Edge of Forever
Max/Liz || S1 What-ifs || G
Summary: On the edge of forever, one simple difference can change the course of history.
Author's Note: Ficathon fic, the requests were that it be set before they left Roswell and that there was no Tess, Isabel, or Courtney. Title and theme inspired by the Star Trek episode “City on the Edge of Forever.” Quote about time being like a river totally gacked from Spock.
Complete: Yes
1.
Michael peeled away from the Café, pushing the Jeep as far as he could. Max said nothing, thinking – no, knowing – that there wasn’t anything to say. He’d done what he’d done and there was nothing either of them could do to go back and change it. But Michael had never been one to say nothing when given a chance to break silence.
“What the hell were you thinking, Maxwell?”
Max whipped his head around and stared at Michael incredulously. “I was thinking that Liz Parker was about to die there if I didn’t do something to stop it!”
Michael’s hands tightened on the steering wheel as he turned the Jeep out into the desert. His knuckles were white and his jaw was tight. I should have known Max would pull something like this eventually.
“I did what I had to do, Michael,” Max said wearily. I should have known Michael wouldn’t understand.
“What you had to do.” Michael’s voice was flat. Tension hummed between them for a few seconds until Michael suddenly slammed on the brakes. “Dammit, Max, you’ve put us all at risk – even Liz!” He slammed his fist against the dashboard. “Of the three of us, I never thought you’d be the one to bring us down.”
“We aren’t down yet. And I’d rather that Liz be alive and at risk than to be dead never knowing…” Max trailed off, unable to complete his sentence.
“She’s not one of us, Maxwell. She won’t understand.”
“I saved her life. She will.” Max’s voice was quiet, but there was an undertone of steel beneath the calm words.
“You can’t be sure.”
Max stared straight at Michael, his steely gaze almost daring Michael to chicken out and look away. “I saw into her soul, Michael. She’ll understand.”
Michael looked down and away. They sat in silence for a few moments, each staring out into the desert and nursing his own thoughts. Finally Michael put the Jeep back in gear and pulled back onto the road.
“You’ve changed everything, Maxwell. You’ve changed everything.”
“I know,” Max replied, but his quiet words were lost in the revving of the engine as he and Michael sped back towards Roswell.
2.
The gun went off, and Max sprang up from his seat. I have to help her, I have to help her. His forward motion was suddenly stopped by Michael’s arm.
“What are you doing?” he snapped. “Let go of me!” He struggled to get past Michael and to the only girl he’d ever loved.
“Max!” Michael whispered urgently. “What are you gonna do?” he added pointedly. Max turned his head to look at Michael’s face. “You can’t do it,” Michael said, his voice containing a hint of pity.
“Somebody help!” Maria screamed, her voice filled with tears. “Call 9-1-1!”
Max struggled more, but Michael held firm. “Think of the rest of us, Max. You can’t expose us, not like this.”
“But she’s...”
“There’s nothing you can do, Maxwell. You save her, we all die.”
“We don’t know that!” he whispered through clenched teeth. But he slumped in Michael’s iron grip as the truth sank into him like a stone.
Trapped by his responsibilities, he dropped back into the booth. Michael slid back into the seat across from him and watched Max like a hawk.
“When she dies, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Maybe she won’t.”
Max shook his head. “She will.”
The paramedics stormed into the café and quickly carried her out to an ambulance. Max watched as they passed by with her bleeding body. He knew he’d never see her alive again. His heart breaking into a thousand pieces, he took a deep breath and answered the sheriff’s questions about the shooting.
3.
Max watched his girlfriend, Liz, work the tables at her parents’ café like she’d been born doing it. He grinned and chuckled when she pulled out the “alien” picture, though he had to hand it to her, she really knew how to pick her marks. He didn’t believe in aliens, and had trouble understanding anyone who did – making Roswell not the best place for him. But Liz, she thrived on the theatricality of it all, and Max had to admit that after dating her since the end of the last school year he was getting sucked in as well.
“You’re staring again,” Maria said as she breezed by him on her way to refill her coffee pot.
He grinned. “Am not,” he playfully protested.
“Don’t worry, you’re cute when you stare.” She took a deep breath and looked toward one of her tables. Max followed her gaze and noted the two men there looked to be fairly agitated.
“Problem table?”
“How come Liz gets you and the Crash Fest suckers and I get the grumpy rednecks?” Maria groused.
“I’m just lucky,” Liz replied as she came toward them.
Maria stuck her tongue out good-naturedly and then headed over to the table. Liz headed back toward the kitchen to deliver the orders she’d just picked up to the cook. Max saw Maria shake her head in exasperation and then turn and head back in his direction.
Then all hell broke loose.
The men started shouting, one of them pulled a gun. Everyone hit the deck. Except Liz. Max felt like he was seeing everything in slow motion. Unfortunately, he also felt like he was going in slow motion.
The gun went off, and Liz hit the floor. Max froze for a fraction of a second, and then time slammed back into its normal pace.
“LIZ!” he screamed, and lunged to her. So much blood, so much blood, oh God, Liz… “Call an ambulance!” he shouted to Maria, who had crawled over to him and Liz. He grabbed a towel and pressed it to Liz’s stomach, but somewhere inside he knew.
His girlfriend was dying in front of him, and there was nothing he could do about it.
He glanced at the alien enthusiasts Liz had so recently been playing for fools, and found himself wishing aliens were real, because they’d probably have some kind of cool and useful power with which to keep his Liz from dying.
A tear rolled down his cheek at the knowledge that that wasn’t going to happen.
4.
Max had been eyeing the arguing men since he and Michael had walked into the café that afternoon. At one point Michael had even told him to stop staring.
“You’re being even more paranoid than me,” he’d said bemusedly.
“Something’s not right about them,” Max had replied. He still thought there was something about them he didn’t trust.
So when they suddenly stood up and started really yelling at each other, all of Max’s senses went on super-high alert. And when the gun was pulled, Max knew exactly where the most important person in the room was. And she was right in the line of fire.
Max jumped up, and with Michael’s cries of “What the hell, Max? Hit the deck!” echoing in his ears followed quickly by the snap of a gunshot, Max lunged toward Liz Parker and slammed into her with approximately the force of West Roswell High’s top linebacker.
The bullet missed her.
It didn’t miss him.
He forced himself to roll off of Liz, who was mumbling incoherently along the lines of “oh my God, Max, my God…”
Physician, heal thyself, he thought bleakly, as the world went black.
5.
“I just wish I could have stopped you from saving my life that day in the Crashdown.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Max, the day that you saved my life, your life just ended.”
“No, that was the day my life began.”
Changing one thing changes everything. Without her, I would have died. Without me, she would have died. Hindsight may be 20/20, but that’s still no argument for changing the past. What we do affects more than what we know, affects more than just our lives. I’m not the only one whose life was made better because Liz Parker was still in it. What about her family, and Maria, and every Crashdown customer who gets a kick out of seeing a fake alien picture from their waitress?
Time is fluid…like a river with currents, eddies, backwash. We just swim in it, and hope we do the right thing.