Sins of the Father (CC,M/L,TEEN) (Complete)

[Kath7]

Winner - Round 3


Sean Deluca

Winner - Round 2



Round 1 Winner






Sins of the Father

Author: Kath7

Category: M/L

Rating: Teen
Disclaimer: I own nothing. I am borrowing the characters from Roswell and the lyrics from Sarah McLachlan with thanks.

Summary: Post-Departure. My take on who Sean Deluca really was.

Author’s Note: This story alternates POV from Liz to Max with each part. Each part is entitled for a Sarah McLachlan song. Banner by Angel Parker.

I'm reposting this story, because it has never been on this board, and I'm presently working on another story set in this world, and so, for anyone to be able to understand it, they have to have read this. lol I hope those of who who have read it, enjoy revisiting this world. I will be posting daily, followed by Fall on Your Knees, followed by the first part of the short ten-part story, A Mother's Love, which will be new.

Born of the Stars will be updated tomorrow, for those who are interested.

Part 1 - Black and White - Liz POV

Unravel me,
Distant cord.
On the outside is forgotten
Constant need to get along
And the animal awakens
And our love feels black and white.

The road is long and memory slides
To the whole of my undoing
I put aside
I put away
I push it back
To get through each day
And all I fell is black and white
And I’m wound up small and tight.

Everybody loves you when you’re easy,
Everybody hates you when you’re a bore,
Everybody is waiting for your entrance
Don’t disappoint them.

Unravel me
Untie this cord
The very centre of our union
It’s caving in.
I can endure
I am the archive of our failures
And all I feel is black and white
And I’m wound up
Small and tight
And I don’t know who I am.

Don’t disappoint them.

Sarah McLachlan

I am in my bedroom staring at myself in the mirror which hangs over my dresser.

I don’t look any different than I did yesterday. Shouldn’t I be able to see it? Shouldn’t I be able to see the shame written all over my face - shame that I gave in to Max Evans again, that I let him stomp all over my heart for weeks and then the minute he told me that he loved me, I fell right back into his arms?

I am so weak. I know it. All my friends know it. Everyone knows it.

And they all want me to be. They want me to let things return to normal, want Max and I to get back together - they want everything to go back to the way it used to be, before it all happened, want to pretend that none of it ever happened, that we didn’t almost let one devious, back-stabbing blonde witch destroy everything that we all used to share.

I know it’s what they all want.

I don’t know what the heck I want.

When I spoke to Maria on the phone last night, she sounded a little distracted. I could hear Michael talking to Mrs. Deluca in the background, so I didn’t really blame her, but I couldn’t help but feel that she was being a little dismissive of what I was feeling - which was like a complete failure.

After two weeks of having one thing to live for - finding Alex’s killer - now all I had left was the disaster that Max and I had allowed our relationship to become. And all I really wanted to do was to forgive him, to move on, to be with him. At least that’s what I thought I wanted.

I had also wanted Maria to talk me out of it. She had not been helpful.

"Liz, no one will blame you Chica," Maria told me. "You love Max. You know he loves you. If you had just told him that all those months ago…"

I interrupted her. "Are you trying to tell me that this is all my fault?"

Maria sighed heavily. "It’s not your fault, Liz. It’s his fault. Future Max’s. He came back and caused all this chaos and left you to clean up the mess. Its her fault too, that little murderous tramp, but I won’t even go there, because you already know it!" I could almost see Maria’s chest heaving with indignation. I could hear her taking a deep breath and she sounded a little calmer when she said, "You have every right to be with Max, to explain it all to him. You have every right to forgive him. He has to be given a chance to try and fix this. Because you know that none of this was him. This is not how he was supposed to turn out. Don’t let her win by not giving him a second chance."

"This isn’t how I was supposed to turn out either," I muttered back. But I could tell that she wasn’t really listening to me. She had the mouthpiece half covered, but I could hear her whispering to Michael. "Bye, Maria."

"Oh, bye, Liz. Listen, I’ll talk to you about this tomorrow, okay?"

"Whatever." But she was already gone.

Well, it’s tomorrow and I still don’t know what to do. And I promised Max I would talk to him today.

When we had said good-bye yesterday, after getting back from watching Tess blast out of our lives, neither of us really knew what to say. We both knew that we had a lot of stuff to talk about, but it just seemed so exhausting at the time. We agreed that we would talk today, try and sort this all out.

But I’m not ready. I know that now. Because I have no idea what I want to do. I am completely torn in two directions…

And it’s all because of the baby.

The baby that exists out in the universe somewhere, the one that was supposed to be my baby, because Max is my soulmate, the one that Max is determined to find.

I think I could have forgiven him for the sex. Really. I mean, he thought I had done it with Kyle, he didn’t know that Tess was a manipulative weasel, thought that she was his destiny, had started to remember what he had shared with her in another lifetime (although that he could have ever loved her at all makes me wonder if him loving me is such a gift - but, I digress).

Max thought that we were completely finished. I had told him as much at the prom.

It’s not the sex. It’s the fact that I know that if he ever finds Tess’s child, I am never going to be able to accept it.

I know that it is completely irrational, that the baby is innocent, that a baby can’t be blamed for the sins of its parents, but I can’t help but hate it. I hate that it exists, hate that if I do get back together with Max and we ever have children, this other kid will be around, always reminding me that, for one brief period of time, Max did not love me anymore. I will have to explain to my children that their father once stopped loving me.

I hate myself for hating it. I do. And I hate Max because I hate myself for hating it.

It is just so ironic that the night that Max and I were supposed to have sex for the first time, he had protection. Future Max had told me as much. It meant that Max hoped that he would get the chance to use it, that he wanted to use it with me.

The fact that he didn’t have it with him when he slept with Tess just makes me more mad. Because it means that he had absolutely no intention of sleeping with her until the moment arose. It means that he was careless and it also means that he didn’t really love her because he didn’t even bother to protect her.

I have no love lost for Tess, but the fact that Max could do that with someone he didn’t really love…

How, if and when we ever do it, can I be sure that he loves me? Because to me, sex is the ultimate gift two people who love each other can give one another. It was why I screamed at Max that I was saving myself for him. Until that moment I hadn’t even realized it, but it was totally true.

I was still in love with Max Evans and I knew that I was never going to love anyone else the way I loved him. Which meant that I was never going to have sex. Ever.

And if Max could do that with Tess, on the spur of the moment, out of nowhere, it means that it just doesn’t mean as much to him.

Which also makes me wonder if I ever really knew him at all.

This is what that baby represents to me. All of this. And its why I will never be able to accept it.

And it also means that Max and I should never get back together. Because Max is determined to find his child - and if he wasn’t, I still wouldn’t be with him, because then I would know that he still wasn’t the Max that I fell in love with. The Max I know and love takes responsibility for his actions.

It’s, again, supremely ironic, that when my Max finally decides to show his face again, by being responsible and careful, it still means I can’t be with him.

We can’t ever be together. And somehow I have to tell him.

Someone is knocking at the window.

I close my eyes briefly, take a deep breath before turning around, expect to see Max poking his head through my window, like he has done so many times in the past.

But it’s not Max.

"Sean! What are you doing?" I demand, hurrying across the room and pulling him roughly through.

"Hey, Parker! Watch the merchandise." Sean grins in that charming way of his, trying to get me to loosen up.

He is the last person on the face of the planet I want to deal with at the moment. Even after Max.

I am still embarrassed about throwing myself at him like I did two nights ago.

I had no intention of doing that when I had gone to the Delucas. I had every intention of sobbing in Maria’s arms, of both of us trying to get over the fact that the only boys we would ever love were leaving us, of mourning Alex.

I remember I was so scared. Max was leaving me alone and I didn’t know what I was going to do. We still didn’t know who had killed Alex. How could he leave me alone with a murderer out there?

But, even then, I knew that wasn’t what I was really scared of.

I was scared of being alone for the rest of my life.

Which is why, when Sean opened the door, and his eyes lit up in that way they tend to do when I’m around, I threw myself at him.

I wanted to forget. I wanted to forget everything, to forget that my soulmate was gone, that he belonged to someone else now, that he had broken my heart.

Above all I had wanted to get rid of my damn virginity. Sex had been what had driven Max and I apart in every way and I wanted it over with. In that instant, when I pulled Sean’s lips down to mine, I decided that sex wasn’t about love at all. It was about trying to fill the emptiness in your soul, even if just for a little while.

And, so, we had ended up on the pull-out couch and I had felt Sean’s hands on my body and, yet, all I could see in my mind was Max watching me, his dark eyes full of pain. I kept seeing the expression on his face when he had caught me in bed with Kyle and I had been unable to stop the tears from coming. Because the emptiness wasn’t going away.

This was the wrong person.

And he is still the wrong person, standing in front of me now, eyeing me with concern.

"I just came to see how you’re doing," Sean tells me now. "You know, after you and Maria ran out last night, I was worried about you."

I turn away, stare at myself in the mirror again. "I’m okay. Thanks though."

"Parker?" Sean’s tone is pleading. "I know that you said that you need time to get over that jerk, but we can still be friends in the meantime, can’t we?"

I bite my lip. I don’t want to hurt Sean anymore than I already have. I know that I am never going to be with him, especially with Max still around.

I’m weak. I know it. Everyone knows it.

"I can’t really…" I turn around. I need to look at him while I told him the truth - that I was going to try and make things work with Max.

Because that was the awful truth.

I couldn’t give him up.

And I was even going to help him find the baby.

That’s how weak I am. Seeing Sean, it just made me realize it even more.

He’s a juvenile delinquent, but even I knew he’s better for me than Max Evans.

And I am still going to deny him.

Because, even though Max has the ability to break my heart again and again and, even though I know he’s going to do it too, I am going back to him. Not because I want to, but because that’s what happens when you’re star-crossed, when you’d die for each other.

When you love each other.

Because if there’s one thing I do know, its that Max loves me. I, at least, believe that.

And it was the knowledge of the way that Max feels about me that made me fall in love with him in the first place, all the way back on that first day after I knew the truth about him. When he connected with me and let me see who he was, I knew.

I had seen into his soul and it had been beautiful and I had to believe that deep down that’s still who he is.

And so I love him.

Love sucks.

But I never get the chance to tell Sean any of this because there is movement out on the balcony and I know it’s Max.

"Liz, are you in there?" His voice sounds hopeful, nervous, even though he should know I’m here. We arranged to meet after all.

"Look, Sean, you have to go." I grab him by the jacket and pull him out through my bedroom door.

But he has no intention of going anywhere. He is staring at me in shock. "That’s not him is it?"

I play dumb. "I don’t know what you’re talking about."

But it’s too late, because Max is at the window and he’s staring in at us. I see his eyes fall on Sean, see the open expression he was wearing turn instantly wary, shuttered.

Back in hiding. That quickly. That’s my Max.

"Oh. You have company." He turns away. "I can come back."

And I know what’s going through his mind. He’s remembering that night he stared in that same window at me and Kyle in bed together. Even though he knows now that it wasn’t real, I know that it still haunts him.

It is my only consolation in the Tess disaster. At least I didn’t see them together like that. Seeing him kissing her at the prom was bad enough. If I had actually seen them how Max saw Kyle and I…

I push the thought out of my head. I am beginning to feel a little sick.

I can see that Max feels the same way. He actually looks a little green.

"No! Max! Wait!" He pauses, turns around to stare in at us again. "Sean is just leaving." I say firmly, pushing him out fully.

Sean sighs heavily. "What is it with girls and guys who hurt them?" he demands, as he allows himself to be pushed through the living room and to the outside door.

"Never mind. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Just go please. I cannot deal with you right now."

Sean pauses at the door. "Liz, I never want to make your life more difficult. You know I think you’re making a mistake, so I won’t even say it."

"Thank you, Sean." I say it sarcastically, but I sort of mean it.

Because I know I’m making a mistake too.

[Kath7]

Part 2 - Sweet Surrender - Max POV

Doesn’t mean much,
Doesn’t mean anything at all.
The life I’ve left behind me
Is a cold room.
I’ve crossed the last line
From where I can return,
Where every step I took in faith
Betrayed me
And led me from my home.

Sweet surrender
Is all that I have to give.

Take me in
No questions asked.
You strip away the ugliness that surrounds me
Are you an angel?
Am I already that gone?
I only hope that I won’t disappoint you.
I’m down here on my knees…

Sweet surrender
Is all that I have to give.
Sweet surrender…
Is all that I have to give.

I don’t understand how the touch of your hand…
I would be the one to fall.
And its the little things,
I miss everything about you.
It doesn’t mean much,
It doesn’t mean anything at all.
The life I’ve left behind me
Is a cold room.

Sarah McLachlan

I had the weirdest dream last night. Well, weird is an understatement. Twisted and sick is a little more accurate.

I didn’t think I was going to sleep at all after getting back from the pod chamber. My mind was in about five hundred places at once, wondering how the hell my life had ended up such a colossal mess. I was even beginning to make a list of all the things I had to resolve when Isabel came into see me because the Sheriff still hadn’t given the tape we made to our parents (thank God) and we had to somehow come up with a way to explain what the hell had happened to the Jeep.

Isabel wanted to tell them the truth. She’s still mad at me that I said no, but telling Mom and Dad has to go at the bottom of the list. I’ve got other stuff to worry about right now.

So dealing with that was fun. Really. Yeah. Oh, I’m officially grounded from driving until my next birthday by the way.

Anyway, after Izzy left, I went back to my list.

Lists. Making one made me think of Liz of course. I still grin to myself when I think about that list of questions she had for me that day after she found about who I really was. Her scientific, logical mind is one of the things I love about her. She once told me not to think she was a dork because she knew so much about science, but I, of course, never thought that. It was just one of the many things that impressed me about her.

Anyway, I’m getting side-tracked here. Thinking about all the things I love about Liz Parker has the tendency to do that. It always has, except for a very short period of time which only ended two days ago.

I couldn’t think about what I loved about Liz in that period of time. Because, if I had, I know I wouldn’t have gotten through it. So, instead, I was an ass. It helped a little bit - helped me anyway. It certainly didn’t help anyone else.

It didn’t help Alex.

But, well, I think you know all about that.

I think about Alex all the time, about how my stupid life killed him. Because he wouldn’t have died if he hadn’t been brought into the disaster that follows me everywhere. Tess wouldn’t have had access to him if it wasn’t for me.

People on the outside of our group probably didn’t realize that Alex and I weren’t that close. Even after everything that’s happened in the past year, the secret the eight of us shared bonded us in a way that it made everyone on the outside think that we were all really great friends.

I wish I’d taken the time to get to know him better. I mean, I did know him, but I certainly didn’t appreciate him, appreciate what he was to Izzy, what he was to Liz.

It wasn’t until he died that I began to realize how important he was to Liz, really. I mean, I had sort of known it because of how bad things got between them when she was still shutting him out about our secret, but he was so much a part of everything that went down with the six of us after he did know, I think I forgot that he and Liz had a bond that extended beyond me and my problems. Can we say self-absorbed? I’ve often been that way, but you all know that too and if you don’t, well ask Michael and Isabel. They probably have archived records.

Anyway, Liz and Alex. She knew him, and knew that he would never kill himself. I remember knowing it too when she first told me that the sheriff had suggested it. And I remember also finally accepting it gratefully when the Sheriff told me it had to be true - because then it wasn’t my fault.

I’ve never been very good at accepting responsibility. I’m only beginning to see that now, after the way I completely bailed on Liz after Alex died. I’m tempted to make another list, but I think you all know what I’m talking about anyway.

Responsibility. No, It’s not my forte. I put on a good show though. Lots of people think I’m pretty responsible.

I’m responsible when its easy. Where Liz Parker is concerned, its never easy.

One thing I was good at was picking the right people to trust: Liz, Maria, Alex, Valenti, even Kyle to a certain degree.

Um, we’ll get back to Tess in a minute.

I want to get back to my dream before I get totally sidetracked from the topic of Alex, because he was in it.

Like I said, it was weird. Because, in my dream, he wasn’t dead. Well, maybe he was. It was hard to tell. I told you it was twisted.

I was at the Crashdown, sitting in my usual booth. I even knew why I was there - to get Liz back of course.

But it was Alex who came out the swinging door leading into the break room. He marched right over to me and sat down. "Hey, Max. I need to talk to you."

As is the case in dreams, this seemed perfectly normal, although in the dream I was aware that Alex was dead. "Okay." I even realized in the dream that I had not had a conversation alone with Alex since the time I was trying to convince him not to turn me in when he let Liz and Isabel use his blood to save me in the hospital.

"I need to know what you’re going to do about the baby," Dream Alex said.

I stared at him. "How do you know about the baby?" I asked, totally confused, since Alex had, of course, been killed before Tess and I had ever had sex.

"I knew a lot more than you think I did," Dream Alex told me calmly.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

But Dream Alex changed the subject. "If you won’t talk about the baby, then tell me what you’re going to do about Liz."

"Why?" I demanded, getting a little creeped out. If there was one thing Alex Whitman had not been, it was this calmly controlled, especially when it came to his friends. Michael had told me about the time Alex had come to punch his lights out about Maria when the whole Courtney thing was going on. My subconcious knew this and you would have thought that my dream would have reflected it.

But no. He seemed merely curious, like he was interested, but it didn’t really matter to him one way or the other.

"Never mind." Dream Alex stood up and started to walk towards the exit. "I knew it all anyway."

"Alex!" I yelled after him, but he ignored me, walking through the double doors outside. I tried to get up to go after him, but it was useless. I was stuck in my seat.

I suddenly became aware of Liz near the counter. She was dressed in her Crashdown uniform and she wasn’t alone.

Sean Deluca was sitting on one of the stools. Dream Liz was standing between his legs, way too close to him in my opinion, and I began to listen in horror to their conversation from where I was still stuck to my seat.

"What’s going on, Sean?" asked Dream Liz. As I watched, Dream Sean reached up and gently pulled Liz’s alien antenna headband off her hair and set it down on the counter.

"I just wanna talk, Parker."

