FIC: Roswell New Mexico - Lost to Time 15/?
Summary: Time is not unchangeable if someone has the time, patience and drive to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself. Even if it means removing oneself from the equation.
TITLE: Legacies
RATING: R (for language)
CHARACTERS: Alex Manes, Kyle Valenti, Michael Guerin, Max Evans, Isobel Evans, Liz Ortecho, Maria DeLuca, Jim Valenti, Jesse Manes, Mimi DeLuca, Nora Truman, Eugene (Tripp) Manes
PAIRING: Alex/Michael, Kyle/Max
AUTHOR: Melanie
Summary: Time is not unchangeable if someone has the time, patience and drive to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself. Even if it means removing oneself from the equation..
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing.
FEEDBACK: Please?
Lost to Time 15/?
The house is good sized, though the most important feature for them, Tripp thinks, is the basement. They black out the windows and line up the threw new pods next to the one that Alex will eventually be convinced to go back into.
Right now though, Alex and Abraham have heads bent together leaning over the torn apart control panel of a fifth pod that Abraham had declared beyond salvageable.
Everything looks like something straight out of a science fiction movie that he saw once. From the boxes that Alex and Jenna had that they swore were phones even though their batteries were dead days after their initial arrivals.
To all the technology that he’s seen Nora and Louise use that is definitely not from anywhere that he’s familiar with, and now all the items that are littering their basement kept behind lock and key.
“So what’s the plan?” he asks, he’s standing in front of the four pods. All are closed up and dark at the moment. No one has said, but he thinks one of those pods is destined to go to Roswell somehow in the very near future, and he thinks one of the others they might be planning for him.
“Well we’ll need to reconfigure the programming for your physiology,” Abraham says, he twists a pencil around between his fingers absently.
“That why Alex couldn’t manage to stay awake for more than a couple of hours at a time when he first came back out of it?” Tripp asks.
“Yes, I don’t believe Nora or Louise even realized that it was something that needed to be changed, and if they did they likely wouldn’t even have known how to get into the system to change it.”
Alex looks over at him and Tripp lets out a low breath.
“We’ll need to figure out the changes to be made then get them to Nora and Louise so they can make them on the pods that Jenna and Mimi are in,” Alex says.
“They’re not in any physical danger, just a deeper sleep then would be usual,” Abraham says with a reassuring tone to his voice, “they’ll be fine.”
“Alright, so walk me through what you two are talking about,” Tripp says, “and make sure you use little words so my not from the future or an alien world can understand a fraction of what you’re talking about.”
*******************************************************
They’re all watching closely, waiting to see if the mystery Alex will leave or if Jenna will be able to convince him to stay.
Kyle thinks she must have convinced him somehow, even though the guy looks like he’s ready to bolt the minute one of them says something mean.
“This is Alex, Alex say hi to everyone,” Jenna says, sliding back into her seat and nodding her head at the empty one to her right.
Alex doesn’t say hi, just sits down on the edge of the chair and his sharp eyes skitter around the room. Clocking exits and locations of everyone in the bar he’s sure.
“So you’re the guy that my brother is hell bent on getting his first restraining order from,” Max says and Alex huffs out a sharp laugh that only sounds a little bewildered.
“I guess,” he says with a shrug.
He looks really familiar, like Kyle is positive he’s seen this guy somewhere before. A picture he thinks, because he looks older at the same time.
“Why are you staring at him like that?” Max murmurs quietly, running his thumb across the back of his hand, an old trick from high school and awkward dinners with their mishmash of a family that was Max’s way of getting his attention without outright asking for it.
“He doesn’t look familiar to you?” Kyle asks, he narrows his eyes but that doesn’t help.
He knows this guy from somewhere and he just can’t place it.
Max’s head tilts and looks at Alex, who is now steadfastly ignoring the fact that he’s got both their attention and is instead listening intently to whatever Liz and Rosa are talking over each other to explain to him.
“You’re the friend,” Max says suddenly and the table as one turns their attention on him, including Michael who is just walking up to table looking altogether too pleased to see Alex sitting next to Jenna when there’s no good reason he should have even known Alex was there.
“What?” Alex asks, he and Jenna share a confused look between them.
