Unspoken Love

Chapter 3

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In theory, a handprint lasts for a set amount of time, disappearing slowly like a fading tattoo or a withering flower. The emotions, the memories or whatever else Max shared with Liz, faded in intensity after a while too. He'd heard this from both parties on two separate occasions, and so he thinks, perhaps too hopefully, that this mental link will fade too.

Feeling Alex like this, hearing him....its a magnificent gift and the worst kind of temptation. A tantalizing way to finally have so many of the answers Michael has wanted for over a decade now. But its wrong on a level that Michael cannot stomach. Its taking advantage of Alex in the worst way, listening to his thoughts and taking his choice away.

Alex has fought so hard for so long to be comfortable giving himself more than one option, to voice what he wants and needs. Michael cannot be the person that takes that away. Too many people have done that to him. Michael won't be another person on that list.

And Michael knows, oh God he does, that thoughts don't make reality.

The smell of a burning car, a funeral pyre he caused to protect his sister, his abilities used to protect and ruin in one night...that memory reminds him sharply that he will be a bigger monster than he is now if he doesn't stop this train wreck from happening. He loves Alex too much, respects him too much to let that happen.

If it takes a whole car ride into another state to talk himself into believing it...it certainly doesn't make him miss Alex less.

He already regrets leaving.

Distance will surely help, rendering him unable to hear Alex's thoughts and for the entire time he was driving to Pueblo with Salma, watching the endless stretches of flat land as they passed Albuquerque, then hit the border he tried to believe this was a good idea.

But he wasn't Alex, able to make critical snap decisions like this and just go with it. Or Liz, who as much as he cared for and respected her, treated leaving Roswell like the answer to all her relationship problems. Both of them disappeared like smoke and left hollowness and hurt behind, unable to understand they were integral and loved.

Michael did not want to be the same, but this time, he needed this short break. It wasn't months or a whole year, just a couple of weeks to break this link before he could do any more damage to his relationship with Alex.

It was a seven hour journey at best from Roswell into Colorado, and he wasn't flooring it. Salma exhausted after her escape from her abusive, soon-to-be-ex-husband and having taken some over the counter pain meds, had drifted off eventually, leaving Michael alone with his thoughts.

All of which circled around Alex and what he had been thinking.

*Am I okay? Of course I'm not! Michael is not okay, how could I be okay?*

His tone had been so affronted, so defensive.

*Just smile and pretend you're tired.*

Does anyone buy into that? Michael certainly never did.

*In the best world I would be able to ask Michael why he's upset and he'd tell me. He'd trust me. None of you have the remotest idea what that's like! Why its so easy to be hurt. How hard it is being this far apart from him. Living with how he doesn't look at me anymore. How hard it is not being with him. I wouldn't be a Manes. I would be with Michael. He wouldn't be dating her. He'd be with me. We would have a home.*

"We would have a home." Michael repeated to the miles of sand and scrub grasses, to the road beneath his truck and the tears pooled in his eyes.

A nice house. His truck and whatever vehicle Alex chose parked in the driveway. Pictures of smiling faces and music. A yard big enough for the dog Alex always wanted, for the beautiful happy kids they would raise, big enough for the grand-kids who would flock to their house. A table for their massive family. Memories threaded through the rooms, the patter of tiny feet. The dream that took root in Michael's mind in the back of this pick-up truck in 2008 and one that never evaporated. It was folded like a love note, or a cherished photo, buried deep into the sand of Michael's heart, never drenched by tears or scorched by the flames of anger.