Title: Skeletons
Author: Yettaren
Disclaimer: Nope, not mine. Just the story.
Category: M/M, CC, General
Rating: R, mostly for language
Summary: Another post-graduation fic. When a body is unearthed in Roswell, it sets into motion a series of events that will lead the Pod Squad, humans and aliens alike, to face their past. Summer 2002.

Part One

The silence in the library was deafening. The hum of the air conditioner, the rustle of papers, it all hung loudly, echoing inside Michael’s head.

Maria frowned at the pages in her lap. He could see her out of the corner of his eye, which was now in the habit of always keeping her in sight. “Michael,” she hissed, her voice breaking the silence.

“Yeah?” he asked, looking up.

“I can’t believe we missed this.” Her pink-painted nails fluttered above the pages.

“Missed what?”

“Britney and Justin. They broke up.”

Michael glanced down at the Sports Illustrated in his lap and glanced back up at her. In the seat beside him, Maria was staring right at him. She looked serious. And this wasn’t Maria’s form of sarcasm.

“Who?” he asked, hoping it wasn’t what he thought. Not his Maria, surely she wouldn’t sink so low…

“You know. Them. They broke up, he was seen at a nightclub flirting with a bunch of hoochies.” Maria closed the magazine and leaned her face into her palm. “You lose television access and look what happens. Oh, my god.”

“They didn’t break up,” came a whisper from the other side of the stacks, behind them. The face was invisible through the tall rack of books, but the voice was unmistakable.

Maria dove around in her chair to address the voice.

“How would you know?” she asked.

“My magazine said they were seen back together,” the faceless whisper said. “No need to worry, little soldier.”

“Okay, who are you people?” Michael demanded. He picked up his Sports Illustrated, took aim at Maria, and swatted.

“Hey!” she squealed, blocking his blow with her hands, and a host of faces turned to angrily shush them.

The voice, meanwhile, appeared on their side of the stacks in the form of the face and body of Kyle Valenti.

“If they really broke up, we would have heard about it by now,” Kyle said. “I wouldn’t let that little tidbit slip by unannounced.” He shrugged.

“I hope not,” Maria said, flipping her hair. She turned her attention back to her magazine.

Michael stared at her. “You’re not serious.”

“I am dead serious,” she said, her eyes focused in her lap.

“Relax, Guerin,” Kyle whispered, slipping into the seat on his other side, “you really should know her better than that.”

Michael looked back and forth between them suspiciously. “Take it back, then.”

“Take what back?” Maria asked innocently as she casually turned a page.

“Any pretended interest in Britney and Justin.”

“I love Justin Timberlake,” Maria said, casting her eyes up to the ceiling. “I want to have his babies.”

“Take it back!” Michael hissed, and grabbed at her arm, which she pulled away, giggling while at the same time trying to stifle her noise.

In the chair beside them, Kyle calmly took the opportunity to swipe the Sports Illustrated from Michael’s lap and delve into it as Michael and Maria continued to wrestle.

“He got your magazine,” Maria pointed out as she came near Michael’s ear in the struggle.

“If I have to come over here one more time, I will ask you two to leave the library,” a soft but stern voice came from beside them. All three looked up to see a member of the library staff glaring down at them.

“Sorry,” Maria said, biting her lip and smiling.

“Yeah. Oops,” Michael said. “We’re fine.”

Kyle flipped the pages of his magazine silently. The librarian walked away.

“Look at you, playing innocent,” Maria scolded Kyle, as soon as the librarian was back at the main desk. “I’m going to turn you in if we get kicked out.”

“Oh, the library police,” Kyle said. “I’m shivering.” He raised his hands in mock fear before returning to the Sports Illustrated.

Michael glanced down at his now unoccupied arms and casually threw one of them across the back of Maria’s chair. The kind of unconscious, silent gesture of companionship that could be taken for granted if it wasn’t thoroughly planned and intended. And much to his delight, she let it remain.

“Let me see that,” Michael said, leaning in closer to her to glance at the pages of her magazine.

“Oh, for crying out loud, Senor PDA. Do I need to call our friend back over?” Kyle asked. “I’m outta here.” He started to stand up.

“Then gimme my magazine back,” Michael said immediately.

Maria laughed. “Kyle, sit down,” she said.

Kyle obliged, and Michael took the opportunity to lean in even closer, on pretense of reading the same article as Maria. He really wasn’t that interested in fall skirt designs, but the hand that was turning the pages was something to look at indeed.

Across the library, their traveling companions were somewhat less cheerful.