"About what?" Dream Liz asked flirtatiously, trying to kiss him. I attempted to look away but, like I said, I was frozen.

"About what I feel for you." And then Dream Sean turned and looked over Liz’s shoulder, right at me. "I look at you, and I know you’re the person I’m supposed to be with. I’ve always known it. It’s fate." He sneered in my direction and then looked back at Dream Liz.

Why did those words sound so familiar to me? And then I remembered. They were the words I had said to Liz when I had come to reassure her about Tess, right before she caught me kissing Tess out in the rain about three minutes later.

At least I had had an excuse that time. Tess mindwarped me.

As we have already discussed, I have a serious issue with taking responsibility, even in my dreams. Even my dream self was making excuses. I apparently can’t help it. Anyway, moving on.

Dream Sean told Dream Liz to look at him and said, "You’re the one, Liz. The only one. I could never be with anyone else."

And then Liz kissed him.

I woke up in a cold sweat.

The weirdest part is that I remember every single detail of the dream. Usually my dreams are gone before I even wake up. Michael, Izzy and I have discussed this before. None of us ever remember our dreams. The only reason we even know that we do dream is because Iz has dreamwalked Michael and I.
We only remember them when something important happens in them - something that ends up applying directly to our lives.

So, there is only one answer. Someone is trying to tell me something.

At least I think that’s the answer. I’m sure you can understand that I am not the most self-assured person in the world at the moment.

I used to trust my judgment a little bit. I might not always take responsibility but I did used to make okay decisions. Like healing Liz was probably not the most responsible thing to do, but, all in all, it was positive. Trusting Liz is another example. Trusting Valenti too. Not killing Brody - I’m particularly proud of that one.

Which, again, brings us to Tess. My judgment has, clearly, been slightly impaired lately.

And then there’s the biggie. You’d think I would have realized before I let Tess blast off that sending my heir and the thing Khivar most wanted in the world, the granolith, straight into his waiting hands was not the wisest decision. Um. Yeah. Well, I admit it. I’m an idiot. I don’t think well under pressure. Did it or did it not take my almost three days to decide what to do about Brody? Anyway, it was dumb.

It’s only now too that I am beginning to doubt that my son was even dying in the first place. Tess flat out admitted that she was taking us back into Khivar’s clutches. She needed a way to get us back there. I was perfectly willing to take responsibility for she and the baby here.

She needed a plan to get me to agree to go and a dying baby was a great one, I have to admit.

But, then, I know she wasn’t lying. I connected with him. I know he existed and it sure felt like he was dying.

It’s why I had to let her go, even after all she had done. I really could have killed her that day. I had every intention of doing it, to avenge Alex, to show them all that I could take action. And she deserved it. I wouldn’t have even mourned her.

But he stopped me. He’s my son.

I have failed every single person in my life and I am not going to fail him.

And now I have to make Liz understand. Because she is the other person I have no intention of ever failing again. Because I was being perfectly honest when I told her that she is the only right thing I have done in my life in the last two years. The only one I really care about anyway.

I need her. And if it can’t be as more than friends, well, then I’ll accept it. I cannot let her go again. I tried that once and it was a disaster.

But, then, we all know that - don’t we?

***

Liz and I had agreed that we would meet on her balcony early tonight. I wanted to talk to her right away after Tess left, but I could see that she was still sort of spaced out about the whole thing, having gone from finding out that I had slept with Tess, to knowing that Tess was pregnant, and then thinking that I was leaving her behind with a murderer on the loose, and then, suddenly, I wasn’t going anywhere at all and we knew what had happened to Alex.

My biggest regret from the whole incident was that it was Michael who decided to stay behind. I wish it could have been me. It is supremely ironic that it was Michael, of all of us the one who most wanted to go back to our planet, who figured out most quickly that we belong here.

And I, although I knew that I was going to miss him, was happy that he wanted to do it. I knew it was for Maria, but I knew that he would take care of Liz too. I could feel a little more secure leaving her. I trusted Michael to look out for her.

Plus, I think, even then, I knew that something was seriously wrong with this whole thing. I was not a complete fool. It had dawned on me that we might be killed the minute we set foot on our planet, that we might not even be able to survive there. If Michael staying meant that he would live, well, I was glad. Thinking back now, I almost wish that I had convinced Izzy to stay too.

But I was selfish. I didn’t want to be alone. Even then, I realize now, I didn’t totally trust Tess.

I had to go, and I was relieved that Isabel wanted to go with me. For him, because I knew that she cared about him too. And I knew that no matter how hurt she was, Liz would never let me stay for her if it meant my child was going to die.

But then I let him go anyway. I think I was so shocked by the news that Tess was a traitor, I wasn’t thinking straight. It is really my only defense. All I knew is that my child needed to go back, that I would die for certain if I went too, and that I was caught between a rock and a hard place.

So I let them go, but knowing deep down that I would find him.

And I got a second chance with Liz. Or at least I hope I did. I’m still not quite sure.

By a second chance, I’m not talking about being a couple. I don’t know if we can ever go back to that, not after what I’ve done to her. Even though I do know that she still loves me.

How do I know?

I can’t really explain it. I just know she does.

It might be because for the first time in a long time - really since I caught her in bed with Kyle - I have opened myself up to her completely again.

I have shut off our connection for so long. It was too painful, because I was sure that someday, accidently I would get a flash of her and Kyle, together, doing what I had thought they did together.

I think some of you might suspect that I was really tempted to kiss Liz when we were in Las Vegas. I so nearly did. But then I stopped myself. I was scared. If I let her in like that again…I knew I would not be able to handle seeing that. It had almost killed me the first time - just seeing them lying there. If I had actually seen them doing stuff…

Okay, so I know now it was all a big lie. But I still don’t know why she lied to me about it.

And, again, I am sure of one thing. It was not because she didn’t love me.

Finding out the hows and whys of that horrible night - at the top of my list.

Anyway, I am actually feeling pretty hopeful as I climb up the ladder to Liz’s balcony. I know that even if we don’ t work everything out tonight, at least by the end of it, it will all be out in the open.

And that’s when I see him.

I had called out to her. She didn’t answer, but I knew she was in there because I could just feel her presence.

I didn’t expect to find Sean Deluca there at all.

For one horrible moment I have a flash of the two of them together like in my dream which - very helpfully might I add - quickly changes to a flash of the two of them in Liz’s bed, just like I had seen she and Kyle.

Have I mentioned that I am still haunted by that night? Well, I am. Yes, I know it never happened, but I still don’t know why and I won’t be able to forget it until I do. Even then I don’t know if I’ll forget it. It was, hands down, the worst night of my life.

You know why? You know how I said that while my track record for taking responsibility isn’t that great - well, back then my judgment was still pretty good. I had never made a mistake up until then. And if Liz did what I thought she did with Kyle, then I totally misjudged her.

Even one minute of thinking that I had misjudged Liz, of all people. It was awful.

And then there’s the part that just hurts.

I know I have no reason to be upset. I actually had sex with Tess. But it still hurts. I may not be human, but I do have a heart and I do have a memory.

You know, my life would probably be a lot easier if I didn’t have any emotions. It would be very handy to be a Borg. Michael always says he wants to be whatever kind of alien Han Solo was because "Maxwell, he may look human, but he’s not from Earth, so he’s an alien too." Michael sort of likes the idea that he may be like Han Solo.

Not me. He used to tell me that if he was Han, I was Luke, and I thought that was cool. But that’s not good enough now. An emotionless Borg. Yeah, that sounds about right to me.

Anyway, moving on. Liz sees me and gets this really panicked expression on her face. I can see that she is trying to push Sean out her bedroom door but he is resisting.

"Oh. You have company," I say, knowing that I sound totally weird. "I can come back." I turn around to leave, upset despite myself.

I have no right to be upset.

"No! Max! Wait!" Liz calls breathlessly after me. "Sean is just leaving," she says firmly, pushing him roughly out her door.

I look after her, unsure what to do.

Liz is really weird around Sean. Totally not the Liz I know, or thought I knew. She becomes really silly and girly around him. She acts seventeen, because that’s what she is.

He lets her have fun.

I frantically search my memory for any time that Liz and I just had fun, where we got to be kids.

There was the time we went on the date to Senor Chow’s and played pool. But then Michael got sick and I dumped her the next day, so I guess that doesn’t count.

There was the time we were making out at Buckley Point. That was pretty fun. Oh, but that’s when Topolsky showed up again. Okay, forget that.

Las Vegas? Hmmmm…no.

I frown to myself. I know that there were only six perfect weeks when Liz and I were truly happy. It was in the time between when we found the orb and when Tess first came. Everything seemed really normal then. It was heaven.

Liz deserves that. She’s always asked why our relationship can’t be more normal. I know that’s what she wants.

I wish I could give it to her. Sean Deluca might be a delinquent, but at least he’s normal.

He can give her normal.

Maybe I should just leave…

I seriously consider doing this. But I don’t want to. Despite it all, I am still hoping.

Because deep down I know that Liz would never exchange a single minute of our perfect six weeks, or even our hellish two years, for a lifetime of normal with Sean Deluca.

I just know it. I know her.

I know that I should be the one to step aside, because I know that she will never leave me, even though she wants to. And I know that she wants to. But she can’t.

I can’t either. I love her.

What the hell are we going to do?

Liz isn’t gone very long and she pokes her head out her window just as I’m settling down on one of the lawn chairs there.

"Hey. Sorry about that," she says, sounding guilty.

"Liz, you don’t need to apologize. You have a life apart from me. I know that," I say. It actually hurts to say it, because once upon a time she didn’t.

"He just showed up. I didn’t invite him here," she insists, upset.

"Okay," I say. "Sean has turned out to be a pretty nice guy," I continue, telling her that its okay if she wants to be with him, that I don’t have any claim on her.

But of course its not okay. At all.

"I mean, he seems to have moved past all those petty crimes." Why am a babbling like this? Shut up!

Liz cuts me off. "Max." She says is urgently. "Stop it."

I slam my mouth shut obediently.

"I don’t want to talk about Sean," she says. "He has nothing to do with us."

Us. Its like music to my ears. I try not to let my hopes perk up too much, but they do anyway.

"Okay," I repeat. "We can talk about whatever you want to talk about."

"I want to talk about your son and what you’re going to do about him," she says abruptly, like it has been weighing on her mind. Which I’m sure it has.

I know that it is so hard for her. It’s hard for me too. I am only eighteen years old. I am not ready to be a father - at all. Have we not already discussed my issues with responsibility?

Well, anyway, I am not going to fail at this. It’s too important.

"I don’t know, Liz," I say, being perfectly honest. "All I know is that I have to get him back."

She stares at me for a long minute, her dark eyes sad. "But, Max, how? Really. How are you planning to do this?"

I shake my head, turn to stare off at the night sky. "I know it was really dumb to just let Tess go like that," I say finally. "I’m sorry that you never got to have justice for Alex."

Liz sighs. I turn back to look at her. She is sitting back in the her lawn chair, gazing off at the sky like I was. "I don’t think we could have anyway. What was Valenti going to do? If we turned her in, your secret would have been exposed." She smiles at me weakly. "Alex died because he was going to protect you all, turn her in. We can’t just turn around and expose you now."

"I’m sorry, Liz." The naked pain on her face about Alex is what prompts me to say it, but I know that she knows that I mean it about everything.

"I know. I’m sorry too," she replies quietly.

"Why?" I demand. "You have nothing to be sorry about."

"Max." I know she is thinking about the Kyle thing.

"Oh," I say. "Well, but you didn’t really do anything," I insist.

"You thought I did."

"Yeah." I close my eyes briefly. "How could I have ever thought that?" I ask, not really directing it at her, but she answers anyway.

"You didn’t believe it at first." She’s defending me. Why is she so wonderful? How am I ever going to live with out her? Because I am getting the feeling from this conversation - not necessarily from the words, but from the undertones - that I was right. We are not getting back together - romantically at least.

"But I did believe it eventually, even though I knew you would never do that." And then I need to know why. "Why, Liz? What happened? Were you really that desperate to get me to back off?"

"Yes." It’s like a slap to the face. I just stare at her, the pain from constantly being rejected by her last fall coming back full force. I thought I had moved past that, but apparently not. Liz obviously sees this because she adds hastily. "Max, there were very extenuating circumstances though. You don’t really understand."

"I wouldn’ t leave you alone," I tell her. "I understand. And you thought I had to be with Tess."

"I guess I was right," she says quietly. "Maybe this all happened because…"

"Because he was supposed to be born."

"Right," she says. I can hear the sadness in her voice.

"But it still doesn’t explain why you had to do that. How did you know that Tess and I needed to be together?" I pause, frowning. "The same way you knew about the granolith, right?"

"Yeah." She grimaces slightly. "I’m going to tell you, Max, because keeping secrets is what brought us to this. It’s kind of hard to believe, so just bear with me."

And so she tells me. About the future version of me that came to tell her that we had "cemented", as Liz put it, on that night that I caught her in bed with Kyle (which of course never happened in the present time-line), had gotten married at nineteen in Vegas and then the world had ended fourteen years later because Tess had left.

I stare at her in disbelief. "Liz…"

"Max, it’s all true."

I shake my head. There is no way. "It must have been a mind-warp. There is no way that I would have ever put you in that position." I know myself that much, I hope. Even fourteen years from now, I know that I could never give Liz up. I know it.

She has moved her chair closer to me, is touching my hand lightly. "Max, it was you. I know it. I know you."

And I believe her.

I am furious. I jump to my feet, start pacing. "What a complete idiot! How could he, me, whoever the hell he was, have done that to you?"

"Max, Michael, and Isabel had just died. Apparently future me made you do it."

Future Max. Future Liz. Future Michael and Future Isabel. All dead. It is insane.

I want so badly to blame it all on a mind warp, blame this all on Tess too.

But I know I can’t. Liz would not lie to me. She knew it had happened.

I turn to look at her. She is watching me anxiously, worried that I’m going to kill myself I think.

She knows me too well. Because what I have found out is that apparently I am an ass even fourteen years in the future.

"Liz, how could you have been so brave?" I ask finally. "I don’t understand." I sigh, because really I do understand. "He chose you to come to because he knew I would never give you up, didn’t he? He knew that he couldn’t tell me because I wouldn’t care."

Liz smiles softly. "He knew. But he also knew that you couldn’t face each other directly - you’d both cease to exist. Serena told him that."

"Who’s Serena?"

Liz shrugs. "Apparently someone we became really good friends with. She turned the granolith into a time machine."

"Weird."

"Yeah."

"Did we…" I pause. I probably don’t really want to know, but I have to ask, under the present circumstances. "Did we have kids?"

Liz flinches visibly and I could kick myself. "I don’t think so," she says finally. "I think it must have been too dangerous."

And then I realize something else. "The point of all this was to keep Tess around. We all died because she was gone. And now she’s gone again."

"Yeah," Liz says. "I thought of that. But I think maybe the most important thing is…" she swallows, "is your son. He exists. It might be all right." She pauses again. "Which is why I am going to help you find him."

[Kath7]

Author's Note: Hey, Anne! Don't worry! I was fully planning to tell you. In fact, I want you to beta for me. But it was supposed to be a surprise, darnit! lol I didn't expect you to show up here.

Kath

Part 3 - Do What You Have To Do - Liz POV

What ravages of spirit
Conjured this tempestuous rage?
Created you a monster
Broken by the rule of love.
And fate has led you through it
You do what you have to do.
And fate has led you through it
You do what you have to do.
But I had the sense to recognize
That I don’t know how to let you go.

Every moment marked
With apparitions of your soul.
However swiftly moving
I’m trying to escape this desire,
The yearning to be near you
I do what I have to do.
The yearning to be near you
I do what I have to do.
And I had the sense to recognize
That I don’t know how to let you go,
That I don’t know how to let you go.

A glowing ember burning hot, burning slow.
Deep within I’m shaken
By the violence of existing
For only you.
I know I can’t be with you,
I do what I have to do.
I know I can’t be with you
I do what I have to do.
And I had the sense to recognize
That I don’t know how to let you go,
Don’t know how to let you go,
Don’t know how to let you go.

I don’t know how to let you go.

Sarah McLachlan

Max is staring at me in disbelief. I don’t really blame him. I can’t for the life of me figure out how those words just came out of my mouth either.

"I am going to help you find him."

It is the supreme irony. I am going to help him find the child that I will never be able to accept.

I really have no choice. I don’t know how to do anything else.

Because, the cold, hard truth is, I can’t let him go. I can’t lose him again. I don’t want to let him go.

I try not to think of the tiny part of me that is imagining the world where we never find the baby, where Max has to give up, where we are together, and there is no resentment because I did my best to help him, and he knows it and loves me even more because of it.

And it is that tiny part of me that knows that I have to tell him the truth. Because, if I don’t, and if we don’t find his son, I am never going to be able to live with the guilt.

"Liz, I can’t ask you to do that." Max is saying, and I know he really means it. "It’s just too much. You’ve done enough."

"Max, you don’t get it," I say, before he can build me up into some big heroine. I can’t let him do that. It was one of the reasons we had so much trouble the first time. He puts me on this pedestal. I’m not that special. What I am is someone who just wants the hurt to stop. I want to stop loving him - I really do. And I really tried after the last break I made, at the prom. I tried with Sean. I really did.

It just doesn’t work. It’s Max, and I can’t get what I have shared with him out of my head, out of my heart.

How can any regular boy compare to someone with a soul as beautiful as Max Evans’s? Because no matter the mistakes he has made - and he has made a lot - he is still that Max. She can’t have changed him that much.

The truth is though, I don’t know if he has changed. I don’t really know him at all anymore. But I think I owe it to myself to see if he is still my Max. I owe it to him too. Maria told me so, and I am beginning to see what she meant.

He was never supposed to turn into the monster he became after Alex died. Something was just wrong there. He was supposed to be my husband, my soul mate, my true love. It was what was fated from the moment he saved my life in the Crashdown that day.

