Always Red in the Rearview (Mature) ML (Chap 11 3/11)[WIP]

[Catalyst]

Always Red in the Rearview

Rating: Mature… though I’m not sure that it will get there… just to be safe.
Category: ML
Summary: Another try at fixing the end of season two. What if they’d been warned about Alex sooner? Would it really have fixed anything?
Disclaimer: Not mine… but you knew that already, right?
Author’s Note: The title comes from “Wreck of the Day” by Anna Nalick. So that’s not mine either.

~~~~~~
Forever Love (Digame)
On the ground
With my world
Upside down
I got a vision of your face
And I must
Get me out
For so many memories we’ve yet to make
God don’t send to me your angels…

-Anna Nalick
~~~~~~

Prologue

There was a chill in the air, completely foreign to the hot, humid New Mexico night. The bushes quivered in response to the light breeze, singing a haunting note as the wind combed through its leaves.

Not ten feet away, a stark silence filled the groups of teenagers, broken only by their sharp, shallow breaths. One by one, the bitter reality burrowed into each person’s mind, taking them each by a different kind of surprise. On one end, Liz Parker, her mouth slightly agape, began to shiver uncontrollably, holding herself together only by sheer force of will and the flimsy grasp of her own arms around her waist.

On the other end, Michael Guerin burst into a violent fit of rage, channeling every bit of feeling into his fingertips as he directed them towards the lone piece of life amid the bleak desert background. The bush erupted into a vicious flame that engulfed it before anyone even had the time to gasp. Not that anyone would have. Michael’s outburst wasn’t even enough to penetrate the haze that had pulled them under its spell.

Maria was the first to speak, her own eyes wide with disbelief as she stared at the scene before her. “Oh, my God.” The breathless whisper was the sum total of every coherent jumble in her mind. Once they were out, her lips continued to fluctuate, mouthing the senseless sounds that seemed to have lost all meaning.

Isabel’s sob was heard next, and Kyle knew enough to take her arm before she crumpled to the sand below her. Alex took the place beside her, carefully pulling her into an embrace that took her eyes away from the gruesome scene. Her cries shook them both, and soon his shoulder was damp with her tears.

Michael heard none of it. When the bush burnt to dust, he turned his eyes away, scouring the desert for something—anything—that he could pour his own hatred and devastation into. The group’s background music became the eruption of hundreds of rocks.

Liz was the only one who kept her eyes on the scene, mainly because she couldn’t find the commands to make herself look away. It was right before her eyes, and she still couldn’t believe it. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be.

A voice in her head urged her closer, pressing her towards the destruction, and she succumbed to it easily. Her feet took her forward in groggy steps, shuffling through the sand so that it billowed around her ankles.

Three steps closer, and the smell hit her like a brick to the head. The combination of drying blood and charred hair and skin whipped through her, and dry heaves shook her body more than the shivers that still held her. This was when Kyle finally took notice, appearing at her side before she had time to pull herself back together.

“Liz, stop.” His breathing was labored, and, when she looked up, the headlights from the now-empty jeep illuminated the sickly gray color that his skin had taken. “You’ll only make yourself sick.”

“Bu-But…” Liz’s mouth stuttered on the excuses, each more feeble than the last, before she finally collapsed into Kyle’s arms. “It can’t be…” she muttered into the collar of his shirt. He smelled like dust and sweat.

“We saw it, Liz,” he said, the quiver in his voice betraying him. “We saw everything.”

“And we didn’t stop it. Why didn’t we stop it, Kyle?”

With a ferocity she hadn’t known he had in him, Kyle pulled Liz back, their eyes snapping together. “This wasn’t our fault, Liz,” he said, sounding as if he needed to convince himself as well. “There was nothing we could have done.” As he said it, a tear rolled down his cheek. Liz pretended she didn’t see it.

“How do we fix this?” The quiver in Liz’s voice brought the chills back to her body, and Kyle wrapped his arms around her again.

“We can’t, Liz,” he said, staring at the darkened desert sky over her head. “Alien powers can’t fix everything. Even they can’t bring back the dead.” He swallowed the lump in his throat as it threatened to choke him. “No matter how much we wish they could.”


TBC

[Catalyst]

Quick A/N: Thanks to everyone who left feedback. Here's the first chapter. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep updating once a week like this, but I just started working full-time, so it all depends on how much time I have. I'm hoping to at least get a couple more chapters out before I leave for Canada (July 15!!!), but it really all depends on how conscious I am after work. Anyway, I'm done rambling, and here's the chapter...




Chapter One

The hot, Southern sun woke to the sight of six distraught teens, tangled in their own insignificant attempts at consolation. It was the slow moving heat, creeping up their spines that masked the scene with a false sense of composure. They all knew how to pretend they could handle this. They had all been well-practiced in serenity at the sight of danger. Now danger had simply become grief. They were good enough at pretending to make that transition. After all, they didn’t have much of a choice.

Kyle spoke first, his words soft beneath the red-rimmed eyes that he hid by staring into the dissolving darkness. “What--?” He choked on his own question before forcing his words back through his lips. “What do we do… with them?” Each person looked around the group, waiting for the one voice they knew they wouldn’t hear. After so much fighting, so much hatred, now all that anyone could wish for was someone to look to. Someone to ask.

Michael finally answered, knowing that they were all waiting in vain. “We have to cover it up. We can’t let someone find them like this.” He looked around at the broken remnants of the group that sat before him. “We can’t let someone find us like this either.”

“What will we say happened?” The question came from Maria, her own voice wobbly as she held her knees to her chest to keep control. “How do we explain why we’re coming back and they… aren’t?” She closed her eyes as a weak barrier against her own emotions, and thick silence settled around them again.

“Car accident,” Alex finally whispered. “We say it was a car accident.” He looked around at his tear-soaked friends. “I mean, that’s what was supposed to happen tonight anyway, right?” As soon as the words came out of his mouth, Alex’s chest heaved, and he rushed behind the jeep to vomit. His heavy breathing drifted back to the group, followed by the disjointed sound of his sobs. Maria moved to go to him when Isabel took her arm.

“Give him a minute.” And, for once, Maria conceded.

“I think a car accident is only thing we can do,” Kyle said, going back to Alex’s plan. “We put them in the jeep, and we drive it into one of the rocks. We tell them that we passed out. That’s why it took us so long to call. It explains why we all look like this.” He looked at the disheveled mess of people around him. Somewhere in the middle of his explanation, Alex had returned, looking a bit grayer than when he left. He and Isabel found some semblance of comfort by clinging to each other.

“Michael,” Isabel whispered, he head resting on Alex’s weary shoulder. He came to her side, gently taking her elbow for support. “I can’t – I can’t… touch them. Please don’t make me help you.” His heart broke a little more at her plea, and he placed a chaste kiss on her temple, wishing that he didn’t have to be playing this role right now.

“I can do it. Can you call Valenti?” She nodded softly, fumbling through her pockets for her phone. “Just tell him what he needs to tell Hanson. We’ll tell him the rest later.” She nodded mutely again, already fumbling with the keys.

Michael did a quick sweep of the jeep to make sure there was nothing left in it that could incriminate them. After stuffing a few things into his pockets, he told everyone to start walking towards Roswell. He didn’t want them to have to see it.

Liz stood, dutifully walking back towards town. She was less than a dozen steps away when she heard the crash. With no warning, her shivers abruptly returned.

From that moment, she knew things would never be the same.

…

The groups of teenagers gathered by some unspoken agreement on the balcony outside of Liz’s room. Michael’s fits of rage had subdued, but he stood apart from the others, his eyes focused the desert. In a matter of minutes, it had lost any sense of comfort that he had ever found in it. Now, all he felt was sickness when he looked out at the expanse of nothing.

A tap at the window drew everyone’s attention, and the sheriff pushed the glass panel to the side when he saw the six pairs of eyes turn to him. They could all see the red that rimmed his eyes. “Isabel, your parents are here.” A look of shock crossed Isabel’s face as she remembered her parents. “Hanson… contacted them this morning. They came to find you.”

Isabel’s sudden deep breaths betrayed her otherwise calm exterior, and Alex wrapped an arm around her waist as he pushed his own feelings aside. “I’ll go with you,” he told her. “They need you right now, Isabel. You should be with them.”

Isabel looked up at him, her eyes filling with tears once again. “How can I help them, Alex? Max is dead, and I can’t even tell them why. How do I fix that?”

She was the first to say it so bluntly, and everyone seemed to shuffle a bit as the force of her words hit them. Alex took a steadying breath before meeting her eyes again. “You have to go to them, Isabel. You’re all they have left now.” She closed her eyes against the tears that threatened to cascade down her cheeks and allowed him to lead her back into the house.

The sheriff let them through before appearing back in the opened window. “Whenever you’re ready,” he told them, “I need to know what really happened. The four remaining looked around their haphazard circle, and Maria motioned for him to join them on the balcony.

“It started with the letter,” she began, glad that Alex had gone with Isabel. She knew he would blame himself irrationally for all of these things that he couldn’t control. What was done was done. She had to believe that; it preserved her sanity. “Max found it on his window yesterday, typed, only his name printed on the front to insure that it got to him.”

“What did the letter say?” the sheriff asked, grasping at her words in an attempt to keep from making things any harder on them. They didn’t deserve any of this. They were only kids, for Christ’s sake!

“It was about, Alex,” Maria continued, holding onto a precarious self-control. She chanced a look in Kyle’s direction to find him looking off the balcony, into the empty parking lot below; the Parkers had closed the restaurant for the day when they got the news. “And Tess. It said that she had been mindwarping him – something to do with that book she had.” Valenti’s eyes widened at that point as he began to piece together the events of the day. “He was going to die. It was killing him.”

“Max didn’t know what to do,” Liz cut it, her voice raw from crying. “He called The Crashdown; we were all over here. Everyone except Alex and Tess.”

“Isabel set off, a woman on a mission,” Kyle said, standing over Liz protectively. “All the rest of us could do was follow her. We wound up at Alex’s house, banging on the door. He wasn’t there, though. Then we went back to our house. You were gone.”

“He was in her bedroom,” Michael said, his voice sounding detached and emotionless, “crumpled on the floor, barely breathing. Max went over, fixed up whatever was broken in his head, and he still just laid there, dazed.” Maria crossed the balcony and stood beside him, giving him whatever comfort he was willing take. He pulled her under his arm, holding her there as if he was afraid the angel of death would swoop down and take her from him at any moment.

“Tess didn’t come home for another hour,” Liz began again. “By then we had hidden the jeep, and we just watched her. We thought we were being so smart. We didn’t want to do anything stupid, reckless. When we saw her get back into her car, we followed her out to the desert, thinking it would be best to confront her with no people around.

“We didn’t see Nicholas until it was too late. She pulled off the road in the middle of nowhere, and suddenly the jeep’s engine cut out. We had no choice but to take her lead. That was when we all realized that she’d known we were behind her the whole time.”

“Nicholas appeared out of nowhere, and he didn’t say a word before he shot out at Max. He threw up his shield just in time. Nicholas just laughed.” Liz quivered with the memory, and Kyle took over.

“We didn’t realize he was in our heads until Liz disappeared from behind the shield and reappeared with him and Tess. Max’s shield disappeared, he threw out his arm, and this light shot out. We heard Tess scream, and the light faded. Nicholas was still there, though. He just twitched, and suddenly Max crumbled and fell to the ground.” Kyle stopped, wishing that when he closed his mouth he could also turn off the rush of images that had filled his mind.

“Oh, my God,” Valenti muttered. There were no other words.

Grief permeated the air like perfume, and each person ignored the tears on the next person’s cheeks, allowing for some sense of dignity and pride. The things their friend had died without.

The things they no longer knew how to fight for.

…

School came the next day, and time continued to pass with no regard to the shock that two worlds had just sustained. Like mirrors of the corpses they had found themselves beside the night before, the six teens entered school with identical portraits of shock, grief, and exhaustion drawn onto their faces. The halls took a tone of mourning when they passed, though each of them saw through the charade that the whole school played for their benefit. None of these people had known Max and Tess. Judging by what they had seen the night before, no one had known Tess.

At lunch, they all found themselves taking a breath as they gathered in the back of the abandoned library. Everyone else had gathered on the football field, showing their obligatory respect to the photographs of Max and Tess that had been posted there.

“The funerals will be on Friday,” Kyle said, not knowing any other way to break the solemnity around them. “Dad wants to know if you and you will be pallbearers.” He pointed to Alex and Michael as they both nodded.

“They’re doing the funerals together?” Maria asked, unable to stop the words. She had been very proud of herself the night before for her own self restraint, but it wouldn’t hold out forever. “Even after what Tess did, and…” She risked a glance at Alex before she continued. “What we know she was going to do.” Everyone averted their eyes as the words came out of her mouth, but no one disputed them.

“What are we supposed to do, Maria?” Kyle asked, wishing there was some defense for the woman who he’d thought had pieced his family back together. “We all have to go to both of them anyway. Everyone thought we were such great friends. They can’t start asking questions now.”

“Kyle’s right,” Liz said, surprising everyone. “There are too many holes in our story as it is. We can’t afford to have people poking around. We have to keep up appearances.”

“Screw appearances,” Isabel said, her voice shaking with emotion. “She killed my brother. How am I supposed to stand through a service for her? How am I supposed to pretend that I give a damn about her life? She sure as hell didn’t give a damn about ours. Why do I have to keep pretending?”

“Because otherwise you let her win,” Alex said softly, sounding wiser than his years. “She’s got nothing to lose anymore. If they find out about you and Michael, she wins everything. If you want to beat her, you have to do this.”

Kyle stood, silently observing the scene as a pit formed in his stomach.

…

“I killed him.” Maria spun to face her friend as the words fell into the otherwise silent room. “I killed them both.”

Maria opened her mouth, hoping for some ounce of comfort to drop from her lips, but, for what seemed like the first time, she found herself drawing a blank. “It wasn’t your fault,” she offered lamely. “You couldn’t have known this was going to happen.”