“The friend that Jenna was calling to come look at the computer programming stuff that none of us could make heads or tails of,” Max says and it dawns on Kyle where he’s seen Alex from.
“That picture in your weapon of a planner,” he snaps his fingers, “high school buddy… I don’t think you ever told us what his name was, just high school buddy.”
He remembers the conversation, all of them sitting around Michael’s big living room trying to figure out what to do. They’re all smart in their own way, but even Michael and Liz were their two big brains put together couldn’t figure out how to decipher the whatever the computer was spitting out at them.
It was Jenna that had brought up some old school friend that had gone into computer sciences.
”He was super fucking smart Jenna had said and everyone had reiterated in some way or another that Jenna could talk to him about it but maybe not bring up the alien thing. Which in retrospect…
“Was super fucking stupid of us,” Kyle says and the table turns their confusion on him, “we made a point of telling her like half a dozen times to not mention…”
“… the alien thing,” Liz laughs, though when she looks back in Jenna’s direction he can see her go suddenly pale and looks too.
He snatches up a napkin from the table, pressing it under Jenna’s bleeding nose, to her right Alex is has already got one pressed up against his own.
“Are you okay?” he asks and it’s a stupid question, he knows this, is still physically unable to stop himself from asking.
“I’m…” Jenna’s fingers are trembling when she reaches up to press them against the napkin. He wraps his fingers around her wrist, the way her dazed eyes cut over at him he’s not being sneaky but she doesn’t say anything.
“I’m okay,” she says, he’s not convinced though he does let go and lean back in his chair. Max has leaned forward in the interim and lays his arm over his shoulder.
Somehow in the time he’s been checking in on Jenna Michael has moved from the opposite side of the table and is crouched next to Alex. Not touching him, because Kyle doesn’t know this guy but he’s putting off pretty strong ‘don’t fucking touch me’ vibes.
Jenna looks over at him and Alex looks back at her, Kyle knows they’re not going to find out what just happened if the look that passes between them is anything to go by. If Alex is the old highschool buddy they’ll find out, eventually.
“Alright, don’t know what emotional trauma we’re not going to be dealing with tonight, but Michael is here which means it’s celebratory shot time,” Isobel says, clapping her hands together.
Kyle doesn’t roll his eyes but only because he’s had a lot of years of dealing with Isobel and her steamroller good cheer. She’s staring pointedly at Jenna and Alex and he can’t tell from her expression whether she’s getting anything from either of them or not.
He’s going to go with not, if only because there’s an annoyed tilt to her smile that he knows really well.
Michael drags a chair right up next to Alex’s, flopping down it like a teenager with sprawling limbs, his hand gripping the back of Alex’s chair like he’s attempting to cage him in.
“Celebratory shot time,” Alex says, he’s still got the napkin pressed to his nose though Kyle can see the questioning expression on his face.
“Because of Max and Kyle finally deciding to make it legal and everything,” Michael says with a smirk.
“I really do think you should let me marry you on the playground,” Rosa says as Maria and Liz both lean forward and start shifting glasses in front of everyone, “if just for nostalgia sake.”
“I’d rather do that then the mock prom theme Isobel wants,” Max says and Kyle rests a hand on his thigh while the other one tugs their two glasses towards them.
“You just want that because she’ll let you wear jeans and t-shirts,” Isobel grumbles and Rosa laughs at her.
*******************************************************
“I always thought you’d come back,” Nora says when they’re halfway through the second bottle of wine.
The tone of her voice isn’t even accusatory, probably years back it would have been.
“I was going to,” Tripp murmurs, the wine is a little too sweet for his liking, and he’s fairly confident that he drank most of the first bottle on his own since Nora seems to be barely touching hers.
Nora looks over at him and he can tell he surprised her, but after they sent the extra pod off to Roswell he’d thought he’d get thinks with Alex straightened away and then he’d sleep for a few years, have Abraham wake him up and go to Nora.
Help her with the kids coming out of the pods, since he had a fair inkling that Louise wasn’t going to be there to help out for very long. He’d been excited, he’d never wanted to be a father, not wanted to pass on his family genes and problems to kids of his own. But he’d wanted to help Nora, wanted to be there for her, wanted to be family for her.
