Chapter Text
If You Love Me, Let Me Go
If you ask Liz Ortecho, she’ll tell you that Max Evans has this uncanny way about him that never fails to make her think twice.
Liz has never wanted to be like her mom- she never wanted to be the kind of person who left people behind. But car fires in the dead of night have a way of changing things in ways people can never quite imagine until they’re living it, and if Liz was the one to live through it, she couldn’t do that in the same place where her sister didn’t. So she ran as far and as fast as she could. Too fast to notice Max Evans staring after her with tears in his eyes that had nothing to do with the dust her Jeep kicked up onto the road behind her.
But she’s back now, and there is nothing left on Earth that could possibly make any sense to her. Rosa, Rosa her sister who was larger than life and still is in death, was killed by an evil alien wearing Isobel Evans’ flawless veneer as their face. Isobel Evans, who is an alien. Michael Guerin, Alex’s great big museum-guy love, also an alien. Max Evans, an alien. Max Evans, who still loves her; who’s loved her all along, and known the truth about Rosa all along. The beautiful boy with soulful brown eyes, torn down and cracked in half by guilt.
Max Evans, who has loved Liz all along and just brought her back to life, shiny handprint and all.
There is nothing left on planet Earth that will ever make sense again. Not Max risking destroying his family to tell Liz the truth, not Alex Manes taking down his father, not Kyle Valenti growing a soul. Not the way it still stirs something up in Liz’s chest every time Max looks at her. The way Liz knows he would stop a bullet for her; hell, he practically already has. Liz ran away to Colorado and barricaded herself away in a dozen different labs to find a way to make things make sense again after Rosa died, and the truth is that her running away didn’t accomplish anything but putting distance between her and what was left of the people who loved her.
Liz’s faith in humanity and goodness ended in flames on a dusty night, so maybe her ending up knee-deep in an alien conspiracy is exactly the kind of thing that is supposed to make sense now. Maybe the peace she’s been chasing has been here the whole time. Max and the others seem determined to figure out who exactly got into Isobel’s head all those years ago, and even if there are plenty of personal motivations going around, that doesn’t mean the end result won’t be the same. Maybe Rosa can get justice after all, even if Liz and the others are the only ones who will ever know.
Maybe she doesn’t have to run this time. Maybe she doesn’t have to miss anyone. Maybe she doesn’t have to miss Max Evans.
For the first time in a long time, it feels like Liz just might be running towards something instead of from it, and looking at life through fresh eyes to make sense of it all again.