“Maria, I took away fourteen years of his life.” The strangled sob that Liz clutched in her throat began to claw its way out, and Liz wrapped her arms around herself in some vain attempt to keep herself together. “I almost got Alex killed in the process. None of this was supposed to happen. God, what have I done?”

Maria pulled Liz’s head against her shoulder, her own tears still glistening in her eyes. It’s not fair, she thought bitterly, holding the mantra in her head. They didn’t even get to mourn in peace. They had the world on their frail, broken shoulders, and there was no one to pass the responsibility on to.

“Liz,” Maria tried, gently rocking her friend’s body back and forth, “you have to remember that he asked you to do this for him. He thought you were fixing things. He would never have blamed you for this.”

“You don’t know that,” Liz sobbed, too tired to even put up a proper fight. “He doesn’t even have the option now. God, I didn’t even get to tell him the truth. He never even knew why this all happened.”

“You started this for him, Liz. He would have understood that.” But even Maria knew that her words meant nothing. The only person who could tell her the things that she needed to hear was the one person who couldn’t answer her call.



TBC...

[Catalyst]

AN: This will probably be the only thing I post until the end of the month, because I don't know what my internet connection capability is going to be for the next couple of weeks. Just so you know...



Chapter Two

He woke to the faint smell of mildew and cat urine, accompanied by the echo of his own heartbeat in his ears. His could feel the throbbing of his brain in his skull, threatening to pull his head apart if he tried to concentrate. Along his left cheekbone, he felt pressure against a tender bruise, but he couldn’t muster the strength to shift his weight. Below him, he felt the raggedy velvet lining of an old couch, punctured occasionally by a hard steel spring.

When he finally pulled his eyelids apart, he wasn’t surprised that there wasn’t much to see. A faint light sifted between the closed panels on a nearby curtain, outlining the lifeless objects of the room around him. It looked like a basement, judging by the windows that hung high on the walls. Other than the couch that he occupied, the only other object in the room seemed to be an empty bar whose only purpose was to collect the waiting dust.

He shifted his body, attempting to stretch the kinks out of his weary muscles, when a sudden pain ripped through his limbs, tearing a scream from his lips. Within seconds, light flooded a stairwell he had not noticed, and a silhouette at the top drew his attention.

“It’s about time you woke up, Max,” Tess said, looking absurdly alive considering the fact that he knew he’d seen her die. “What’s the use in kidnapping you if you’re just going to sleep all day?”

…

The funeral was a flurry of dust and tears as all the mourners spent the service pulling their sweat-soaked clothing away from their bodies. The heat rose off the ground like a mirage, tugging at people’s last threads of sanity as they dropped their roses and their wishes on the buried caskets.

Isabel barely opened her eyes during the service, afraid of the truths she might spout if she had to watch the people honor Tess while her brother grew stiff in his coffin. She held Alex’s waist for some semblance of balance, allowing him to lead her through the day. All she wanted was for it to be over. All she wanted was a moment when she didn’t have to wear a mask for everyone else. All she wanted was a moment’s peace.

All she wanted was her brother.

Isabel barely noticed when they got back to her house, ignoring all pleasantries as she disappeared into the sanctuary of her room. Alex knew enough to tell her parents that she wasn’t feeling well before he followed her steps. Within minutes, the six teens had gathered together again, spread around Isabel’s room in the silence they had all become accustomed to.

Isabel had Alex, and Michael had Maria. Liz and Kyle pretended they had each other, but, unlike the others, they had both lost someone, and neither of them knew how to lend the comfort that they couldn’t find for themselves. Kyle tried to pretend that it meant nothing to him—that Tess meant nothing to him—but even he knew that they would have all seen through his lies if they weren’t drowning in their own sorrows. Something just wasn’t piecing together for him, and, though he knew that he should, he couldn’t just write Tess off.

On the other hand, he couldn’t find any reason behind the things that she had done. It was why he kept his mouth closed. He wasn’t going to fight this fight for her and risk everything he had come to care about unless he was absolutely sure there was something else going on.

And if something else was going on, he promised himself he would find out what it was.

…

“You did a really good job, Maria,” Isabel offered, proud of the solid tone her voice maintained. “Max would have liked it. That was one of his favorite songs when we were little, back when we used to go to church on Sundays.” Maria returned with a soft smile, finding all of her words useless. There wasn’t a simple phrase that could turn this all around, that would put all of the pieces back together again, and Maria was beginning to realize that.

Silence seeped back into the cracks, leaving the room awkward and immobile, trapped in a world that they all desperately wanted to be free of.

“What are we going to do with their stuff?” Kyle asked abruptly, knowing that the words were painful but needing to say something so that he knew that the silence hadn’t muted him. “I mean, I don’t even know what she had at our house.”

“We need to go through it,” Michael decided. “We don’t know what else she could have been hiding. We don’t even know who else she was in contact with. Anything we know will make us more prepared if it happens again.”

“Again?” Isabel echoed. “Why would they come back? They already took my brother. Now there’s no one to challenge Khivar. We lost the war… again. Why would they come back?”

“He chased us across the universe, Isabel,” Michael said in the most soothing tone he could find. “We can’t believe he’s just given up. We have to watch our backs.”

“It’s never going to be over, is it?” she questioned, her voice raw and breaking. “He’s always going to be this shadow over our lives, no matter what we do, and now it’s too late to fight him. We lost before we even started. Now we’re screwed.”

“One hurdle at a time,” Alex told her, pulling her into his shoulder as he shot a pointed look in Michael’s direction. “Don’t think about tomorrow yet. First we’ve got to get through today. Monday, we’ll decide what to do next.”

…

The word surprised didn’t really fit the look on Kyle’s face the next morning when he found Alex at his front door. It was almost as if he had seen a ghost for a moment. His arms immediately prickled with goose bumps, and his heart sped for no reason at all. Later, it would all make a strange kind of sense. At the moment, it was more than a little unnerving.

At a glance, Alex looked perfectly normal. A little skittish, maybe, but nothing too out of the ordinary. The part that caught Kyle off-guard was the fact that Alex was simply standing there, staring at the front door, as if he didn’t really know what came next. Kyle had been expecting to find the morning paper, possibly surrounded by yet another broken flower pot. He did not expect to immediately find himself engaged in a staring contest with a pair of sleep-deprived eyes.

And he certainly wasn’t expecting the words that Alex used to break the silence. “Something’s not right, Kyle. We fucked up.”

…

“I can’t believe we’re back in Roswell,” the boy grumbled, sinking lower into his seat. “Back in the damn desert.”

“Dylan,” his companion said, her voice not holding the conviction that it once had, “you’re too young to curse.”

“You do,” he threw back, still sulking as he adjusted the air conditioning on his side of the car. As the beads of sweat still continued to gather on his forehead, he decided that his two vents were not enough and moved his hand across the dash so that he could turn the other half of the car’s air conditioning in his direction.

“I’m older than you are,” she told him, readjusting the air conditioning as soon as his hands were back in his lap. He scowled at her, his face nearly as brown as the sand all around them. “I told you that the air conditioning would work better if we left the top on.” She gestured with one hand as her other kept control of the car on the empty road. “You can’t complain about it now.”

“But you’re not even sweating,” he said, despite the fact that she obviously was. It was impossible not to, she thought, after six hours driving under the hot Southern sun. Her body wasn’t acclimated to heat. In the great northwest, there were two months of summer, and it still rained… frequently. Heat wasn’t a big problem.

“Just… fix it.” She said the words in a tone that left little for question, even in his mind. He ran his hand over the dash, doubling the power of the already strong vents. “Happy now?” she asked, watching his slightly shaggy hair blow away from his face.

“No,” he said, but the scowl on his face had lightened noticeably. “We’re still going to Roswell.”

“It’s not going to be what you expect,” she promised him obscurely.

“So there won’t be a bunch of nut jobs looking for their own personal E.T.?”

“Of course there will be,” she told him. “But there’s something more in Roswell. History, purpose… destiny.” She said the final word after a pause, amazed that they had finally gotten to this point. They’d waited so long. Finally, it was happening. Finally, everything would come full circle, but different this time. Infinitely different.

“You’re so sappy, Serena,” Dylan mocked her. “You don’t even know what’s going to happen when we get there. This could all blow up right in our faces, and this time that’s not an exaggeration. You can’t just go in there, expecting everything to happen exactly according to plan. Things are different this time, more different than either of us have even imagined.” Serena looked over at him, as always, surprised by the rare moments of maturity in the boy. Sometime she forgot that he was still in there, buried by the memories of the life they’d been living. Sometimes she forgot just how much he really remembered.

“They think he’s dead,” she whispered, her voice almost overcome by the whipping of the air conditioner. She didn’t know why she said the words aloud, but somehow, hearing them echo back made them a little more concrete. “It’s not going to make things easier.”

He paused for a moment, then smirked. “Well, I’ve always loved a challenge.” He could only take so much seriousness at a time. He was still very much a little boy. He deserved to be a little boy.

“You can’t be so cocky either,” she warned him. “You have to remember our goal here. The queen needs us.”

And, no matter what the cost, they would save the queen. No matter who stood in their way.

…

“Damn it!” The words echoed off of the cold walls as Liz paced her room, her tears blurring the carpet beyond her feet. She swiped at the eyes constantly, wishing she could rub everything out so easily. Wishing she could blot out her mistakes the same way. Frustration gnawed at her, digging deeper and deeper until the only sounds she was sure she could make to escape it was the scream she felt pressing at her lips. A picture frame caught her eye, distracting her with its tauntingly sweet smiles. She lashed out at, sending the picture hurling towards her wall, never slowing her pace as the pieces shattered.

“Lizzie?” The voice was timid and meek, barely heard from its place in the windowsill. “Lizzie, calm down.” Immediately, Liz’s feet fell silent, her eyes flashing to the opened window.

“I thought you were staying with Michael,” Liz said, her pacing resuming. “He needs you right now.”

“You need me, too, Liz,” Maria said, “even if you won’t admit it. And so does everyone else. We all need to be here for each other right now, if we ever want to get out of this.”

“Get out of this?” Liz echoed. “How do we get out of this?” She brushed at a new onslaught of tears, almost wishing that her feet could burrow her straight into the ground. She wanted to be somewhere without feeling, without emotion. Somewhere where it didn’t hurt so much. “Max is dead, Maria. We can’t just get out of this.”

“We have to,” Maria said softly. “You didn’t die with him, Liz, no matter what it feels like. We didn’t die that night. We changed, and we’re going to have to keep changing until we get to someplace… better.”

There was a pause before Liz answered. “I think you should go back to Michael,” Liz told her, finally stopping her feet as she left her back to Maria. “I don’t – I don’t want to be around anyone right now.”

“Too bad,” Maria told her, standing from her place against the window. “Because Michael is with Isabel right now, and I don’t want to be alone. I know that you don’t really want to be either. You’ve got to talk to me, Liz. I know that you lost him, and I won’t pretend I understand all the stuff between the two of you, but I know it’s got to hurt like hell. I won’t lose you to his memory, though, Liz. I can’t. We already almost lost, Alex, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let her get to you, too, Liz.”

Maria almost gasped when Liz turned back to her, the tear tracks on her cheeks glistening in the light from her lamp. “That’s just the thing, Maria,” Liz choked, her own words threatening to consume her. “I didn’t feel anything. I mean, my mind keeps telling me he’s dead, and it’s driving me crazy, because he doesn’t feel dead. He doesn’t feel dead like I know that he should.”

…

[Catalyst]

Quick A/N: So I know that this is really late, and it's really short too, but I wanted to put something out. Unfortunately we've had family visiting that thought I only only got out the laptop so that they could use it. And so I didn't get to use the computer much last week. Hopefully I'll have more time with it this week.



Chapter Three

Twenty-seven minutes down, Serena ticked off in her head. Only nine to go. Unconsciously, her fingers began to play along the steering wheel, tapping out a rhythm that was only soothing to her tattered nerves.

“Serena, you’re driving me crazy.” Abruptly her fingers fell as silent as the car had been for the last half hour. The last words Serena had heard from Dylan’s mouth had been a bitter curse towards the sun as he drug his lone suitcase into the apartment they would be staying in. That was almost forty minutes ago. Twenty minutes ago, they had passed into the ‘no-radio’ zone. Fifteen minutes ago, Serena had begun the mouth twitch game. She would look at Dylan, open her mouth, take deep breath or two, and then close her mouth as if that had been her plan all along.

She was pretty sure she was starting to go crazy.

“What are you thinking about?” She forced the words out of her mouth without looking at him, knowing that she had to do something—anything—to break the silence.

Instead of one of his cheeky replies, Dylan remained silent his lips pursed into a thin line as he hung his head out of the window. Just when Serena was about to give up, she heard his response, barely loud enough to be heard over the sound of the air conditioner.

“I miss her.”

Something in his voice made her want to cry, and this time she let the silence stretch out between them. She could offer more of the useless little assurances that were supposed to make this easier on him, but she knew better. Time had taken all healing value from words. Actions were the only things that could heal him now.

She’d give anything to erase that look from his memory. She’d give anything to make him happy again.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything for her to give.

Lost in thought, Serena missed the rock at first glance, though, looking back, she would have known it anywhere. Slamming on her breaks, she skidded into a U-turn that would have been disastrous if they had been on a real road. As it was, the worst part of the experience turned out to be the sneezing fit induced by the cloud of dust she created.

“How many times do I have to tell you that you are driving with precious cargo?” Dylan gestured to himself, attempting to lighten the rapidly falling mood. Serena managed a tart smile. Now that they were there, she couldn’t seem to find the replies that she would normally throw back at him. All night she’d craved voices, interaction, words, and now that Dylan was ready to play, she’d drawn a blank.

They began their trudge up the ledge, both wishing for the shallow temperatures and lack of humidity that they had called home for years.

