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If there was one thing Alex hated most in the world, it was waiting. Waiting meant silence and silence meant more time for him to get lost in his head; and that was not a place he wanted to let himself get lost in.
But Michael had promised that they would talk today, and so he was content to wait for him. He’d spent years of his life turning away and running but now… now he was done. Now he would plant his feet firmly in the ground and say no more, no more running, this is who I am, and this is who I want.
At least, he would if the person he wanted showed up.
He’d waited an hour before he gave in to the restlessness. His good leg ached from disuse and he could feel the phantom aches twinging where his other leg used to be. He’d paced around the junkyard for a while, fingertips skimming across beat-up old cars and whatever else he could get a hold of to occupy his mind for a while.
He waited another hour before texting Isobel. She’d insisted he take her number when he first came back into town; she’d told him it was in case she needed help planning the parade she knew he didn’t want. Alex wonders if that’s true now.
The reply didn’t come until the third hour, and by then the weather had shifted to a light drizzle. He’d taken shelter inside Michael’s airstream, alternating between sitting on the edge of the bed and taking in the numerical sequences and equations that were littered across the walls. Right, Michael was still trying to leave the planet. He’d have to talk to him about that.
Noah’s gone, everything’s fine. We’ll be fine.
Alex had wanted to press. He’d wanted to push the subject until Isobel told him where Michael was and why he wasn’t answering his phone and why he was anywhere but here when here is exactly where he’d promised he would be.
Then he remembered everything she’d been through in the last few days and decided against it. He’d dropped the conversation with a quick thanks, take care.
His phone ended up half way across the trailer.
He wasn’t sure how much time passed after that. When he opened his eyes next, there was silence. The rain wasn’t pounding against the outside of the trailer and the pieces of scrap metal that Sanders had hung around the place weren’t banging against each other anymore.
Alex hissed when he tried to move, a twinge of pain shooting up his leg. Sleeping with his prosthetic was never a good idea; he’d definitely be paying for that for the rest of the night. When he finally managed to find his phone – thankfully nestled against what Alex knew was the bloody shirt Michael had peeled off in a hurry the night before – the clock told him he’d been asleep for just over two hours. He let out a litany of curses before he pushed the airstream door open, calling out Michael’s name. His truck wasn’t back though, and there were no fresh tire tracks in the gravel.
He checked his phone. Nothing.
He checked around for a note, hoping maybe he’d just missed him. Nothing.
He checked around for any sign that Michael Guerin hadn’t stood him up. Nothing.
God, he hoped he was wrong. Maybe Michael just needed space. Space from the world after everything that had happened to him the past few days, space from his home and his friends, space from him.
Still, those thoughts did nothing to stop his heart from shattering in his chest.
Alex turned and marched back to his car, shaking hands searching his jacket for the keys that he struggled to get into the lock. He cursed when he dropped them, hands braced against the roof of the car with his head nestled on them. He squeezed his eyes shut tight like he used to do when he was a child and it felt like the world wanted to go to war with him.
He counted to five.
Inhaled.
Exhaled.
And picked up his keys.
Something bright caught his attention in the reflection of his car window and for a second; for a bright, beautiful second; he let himself have hope. He let himself think it was Michael’s truck pulling up. That he’d just let the voice in his head run riot again and that Michael was actually here like he said he would be. If he could bottle a moment and live in it forever, he’d choose that one.
Logically, though, he knew the reflection was too high up on his window and the world wasn’t kind enough to let it be headlights.
Alex turned, an explanation for why he’d been hanging out here for the past half a dozen hours on the tip of his tongue but saw nobody. Instinctively, he glanced up.
And that was when he saw it.
The lights were faint; if he didn’t know any better he would assume that it was just someone flying a drone or setting off a dud firework. But this was Roswell, and he knew better. In the distance the light grew brighter and expanded somewhat before disappearing just beyond the horizon.
This time when Alex fumbled with his keys, his hands weren’t shaking.
It took Alex longer than he would care to admit to find the crash site – in his defence, he was a codebreaker, not a navigator. He could follow instructions easily enough but eyeballing a crash site in the middle of the desert wasn’t exactly an easy task.
The crash site was small, the debris from whatever it was that crashed hadn’t spread far and as far as he could see, it hadn’t shattered into very many pieces. There was maybe half a dozen glowing iridescent pieces scattered a few feet away from him surrounding something small and circular.