And we screwed with it - Future Max and I did that is. We had our reasons, but in the process we destroyed the wonderful person that Max Evans was, who he was meant to be. He has to have another chance to get it right.

Unfortunately, this means finding his son. Which means that I have to give him an ultimatum. And it’s an awful one. But I know it’s the only way I will be able to do this, because if there is one truth I know, it is that I will never be able to accept this child.

How can I even tell him this? I feel like some evil stepmother, one who wants to send his kid off into the woods to get eaten by a witch. But I can’t help the way I feel. I don’t know how I’ll feel tomorrow, next week, next year, but I do have to tell Max how I feel now.

"You have to understand, Max," I tell him. He is looking at me, a slightly befuddled expression on his face, like all of his dreams are coming true, but like he also has this feeling that a nightmare is about to begin. "I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get over what happened between you and Tess." His eyes are fully accepting. He knows this already. But I don’t think he understands the true meaning. "I’m going to help you find your son, but we can’t be together again. Not like before."

He closes his eyes briefly. I can see that he is upset, but that he is not surprised. "I know," he finally says. "I do want you to know, Liz, that it was a mistake. It was the night you left for Sweden, you know. Things were so bad between us and she…she was just there. The morning after it happened…"

I put up my hand. "Please stop. I really can’t know, Max." He does stop immediately, but I can tell he’s frustrated - that he really needs to get some of this off off his chest. But I can’t listen to it. Not now, maybe not ever. I don’t want to know what a big mistake it was because, somehow, that makes it worse.

Of course that was the excuse I used when he demanded an explanation about Kyle. "It was a mistake, Max." No wonder he was so confused. The fact that nothing was going on between Kyle and me after must have made it hurt even more. He must have felt like he didn’t know me at all.

Sort of how I feel right about now. About Max. But also about me.

"Okay." Max looks sad for a moment, than he says, "Why are you doing this, Liz? I don’t get it."

"I have to see it through to the end," I say and it’s the complete truth. I will not be able to let Max go until I know he is truly lost to me, that what Future Max and I did, changing everything so that this baby could be born, was the right thing to do. I will never be able to move on with someone else until I know for sure that he and I aren’t meant to be.

The thing is, I still don’t know it. Because, now, with Tess gone, it seems like maybe we have a second chance. But she’s still there, lurking in the shadows, her baby the winning trump card, the card that tells me that she will always have a piece of him that I can’t have.

I’m not just talking about his first time either. I’m talking about a piece of his soul - a part of Max Evans that I never knew and never understood. Because the Max I thought I knew would never have been capable of what he has done since I destroyed him by letting him catch me in bed with Kyle. Was that part of him always there? Or was it only born after I broke his heart?

I have to understand him. I have to know if I really knew him. I have to know if someone can really change that much.

"Do you even know where to start?" I ask him now. He is standing at the edge of my balcony, staring off into the sky, an unreadable expression on his face. "I mean, the granolith is gone. Its not like we can just hitchhike to the next galaxy to start looking for him." I pause. "Do you think there was a back-up? There were two sets of you all. Maybe there were two granoliths?"

"Maybe," Max says, sounding distracted. "But I don’t think so." He sighs. "Actually, technically, we don’t even know if the thing Tess took off in was the granolith. It doesn’t fit with what we were told about it in New York." By we, I know he means him and Tess. I sigh heavily.

"We don’t even know how much of what Tess told you was true," I add. "She apparently wasn’t the most reliable source."

Max laughs bitterly. "That’s an understatement." He turns to look at me. "She was working against us from the beginning, you know. Nasedo made a deal with Khivar before we were ever even born." I can see the hurt on his face. I think Max has realized something - that, ironically, the people he most should have been able to trust completely betrayed him, while the people he was never supposed to be able to have faith in - me, Maria, Alex, Valenti - the ones he betrayed - were the only ones he should have trusted.

"What was the deal?" I ask quietly, although I can guess.

"Tess was supposed to get pregnant and then bring me, Michael, and Izzy back with her and Nasedo. We would all die and Khivar would have my heir so that our people would let him rule in my son’s name. Tess and Nasedo would be spared of course." He shakes his head. "And I fell for it. She almost murdered my best friend and my sister. She did murder your best friend." Max collapses into the other chair. "I just don’t understand how I could have been so fooled. I mean, I knew her. I didn’t trust her when she first came. Why did I let her in?"

I want to comfort him, but I don’ t know how anymore. He’s right. He wasn’t the only one who ended up trusting her. I never liked her, but I did trust her. I did believe that she only had Max’s best interests at heart, that she was only trying to reclaim the place that was rightfully hers.

"It was a mistake," I reply. "But you have to make sure that you don’t make any more like it. We can’t let Alex’s sacrifice be for nothing. We have to make sure that she doesn’t keep your son."

Max flinches at the mention of Alex. "I think he might be the place to start actually," he tells me finally. "I had a dream about him last night. He told me that he knew much more than we ever imagined."

At the mention of Alex, I feel tears fill my eyes. I shake my head. "I don’t get it. We know what Alex was doing. He was translating that book for Tess. It was a dream, Max. I’ve had dreams about him too since he’s…since he’s been gone. It doesn’t mean anything."

Max frowns slightly. "It was so real." I can see a flash of something else cross his face, like he’s not telling me everything, but he quickly shakes it off, then continues. "But we don’t know everything he did during those months, Liz. He was gone a long time." He pauses. "Like that…that girl." I can hear the guilt in his voice. "The one I almost killed. What about her?"

"Leanna?" I look at him, realization dawning. "You think she was more than just a decoy? That she might know something?"

"Isn’t it possible?"

I stand up, nodding. "It makes sense. So that’s where we start."

Max stands up too, moving towards the ladder. "We’ll go back to Las Cruces tomorrow," he says resolutely.

"What about the others?" I ask, as Max moves to swing himself over the ledge and onto the ladder.

Max sighs. "Isabel has had enough to deal with lately. Michael - I’ll tell him eventually, but he’s wrapped up in Maria right now…" He trails off, looks at me sadly. Thinking about how close Michael and Maria are…it only drives home the point that it is unlikely that we will ever be that way again. "If you’re willing to help me, well, maybe we can keep them out of it for a while."

I nod. "Okay."

Max makes a move to leave, then pauses again. "Liz, I really appreciate this. I know it’s totally above and beyond the call of duty…after everything."

"We can’t change the past, Max." I tell him, feeling a pang that, ironically, if there’s one thing I know thanks to Future Max, it’s that this isn’t true. But for us, in this time, now, it is. "We just have to do what we have to do and see where we end up."

"I wish that we weren’t here," Max tells me. "I wish we could go back…"

They were the exact words he had said to me when we were in that van, the FBI chasing us…the first time he told me he loved me. Then he had wanted to go back to a time before everything had gone crazy, before Tess. I had a feeling that now we would both give everything just to go back to that moment, when we still had each other, when we still knew each other.

I can’t help myself. I reach out and touch his face - the face I have loved for so long. "I know. But we can’t. All we can do is go forward."

His eyes are shining. I can’t tell if it’s with unshed tears or if it’s just the candles on my deck. "Bye, Liz." His voice cracks slightly. "I’ll see you tomorrow."

"Bye, Max."

***

I have the early shift at the Crashdown.

Maria is on with me and she is clearly on Cloud 9. Michael is working too and I catch them making out in the break room. I can’t help but smile wryly. It is just so weird. It’s like Michael, Maria, Max and I have switched places. Just over a year ago, it would have been Max and me kissing all the time, Michael and Maria on the rocks, unsure of where they stood with each other.

I am serving a couple of tourists when Maria comes whirling out of the back, smoothing her hair down, her cheeks flushed. "Are you planning to do any work today?" I ask teasingly when she plops herself down on a stool and stares off dreamily into space.

Maria looks at me, then smiles secretly to herself. "Liz, I have to tell you something."

I glance around the restaurant. All the customers seem happy for the moment, so I drop down beside her. "Okay. What’s up?"

"Just wanted to let you know that Czechs don’t bite your head off. You know - for future reference." She grins at me, blushing slightly.

It takes me a moment to understand what she’s saying. "Maria! Did you and Michael…" Her hand jets out, slaps over my mouth.

"I got flashes, Liz. I saw him as a little boy and I really saw him." She pauses. "He really loves me."

I feel a pang of grief so intense, it almost knocks me off my stool. The unfairness of it all continues to amaze me.

I, of course, love Maria. I am thrilled that Michael has finally gotten his act together. I’ve never understood what his problem was anyway. He and Isabel never pursued their supposed destiny. I never understood what was so different about Max and Tess. While Michael broke Maria’s heart time after time, and Isabel dated her weekly older sleaze (the thought of Grant still gives me the willies), Max and I were caught in this limbo, madly in love, but unable to be together. And Max didn’t even know why. I did, but it still wasn’t fair.

How could something as wonderful as what we shared have resulted in the end of the world? In that moment I hated Tess Harding more than I ever had. It was all her fault. If she hadn’t been so selfish…

But, then, in that previous life, Max and I had been the selfish ones too, hadn’t we? We had our fourteen wonderful years, and then our entire world was destroyed.

And it is in that moment that I forgive Future Max. He didn’t know that Tess was evil. He only knew that without her, the Royal Three were too weak to repel Khivar and his minions. How was he supposed to know that it wasn’t Tess at all that was needed - that it was her child?

I realize that Maria is still waiting for my response. "That’s so wonderful, Maria." I reach out and hug her so that she can’t see my face. "I’m really happy for you."

She pulls back, stares at me knowingly. "What’s wrong, Liz?" She pauses. "You saw Max last night, didn’t you?"

"Yeah. But it’s okay. We’re going to be friends for now." Maria’s face falls. "I can’t be anything more right now, Maria. Not after all that’s happened."

"It’s because of her isn’t it? Because of what he did with her." Maria sounds furious. If there’s anyone who hates Tess, it’s Maria. She’s disliked her all along, but now…after what she did to Alex - Maria would blame the end of the world on her. Not that she would be far off, but still…Tess wasn’t the only one to blame.

"It’s not just her fault, Maria. Max did it too. And we - me and him - drove our relationship to the point where he could do that."

Maria tossed her head. "Whatever. She’s the one who wouldn’t leave him alone. She was so fake, Liz. I was sure she and Kyle were…"

"Poor Kyle," I say, trying to change the subject. "And the poor sheriff. They really loved her. They must be devastated."

"Kyle will be okay," Maria says confidently. "He knows that she didn’t deserve his love or trust. She used him."

"Yeah, but the sheriff considered her to be like his daughter," I tell her.

"I know. But he loved Alex too, and he won’t forgive her for that," Maria replied. "He’ll get over it."

The doorbell over the entrance rings. Maria’s face becomes cold. "Oh great. Just who we need."

I turn. Sean is coming in, heading straight for me. He sees the daggers Maria is shooting him though and veers to the right, plopping himself down in a booth and picking up a menu. I know he wants to talk to me though. "Uh oh. He’s going to want an explanation."

"For what?" Maria demands. "Like he deserves one - for anything."

"Well, he was over when Max came last night…." I pause. Maria doesn’t know that I threw myself at her cousin the night I thought Max was leaving. "And -er - well, something sort of happened between us on the night we thought the Czechs were leaving."

Maria’s eyes widen in outrage. "He took advantage of you?" She stands up, looking ready to go over there and kill him.

"No! I mean…not really, Maria. He was just there for me." She seems to calm down a little bit, but still looks peeved.

See the thing is, Maria is really on Max’s side. She always has been. At least since the summer. I have no idea what voodoo hex he put on her while I was in Florida, but whatever it was, she will always want Max and me together.

But then Max is good at inspiring loyalty. It’s probably why he will make a great leader someday. Or would have if Future Max and I hadn’t screwed with him. He may still. It’s another reason I have to be there for him. He deserves that second chance to become the man he was supposed to be.

He worries me sometimes though. He is so dependent on others. The people he loves have so much control over him. What I did with Kyle…it almost destroyed him.

Deep down, I know it’s the reason I can’t desert him now. Because I feel like all the changes that I’ve seen in him are my fault.

What did I ever do to make him love me so much? I’m just a normal girl for God’s sake. The burden is really hard to carry sometimes.

"I’ll just go over and get it over with," I tell Maria now. "Can you watch my tables for a few minutes?"

She nods, still looking irritated. "Fine. But if you need me, just call. I’ll get Michael to throw him out."

I roll my eyes. "He isn’t Caligula, Maria."

She scowls. "He ain’t Prince Charming either." She whirls away again in typical Maria fashion, going to take an order. But I can see that her eyes are following me as I make my way to join Sean.

I smooth down my apron, then sit down across from him. "Hi."

"Hi." He is looking at me in that Sean way - like he is trying to understand me, but is finding it almost impossible.

I remember the way Max and I used to be in perfect sync - in the time before Tess - even before we were officially together. We just got each other. It’s why I know that Sean is never going to replace Max. Even if Max and I are never together again, I won’t settle for anyone less than someone who gets me, without explanation.

I once told Max that I kept my journal so that if I ever met someone else who touched me in the way he did, I would remember what it was supposed to feel like. I realize now that I wasn’t just talking about physically.

Max touched my soul. I want that again. I don’t know if it’s going to be with Max, but if not, I want it with someone else. And it’s just not Sean Deluca.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about him, or that I want to hurt him.

"I’m sorry about yesterday," I say now.

"You don’t have to be sorry, Parker," Sean tells me. "I’m just worried about you. I thought you had finally given up on that chump."

"Well, you don’t understand about me and Max…" I begin. I know that I’m making excuses, but what else can I do? There is no excuse that Sean will ever understand. He doesn’t get Max and me. Lots of people don’t. Our closest friends don’t really get it. They don’t get that the bond that was created when he saved my life, when I saw into his soul…you can’t just erase that. This is why it’s so hard to let him go.

"I understand that he makes you miserable," Sean says firmly. "Listen, Parker, I know that I don’t deserve you either, but he definitely doesn’t. I have never once seen you smile in his company since I’ve been back."

"I don’t know what to say to you, Sean," I say. "I can’t explain it to you. What Max and I have…"

"Yeah, I know. Friends plus," Sean interrupts, sounding annoyed. "Don’t you think you deserve more than that?"

"It’s not "friends plus" anymore." I tell him. "We’re just friends. We’re always going to be friends." I swallow. "And anyone who wants to date me is just going to have to accept it."

Sean’s eyes darken. "And what if they can’t?" he demands. Because he knows what I’m telling him. I’m willing - maybe - to date Sean. But I am not willing to give up Max for him.

"They just will," I reply firmly.

Sean snorts, looking over my shoulder. "I don’t think you’re ever going to get any dates then, Parker." He nods in the direction of the door. "Even if someone you date accepts him, that guy is never going to accept anyone else in your life."

I turn around, knowing already that Max has come in. He’s with Isabel, but he’s staring at me and Sean. When my eye catches his, he smiles. I can tell that he is trying to pretend that he’s okay with the fact that I’m sitting with Sean, but I can tell he’s not. It makes my heart skip a beat. Because it’s the old Max smile. The one that he used to use when I was still dating Kyle, and we were technically "just friends," but we so weren’t. The semi-shy one…the one that says he can’t quite believe that he can smile at me and that I might smile back.

And I do. I can’t help myself.

Max’s face lights up in a way I haven’t seen in weeks, months. It’s in a way I haven’t seen since before the whole thing with Kyle actually.

It’s in that instant that I know it. I am in real trouble. There is no way on this Earth that I am ever going to be just friends with Max Evans. Not when a simple smile from him can make me so breathless I feel like passing out.

This is going to be hell.

[Kath7]

Part 4 - Witness - Max POV

Make me a witness
Take me up out of the darkness
Out of doubt
I won’t weigh you down
With good intentions
Won’t make fire out of clay
Or other inventions.

Will we burn in heaven,
Like we do down here?
Will a change come while we’re waiting
Everyone is waiting.

And when we’re done
Soul-searching
And we carry the weight
And die for a cause
Is misery made beautiful
Right before our eyes?
Mercy be revealed
Or blind us where we stand.

Will we burn in heaven
Like we do down here?
Will change come while we’re waiting
Everyone is waiting…

Sarah McLachlan

I try my hardest not to stare at Liz and Sean. I have the menu up in front of my face, but I am not reading it. I can practically recite the thing from memory, I have used it so often to hide behind over the years. Isabel is in the middle of telling me about some college she wants to apply to, but I am barely listening to her.

It really sucks how much it hurts to see Liz with Sean, even though she did smile at me when I came in. Since my dream, every time I do, that part where Sean was kissing her and reciting words I once said to Liz comes racing back into my mind. There is something paralyzing about it. Something I don’t understand.

And it makes me ill, needless to say. I know I have no right to feel jealous and angry when Liz is with another guy. But right and wrong have nothing to do with it. It’s just the way I feel.

Even now that I know the truth about Kyle and Liz, a tiny knot still exists in my stomach that clenches with fury and hurt whenever I think about it. It has haunted me for so long. And while I am not angry with Liz about it anymore, in some ways, I am. It was that one night that turned me into someone I didn’t even recognize. I know that Liz had no idea how badly things would go down after what she did. She didn’t know Tess was a murderous traitor, but it’s still there, this irrational fury. It burns deeply, not strong enough to mean anything, but it’s still there.

It doesn’t matter though. The love, and respect, and admiration I have for her is far stronger and will stay so.

Love and hate. The line between them runs very thin - especially with me and Liz. Loving someone as intensely as I love her means that hating her is so much easier too. The power she has over me is kind of scary.

Do you want to know a really, really bad thing? You’re not going to like it, but I have to tell you anyway.

Sometimes being with Tess, even though I never loved her, was just easier. Because I didn’t care so much.

I know it’s sick, but there it is.

"Max!" I lower my menu to look at my sister, who is scowling at me. "Are you even listening to me?"

"Yes," I say, lying of course.

"Well, what do you think?" Isabel gives me the look - the sister look. The one that says she knows I am lying and wants to make me feel like an even bigger moron before I have to admit it.