“God, I hate this place,” Dylan muttered, pulling his shirt away from his body. “What the hell was she thinking? Roswell, freaking, New Mexico…”

“It’s the only safe place to establish contact,” Serena told him, though she knew he already knew that.

“Whatever,” he grumbled. “Let’s just hope it’s an air-conditioned rock.” They both stopped for a moment when the ledge evened out, taking a second to collect their breath.

Serena looked at the flat pane of rock in front of them, and then turned to Dylan. “You want to?”

He shook his head. “Wait,” he said, his voice low. “I don’t know what we’re supposed to call her.” He looked at his shoes. “Which name does she go by here?”

“I think she wants us to call her Tess.”
…
“You’re supposed to be dead!” Max felt pain ripple through his bones as he stumbled off of the couch, desperate to keep space between himself and Tess. His body shook with the effort, and Max felt himself struggling just to stay upright.

He only looked up at Tess once he found himself backed into the corner, and she was already halfway down the stairs by then. The hard click of her heels echoed through his mind, and, surprisingly enough, it seemed to soothe him, physically at least. With every step Tess took, a little of the pain left his body.

“What are you doing to me?” he gasped, finding it a little easier to hold his own weight. “What is this? Some kind of game for you?”

“It was just something that Nickolas wanted. He wanted to be sure we’d know when you woke up.”

“Where is the little bastard?”

“Busy,” Tess replied coolly. “He’s been alerted to your consciousness now, though, so I’m sure he’ll be back soon.” She looked up at him, and Max wanted to believe that he saw a touch of compassion in her eyes. He wanted to believe anything that would give him a little hope, a little anything to believe that he could survive this. “It won’t be like this every time you wake up,” she promised him. “From now on, it will only happen if you try to use your powers.”

“Why would you do this to me, Tess?” he asked, hating that he still felt his knees shaking from the aftermath of whatever they had done to him. “What did we ever do to you?”

“It could’ve been worse, Max,” Tess assured him. “It could’ve been so much worse.”
…
Alex bounced back and forth off of the walls in Kyle’s room like a pendulum, his mouth pursed in a narrow line as he ran words across the backs of his eyelids. He needed everything to come out right. He needed someone to believe him.

He needed someone to tell him that he wasn’t going crazy.

“Is this what you scared the crap out of me for?” Kyle barked. Alex couldn’t blame him. Kyle sat through ten minutes of this already. If Kyle had shown up on his door and acted this way, Alex was pretty sure Kyle would have been on his ass nine and a half minutes ago.

“You have to actually hear me out,” Alex told him, still pacing the room furiously. “I need to say it all, or it won’t make any sense. Hell, it might not make any sense anyway.”

“Just spit it out,” Kyle cut in.

“Tess didn’t do it,” Alex said. Kyle motioned for him to go on, but managed to keep a tentative hold on the look of skepticism on his face. “She left us that note, Kyle.” For this, Alex was rewarded with a break in Kyle’s sturdy veneer as his jaw fell slightly. “She wanted us to know what was happening.”

“And what about leading us into the desert? Leading us to the little guy?” Kyle wanted to believe. He wanted to be able to take Alex for his word and live happily in whatever little fantasy they were creating, but he knew that no one else would step off of the ledge so easily. He needed to know what they were getting into before he let himself fall too far.

“I don’t know yet,” Alex said. Like a balloon, suddenly he began to deflate, dropping onto the floor to face Kyle. “It doesn’t make sense, I know, but it’s true.” Kyle wanted to believe simply because of the force in Alex’s voice, but something held him back. Something about how Alex said it.

“How do you know?” he found himself asking. “How can you be so sure? She was killing you, for Christ’s sake! Why are you on her side?”

“She wasn’t killing me,” Alex said softly. “I was helping her.” From the corner of his eye, Alex was sure he saw Kyle’s head flash up, but he refused to look at him. “I didn’t remember it until this morning. She asked me for help, Kyle. I was a willing participant.”

“Why?” It seemed to be the only thing in Kyle’s mind.

“I don’t know.” Alex shook his head. “It’s all jumbled. It’s like this annoying puzzle in my head, only the damn thing is missing pieces.”

“Why would she do that to you if you were helping her?”

“This was part of the plan,” Alex explained. He sighed. “She told me that she needed time. That’s why she was going to do this to me. That’s why you found me… the way that I was. She locked up pieces of my memory.”

“She can do that?” Kyle gaped.

“She can do a lot more than we ever knew. She can time her mindwarps, Kyle. That’s what she did to me. If everything goes as planned, I’ll remember a little more each day. It’s leading up to something… something big.”

“And what are we supposed to do about it?” Kyle asked, overcome by a feeling of uselessness. Why hadn’t Tess come to him? Why couldn’t she have confided all of this in him? “We just sit and wait as usual, right?”

“We have to find out what was really happening in Las Cruses,” Alex told him, a strange conviction in his voice. “I’m sick of sitting and waiting for something to happen. This is too important. She let everything hang on whether or not this works. We have to make sure this works.”

“So we go to Las Cruses?”

“We go to Las Cruses,” Alex confirmed. “And we hope that I know enough when we get back to convince everyone else. Otherwise, we may be skinned for mutiny.”

Kyle didn’t miss the lack of humor in his voice.
…
Tess carefully collected her breathing as she laid back into her sorry excuse for a mattress. Things were coming together nicely, falling into place just as she had planned them. She tried not to think about how far she still had to go to keep things moving. There were still so many things that could go wrong. There was so much at stake here. Five planets all revolving around her own little plan. A dynasty ready to crumble or flourish. The end of everything.

If she was going to be honest, she felt more than a little sick to her stomach.

That was why she consciously put the mission out of her mind. One step at a time, she told herself. It all starts with Serena.

Tess gathered her wayward thoughts together and closed her eyes, drawing herself into another place. She saw it as clearly as a picture, right down to the dim green glow of the pods. Then, as simply as taking a breath, she put a piece of herself there. Her body fell limp on her mattress, and she found herself face to face with a pair of startled eyes.

“Well, I see some things haven’t changed.” Tess lowered her eyes to the boy, taking a moment to absorb all of his changes. She’d know him anywhere still, but he really looked nothing like the young man she had known a lifetime ago. He was a child again. They’d kept his eyes. Somehow, they’d kept all of their eyes. In a little way, it was reassuring. Looking into his dark, melted chocolate eyes, somehow Tess thought that maybe they really could pull this off. “Still have to make an entrance, don’t you... Tess?” His lips stumbled on the name, and she couldn’t keep a smile off of her lips.

“Still cheeky as always, right... Dylan?” She put the same forced enunciation on his name, noticing that a small smile pulled at his lips.

“Apparently some things never change,” Serena murmured, drawing Tess’s attention.

“God help us if that’s true,” Tess replied.

[Catalyst]

Chapter Four

“What the hell are we waiting for?” Tess couldn’t help jumping as her door flew open, crashing into the wall with enough force to leave a dent. She forcibly drew in her breath, rolling her eyes as she willed her heart to calm. When she turned to face Nicholas, her entire persona was one of complete irritation.

“How many times do we have to go through this?” Tess pushed aside the papers she had been looking through and stood. “Things have to go exactly according to plan. If we rush because you’re hungry for glory, then we could ruin everything. Do you have any idea how furious Khivar will be if you screw up what he’s been planning for the last fifty years?”

“How much difference can a week make?” Nicholas threw back, acting every bit like the twelve year old body he inhabited. “And even if you don’t get pregnant this time, we can do it again.”

“He’s not stupid, Nicholas,” Tess said, her voice a low growl. “We get one chance at this, and after that he won’t fall for it again. If we waste it now, when there is a very good chance that I won’t get pregnant, we’re screwed. He won’t believe I’m her twice.”

“I don’t understand why he’s gotten so attached to this human.” He said the word with disgust in his voice, and Tess fought back every urge that told her to strangle him. He couldn’t find out the truth. Not yet.

“It’s ridiculous,” Tess agreed. “But we can’t change it. He’s given us a way in. If you want to waste this chance by moving too fast, that’s your call, but you will have face Khivar for it.”

“Don’t be so cocky, princess,” Nicholas droned. “This is on your head just as much as mine, and Khivar won’t care that you’re his sister if it all goes to hell.” On that note, Nicholas disappeared from her doorway, not seeing as she dropped back onto her bed.

...

“Liz?” Liz turned her head to the other side, ignoring the nagging voice. “Liz, come on. The bell just rang. Time to wake up.” One eye popped open and found Maria staring down at her. She sighed and stood up, pulling her backpack over her shoulder and following Maria out the door.

“Do you know where we’re meeting up tonight, Liz?” Maria asked, linking their arms as they weaved through the hallway. Both girls were careful to keep their eyes trained on the inanimate objects around them. They were sick of the pity glances that were constantly being shot in their direction.

“We’re having another meeting tonight?” Liz asked, carefully leaning into Maria. “Why?”

“Didn’t Alex call you?” Liz narrowed her eyes for a moment before fishing through her purse. “You didn’t charge your phone, did you?”

“I thought I did,” Liz told her. “I just... keep forgetting.”

“Listen, I’m staying at your house again tonight, okay?” Maria told her, stopping in front of her locker. “Tell your parents that I’m coming back with you after whatever it is that we’re doing tonight.”

“So Alex called you too?” Michael said, stopping beside Maria. “Did he tell you why we’re meeting?” Maria shook her head.

“He said it was something important,” she told him, “but he called my cell after I went to bed. I haven’t gotten to talk to him.”

“Same here,” Michael said. “I don’t think he called until two in the morning.”

“Do you think something happened?” Liz asked, suddenly worried. “Has anyone seen him today?”

“He was in my class,” Michael told her, watching the tension drain from both girls’ eyes. “He ran out before I could talk to him though.”

“I don’t like this,” Maria said to herself. “I don’t like this at all.”

...

“Who’s the new girl?” Liz’s eyes flickered with interest as the question passed through the noisy classroom. She’d give her left eye for a distraction right about now.

Sure enough, an unfamiliar face stood in the doorway, scanning for an unused seat.

Don’t sit by me. Don’t sit by me. Don’t sit by--. Liz’s mantra went unrewarded. The new girl singled her out, quickly filling the seat at her side. Max’s seat.

That seat’s not for you! Liz shouted, but since the words never passed her lips, no one seemed to notice. A few people looked as if they had expected it, but soon enough their attention was diverted back to the girl in his seat. Roswell High didn’t see a whole lot of newcomers. Roswell wasn’t really good at keeping people’s attention. It was good for the first bang, but it didn’t really have any staying power.

For that reason alone, Liz found herself surveying the new girl. She looked familiar somehow, and when Liz turned away, she was left with a tingling sense of déjà vu.

“Hi.” The girl waited until Liz looked back before offering a small smile. “I’m Serena, the new girl.”

Liz’s eyes flashed opened, instantly captivated by the girl beside her. It couldn’t be, she rationed, fighting for control of her rapidly beating pulse. I mean... what are the odds?

But who else could she be?

“Hi,” Liz offered, realizing that she had yet to speak. “I’m Liz.” Inwardly, she damned herself for not interrogating Max’s future self better. The key to everything could be sitting just feet from her, and she had no way of knowing.

No way except for to follow the gnawing feeling in middle of her chest that told her she was crazy not to believe.

The scary thing was that, even after all the trouble that following those kinds of feelings had gotten her into, Liz already knew she was being pulled into this. It was stronger than all of her arguments, all of her cynicism.

She was getting another chance to rewrite history.

This time, she’d do it right.

...

“Maria, don’t you understand?” Liz paced the narrow confines beneath the bleachers. “Her name is Serena. She’s the one that he told me about.”

“Maybe I would buy that if her name were Ali Baba or something, Liz,” Maria said carefully, “but you can’t let yourself jump head first into something because of the name Serena. I mean, hell, my mom’s cousin’s name is Serena. Are we going to track her down too?” Maria lowered her voice before she continued knowing that her thoughts wouldn’t be well-received. “I know that it hurts, Liz, but you can’t invest yourself in things like this. It’s not going to fix things. It won’t bring him back.”

Liz’s eyes narrowed, and her pacing slowed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Maria,” she replied, her voice tightly coiled.

“Yes, I do, Liz,” Maria said, her voice falling even quieter. “I don’t want to see you get hurt even more when she turns out to be just another girl.” Maria closed her eyes as she saw Liz shutting her out. This wasn’t getting her anywhere. “Alright,” she conceded gently. “What if we say she is the right girl?

“She is,” Liz said certainly.

“So what?” Maria threw back. “What do you think you’re going to do about it, Liz? Are you planning on just strolling up to her and asking if she’s... not from around here?”

“I’m not stupid, Maria,” Liz sighed. “I know this isn’t going to happen overnight. It brought him back fourteen years last time, Maria. It’s only been a couple of days. We have some time to get this together.”

Maria closed her eyes, finding herself leaning dangerously close to believing Liz. Not that she didn’t want to believe Liz. More than anything, she wanted to believe there was a way to fix everything. She just didn’t want to have to pick herself back up when it didn’t happen, and she knew that life had a way of not letting things like this happen.

“So what do we need to do?” Maria found herself asking. Liz spun to face her, looking almost surprised. “You didn’t think I was going to abandon you now, did you?” Liz felt something close to a smile pull at her lips. “So what do we do?”

“We make a new friend,” Liz said, looking more alive than she had in months. “We need to gain her trust. Then I guess we just see where it takes us.”

Maria could only hope it wouldn’t break them anymore.

...

She was absolutely beautiful. Breathtaking in a way that none of the others were. When she passed by, he could feel his heart race to catch her as his mind tried to hold his body together.

She wasn’t his.

The thought ran circles through his mind, taunting him with its honesty. She already belonged to another, if not yet by bond and body, at least by promise and tradition.

Still... as his eyes passed over her once again, he thought he could easily damn it all just for the mere chance to be with her. For the chance to run his fingers through her hair, to brush his hand across her cheek, to feel her lips against his... He stopped his thoughts there, suddenly very aware of the room full of people around him.

