But this is not allowed,
You're uninvited,
An unfortunate slight."

-Alanis Morissette, "Uninvited"

*****

Have you been told stories of Prince Charming all your life? Stories that begin once upon a time and end happily ever after? Stories of maidens locked away until the day that their princes come to rescue them? This is my fairy tale, but it does not end happily ever after.

Once upon a time-okay, fuck that. It makes it sound long ago and far away. Which is what they would all like to believe. It's what I used to believe. But it's not long ago, it's right here and right now.

I met him. I have been waiting to meet him all of my life. And it happened just as I had been told that it would happen. My eyes met his and I saw something familiar in them. Something that had been waiting just for me. And I knew, I understood at that moment exactly what my destiny was.

Always before destiny had been this thing that was coming. It was unstoppable. I am trying to remember if I was ever excited at the prospect of it, or if I was only excited because Nasedo was excited. I was excited at the idea of meeting more people like me, that is for certain. But I wasn't burning with some desire for Max.

Destiny is inescapable. Would I have wanted to escape it? No, I guess not. Not now that I have seen him and felt such things for him. But even before, I don't think I would have wanted it to leave. It is my only purpose for being alive. It is the reason that I woke up cold and alone so many years ago, in a place that I did not recognize.

They left me behind, you know. They were supposed to be there when I woke up. But they were gone. It was scary and confusing. But Nasedo was there. He helped me to stand. I will never forget the look in his eyes. He was desperate. The others were missing. He didn't say anything, but I knew what he was thinking. I had no answers. We both stood there and stared at the empty pods. Finally he took me away. He took me to the place that he called home.

He hated that place. He hated everything about being here. And most of all, he hated me. He had failed in his mission, which was to watch over all of us. He had lost three of his people. Not a day went by that he didn't remind me in some small way that he was stuck on this planet because of me. Maybe if all four of us had left together, he would have gone home. But I don't think that he knows how to get back.

I don't know much about him, really. That probably sounds strange. But he is distant with me. He has taught me things. He has told me about our planet, about how wonderful it was. And mainly, he has told me about Max Evans.

He didn't call him Max Evans. He called him Vinson. He told me that he was waiting for me somewhere. He told me that one day we would find him and then our destiny could be fulfilled.

Years went past and I learned more and more. Nasedo would get frustrated with me though. I didn't learn as quickly as he would have liked.

If this were a true fairy tale, this would be the place where my father locked me away. Or some witch locked me away, depending on whether the father in this story was good or evil. But Nasedo did not try to keep me anywhere, and neither did anyone else. I lived in a prison that I created myself. I wanted a father, and from that want I tried to create a father in Nasedo. I boxed myself in, wishing for something that I could never have.

I hugged him once. Just once. It was Christmas. I had heard all of these wonderful things about the holidays. So I went and I bought him a tie. It was all that I could afford. I didn't have any wrapping paper or anything, so I just gave it to him in the box. He stared at it for a long time and then he muttered something about me being ridiculous. It was then that I understood that he was never going to be my father. He was trying, but there were no emotions to be felt and he couldn't help that. And in that moment of weakness, of understanding who he was and why it was so hard for him here, I reached out and hugged him. He did not push me away, but he did not hug me back. And I let go and we returned to who we had been and always would be-a man and a girl thrown together, pretending to feel things that didn't exist.

The day that he found Vinson, he was excited. It was the closest he has ever been to happy in the time that I have known him. He told me that there was a boy named Max Evans living in Roswell who might be Vinson. He didn't say much more about him for a long time. And then he brought me the pictures.

There were hundreds of them. Pictures of Max at school, at home, walking down the street. He was good looking. He resembled his picture in the book. But something was missing, something in his eyes. I realized that he looked nothing like what I had pictured my Vinson to look like. Which is silly, I have had his picture all along. I finally figured it out though. He looked human. Utterly human. I hadn't expected that. It comes from living with Nasedo, I'm sure. He always looks slightly different, even when he takes on the same shape again and again.

So I hadn't expected my prince to seem human, when the only man that I had ever loved wasn't human at all. Slowly though, over time, Max Evans became who I pictured when I thought of my destiny.

And then I met him. That was when everything clicked. My eyes and his eyes knew one another. I knew then that I could have found him. Had he not saved Liz Parker's life and let us know where he was, I could have found him. I wish that was the way that it had happened. That one day I could have just walked into a restaurant and seen him sitting there. My eyes would have met his and we would have known.

But we were dealing with alien hunters, so there wasn't time for that to happen. It had to be rushed. I had to make him feel things before he was ready to feel them.

My power is a dangerous one. People cannot trust me. They cannot trust what they see and feel when they are around me. I don't like to use it often for that very reason. But with Max, I had to use it. I was given no other choice.

My power is most dangerous to me, though. I make myself see things that aren't there all the time. I pretend that Nasedo is my father and that he loves me. I pretend that Max has never doubted me. I pretend that Isabel is my sister, and that she continues to trust me.

They don't trust me. Isabel did at first, but then it disappeared. Michael has never trusted me. And Max is scared because he doesn't understand what he feels around me.

I miss Isabel the most. I thought that she understood me. I was wrong. They have all shut me out; they blame me for all of this. But it is not my doing. The only difference is that I accept it gladly, as I have no other options. I wonder, if they had taken me with them from the start, would I want to remain with the humans as they do? It is hard to imagine. If they had come with me, would they be able to accept this destiny? But it is all neither here nor there. They have led human lives, I have led a lonely life. I am not alien and I am not human. There are only three other people in the world who can understand who I am, and yet they refuse to believe that I am anything like them.

And so, this is the end of my story. We know of our destiny. We know who we are and what we are supposed to do. And we know that it is the four of us, together. But they know it grudgingly. They want to return to their humans and their family. They want to leave me behind again. I do not blame them for this because they were not raised to distrust humans. But I cannot allow them to leave me either. They are all that I have, save a man who hates me.

I have never once questioned my destiny. I have laid my fate in Max's hands. I trust in who I was at one time to make me who I will be. This is what we should all be doing. That was the plan. Only I am forced to watch as he pines away for the girl left behind, the girl who never should have been mixed up in all of this. His life has been forever changed by her. And I am left abandoned again, hated by the man I want so desperately to love.