"Ummmm…"

She sighs heavily. "Never mind." Her expression is suddenly sympathetic and she turns around in her seat to look at Sean and Liz, who are still in deep conversation. Liz does not look pleased. "She doesn’t care about him, Max."

"It doesn’t matter, Iz. Liz and I are just friends," I say, glancing at the menu again.

Maria has come up at this point. She has her order pad in her hand and exchanges a look with Isabel, not even saying hi. She just launches into typical Maria opinionated statement mode right away. "Ha. Right. Friends. Friends don’t hold on to each other like the two of you did two days ago. I’m telling you, Max. It was romance novel worthy."

Isabel snorts. "I wish that you and Liz would just get over yourselves and get back together. You know you both want to. This is boring." She waves her hand in the air dismissively and turns to Maria to order.

See, Iz, that’s where you’re wrong. Liz doesn’t want to get back together with me. But Isabel has no idea of all the stuff that lies between us. Sure, she knows about me and Tess, but she has no idea about the Kyle stuff. She never knew and she never will. She can’t know that it was her death - hers and Michael’s - that resulted in my future self coming back to fix things.

Oh, he fixed us good all right.

But Isabel can’t know. She will never forgive herself. Our relationship has been rocky over the last year, to say the least. If she knew that she was responsible for hurting me in any way, even so indirectly, she would be devastated. Under normal circumstances this would not be true - she would understand that it wasn’t her fault.

But since the whole Vilandra thing….

My sister is fragile, scared at every moment that she is going to betray me. Our huge fight over the whole college thing was part of that I think. She wanted to go so badly and was hurt that I wouldn’t let her. But I think, deep down, she was fighting against the part of her that was scared of hurting me. She wanted to leave because of it.

She thought that by getting away from me, she could protect me.

Isabel blames herself for a lot of stuff. I know she is still dealing with Alex’s death, and for some reason she also blames herself for Grant Sorenson’s untimely demise, although she had nothing to do with it really.

I know my sister and I know how her mind works. Getting away from me after Alex died, she could protect me. And, yet, since we learned about my son, all that has changed.

Because, suddenly, since Tess left, all the colleges Isabel talks about attending are in New Mexico.

"What’ll it be, your highness?" Maria asks when I continue to stare at my menu in a stupor.

"Nothing," I say, noticing that Liz is standing and moving away from Sean. His eyes are following her as she comes towards me. "Liz looks like she’s done. We’re going for a drive."

Then it happens.

Sean’s gaze falls on me and for one split second we are staring right at each other.

A shiver runs down my spine - one unlike anything I have ever felt before.

I break the eye contact first, clenching my fists under the table.

That guy totally hates my guts.

"What?" Isabel is saying in annoyance. " Max! You always do this to me! You invite me here to eat and then you desert me. I hate eating alone and I am so not walking home."

But Maria is smiling at me, pleased, because she thinks that this means that Liz and I are getting back together, despite what I just said a few minutes ago. "Michael and I’ll drive you, Isabel. Our shift is over in half an hour," she says, just as Liz arrives.

"I’m just going up to change, Max. I’ll be down in five minutes," she says, her expression blank. She doesn’t meet my eyes. I frown slightly.

"Okay."

Liz is true to her word. We are on the road barely ten minutes later. She has changed into jeans and a red tank top that reminds me of the one she was wearing on the night of our first kiss, making my heart thump just thinking about that event. Her hair is loose and blowing in the breeze as I head out of town, towards Las Cruces.

It still astounds me how beautiful she is. I’ve hung out with Liz long enough now that I sometimes forget, because I know she is even more beautiful inside. But seeing her like this reminds me of the days when I didn’t know so much about her, before I healed her, when the closest I could get to her was exchanging pleasantries, passing lab equipment to her in Bio and staring at her in the Crashdown.

I can tell that she has something on her mind, so I don’t really talk to her. I concentrate on the road, trying to forget that the last time we took this road was the night I had to tell her about Tess. It was also the night I almost killed an innocent girl.

I wonder if that’s what Liz is thinking about.

But, apparently not, as what she says next makes clear.

"Max, I just want you to know that there is nothing going on between me and Sean," Liz blurts out so abruptly, I take my eyes off the road by whipping my head around to stare at her.

"Liz, you have a right to date other people," I say the words automatically, because I know that I am supposed to. They sound ridiculous even to me. I hope she doesn’t catch the little note of pleasure that has crept into my voice. I am such a jerk.

Liz sighs. "I know, Max. And I will, but not him."

Well so much for that moment of happiness. "Okay," I say. "Why are you telling me this?" I ask a moment later.

"Max, I saw the look on your face when you came in and saw me talking to him," Liz replies, sounding annoyed that she had seen that look. "We’re friends. I don’t want to hurt your feelings. So, just know that, while I fully intend to date other people eventually, for the moment I am all yours."

I almost swerve off the highway.

"Er - to investigate," she adds quickly. I can feel the warmth traveling up my neck at having almost killed us both.

You see what I mean about Liz affecting me on every level all the time. It’s embarrassing.

"Right," I say. I decide that changing the subject is a good idea. "So how are we going to go about this?" I ask, knowing that even when things are tense with Liz, when we have to work together on a problem, it always changes things - we are able to connect easily.

"Well, I was thinking about Leanna," Liz replies. "Or Jennifer Coleman I should say. That’s her real name," she adds when I look at her questioningly. "We never did just talk to her. I brought along a picture of Alex to see if she recognizes him."

"To see if she was working with Tess, or if she was just some random girl that Tess used?"

"Yeah." Liz is quiet for a moment and then asks, "I wonder how Alex learned Swedish anyway? It was all a pretty elaborate ruse Tess had going on there."

"It does seem unlikely that she was working alone," I agree. "Maybe Jennifer can tell us something about that too. If she wasn’t working with Tess, then maybe she can at least give us an idea of who it might have been."

"Maybe."

We are both quiet again, until I pull into the university about half an hour later, each lost in our thoughts about what we might uncover - and about what we’ll do if we don’t uncover anything.

As we reach Jennifer Coleman’s dorm-room, I flash back to the night I almost committed cold blooded murder in this exact building. I remember Liz’s words to me that night. "This isn’t you, Max. It isn’t planned out."

But the scary thing is, it was me. Sure I was in Borg mode that night, but I don’t think Liz has any idea about the lengths I would go to protect those I love. There was no way I was leaving Earth that night with the thought that the murderer was still out there, threatening Liz, and Maria, and Kyle, and even Valenti.

At least that’s what I was thinking when we were in Jennifer Coleman’s dorm. Once I knew that she wasn’t the killer, I was more than willing to leave Liz and the others with no idea who their enemy was. How she can forgive me for that, I’ll never know. I don’t even know if she has.

A little ironic though that, in the end, I was taking their enemy with me. So, in a way, leaving with Tess was protecting the others - the humans anyway.

I wonder if any of this would have happened if I had gotten together with Tess when I first knew about our destiny. Would she still have felt compelled to kill Alex, to continue Nasedo’s plan? Or could I have gotten through to her in those first important days of contact? Could she have tapped into her human side if I had been what she had expected me to be - her mate, her husband, her king?

Was Tess’s betrayal my fault?

"Max?" Liz is looking at me strangely, has her hand up to knock. "Are you okay? You look a little weird."

I blink, then shake my head. Now isn’t the time to second guess myself. But I can’t help it. So many decisions I have made were wrong. So wrong. What if bringing Liz in to help me find my son is wrong too?

What if I’m putting her in more danger?

"Maybe you should wait in the car," I say suddenly. She just stares at me. "She might recognize you from that night."

"Who cares?" Liz asks logically. "She never knew what that was about. I was just some random weirdo to her."

She’s right of course. But how can I tell her that I beginning to think this is all a bad idea - that I am suddenly scared that we are going about this all wrong, that somehow I am going to hurt her again without even wanting to?

It is too late. Liz has turned away and is knocking on the door. A curly-haired blonde answers a few seconds later. She eyes Liz suspiciously. "It’s you. Jennifer says she never told anyone they could borrow her notes, so don’t even think about coming in here."

Liz glances at me, a little embarrassed. "I came to apologize about that," she improvises quickly. She whips a sheet of paper out of her purse quickly. "And to return them," she adds triumphantly.

The blonde girl rolls her eyes. "Jenn! One of those girls from the other day is here!" she calls, heading away from the door and into the kitchenette.

And suddenly she is there. She looks exactly like the picture of her that Liz has in her purse - the one with Alex.

I have to admit I didn’t get much of a look at her the last time I’d seen her. It would have been too hard to do what I had intended to do if I had looked at her, seen her face. Even in Borg mode.

Don’t get me wrong. I would have done it, but it would have been harder. That cold side of me would have taken over though - the alien side - and I would have done it.

Jennifer is looking at Liz like she might recognize her, but is unsure. "Yeah?" she asks, clearly not placing her.

"Hi," Liz replies in her friendly way. "I’m Liz. And this is Max. We need to talk to you about someone we think you might have known." Liz is pulling the picture of Leanna and Alex out of her bag and I move forward from where I am leaning against the wall beside the door, a little out of Jennifer’s eye-shot. I want to get a good look at her face when she sees herself in that picture.

She doesn’t look at the photo right away though. Her eyes shift to me and the colour totally drains from her face.

"It’s you," she whispers. "Zan."

And, I kid you not, she faints.

[Kath7]

Part 5 - Trust - Liz POV

Somewhere deep inside me
I hold a picture of a time long gone
A time of ease and simple pleasures
And days in shadows not so long
Now with my mind I’m struggling
Holding on to what I believe
Listen to the fragments of my thoughts
That leave me broken and deceived
Cause I don’t know the way
He said "I can take you there,
I can show you places where time has no ware"
And as we walked the plains
The skies they opened wide
Revealing all the shame for what’s been lost inside us all.

It’s a day in the life
In my mind I’ve seen it all
Sometime soon for all to see
The walls are slowly breaking down
In my mind I’ve seen it all
And someday we’ll be free.

We’re searching for a message
Or so I thought but so it seems
The ignorance in the myths of others
Is easier to redeem
I’ve never questioned the answers given
To find the faith that’s been lost within
Cause where I lay my trust in others
Where it lies the ground is thin
Cause I don’ t know the way
He said "I can take you there,
I can show you places where time has no ware"
And as we walked the plains
The skies they opened wide
Revealing all the shame for what’s been lost inside us all.

I know you say you love me
If what you say is true
So show me something that’s not deceiving
Cause I wouldn’t lie to you.

It’s a day in the life
In my mind I’ve seen it all
Sometime soon for all to see
The walls are slowly breaking down
In my mind I’ve seen it all
And someday we’ll be free.

Sarah McLachlan

"Max! Catch her!" I shriek, but he is already moving, grabbing Jennifer Coleman before she melts to the floor.

Jennifer’s suite-mate comes running out of her room. "What did you do to her?" she demands, watching Max sweep the girl we know as Leanna up into his arms. She follows him as he moves into the room, depositing Jennifer gently on the couch. She is already coming around, her eyelashes beginning to flutter.

Max looks back at me, his expression terrified. I don’t blame him. Who the heck is this girl and how did she know Max’s real name? But we can’t say any of this in front of the suite-mate, who looks about ready to pick up the phone to call campus security.

"It’s all a terrible mistake. We gave her some bad news and she just collapsed." I know I am babbling, but we need to talk to Leanna alone, and we need to get rid of the other girl. "I’m Liz, this is Max." I do the introductions quickly, hoping to put the other girl at ease. "We know Jennifer from back home."

The suite-mate does not look convinced. "From Phoenix?" she asks suspiciously.

"Right. From Phoenix," Max says, glancing at me and shrugging slightly. He is perched on a chair beside Jennifer, whose eyes are beginning to open.

"We’re friends of Ray," I improvise. The girl seems to recognize the name that Alex went by when he was staying here.

"Where is Ray?" the girl asks. "We haven’t seen him in months. He and Jenn spent all this time together last fall, and then he just disappeared."

"We have bad news." I swallow hard. It is so hard to say it even though it’s true. I am never going to adjust to saying it. Alex! "Ray passed away. It’s why we’re here. To tell Jennifer."

Max is eyeing me with concern. I think he can tell that talking about Alex’s death, even in the guise of an excuse, is putting me on edge.

The suite-mate’s eyes widen in horror. "Oh that’s so sad. I mean, he was kind of a weird guy, real quiet and stuff, but I am so sorry." She pauses, glances at Jennifer. "Is that why Jenn fainted?" she asks.

I can’t speak, emotion still clogging my throat.

"Yes," Max replies simply. "We’re sorry. We really need a few minutes alone with her. Can you excuse us…" He trails off, clearly hoping that she will give us her name.

"Melissa," she offers. "Are you sure you don’t want me to stay? She must be pretty upset if she fainted."

"It’s okay. We’ve known Jenn for a while," Max tells her. "But thanks."

I can tell that Melissa is beginning to warm up to him. His eyes - they are reflecting the gentleness that I always used to see in them, before it all happened. He is giving off that Max aura, the one that says that he can be trusted. It is wrapping itself around me like a warm blanket, even though I know that he is capable of being a monster too.

But Melissa doesn’t know this and she looks like she is falling under a spell.

It is making me supremely uncomfortable because I am beginning to realize how very easy it might be for me to fall under his spell again too. He put a force on me once. I know that it is only a matter of time until he does it again.

I am fighting it with every ounce of my being. I cannot let him in that way again. It almost killed me once and that was when I was still the most important person in his life.

Now I’m not. That spot has been taken by a baby that has not even been born yet.

I can’t give in.

I knew helping him was going to be a mistake because with every passing minute I spend with him, I want to give in.

I force my eyes away from his face.

I move back against the wall of the living room, needing its hard reassurance to keep my back-bone in place. Max is looking at me again. He frowns slightly at the expression on my face, which is likely a cross between a scowl and a grimace.

"Well, okay," Melissa finally says. "I’ll be in my room. Call me if you need me." She backs into her room, shutting the door behind her.

"Liz, are you okay?" Max demands urgently. He is glancing between me and Jennifer, who is now beginning to sit up. She still seems slightly out of it. "You look…"

"I’m okay," I snap. He blinks at my harsh tone, but nods. I move closer, then kneel on the floor beside him. We both turn to look at Leanna.

Her expression seems to finally clear and she focuses on Max’s face immediately, gasps again, moving back against the couch in shock. "I thought I was dreaming. How can it really be you? How can you be real?" She starts muttering to herself. "Am I going crazy?"

"Max, you’d better leave for a minute," I say. I can tell that we are not going to get any sense out of this girl while he is in the room. She doesn’t seem to be scared of him, but I think she thinks she is crazy for some reason.

"Liz, I’m not leaving you alone," Max insists. I sigh. I can tell by that tone that I am not going to win this argument easily, and I don’t want to get into a huge discussion about it in front of Jennifer.

She is still staring at him, her head slightly tilted. "You are real, aren’t you? Your name is Max?"

Max nods. "Why did you call me Zan?" he asks gently.

"Because he looks like you," she replies. "At least the pictures I’ve seen of him."

I barely suppress a gasp. She can’t be talking about the real Zan, Max’s dupe, who is supposed to be dead? Max looks just as shocked as I do.

"Pictures?" I press her.

"The drawings Ray showed me," Jennifer elaborates. "For the game."

Max and I exchange a confused glance. "The game?"

"The computer game Ray was writing," she continues. "But he told me it wasn’t real."

Um. Okay. This is getting a little too weird. We’ll get back to that in a moment. First things first.

I pull a picture of Alex and her out of my purse, show it to her. It obviously isn’t the one in which he had torn out his own face, but another one I found in his room after the funeral. "Is this Ray?" I ask quietly.

She nods, taking the picture from my hands, staring at it in confusion. "Where did you get this?" She is frowning. "I don’t remember having it taken."

"Ray gave it to me." I pause. "Did you hear what I said to Melissa? You heard that Ray is gone?"

Tears fill her eyes. "I’m not surprised. He told me when he left that he didn’t think that he would see me again. They didn’t want the game finished. That’s what he told me."

"Who didn’t?" Max inquires. "What is this game?"

"The Four Square game," Jennifer tells us. "The one about the Royal Four and Antar. He was creating the code and the story behind the game while he lived here." She sighs. "He needed my help with some of the computer work. I was interested in the whole concept. He told me all about Zan, and Vilandra, and the Royal Four." She eyes us for a minute. "You do know about this, don’t you? You’re the model for Zan." She nods towards Max. "He showed me a picture of you that he drew. You must be his friend."

"Maybe you should tell us everything," Max replies evenly, not wanting to give away too much. He is clearly just as confused as I am, but it is beginning to sound like Jennifer thinks that everything Alex told her was all fiction, which is actually a big relief.

"Well, Zan is an alien king, stranded on Earth, trapped in a teenage human’s body," Jennifer explains. "He is in love with a human, but he can’t be with her. His destiny is to marry Ava, his queen from another life. But the whole game revolves around Zan trying to find a way to be with his human love and still save his people."

I don’t even dare to look at Max. I know that I might start laughing hysterically if I do. Told this way, it does all sound like a crazy, fantastic story.

But this is my life. It is Max’s life. No wonder neither of us know whether we are coming or going.

I only know one thing. This is the weirdest thing I have ever heard. Was this all an elaborate ruse that Alex made up in order to get Leanna to help him, without giving away Max, and Michael, and Isabel’s secret? Or is there more to it than that? And what did Tess have to do with it?

"Anyway, Ray got the concept from some guy he knew back in Roswell. Where he’s from," she adds. "He had this book that he needed to translate, which gave the basic outline of the concept. We worked on decoding it together. We rented some space in an old warehouse." She frowns. "I never understood why he was so paranoid that someone was going to try and take the game away from him, but he would work on it in his room, and e-mail me the new parts in the warehouse. He was trying to keep it a secret. Finally he left the dorm altogether and went to stay in the warehouse. He said they were on to him." She tears up again. "I just thought he was a little bit crazy, like a lot of computer geeks." She pauses. "He was murdered, wasn’t he? He was right?"