“You’re staring.” The blunt remark from his second-in-command accompanied by the sharp elbow to his stomach was enough to pull his eyes away. “Again.”

His reply was cut off by the arrival of a messenger at his arm, a crisp slice of paper clasped between his fingertips. “From her highness,” was all he said before falling back into the crowd.

He nearly ripped the paper in half, ignoring the smirk from his second.

HallowGarden at last light? the note read. His eyes skimmed the room for her, and he nodded when he finally caught her attention, nearly losing his breath when her face lit with a brief smile.

“You’re playing with fire,” his second said under his breath. “You know as well as everyone else that this cannot be.” His eyes darted between his king and her highness.

“We’re friends,” he returned, his lips pulled tight in annoyance. “You are the one who keeps making it into something more.” He was rewarded with a hearty snort from his friend.

“If that’s your story...” he trailed off, swallowing the last of his drink before placing it on the counter they were leaning against. “Who am I to question my king?”

“I’m going to remember you said that,” the man threw back. “I’ll probably forget the dripping sarcasm, though.”

“I would expect nothing less.”

...

As usual, it took him a moment to collect himself once he stepped into HallowGarden. Passing through the willow branches was like stepping into another world. There was nothing else like it on any of the five planets. It was a little piece of goodness and purity amid the disaster around them.

“You’re late.” She was already dangling her feet from a branch above his head when he caught sight of her. “I thought that maybe you were going to stand me up.”

“Really?” In a flash, he was at her side, nearly startling her off of the branch. His hands quickly grabbed for her waist, pulling her to his side under the guise of keeping her from falling. Her head fell to his shoulder, staring at the curtain of branches above them as if they held the secret to life.

“He doesn’t want me to see you anymore.” Her voice was soft as she said it, but her words cut through him like no blade ever had. “I don’t think I have any choice in this.”

“We always have a choice,” he whispered, wishing he believed his own words. “Not always a good one, but we always have a choice.”

“I don’t want to lose you.” She buried her head farther into his shoulder, and he felt her tears on his neck.

“Don’t cry,” he cooed, gently turning her face towards his. He brushed his thumb across her cheeks, wiping away the drops. “Please don’t cry.”

“I hate this,” she whispered, her tears softening to a hiccup as she looked up at him. “I hate all of this. It’s not fair.”

“We’ll make it work,” he promised. “Somehow, it’s all going to work.” And when she offered him a small smile for his efforts, he almost believed himself.

“You always know what to say to make me feel better,” she whispered. Then her eyes dropped to the ground below them as her face turned melancholy again. Just as he was about to ask her what was wrong, she spoke the words that left him speechless. “It should’ve been you.”

And then she kissed him.

...

Max bolted upright on the raggedy, old couch, a name caught somewhere between his memory and his throat. The dream hung fresh in his mind, so vivid that he could remember the heat her body cast onto his, the feel of her dress beneath his finger, the taste of her mouth on his. His heart beat like a jackhammer in his chest as he remembered the feel of her in his arms. Perfect. For the one moment, he had known what perfect meant.

She wasn’t Tess. Or Ava. He knew that as well as he knew his own name. But if she wasn’t Ava, who was she?

While part of his brain kept repeating that it was only a dream, a game played by his subconscious, he knew the truth. He’d seen a piece of his life on Antar.

He just didn’t know what any of it meant. Or how what he’d just learned could change everything.

[Catalyst]

AN: So I've actually gotten something done in a timely manner. It doesn't happen often (and never when I have a paper due). Anyway, here's to hoping that the next chapter won't torture me in payback for this one. Oh, and this is more filler than anything else. The story's going to pick up soon; I promise.

Oh, and thanks for all the feedback. It makes my day.




Chapter Five

Tess sat up with a groggy head, mindless of the spots that dotted her vision. It was getting worse, and she didn’t know how much longer her body could handle this. Normally, the blocks she had put in Alex’s head would have been enough to sap her strength for weeks. Adding the barriers to Max’s mind had left her so drained that blinking seemed to be a strain. Pure force of will was keeping her eyes open. She knew that she had to find a way to hold herself together. Nicholas couldn’t suspect a thing.

The problem was that Max couldn’t suspect anything either. He had the memories inside of him that could change the tide of the war, for better or for worse. It was all dependant on when those memories surfaced.

She’d pushed him tonight, unlocking a piece of his mind that Nasedo had locked away when they moved to Roswell. Back when everything made so much sense. Black and white. Good and bad. Family: good. Humans: bad. If only things could be so simple. If only she could’ve been more loyal. Or less loyal. It was really all in the eye of the beholder. She knew that if this worked, she would be called a traitor. But would she also be called a hero? Probably. But maybe that was ego talking.

The spots faded back into the gray dimness of her room. She knew she would have to talk to Max. If she didn’t go to him, he might question Nicholas, and that would only cause more problems. She needed for Nicholas to forget the past. She couldn’t have someone throwing it in his face.

It took two tries to pull herself to her feet, and when she finally stood it was on wobbly knees. By the time she got to the top of the stairs, her forehead was covered by a sheen layer of sweat, but she wiped it away with her sleeve. Gathering her breath, she wore her most threatening face as she carried herself down the stairs with as much poise as she could muster.

Max nearly fell off of the couch when he heard the click of Tess’s shoes on the old linoleum floor. He quickly pulled himself into a sitting position, hoping the look on his face was one of intimidation and power. He had a feeling it fell somewhere closer to the look of a lost child.

“You lied to me,” he said, his voice low as she crossed the room. “You lied to all of us.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Max,” Tess said, glad that the words appeared to take much less effort than she was using.

“You weren’t the queen.”

“I never lied to you, Max,” Tess said. “Withheld information, maybe. But I never lied. I was the queen of Antar.”

“No.” Max shook his head, sure that he was right. He knew what he’d seen. “You weren’t the queen. I know it.”

“I wasn’t the queen,” Tess conceded. “I was a queen. I was your queen.”

He shook his head, even though something inside of him knew that her words were true.

“But—but...” His stammer fell short as he searched for some argument.

“No buts, Max,” Tess said. “You know it’s true.”

Max looked down, and she almost thought that would be the end of it. Naïve, she chastised silently when his eyes came back to hers, this time filled with fire. Nothing comes that easy.

“I remember her,” he said, the pronoun falling reverently from his lips. “I don’t remember you.” Tess carefully hid how his words hit her, striking harder than he would have believed. She never could have forgotten him. “I remember my queen.” He muttered an ancient phrase, a promise of worship, and Tess nearly gasped. He was progressing faster than she had expected. “Queen of the Hallowed.”

“Queen of all,” Tess finished. “Don’t be so stupid as to think that I have forgotten our queen.” Her voice was sharp, and the warning was clear.

Max took the words as a reprimand, knowing that he could not say the same. “Where is she?” he asked, his tone softer.

Then, Tess told the worst lie she could think of. “She’s dead.”

...

“I wish she’d stop pacing,” Maria muttered to Liz. “It’s making me nervous.”

Across the room, Isabel continued to dig holes in the carpet, walking from one wall and back again without ever laying eyes on another person.

“Alex is rubbing off on her,” Liz said softly. “He always paces when he’s nervous.”

Maria nodded but couldn’t think of a word to fill the silence that followed. Instead, she stared at the door to Michael’s apartment, willing it to open.

And for once, it actually did.

Kyle and Alex filed into the room together, both looking weather-worn and beaten. It didn’t make Maria feel any better about the meeting. It didn’t make anyone feel better.

“About damn time,” Michael muttered.

Maria leveled him with a glare. The sooner Alex and Kyle spoke their piece, the sooner everyone could go home and pretend that everything was alright.

“So I guess you’re all wondering why we wanted to talk to you,” Kyle began.

“And why you’ve been avoiding us,” Isabel threw in, finally dropping onto Michael’s couch. The look she gave to Alex reminded Maria of the puppy someone had forgotten to feed.

“I’m sorry,” Alex said, still leaving a little space between them. For some reason, it looked as if he was preparing to run away from them. “We just wanted to tell everyone at once. We thought it would be easier.”

“Did something happen?” Maria asked. Instantly her eyes skimmed the room, remembering a moment later that their count was down by two. What more could have happened?

“It’s nothing,” Alex assured her. “Nothing bad.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “I’ve been remembering some thing about Las Cruces.” He paused for only a moment as the words sunk in. “It seems important, even now. Kyle and I are going to the campus to check it out.”

“No.” The words hadn’t even registered for the rest of the group, but Isabel was already on her feet, storming towards Alex. “No way. I’m not letting you go back there. I’m not letting you get yourself killed, damn it. Is that what you want?” Her hands were on his chest, angrily beating against him when she began to cry. “This is ridiculous. No!” She batted his arms away when he tried to pull her to him, but he wouldn’t give up. Finally, she fell into his arms, still muttering her objections into his chest.

“I’m not going to get myself killed,” he promised. “I know what I’m doing. I swear.”

“I can’t lose you too.” The words were spoken so softly, even Alex wasn’t sure he’d heard them.

A shocked silence followed, and Kyle stood awkwardly to the side. No one was going to run into his arms and beg him to stay behind. No one was going to give a damn.

“We’re not going to be stupid about this,” Kyle said after a long pause. Isabel pulled just slightly away from Alex to watch him from the corner of her eye. “We’ll stay low-key, spread ourselves around the campus so that there isn’t too much to remember. No one will even remember us after we leave.”

“Why do you need to go, Kyle?” Liz spoke softly, overwhelmed by information. “I mean, shouldn’t Isabel or Michael go in case something happens?”

“No,” Alex whispered into Isabel’s hair. “It’s better if they stay. It’s more likely that something will happen here. I doubt anyone is going to come after me and Kyle.”

“I don’t like this,” Maria muttered to herself. “I don’t like it when we split up.”

“We’ll only be gone for the weekend, Maria,” Alex promised. “Maybe a day or two more.”

“You swear to God that you’ll come back,” Isabel said, her hands balled into his shirt.

“Wild horses couldn’t stop me.”

If only that was what they were worried about.

...

“Damn it, Dylan,” Serena cried, perching a hand on her hip as she stood in the doorway. “You’re wearing on my last nerve.”

“I’m not doing anything!”

“Exactly.” Serena crossed the room and pulled open one of the many boxes that littered their small apartment. “You haven’t done a damn thing. I’m not your slave, Dylan.” He narrowed his eyes, and a flicker of amusement danced over his features. “Don’t start with me,” Serena warned. “I’m in no mood.”

“At least you got to talk to her today,” Dylan muttered. “Yet another side effect of this stupid body.” He crossed his arms, and a pout sunk over his face.

“It was meant to keep you safe, Dylan,” Serena said, knowing that the words meant almost nothing. “They wanted to be sure that it was going to work before they risked losing you.”

“It worked with her.”

“Barely,” Serena whispered. “And you know how close we came to losing her. We were stupid and irresponsible, and it almost cost us her life. On the other hand, if we hadn’t done it, Khivar would have, and we still would have lost her.”

“He wouldn’t have hurt her.”

“He would’ve changed her,” Serena murmured. “He would’ve had to.”

Dylan lowered his eyes, knowing he had no argument. He knew, better than most, how close they had come to losing her. Luckily, he was one of the chosen few that knew they had not. Most people believed she’d been gone for years now, and, with her, a thousand years of tradition had also been washed away.

He couldn’t wait to prove them wrong.

“When do I get to see her?” A spark of excitement lit his eyes as he spoke, realizing for the first time that he would get to see her. No more pictures, no more tapes, no more stories. For once, it would be real.

“We could go tonight,” Serena told him, watching as a smile broke out on his face. A moment later he masked it, but his eyes still sparkled. “But I’m not going anywhere until these boxes are unpacked.”

In that moment, she thought he might have been able to outrun lightening.

...

“Oh my god,” Serena muttered, slowing as The Crashdown came into view. “So this is what would happen if Roswell and Las Vegas had an illegitimate love child.” Dylan elbowed her in the stomach, but she could see that he was just as shocked as she was. She hadn’t really prepared for neon. She’d expected little green and gray men. She’d expected tacky (and wildly inaccurate) space ships. She had not expected them to be lit at a frequency that made her eyes twitch.

“I can’t believe she works here,” Dylan muttered, stopping in front of the door. When they looked through the logo and saw the crowd that had gathered inside, both of their eyes widened.

“I guess this is what happens when everything closes at nine,” Dylan remarked dryly.

“Do you want to see her or not?” Serena got her answer when he pulled the door open so quickly, it nearly hit her in the nose.

“Hang on just a second,” a passing waitress called when they stepped through the door. “I’ll be right back to seat you.” Then she slipped through the employee doors.

“Where?” Serena asked herself, skimming the room for an opening.

“I don’t see her,” Dylan said, completely ignoring Serena’s question. “You said that she would be here.”

“This is where she works,” Serena replied as quietly as she could. “This was my best guess. Besides, how do you know that she isn’t here? You’ve never met her.”

“I would know,” he told her. They both turned their attention back towards the employee doors as the waitress reappeared, menus in hand.

“Sorry,” she said, wearing her wearing waitress smile. “It’s a little busy.” Dylan snorted in response, but Serena offered the poor girl a smile. She looked exhausted.

“No problem,” Serena told her.

“We don’t really have any seats open inside, but I can open the patio for you if you want,” the girl offered. “Otherwise it’ll probably be ten minutes or so before a table opens.” Serena looked at Dylan, and he just shrugged. If she wasn’t here, he didn’t care if they stayed.

“Well, I kind of wanted to say hi to Liz,” Serena said. “Do you know if she’s here?”

