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The slowly setting sun is bathing the world in a warm golden glow, as Michael drives away from the cave. But he is not able to enjoy the enchanting view around him, beeing lost in his own world, thougths and feelings whirling around in his head. Allthough the road streches out straight in front of him, he has troubles not to veer off. His hands are holding on to the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles go all white.
He has to muster up every ounce of self-control in order to not completely loose it. Lucky for him he has years of training in self-restraint. Getting things done, while a constant storm is raging inside him, comes easy to him. Usually. But not today.
Today all the shit having gone down in the last few weeks and especially the last couple of days flood him with full force, overwhelm him. It’s too much for one person to take. Too much to wrap his mind around.
Beeing with Alex again and watching im walk away. Again.
Meeting his mother and losing her forever within mere minutes.
Finding out about Noah and what he had done to Isobel all these years.
Going head to head with Max about the way to handle the whole Noah-situation.
Beeing attacked by his brother in law, dying and beeing brougth back to life by Max.
Learning more about where they came from, why they had left their home planet and then beeing robbed of the only source of information by Max killing Noah.
Max sacrificing his life to save Rosa, who had been dead for 10 years.
Michael feels lost, confused, exhausted, lonely, angry, restless and sad. Each of those feelings like a hand grasping for him, trying to drag him under water. Drowning him. Leaving him incapable of movement or clear thought and making it hard to breath.
Michael sighs, rubs a hand over his face. Reflexively he turns on the radio, because music is one of the few things that can help him cope with the shitshow that is his life. Playing it or hearing it. And because he had not been able to play for a decade, he has done a lot of the latter. While sitting outside the airstream in front of the fire. Or while working down in the bunker on rebilduing the ship, which will take him far away from this planet, where he never really felt wanted. Or while driving around in his pickup truck, like now.
Some 90ies tune fills the air around him and he tries to breathe in and out steadily to the music. A few songs in, his heartbeat has turned down at least a notch and allthough he still feels all this conflicting and raw emotions inside of him, he does not feel as overwhelmed by them as before, not as helpless, not as powerless.
He’s still far from feeling good, the turmoil inside him not having died down completely. But instead of beeing a tornado threatening to blow him off his feet and making him loose his mind, it now is more of a constant wind blowing.
Everything is almost good for a moment…. and then it all goes to hell. The words of a song playing on the radio hit him like a hammer. All air is drained out of his lungs and even by taking deep breaths he does not seem to be able to get some air back in.
Oh brother, we go deeper than the ink
Beneath the skin of our tattoos
Though we don't share the same blood
You're my brother and I love you, that's the truth
I've got you brother
I've got you brother
If I was dying on my knees
You would be the one to rescue me
And if you were drowned at sea
I'd give you my lungs so you could breathe
I've got you brother
I've got you brother
And if we hit on troubled water
I'll be the one to keep you warm and safe
And we'll be carrying each other
Until we say goodbye on our dying day
Fighting back tears, pictures of Max lying there lifeless on the cold hard floor appear before his inner eye. The lyrics lingering in the air brought down the carefully built up wall that had shielded him from the emotions threatening to overwhelm him after finding Max in the cave.
There is only one reason he did not break down right then and there at the sight of the lifeless body. It’s because he had gotten some calm and strength being at the Wild Pony shortly before, relishing the feeling of playing the guitar again after so long, his fingers stroking the strings, the music sending vibrations through his body and helping to relax his muscles, usually so tense from having to cope with all the bad things and secrets in his life. And the warm smiles Maria flashed at him from over at the bar while trying to get some bookkeeping done might had something to do with him feeling good too.
And then all of a sudden he had felt panic, grief and loss pulling at his heart. He had jumped up, almost dropping the guitar in the process and had left Maria, only muttering „I have to go…. I have to go...“. The exact same words he had uttered in front of Alex in the Airstream after getting the flashes of Isobel being in danger of getting killed by Noah.
Everything after leaving the bar is a blur. He hardly remembers how he got into his truck. He knew exactly where he needed to go and did so on autopilot. While he was driving out to the cave he had still been hopeing against all hope that what had gone down out there was not as bad as the flashes suggested. But the situation he walked into confirmed his worst fears.
Michael roughly wipes away the tears now streaming down his face, making it hard to see where he’s driving. After nearly hitting a rock on the side of the road, he stops the pickup in the middle of nowhere and stares out into the now almost dark desert.
He still has trouble wrapping his mind around the fact that Max is dead. At least for the time being. And he is genuinely taken aback by how much his heart and his whole body ache because of it.
Michael is really surprised that he feels like a part of him is missing, like his guts have been ripped out of him.
