~Orison Swett Marden
****

Liz was numb, empty. She had felt the strange nothingness in her soul constantly since she ran away from Max that day. Running from him was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do.

I fall to pieces
Each time I see you again
I fall to pieces
How can I be just your friend

You want me to act like we've never kissed
You want me to forget, pretend we've never met
And I've tried and I've tried but I haven't yet
You walk by, and I fall to pieces

I fall to pieces
Each time someone speaks your name
I fall to pieces
Time only adds to the flame

The music droned on, but Liz didn’t even really hear it. In her head, the events of the last forty-eight hours played over and over again. The flashes of torture that Max experienced, the things he said to her in the overturned bus, the vision of his mother telling them of their pasts. All of it, and there was no stopping the playback.

The details of the past six hours were not as sharp in her mind. She vaguely recalled Alex and Maria finding her in the desert. Alex carrying her all the way back to the car. Her mother fussing over her when they got her home. Valenti lying to her parents, explaining how the teens got lost on a hike in the desert. Maria sitting next to her in her room, trying to get her to talk, eat, drink, anything. But she laid there in silence, ignoring all those around her, and they all left, one by one, until Maria finally put the tape in the stereo, turned it on and went away. And still the events replayed themselves.

That was, until new events occurred.

With her face turned away, she heard the click of the doorknob turning and the gentle swish of the door opening, but at first dismissed them as Maria returning to check on her. Then she felt it... she felt him.

Max cleared his throat. "Liz?" he asked softly, knowing that she was not asleep as she was pretending. "Your mom let me in. Please... I need to talk to you." No response, no movement. "Fine, then I just need you to listen.

"This is wrong. I know it. I know that this is not the way it’s supposed to be, I feel it in every fiber of my being. What that alien... my mother... told us in the cave, was the destiny of someone else. A destiny that was conceived a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. That’s not me. And while I may have some part of the alien that she spoke of in me, he had no part of me in him. This body is all new, all human. This heart is all mine... and in it there is no room for the love another creature had for his wife. Destinies change, Liz... with time, with distance. Those people had no clue how we would turn out on this planet with human bodies and human hearts..." he trailed off, not knowing what to say anymore.

"I—" Liz began, her voice raspy.

"What?" he asked hopeful.

"I want you to go away. It hurts too much, Max. I need some time to forget you, and it’s hard with you standing in my room."

Max’s heart sank. He could barely stand to breathe, knowing that she really did want no part of him. "I remember when I broke up with you after Michael was sick... it was pure torture not to be with you Liz, to have you look at me the way you did. That memory has scared me more than anything Pierce did. Please don’t make me be the one casting longing glances at you from across the room."

Max crossed the room and stood next to the stereo, realizing what was wrong with the songs that were playing.

From the bottom of my broken heart
There's just a thing or two I'd like you to know
You were my first love, you were my true love
From the first kisses to the very last rose
From the bottom of my broken heart
Even though time may find me somebody new
You were my real love, I never knew love
'Til there was you
From the bottom of my broken heart

As the chorus of the latest song ended, Max put his hand on the cool plastic casing of the stereo. "You’re doing this all wrong, Liz. This," he said, motioning to the speakers, "makes it seem like I broke up with you. I have no choice in this, Liz. I *want* to stay with you, but you keep pushing me away. You should be listening to something else." Waving his hand over the cassette deck, the music changed to Matchbox Twenty’s ‘Leave’. He crossed the room and climbed out the window to the balcony.

It's amazing
how you make your face just like a wall
how you take your heart and turn it off
how I turn my head and lose it all

It's unnerving
how just one move puts me by myself
there you go just trusting someone else
now I know I put us both through hell

I'm not saying
there wasn't nothing wrong
I just didn't think you'd ever get tired of me
I'm not saying
we ever had the right to hold on
I just didn't wanna let it get away from me

But if that's how it's gonna leave
straight out from underneath
then we'll see who's sorry now
If that's how it's gonna stand, when
you know you've been depending on
the one you're leaving now
the one you're leaving out

She listened for a moment, letting the lyrics sink in… then Liz followed him out the window, the numbness that she was feeling now replaced with anger.

"You have no right to assume that my pain is not real, Max Evans!"

