Chapter Text
The cold desert air bit into the thin fabric of his button down and jeans. He would have grabbed his leather jacket before he left the trailer, but he hadn’t been thinking clearly at the time. All he could think about was the desperate and immediate need to get away.
Now all he needed was to figure out where he was going. The Evans house was out of the question. Mr. and Mrs. Evans were lawyers, which he would probably be grateful for at some point, but if the state found out that they were harboring a fugitive, they could lose their licenses to practice – along with a whole host of other things that could and would probably go horribly wrong, such as officers getting nosy and looking into their family history. Then the unusual circumstances surrounding Max and Isabel’s adoption would come up, and it would all spiral completely out of control from there.
So. No hiding out in Maxwell’s room, and no calling them at their house. What if the police tapped their phones?
But there had to be somewhere he could lay low where he would be likely to run into his brother and sister in the near future. Somewhere he could stay warm, and maybe even get something to eat…
His feet turned in the direction of the Crashdown Café almost without his permission. He could get around their security measures with no problem, and they served so many customers on a daily basis – surely someone had to have thrown out something he could eat tonight. And their daughter, who was also the real reason Maxwell tended to haunt the kitschy little café, dragging Isabel and Michael along with him so he didn’t look too pathetic, had a balcony connected to what he was fairly certain was her bedroom. He’d passed by late at night and seen her stargazing up there often enough when he couldn’t sleep that he felt confident he could predict her schedule and be able to camp out unseen after she finally went to bed.
Then, he’d just have to wait for Max to give into his need to see Parker again, and he could reach out to him and Isabel.
As scared as he had been when he fled the scene, he realized now that he had a plan and was a little calmer that it would probably be awhile before anyone decided to investigate his whereabouts. His attendance record at school was laughable, and there were only two people he voluntarily spent time with, and if school was out for the summer, as it would continue to be for the next three days, it was anyone’s guess how long it would take for him to resurface.
Michael made his way through the relatively quiet streets of Roswell, glad it would still be a few weeks before the town filled up with tourists for the Crashdown Festival. Aside from the personal grudge he had against the festivities, the overwhelming crush of people in his normally sleepy town made him feel claustrophobic. Also, now, more than ever, he needed to avoid encountering any witnesses.
He reached the alley behind the alien-themed café and grimaced before beginning to rummage through the dumpsters. After a few minutes, he managed to find a half-full carton of fries, and the remains of three different burgers. He hid behind the dumpsters and heated the food a little and told himself to suck it up at the thought of how many bacteria he was ingesting. So far as he and his siblings knew, they didn’t suffer from human ailments. Though, their apparent immunity could have more to do with the amount of effort the three of them put into avoiding close contact with other people than with advanced immune systems. He supposed now was the best time to put that theory to the test.
When his stomach was full, he was able to relax a little in his little spot. Admittedly, it didn’t smell the best, but it was dark, and it was quiet, and he was reasonably certain that he would be able to avoid being seen when one of the employees took out the last of the trash for the night.
He shivered and used his powers to warm the bricks of the wall behind him and the concrete below, trying to give himself some relief. Man, he missed his jacket. And his bed, cramped and thin as the mattress was. He gritted his teeth and told himself to quit complaining. It wasn’t as though it would fix anything.
The sound of the back door to the café opening made him tense and lift his head slightly. He hoped he wasn’t about to have to knock someone out.
Just throw away the bags and go. Throw them out and go.
“Somebody’s gonna hurt someone, before the night is through. Mmmhmmhmmhmmhmm. There’s nothing we can do. Mmhmhmhmhmhm. Hmmhmhmhmhm. There’s gonna be a heartache tonight, a heartache tonight, I know. There’s gonna be a heartache tonight, a heartache tonight I know. Well, I know.”
In spite of how dire the situation might be, Michael found himself having to fight a laugh. Parker sounded alright – it wasn’t like she was out of tune or anything, and her voice was sweet and clear, if a bit on the soft and high side – but she clearly had a hard time remembering the lyrics. Probably because her head was always so full of a million other things. Song lyrics were clearly not as vital as science. Still, she kept on singing the parts she knew and humming the parts that she didn’t as she finished disposing of the trash bags and headed back inside her family’s establishment, completely unaware of her reluctantly amused audience.
Once she was gone, he allowed himself a quiet snort, and then he settled in to wait. It would be awhile before the building settled down for the night, but regardless of what Max and Isabel might think, Michael had a great deal of practice with being patient. It was how he had gotten through the four years between being found by an officer – deputy Owen, incidentally, back when he wasn’t quite so crusty or so grey-haired – in the desert and being reunited with his siblings. He’d known it would happen at some point, and after the first year of failed attempts to make it happen on his own by running away from various foster homes, he had resigned himself to letting things unfold naturally. His patience was rewarded on the first day of fifth grade, when he found himself in Max’s class.