There were five internet stations working, and all were occupied with a long line. Hence the thirty-minute rule. And for fugitives with the rare opportunity to get on the internet, the thirty-minute rule was giving them quite a bit of frantic stress.

Isabel idly clicked through her routine websites. She checked her e-mail. A couple of friends from school had written her, apparently unaware she was on the run. A couple of other friends from school had written inquiring into her whereabouts, indeed aware of her situation. Nobody she cared about too much, so it was fine that she didn’t reply. She checked the general news websites – no major catastrophes that they’d missed for any reason. She checked the Roswell Daily News website; no big news today about anybody they knew. And then she looked at the archives for the week, and she felt her blood run cold.

WEDNESDAY JULY 10 11:38 a.m. BODY FOUND IN FRASIER WOODS IDENTIFIED

She took a deep breath, licked her lips unconsciously, and clicked on the link with a feeling of dread.

As she read it, she felt a tightening in her shoulders. Her toes curled up inside her boots. It couldn’t be.

“Max,” Isabel whispered across her console. Max’s computer was right across from hers. “Max!”

No reply. She leaned over to look and only saw the tops of his shoulders. He was bending down over Liz’s computer.

“Max!” she said in full voice. “This is important!”

Max’s head shot up, his cheeks flushed.

“Whatisit?” he asked, a little too quickly. Liz looked up beside him guiltily.

“Go to the printer now,” she said. “I’m printing it out.”

Max obliged, shooting Liz a conspiratorial glance and shoving himself up from the chair. The two conjoining computer workstations, with high walls and no one nearby to pry, had been an ideal opportunity for the two of them to, well, do some conjoining. It was hard enough to get private time these days. He felt Liz’s eyes boring into his back as he walked to the computer, much as her fingers had just been exploring it. He felt color rush to his cheeks as he realized how close they’d been to his sister. But in the heat of the moment, he really didn’t care.

The color drained as he read the paper emerging from the printer.

Part 2

Max felt his hands shaking a little as he clung to the freshly printed article in his hands.

‘ ROSWELL, N.M.------

The decomposed body discovered Sunday in Frasier Woods has been identified by dental records as a 46 year-old Roswell man who disappeared in 2000.

Despite bizarre skeletal deformities characteristic of a string of murders in the southwest, no cause of death has been identified.

Hank Whitmore was last seen in February 2000. Police records show a domestic disturbance occurred on the evening of February 12. Whitmore was reported missing on February 13. On February 19, the case was closed, with records showing that Whitmore indicated he was relocating to Las Cruces.

“There’s no evidence to suggest he ever made it here,” said Kathy Wilder, a representative of the Las Cruces police department. “We’re working closely with the Roswell sheriff’s department to figure out what happened between there and here.”

At the time of the disappearance, Whitmore was the court-appointed guardian to an underage minor. The minor was initially held in connection with the disappearance, but was later released.

Sources close to the investigation report a possible connection between the unidentified minor and the events at West Roswell High School graduation in May. The annual graduation event was marked by gunfire, and the subsequent disappearance of six Roswell teenagers. One of the missing graduates, Michael Guerin, 17, was known to be a minor emancipated from the foster system.

“We are not authorized to release any records identifying underage minors in court custody,” Chaves County DSS official Patricia Rodriguez said in a statement to reporters Tuesday.

An anonymous man who claimed to be a former coworker to Whitmore confirmed that Guerin was in Whitmore’s custody at one time.

Police declined to comment on any connection between the unidentified minor and the West Roswell incident. ‘

The first few paragraphs were bad enough, but there it was. Michael Guerin. In black and white. Connected with Hank’s death.

“We can’t show this to him,” he found himself saying quietly to Isabel, as Liz clung to his side, the two of them looking over Isabel’s shoulder. Isabel was rapidly printing out every news item she could find relating to the Whitmore body, in the five minutes she had left before her time expired.

“Can’t show it to him?” Liz repeated. “Max, are you nuts? You owe it to Michael to be honest with him. At the very least.”

“It was a long time ago,” Max said. “It doesn’t matter now.”

“Max,” Isabel said quietly, “you don’t think…”

Max stared at her. “I didn’t.”

“But…”

Liz looked back and forth between them. “Okay, you guys are scaring me now.”

“I’m scaring myself,” Isabel said quietly.

“Isabel, stop it,” Max hissed. “He couldn’t have.”

“I don’t know, Max…”

“We went through this at the time. He had a rock-solid alibi, Isabel. He was with Maria.”