He’s not sure when that changed, when Alex and Abraham had become the family that he would protect.
“We weren’t even going to bring Alex out of the pod until it was time,” he says, he thinks that was when it changed.
“Why did you?” she asks and her eyes are focused intently on him in a way that it utterly familiar from long years prior.
“Because his mom thought we were lunatics,” he drains his glass and waves his hand at her when she goes to try and refill it once more. “To be fair, if I’d been listening to what we were saying instead of the one saying I would have thought we were crazy men too. Still can’t figure out what he said to her to convince her, though apparently he didn’t since…” he waves his hand again as if to try and encapsulate Alex’s continued existence.
“I could have used your help,” she says quietly and he lays a hand in the space between them on the couch. She touches his fingers with her own after a few seconds. “The first few months were… hard… we lost Louise and Max was… the things that he went through before we escaped...” she breathes heavily. “Now he says he doesn’t remember anything, but I think for the first few months after they woke, I think he did, he just couldn’t articulate it and it was… messy…” she trails off.
“I’m sorry,” he says. He’s not even sure his presence would have been a help to her, but it would have been at least another set of hands.
“Alex had written me a letter, sent it to Louise to give to me when I woke up. Gave me a list of names of people that he thought I could trust if I was willing to give them a chance, that they could help me if I let them. Jim and Michelle Valenti were on there, couple of others. Jim and Michelle, I remembered Alex mentioning a Kyle Valenti a handful of times when Jenna and him were talking and they thought we weren’t listening. I took my chance with them and they were… they were a godsend those first few months and Kyle… Max latched onto him right after they met the first time, never really let him go.”
*******************************************************
It’s never not going to be weird, he thinks, watching Kyle and Max together. He escapes to the bathroom so that he can lock the door and lean against, breathing evenly and trying not to think about a new memory of what he’s assuming is a little Jenna introducing herself to a tiny version of him.
He doesn’t know how old they were, if he had to guess maybe seven or so. He has a brief moment of terror, is he going to lose all his memories of before they were thrust into the past but if he breathes and thinks he can remember a childhood filled with Kyle and Liz and Maria and Rosa.
He wets a paper towel and dabs it under his nose, trying to wipe away the visual evidence of the nosebleed. Tosses the paper towel away and then washes his hands.
When he exits the bathroom, he finds Michael leaning against the wall opposite it apparently waiting for him.
Michael’s face is open, he looks relaxed and calm. Nice shirt, nice jeans, cowboy boots with just the barest hint of scuffing to them. Not at all like the worn jeans and worn boots.
“They’re all getting ready to go home, because we’re responsible adults and stuff,” Michael sounds amused, “think they all forgot it’s Friday and not a single one of us has a damn thing to do for work tomorrow.”
“Well…” and he can’t think of a single thing to say.
“It just really means that Max and Kyle want to go home and have sex, and none of the rest of us have anything better to do but go home,” Michael says. He pushes himself off the wall and grins at him, Alex knows that grin, that grin has had him laying in the bed of Michael’s truck with Michael pressed up tight against him.
“Liz took Jenna home since Max brought her, so I told her that I’d make sure you got to your car okay.”
Alex stares at him, bites at his lower lip.
He could lie, wait for Michael to leave and then call a cab or Tripp to come get him. He could…
“My… dad,” he stumbles over it, but Abraham and Tripp are right, probably best to get used to referring to Tripp as dad and Abraham as grandpa before it raises any eyebrows or flags. “… he dropped me off… I think he was going to see your mom?”
Michael smiles at him, a lazy quirk of his lips and he steps closer, tossing an arm over Alex’s shoulder to tug him towards the exit.
“Good, then I’ll take you back to your hotel. Maybe I’ll take the long way and be able to convince you to meet me for breakfast in the morning on the way.”
“Why?” Alex asks, he doesn’t get it, not at all. This Michael doesn’t know him at all, they don’t have any shared history and he’s still here trying to get to know him. Pushing to allow Alex the opportunity to know him. “Why are you… you don’t even know me.”
Michael’s arm tightens around his shoulder, like he thought about pulling him closer then maybe thought better about it.
“Maybe I want to,” Michael says, his mouth is close enough to Alex’s ear that he can hear him even over the noise of the bar. “Maybe I want to get to know the guy that thought my happiness was more important than his continued existence.”