“I don’t think so,” the waitress told her. “Liz, Michael, and Maria have taken the last few days off since... everything happened.” She gave the Serena a knowing look, obviously expecting her to understand. “I don’t blame them, with everything that’s happened. Although it does get a bit crazy around here without them. That’s half of our staff right there.” She smiled before the waving arm of a customer caught her eye. “Anyway, I don’t think she’s here. If you guys still want to eat, you can grab a table outside or wait here for something to clear.” Then she skittered across the room.

“I’m going home,” was all the warning that Dylan gave before sulking back outside. And abruptly colliding with exactly the person he had been looking for.

[Catalyst]

AN: So I realize that I'm a little bit late, and I'm also supposed to be on vacation. Apparently, I had my schedule a little twisted, and this weekend I was actually supposed to babysit my mother's friend. And the part that I didn't know was that this woman considered Thursday the weekend. So I was a little off. Anyway, now I get to spend th next two hours in a car with my mother and our dog, and then I get to enjoy the wonderful, ice cold west coast. I do have a new part ready before I go, though.

By the way, welcome to the newbies, and thanks to everyone who left me feedback. You guys are awesome.



Chapter Six

Liz staggered into Maria as roughly one hundred and fifteen pounds of twelve-year-old collided with her.

“Whoa,” she muttered, regaining her footing. “Where’s the fire?”

“Liz, we’re not old enough to say things like that,” Maria said, holding Liz’s shoulders until she was steady. She looked down at the boy. “I don’t know you. What’s your name?”

Dylan barely heard her question, though. He’d told Serena that he would know, and he knew, without a doubt, that this was her. After all these years...

...and here he was, making an ass out of himself.

“Dylan,” he said when Maria’s question finally registered. By then, Serena had pushed her way outside and was standing beside him.

“Hi Serena,” Liz said, her face instantly breaking into a smile. She looked back at Dylan. “Are you Serena’s brother?” He nodded dumbly, his lips stumbling as he tried to form words.

“We were just coming by for dinner,” Serena explained, hiding a smirk as she watched Dylan. “We weren’t expecting it to be so crowded.”

“Yeah, it’s been pretty bad lately,” Liz said vaguely. “We haven’t really had a chance to train the new staff very well.”

“Liz,” Maria said, peering through the doors, “if we go in there, they’ll make us work. I’ll bet you ten dollars.”

“Did you guys get to eat?” Liz asked, ignoring Maria.

Serena shook her head. “We were going to give up. I’m not really in the mood for a big crowd tonight.”

“Oh,” Liz said, casually ducking away from the window as one of the waitresses passed by. “Well, I was just going to ask if you wanted to come up to the apartment. We were going to have the cook send up some food.”

“That sounds great,” Dylan answered quickly. Serena elbowed him. “I mean, as long as you don’t mind.”

Liz only smiled as Maria laughed behind her back. “It’s fine. By the way,” she added as they made their way around the building, “I’m Liz, and this is Maria.”

Dylan wasn’t even sure he could hear her over the pounding of blood in his ears. She was here, talking to him.

Alive.

He hated to admit it, but there were days when he had doubted everything he’d been told about her. Days when he hated them all for filling him with these false hopes and promises. But here she was.

He couldn’t seem to get over that.

Right then, he promised that he would do everything in his power to never lose her again.

...

“So you’re living on your own?” Maria asked, absently stirring her salad. “Are you emancipated?”

Serena shook her head, chewing her food quickly as she tried to explain while covering her mouth. Dylan beat her.

“Our parents died a few years ago,” he told them. “We were living with our grandparents, but they didn’t really have space for us. We always knew that we were going to move out when Serena turned eighteen.”

“Why Roswell?” Maria asked. “Don’t tell me you have an alien fetish.” Liz looked slightly shocked while Dylan and Serena shared a small smile.

“Not exactly,” Serena filled in, setting the uneaten half of her burger on her plate. “My dad owned this apartment, and we inherited it, but I didn’t get it until I turned eighteen. It’s why we had to come before the end of the school year. I hadn’t saved much money from my last job, and all of the apartments that we looked at wanted us to sign lease for at least a year. It was easier just to move.”

“So your parents used to live in Roswell?” Liz asked. She’d been happy for the distraction that Serena and Dylan offered. Alex and Kyle’s meeting had been more than a little disconcerting, and Liz needed something else to focus on. Serena was the perfect target. She was the key to everything Liz allowed herself to think about. If Serena really was who Liz believed she was, it didn’t matter if Kyle and Alex went to Las Cruses. It didn’t matter that Max and Tess were gone. It didn’t matter that Tess had betrayed them. None of it mattered, because if Liz was right, none of it would happen. If she had to, Liz would go all the way back to the day Max had saved her. She would make things right again.

“No,” Serena said, drawing Liz back into the conversation. “Our dad worked for a repo company, so he did a lot of driving. He used to come through New Mexico once or twice a month, sometimes more. He loved Roswell, so he got the apartment, supposedly, to save money on motels. I think he really just wanted some reason to come down here more often. He kept trying to get the rest of the family to come for a vacation, but our mother wouldn’t do it. She was a strictly cold-weather woman.”

Liz watched as Dylan’s face softened to a smile for a moment before he caught himself. For some reason, she got the strongest sense of déjà vu around him, like he’d been part of a dream that she’d forgotten.

It was a little unnerving.

Maria had been nudging her all night, every time she saw Dylan glance at Liz. According to Maria, Liz had a not-so-secret admirer, and Liz had the feeling it would be coming up again after Serena and Dylan left. Liz couldn’t say that she agreed, though. She liked to think that she would recognize an elementary crush, and the looks that she was getting from Dylan didn’t seem to fit. It was something just slightly more possessive, something that made her wonder if maybe her déjà vu wasn’t something more.

Liz shifted her plate on her lap, noticing that everyone was just pushing their food around at this point. “I’d better take these back downstairs,” she said, pulling Maria’s plate on top of hers. When she reached for Serena’s plate, Dylan’s hand beat her.

“I’ll help. It’s the least I can do.” Liz discreetly kicked Maria when she heard a soft snicker. Then she smiled at Dylan.

“Alright. Follow me.” Liz ignored Maria’s smirk as she and Dylan walked back down the stairs.

“So you work here?” Dylan asked.

“Yeah,” Liz answered, carefully pinning the silverware to the plates with her thumb. “Not so much lately, though.”

“Because of that guy?” Dylan’s eyes darkened for the briefest moment, and, once it had passed, Liz couldn’t even be sure she had seen it.

“Because of a lot of stuff,” she answered, ignoring the little tug that pulled her back towards reality. It was a nasty place, and she didn’t want anything to do with it. One night off wasn’t too much to ask, was it?

Dylan didn’t say anything else as they approached the kitchen and stacked their dishes beside the sink, running out quickly to keep from being seen by the staff. He didn’t want to upset her. The last thing he wanted was to hurt her. He wanted to protect her.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted at the bottom of the stairs. “I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s none of my business.” Liz looked surprised, stopping a stair below him. In that moment, she looked just as she had a lifetime ago, and he almost believed that she might remember.

If only it could be so easy.

“It’s alright,” she said, shaking the moment off. “It’s no big deal.” She went to step past him, but he caught her hand.

As his fingers closed around her wrist, a snapshot flashed behind her eyes, capturing a memory that she had never seen before. She saw herself and Dylan, much younger and looking nothing like they did now, beneath a huge willow tree.

“Don’t look so sad,” she heard Dylan saying as she shook away the memory, unsure if she had ever seen it at all. “Sometimes things have to get just as bad as they can before they get any better.”

Liz smiled in response, telling herself that she had simply imagined the picture in her mind and reassuring herself with the fact that Dylan didn’t seem to think that anything had happened at all.

But as soon as Liz stepped away from him, Dylan clutched the railing, though even he couldn’t be sure whether it was to keep from collapsing or hitting something. The flash he’d seen had been just as truncated as Liz’s, but it told him more than enough.

Quite simply, he’d seen Zan make her cry, and Dylan would do anything keep it from happening again.

...

“What did you do?” he screamed, throwing the door into her bureau. “What were you thinking?” He hated himself for the tears in her eyes, but he hated her for the mess that she had gotten them into.

“Zan.” She crawled across her bed, leaving it as a barrier between them. She’d known this was coming. She’d been telling herself to go to him for days, but she’d never trusted herself to keep control. Now she was sure she’d lost it, but in a totally different way.

This way was far less pleasant.

“Don’t ‘Zan’ me,” he told her, stalking up to the edge of her bed, she took another step backwards, glad that he had allowed her the feeble attempt at distance. “Why did you do this Arrianna?” Her name rolled off of his tongue like velvet, leaving her with a far too tempting urge to crawl across the bed and into his arms. Everything would look better from there. She could make things right, if only she could feel his arms around her again.

And they’d be right back where they started. Nowhere good and getting worse by the minute. No, giving in wouldn’t solve anything.

“I had to do this, Zan,” she whispered. “I had to think of my people. I have to do what’s right for them.”

“And me marrying Ava is right for our people? For your people?” His question made her flinch, but she refused to back down.

“If it ends this thing between us,” she said softly, “then yes, it is.”

He stepped around the bed, coming within feet of her before stopping. “You really believe that? You believe it’s better for us to be with them? You believe that we’re stronger with them?” He paused as she looked away from him. “You believe you’re stronger with him?” He spat the word like poison, hating the taste of it on his tongue.

“I believe that we won’t need to be strong with them,” she told him. “Zan, it’s the only way to end this war.”

“I’ll fight forever to be with you,” he told her, stepping closer.

“And your people?” she questioned, backing herself into the wall. “Would you wish that on them?”

He paused for a moment, reaching for her hand even as she used the last of her willpower to pull back. “What is greater to fight for than love?”

She pushed him away, crossing the room to slam the door that he’d left open. She would have used any excuse to put more space between them. “You can’t make that decision. It’s not fair.” She choked on her words as she tried to continue. “Why are you making me do this? Why can’t you see where this is coming from? I don’t want you to hate me, and I don’t want to hurt you, but I won’t risk my people. I won’t let them die for us.”

The sound of tears in her voice came like a slap across the face. He crossed the room again, this time leaving no space between them as his arms wrapped around her. He felt her tears bleed through the thin fabric against his chest as her breath warmed his neck.

“Do you love me?” he asked softly, knowing what she would say but needing to hear it anyway.

Her answer came in an instant. “Yes.”

“And this is what you want?”

“No,” she whispered honestly, her forehead buried in his neck. “But this is what my people need.”

“He won’t ever let me see you again,” Zan whispered, knowing his words were true. Arrianna didn’t know what to say, so she simply tightened her arms around his waist. They may not have tomorrow, but she wasn’t ready to lose him yet, no matter what she said.

Which was why she didn’t fight him when he brought his fingers to her chin, lifting her lips to his. It was why she didn’t stop him when he led her back to the bed. It was why she didn’t realize that they were going too far until it was too late.

It was why everything changed.

[Catalyst]

Hey, everybody. Sorry this took so long. This is what school does to me.

I really like all of your theories on Dylan. You're all getting closer. Maybe someone will get it after this chapter.

Enjoy.


Chapter Seven

Max paced the confines of his makeshift prison, guiding himself through his latest dream. He ran through the facts, carefully piecing the things he’d just learned together with the things that he had thought were true. It didn’t make any sense. And yet... it didn’t not make sense either.

He hated to admit it, but nothing that he’d seen in his dreams had disproved anything that Tess had told him. She had been his queen. But she wasn’t the queen.

He understood now. It had all been a jumble of words and titles and stories when Tess had left him earlier. Little pieces that had made no sense when he put them against the things that he thought he knew. But now that he had heard the words again – now that he had seen her again – he knew what she was. He knew what they had been. He knew what they had done.

He hadn’t been the man that he had hoped he was. Though the dream had ended, Max knew what had happened. Everything Arrianna had done – everything she had planned for – had all been ruined in that moment. He didn’t know how it had all happened, not yet at least, but he knew that he only had himself to blame. It was another truth that he just couldn’t deny.

Footsteps on the stairs drew Max’s attention from his own self-deprecation. He nearly gasped when he saw Tess, obviously drained and looking as if she might collapse at any second.

“What are you doing down here?” Max asked, hating himself for the flicker of worry that ran through him at the sight of her. He was still adjusting to her being the enemy again. His head wasn’t quite keeping up with reality.

“We need to talk, Max,” Tess said, struggling to maintain some composure. “About what you saw.”

“What are you talking about?” Max stalked across the room, stopping just feet away from her. He opened his mouth to fire another question at her, but she cut him off.

“There’s a lot that I need to tell you, and I don’t have much time to explain things. You can keep asking questions, but I promise that you won’t ask the right ones. It’ll save us both a lot of time if you just sit down and shut up.” When Max opened his mouth to protest, Tess cut him off again. “Don’t make me remind you that you’re the prisoner here, Max. I don’t want to have to force you to cooperate.”

Caught between wanting to argue and wanting the truth, Max found himself stumbling towards the couch, unsure of whether or not he was in control of his movements.

“It’s time for your first history lesson, Max,” Tess said as she saw him fall quiet. “Here goes.” She leaned heavily against the bar, drawing a breath before she began.

“Antar was one in a collection of five plants, all of which basically survived off of each other. Guerna, another of the five planets, for example, was the sole producer of fuel. Habernal produced nearly all of the crops for the five planets. Each planet had its contribution, and we lived off of each other. It worked, because it had to. Then, one day, it stopped. The reasons why are endless, but the result was a war bloodier than anything Earth has ever seen. People senselessly massacred each other, never asking why. The planets severed all alliances to each other... except one.

“Tiantal was the only planet that maintained all of its alliances. It is the center planet, and it was the most precious. That is where the queen you dreamt of lived, Max, though you’re probably starting to piece some of these things together.” She didn’t allow Max to respond as she quickly went on with her story.

“One reason Tiantal was considered to be the most precious of the planets because it was home to the Hallowed Garden, which I know you’ve remembered. It was at the base of all mythology from our worlds, and some believe, even now, that the spirits of the dead reside there. Even when the war came, no on was willing to part with so much of their past.

