Roswell, Still the End of the World

Title: Still The End Of the World [Max/Liz]
Rating/Warnings: R for an explicit fumbly first time.
Summary: Max has a visitor of his own from the future.
A/N: Set a few weeks after ‘The End Of The World’. This was my first serious fanfiction, other than some X-files stuff I had done in high school, and my first sex scene ever. It’s kind of terrible, you’ll notice.

Still the End of the World

Max stood on Liz’s balcony, torn between the urge to stare through her window or flee back to the safety of his own room. He realized that his behavior was becoming obsessive. That morning Isabel had grilled him angrily about where he was spending all these hours each night, even though she knew just as well as anybody where Max went.

He just couldn’t figure out what had happened. They had been desperately in love, couldn’t keep their hands off each other, and then she tries to convince him that she slept with Kyle? Max’s heart broke all over again as he thought of finding them like that. He knew Liz would never do that, and his mind worried at the problem constantly trying over and over again to find a solution. Why would Liz try to break them up? It was almost as if she wanted him to fall out of love with her…

Max felt tears slide down his face as he watched Liz sleep. She tossed and turned, whimpering in her sleep. Max knew from watching her night after night that she was hardly sleeping at all and wracked with nightmares when she did. She would wake up screaming or crying, sometimes calling his name, and it was all he could do not to break in her French door and hold her. The only thing that held him back was the certainty that Liz wouldn’t do this for no reason, if only he knew what she dreamed about…

“So you were here that night.”

Max whirled around to see Liz step out of the shadows behind him. He looked back and forth between the sleeping Liz and the Liz before him several times before he realized that this Liz was not his Liz. She was older, with short hair, lines marring her face and a sadness in her eyes so deep that Max couldn’t look at them for more than a second.

“I thought you were on my balcony when I first woke up,” she whispered, and the despair in her voice made Max’s tears flow faster down his face. “But then I came out here and you were gone. I thought it was a dream…”

“Who are you?” Max asked desperately, fighting the conflicting urge to hold this Liz in her despair and the knowledge that somehow this was without a doubt not his Liz.

“I’m her,” she said, waving towards Liz’s door. “I’m Liz 14 years later.”

In Max’s grief-stricken and sleep deprived state, he accepted this without comment, but realized that this Liz could surely tell him what this was all about.

“Then tell me why Liz is doing this to me.”

The older Liz’s piercing gaze drilled deep inside of Max and froze him.

“Because you told her to.” Max stood rooted to the spot while the future Liz explained. She told him of his future self coming to her and telling her that her world would be destroyed if she didn’t make Max stop loving her. She told him how the future Max had known where he would be and just what to do to push Max’s buttons. How he had stood in Liz’s bathroom and watched her with Kyle to make sure they made him see just what he was supposed to see. How Liz had sworn not to tell him. Max absorbed it all with a growing sense of horror at what his future self had put Liz through, but also a strange, dark kind of pride that his Liz had borne this all alone.

“But why are you here?” Max asked.

“Because they were wrong.” This Liz’s voice was dull and full of pain. “It didn’t save the world. It didn’t make anything better. It just caused more pain. And now he…you…” her face twisted ad she choked on her words. Max impulsively stepped forward and took her head between his hands.

He saw himself, face every bit as lined as hers, lying in this Liz’s arms.

He was dying.

He saw himself stare into the eyes of the future Liz and heard himself whisper why? The future Liz grabbed his hand and forced her memories of her encounter with the future Max into him as quickly as she could. Oh god, he heard himself say. His eyes began to cloud and he whispered I’m sorry.

God, I am so sorry…

The Liz in front of Max was shaking violently, tears pouring down her cheeks.

“All for nothing,” she whispered. “I can’t stop the end of the world,” she continued shakily, “but I won’t let her live through what I have. There’s no reason for all this pain.”

She held Max in place with the darkest eyes Max had ever seen.

“Go save her, Max. Marry her. Love her as hard as you can. You don’t have long, but you do have now. And I would give anything to have back the time I wasted.”

Max was still reeling from his glimpse of the smoky, dying future. “Isn’t there anything we can do?” he pleaded of the future Liz.

“I held on for so long,” Max could barely hear the rustle of this Liz’s voice, “because I thought our future selves must have known something I didn’t, you were so sure of how and why I had to hurt you…but when you stopped breathing in my arms, I realized that they didn’t know anything that I didn’t. Anymore than you do.”

A strangled cry came from Liz’s room.

“She’ll wake up in a few minutes,” future Liz said. “For god’s sake, get in there and take whatever happiness you can have.”

Max started towards Liz’s door, and then stopped. “What happens to you if I change all of this?” he asked.