*******************************************************
TITLE: Legacies
RATING: R (for language)
CHARACTERS: Alex Manes, Kyle Valenti, Michael Guerin, Max Evans, Isobel Evans, Liz Ortecho, Maria DeLuca, Jim Valenti, Jesse Manes, Mimi DeLuca, Nora Truman, Eugene (Tripp) Manes
PAIRING: Alex/Michael, Kyle/Max
AUTHOR: Melanie
Summary: Time is not unchangeable if someone has the time, patience and drive to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself. Even if it means removing oneself from the equation..
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing.
FEEDBACK: Please?
Lost to Time 15/?
The house is good sized, though the most important feature for them, Tripp thinks, is the basement. They black out the windows and line up the threw new pods next to the one that Alex will eventually be convinced to go back into.
Right now though, Alex and Abraham have heads bent together leaning over the torn apart control panel of a fifth pod that Abraham had declared beyond salvageable.
Everything looks like something straight out of a science fiction movie that he saw once. From the boxes that Alex and Jenna had that they swore were phones even though their batteries were dead days after their initial arrivals.
To all the technology that he’s seen Nora and Louise use that is definitely not from anywhere that he’s familiar with, and now all the items that are littering their basement kept behind lock and key.
“So what’s the plan?” he asks, he’s standing in front of the four pods. All are closed up and dark at the moment. No one has said, but he thinks one of those pods is destined to go to Roswell somehow in the very near future, and he thinks one of the others they might be planning for him.
“Well we’ll need to reconfigure the programming for your physiology,” Abraham says, he twists a pencil around between his fingers absently.
“That why Alex couldn’t manage to stay awake for more than a couple of hours at a time when he first came back out of it?” Tripp asks.
“Yes, I don’t believe Nora or Louise even realized that it was something that needed to be changed, and if they did they likely wouldn’t even have known how to get into the system to change it.”
Alex looks over at him and Tripp lets out a low breath.
“We’ll need to figure out the changes to be made then get them to Nora and Louise so they can make them on the pods that Jenna and Mimi are in,” Alex says.
“They’re not in any physical danger, just a deeper sleep then would be usual,” Abraham says with a reassuring tone to his voice, “they’ll be fine.”
“Alright, so walk me through what you two are talking about,” Tripp says, “and make sure you use little words so my not from the future or an alien world can understand a fraction of what you’re talking about.”
*******************************************************
They’re all watching closely, waiting to see if the mystery Alex will leave or if Jenna will be able to convince him to stay.
Kyle thinks she must have convinced him somehow, even though the guy looks like he’s ready to bolt the minute one of them says something mean.
“This is Alex, Alex say hi to everyone,” Jenna says, sliding back into her seat and nodding her head at the empty one to her right.
Alex doesn’t say hi, just sits down on the edge of the chair and his sharp eyes skitter around the room. Clocking exits and locations of everyone in the bar he’s sure.
“So you’re the guy that my brother is hell bent on getting his first restraining order from,” Max says and Alex huffs out a sharp laugh that only sounds a little bewildered.
“I guess,” he says with a shrug.
He looks really familiar, like Kyle is positive he’s seen this guy somewhere before. A picture he thinks, because he looks older at the same time.
“Why are you staring at him like that?” Max murmurs quietly, running his thumb across the back of his hand, an old trick from high school and awkward dinners with their mishmash of a family that was Max’s way of getting his attention without outright asking for it.
“He doesn’t look familiar to you?” Kyle asks, he narrows his eyes but that doesn’t help.
He knows this guy from somewhere and he just can’t place it.
Max’s head tilts and looks at Alex, who is now steadfastly ignoring the fact that he’s got both their attention and is instead listening intently to whatever Liz and Rosa are talking over each other to explain to him.
“You’re the friend,” Max says suddenly and the table as one turns their attention on him, including Michael who is just walking up to table looking altogether too pleased to see Alex sitting next to Jenna when there’s no good reason he should have even known Alex was there.
“What?” Alex asks, he and Jenna share a confused look between them.
“The friend that Jenna was calling to come look at the computer programming stuff that none of us could make heads or tails of,” Max says and it dawns on Kyle where he’s seen Alex from.
