her voice stops me. It’s different. I watch as my growing shock sharpens the memory, brings it into focus.

“I just re-read ‘Romeo and Juliet’, and you know, the first thing that I realized is that isn’t even the title. It’s called ‘The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet’. They die.”

Oh, clever girl. I feel the pain, new and yet old, at the memory of her words.

“You know Max, if . . . if you truly love me, you’ll let me go. I may love you, but I . . . I don’t want to die for you.”

The me that I was knows that she’s lying. Tears rose in my eyes because I knew she was lying and I didn’t understand why.

But I also feel confusion, and the beginnings of doubt, as they creep into my mind and begin to unravel the knotted truths that tied me to this reality. I start to feel just a little lighter, and hope rises in my heart.

Clever girl. Maybe it was enough. I let myself hope that I don’t disappear before she comes back to her room.

***

She cries, soft, broken crying, and I try to ignore it, but I’m as good at it now as I was during all the years we were together. I reach for the tissues.

And my hand goes right through them.

I am paralyzed for a split second, realizing that the next moment, or the next, or the next, might be my last. I look at her and don’t look away.

“You’re just . . . you’re going back to where you came from?” She sounds vaguely hopeful.

I smile. She still doesn’t get it. But that’s ok; I would rather shoulder this burden alone. She deserves that much after what she’s been through. I sigh and answer her very, very gently.

“No. There’s nowhere to go back to.”

I sit still and look at her, drinking in the sight of her, that I hope will be the last thing on earth I see.

And I wait.

And nothing happens.

I feel the memories shift slightly and I hear Maria’s voice. I search inside for a change, the feeling of disappearing, of fading, and it is gone.

Damn.

I don’t think I can take much more of this.

I fight the wave of weariness that washes over me, rub my eyes, focus on her, and tell her what needs to be done.

But this girl is fighting again, she’s fighting me, and I can’t seem to get her to understand what’s at stake. And I can’t tell her why I’m really doing this. So I tell her why she made me do this, why she forced me to leave her.

“Liz, twenty-five minutes before I came here, I held Michael in my arms. Dead. Isabel died two weeks before that. Now you have to do this. You have to find a way. All our lives depend on it.”

Your life depends on it, love. I’m so tired. I sit helplessly and watch her cry. And I harden my heart.

***

I’m out on the roof, alone with my thoughts. I wonder what will happen tomorrow. I hope it will be my last day on earth.

I think about Liz and let the tears come, because I’m tired and cold and I can’t help it. I remember her face, her beautiful, sad eyes, as we said goodbye.

We have to keep trying. We have to.

I don’t want to think about it, but the thoughts rise anyway, and the tears, and I can’t stop either of them.

***

“I don’t think this is such a good idea.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Do you really think this is going to work? I could never be jealous of Kyle.”

I can’t help it, I say it out loud and curse myself silently. Something is different about her and suddenly I feel out of my element. What changed? I tell myself it’s nothing, it’s just because I’m tired. I’m so tired.

No, something is different.

I watch her begin to undress, as she talks to Kyle through the bathroom door. She asks me to turn around.

Liz, we were married, remember? I’ve seen you naked a thousand times. She continues to look at me in the mirror, arms poised with the edges of her shirt in hand, her eyes bigger than I have ever seen them, waiting. I exhale resignedly, nod, and turn away. I look at the shower tiles and suddenly remember her standing there once, long ago, blushing in surprise when she saw me waiting, towel ready, to dry her off and carry her to bed.

I listen to Kyle talk about Buddhism, and suddenly I can’t believe what I’m feeling, what is surging up inside me, bitter and sickening.

I’m jealous. Of Kyle.

I swear under my breath and say the first words that come to mind, and then I feel ashamed. I’m helpless, and feeling a slowly growing sense of something approaching, something on its way, something awful.

I start to panic. What if Kyle doesn’t understand what’s happening? What if he thinks this is an opportunity to get something that he couldn’t get from her before?

“If he tries anything—“

But she stops me with a look.

Who is she now? I don’t know, and suddenly I feel completely powerless, and all I can do is watch.

“I’ve got it under control. Please stay out of earshot.”

And she left without looking back.

I stood, helpless, and stared at myself in the mirror, and felt the gathering storm come.

***

A slow pulse began in me like measured steps, I felt it approach, I saw her window and the soft glow of the light from her room. I heard her voice, soft words, and I remembered that all I wanted to do that night was touch her, lose myself in her eyes and drown in her kiss.

And then I heard Kyle. And I stopped.

I heard him say words that made no sense and I heard her murmur softly in response and then

oh god

I saw her

dark eyes wide

bare skin

oh god no

And I saw her face, in that moment, cursed with having both his memories and mine and knowing what she was doing, what her eyes were really saying, knowing the truth, and the pain of both realities almost brought me to my knees.

I slowly closed my eyes, and lowered my head, and felt the pain and didn’t fight it, didn’t fight it at all. I just let it take its time, and do its work.

***

Steel is tempered with fire.

We live our lives trying to avoid pain, which is silly. Pain shapes us, teaches us. Pain is life.

I saw people, countless people, in the years ahead, who died just to avoid the pain of living. Who would rather die than change.

We sit together out on the roof, and I listen to her voice and let it soothe my heart. There is a new sadness in her eyes, and a new strength. She has changed.

She has become the girl who would make me take no for an answer.

“It’s a different world now.” My voice is barely a whisper. I don’t know anything anymore. But I know it will be over soon.

She can still surprise me, though. I smile a little at her request, and then I take her gently in my arms and we begin to dance, and I allow her to slowly warm me. I can feel the memories spinning faster and faster, but I ignore them, because at this moment, I don’t want to be anywhere else in time, or space, but here.

She loved to dance.

She whirls, and whirls again, and the soft touch of her fingertips circling against mine makes my heart ache.

Maybe she didn’t really become a different person. Maybe she has just become herself sooner.

Oh god.

It’s happening.