“If there is any mercy in this world, then my timeline will die out when you change the past, and I will too.” Max turned to go to Liz. “And Max?”

Max turned for a last look at the grim figure his Liz could have become through her devotion to him.

“Be gentle. Its her first time,” she said with the saddest smile imaginable.

Max in a few quick steps went back to this Liz and crushed her to his chest. “How could you believe anything you could do would ever make me stop loving you?”

The future Liz pulled away from Max and shook her head.

“My Max is gone. But she can still be happy with you at least for a while.” She pushed Max away hard. “Get in there, she’s waking up.”

Max paused at Liz’s door and took a last look back, but the other Liz was gone. A loud whimper, brought his attention back to his Liz.

She was sitting bolt upright in bed, staring at him. He took a deep breath and pushed open her door. As he approached her bed, she pressed herself against the headboard, as far away from him as she could.

“Don’t do this to me,” she whispered.

“It’s really me,” Max said sitting on the edge of her bed.

“No,” Liz shook her head, tears beginning to spill down her face. “I can’t bear it.”

“You aren’t dreaming,” Max held out a hand to Liz, but she wouldn’t move. He reached further and ran a fingertip down her cheek. He felt an electric shock run between them, but the knowledge that is was not a dream seemed to make Liz more agitated.

“You have to go,” she pleaded. “You have to go to Tess.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Max said calmly.

“Please,” begged Liz. “Don’t do this to me…”

“I know you didn’t sleep with Kyle,” Max continued. “And I know why you told me you did.” Liz accepted this at face value, but it didn’t change anything.

“Then you know why you have to go,” she said flatly.

Before she could dodge him he reached out and pulled her head close to his. He showed her her future self and his future self’s death. She cried out when the future Max’s eyes fluttered closed and began to sob. Max pulled her tightly to him, and she didn’t try to pull away. They both cried, for themselves, for their future selves, and for the destiny of their planet. Finally, Liz slumped exhaustedly in Max’s arms. He was washed over in a wave of weakness himself, with his lack of sleep the last few weeks.

He laid back on Liz’s bed, pulling her with him, unable to sit upright any longer. They clung to each other like survivors of a tragedy, which, he supposed, they were in a way.

“What are we going to do?” Liz asked tearfully.

“We’re going to get married,” Max said simply.

“Oh?” Liz asked.

“If we only have 14 years, I’m not wasting another second of it.”

Liz lifted her head and looked into Max’s eyes. “We can’t get married right now,” Liz said, voice hoarse from crying. “We have school tomorrow.”

A smile grew on Max’s face as he hugged Liz tighter. “That sounds like my Liz,” he said.

“I missed your smile so much,” Liz sighed. Max brushed the hair from Liz’s face and leaned down to kiss her. Their first kiss was long and soulful, as if they were trying to make up for all the kisses they had lost over the last weeks. When Max’s tongue brushed over her lip, Liz shuddered against him and ran her own tongue over his. Electricity, warm and sharp, ran through them, making them both gasp.

Suddenly, the T-shirt separating them was too much for Liz. She slid her hands under Max’s shirt and ran her palms over his muscled stomach. He closed his eyes and arched against her touch. Liz pushed Max onto his back and climbed on top of him, pushing his shirt out of her way as she did so. Max pulled the shirt over his head and tossed it to the floor. She leaned down and kissed him hard, her hair brushing the sides of his face.

Max’s hands found their way underneath Liz’s shirt and he slid them up her sides. He ran them down her smooth back and ran his fingers teasingly over the small of her back. She squirmed on top of him, but he held her tightly with one arm and repeated the action deliberately until she shook in agonized laughter.

“Stop!” she begged. “My parents will hear us!”

Max stopped tickling her, but didn’t let go of her. He used his now-free hand to pull her head down for another serious round of kisses, which were rapidly becoming very insistent. Liz pulled away and sat up on Max, riding high on his hips. She crossed her arms in front of her and pulled her shirt over her head.

Neither moved as Max stared at her, the love so palpable in his gaze that Liz nearly started to cry again. Suddenly Max sat up against her and Liz gasped as her cool flesh touched his warm chest. Max covered one of her small breasts with a large warm hand. Liz made a noise deep in her throat as Max grazed her nipple with his palm, making it tighten. He kissed her again, more gently, but he didn’t stay on her lips long. He slowly ran kisses down her neck and leaned her backwards slowly so he could reach between her breasts. She tangled her hands in his dark hair and leaned her head over his, breathing in his scent. She leaned into him, urging him on.

When he finally did take one of her nipples into his mouth, she stifled a moan that would have surely brought her parents running into the room. He flicked his tongue over her, and heat shot through the lower half of her body.