“That picture in your weapon of a planner,” he snaps his fingers, “high school buddy… I don’t think you ever told us what his name was, just high school buddy.”
He remembers the conversation, all of them sitting around Michael’s big living room trying to figure out what to do. They’re all smart in their own way, but even Michael and Liz were their two big brains put together couldn’t figure out how to decipher the whatever the computer was spitting out at them.
It was Jenna that had brought up some old school friend that had gone into computer sciences.
”He was super fucking smart Jenna had said and everyone had reiterated in some way or another that Jenna could talk to him about it but maybe not bring up the alien thing. Which in retrospect…
“Was super fucking stupid of us,” Kyle says and the table turns their confusion on him, “we made a point of telling her like half a dozen times to not mention…”
“… the alien thing,” Liz laughs, though when she looks back in Jenna’s direction he can see her go suddenly pale and looks too.
He snatches up a napkin from the table, pressing it under Jenna’s bleeding nose, to her right Alex is has already got one pressed up against his own.
“Are you okay?” he asks and it’s a stupid question, he knows this, is still physically unable to stop himself from asking.
“I’m…” Jenna’s fingers are trembling when she reaches up to press them against the napkin. He wraps his fingers around her wrist, the way her dazed eyes cut over at him he’s not being sneaky but she doesn’t say anything.
“I’m okay,” she says, he’s not convinced though he does let go and lean back in his chair. Max has leaned forward in the interim and lays his arm over his shoulder.
Somehow in the time he’s been checking in on Jenna Michael has moved from the opposite side of the table and is crouched next to Alex. Not touching him, because Kyle doesn’t know this guy but he’s putting off pretty strong ‘don’t fucking touch me’ vibes.
Jenna looks over at him and Alex looks back at her, Kyle knows they’re not going to find out what just happened if the look that passes between them is anything to go by. If Alex is the old highschool buddy they’ll find out, eventually.
“Alright, don’t know what emotional trauma we’re not going to be dealing with tonight, but Michael is here which means it’s celebratory shot time,” Isobel says, clapping her hands together.
Kyle doesn’t roll his eyes but only because he’s had a lot of years of dealing with Isobel and her steamroller good cheer. She’s staring pointedly at Jenna and Alex and he can’t tell from her expression whether she’s getting anything from either of them or not.
He’s going to go with not, if only because there’s an annoyed tilt to her smile that he knows really well.
Michael drags a chair right up next to Alex’s, flopping down it like a teenager with sprawling limbs, his hand gripping the back of Alex’s chair like he’s attempting to cage him in.
“Celebratory shot time,” Alex says, he’s still got the napkin pressed to his nose though Kyle can see the questioning expression on his face.
“Because of Max and Kyle finally deciding to make it legal and everything,” Michael says with a smirk.
“I really do think you should let me marry you on the playground,” Rosa says as Maria and Liz both lean forward and start shifting glasses in front of everyone, “if just for nostalgia sake.”
“I’d rather do that then the mock prom theme Isobel wants,” Max says and Kyle rests a hand on his thigh while the other one tugs their two glasses towards them.
“You just want that because she’ll let you wear jeans and t-shirts,” Isobel grumbles and Rosa laughs at her.
*******************************************************
“I always thought you’d come back,” Nora says when they’re halfway through the second bottle of wine.
The tone of her voice isn’t even accusatory, probably years back it would have been.
“I was going to,” Tripp murmurs, the wine is a little too sweet for his liking, and he’s fairly confident that he drank most of the first bottle on his own since Nora seems to be barely touching hers.
Nora looks over at him and he can tell he surprised her, but after they sent the extra pod off to Roswell he’d thought he’d get thinks with Alex straightened away and then he’d sleep for a few years, have Abraham wake him up and go to Nora.
Help her with the kids coming out of the pods, since he had a fair inkling that Louise wasn’t going to be there to help out for very long. He’d been excited, he’d never wanted to be a father, not wanted to pass on his family genes and problems to kids of his own. But he’d wanted to help Nora, wanted to be there for her, wanted to be family for her.
He’s not sure when that changed, when Alex and Abraham had become the family that he would protect.