“Wait, wait,” Liz said. “You don’t think Michael did something to Hank Whitmore?”

“He was scared,” Max whispered. “So scared. You know how paranoid Michael used to be about adults, that somebody would figure out about us… well, Hank figured it out. At least he saw Michael use his powers. It was his worst fear – that anybody would see him do it, and that it would be Hank. He had nightmares about that kind of thing.”

“Hank was dangerous, too,” Isabel said, her eyes staring through the screen as she clicked on another article. “He’d hurt Michael before, when he thought he was just some orphan kid. There’s no telling what he was capable of when he was scared of Michael.”

“You two are scaring me,” Liz said. She wound her arm around Max’s waist for reassurance. “Michael couldn’t have killed somebody, I mean…”

“He killed Agent Pierce,” Max said tightly.

“Which devastated him, Max. Am I right?”

Isabel glanced up at Max.

“He was never like that when Hank vanished,” Liz pointed out.

“When Hank vanished, he got emancipated,” Isabel countered. “It was a lot to deal with.”

“When Agent Pierce died, Michael was rescuing me and finding out about Tess and our destiny, and learning to trust the Valentis,” Max ticked off. “It was a lot, too. She’s right, Isabel. Michael wasn’t capable.”

Isabel sighed. “Then if we’re sure, do we have to show him this?”

“He deserves to know,” Liz said firmly.

The three of them looked up. Across the library, they could see Michael, his arm thrown around Maria, leaning into her ear and whispering something that was sending her into a fit of convulsive laughter.

“Let’s get out of here,” Max whispered.

Liz nodded to Isabel and scurried to the printer, which was delivering the last few articles Isabel had found, spitting out page after page of news reports from the previous week. She had a moment to scan them. The press in Roswell was all over this, the reporter who had made the connection between Hank and Michael was writing about three articles a day. But never any direct accusation. Just speculation. Lots of anonymous sources. And there… a quote from former sheriff, Deputy Jim Valenti. How funny that looked on paper, Deputy Valenti, former sheriff.

“We had every indication that Whitmore was in Las Cruces. There was no reason at the time to investigate further.”

Liz frowned. Hank and Michael’s names were already in this, and now Valenti? How long would it be before they named the rest of them? Only Liz hadn’t been named in the initial press coverage at graduation, still being a legal minor.

Not long. “Kyle Valenti, 18, Deputy Valenti’s son, was also reported missing in May and is believed to be with Guerin and the other missing teenagers.”

Oh, jeez. They were in for it now.

Part 3

Liz grabbed the last article and hurried across the room to where Max and Isabel were rounding up the others. “Michael, you’re on plate duty,” Max said quietly as Michael, Maria and Kyle stashed the last of their magazines. Michael nodded with calm, and the six turned as one to stride out of the public library.

Liz tripped on Michael and Maria’s heels as they moved through the rotating doors. They had no idea. Michael had no idea. Liz turned to her side, where Max had somehow managed to move through the group and end up beside her. She gave him what she desperately hoped was a reassuring smile, but his expression told her she’d failed. She pursed her lips and turned away from him.

As Kyle unlocked the van, Michael ducked around back. He glanced around to make sure no one was watching – no one was. They’d backed the van up against a wall on purpose, so that nobody would see when he did this. He touched the license plate, concentrated on its structure, reached out into the metal, and summoned up a mental image of a Virginia license plate. He’d taken to watching cars on the highway while they drove, memorizing the details of legal license plates, and had a good twenty-two states committed to memory. He then gave the first combination of letters and numbers that popped into his head, passed his hand over the rest of the plate, checked to make sure it looked okay, and hopped into the van. Damn if he wasn’t getting good at it.

Isabel was driving, with Liz riding shotgun. Maria and Kyle sat in the back, leaving the seat beside Max free in the middle. Michael pulled the door closed behind him, climbed over the box of non-perishables they were living off of this week, and slid into the seat beside Max.

It was then that he noticed how solemn Max looked.

Max always looked solemn, to a certain extent, but Michael knew him well enough to tell when something was really wrong. Which it was now.

“What are you not telling us?” Michael asked immediately.

Max exchanged a glance with Liz in the front seat.

“Michael…” Max started. “First of all, I want you to stay cool. Okay?”

Now Michael glanced back at Maria, whose eyes had gone wide with alarm.

“As a cucumber, Maxwell. What is it?” Michael could hear the boredom in his own voice, though it was more like an attempt to regulate himself. He took Max’s words seriously. He focused on his heartbeat, trying to keep it steady.