“As you know, the queen also resided on Tiantal.” Tess paused, reading Max’s face as he began to remember.

“It wasn’t you, though,” Max cut in, unable to resist. He knew she was telling the truth, but he still followed one step behind. He thought he knew, but there was no room for error here. He needed to be sure.

“No,” Tess agreed. “It wasn’t me. I was only the queen of Antar. Each planet had their own system of government. Three of the planets had kingships, like on Antar, and the last had a system of something like democracy. Then, we had the Queen of the Hallowed, who held power over all five of the planets.”

“Why didn’t you tell any of this to us sooner?” Max found himself asking. “Why now?”

“Because things are about to start happening, Max,” Tess told him. “Everything as you know it is about to change, and I need you to keep up.”
...
The rooms always felt colder when he stood beside her. She knew it was irrational. She knew it was a concoction of her own mind, but she still shivered when he stood beside her. She still flinched when he reached for her hand.

She still turned her cheek when his lips searched for hers.

For now she could blame modesty. She could hold to the old beliefs that spoke of innocence and purity, though even she knew that the words held virtually no meaning in her world. How could their still be purity when the ground was ripe with the blood of her people? How could their still be innocence when young boys were trained for war?

She kept these thoughts to herself, terrified of the other truths that would follow if she were to speak her mind. She had too many secrets for her own good, and none of them could make things any better. In fact, most would make things considerably worse.

“Ari?” The soft voice at her side startled her from the troubling thoughts, and the young princess turned her attention to the boy at her side.

“What is it, Jaylan?” She tried to ruffle the hair that fell against his face, but he batted her hand away knowingly.

“You know I hate it when you do that,” he told her, fixing the strands that she had brushed against.

“You can hardly see through all that hair,” she chastised. “I’m just trying to keep you from going blind.” He rolled his eyes in response, running a hand through his hair to pull it back from his face.

“Happy?” he questioned as she smiled at him. “Mother sent me to find you. She says she’s been looking for you.” Instantly Arrianna stiffened. “Do you think it’s about him?”

“What else?” Arrianna collected herself, once again hiding behind the many walls that she used to stay sane in a world that was anything but. “He’ll be back in a little less than ten days.” Her voice betrayed only a hint of the fear that flooded through her body, but Jaylan read it easily.

“Don’t worry about him, Ari,” he said softly, gently wrapping his arm around her shoulders as he guided her through the hallway. Though he was years younger than her, he seemed to have inherited every growth gene in the family and was already several inches taller than her. “He’ll be so busy. You’ll barely see him, and he’s only here for a few days this time, right?” Arrianna nodded. “Then you have your banquet, and Zan and Rath will be here. You won’t even have to worry about him.” At her brother’s words, Arrianna felt a smile tugging at her lips.

“It’s been so long since we’ve seen Zan,” she said, her voice filled with excitement.

“Nearly two months,” Jaylan agreed.

“Since his father died, he’s had so much to do.” Her voice fell softer when she added, “He’ll have to be married soon.”

Jaylan didn’t miss the note that had entered her voice, but he also didn’t care to examine it. Thinking about it made it more important than it was. Zan and Arrianna were just friends, and Zan made her happy. As long as she was happy and as long as they didn’t give him reason to take notice, Jaylan would keep his mouth closed. He saw her sad far too often. She needed to be happy.

“As will you,” Jaylan reminded her softly. He hated to do that, but she needed to remember the rest of the world as well. She needed to remember her duty and her people. There was reason behind this madness, and she needed to remember that she was doing this to save worlds.

He knew that she wouldn’t let them down.

He knew she could save them.
...
Liz woke in a cold sweat, clutching her sheets tightly between her numb fingertips. Her hair clung to her damp shoulders as she shook her head, trying vainly to shake away the remnants of her dream. Instead, the dream held tighter to her memory, demanding her attention.

Liz rebelled against her feuding emotions, telling herself that it was nothing. Just a figment of her imagination. She refused to listen to the part of her mind that was screaming at her, telling her this was far from fake.

Liz shivered, quickly growing cold beneath her clammy sheets. She pulled the blankets tighter, wishing that the dream didn’t play back behind every blink of her eyes. She pressed her hands to her hands to her face, pretending that she couldn’t still feel the emotions running rampant through her veins. She ignored the fear that still trickled down her spine at the thought of the fiancé and engagement. She ignored the headlong rush of emotions when she thought of another young prince, barely more than a silhouette in her memory. She ignored the ache inside her that was begging her to find him again.

The hardest thing to ignore, though, was the familiarity she felt with the young man from her dream. He left her mind screaming one name at her, damning her for her stupidity.

It was Dylan.
...
She sat on the bed, her head buried in her hands and a bottle of aspirin splayed out beside her. Alex sat on the floor, legs criss-crossed like a kindergartener. His face was knit with worry, but he knew that the only thing he could do, for the moment, was wait.

Her breath was heavy when she lifted her head, meeting Alex’s eyes for only a moment. “Please, don’t start,” she whispered. “Not today.’

“I’m worried about you, Tess,” Alex told her. “You’re going to kill yourself with this.”

“It has to be done,” Tess said, just as she had done every other time Alex tried to intervene. “You have no idea how important this is.”

“No, I don’t,” he agreed. “I don’t even know the grand plan here, Tess.” He sighed, running his hand through his hair. “So what happens if you kill yourself? Then it’s all for nothing, because I won’t be able to do this without you.”

“What do you want me to do?” Tess asked softly. “No one else can do this for me.”

“You can tell Max.” Before he’d even said the words, he knew they would be useless. He wouldn’t pretend to understand why, but Tess absolutely refused to include anyone else in her plan. It didn’t matter what it was costing her. She wouldn’t bring them into this.

”No.” Her reply was simple, but Alex could hear the tension in her voice. It wasn’t the first time this particular topic had come up.

“Tess, at least let him heal you. You don’t even have to tell him what you’re doing. Just let him help you.”

”I can’t, Alex.”

“Why not?”

Tess sighed. “Do you really want to know what’s going on, Alex? Do you want to know why I’m doing this?” Before Alex could respond, the room went black, and a void filled his memory. It lasted only a moment, though, before time picked back up, and he found himself sitting before Tess again, completely captivated by something he couldn’t remember.

“How will I know?” he asked. “When will it start?”

“When Max and I leave,” she told him. “That’s when I’m going to really need you.” Tess curled her legs beneath her and leaned into the wall. “I’ll have to lock everything in your memory before I go, just like I have been.” Alex grimaced slightly, only vaguely remembering the times she was referring to. He still didn’t know what she had blocked. He only knew that, once she had done it, he’d found himself half-conscious on the floor in his bedroom, and he hadn’t been able to stop shaking for hours. “I’m sorry, Alex,” Tess said, seeing the look on his face. “If I didn’t have to, I swear to god, I would never put you through this.”

“Tess, I know this is important. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t.” He met her eyes for a moment, glad to see that the color was returning to her face. “Now, how will I know what to do if I don’t remember anything?”

“Like I told you, it will all come back,” Tess assured him. “Not in order, and not all at once, but as you need it, you will begin to remember everything that we’ve done. I’ll make sure that you know what I need you to do once I’m gone.”

“And what is that?”

“I came to Roswell with a mission,” Tess explained. “Several, actually, but I’ve only accomplished one. Someone in the group is very important. It’s not me; it’s not Isabel; it’s not Michael. It’s not even Max. It’s one of you.”

“Who?”

“You can’t know that yet,” Tess told him. “I’m sorry, but I won’t be the one to tell you that story. When I leave, I’ll be sending someone else in my place, and she’ll come to you when I tell her to. Until then, you need to watch everyone in Roswell. Know where your friends are. Always. Keep everyone together as much as you can. Don’t try to be a hero. It’s not time for that yet.” Tess looked down to where Alex sat. “Do you understand?” He nodded. “Will you do that?”

“I’ll protect them with my life.”
...
Alex woke to the sound of a phone ringing in his ear. He didn’t remember dialing it, but he knew who he must be calling. Plans had just taken a major turn.

“Alex,” Kyle growled when he picked up his phone, “unless you plan on hitchhiking to Lac Cruces, you will hang up right now and pretend that you don’t know this number.”

“We’re not going to Lac Cruces. We have to stay here.”

“What?” Kyle asked, his voice still groggy with sleep. “Alex, three AM is not the time to be making these kinds of decisions. Go back to sleep and talk to me in the morning. Much later in the morning.”

“I remembered something else.” Kyle’s end of the line went silent for a moment, and Alex hurried on before he could be interrupted. “It’s time to tell everyone.”

Kyle snorted. “You’re just itching to walk the plank, aren’t you?” Alex could hear sheets rustling on Kyle’s end of the phone, and he knew he was getting out of bed. “They are not going to take this well. Michael is severely unbalanced right now, and I don’t feel like testing that. What do you think he’s going to do when we tell him that you were working with Tess before she and Max died? You think he’s just going to stand back and let us explain? No. They will be sneezing on the dust from our ash asses before we have a chance to say ‘but.’”

“He’ll listen to us,” Alex said. “I promise he’ll listen.”

“How can you be so sure about that?”

“Because we aren’t going to start by telling them that I was working with Tess. We’re going to start by telling them that Max is still alive.”

“Shit,” was all Kyle managed to say before he dropped the phone.
...
“Max is alive.”

Alex’s declaration was followed by a full minute of silence. The early morning air grew just a touch colder, and the thin steel of the bleachers above everyone’s heads reflected their own shock back to him.

Then chaos broke loose.

“What are you talking about?” Maria was the first to form a coherent sentence. She disentangled her hand from Liz’s and moved closer to Alex. “Alex, you know that’s not true. We saw... everything. What are you trying to do?”

“Alex, we don’t have time for games like this,” Michael said. He moved towards Isabel, who was sitting on the ground, hugging her knees. “This isn’t making things better.”

“Why would you say that, Alex?” Liz whispered, barely audible over the movement around her. Alex heard the trickle of hope in her voice louder than anything else. She wanted to believe him. She would believe him. She would know he was telling the truth. “What do you know?”

The cold chill of the accusation crept down Alex’s spine, and everyone fell silent once the words were spoken. Maria’s eyes narrowed on her friend, and Alex resisted the urge to shrink back. He glanced over Maria’s shoulder, seeing how Kyle had shrunk towards the back of the group. Alex didn’t know whether he was trying to keep people from running out or making sure that he’d be the first to get away.

“Alex,” Maria said, her voice sharp and demanding, “what is going on here? What do you know?”

Alex sighed, running a hand through his still-wet hair. “A lot,” he answered vaguely. “And you’re not going to like most of it.” He gestured towards the track mat that Maria had been sharing with Liz. “Sit down. I’ll tell you everything.” Maria hesitated for a moment, looking between Kyle and Alex before doing as she was asked.

”You’ll tell us everything?” she asked him.

Alex looked towards Isabel before answering. Michael had moved to comfort her, and his arm was now draped over her shoulder protectively. She refused to meet Alex’s eyes. “Yeah,” he said softly. “I’ll tell you everything.” He looked back to Maria. “You can’t ask questions until I’ve told you everything, though. You have to hear the whole story before you come after me.”

“Just tell us what’s going on, Alex.”

He started at the only beginning that he knew, spitting his words out in a rush, hoping that he could tell the whole story before hey had time to absorb the first sentence. “This was all part of a plan. The note, the desert, Nicholas, all of it. Tess has been planning this for months, and her and Max’s deaths were just phase one. It’s not over. Not by a long shot.” Alex saw Maria’s mouth begin to open and he rushed on.

“Tess asked me for my help. She told me what was going on, and I agreed to be a part of it. The problem was that when she left, I couldn’t know everything. All of my reactions had to look authentic in case Nicholas was watching, and, if he suspected enough to come after us, Tess wanted to be sure that he couldn’t ruin everything that she had planned by sneaking a peak into my head. So she made me forget.”

”She mindwarped you?” Isabel gasped at Maria’s words, and Alex opened his mouth to protest. “Oh, and tell me you aren’t going to defend her now, Alex. Please tell me that’s not what I’m hearing.”

“She didn’t mindwarp me,” Alex explained as Maria rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t like that. I was a willing participant. She didn’t change my memories. She locked them. She made it so that I couldn’t remember what we had done until after her plan was well underway. She was protecting me. She was protecting everyone.”

“Alex, she almost killed you,” Isabel whispered. “Are you telling us that was part of the plan too?”

“She didn’t almost kill me.” Alex’s voice grew softer. “It was what she needed you to believe, but I was never going to die. Erasing someone’s memories leaves them in a catatonic state. She wanted you to find me like that. It’s why she left the note on Max’s window.” Maria opened her mouth to argue, but Alex cut her off. “I know it was her. I sat in the car and watched her do it.”

“What is she trying to do?” Liz asked. “I mean, she wouldn’t do all of this for nothing.”

“I don’t know exactly,” Alex told her. “I haven’t remembered everything yet. That’s why Kyle and I were going to go to Las Cruces. I thought it might trigger something.”

“And you didn’t think we should know about that?” Michael asked, his irritation evident. “You didn’t think that this might be an important fact to share with the group?”

“Would you really have believed me?” Alex challenged back. “Do you even believe me now?”

“I won’t trust Tess again,” was Michael’s only answer.

“Do you trust me?” Alex looked at everyone. “Do you really think I would lie about this?”

“It’s not you that we don’t trust, Alex,” Maria told him, “but we all know what she can do to our heads. How we know that she wasn’t lying to you?”

“I guess you don’t,” Alex said. “But we have two options here. We can keep grieving and pretend that our friends are gone forever, or you can believe me, and we can try to find them. Even if it was all a lie, at the very least, it should it lead us to Nicholas. It’s not like we can ignore him for much longer either.”

“No, you can’t,” a new voice said from being Kyle, nearly making him jump. Serena stepped underneath the bleachers, keeping Kyle in front of her. “After all, he’s not ignoring you.”