He wiled away the next few hours thinking about things that needed to be done. He would have to go back and get rid of the evidence at some point. He might even need to forge a new identity for himself and leave Roswell. His heart gave a pang at the thought of being so far away from his brother and sister, but he squelched down the ache. If that was what it would take to keep them all safe, then that was what he would do. It could work. He already basically looked like an adult, and he was smart enough that he could fake a resume and get a fairly decent job – somewhere that wouldn’t require drug tests or extensive background checks. No telling what would show up in an alien urine sample, and he didn’t think he could manage to come up with a paper trail that would stand up to that much scrutiny. Still, a fresh start might not be so bad. He would have to wait and see once he knew what the fallout would be from tonight, which would largely depend on how well he could cover his tracks tomorrow.
Around thirty minutes to midnight, Michael cautiously stood up and stretched his limbs, scanning the area around the alley. Deciding the coast was clear, he made his way up to Parker’s balcony and peered over the top. There was no one on the balcony. The lights inside were off, and the blinds were drawn.
Breathing a sigh of relief, he climbed up and carefully lowered himself onto the chair. There was a blanket draped over the back, and he wrapped himself up in it gratefully. It was thick and warm, and it smelled faintly of vanilla and strawberries.
The stress of the day caught up to him, and though he’d thought he would be unable to sleep tonight, exhaustion pulled him under quickly. His last view of the night was the sky full of stars Parker loved gazing at so much.
He dreamed of the courtrooms he caught glimpses of on TV, and Deputy Owen’s disgruntled face as he booked him and took prints. He dreamed of Isabel’s tears, and Max’s sadness and disappointment. But most of all, he dreamed of a belt.
When he woke up, it was to remembered stripes of pain across his back, buttocks, and thighs, the heat of the Roswell sun, and two big, brown eyes staring down at him in wary bemusement. It took a moment for his mind to catch up with his surroundings and the events of the day before. As soon as he understood the situation, he shot up, putting the hand closest to Parker over her mouth.
“You can’t tell anyone you saw me, alright? And don’t scream. Please. As soon as it’s dark out, I’ll find somewhere else to stay, but Parker, you’ve gotta keep a lid on it. Okay?”
Her doe eyes were even wider than usual in her tiny face, but she nodded slowly, and after a beat, Michael let her go.
“Michael… what is going on? I mean, why are you up here?” She kept her voice low, acknowledging his request – alright, demand – for secrecy.
“That’s on a need to know basis, and trust me, you don’t need to know.”
Her lips pursed, Parker studied him and then said in that annoyingly reasonable tone she always used to explain her logic when she answered questions in class, “But see, you made it so that I do need to know when you decided to park yourself in my chair, on my balcony. And since you pretty much don’t know me from Eve, there’s got to be a pretty good reason for you to do that. So: are you in some kind of trouble, Michael? Because, you know, I’d help you. If you were.”
“Why would you help me? Like you said, we barely know each other.”
“So, you are in trouble, then.” She lifted her hand as though she would place it on his shoulder, and then thought better of it.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
She raised her eyebrows. “That’s a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, now, isn’t it?”
Scratching one of his own eyebrows, Michael sighed and admitted, “I can’t go home.”
Looking concerned, Parker asked, “So, it’s something with your family?”
“Hank Guerin was not my family,” Michael said firmly, only to belatedly realize his mistake.
In the sickening silence that followed, Parker shifted away slightly. She glanced toward her bedroom window and then back to his face, gulping and then beginning, “Um, there were, you know, rumors. About what things were like for you. That he wasn’t very – nice to you. Um. Were the rumors true?”
Michael could see the outline of her pulse fluttering away at her neck and above the low neckline of her sleep tank, though he averted his eyes from the modest swell of her chest as soon as he realized he’d been eying it at all. He was a delinquent and a killer, but he wasn’t a creep. There were some levels to which even he would not stoop.
“Yeah,” he muttered finally, after watching Parker grow even more wary. “They were true.”
“So,” she said, trying to regroup. “So, then, it was, like, self-defense, right?” Her normally rosy cheeks – not that he noticed that kind of thing – paled, and then she asked shakily, “I mean, it’s not like it was murder, right?”