He turned, happy that she followed, happy that she acknowledged him, but upset with himself that he hurt her. "I never said that it wasn’t, Liz."

"So what happens, Max? What happens when... if... for the millionth time I decide that with you to follow my heart instead of my head. Is this going to be like the time you got drunk and I believed every word that you said to me? I mean, are you just going to sober up and realize that this is all wrong and that you belong with Tess? I don’t know if I can handle that again."

She studied her hands, searching for the right words to say. "Am I supposed to sit back and wait for you to decide whether or not you should give in to destiny or desire?"

"Do you see that I already have. I’ve been telling you that for as long as I can remember. I choose you. I choose desire."

"So what happens if I decide to follow my heart-—again. We’ll live happily ever after, like you always talk about? I don’t think so. Sure, maybe we’ll be happy for a while, but sooner or later your real destiny is going to bear down upon you again and I don’t think that I can compete with that. I *know* I can’t compete with that. You have to know that you have a whole life out there. A life that one day will not include me-— a whole greater plan that will not include me. I’m willing to sacrifice the few years of happiness that I may have with you, if it means saving me a broken heart later on."

"Oh so now you alone get to decide our destinies? What crap is that? And you guys called me controlling... at least I have a reason. It’s the way I was engineered. What’s your excuse?" Liz was silent. "You’d do all this to save yourself a broken heart? Is that not what you’re feeling right now, because that’s what I feel. My heart is in a thousand pieces at your feet, Liz. If you decide to keep things the way they are with us, that’s where my heart will stay.

Liz’s voice softened, some of the anger she felt ebbing away. "Max, what if I do change my mind and years from now you decide that you and Tess were meant to be together, and that’s how it has to be."

"Not going to happen."

She continued on. "What if you learn the weaknesses of your enemies and you go back to your home planet, leaving me alone. Or what if in the future, we do what any happy couple does... get married and have kids. You might leave me and our children and I couldn’t handle that."

"I don’t doubt that you could sit here and name to me every single 'what if' scenario. What if Nasedo gets discovered and the FBI sends a new alien hunting squad after me tomorrow? What if I catch some exotic alien-human disease and die three months from now? What if, what if, what if. There are an hundred thousand what ifs, but the only one that matters to me is: What if I have to live my life without you?"

She turned to him tearfully, "I guess we’ll see." Liz bowed her head and started to crawl back into her bedroom.

Max called out to her, making her stop. "When I told you that I loved you, Liz, I meant it."

"So did I."

"Then why can’t we be together? Why are you pushing me away?"

Liz jumped down from the window sill, charging up to him. "Get off it, Max! Okay? This isn’t some romantic teen angst show on the WB. I’m not Joey, you’re not Dawson and just because we said we loved each other doesn’t mean that we’re meant to be together. If anything, I’m Jen... the bimbo distraction that’s keeping you away from your true Joey, that just happens to be Tess. We’re too different and we’re not supposed to be. That’s not how it’s going to be. If you can’t see that then I guess that I have to—-for the both of us." She let out a shaky breath. "Saying 'I Love You' doesn’t make everything all right. It doesn’t change your destiny."

"But it’s how I feel."

"I can’t ever compete with what you had with Tess. I can’t."

"You don’t have to, because what I *had* with Tess can’t ever compare with what I *have* with you." Max took advantage of their closeness and reached out to connect with her.

It was just like the first time in the CrashDown when he let her look into his soul. Every bit of what he was feeling poured into Liz. Everything he felt, she felt... everything he knew, she knew.

She pulled away from him, her breath coming out in ragged sobs and her voice was shaky. "Don’t do that!"

"I just wanted to—"

"I know what you wanted to do. You wanted to show me how you feel, but you don’t have to, Max. You don’t have to because I know how you feel, because *I* feel it too. This isn’t easy for me! I don’t know why you think it is. I feel the pain of my own heart breaking, I don’t need to know what you’re going through, too."

"I’m not going to give up, Liz. I’m going to be here for a long time. I will wait for you."

//Don’t// she thought to herself, wanting to say it out loud. She stopped herself by biting her tongue. Liz turned away from him to crawl in through the window, but before she reached it, she spoke softly, tasting the blood on her teeth. "How long?"