"He died in a car accident," I tell her. Whether she notices that I don’t dispute the point about whether he was murdered or not, I don’t know.

"Why is a computer game so important?" Jennifer asks. "I never got it."

I glance at Max. "That’s what I’d like to know," he says. "Do you have any of the stuff Ray was working on?"

She swallows. I can tell she is still unsure whether to trust us. "I…"

I take her hand. She glances down, then looks up, staring right into my eyes. "Ray’s real name was Alex," I tell her. "He became my best friend in the fifth grade. You’re right. He was murdered. And we…" I indicate Max and myself. "We’re going to find out why."

I see Jennifer’s eyes widen. "I’ll tell you everything I know," she tells me quietly. "I owe him that much." She looks ashamed suddenly. "Because I think I might have led them right to him. They seemed so normal though…"

I feel Max beside me, listening just as intently as I am. "Who?" he asks urgently.

"There were two of them. A guy and a girl. She was kind of short, with blonde curly hair and way too much lip gloss." I press my lips together. That had to be Tess. "He was tall, blond too," Jennifer continues. "They didn’t look dangerous. She said she was Ray’s sister, and that he had run away from home." Tears fill her eyes. She swallows heavily. "I believed her."

"You’re not the only one," I murmur to myself, not even looking at Max. He is crouched on the floor beside me. I can feel him tensing during the talk about Tess. Hearing the story of how she used Alex, how she had been responsible for his death…it was hard on [/i] me[/i] and I hated her anyway. I can’t even imagine what it is doing to Max, who often has a guilt complex that could pave the route to his planet and back - twice.

No one had been closer to her than he had. It makes me sick, but there it is. Twice, in less than a year, girls that Max loved had seemingly betrayed him. He knew now that I hadn’t, but it still didn’t dull the pain of the last few months. He had committed to Tess, even further than he ever had with me, despite all his protestations of regretting it immediately. Her betrayal was, of course, a million times worse because, not only had she murdered one of the people Max trusted, the thing he most feared, she had put him in a position where he had had no choice but to abandon his own child.

She was pure evil. I wish now that I had the chance to say all the things to her that I longed to, that I had done so long before any of this had happened. I never trusted her. But I had been the martyr, walking away from Max, going along with Future Max’s plan, believing that my own gut instinct was only the result of jealousy, when "following my heart," as my grandmother had told me to do, had never failed me to that point.

My heart had told me to fight for Max, not to trust Tess, and I had ignored it.

Ignoring my heart killed Alex.

I close my eyes briefly before reaching into my purse and pulling out the picture of all of us that had been taken the night of the prom. I hand it to Jennifer, not even saying anything.

She stares at it, nodding. "That’s her," she acknowledges. Because there she is, in her ice blue prom dress, standing with all of us, right beside me as a matter of fact, smiling as though she cares about us. She is seemingly unconcerned by the fact that Max and I are there together, knowing that she has the upper hand, that it will only be a matter of hours before she manipulates all of us on the road to Alex’s destruction.

I pull myself up off the floor, sitting down on the couch beside Jennifer. I feel a lump in my throat as I look at the picture with her. I never saw Alex as happy as he was that night. Both he and Isabel are practically glowing in the photo, finally recognizing how much they mean to each other, and they never even got a chance to move forward with it.

It was completely unfair. If anyone deserved to be happy, it was Alex.

I miss him so much.

I can feel Max’s eyes on me. I know that he knows what is going through my mind. And even though I am not looking at him, I can almost feel his desire to do something to comfort me. But now is not the time.

I force myself to take the picture from Jennifer, and place it gently back where it came from. "What about the guy?" I ask urgently, at this point only answers capable of keeping my tears at bay.

"She called him Lazar." Jennifer shrugs. "He didn’t say much. She did all the talking. I got the impression that he was in charge though."

"Is there anything else you can tell us?" Max asks, getting to his feet. He seems frustrated. I glance at him as he shoves his hands roughly into the pockets of his khakis, his entire body radiating tension.

"Just that I told them where his room was. Actually I took them there," Jennifer replies. "They messed around on his computer. I knew I shouldn’t have let them, but they seemed to know their way around so well, I didn’t say anything. Anyway, the blonde girl took a disk out of the hard drive and then the guy pulled the whole computer out of the wall and took it with them." She pauses, closing her eyes briefly. "And then I told them how to find the warehouse where he was hiding." She begins to sob again. "I am so sorry."

I take her hand, squeeze it. "It wasn’t your fault," I tell her, meaning it. She had no idea what she was really dealing with. I knew better than anyone what a great actress Tess Harding turned out to be and I had known what she really was. "Thank you." I pull the picture of Alex and Leanna out of my purse again, glance at Max, who is watching me closely, and hand it to her. "He would want you to have this."

She takes it, smiles. "Thanks. He was a really great guy. I missed him when he was gone."

I impulsively reach out and hug her. "Trust me. I know how that feels." I feel a moment of close connection with this girl - one who had ended up in a situation that she couldn’t control and didn’t understand - one that had ended in tragedy.

Did I ever know how that felt.

After leaving Jennifer, Max and I are back in his parent’s car before either of us says anything.

I feel numb. I never realized how much looking into what had happened to Alex was going to hurt. When I had done it before, right after the funeral, it helped, made the pain less, because at least I felt like I was doing something to show Alex how much I had loved him.

Now I just felt, more and more, with every single step forward we took, that his death was my fault.

I knew what Tess was and I had let her close to him - to all of us. How could I have been so stupid?

The ridiculous thing is that I know that Max, sitting right beside me, staring unseeing out the front windshield, is thinking exactly the same thing I am.

And, in that moment, I know I want him to. Because it is something that we have always shared, this complete feeling of responsibility for the safety of our friends. If guilt has to be the only thing bonding us now, it is better than nothing.

It’s sick, but I am willing to take what I can get. If I can’t have Max, then at least I can understand him, can still have that connection with him.

Finally, he speaks. "Liz, are you okay?"

"I will be," I reply, knowing that I sound cold. I wonder if he thinks that I am mad at him again. But I have to stay frozen or I won’t be able to move forward. All the grief and pain that I have felt over Alex’s death is threatening to come back in great waves if I let even one inch of my control go.

But Max knows this. He knows me. "Okay. Where to now?" he asks, sounding strangely upbeat, in that way that people do when they are trying to ignore what’s really going on under the surface. I, of course, basically just told him to, but I am still irritated.

"We need to find out who that guy was," I tell him evenly, although of course he knows this. I look over at him. "Have you been through any of Tess’s stuff yet?"

He grimaces. "No. I didn’t want to bug the sheriff. He’s not doing so hot."

I feel a pang for the man who had done so much for us. Maria is convinced that he will be all right, but I knew better. He had grown to love Tess like a daughter. That she turned out to be one of those evil aliens he had so feared when he was first chasing Max - it was the supreme irony. The sheriff is not a cold man. He must be hurt and angry and he will feel stupid too.

Of course, he couldn’t feel any more stupid than the rest of us. Tess did a number on all of us that is going to take a very long time to get over, if we ever even can. It is going to be virtually impossible to ever let anyone new into our small band of seven. We will always remember her, remember how we let her in and how she killed the best and brightest of us, how she almost killed Michael and Isabel, how she stole Max’s innocence and broke my heart in the process.

Not being able to trust anyone new means that we are irretrievably stuck with each other - for better and for worse. We no longer have any other options.

Max once told me that I would always be a part of the group. It comforted me then. Now it is beginning to feel like a prison, because the one person I most want to be stuck with, Max himself, is lost to me.

All because of Tess, and the baby Max is driven to find.

"I don’t think she would have left anything incriminating around there anyway. Someone might have stumbled on it," I tell Max a few minutes later, as he pulls out on to the highway. I pause, thinking. "The lease on that house Nasedo rented is still good, isn’t it?"

Max nods. "He told Tess that it was hers, in her name. He paid two years rent when he leased it."

I frown. "Ironic that she ended up in the sheriff’s house because you thought she was in danger from the Skins there." I shake my head. "She wasn’t ever in any danger. I bet she used that place all the time."

"Let’s check it out," Max agrees. "I haven’t been anywhere near it since that night."

As we drive, I think about Tess and Nasedo, and the deal they had made with Khivar. The more I think about it, the stranger it seems. If Nicholas was Khivar’s right hand man, his representative on Earth, then why had the Skins killed Nasedo, with whom Khivar had a deal? It doesn’t make any sense. I voice this to Max.

He just shakes his head. "I’ve thought about that, Liz. I don’t get it either. I wonder if maybe Nasedo decided to renege on the deal once he found us, that he thought we would get him back there anyway and that he didn’t need to betray us, but that he never got a chance to tell Tess."

Tess. It all comes back to her. Why was she willing to betray the three she was supposed to be most loyal to? How could getting back to the planet be so important that she was willing to completely disregard her purpose of existence, which was to save her people as a member of the Royal Four? How could she have turned out so badly?

I remember Ava, remember how nice she was, how easily I got along with her. She would have fit in with Max, and Isabel, and Michael far better than Tess ever did. She was good. I know she was.

So what had gone so wrong with Tess?

But, deep down, I know what it was. It was me and the way Max felt about me. She hated me so much, for taking the place in his heart that she felt rightfully belonged to her, she was willing to kill him rather than let me have him.

Loving me had almost killed him.

And now she is gone, but the memory of her, and the disaster she left behind are still with us. She is still winning.

I can feel myself beginning to seethe with rage. I am still letting her win, letting her come between us.

I know that Max wants to be with me. I know that I am the only one standing in the way of it - me and my pride.

I wonder if pride is worth it. If my pride is worth letting her win.

I realize that Max and I have been driving in complete silence for quite a while. We are on the outskirts of Roswell already.

I glance over at him. He is staring straight ahead, his jaw clenched, clearly deep in thought. I can feel the barely harnessed combination of pain, and guilt, and anger that is lingering beneath the surface of the teenage guy who saved my life. The one I lied for, broke the law for, jumped off bridges for. The one I was willing to give up to save the world, to save his world.

The love I have for him is so mixed up with hate at this point, all I want to do is to end it, take the plunge back into the alien abyss once and for all and accept that I am never going to be able to let go of what we once had. I am never going to be able to let go of the sweet, loving, brave boy I fell in love with. The one she destroyed.

"Max." He glances over at me, blinking at the hard edge to my voice. "Pull over."

"Liz, what’s wrong?"

"Pull over," I repeat. "Now."

He slowly pulls the car off the highway and onto the shoulder. He is already turning in his seat to see what’s wrong before the car stops rolling.

"Liz…"

But he never gets a chance to say anything. I have my seat belt off and I am already moving towards him. I see one instant of complete astonishment on his face before I bring my lips down onto his.

The surprise of it does not stop him from responding eagerly. His hands plunge into my hair, bringing me closer. Through a haze of grief, and hate, and love, I can hear him saying my name. "Liz! Oh God. I love you so much."

I don’t say anything, just continue to kiss him, to revel in the fact that he’s really there, that he isn’t off on some distant planet, on the verge of execution.

It is in that instant that the connection flares to life. And as the flashes begin, it is then that I remember why this is going to be the last time that I will ever kiss the love of my life.

[Kath7]

Author's Note: So, you think you've seen angst? lol You ain't seen nothing yet.

Part 6 - Steaming - Max POV

You're always waiting on the tide
It's time you decide.
I've walked down long roads that seem to have no end at all.

You never wanted time to end,
To let my life offend.
It's time to realize what hides deep inside your holy eyes,
Hold on tight, hold on fast
This ain't the kind that always lasts.
If you want me to go just ask me to go, I'll go.

All the way my love, over the hills and right on through you.
Run away my love, over the hills and right on through you.
Over the hills and right on through you.

Lying awake in these restless dreams,
Life's never what it seems.
I've always tried to read your eyes,
To get inside that scornful mind.
Hold on tight, hold on fast
This ain't the kind that always lasts.
If you want me to go just ask me to go, I'll go.

All the way my love, over the hills and right on through you.
Run away my love, over the hills and right on through you.
Over the hills and right on through you.

I was with you on that pallet steaming,
Spinning 'round in circles dreaming.
I was with you on that pallet steaming
Running 'round in circles screaming...

All the way my love, over the hills and right on through you...
Run away my love, over the hills and right on through.
All the way my love, over the hills and right on through you...
Run away my love, over the hills and right on through.

Sarah McLachlan

I cannot believe that she is actually in my arms again. It has happened so suddenly, it’s like some sort of weird dream come to life.

Not that I’m complaining mind you. This entire afternoon has been one giant exercise of being hit in the face by the fact that Liz has absolutely no intention of being with me again. We are a unit, a team, yes, but for two reasons alone. To find out the truth behind Alex’s death and to save my son.

And I was accepting it. I was. I was worried about how brittle she was throughout the entire conversation with Leanna, but I was happy simply being in her presence, working with her again.

Then she tells me to stop the car, and suddenly she has jumped me, and everything is suddenly up-ended again.

The firm lid I put on my desire to touch her and be with her has been completely demolished. I am simply reveling in the feel of her silky hair under my hands, marveling over the fact that I am actually kissing her again when the flashes start.

The connection is so abrupt and so sudden, I hear Liz gasp before I can even begin to make any sense of them.

Flash*

Liz watching me kiss Tess at the prom, horror, and pain, and betrayal washing over her. And then anger and resolve.

Flash*

Liz and Sean at the bowling alley, the pain being replaced by acceptance and a desire to move forward.

Flash*

Liz, shocked and betrayed, as she listens to me tell the others that I believe Valenti - that Alex committed suicide. Anger, which results in words that she cannot take back, words she regrets but that will not turn her away from her purpose.

Flash*

Liz in tears, poring over a stack of pictures of Alex. A serene feeling settles over her as some guy shows up at the door of the Crashdown with a story that tells her she is on the right track.

Flash*

Liz, Maria, and Michael in some sort of broken down warehouse. Triumph as they find the translated book - and, yet, there are still more answers to be sought.

Flash*

Liz in the Jeep as I tell her that Tess is pregnant with my child. The wave of pain and betrayal that washes over her is so intense, I momentarily lose my connection to her.

Flash*

Liz in Sean Deluca’s arms. Her grief over my departure is so sharp, I can barely comprehend why she is with Sean. And then she is turning away from him.

The connection ends as abruptly as it began.

I realize that Liz is no longer on my lap, having wrenched herself away from me, but is back on her side of the car, fumbling with the handle to the door. She is stumbling out and I can hear her retching.

Oh, good Lord. The flashes.

I don’t want to even begin to contemplate what she saw from me, but it was clearly all bad - enough to actually make her physically sick.

I am out of the car and around to her side in an instant. She is on her hands and knees, taking deep gulps of air. I drop to my knees beside her, and reach over to pull her hair back as she retches again. I can hear the sobs beginning to intermingle with the sounds of sickness.

"Liz?"

She is beginning to breathe more evenly again. "Please, Max. Don’t touch me." I drop my hands instantly. There is a long moment of silence and then. "I saw you…with her."

I have absolutely no idea what to say. "Oh." And then, "Liz, I’m sorry."

She is sitting back on her heels now, her gaze trained out across the desert. "I thought…I thought maybe I could move past it. I really thought maybe…" She pauses. "I didn’t want her to win, but she’s going to because… Max, I felt how you felt when you were with her." Her voice hitches slightly.

"Liz…"

"Max, ever since the first time that we connected, I’ve been able to feel how you feel about me. Why is she there? Why?" Her hands are covering her eyes. She is not crying, but I can hear her voice failing as the tears try to take over. I want so desperately to pull her into my arms, but I know that it will only make things worse.

"Liz, I wasn’t myself." I fumble with the words. I just want to convince her that the way I felt about Tess…yes, it had been real at the time, but…

But there is no excuse. I felt something for Tess when we were together. I told Liz on the night before we were supposed to leave that I didn’t love Tess the way I loved her, and I didn’t, but I couldn’t deny it. She had wormed her way into my heart.

It was so easy to be with her. She didn’t expect anything of me. Not like Liz, not like Isabel, not like Michael. She just wanted me, wanted to make me happy. Or at least that’s what I thought.

Of course, I only found out later why she wanted me. But when we consummated our relationship, I had been giving in because I was so tired of constantly having to live up to what the others expected me to be. Tess let me give into every selfish impulse I ever had.

And I had reveled in it.

Yup, I’m one sick bastard all right. I know it. And now Liz knows it too.

"You hated me when you did that with her." I snap my head around to stare at her. She is whispering, but it resounds like a gunshot through my brain.

"What??"

"You did, Max. I felt it. You were trying to get back at me. You were thinking about me when you were with her." I can hear the horror in her voice, the realization of what this means.

It isn’t true. I know it isn’t. "Liz, no. I swear…"

"Max, you did." She looks at me, her expression suddenly fierce. "How could you have hated me so much that you would deliberately set out to hurt me that way?" She swallows harshly. "I never knew you at all, did I? The person I fell in love with - he never even existed at all, did he?"

I just stare at her. I literally feel like I have been punched in the solar plexus. She is meeting my gaze steadily, but I can see the rage beginning to build in her eyes. "You actually hated me." There is another long moment of silence. She closes her eyes, as though to shut out my face. "I need you to take me home," Liz finally says, climbing to her feet. "This is the end, Max. We can’t ever be together after this. I cannot ever see that again. I don’t want to ever feel that way again - ever."

I am completely numb. I know it’s not true, but I have no idea how to make her see it. What I had done with Tess had nothing to do with her. It had everything to do with me and how much I had just wanted to give up. I was positive that I had not thought of Liz at all. Now, I know that’s not necessarily a good thing, but she was not involved in my decision at all.

It wasn’t really been much of a decision actually. Tess was just there - like she was always there when I was at my worst, and, finally, I just gave in.

But Liz had seen it. She had looked into my soul and she had seen it. Did she see some part of me that I don’t even know exists?