“We weren’t even going to bring Alex out of the pod until it was time,” he says, he thinks that was when it changed.
“Why did you?” she asks and her eyes are focused intently on him in a way that it utterly familiar from long years prior.
“Because his mom thought we were lunatics,” he drains his glass and waves his hand at her when she goes to try and refill it once more. “To be fair, if I’d been listening to what we were saying instead of the one saying I would have thought we were crazy men too. Still can’t figure out what he said to her to convince her, though apparently he didn’t since…” he waves his hand again as if to try and encapsulate Alex’s continued existence.
“I could have used your help,” she says quietly and he lays a hand in the space between them on the couch. She touches his fingers with her own after a few seconds. “The first few months were… hard… we lost Louise and Max was… the things that he went through before we escaped...” she breathes heavily. “Now he says he doesn’t remember anything, but I think for the first few months after they woke, I think he did, he just couldn’t articulate it and it was… messy…” she trails off.
“I’m sorry,” he says. He’s not even sure his presence would have been a help to her, but it would have been at least another set of hands.
“Alex had written me a letter, sent it to Louise to give to me when I woke up. Gave me a list of names of people that he thought I could trust if I was willing to give them a chance, that they could help me if I let them. Jim and Michelle Valenti were on there, couple of others. Jim and Michelle, I remembered Alex mentioning a Kyle Valenti a handful of times when Jenna and him were talking and they thought we weren’t listening. I took my chance with them and they were… they were a godsend those first few months and Kyle… Max latched onto him right after they met the first time, never really let him go.”
*******************************************************
It’s never not going to be weird, he thinks, watching Kyle and Max together. He escapes to the bathroom so that he can lock the door and lean against, breathing evenly and trying not to think about a new memory of what he’s assuming is a little Jenna introducing herself to a tiny version of him.
He doesn’t know how old they were, if he had to guess maybe seven or so. He has a brief moment of terror, is he going to lose all his memories of before they were thrust into the past but if he breathes and thinks he can remember a childhood filled with Kyle and Liz and Maria and Rosa.
He wets a paper towel and dabs it under his nose, trying to wipe away the visual evidence of the nosebleed. Tosses the paper towel away and then washes his hands.
When he exits the bathroom, he finds Michael leaning against the wall opposite it apparently waiting for him.
Michael’s face is open, he looks relaxed and calm. Nice shirt, nice jeans, cowboy boots with just the barest hint of scuffing to them. Not at all like the worn jeans and worn boots.
“They’re all getting ready to go home, because we’re responsible adults and stuff,” Michael sounds amused, “think they all forgot it’s Friday and not a single one of us has a damn thing to do for work tomorrow.”
“Well…” and he can’t think of a single thing to say.
“It just really means that Max and Kyle want to go home and have sex, and none of the rest of us have anything better to do but go home,” Michael says. He pushes himself off the wall and grins at him, Alex knows that grin, that grin has had him laying in the bed of Michael’s truck with Michael pressed up tight against him.
“Liz took Jenna home since Max brought her, so I told her that I’d make sure you got to your car okay.”
Alex stares at him, bites at his lower lip.
He could lie, wait for Michael to leave and then call a cab or Tripp to come get him. He could…
“My… dad,” he stumbles over it, but Abraham and Tripp are right, probably best to get used to referring to Tripp as dad and Abraham as grandpa before it raises any eyebrows or flags. “… he dropped me off… I think he was going to see your mom?”
Michael smiles at him, a lazy quirk of his lips and he steps closer, tossing an arm over Alex’s shoulder to tug him towards the exit.
“Good, then I’ll take you back to your hotel. Maybe I’ll take the long way and be able to convince you to meet me for breakfast in the morning on the way.”
“Why?” Alex asks, he doesn’t get it, not at all. This Michael doesn’t know him at all, they don’t have any shared history and he’s still here trying to get to know him. Pushing to allow Alex the opportunity to know him. “Why are you… you don’t even know me.”
Michael’s arm tightens around his shoulder, like he thought about pulling him closer then maybe thought better about it.
“Maybe I want to,” Michael says, his mouth is close enough to Alex’s ear that he can hear him even over the noise of the bar. “Maybe I want to get to know the guy that thought my happiness was more important than his continued existence.”
*******************************************************