[Catalyst]

So... it's been kind of while, huh? Well, I think that this part is longer than my usual ones, so that makes up for it a little bit... right? Anyway, this part has taken me a ridiculously long time, but it is finally here. I hope the updates don't continue like this, but no promises. School bites a big one, AND someone will be living in my house next week, which tends to cut down on my writing.

Anyway, here it is. And hopefully I'll be back soon.


Chapter Eight

“Oh my god,” Maria mumbled softly to herself. “I think I’m going to lose my mind.”

“I might lose my lunch,” Alex returned, appearing at her elbow. “What the hell is going on?”

“This is not the place for this discussion,” Serena told them. “It’s far too easy to be overheard. You’ve been very lucky if this is how you run things all the time.” Serena looked at the shell-shocked teenagers in front of her. “Hurry up. We’re on the clock here, and it won’t stop ticking for you.”

Michael was the first to respond. “And why should we go with you? We don’t even know who you are.”

“How do we know that we can trust you?” Isabel added. “Who are you?”

“I’m a friend,” Serena explained. “That’s all that I can tell you right now.” Her eyes flickered towards the mat that Liz was sitting on. “Ask Liz. She trusts me.” She saw the brunette’s eyes widen for a moment before she slumped slightly into Maria. Serena’s eyes narrowed. Secrets were only going to get them in trouble, and they had enough going against them as it was.

“Michael, your apartment has some privacy,” Serena offered. “Drive everyone back to your house. I’ll follow you.” Her eyes returned to Liz. “I suggest you tell them what you know on the way. It’ll save time, and that’s something that Max is running severely short on.” With that, Serena turned and walked towards the parking lot, leaving chaos behind her.

“Oh, god,” Maria mumbled. “Liz, did you-?”

“Of course I didn’t tell her,” Liz cut in, her voice sharp.

“But how-?” Maria’s question was again cut short as Liz stood and pulled her to her feet.

“We have to go after her.” Liz walked to the edge of the bleachers, carefully avoiding everyone’s eyes. “I’ll tell you everything in the car, but, if you trust me at all, you’ll believe me when I say that we can’t her leave.”

“You really think that she’s safe?” Alex asked, his own memories still sharp in his mind. If Liz was going, he’d be with her.

“I know she is,” Liz told them. “I’ve been waiting for her.”

And with that, she ran after Serena.
...
“Liz, this is insane,” Michael said. “There’s no such thing as time travel.”

“Just like there’s no such thing as aliens,” Maria threw in.

“Don’t start with me,” he growled at her. “How could you lie to us about this?”

Alex cut them off before Maria could bite off her reply. “Will you two quit bickering like a couple of five year old for just ten minutes? Right now, this is more important than your twisted relationship, okay?”

Maria huffed but said nothing, and Michael’s only reply was a sharp grunt.

“It happened, Michael,” Liz said softly. “It was him. Do you really think that I could mistake someone else for Max? Do you think I would have done all of this if I hadn’t known that it was him?”

“She did it to save your lives, you jerk,” Maria muttered, though her voice was easily heard by everyone else in the car. “You could show a little gratitude.”

“Of course,” Michael threw back. “Max and Liz pull another one of their save-the-world routines, and everyone else is just supposed to bow down, right?” He looked at Maria. “That’s a load of crap, and you know it. You two were the ones who threw the little hissy fit on that trip to Marathon. Now you’re playing the same game.”

“It’s no fun, is it Michael?” Kyle threw back.

“Don’t give me that. You’re playing with our lives here.”

“She was trying to save your lives!” Maria yelled, leaning almost all the way off of her seat.

“And she didn’t think that we should have some say in that?”

“Both of you sit back and shut up!” Alex’s voice might have echoed if the roof of the jeep had been in place, but instead, his voice just drew the attention of a few of the early pedestrians on the road. “Now, if I ever have to raise my voice to that pitch again, things are going to get very ugly in this car. Let Liz tell her story.” He turned his attention back to his friend. “Now, what does Serena have to do with this?”

“She showed us how to use the Granolith as a time machine in that lifetime. Max said she would be a friend of mine.”

“That’s why you trust her?” Michael barked.

“I trust her because it feels right,” Liz told him, “and I haven’t been listening to that feeling enough. I trust her because I want to get Max back, and she seems to know how. I trust her because Max once told me that I could, and I trust him. Do you trust him, Michael?” She lifted her eyes to his for a moment. “Do you trust me?”
...
“We need to be on the road by this afternoon,” Serena told them, not bothering to knock as she entered Michael’s apartment. She’d given them ten minutes to settle, watching the clock tick away on her car radio. “We have at least a day’s drive ahead of us, and I have no idea how far off schedule we’ve gotten.”

“Well that’s reassuring,” Kyle quipped from the corner. “We’ve got some great leadership here, don’t we?”

Serena sighed. “Pack your bags. Call your parents. I’ll be back at noon, and I’m leaving at one, regardless of whether everyone is here or not.”

“Didn’t you say you were going to explain this to us?” Alex questioned.

“We’ll have all night for that.”
...
Isabel was the last one to return to Michael’s apartment, and, from the grip Alex held on her elbow, it was easy to see that she hadn’t come entirely by choice. Her eyes held a familiar red tint, and her skin was ashy and pale, but she carried a small overnight bag under her arm as a wordless expression of surrender.

“Who’s he?” she asked, dropping her bag onto the floor of Michael’s living room and gesturing towards the boy that was now standing beside Serena.

“He’s my brother,” Serena told her. “His name is Dylan. He’s coming with us.”

“No, he’s not,” Michael threw back, his voice telling Isabel that this argument had been going on for a while.

“Yeah, I am, asshole,” Dylan said, causing both Maria and Liz to gasp. “Suck it up.”

“Don’t curse,” Serena told him, though her voice didn’t seem to have much force in it.

“Why is he coming?” Alex asked, his eyes narrowing on the boy.

“Because,” Dylan said, his voice holding the slightly condescending tone of a twelve year old, “I know more about this than any of you. I’ve earned the right to be on the action team.”

“Not to mention,” Serena added, smirking, “this town doesn’t have overnight daycare for twelve year olds.” Dylan returned her taunting with a flick of his finger.

“I thought we didn’t have time for this,” Isabel questioned icily from her position under Alex’s arm. From how his arm was thrown over her shoulder, it almost looked like he was holding her in place.

Serena resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She’d known the princess would be like this. Vilandra had always been like this. Somehow, it hadn’t gotten any less irritating over time.

“Well, load up then,” Serena said. “Liz and Maria can ride with me and Dylan.”

“No,” Michael and Alex said together. Alex had to hold back the urge to yell “jinx” before continuing. “We don’t split up.”

“And you don’t think it will be a little suspicious to have six people and their suitcases loaded into a five person jeep?” Serena smirked. “Or should we just try to be a discreet caravan?” She perched her hands on her hips in a stance that she hoped was intimidating. “People will overlook one car following me easily enough, but it becomes a lot more noticeable when I’m trying to drive down the highway and keep tabs on two cars. Not to mention that we’re probably going into some fairly deserted territory where any car would be strange. We don’t want to draw any more attention than we have to.” Serena sighed, relaxing her stance. “You’ll be following me. It won’t be hard for you to tell if we try to pull something. They’ll both be safe with me; I promise.”

“That’s fine,” Liz said before anyone else could add their input. “I trust you.” Maria didn’t miss the smile that lit Dylan’s face at Liz’s words.

“You’re just a beacon for alien love affairs, aren’t you?” she whispered to Liz five minutes later as Michael moved their bags to Serena’s car. “That should’ve been our first clue that they glow around the gills. You’re like a gaydar for aliens.”

“I already told you that I think you’re completely insane,” Liz replied. “Dylan doesn’t have a crush on me. You just like to make drama.”

“Oh, because we have such a shortage of that in our lives,” Maria threw back. “Suck it up, Lizzie. It’s going to be a loooong drive.”
...
“They’re on their way,” Tess told Max without preamble. “Or at least they should be.”

“Who?”

“Nicholas,” Tess told him. “And whoever he’s recruited this week.” She paused. “And about half of Roswell’s teenage population.” She ran her hand through her hair, pulling sharply through the tangled curls. “It’s up to them now. It’s all about timing.”

“What are you talking about?” Max asked. He was used to Tess’s appearance now. She wouldn’t tell him why she was so tired or why she couldn’t fix herself, but he’d given up on being scared of her. In fact, he was pretty close to feeling sorry for her. She looked like she’d been through hell in the past few days, and no one was trying to pull her out.

“If they beat Nicholas back, we’ll be fine,” she told him. She sounded as if she was telling herself at the same time. “We’ll have time to catch everyone up, to get ourselves a step ahead.” Then she paused. “But if he beats them, we could lose everything, Max. He’ll ruin everything I’ve done.” She looked into Max’s eyes for the briefest moment. “She’ll hate me. You’ll be ruined. Khivar will win.”

And then she ran from the room.
...
“What did you tell your parents?” Serena found herself asking. They’d been driving for nearly half an hour, and there had been little more than silence between them. She could not handle another road trip like this.

“Camping trip,” Maria explained. “We said we needed a break.”

“What about school?” Dylan addressed his questions to Liz, barely remembering to glance towards Maria.

“Finals aren’t for another week,” Liz told him. “Next week is just review. Missing a few days won’t hurt anyone.”

“Not to mention that Liz could have taken most of her finals on the second day of school and passed with flying colors,” Maria interjected.

“So why did you want us to ride with you?” Liz asked in an effort to ignore Maria’s statement. “I mean, you could’ve caught Michael and Isabel up on the plan a lot faster if you’d ridden with them.”

“They aren’t really as much of the plan as you would think,” Dylan deadpanned. “Though they may think so, this really doesn’t have much to do with them.”

Maria narrowed her eyes, looking at Dylan and then to Liz, as if she needed to be sure she had heard him right. “So who is this about?” she asked when he offered no more explanation.

Dylan looked at his sister, who looked like she might shoot lasers out of her eyes at any moment.

“It’s not the right time yet,” he said finally. “Michael might blow us up if he sees the two of you flip out.”

“What makes you think we’re going to flip out?” Liz asked, ignoring Maria’s smirk at the déjà vu moment.

“Yeah,” she added. “We’ve been doing this stuff for a while now. We’re pretty well trained.”

Dylan looked to his sister again, almost begging her to let him take the challenge. After a long moment where she refused to take her eyes from the road, Serena sighed heavily.

“Fine,” she told him, her voice nearly a growl. “Tell them about Antar.” Her eyes darkened to a glower before she added, “I hope the gas tank is under your seat.”
...
He couldn’t tell her.

He’d waited all this time, fought through Serena, and even opened his mouth. And then he’d lost complete control of his words.

Not that he’d told her nothing. Thankfully, he’d retained enough self control to stay on topic. He’d just ignored the most important part. He tried to tell her, but every time the words would form in his head, another, more domineering voice would overpower them.

It sounded alarmingly like Serena.

So there they were, parked outside of the disgusting excuse for a motel that they were supposed to spend the night in. And he was supposed to tell her.

And now he didn’t want to.

She deserved better than this. She deserved more than a room that’s walls were stained by piss and something he refused to identify. She deserved more than a broken mattress, ripped and discolored from use. She deserved more than they could give her.

Sometimes it made him sick to think of how little his side had to offer. Why should she trust them? He could give her everything.

Why should she believe them when they say that he’ll destroy her? Who are they to claim to be so much better?

“You okay?” Dylan jumped at the soft voice beside his ear, surprised that it didn’t belong to Serena.

“Aren’t I supposed to ask you that?” he threw back, swallowing his breath as she smiled at him.

“You just looked like you were somewhere else,” Liz said softly. “That and you’re blocking the door.” He blushed furiously and quickly pulled himself out of the car, pulling the seat forward so that Liz could follow him.

He mumbled an apology, his cheeks still flushed red. Then he quickly chased after Serena, who had gone to get the keys for their rooms.

Ten minutes later, they had all gathered in the larger of the two rooms, spread across the beds and the couch.

“Maria and Liz already gave us the cliff notes version of what you told them in the car,” Michael quipped. “Can we go to bed now?” Maria pinched him, eliciting a small yelp and a hard scowl.

“If they wanted us to come here to talk, there’s a reason Michael. Don’t be an ass.”

“They don't know everything. Neither do you,” Serena explained. “And you’ll all have questions when we're done.”

“Or at least those of you without your head up you ass will,” Dylan amended. Serena swatted at his arm, but it seemed like a halfhearted attempt. Michael opened his mouth to comment, but closed it again when Maria laid her fingernail against his skin.

“So what else do we need to know?” Isabel asked. “And what do Maria and Liz have to do with this.”

“A lot more than you know,” Dylan told her. “And the more questions that you ask now, the less time we'll have later.”

“What, is it passed your bedtime?” Michael sneered.

“We’ve got a long day tomorrow,” Serena cut in, trying to diffuse the coming fight. “We’ll all need our rest.”

“So spit it out,” Kyle said. “Then we can go to bed.”

“Liz isn’t like you,” Serena blurted. It didn’t come out quite the way that she’d wanted, but at least it was something to work off of.

“Yeah,” Isabel said. “When Max healed her, he changed her. We know that already.”

“No,” Serena explained. “She was different long before that. Lifetimes before that.” Serena looked to Liz apologetically before continuing. “A lot of things have been hidden from you, Liz, mostly for your own safety. We couldn’t risk them finding you. You’re too important.”

“What are you talking about?” Liz questioned, though there was recognition in her voice that she wouldn't admit to. “No, you’re wrong.”

Serena pinched her eyes shut, almost as if it was causing her pain as well. “Think about it, Liz. You know that it’s true.” Serena looked up to meet Liz’s eyes. “It’s all in your dreams.”

Liz’s breath went shallow, and her eyes darted towards Dylan. “No.” She shook her head. “No, it was just a dream.”