Because, although I was angry, and hurt, and completely out of control at that time, I had never hated Liz - at least not so that I was aware of it.

We are driving again. I pull up in front of the Crashdown after what seems like moments, but has really been another fifteen minutes. I realize that this might truly be it. I may never actually speak to Liz Parker again.

I have to try and convince her. At least once more. "Liz, please. I don’t know what you saw, but I’m telling you, I never felt that way. I swear it."

Liz is staring out the front windshield of my parent’s car, her expression completely shuttered. She doesn’t even look at me. "Max, I felt it."

"Liz, it can’t just end like this. Please." And then I just throw all caution to the wind. I will never forgive myself if I don’t say what my entire soul is screaming. "I love you."

Finally, she turns to look at me. "I know you do. But this thing between us, Max…it’s destructive. I can’t ever be with you. Spending time with you only makes it worse. Sean…" She stops abruptly.

I feel a flash of rage. Sean. Sean Deluca. He said something to her, something that made her decide this is the only way. "What about Sean?" I demand, unable to control the snarl in my tone despite myself. I instantly regret it because she tenses up and glares at me.

"Sean was right. I will never be able to move forward as long as you are in my life." She says it coldly, cutting right to my heart. "I’m tired of looking back, Max. Whoever it was I fell in love with, you are no longer him."

I can’t even speak because I know it’s not true. I am still him. I am still the same person.

The only difference is that I am completely lost, adrift, and now I am never going to find my way back home.

I can’t do it without her.

"I just want to say it once more." Liz’s eyes are beginning to fill with tears, but her tone is still controlled and frigid as she says, "Thank you for saving my life. I swear it won’t be for nothing. I’m going to make something of it." She says it with utter certainty and I know its true. And she’s going to do it without me.

"Goodbye, Max. I hope you find your son. I guess I’ll see you at school."

She is gone. And she doesn’t look back.

***

I am lying on my bed, staring up at the ceiling, willing myself to fall asleep. All I want to do is to let myself tumble into oblivion.

But I doubt it will even help. I’ll probably just dream about Alex again - and Sean and Liz together. More dreams where my guilt, and fear, and jealousy, and hate start to suffocate me.

I wonder if maybe I should get up and go over to Tess’s. At least I can look around there, see if there’s anything that gives me some kind of clue as to what the hell Tess did to Alex, exactly how her plan went forward…and who the mysterious Lazar is.

It is the only thing I can do right now. I have no idea where to even start looking for my son. It is all completely hopeless. I am never going to find him and the one person who was determined to make sure I did is now gone.

But I can try and help Alex. Because that dream is still haunting me. It has to mean something. It has to!

There is no way my parents are going to let me out this late with the car - not after the Jeep fiasco - so I just open my bedroom window and climb right out.

It’s a warm evening. It is late May after all. I thrust my hands into my pockets, kicking at a rock on the sidewalk. My mind is a complete void. I am refusing to think about anything, because if I do, all I will think about is Liz.

As of this moment, my emotions are on complete lock-down. I refuse to think about that scene this afternoon. If I don’t think about it, it never happened. There is still hope.

I am concentrating so hard on not thinking, I almost smash into Michael before I realize that he’s there.

"Jeez! Maxwell! Watch where you’re going!" My best friend is glaring at me, but he’s not really mad. "Where the hell are you off to? I was just coming to talk to you."

Trust Michael to sound annoyed that I might potentially have something better to do than to sit on my bed waiting for him to show up to talk to me. I just roll my eyes. I am so not in the mood to deal with him. "What?"

Michael eyes me for a moment. "What’s wrong?" he demands.

"Nothing’s wrong," I reply. "I’m just going over to the Harding house to check out some stuff."

"Max, you better not be keeping something from me," Michael growls, falling into step beside me. "I’m coming with you. There is absolutely no reason for you to go to the Harding house unless you’re looking for something. And since I know you, I know that whatever it is, I should know about it. I also know that you won’t tell me unless I find out for myself, and so I’m coming."

I just stare at Michael. "Are you quite finished?" He scowls, as though thinking about it, then nods curtly. "Fine, you can come. I really don’t care."

This stops Michael in his steps. "Okay, something is really wrong. What’s going on? Tell me, Maxwell. Now." And, then, just because he does know me, "It’s Liz, isn’t it?"

I scrub my hand across my face wearily. "There is no more Liz, Michael. We’re through. For good."

"That’s bull. What happened?"

"I don’t want to talk about it."

"Maxwell…" Michael trails off warningly. For God’s sake! Can’t a guy even brood in peace!

"She kissed me and she got flashes of me and Tess together," I yell. "There! Are you satisfied? She says that I slept with Tess to get back at her - that I hated her when I did it. And I don’t even know what she’s talking about. I know it had nothing to do with her! I was a selfish bastard, yes, but I know that I did not deliberately sleep with Tess to hurt Liz."

Michael just stares at me. "She saw all that from a few flashes?" he demands after a moment. "Jeez. Maria and I have a lot of catching up to do," he mutters. But he is now looking thoughtful, as though the pieces of a puzzle are starting to fall into place.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" I snap. Of course he’s not taking this at all seriously. To Michael, likely to Maria and to Isabel too, Liz and I just need to get over ourselves, need to admit we want to be together.

I can just hear Maria now. "Sure, you made some mistakes Max and Liz, but you’re soulmates, you belong together."

Screw that.

"It means that I don’t know what the hell you and Tess did, but you must have been doing something completely weird, because there was no hour long culmination for me, buddy." He sounds annoyed. "Why do you have to go overboard on everything? What the hell? How is any guy supposed to compete with that?"

Okay, now I have no clue what the hell he’s talking about. "Pardon me?"

"Maria and me. We did it. And while it was certainly awesome, I don’t know how the hell you managed to keep that up for an hour. And what, do you and Liz like have some sort of psycho link to each other’s worst nightmares? What is with you, man? Why do you insist on always taking everything to extremes?"

I am staring at him, unable to even form coherent thought. "You and Maria? When?" It is the most inane of questions, but I am currently unable to think of another.

"The night before we were supposed to leave." He clears his throat, actually looking embarrassed suddenly. "And last night. But don’t tell anyone I told you. She’ll kill me."

"And are you saying that Maria got flashes?" I ask.

"Yeah, but nothing like you and Liz. It was all good."

I am suddenly so jealous, all I want to do is punch him. I clench my fists at my sides. "I so cannot hear this right now."

I am getting ready to storm away when Michael puts a heavy hand on my shoulder, stopping me. "Max, I need you to listen to me. I think I might have thought of something."

"What?" I snarl. He, being Michael, isn’t the least bit intimidated.

"Do you think it was real?" he asks, right to the point as always.

"Was what real?"

"What you did with Tess? Don’t you think its all a little too good to be true? I mean the girl proved herself to be the mindwarping queen. Maybe she just made you think that you had one for an hour." He smirks at me. " ‘Cause being the expert and all…"

"Would you shut up," I mutter. But he has started something whirling through my mind. A thin shred of hope. "You think that nothing happened at all?"

"I don’t mean that. I mean the chick was pregnant." Michael sounds actually sorry that he has to say it. "But maybe that whole hour long thing was just something to make sure that she truly kept you in line. I mean, you’re a guy. I’m a guy. I know how we think. I know how girls think we think. Hour-long culmination. To a girl, she’d probably think it was manna from heaven for us. I mean, not that it wouldn’t be, but what there is ain’t so bad either." He smirks again. "Hell, if she was mindwarping you, maybe you didn’t have sex with her at all. Maybe she just made you think you did."

Why is Michael doing this to me? Doesn’t he know that I would kill for this to be true? And, yet, I know it was real. What Liz saw when we connected only reinforces it.

"I think…maybe because Maria’s human?" I am playing devil’s advocate. "Rath and Lonnie told Tess and me in New York that there was nothing like alien sex. Maybe with humans, it’s just different?"

Michael looks at me completely seriously. "Maxwell, I’m telling you. When you love the girl, there is no way that there can be anything better, alien or otherwise."

Okay, when did Michael Guerin suddenly become Dr. Love again?

"But the baby…" I trail off. This can’t be true. How could she possibly have made me believe it so thoroughly? And Liz had seen it.

"Dude, it might not have been yours," Michael says logically. He starts to walk away. "I think I’ll let you go to the Hardings by yourself. But think about it."

Like it won’t be the only thing I’ll think about for the rest of the night.

It is too good to be true. There is no way that this whole dilemma could be resolved as simply as that. And if I was mindwarped, shouldn’t it have started to wear off by now? Was Tess really so strong that she could maintain an illusion of such a magnitude, even from the home planet?

It’s then that I remember Amy Deluca.

Because Tess’s gift was not just mind-warping.

Tess also had the power to change memories.

And maybe not just mine.

[Kath7]

AN - I'm glad people are either enjoying (er...of course this was once nominated as a fic that made people want to throw themselves into traffic, so I suppose "enjoy" might not be the word lol) this either for the first time, or on a second go round. I must admit, although I love all my stories, this is the one for which I hold the most affection, because I think I succeeded with what I set out to do the most exactly, which was a huge step forward for me.

Anyway, it's going to get much worse before it gets better. But it DOES get better. I swear.

Part 7 - Plenty - Liz POV

I looked into your eyes
They told me plenty
I already knew.
You never felt a thing
So soon forgotten all that you do
In more than words
I tried to tell you
The more I tried I failed.
I would not let myself believe that you might stray
And I would stand by you
No matter what they’d say.
I thought I’d be with you until my dying day
Until my dying day.

I used to think my life
Was often empty
A lonely space to fill.
You hurt me more than I ever could have imagined
You made my world stand still.
And in that stillness
There was a freedom
I never felt before.
I would not let myself believe that you might stray
And I would stand by you no matter what they’d say.
I would.
I thought I would be with you until my dying day…
Until my dying day.

Sarah McLachlan

You know, you would have thought that should have been harder, ripping my own heart out like that.

It was surprisingly easy though. Almost as easy as it was to storm out of the school at the prom when I caught Max with Tess. It felt freeing, liberating, strong.

It wasn’t like when I walked away from Max at the pod chamber at all. I had felt every single ounce of pain in every bone of my body that day. And this is certainly as final as that was, at least in my mind.

When I told Max that we could never be together again a few hours ago, it was the easiest thing I have ever done. Of course, I am ignoring the expression that was on Max’s face when I last saw him, the one that told me that every single one of his worst nightmares was coming true. It is currently, indelibly branded on my brain. It’s there, but I’m not seeing it, at least not right now.

Right now I am rolling my eyes at Sean Deluca as he makes a fool of himself.

The Crashdown was still open when I got back, and Sean was there, harassing Maria, who had returned to help my dad clean up.

His face lit up when he saw me, and it was then that I knew that he was waiting for me. I feel bad because I can’t be more excited. Sure, I’m not feeling any pain, but making a complete break from your soul mate does not inspire you to want to hang out with other guys who have the hots for you. At least not right away. I feel like I am entitled to a little wallowing time. I think maybe that’s why I couldn’t let go of Max last time. I didn’t grieve for what we had let slip away from us.

Maria takes one look at my face and says, "Get out of here, Sean. Now." She grabs him by the nape of the neck and pulls him off the stool, thrusting him towards the door. Of course he is ten times bigger than she is and would not be going anywhere if he didn’t want to be, but he is currently being amenable. Actually, he’s just ignoring her.

"Hey, Parker. I see you finally ditched the baggage," he teases, breaking away from Maria and approaching me.

"His name is Max, you dweeb," Maria flares, smacking him, harder than is really necessary. "And if anyone’s baggage around here, it’s you, dork."

"So, what are you doing tonight?" Sean asks, grabbing Maria by the arm and gently subjecting her to a head-lock, in that typical older male relative way. He is ignoring her screeches for my help.

And so this is the point when I roll my eyes. "Sean, let her go."

"Only if you’ll go out with me," Sean replies. "She’s my hostage."

"Blackmailing me didn’t work last time. Not in the long term anyway," I retort, as he lets Maria go because she bites him on the hand. She starts to smack him again.

"You’re just lucky Michael isn’t here," Maria says. Her face is all red and I can tell she is actually really mad. "Get lost and I may not tell him."

Sean snorts. "Like I’m scared of your weenie boyfriend." But he saunters towards the door. "Call me, Parker. I think we have some stuff to discuss."

"Argh!" Maria screeches in annoyance, throwing a glass at her cousin’s retreating form. "I really do not understand why you give that idiot the time of day, Lizzie. You know, sometimes I would give anything to let Michael blast him. He is driving me crazy!" The plastic glass has hit the door, fortunately missing the window by about a millimeter.

"Was that really necessary, Maria?" I ask, as I go to pick it up.

But she has already forgotten about Sean, the Deluca wind changing direction so quickly, as usual, my head spins. "Liz, what’s wrong?"

"Nothing’s wrong, Maria." I don’t even know why I am bothering to deny it. While I am currently numb, it would appear that the fact that Max and I are totally over is reflected on my face for the entire world to see - or at least for my best friend to see.


"Puh-lease. Where’s Max?"

"At home I think." I shrug.

"Liz," Maria says warningly. "Things looked like they were going so well this morning. What happened?"

I close my eyes briefly, and then decide to just tell her. She’s not going to leave me alone until I do anyway. "We kissed."

" What?" I can hear the joy in her voice. Why is it that this is the first thing that starts to penetrate the armour I have built around my heart since I shut down after those flashes? I feel a catch in my throat, swallow hard to control it. Maria grabs me by the arm, then turns me around so that I am facing her. "This is so great! So are you back together?"

"Not exactly," I manage to choke out. The light dies out of Maria’s eyes instantly.

"What happened?" she demands, more quietly, but urgently, like she knows that it is going to be terrible and she just wants to get it over with.

"Remember how I used to see stars when Max and I kissed?" I ask, knowing that my voice suddenly sounds bitter and hard. "Well, I saw a lot more than stars this time."

Maria’s hands come up to cover her mouth in horror. "Oh my God. You didn’t see…?"

"Max and Tess?" I ask, raising my eyebrows. "Yup. And it was lovely let me tell you."

"Oh, Lizzie. I am so sorry." Maria reaches out, pulls me into an embrace. "But, I mean, you didn’t see everything?"

"I really don’t want to remember what I did see," I tell her, pulling away. Already the horrible flashes are starting to circulate in my mind again.

"God, I don’t blame you." Maria plops down onto one of the stools, an absolutely shell-shocked look on her face. "And to think that I used to envy you those. Especially now that I know what it’s like." I glance at her, surprised. "Yeah. Michael showed me some stuff. But he had some control over it. Holy Mary…" She trails off. "Liz, I am so sorry."

"It’s over, Maria. If today taught me anything, it’s that I can’t be around Max without wanting to be with him. And it’s now clear. I can’t be. Ever again. He belongs to her now. Even though he doesn’t want to, he does."

Maria looks so sad, I suddenly want to comfort her. It is, of course, ridiculous, but I know that this is going to be hard on everyone. Max is miserable, I’ll be miserable as soon as this weird numbness wears off, and our poor friends are going to have to bear the brunt of it, not to mention be torn between us.

Because even though I presently never want to see him again, I know it’s not going to last. He is my soulmate, my love. I am never going to stop wanting to be with him, even if I live to be a hundred, get married twelve times and have twenty kids with other guys.

I lied to Max when I told him that he wasn’t the same person he used to be - that I had seen it in the flashes. The worst part of this whole thing is that I could tell he was. That was my Max who had been with Tess. That he could do what he had done with Tess, while hating me, even for a little while…

And suddenly I don’t want to think about it anymore. "Listen, Maria, something good did come from today." Maria stares at me with glazed eyes. "Its about Alex." She perks up. "We did find out something important before the great flash tragedy of 2001." I know that I sound flippant, but I have no choice. Because this is a tragedy, of Shakespearean proportions. I am beginning to wonder why I didn’t listen to my own little speech - the one I gave to poor Max way back when I was trying to get him to fall out of love with me, about Romeo and Juliet being a tragedy and not romantic at all.

"What?" Maria asks.

"He fought her. Alex wasn’t working with Tess at all, and he tried to get away from her before the mind-warp started to really destroy his mind." I pause. "And that’s not all. She was working with someone else. Leanna told me and Max that Tess came to find Alex and she was with a guy - someone named Lazar."

Maria is frowning. "I don’t know if this is better, Liz. I hate knowing that Alex knew what was happening to him. At least if he was mindwarped the whole time…"

I reach out and put my arm around her comfortingly. "I know. But he fought her Maria. That’s a lot more than the rest of us ever did. It just shows that he really was the bravest and strongest of all of us."

"Like we didn’t already know that." Maria smiles sadly. "God, Liz. I miss him so much. Is this ever going to stop hurting?"

"I hope not," I reply. "Because that would mean we forgot him. I’ll never forget him. Ever." I squeeze her shoulder, then stand up. "Anyway, I’m going there - to Tess’s." I clarify when Maria looks at me questioningly.

"Why?" Maria asks. "She’s gone, Liz. What good can it do?"

"I can find out who was working with her and at least he can be brought to justice for what they did to Alex."

Maria nods. "I’m coming with you. But do you really think Tess left that information lying around?" she asks as we turn off the lights and lock up the restaurant.

"I don’t think Tess was nearly as smart as we’ve all given her credit for," I reply. "Her cards were always visible. We just stopped looking for them."

We are in the Jetta before Maria tries again, gently. "Liz, do you think maybe you’re just reading too much into this…you know…to forget what happened with you and Max?"

"Maybe," I answer honestly. "But this Lazar guy exists, Maria. And I’m going to find him."

Maria still looks worried, but she doesn’t argue anymore.

***

It only takes about ten minutes to drive to the housing development where Tess’s old house is. I feel a shiver descend my spine as we pull up, remembering how creepy both Tess and Nasedo were that night I had gone to plant the camera in the house.

I had done it because I had seen Max and Tess kissing, but I had known in my heart that Max was telling me the truth - that she was doing something to him. And so I tried to prove it, because my faith in him was so strong.