Max and he had not been close the last ten years. At least not as close as they used to be when they were kids and up until their senior year in high school. Back then they had really been brothers. They spent a lot of time together, went camping, goofed around and talked about everything. Their closeness had ended with Rosa’s dead.
After that fateful night they had stopped hanging out entirely. They couldn’t stand to be around each other anymore, because they only reminded each other of the worst moment of their life and of all they had lost because of it. Max had lost a possible future with Liz, his dream to go travelling and become a writer. Michael had lost the possibility to leave Roswell, go study at UNM and to become an engineer, like he had always wanted. And they had lost each other.
Allthough Michael knew that there was no point in what ifs, sometimes he had not been able but to wonder what his life would have been like if Rosa had not died. That were the days that usually ended with him getting drunk at the Wild Pony and picking a fight.
On the few occasions Max and he had seen each other in the last decade, there had been a lot of friction between them. Max had the innate ability to drive Michael up the wall, which had let more than once to Michael loosing control of his powers and sending the deputy sheriff or a heavy object in proximity to where they were standing flying through the air.
They got in each others hair, because they were so different in many ways: Max being adamant about always following the rules, Michael being more the “act first, ask questions later” kind of guy. Max wanting to forget that he was an alien, Michael wanting to solve the puzzle, wanting to know where they came from, what had landed them on earth and how to get back home. Max wanting to blend in, Michael seemingly not caring about what others thought and being happy with his life as an outcast. Most of it had been an act on Michael’s part, but Max did not know, because they did not talk.
Another thing that had driven a wedge between them was that Michael was jealous of Max. Max had gotten the loving home and the sister, where as he had been shoved from one bad foster home to another, not feeling loved or even wanted. The closness between Max and Isobel coming from having grown up together, made him feel like a fifth wheel. And even if he knew, that it was not Max’s fault that the Evans had adopted the two and he was left behind, he had blamed him. For a long time.
Only the night of the grand reopening of the UFO Emporium when Max and he had been trapped in Michael’s research bunker, had he learned that Max blamed himself too. And he had realized some thing else as well: Max’s situation had his downsides, while his had his upsides. His brother was constantly under pressure to live up to other people’s expectations, to please everyone and had lost himself in the process. Michael on the other hand enjoyed a certain level of personal freedom. Beeing the town loser, no one expected anything of him. As they say, once you have lost your reputation you can do as you please.
Then they had gotten closer, reconnected over Isobel starting to have blackouts again. Max had finally wanted to know more about where they came from and who – or rather what – they were. Michael had been happy, that they were finally on the same page, acting like brothers again. He just wished it had happened under different circumstances, without Isobel having to suffer.
He had gotten is brother back after such a long time because apart from there many differences, they also had one thing in common: beeing fiercly protective of the people they love. And they both love their sister. And they love each other. Michael gets that now.
He wishes, he’d only realized sooner how much he cared about his brother. How much he trusted him to always be there when push came to shove and that it had not taken Max floating around in a pod to figure that out. But as the old saying goes, “You don’t know what you got till it’s gone”. He had to loose Max to really appreciate him and miss him like crazy. To miss his brother in arms.
He feels lost in the sadness, the regrets. When Michael snaps out of his thougts and back to reality, he finds rocks floating in midair all around the truck. Thinking about Max had made him loose control over his powers.
He shakes his head, curls flying around and runs a hand down his face. „Pull yourself together, man“ he mutters to himself. But that’s easier said than done when your wole life feels like a giant black hole that threatens to swallow you whole and suck you into eternal darkness.
His hands are shaking now and he’s short of falling apart completely. It’s just too much. The storm inside him is raging at full force again. If he wants a chance to see his brother alive again, he has to get a grip.
There is still hope. Liz and he working together, they could find a way. After all, they had brought Isobel back. Ok, she had not been dead, only dying. But still. They had been a good team and could be again.
But in the state he’s in, he is of no use. Having to put Max in the pod was the drop which let the proverbial vase finally run over, leaving him feeling broken. He has to put the pieces back together to be able to focus on the task at hand. He needs inner strength and piece of mind. He needs a place to feel safe and – he almost doesn’t dare to think it – loved. Because on his own, there is a great chance that he will fall back into old patterns. His coping mechanism has always been to drown his problems in alcohol spiked with acetone and to blow of steam in occasional barfights and hook-ups. That’s what he had been doing for the past ten years. It had not worked. So maybe it is time to try something new. His brother needs him.
We've taken different paths and traveled different roads
I know we'll always end up on the same one when we're old
And when you're in the trenches and you're under fire I will cover you
I've got you brother
I've got you brother