Two can play at that game, she thought, flitting her fingernails over one of Max’s nipples. The rumble in Max throat made Liz’s chest vibrate. She dropped her hands to the button of Max’s jeans, but Max stopped kissing her and covered her hands with his.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “Are you scared?”

Liz smiled at the familiar words, but didn’t hesitate. “Yes,” she said, the answer to both questions being the same.

Max took a firm hold of Liz and rolled her under him in a swift motion. He hooked his thumbs in the waistband of her boxers and slid them over her hips. When he couldn’t stretch his arms any further down, Liz took over and kicked them off. Max stopped everything and simply stared at her, hovering above her, supporting his weight on his wrists. He sank to one elbow and ran his other hand down the length of Liz’s body.

“You are so beautiful,” he breathed, taking Liz’s breath away with the weight of his stare. “How could I ever give you up?” He seemed to be asking himself more than anything, and Liz only kissed him in reply, because she didn’t know his answer.

She reached between them and unhooked the button of his jeans, then slid the zipper down agonizingly slowly. Max covered her hands with his own as he helped her slide the resisting denim off his body and to the floor. Max hesitated, the uncertainty obvious on his face.

“I don’t really know what I’m doing,” he confessed.

“Neither do I,” Liz said reassuringly as she ran her hand firmly up his erection. Max laughed softly at the obvious disconnection between her words and her actions. He gathered her in his arms under him, sliding his hands between her and the bed and resting his weight fully on her.

“I’m afraid I’ll hurt you,” he said, still reluctant. Liz reached up and tangled her hands in his hair.

“You will,” she told him, staring back into his dark eyes. “But its worth it. Any pain is worth it for you, Max.”

Liz’s words might have been fluff at any point before this, but Max knew it was true because Liz had already borne the worst pain imaginable, and he had asked her to do it for him.

“I am so sorry, Liz,” he unconsciously repeated the words of his older, dying self. “God, I am so sorry.”

“Don’t tell me,” Liz shook her head a little. “Show me.”

Max raised himself above her, never breaking their gaze. Still staring up at him, Liz reached down and guided him into her. She bit her lip hard, but didn’t close her eyes as he eased into her. Max lowered his head and kissed her softly, trying to stay still until she got used to him being inside her. He was having a hard time keeping himself under control since all he wanted to do was bury himself inside her tight wetness.

Excruciatingly slowly, he began to move inside her. Her eyes widened at first, but then Liz began to mover her hips in time against his. As their rhythm sped up, Max drew perilously close to the edge of his orgasm, but refused to let go before he pushed Liz over the edge. He bit his lip so hard it bled, absolutely intent on Liz writhing below him, obviously very near to her own climax.

She would have beat him to it as he had planned, if she hadn’t chosen that moment to dig her nails into his butt and drive him deeper into her than he ever would have dared. He crushed his mouth to hers and moaned her name into her mouth as spasms ripped through him and left him shuddering and spent. He was vaguely aware of Liz’s last contractions rhythmically pulsing around him inside of her, and realized with relief that she had cum only moments after him.

For what seemed like a lifetime they lay tangled together like that, Max still inside of Liz, but it didn’t seem like nearly long enough when she began to stir under him. He began to slide out of her, but she hung on to him.

“Don’t move yet,” she whispered, opening her eyes and peering up at him from under heavy lashes.

“I’m too heavy to lay on you this long,” he protested, still trying to move. Liz’s grip held firm.

“Just a little while longer,” she murmured, closing her eyes again. Max solved the problem by taking a firm grip on her, and rolling them both over again so that he was on the bottom this time. He slipped out of her in the course of this maneuver, but she only sighed in protest. She draped herself limply over Max and lay quietly, rising and falling with his breath. Max tilted his head up to kiss the top of Liz’s head…

…and for a moment in the reflection of her window, he could have sworn he saw the figure of the older Liz, wearing the same sad smile…

…and then it was gone. He tightened his grip on his own Liz, sleeping peacefully in his arms.

* * * * * *

At dawn Max crept silently out of Liz’s room and shut the French doors softly behind him. He bent despite some interesting aches to tie his sneaker, when something caught his eye. He reached over and picked it up, then straightened, holding the object.

It was a dried white rosebud. The morning breeze ruffled his hair and blew past his cheek like a caress, and he could have sworn he heard someone whispering…

…As I threw the flowers up to you I remembered that you preferred white roses…

With an impulse that he couldn’t explain, Max returned through Liz’s door and curled one of her hands around the dried flower. He bent and kissed her forehead, then left the room for the final time, wiping away tears without knowing why or for whom he was shedding them.