I briefly wish that everything I had seen in those flashes from Max was a hoax, a mind-warp, just like the last time. But it was impossible. Tess was gone, on another planet. She was strong, but not that strong. That was all Max in those flashes.

Maria is out of the car and on the lawn, skulking near the front picture window before I can even formulate a plan. Now that she is in, she’s really in, in typical Maria fashion.

"Maria! Wait!" I hiss, hurrying after her.

"Liz, I think there’s someone in there!" Maria whispers back. "The shadows are moving."

I feel my heart beginning to beat a mile a minute. Can we have found the mysterious Lazar so easily? Has he really been under our noses the whole time?

But if it is him, we can’t face him alone. He’s dangerous. I’m going to have to call Max.

So much for keeping my distance. And, yet, my heart is strangely excited at the prospect.

See, I told you I’m hopeless.

But, for the moment, we need confirmation.

I press my nose up against the bottom of the window, beside my best friend’s. "Who is it? Is it a guy?"

"Definitely male," Maria affirms.

"And you two are definitely females. Nosy ones at that." The voice comes from behind us, causing me to whirl, my heart lodged in my throat, and Maria to shriek.

It’s Michael of course. Maria is already slapping him for scaring the living daylights out of us.

I hear someone bump into something inside the house, then swear quietly. Suddenly a light comes on, but not an electric one. It is all alien and a familiar face is illuminated, bathed in the glow shining up from his palm.

Max.

So maybe I haven’t devastated him as much as I thought. He’s out playing detective too. But I know that it’s not true. His face is a mask as he stares down on all of us.

"Michael, I thought you weren’t coming." He doesn’t even acknowledge my or Maria’s presence, at least verbally. His eyes are on my face, unreadable in the semi-dark, shadowed by the faint bluish light.

"Changed my mind," Michael replies. "And apparently Frick and Frack here had the same idea as we did." He glares at Maria. "Didn’t I tell you that it was dangerous to go around alone after dark?"

"I’m not alone," Maria retorts, linking her arm with mine. "I’m with Liz. Besides, Tess is gone. Where’s the danger?"

"Hello? Khivar? Random Skins? Nicholas?" Michael begins counting off on this fingers.

Maria rolls her eyes. "Its not us they want, you moron."

"Right. You’re disposable." Michael replies. "Do you think any of them would think twice about hurting you two? To get to us." He looks at Max. "Am I not right here, Maxwell?"

I scowl at both of them because I don’t want to hear Max’s answer to that question. "We have just as much right to be here as you do," I snap. "Alex was ourbest friend."

Michael eyes me with annoyance. "Do I have to remind you, Parker, about that device that almost blew up in your face a few days ago?"

" What?" This is Max, of course. Ooops. I forgot he didn’t know about that. I can see from Michael’s face that he forgot too. But like Max has any right to get mad. He was the one off sleeping with his once and future bride when I was in that danger. He could have been with me. I had asked him to help me.

"Never mind," Michael mutters. "Anyway, my point is made."

"Well, we’re not alone now, are we?" Maria asks, batting her eyelashes at Michael. She has moved away from me and is snaking her arms around his waist. "C’mon, Spaceboy. Let us stay."

My eyes momentarily meet Max’s in embarrassment at witnessing the way Michael melts, right in front of us. Suddenly I know what it must have been like to be around Max and me at the height of our relationship. I can’t help but smile to myself at the thought of it.

And dammit, he sees me do it and, being Max, he knows what I am thinking. His own face softens and his eyes are staring at me in that way again. I force myself to look away.

I hear the sigh in Max’s voice as he says, "You can all stay of course. Just stop making so much noise and get in here." He reaches out his hand and eyes me through the window. I can tell he is daring me to take it.

Jerk.

I thrust my own hand into his, trying to ignore the warmth that snakes through me as he closes his around mine.

I don’t allow myself to hold onto him a minute longer than necessary. The minute I am inside, I let go, then move away from him. I can feel his eyes following me, until he turns to help Maria through.

It is then that everything begins to move in slow motion.

"So what are we looking for?" Maria asks as the four of us begin to move across the darkened living room. I close my eyes briefly, and shake my head, trying to clear it. Everything is really fuzzy all of a sudden.

I avoid the piano, which still has that statue sitting on top of it - the one I broke and we all saw Tess fix, the one that told us that there was much more to Tess Harding than met the eye.

"Anything weird," Max replies. "Anything that might tell us more about the deal Nasedo made with the Skins or about this Lazar guy." I swallow hard. His voice is fading in and out, like when your ears get plugged as a plane takes off.

I am moving away from the rest of them, towards the stairs. I’m not sure why, but I feel like I’m being drawn towards the second floor. The minute Max let go of me, it started, this need to be up there.

I see Maria beginning to rummage through the kitchen cupboards as I climb the stairs. Michael and Max are arguing about something in the dining room, but I ignore them.

I feel my heart stop in my chest as a faint glow appears suddenly under one of the doors at the end of the upstairs hallway. It is gone as quickly as it came, but I know I saw it. The thunder must have been my imagination though because it is perfectly clear when I look out the window at the end of the hallway.

And yet…

I can feel a presence. I know that there is someone in there.

I pause, wondering if I should call for one of the others, for all of the others…for Max.

But I know that whatever is in there is meant for me alone.

Of course, even though I am in this weird sort of trance, I know that this is not a good thing - that I am in Tess Harding’s house and likely anything behind that door is not going to be particularly healthy for Liz Parker. But I have no control over myself as I reach up and turn the doorknob.

And, suddenly, I am face to face with my greatest enemy.

[Kath7]

Part 8 - Strange World - Max POV

We walk without a sound
Across a barren landscape.
Your eyes are twisted down
To a dew entrailed ground.
We watch the stars as they slowly fade away
And in the clearing sky
I see the cold stone face of morning setting in on me.
It’s a strange world.
It’s a very strange world
That leaves me holding on to nothing
When there’s nothing left to lose.

Your touch is cold and damp,
The devil’s in your eyes.
I wonder why I always let you lead me on this way.
Cause you see only what you want to see.
You feel only what you want to
And I am on the outside of your strange world.
It’s a strange world.
It’s a very strange world
That leaves me holding on to nothing
When there’s nothing left to lose.

We’re walking hand in hand,
We’ll walk this way forever
Our eyes have risen to the water’s edge
Watching with the tides.
The stars have fallen to another day
And the sun warms out path
To find the reasons leave us far behind in our strange world.
It’s a strange world.
It’s a very strange world that leaves me holding onto nothing
When there’s nothing left to lose.

Sarah McLachlan

I feel Liz’s panic before I actually hear her scream.

I am sorting my way through a filing cabinet in the den off the back of the kitchen, mildly annoyed and getting impatient with the complete lack of anything that even resembles a clue, when the wave of fear and horror washes over me.

"Liz!"

I almost knock Michael over, pushing past him. He is on his way to the staircase too, because Liz’s scream has echoed through the entire house. "Keep Maria down here," I order him. For once, he listens to me, but I can already hear Maria arguing with him to let her past.

I take the stairs two at a time. "Liz! Liz? Where are you?"

There is no answer. Only dead silence.

I am frantically searching every room on the second floor. There is no sign of Liz anywhere. It is like she has disappeared off the face of the planet.

"Maxwell! What’s going on up there?" Michael bellows from the first floor.

"Michael! She’s gone! Liz is gone!" I can hear the panic in my own voice.

"Michael, let go of me!" Maria is shrieking at him and I can hear her moving up the stairs now. "Max! Max, where is she?"

I am standing in one of the bedrooms, staring around, stupidly hoping that Liz is going to suddenly materialize in front of my eyes, but it is no good.

She is completely gone.

I collapse onto the bed, then stare at Maria as she bursts into the room, Michael on her heels. "Max?’

"She’s gone."

"Gone? Where?" Maria is at the window, staring out. It is closed of course. She didn’t go out that way. "Where is she, Max? She couldn’t have just disappeared!" Her voice is beginning to rise hysterically. Michael grabs her, pulling her against him, in a totally ludicrous effort to comfort her.

"We need to find her," he says, stating the obvious.

"Starting where?" I ask dumbly, willing him to take control, to find her.

The three of us just stare at each other in silence.

Because there is nowhere to start.

She is gone and there is no way to explain it.

And it is in that instant that I see Michael’s fingers beginning to tap against Maria’s back. I stare at those tapping fingers, my heart suddenly in my throat.

I let my face fall into my hands. "Oh my God. No."

"Maxwell! What’s wrong?"

"Tess." I manage to say it. My hands are clenched at my sides, although my entire body is screaming for me to smash something - anything. My rage is that great. "Tess has Liz."

***

Lost - Liz POV

By the shadows of the night I go.
I move away from the crowded room,
That sea of shallow faces
Masked in warm regret.
They don’t know how to feel,
They don’t know what is lost.

Lost in the darkness of a land
Where all the hope that’s offered
Is memories of being taken by the hand
And we are led into the sun.
But I don’t have a hold on what is real
Though we can only try.
What is there to give or to believe?

I want it all to go away,
I want to be alone.
Sympathy’s wasted on my hollow shell.
I feel there’s nothing left to fight for
No reason for a cause.
And I can’t hear your voice,
And I can’t feel you near.

Lost in the darkness of a land
Where all the hope that’s offered
Is memories of being taken by the hand
And we are led into the sun
But I don’t have a hold on what is real
And we can only try.
What is there to give or to believe?

I wanted a change,
Knowing all I could do was try
I was looking for someone.

Sarah McLachlan

I see Max come storming into the room, see Michael and Maria in a blur as we pass them on the staircase, see it all but cannot make them see me. And believe me, I’m trying. My heart is thundering in complete terror. I have never been this scared in my entire life - not even when Max was in the White Room, not when we faced down the Skins, not when I realized that there was a murderous alien on the loose after Alex was killed.

Because I now know who that murderous alien was, and here she is, back again, and she is mindwarping them all, and she is kidnapping me from right under their noses.

And she hates me. She didn’t hate Alex and she killed him mercilessly anyway.

You also have to understand that I am not only afraid for myself. I am afraid that she might drop the mindwarp, that Max, and Maria, and Michael might become her targets too.

This is one reason for why I am not fighting her. Because I bet you’re thinking that I could take her. This is Tess after all. We are pretty much the same size, and with the force of my hatred and outrage I could probably fight her pretty easily.

But, you have to understand, that while this is Tess, it’s not too.

Just like Future Max was Max, but wasn’t Max at the same time.

Because it has not taken me long to figure out that this is not the same Tess Max sent off in the granolith only three days ago.

This is another Tess. A stronger Tess - and I don’t just mean physically.

Because, somehow, she is mindwarping me into doing what she wants me to do. I wasn’t imagining things when I felt myself being pulled towards that room. She wanted me there and now she’s making me leave.

I can’t even turn my head to look at her. I am just walking quietly beside her, although every ounce of my being is screaming in fear, and anger, and frustration.

But I don’t need to look at her to know that this is not the same Tess. This is another Tess. An older Tess. Her hair is long, half-way down her back, but it is streaked with grey beneath the bright blonde that still gleams under the street lamps. Her face is lined, no longer young. It is twisted with bitterness and from years of shattered dreams.

And from hate. Let’s not forget hate.

She’s wearing leather, in a style not dissimilar to what Future Max was wearing when he came for his destructive visit a few months ago. I inanely wonder why leather has become the fashion of choice in the future.

Because this is Future Tess, and she is one pissed off alien queen, and so reflections on leather seem a little inappropriate at this time.

"Get in," she snarls, pushing me hard from behind, so that I sprawl on the back seat of the Jetta. She climbs into the front, then sweeps her hand across the ignition and the engine roars to life.

I am still frozen. I desperately want to scream. I want to struggle, but I am incapable of moving.

I see her cold blue eyes in the rear-view mirror. "Stop fighting it. You’re only going to tire yourself out. I need you strong and healthy for what I have planned for you." Her eyes are gleaming with disdain and annoyance.

The tone of her voice sends a sharp stab of petrifying fear down my spine. We are headed out of town.

She is muttering to herself. "…knew I should have taken care of this myself from the beginning….don’t understand why every guy in the universe falls in love with her but I’ll put a stop to this nonsense once and for all…running out of time."

She is distracting herself with her own rage. I feel the mind-warp, or mind control, or whatever it is she is doing to me begin to slip.

I manage to croak her name. "Tess!"

Her eyes snap back to the mirror. "Shut up! I don’t want to hear your simpering voice! If I could do this without you, I would!" She turns the wheel sharply, sending the car careening off the highway and into the desert. It is dark, but I recognize the route well, having only driven it a couple of days before.

The pod chamber.

She stops the car so abruptly, I go tumbling of the seat and onto the floor. She has hauled me out of the car by my hair before I can even begin to process what has happened.

My entire being is screaming out for Max, hoping against hope, that by some tiny miracle, he will hear me. He heard me once after all - that time in New York. But that time Isabel was helping me. I have no idea if I am capable of connecting with him on my own.

Future Tess is staring down at me, her face contorted with hatred. "God, you’re just as insipid as I remember." She grabs at my hair again. "I can't believe he's mourned you all these years."

I can’t speak again. I am pleading with her with my eyes to release me, to at least let me talk. She notices. "What? You have something to say, Miss Smarty?" She sneers, but waves her hand in the air. I feel my vocal cords come back under my own control.

"What…why are you here?"

She pauses, her entire face changing. Suddenly she does not look at all threatening, just annoyed. "You don’t seem surprised to see me, Lizzie dearest. I never knew for sure, but now I do. You’ve had visitors from the future before. Max won't talk about it."

I am a little confused by what she is saying, but I can see no reason to lie to her. "Yes. Max came. He told me to try and get the two of you together."

Tess rolls her eyes. "Well I’m guessing from the way my life turned out that it was a big success. Let me guess - was this right around the time you all went to Copper Summit?" When I nod, she snorts. "Somehow you haven't fixed that whole mess yet! God, you screwed us really well, Parker."

I feel a stab of anger, which momentarily overshadows my terror. "You’re the one who ended up pregnant with his child and back on Antar, where you wanted to be all along," I retort. "Thanks to me."

Tess eyes me for a long moment, a bewildered expression gradually taking over her face. "So you really don’t know - yet anyway."

"Know what?"

She no longer looks at all angry. In fact, she looks suddenly hopeful. "He didn’t tell you."

"Who tell me what?" I am beginning to think that she is completely loony. She is jumping from one topic to another, none of it making any logical sense.

"Max, of course. About Serena."

I start at the familiar name. "He mentioned her. He told me that she was my friend. She’s the one who fixed the granolith, so he could come back in time through it."

Tess narrows her eyes. I can see the wheels spinning inside her head as she tries to put the pieces of some puzzle I can’t even see together. "When did he come back from?"

I don’t know what else to do besides answer her. "Fourteen years in the future."

"Fourteen years. She was only thirteen years old then. That was the year Khivar killed Isabel and Michael…." She trails off. "Oh my God. He started the whole thing in motion. It wasn’t supposed to be this way."

I am openly gaping at her now. "Tess, what the hell are you talking about?"

Tess tilts her head, smiles again. She flicks her wrist and I feel the control she has been exerting over my body disappear completely. It is so sudden, I stumble, falling to the ground, hard.

"I’m talking about your daughter, Liz. Your daughter - Serena. The one who has not been conceived yet, but is supposed to be, right around this time. Fool. He tried to save Isabel and Michael and only made everything worse." She sounds sad, and proud, and disgusted all at the same time. I don’t understand how I notice this, because I am sure that I am gaping at her like some sort of fish out of water. She pauses and proceeds to shock me even further. "Oh, and just so that you stop calling me by that traitor’s name….I’m not Tess. I’m Ava, and we have a lot of work to do."

[Kath7]

Part 9 - Circle - Max POV

There are two of talking in circles
And one of us who wants to leave
In a world created for only us
An empty cage that has no key.
Don’t you know that we’re working with flesh and blood
Carving out of jealousy,
Crawling into each other
It’s smothering every little part of me.

What kind of love is this that keeps me hanging on
Despite everything its doing to me?
What is this love that keeps me coming back for more
When it will only end in misery?

I know too many people unhappy
In a life from which they’d love to flee.
Watching others get everything offered
They’re wanton for discovery.
Oh my brother, my sister, my mother
You’re losing your identity.
Can’t you see that it’s you in the window
Shining with intensity?

What kind of love is this that keeps me hanging on
Despite everything its doing to me?
What is this love that keeps me coming back for more
When it will only end in misery?

Sarah McLachlan

We go to pick up Isabel and call the Sheriff, once I finally manage to pull myself together. I am still in a state of complete disbelief that Tess could have gotten the best of us again so completely. She is supposed to be gone! We saw her blast off ourselves.

As usual, none of this makes any sense. Why is she back? And what does this mean for my son? Has he been born already?

Or is Michael right after all. Did he ever even exist?

The sheriff and Kyle are both out driving the streets of Roswell, just as we are, searching for any sign of my lunatic former wife, or Liz. Maria is with the sheriff, and Michael with Kyle. It seems wisest that no one confront Tess alone, if they should stumble across her. She is strong - even stronger than I realized when I finally found out the truth about her betrayal. That she could have so easily mindwarped Michael, Maria and me, and take Liz without even any semblance of a struggle - it is damn frightening.

It is scaring the hell out of me actually. Liz is in great danger, and we have absolutely no idea where to even start to look for her.

Izzy is in the back-seat of my parents’ car, while I am at the wheel. She has a picture of Liz on her lap, and is trying to dreamwalk her as I drive around town in circles. She is having absolutely no luck.

"Where would she take her? Why would she take her? Why is she even here? Hasn’t she done enough?" These were Maria’s words once she and Michael got over the first shock of my accusation that it was Tess who was responsible. The words are now winding their way through my brain as I listen to the soft sound of my sister’s breathing from the back-seat. She is in a deep trance now. I know that she will not give up, but it seems hopeless.