He briefly remembered Michael telling him about their pods, but this one seemed different. For starters, it was tiny; it was small enough that he could probably carry it around without any difficulty. And second, it was smoking. That didn’t exactly seem like something it should be doing.
A high-pitched sound from a few paces away caught his attention and he whipped his head in that direction, heartbeat picking up in his chest when he caught movement underneath some sort of tarp. Alex crossed over to it and gripped one of the corners. He took a breath, counted to five again, and whipped it off.
Shock consumed him, and for a good few seconds he stood motionless as he took in the scene before him.
On the floor in front of him under the New Mexico sky, was a baby. A happy, gurgling baby whose hands were curled into fists and outstretched towards him. A happy, gurgling, alien baby that had just crashed from the sky. A happy, gurgling, alien baby that had only been covered by the tarp in the middle of the desert.
“Oh my god.” Alex shrugged his leather jacket off once he’d regained control of his motor functions and gently scooped the babbling baby up in his arms. He draped the jacket around her, hand rubbing small circles over her back when she nestled against his shoulder and started cooing quietly. He could already feel a small patch of drool seeping through his shirt and onto his shoulder.
“What happened here, hm?” Alex asked, more to himself than to the bumbling baby in his arms. As far as he knew, there hadn’t been another crash since 1947. So why now? And why the hell send down a baby? Michael and the others were kids when they came out of their pods, so why was this different?
With a sigh, Alex walked over to his car and swung open the passenger door. He made sure the baby was warm in his jacket and moved to set her down gently on the seat. He almost dropped her when she let out the most blood curdling cry he’d ever heard – a cry that stopped as soon as she was leaning back against his shoulder.
“Okay, okay! Note to self, don’t put the baby down.”
Alex glanced around at the debris scattered around and groaned; this was going to be much harder with only one hand free. He stored it all away in the trunk of his car, doing his best to hide the broken iridescent alien pod that he was now hiding in his car. When he was sure he had it all, he closed the trunk with a gentle thud, so he didn’t irritate the baby, and walked around the side of his car.
A twinge of pain shot up his leg when he sat down behind the wheel, and the hand that wasn’t holding onto the baby shot down to grip just above the point where his prosthetic met his leg. He manoeuvred her so that she was sitting on his lap instead of against his shoulder and tried desperately to work out the cramp that was sending spasms of phantom pain down his leg.
The baby let out an irritated gurgle, but Alex had his eyes squeezed shut tight as he tried to remember how to breathe – his physical therapist had taught him some breathing exercises that were supposed to get him through the pain, but the pain seemed to be the only thing he could focus on.
And then it stopped.
Alex’s eyes flew open. It took a few moments to adjust to something other than the darkness that had been blocking out his vision moments ago, but when he finally did he saw a small hand resting on his arm and a pair of wide brown eyes looking up at him. The baby cooed when their gazes met, moving her hand away to reveal a glowing, iridescent handprint on his skin.
“Holy shit-” Alex’s eyes were wide as he stared down at the mark. The baby giggled in response and slapped a small hand over her mouth.
“Language, right. Don’t swear around tiny alien babies. Got it.” He stared at the handprint on his arm for a few more seconds, watching the way the colours shifted as he turned his arm in the light.
“I think we need to have a conversation about leaving handprints on strangers, young lady,” Alex hummed, unable to stop himself from beaming at the gentle gurgle he got in response. The baby nuzzled back up against him and closed her eyes, mouth opening in a small yawn that he should not have found adorable in the slightest.
“No, listen you can’t sleep here I have to drive us home-.”
Alex cut himself off, eyebrows furrowing for a moment. Us? Home?
“I mean I have to drive us back to my place whilst I figure out what to do, and it’s definitely illegal for you to be sleeping in my lap.” The baby didn’t move though, just curled a small hand in his shirt and closed her eyes. He could have sworn the smile on her face held a hint of smugness.
The internal debate on whether or not to move her lasted all of three seconds before he was reminded of the wail she let out earlier and he decided to let her stay.
“If a cop tries to pull us over and I have to outrun them, you’re in big trouble missy.”
Alex started up the car and put it into drive, one hand on the wheel and the other rubbing small circles into the babies back over his leather jacket. If he drove ten miles under the speed limit the whole way home, nobody had to know besides him and the precious cargo that he was carrying in his lap.