“What is going on here?” Kyle cut in. "How about you open the door and let the rest of us in on the joke?"

“We told you about the Queen of the Hallowed,” Serena said, reluctantly pulling her eyes away from Liz. “And about the horrible war that was tearing apart her worlds. But we didn’t tell you the whole story.”

“Arrianna loved her people,” Dylan explained. “She would give anything for them... and she did. She was to be married to the leader of the faction that was destroying our worlds. He had wanted the throne and agreed to end the fighting if Arrianna would be his bride.”

“It was the perfect plan,” Serena chimed in. “Or so we all thought. The problem began when it stopped being about politics. At least for him. He got jealous of Arrianna’s friends and anyone she was close to, but he really, really hated her friendship with Prince Zan.” Isabel and Michael’s eyes flashed at the name, and Serena gave it a moment to settle.

Dylan, however, rambled right on. “The wedding would have gone off without a hitch, but Zan clouded her judgment. Arrianna even arranged the marriage between him and Ava to try to keep him away, but he didn’t listen at all.”

Serena easily read the tone in Dylan’s voice and cut him off as abruptly as she could. Dylan’s old grudges would only cause them more trouble in this crowd. “No one knows exactly what happened. Zan did marry Ava, as you know, but it was just hours before they were killed by Khivar. He’d promised that he would end the war, and no one understood why he’d killed them... until we found our queen’s body, washed up on the shore.” Serena paused, caught on the memory she'd spent a lifetime trying to forget. Dylan had found a spot on the carpet that kept him too enthralled to listen. “She was pregnant with Zan’s child. We all believed that she had killed herself when she heard what had happened to him, but no one knows. After her death, Khivar took the throne in her place. With no living heir, he was the next in line. There’s no one left to challenge him, and he’s destroying our worlds.”

There was a long beat of silence before anyone spoke. “But that doesn’t make sense,” Isabel whispered. “Why did they come after us, then? Why did they remake us?”

“That was your mother,” Serena said softly, puling herself back together. “She said that you would save us, and she gathered a group of her most trusted scientists. When she’d discovered a method, one of her scientists passed the information along and eventually it reached the palace. That’s how Khivar knew that you were being sent back. By that time, Arrianna had been found, and we knew that her child was Zan’s. That’s why Khivar came after you. Zan actually holds more right to the throne than he does. Possibly.”

“What does that mean?” Alex questioned.

Serena sighed. “Our planets aren’t old fashioned about a lot. The Hallowed and our Queen are the only things that we still attach the old beliefs to. Beliefs like that the Queen and the Hallowed will forever be pure and innocent, and those around them should be the same. Zan only holds more claim to the throne if he is still pure for the Queen.” Serena paused, letting them take in the information. “And before you ask, because eventually you would, this is why Khivar sent Tess to you. She was Zan’s queen, but she was also Khivar’s sister. When he found out that you were sent back here, he had someone come for her. She was sent to make Zan impure.”

“So why the sudden change of heart?” Maria asked, her sarcasm barely reigned. “Why’d she join our team?”

“It wasn’t sudden,” Serena told her. “You have to understand, no one knew that we had remade the queen. It was a highly guarded secret, because we couldn’t allow Khivar to find her before we reunited her with Zan. Tess was helping her brother, because he was all she had. She’d never been a part of your family. She, unlike many people, had always known the true reasons for her marriage. She changed teams when she realized that she did have someone worth fighting for. She’ll still fight for her queen.”

“And when did all this happen?” Kyle asked. He knew it was a little bit sick, but he wanted to know how long she’d been toying with them. He wanted to be able to tell himself that, maybe, most of it had still been real.

“Last October,” Serena answered, looking directly at Liz. “You weren’t the only one to get a visitor.”

[Catalyst]

Quick Note: So this part is short because I've had a very unpleasant brush with food poisoning, but I want to put something out there for you guys. I'm really going to try to keep the updating going, and I'll probably take my laptop to Thanksgiving to work on stuff, so hopefully this will make the list. (Unfortunately, college apps and my graded writing class have had a tendency to shove their way to the front.) Wow, that really wasn't a quick note. Sorry about that.

Catalyst

Chapter Nine

“A lot of things went wrong in that first life,” Serena explained. “Tess and I have been trying to piece it together for a while, and we’re still not sure of exactly what happened. From what we know, we think that Khivar must have found out that the queen had been sent back, but we’re pretty sure he never found you. We think that must be why he killed Dylan, though.” Serena’s eyes darted to her brother for a brief second, but he turned away from the remorse he saw there. “He must have known that Dylan would be able to recognize you, even if the rest of us couldn’t.”

“What?” Liz asked. Her lips stumbled to form a question, though she wasn’t even sure what she was asking. “Why Dylan?”

“I’ll get there,” Serena promised. “Just let me finish this.” She waited until she saw Liz’s head bob slightly before she continued. “In that life, Tess didn’t find out who you were. When she left Roswell, she was furious with all of you, and she went back to her brother. I was already working with him by then.” When she saw Michael’s jaw begin to flex, Serena hurried on.

“He had set you up for Dylan’s murder. I don’t know how, and I don’t know why I believed him, but I did. That’s why I came to Roswell the first time. You had been gaining ground against his soldiers, and he wanted someone on the inside.

“With me on the inside, Khivar was quickly gaining on you, but you didn’t know about the queen, so neither did I. He didn’t want to win without her. Going back had been your idea, but Khivar allowed me to show you how because wanted her back. He had me tell you that you needed Tess to complete the four-square. He had begun to assume that the queen had come to you, and, not knowing who she was, you had let her go. He was even beginning to think that she might have joined his soldiers and been killed by you. Liz had only been mentioned to him in passing, by Tess, maybe me, some of his soldiers. No one knew or was clear-minded enough to point the finger at her. He’d never pieced it together. He thought that if you could convince Tess to stay, she could find the queen.

“Tess was the one who came back to me, bleeding from almost everywhere she could and barely breathing. She had gone to the Granolith and found Liz there after Max had come back.” Serena wouldn’t say why Tess had been in the pod chamber that night. Either they would piece it together themselves, or it could be one of the awful truths that died in that life. They didn’t need to know that the only reason Tess had learned the truth was because she needed to bury herself in her victim’s mind before she could strip away Liz’s life. They didn’t need to know that Michael and Isabel weren’t the only victims of this war last time. They didn’t need to know that the Max that went to Liz never found his wife in the abyss that swallowed him. Serena had a feeling they might be a bit less cooperative with that knowledge, and she was tired of fighting them. So she lied.

“I don’t know what happened between them, and I don’t know how she finally figured it out, but she was barely alive when she fell into my basement, and she believed it enough to convince me. Then I found Tess in Roswell, and I convinced her. And now here we are.”

“And what did Dylan have to do with it?” Maria asked, regurgitating Liz’s question because it was the only thing that she could grasp at the moment. One time traveler had been hard enough to believe. Two was testing her limits.

“Dylan was Arrianna’s brother,” Serena bluntly told her. “He’s the only one who never forgot his sister.”
...
Nicholas tapped his foot impatiently in the backseat of the little Mazda they’d taken from some girl outside of Houston. “How far?” he demanded as the man in the driver’s seat pressed his foot harder against the gas pedal.

“Well be back tomorrow afternoon,” the man replied. “At the latest.” He crooked a brow in the rearview mirror before adding, “You seem a little fidgety, sir. Anything wrong?” There was the slightest trace of a smirk on his lips. Nicholas was beginning to realize that safety had that effect on his men. This one knew that Nicholas couldn’t kill him, at least not until they stopped driving. The ridiculous body that Khivar had acquired for him looked nowhere near the legal driving age and killing a string of cops for pulling him over might draw the attention of a few inattentive teenagers in New Mexico. He didn’t need that now, so this guard would live. For now. And he knew that.

His guards were getting soft. This miserable planet had catered too well to them; they were no longer accustomed to war and the miserable lifestyle it entailed. If they weren’t fighting a bunch of suburbanite teenagers, Nicholas might feel the need to remind them. As it was, he was fairly certain he could obliterate the Antarian dynasty with little more than a banana peel and a coat hanger.

Nicholas peered through the front window, again catching a glance of the guard’s smirk. “You don’t question me,” he told the man, as if his pause had been fully intended. “Your only job is to get me back so that I can be sure Ava conceives this bastard child. Then, when we return home, I’ll be sure to tell Khivar just what kind of soldier you were. I’m sure he’ll take it into consideration when deciding where you will be stationed next.” Nicholas narrowed his eyes into the rearview mirror, where he knew the guard was watching him. “Few positions are as comfortable as this one you’ve stumbled into. I don’t have to tell you that it will take more than a stroke of luck for us to find another assignment to equally this.”

“Of course, sir,” the guard said, his eyes now turned to the road.

“I expect to be there by morning. Failure will be punished severely.”
...
“I just want to let you know,” Alex said, shift himself uncomfortably, “that this is ruining any of my busty blonde in the backseat fantasies.” Maria, who had one hand latched onto Michael’s knee and the other grasping Alex’s for balance, strategically sank her fingernails into Alex’s thigh.

“Don’t think I’m thrilled about this,” she told him, ignoring his howl. “What happened to the two cars plan?”

“No one’s here to see us,” Serena said, narrowly evading a pothole the size of a small swimming pool with a flick of the steering wheel. Maria slid off of Michael’s lap, falling over Alex.

“Maria, I want you to tell me that I’m hallucinating right now, because I’m feeling your hand, and it’s not on my knee.” Michael‘s hands reached under her arms before she could speak, abruptly pulling him back to him.

“Not to mention, we would’ve lost my car in a pot hole by now,” Serena continued as if she hadn’t been interrupted.

“This is ridiculous,” Michael mumbled. “We’d have another seat if you’d let us leave the kid at home. And you expect us to fit another two people in here for the ride back?”

“Do you ever stop whining?” Dylan quipped from the front seat. “I’m here. Deal with it.”

“We’re almost there,” Serena said, trying to dissolve the fight.

“I don’t see why we had to leave so early,” Maria commented. “Why did we even rent rooms if we weren’t going to get to sleep?”

“That’s the house,” Serena said, pointing towards the only sign of life on the desolate road. Of course, as soon as she lifted her hand, the car hit another pot hole, sending Maria flying across the backseat again.

“Michael, your only job is to hold onto her,” Isabel told him, her voice a low growl as she helped Maria slide back into place. “It can’t be that hard.”

“Isabel, is it really the time-?”

“Is anyone listening to me?” Serena nearly shouted, effectively silencing the group. “Big time enemies at eleven o’clock. They want me dead, they want you dead, and they want your brother to impregnate someone very important to this plan so that they can kill him too. In what reality does it seem smart to ignore the only person who knows what is supposed to happen next?”

When silence answered her, she killed the engine and tried to forget that she was about to join a 50 year-old war with a bunch of teenagers.

Yeah, good plan.
...
“So what’s the plan?” Alex asked, hunkering on the floor between Serena and Liz. “Because, no offense, but maybe it doesn’t take eight of us to sit and watch the seemingly vacated house.”

“Maybe not,” Serena quipped. “But I want to know just who’s occupying that house before we rush it. You may not realize this, but it’s a bitch to fix charred clothing, even if you are an alien. The problem is that you’re usually dead inside of them.” She flicked her gaze toward Alex for the briefest moment. “So unless one of you wants to play decoy with the crazy alien, maybe we should try to find out just how screwed we are.”

“How are you going to know?” Maria asked softly. “I mean, I doubt he’s going to announce himself.”

“Tess has a signal. When it’s safe, we’ll know.”

And like clockwork, Tess appeared on the front porch, though she hardly looked like the vivacious girl that had been smiling for prom pictures less than a month ago. She looked more like something from a low budget horror movie. Simply put, she looked dead.

Michael shuffled, but before he could get out of his seat, Serena had her hand on him. “That is not the sign. Sit down.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Unless you enjoy watching your friends die. This isn’t a game, Michael, and I don’t have time for this.”

She turned back to Tess as a soft chime drifted towards them. Tess had wrapped her fingers around the cord of a small wind chime that hung from the porch, and she airily rang it three times. Then, with one last look toward the deserted road, she went back inside.

“Half an hour,” Serena said. “At best.”

“That was your signal?” Michael questioned. “Wow, how covert ops of you. And you’ve been attacking our tactics...”

“Yeah, because the ‘let’s run in with our weapons out’ plan was so much better,” Serena threw back. “And now is obviously the time to be arguing, since I’ve just told you we have a very small amount of time.”

“To walk him out of the damn house,” Michael threw back. “Even Max can carry his own weight.”

“Did you happen to notice that there’s only one road to or from this house?” Serena asked, jumping out of the seat. “Did you notice that it took us almost twenty minutes to get here from the main road? How do you think Nicholas is coming back? Teleporter? Now stop being a baby, and play lookout. Liz, Isabel, and Dylan, you’re with me.”

“Oh, not cool,” Alex mumbled as Liz and Dylan evacuated the front chair. “Leave me with Mr. and Mrs. Anger Management. Fabulous.”

“Wait,” Maria called as everyone hurried towards the house. “What do we do if we see someone coming?”

“Run,” Serena told her. “And pray to God he finds us first.”
...
The house was quiet as Tess shuffled towards the basement. It was her forth trip of the day. She’d been ringing that damn chime since three a.m., and all she wanted to do was sleep. She just needed to sleep.

Then she heard it. The most soothing sound she’d heard in days. Three steps from the basement, and she was rushing towards the door, towards the light creak of the screen.

Nicholas didn’t do things lightly. He came in a bang, a flurry, a rush of excitement.

It had to be. It had to be them. Because she couldn’t take this anymore.

The next thing she knew she’d thrown herself into Serena’s arms and she was smothering her because she was alive and there and that meant they were going to be okay. She was going to be okay.

“Thank God,” she whispered, then hurried to the stairs. “Now Max. It’s time.” And then she was running for the door without another word.