Unbreakable - Surviving the Truth · (Roswell Fanfiction) ·

FOUR

Making an effort now to start piecing some things together, I attempted to go through Max's thoughts and memories. It felt foreign to do so; intruding. Up until now, I had never actively rummaged through anyone's mind, only passively received what Max had provided at the time. My stomach audibly churned with discomfort, my own actions reminding me of how my privacy and free will had been tainted and rejected during the forceful encounters with Sean and his father.

Undoubtedly, Max was aware of my stroll around his mind, but being a supportive pillar of strength, he calmly let me pass. It was my own aversion to trespassing that had me pick up on only a few details about George's story.

George Evans had disappeared from Max's life when Max had been around seven years old. He had not let anyone in his family know about his plans of faking his own death. For some reason, it had been important that no one knew of the true reason or his whereabouts. This little fact made me search Max's mind more diligently, following that string of thoughts that had been created in my boyfriend's memory. But I couldn't find the exact reason for George's mysterious disappearance, merely that he had spent the past (almost) ten years with an Indian tribe. 

At that point, my head was hurting and I cancelled the active mind search.

Your dad's made hot chocolate for you, Max announced softly in my head.

A rush of love billowed through me, a combination of my own feelings for both my father and Max, plus Max's feelings for me. It made me simultaneously warm and cold. I pulled the sheet to the side and looked down at my my abdomen. Hauling the T-shirt up to the bottom border of my breasts, I slowly stroked the skin of my exposed abdomen. 

It was a strange feeling. Knowing that something was in there, but also knowing that it was not alive. That I was carrying something dead. Not even that fact could lessen my affection for the unborn girl. 

And Amy is making pancakes with chocolate chips, Max continued, his mental voice more subdued than before, nearly hesitant in addressing me. Wanting to distract me, while hating to disturb.

"That's a lot of chocolate," I mumbled, not realizing that I was addressing my womb before I continued talking, still in that quiet voice that you would use for an animal or a small child. "They want me to eat. To regain my strength. But there's no reason to, is there? Because it won't help you." My trembling hand continued to caress the area where my daughter was hidden. "It won't nourish you or make you grow. So what's the use?"

Tears rolled down my cheeks. Unnoticed. Unremembered. Unimportant. 

"But they don't care about that," I continued, my voice becoming thicker. "They're only interested in rebuilding their warrior. Their weapon. Their means of killing the mayor."

Lifting my gaze from my abdomen, my hand stilling against my skin, I stared unseeingly out in the room. "I'm not a person anymore." The words - the realization - cut into my heart, shooting a shudder through my entire body. "I'm a thing."

Biting into my lower lip I fought to restrain the onslaught of violent tears. "I'm no longer free."

It finally hit me. I finally realized what Max had been afraid of all these years. Why he had worked so hard to scare me away. Why he had refused to let me close, even with the risk of Sean getting a hold of me. Why he hadn't wanted me to love him.

Max had foreseen this. Years ago. Even if he impossibly could have known of the uniqueness of our connection or the concept of parims, he had feared that he would be rescuing me from one hell only to throw me into another.

Had Sean gotten his way, my life would have been filled with sexual assaults, forced acts, energy drainage, memory erasures, and being entirely robbed of my free will.