“Isabel found something on the internet.”

“Okay…”

Max glanced at the papers Liz had thrust into his hands. He had turned them over. He didn’t want Michael to read it the way that they had, in black and white, on paper.

“It’s about Hank.”

Michael stiffened. He hadn’t heard Max even speak the name in over a year. As far as he was concerned, Hank Whitmore was dead.

“What about him?”

“He’s dead, Michael.”

“What?” Michael felt calm. Unusually calm. In fact, he wasn’t feeling anything. Anything. “What happened?”

“They don’t know. Well, they do. They found his body in the woods. Fused.”

Michael still felt nothing, but realized now it was more of a numbness. He wanted Maria to be sitting here with him, not Max.

“They said he never made it to Las Cruces… he never left Roswell.”

“Nasedo,” Maria said from the back. Michael was relieved, not only to have an excuse to look back and see her face, but also to have an explanation before anybody even had time to jump to a conclusion.

“Probably,” Max agreed, “but the authorities don’t know that.”

“My dad would,” Kyle spoke up. He exchanged a glance with Maria, who nodded.

“Yes, but what can he say about it?” Max asked. “This one’s already going to come down on him. He was sheriff at the time, he was the last one to see Hank Whitmore, and now his son’s run off with the suspected murderer.”

“Now that just doesn’t sound right, ‘run off with’…” Kyle mused, before staring down at his hands, dropping his point.

Suspected… Michael stared at the sheaf of paper in Max’s hands. “Gimme those.”

“I just want to talk to you about this first…”

But Michael had already snatched the first two away to skim them. Max sighed, but did nothing to stop him.

“They think I did it,” Michael said as he turned to the second page. “The police, the press… they’re all over this.”

“Michael, stay calm,” Max said evenly. Michael looked up.

“I’m calm,” he said.

“You’re too calm,” Maria piped up from the backseat. “Breathe, okay?”

Michael turned to glance at her, and read the concern on her face. It was enough to break him out of his deadly calm with a shudder. “Okay,” he agreed.

Chicken teriyaki. Michael had a sudden flash of chicken teriyaki. Hank used to make it every couple of weeks. It was his specialty. He was usually in a good mood when he made it.

“I didn’t,” Michael said aloud. He looked up and turned around to see four faces looking at him expectantly. “I didn’t do anything to him. You guys all have to know that.”

“We know,” Liz said. “Michael, we know.”

“I mean… you can ask Max and Isabel, they were there. They saw it. I threw stuff around, the gun went off, that was it. He was drunk off his ass, but he was in one piece when we left. And then, then he vanished.”

“Nasedo went to your house, then,” Maria said. “While you were… out.” He glanced back at her and saw her eyebrows lift. It was a relief.

“Valenti said something,” Michael said. “There were loud noises. Inhuman. I remember he said they were inhuman.”

He glanced to Max, who was staring him down.

“I just remember him using that word, okay? It’s hard to forget.”

“We have got to get in touch with your dad,” Max said to Kyle.

“I thought you said no contact,” Kyle said. “I mean… don’t get me wrong, I want to talk to my dad, but what’s changed? We’re still fugitives. Big deal. We keep doing what we’ve been doing all along.” Kyle licked his lips and glanced around.

“This is Michael’s name we’re talking about,” Maria reminded them.

“Forget that. I don’t care what people think about my name, I never even use it outside this van anymore,” Michael pointed out. He glanced back at Maria, however, to mouth a silent “Thank you,” to which she nodded.

“This whole story makes it more dangerous for us,” Max said in his authoritative voice, the one that always made people shut up and listen, even if they bitched about it afterwards. “Before, it was just the Special Unit that was onto us. This is everyday stuff. If Michael’s a wanted murderer, police departments everywhere could be looking for him before we know it.”

“This says they just want me for questioning,” Michael protested faintly. He stared down at the stack of articles in his lap.

“Yes, and you’ve vanished without a trace,” Max said. “It doesn’t look good. If they come to want you too badly…”

“…America’s Most Wanted, here we come,” Kyle finished. “Max, I agree with you. For once.” Kyle coughed. “But then how do we contact my dad?”

“I have an idea,” Max said.

“Oh, here we go,” Isabel spoke up from the driver’s seat. “Just so everybody knows, my brother has been working on this plan since we left Roswell. Don’t go thinking that he just came up with it on the spur of the moment.”

“Thank you, Isabel,” Max said, glaring at the front seat. “Hear me out, okay? Here’s what we’re going to do.”

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