He saw again the way Hank had gone to remove his belt, and felt anew the certainty that he wasn’t going to survive it this time, and then he realized he’d closed his eyes without knowing it. When he opened them, he told her, “I didn’t plan it, if that’s what you mean. But he’s still dead.” The scraps he’d eaten last night threatened to make a reappearance as he said again, “He’s dead, and I killed him.”
Looking concerned and a little anxious, Parker asked, “Are you going to throw up? Just – just hold on. I’ll be right back.”
As worried as he should have been, watching her dart back into her bedroom, where it would take seconds for her to work up a good scream and more than likely bring both of her parents running, it was all he could do to choke back the bile building in his throat.
Parker came back with a plastic-lined trashcan. She thrust it toward him just in time for Michael to lurch forward and empty the contents of his stomach.
Overcoming her trepidation, Parker waited until she was sure he was done retching and then set aside the trashcan. When she came back, she reached out and brushed his sweaty hair away from his clammy forehead and then rubbed soothing circles on his back as tremors shook his broad frame. “It’s okay, Michael. You’re going to be okay. We’ll figure this out, alright?”
Feeling drained, he rested his head against her collarbone, distantly surprised that she let him. For a long time, it was silent, save for the early morning sounds of Roswell on the street below.
Finally, the shakiness passed, and Michael pulled away from Parker, leaning back into her chair.
“I’m sorry to come here like this and drag you into my mess,” Michael offered thickly.
“Don’t be,” Parker replied. “I think – no, I know – that I’m glad that you came to me. You’re not alone, okay? And you don’t have to leave. You can stay here until we figure out what you’re going to do.”
“Parker…”
“No, just hear me out, okay? You can stay in my room during the day, and I’ll bring you stuff that you need, and if you need me to contact anyone, or, or bring someone here, I can do that, too. And I can go to the library and do some research on the state laws about self-defense, and like, minors, and stuff, when I’m not on shift or running errands for you.” She eyed his hair and his clothes and said, “I’m not an expert or anything, but I think the first thing we need to do is get you a shower and a clean set of clothes. And then we’re burning those. You know. In case there’s any, like, trace evidence, or something.”
Michael looked down at his button down and jeans, and then he glanced at the blanket he’d slept under last night. Parker followed his gaze and looked conflicted. “Oh, yeah. I guess that’ll have to go, too.” She looked at the chair and grew even more torn.
To get that look off of her face, because it bothered him more than it should, Michael told her, “I think your blanket and chair should be safe. It’s not like anyone would think to look for any evidence here.”
Her face cleared. “Right. Of course not. Why would they?” Instead of waiting for an answer, she took stock of everything and then said, “Okay. I’m gonna get ready for the day, and then I’ll slip out to the military surplus store that’s down at the end of the street. And there’s a coffee shop I can grab us some breakfast from, if you feel like your stomach can handle it? I’ll get something mild. You get some rest, and when I get back, you can take a shower and get dressed while I get rid of all of that.” She gestured in a vaguely encompassing motion towards his clothes. “Um, what size do you wear?”
He listed off his clothing specifications dutifully, while inwardly he wondered how exactly he’d gotten to this point. Don’t question a good thing, he ordered himself sternly.
When he was done, Parker nodded and then patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll be back out in a little bit. Try to get some more sleep, okay? You look like you could use it.”
Michael watched, bemused, as she disappeared back into her bedroom and left him to contemplate the mystery that was Elizabeth Parker.
About an hour and a half later, Michael was clean, full, and reasonably better rested, having napped while Parker was off running her self-appointed errands. She was flitting about her bedroom, putting the finishing touches on her outfit for work and talking to him quietly whenever she passed by the window. She had the radio turned on to block the sound of their voices from carrying into the rest of the apartment, and she swayed as she finished affixing her ridiculous headband and then slipped a pair of simple hoop earrings into her small ears.
Glancing at the clock, Parker made another trip to the window and called softly, “It’s time for me to go start my shift. Feel free to read anything that looks interesting. Um, there should be some notebook paper in the box marked ‘School Supplies’ in my closet, along with some pens and pencils. I think I may even still have some crayons and colored pencils, and a sketchpad I have no idea what to do with, if you’re interested in that kind of thing.”
Michael ducked his head in a brief nod. “Thanks.”
Parker nodded back and then looked as though she wanted to do something, her body tilting toward him before she stopped herself and began to turn away. “Um, I guess I’ll see you at lunch,” she said lamely.
Before she reached her bedroom door, Michael stopped her with a soft, “Parker, wait.” He climbed in through her bedroom window and walked towards her slowly. “Thank you for doing this. You could have – and probably should have – just sent me packing, or gone running for your parents, or something, but you didn’t. You’ve really gone above and beyond, and you definitely didn’t have to. I won’t forget that. If there’s ever anything I can do for you, just. Let me know.”
Parker gazed at him for a moment and then gave him a gentle, slightly sad smile. “All I need you to do is just trust me and get through this, okay? If it were me, or Maria, or Alex, I would hope someone would do the same thing.” She nodded toward her bathroom. “Now, go ahead and duck in there while I walk out, and then give it a few minutes before you start exploring in my room, alright? My parents should both be downstairs already, but you never know.”
“Sure thing, Parker.” True to his word, Michael stepped into the bathroom and waited a little while after hearing the door close behind his host. Then he stepped out and began perusing her bedroom, thinking about how much Maxwell would give to be in here right now, in his place. And then it hit him again why he had come here in the first place, and he had to sit down on the edge of Parker’s mattress.
He put his head in his hands and then jerked his hands away, shoving them deep into the pockets of the pants Parker had purchased for him that morning, remembering the way his powers had rushed through his hands and slammed Hank back against the wall. He hadn’t even meant to use his powers. Never before had he exposed himself to his guardian, but he had been so angry, and so afraid, and he’d just wanted the beatings to stop, and then there Hank was, hitting his head against the wall of the trailer so hard that he cracked his skull. He’d died on impact, and all Michael could do was stare from the body, to his hands, to the smear of blood on the wall, as the world tilted and his ears rang.
There was no way to know how long Michael had stood there before instinct kicked in and he ran, expecting to hear sirens any minute.
The thing was, fights were so common in the trailer park – and especially in Hank’s trailer, although calling what went on in there most nights fighting was overwhelmingly generous, considering that until last night, they’d all been entirely one-sided – that it was unlikely anyone had thought to call the police. Even now, there were probably only two people in the whole world who knew or even suspected that Hank Guerin had died last night, and if anyone did think someone’s number had been up, they probably assumed it was Michael who’d been killed, instead.
He tasted salt and realized that his face was wet. He scrubbed at his face, trying and failing to stop the rest of his tears from falling.
Giving up, he kicked off his second-hand boots and curled up on Parker’s bed. He grabbed one of her pillows and buried his face in it, wrapping the rest of his body around it and trying to muffle the sobs and still the shaking of his limbs. He felt like the little boy watching his brother and sister walk away towards the headlights, cowering in the darkness of the desert: the forgotten one. The defective one. The one who’d never belong.
Hank had been a bastard, and he’d never given a single, solitary damn about him. But for all that the man had been a monster, he’d still raised him, and Michael had killed him. And nothing was going to change that.
He must have cried himself to sleep, because he woke to the sound of the bedroom door opening.
Parker was quiet as she shut the door behind herself, though there was little she could do to prevent the rustling sound of the paper bag which wafted the scents of salt and grease towards his nose, cutting through the layer of vanilla and strawberries that coated her room in a pleasant cloud.
She set the bag down on her bedside table and then came to sit beside him on the edge of her bed. “Michael?” she whispered, placing a small hand on his shoulder. “I brought you some lunch. Actually, I brought us some lunch.” He could hear the slight smile in her tone as she confided, “I think Jose might be starting to suspect I’ve got, like, a tapeworm or something, because I ordered enough to feed a small army.”
Snuffling, Michael turned over and began to sit up.
If Parker noticed the dried tear tracks on his cheeks – and he knew that she did, because she never missed a thing – she was kind enough not to comment on it, choosing instead to ask, “So, how do you feel about having desert first?”
They had lunch together, and Michael let Parker’s soft voice wash over him as she shared stories of some of the ridiculous things that had happened during her shift. Then, Parker gathered the remains of their meal and told him with an odd sort of reluctance that she had a date with the Sheriff’s kid that afternoon. “I’m gonna go throw this stuff away. Would you mind stepping out so I can have a little privacy while I get ready for my date? It’s just at the dollar theater, and it’s not like Kyle hasn’t known me since we were in diapers, but still.”
“Sure, Parker. It’s your room.” He paused and then told her, “Thanks for lunch.”
“Of course,” Parker replied, grinning at him. “I’ll be right back.”
He nodded and motioned toward the window. “I’ll be out there,” he said dryly. Putting his words into action, he got up from the bed and climbed out onto the balcony. With a long stretch of his arms and back, he tilted his head up towards the sun, soaking up its rays, amazed at how much better he felt than he had earlier, and refusing to examine any possible reasons for the change.
The bedroom door opened and closed, and a few minutes later, the sounds repeated twice more, followed by the shower turning on. To distract himself from the knowledge of what currently lay behind that bathroom door, Michael did pushups. When his arms grew tired, he switched to doing sit-ups instead. This morning, Michael had been too out of it to care that a pretty girl was showering barely twenty feet away. His second nap of the day must have done him a lot of good, though, because now he could not seem to forget about it.
Not a creep, he reminded himself. Also, Maxwell would be furious if Michael ever did anything to call Parker’s honor into question. Come to think of it, Michael would be furious with himself, especially now that he was getting to know what a thoughtful, open, completely unselfish person she was.
He and his siblings had never had the chance to be anything other than completely self-absorbed. Their lives depended on constantly being aware of their abilities, and of their feelings, which could affect their abilities unpredictably, and on not allowing themselves to care about anyone other than each other – and the Evanses, at least on Max and Isabel’s part. The only exception to their rule was Isabel’s charity work, especially around Christmas, which she dragged a reluctant Max and Michael into every year.
Liz Parker had grown up as a visible, active member of the Roswell community, and she was involved in pretty much every academic activity she could justify joining, including tutoring struggling students. He was fairly sure she and her crazy best friend tag-teamed the daycare at their church on Sunday mornings, even though neither of them seemed terribly devout. Parker was more of a devotee of science, and DeLuca… she was just too much of a hippy to fit into the world of ‘thou shalts’ and ‘thou shalt nots’. Which, come to think of it, probably explained why they spent their Sunday mornings chasing after toddlers, instead of sitting in pews with their butts growing numb.
The shower finally shut off, and a few minutes later, he could hear the sound of the hair dryer. He breathed a sigh of relief when she walked out of the bathroom fully clothed, her hair styled into loose waves. Her shorts were a little too short for his comfort, and her sleeveless top was a little too flattering on her slender form, but that was his problem.
She walked over to the window and did a little twirl. “How do I look? This says, ‘I care enough to make an effort, but we’re still keeping it casual,’ right?”
Michael scratched at his eyebrow, uncertain in the nuances of female dating fashions. Or any fashions, all things being equal. “I guess so.”
Looking concerned, Parker asked, “Is it too much? Or too little? Should I put something else on, because I’ve only got, like, fifteen minutes before Kyle is supposed to meet me downstairs.”
With a shrug, Michael told her, “Parker, I have no idea how any of that works, but you look nice to me.” He tilted his head and then added, “That red is a good color on you.”
A smile blossomed on Parker’s face, replacing the faint stress from a moment before, and she thanked him warmly.
He eyed her bare shoulders briefly and then told her, “Take a jacket or something, though, would you? That theater is always freezing.”
She snapped her fingers and pointed at him appreciatively. “Yes, it is. Thank you for reminding me.” Shaking her head at herself, she walked over to her closet, remarking absently, “I knew I was forgetting something.” She emerged with a light denim jacket, and then she told him, “Well, I’d better go. Kyle has this thing about being on time, which usually means he’s at least ten minutes early, for like, everything. So, he may already be here.”
Nodding, Michael told her, “See you later, Parker.”
For some reason, this seemed to amuse her. Her eyes lit up with an inexplicable mischief, but all she said before grabbing her purse was, “Um, yeah. See you later, Michael.” Confused, he watched her walk out her bedroom door for what felt like the millionth time today, and then he tried to decide what to do with himself. She’d mentioned earlier that he was welcome to read something if he wanted, so he finally shrugged and went to examine her book collection.
There was far less non-fiction than he expected for such an enthusiastic science nerd. There were a few books on molecular biology, a few on astrology, and even one on anatomy, and a small collection of academic looking titles listed under the name Claudia Parker, but the rest of her books were works of fiction. She kept all of her required reading after the school year ended, apparently, whereas he sold his copies to the second hand bookstore for a bit of pocket money as soon as the section on each novel wrapped. She also had a rather extensive collection of Shakespeare, though her copy of Romeo and Juliet was clearly the best loved play in the group. Its spine was practically falling apart, and there were at least a dozen dog-eared pages. He pulled that one out, curious to see if she’d gone as far as to highlight or underline her favorite lines.
She had.
After reading through the parts she’d gone over with a pink highlighter – appropriate, he supposed, given the nature of the words – and the little notes she’d added in the margins, he put that tragedy back on the shelf. In its stead, he selected The Merchant of Venice and Macbeth, both of which were more to his taste.
He settled back against the pillows of her bed, remembering her lack of concern over finding him there earlier, and turned to the opening scene of Merchant, allowing himself to be drawn in by the familiar words.