I have no answers. Only a deep, bone-chilling awareness that we are at a turning point - again. That if I take the wrong path this time, there will be no going back, there will be no last minute reprieve like there was when we found out the truth about Tess.

This knowledge stems from one fact.

I can’t feel Liz at all anymore. There is like a deep void in my consciousness where she has always existed, even when we are apart. Ever since I saved her in the Crashdown that day, I have always felt her. I know when she is safe and when she isn’t. I know when she is hurting and when she is happy. It has become such a part of my own make-up, that it wasn’t until it was gone that I even realized it was there - her presence - like a flame, drawing me to her, burning brightly, keeping us connected.

Even over the past few weeks, when things were so bad between us, she burned within me.

Now she is just gone. Completely. Like a candle snuffed out.

And so it is an even greater shock when she is suddenly there again, like a match being lit. No, that’s too small. More like a small nuclear explosion ripping through my mind.

" Max! Help me! Max!" Liz’s voice is panicked, desperate, terrified. And then it is gone, like it was never there at all.

I jerk the wheel to the left, sending the car careening for the sidewalk on the main drag of Roswell. I half hear Isabel shriek as she is physically thrown onto the floor in the back-seat. I slam on the brakes, breathing heavily as the car rolls to an abrupt halt.

"Max! What the hell are you doing?" Isabel screams, opening the back door and tumbling out onto the pavement.

I ignore her. I just continue to sit behind the wheel, staring out the windshield, calling for her with every fibre of my being.

LIZ!!!! Liz, where are you? Help me to find you! LIZ!?

There is nothing but the void.

Isabel is shaking me now. "Max! What is it? What’s wrong?"

"Liz…she’s calling for me." I bring my face down into my hands. The emptiness - I can’t bear it. I know right now that she’s still alive, but without the connection, will I even know if Tess hurts her, if Tess snuffs out the flame permanently?

"Like when you were in New York?" Isabel asks, sounding excited.

"Sort of," I reply, looking up at her, still feeling totally bereft. "That time I saw her, this time I heard her."

Isabel is frowning slightly. "And you can’t answer her?"

"She’s gone again."

"Try again. This time with me helping you," Isabel says, her eyes bright with hope. "She needed me last time. Her fear might have given her the strength to reach you once, but that was it. She needs help."

A tiny flicker of hope. It is enough.

I take my sister’s hand. She is kneeling on the pavement outside the driver’s side door, the picture of Liz smoothed out in front of her. She has one hand on Liz’s face, one in mine. As Isabel closes her eyes, she instructs me. "Call to her. Don’t let any doubt come into it, Max. You need to believe that you can do this."

I close my eyes, reaching out with all my senses. I connect almost instantly with my sister, who is linked physically to me through our hands. I can feel her waiting to join her strength to mine, waiting to use her gift to help me enter Liz’s mind.

It seems to take forever. I can feel my will fading, can feel my belief that this will work wilting, when suddenly it feels like I am falling…

And I am in.

She is sitting right in front of me, staring at something - or someone - unseen beyond me. Her eyes are looking right through me for a split second, before I see them dilate and focus on my face.

The first thing I notice is that, while Liz is still afraid, she is no longer petrified with fear. I can feel her natural curiosity overtaking the fright that is within her. I can also feel her shock. She is deeply troubled and confused by something.

"Max," she says, not at all surprised to see me. "You found me. Come and get me, my love. It is not too late for us."

"Liz, where are you?" All I can see around her is sky - dark and starry and cold. The V constellation is behind her, pointing down, as though to lead me to her.

"I am in the usual place," she replies. "Where the pieces are dropped and picked up again. The place of answers - wrong and right. The place where paths are chosen and discarded."

And with that cryptic statement, she is gone.

I open my eyes. Isabel is staring at me, back from the dream plain. "Where is she, Max?" My sister knows that the connection was made, but didn’t see any of it would seem.

I frown slightly. Why was Liz speaking in riddles? But her meaning was clear. The minute she spoke, I recognized the rock formation that was appearing out of the dark behind her.

"She’s at the pod chamber," I reply. "Why though? There’s nothing there anymore. The granolith destroyed the entire thing when it took off. Why would Tess take her there?"

Isabel looks as confused as I feel. "I have no idea. Do you think it’s a trap, Max?"

"It could be," I reply pensively. "But I don’t think so. We’ll call the others. They can meet us there."

I watch Isabel hurry around the car to get in beside me. I am about to shut my door and put the car back into gear when the headlights pick up a pair of legs further down the sidewalk. They are walking towards us, and the figure melts into the recognizable form of Sean Deluca.

Great. Just what I need. Liz’s knight in tarnished armour.

He saunters over to my side of the car, sneering down at me. "Evans. I hope you’re not here to harass Parker again. Because if you are…" He trails off, his tone threatening.

It brings my back up. I admit it. Mainly because I know that he has gotten to Liz, has interested her, has connected with her on a level unlike any other guy since…well, since me.

"Do you see Liz?" I snap back, annoyed despite all attempts not to be. This guy doesn’t know the first thing about my relationship with Liz, but every time I encounter him, I feel like he is weighing me, judging me, waiting for me to do…I don’t know what he’s waiting for actually. Probably for me to screw up, which even I admit I am very good at.

And, yet, it is beginning to drive me crazy. Because while I definitely am not good enough for Liz, this guy isn’t either.

The fact that he is the complete opposite of me, personality-wise, should make me feel better - like Liz couldn’t even try and replace me. But, actually, it makes it worse - more like she has been trying to get as far away as possible from anything that reminds her of me, including other guys.

"I know that you did something to her again," Sean replies. "And I’m telling you, stay away from her. For your own good." I watch in amazement as he puts his hand down on my fore-arm, which is resting on the open window frame of the car door.

A strange energy seems to be building between us. It is intoxicating, yet frightening. And not only that - it also reminds me of something that I have experienced before.

"Max, let’s just go," Isabel says impatiently. She seems unaware that anything is wrong. But I am totally aware that everything is wrong. It’s like I am suddenly tuned into everything around me, and yet like I am being ripped away at the same time.

It is the last thought of which I am aware before I pass out.

[Kath7]

Author's Note: Since I'm going to be out late tonight, I thought I'd update this this morning.

Um, yeah. So the timeline splitting starts in this part. Let the confusion begin! Ask any questions if you're losing track. I think it's pretty clear, but I had to do timelines last time I posted this. lol Clearly clear dans ma tete, maybe not so much on the page.

Part 10 - The Path of Thorns (Terms) - Liz POV

I knew you wanted to tell me.
In your voice there was something wrong.
But if you would turn your face away from me
You cannot tell me you’re so strong.
Just let me ask of you one small thing
As we have shared so many tears.
With fervor our dreams we planned a whole lifelong
Now are scattered on the wind.

In the terms of endearment.
In the terms of the life that you love.
In the terms of the years that you pass you by.
In the terms of the reasons why.

Through the years I’ve grown to love you,
Though your commitment to most would offend.
But I stuck by you holding on with my foolish pride,
Waiting for you to give in.
You never really tried or it seems now
I’ve had much more myself to blame.
I’ve had enough of trying everything
And this time it is the end.

In the terms of endearment.
In the terms of the life you love.
In the terms of the years that pass you by.
In the terms of the reasons why.

There’s no more coming back this way
The path is overgrown and strewn with thorns.
They’ve torn the lifeblood from your naked eyes
Cast aside to be forlorn.

In the terms of endearment.
In the terms of the life that you love.
In the terms of the years that pass you by.
In the terms of the reasons why.

Funny how it seems
That all I’ve tried to do,
Seemed to make no difference to you
At all.

Sarah McLachlan

I am still staring at the woman before me in complete shock, but I am no longer scared.

It’s because I believe her. I am even beginning to see the small differences that existed between Ava and Tess in her face as I continue to stare at her.

The pierced lip is gone, as is the funky hairdo, but she still has about twelve earrings in her ear. And it’s not just physically that I begin to recognize her. There is something in those blue eyes - something innocent, even despite the fact that she is almost a middle-aged woman - that reassures me that she is telling me the truth.

This is Ava, the girl who, for a very short time, was my friend. This is not Tess, my greatest enemy, the murderer of my best friend.

What this means is only beginning to dawn on me. She has just told me that the infamous Serena, the one who I have half been looking for every time I meet someone new, is my daughter.

I had half begun to assume and accept that, because I had changed the timeline so drastically by getting Max and Tess together, I was never destined to meet Serena in this life. I realize now that I was disappointed by this fact. Just the sound of her name on Future Max’s lips in that brief comment had intrigued me.

And now I know why. She is my child. My child with Max. Which means that something has to seriously change in the next few days if she is ever going to be born, because as things stand between Max and me now, there is little to no chance that she ever will be.

"Ava." I say it tentatively, try it out. "You’re really Ava."

She is eyeing me closely too. We are still standing on the desert floor, below the cliff where the granolith had been sheltered. "It’s me." She pauses, suddenly smiles shyly. "I guess I don’t blame you for mistaking me for her. I’ve changed a lot."

"A lot," I repeat. And she has. It’s not just in the way she looks. It’s in the way she carries herself. Ava had a basic street sense to her when I knew her, but underneath she had been a scared young girl, uneducated and completely dependent on her fellow dupes. She was devastated by Zan’s murder, and had only managed to finally take a stand against Lonnie and Rath when they no longer needed her, when they had Tess and Max in their power.

This Ava’s bearing screams confidence in who she is. She also gives off a keen sense of desperation, one that I am determined I am going to get to the bottom of. This time, I am going to be the one in control. I let Future Max run the show when he showed up last fall. That ended in complete disaster. I am not going to let anyone from the future tell me what to do this time.

"Why are you here?" I ask quietly.

"Something has gone horribly wrong," Ava tells me, just as quietly. It’s like we’re both suddenly aware of the complete wrongness of this whole situation. She is not supposed to be here - just like Future Max was not supposed to have come. Just by her being here, we are fooling around with forces completely beyond our comprehension. We are changing the entire future - again. "She’s dying."

I feel my stomach clench, because I know exactly who she means. "Serena?"

Ava swallows, then nods. "Our future is dying. Liz, we can’t win without her. Something has clearly gone wrong between you and Max that wasn’t supposed to. She hasn’t been conceived. She is fading from our timeline. The only thing that is holding her there at all is the granolith."

I feel my knees getting weak. The meaning of all this is beginning to weigh down upon me. I am supposed to have a child with Max - which means that Max and I…somehow we were supposed to be at the point where we will be close enough to create a new life.

Ha. It is not the least bit funny, and yet I find it strangely the most ludicrously hysterical idea I have ever heard.

"How? How did this happen?" Ava is asking me gently. "You need to tell me. What is going on with you two?"

"Alex is dead," I blurt, not wanting to tell her the real reason, that Max and Tess were the ones with a child on the way in this timeline.

"Yes." She looks sad. "He died in our timeline too. It was why Max took Tess away. It’s why they found me, to complete the Four Square."

My throat is closing up with grief again. I try to speak, try to tell her, but I cannot get the words out. "Tess…is gone here too. She and Max…"

It is then that I collapse completely. My knees do give out on me, and I am sprawling on the desert floor, my arms wrapped around my middle, trying to hold in the pain, trying to ignore that all my dreams, all my love for Max has been wasted. He is not mine, never can be again. He belongs to her.

I have not cried once since I found out the truth of the matter between Max and Tess. I remember feeling complete shock when he told me, but that part of me that had to accept that she was having my child, had not really processed it. Maybe I knew deep down that it was all wrong, all mixed up, that I was the one supposed to have the baby.

My daughter will never be born because of her.

I realize that Ava is kneeling beside me. She pulls me into her arms, stroking my hair. "Liz, I am so sorry. I didn’t know that you don’t know yet."

She is gradually soothing me. I can feel my heartbeat slowing down as I allow myself to be comforted. Her words are not really penetrating my brain, but I am seemingly entering a state of semi-detachment.

Nothing matters anymore. It is all messed up and there is no way to fix it.

It is in that instant that I see Max. I can see him right in front of me, his dark eyes loving, but sad. "I’m coming for you, Liz. I swear I’ll be back with you soon." And the he fades away right in front of my eyes.

I pull back from Ava, staring at the spot where Max just stood. It was like a vision of the future, or maybe even an echo from the past, like when Max saw a vision of he and I getting married in Las Vegas. I remember the day in the Crashdown when Max told me the exact same thing.

I’m coming for you Liz.

I believed him then and I believe him now.

Maybe we can fix this after all.

Ava is here and she has information about what is supposed to be. Clearly, somewhere, the future has gone off the rails. We just needed to figure out where and why.

I grasp her hand. I feel the calluses from all the years of war she has endured. "Tell me. Tell me what I need to know."

She pushes a strand of hair away from my face, an entirely motherly gesture. "Are you sure you want to know?"

"I need to know," I reply firmly. "She can’t win."

Ava smiles. "That’s why I’m here. So she won’t."

She tells me what I need to do.

***

Another Time, Another Life - January 2001

Liz Parker set the order down in front of the couple. "Okay, um, we have Saturn Rings and a Galaxy Sub, hold the Max."

She gasped with embarrassment when she realized what she had just said. Liz’s best friend Maria, standing nearby, stared at Liz, then smirked in amusement. She tilted her head, indicating that she wanted to talk to Liz.

Liz sighed heavily. "Okay, I’ll be right back with the Cokes." She felt Maria grab her by the arm, hauling her over to the counter.

"Okay, what just happened?" Maria demanded, still sounding like she was about to burst into giggles.

Liz could feel her heart still beating at about a mile a minute. "I need help! I’m sick!" Maria just raised her eyebrows. "Okay, I am obsessed!"

Maria looked knowing. "Okay, is this a general freak out or should I be concerned?" She didn’t sound the least bit concerned however, just pleased.

"No, I have Max on my brain twenty-four hours a day. I dream about him, I think about him, and now I’m saying his frigging name without even realizing it! What am I going to do?" Liz knew that she sounded totally panicked, but it was how she felt. Like she was gradually losing all control of her life, of her sanity.

She knew that she couldn’t be with Max - had known it ever since she had heard that message from his mother in the pod chamber last May. This fact had only been confirmed by Future Max’s visit in October, when he told her that she had to get Max to fall out of love with her or the world would end. He was destined to be with Tess, his once and future bride, because if she left Roswell, the entire world would end.

And, so, she had done everything in her power to turn him away from her. She pretended to sleep with Kyle, she let Max go on believing that she had. She hurt him so much that he had almost completely shut her out of his life, even going so far as to tell her that he no longer trusted her.

It had hurt like hell, all of it, but she did it.

But everything had completely reversed itself again since Isabel helped her to connect with Max when he was in New York. She had saved his life then and, since it had happened, they had started to become friends again. She had helped him deal with all that stuff at Christmas, which had resulted in him telling her on Christmas Eve that he believed in her.

He believed in her, whatever the heck that meant. That simple statement had started her dreams again, and had made her wonder if maybe they could have a second chance.

Tess didn’t seem to be going anywhere, after all. In fact, Liz had seen her in the Crashdown just that morning with Kyle, looking entirely unlike someone who cared one way or the other if she and Max ever got together. True, Kyle was flipping out about something, but they were so comfortable around each other, some spark existing without question…something was going on there. Something beyond friends.

So, if Tess wasn’t going anywhere…Didn’t that mean that maybe she could finally tell Max the truth?

Liz realized that Maria was still talking to her. "You’re in love - that’s all!"

Liz sighed again. "I know. But it’s not getting me anywhere." And it wasn’t. Max could believe in her all he wanted, but he still thought she had slept with Kyle. He still thought that she had betrayed him in the worst way possible.

"Okay, relax. Relax, Liz," Maria replied. "Its not that bad! I promise."

Liz snorted. "Not that bad? Really. Why don’t you look at this?" Liz pulled the two pictures she kept in her apron pocket out and thrust them towards her best friend. They were both of Max, of course. "See! Obsession, obsession, obsession, obsession!"

Maria laughed. "Okay, okay! You’re a Maxaholic! I’m here for you. What can I do?"

Liz just rolled her eyes. She knew that all this pining was never going to get her anywhere. She had to move on. "Get me a life," she muttered.

The bell over the door behind them rang, alerting the two girls to the fact that someone had just entered the restaurant. Liz didn’t turn immediately, because Maria grabbed her by the arm when the bell rang.

"Ow! Maria, what are you doing?" Liz exclaimed.

"Liz, I know you believe in fate. I know it. Well, fate has just walked through that door." Liz blinked. She started to turn around. " No!" Maria grabbed her again, this time by the shoulders. Liz felt the pictures she still held in her hands fall to the floor. "Do not turn around unless you are actually going to do what you should have done a long time ago."

Liz just stared at her. "Maria, what on Earth are you talking about?"

"It’s Max. He is standing in the doorway right now, and I can tell that he wants to come over here. You are going to tell him the truth. Tess is not going anywhere. You saw her and Kyle this morning. Tell him, Liz. Put the poor guy out of his misery. Put yourself out of your misery. You belong together." Liz gasped in horror when Maria suddenly yelled over her shoulder. "Max! Come here, we need to talk to you!"

"Maria!"

"Liz, just do it!"

Liz could already feel the hairs on the back of her neck beginning to stand on end, completely aware of Max’s presence as he came up behind her. The sound of his voice actually made her go weak in the knees. "Hi, guys. What’s going on?"

Liz whirled. She realized that Maria was already walking away from them, muttering something about customers. She’s deserting me! Liz thought frantically. How can she start this and then just desert me?

Liz’s eyes met Max’s. He was smiling at her in that way that always made her heart want to burst out of her chest. It was half-shy, half-loving. It was the smile she had not seen since before he had seen her with Kyle.

It was a smile that told her that he had forgiven her, even though he still thought she had betrayed him.

Telling him now wouldn’t hurt anything. But she had been keeping this a secret for so long. How could she be sure that it still couldn’t totally screw everything up?

It was in that instant that she saw Max’s eyes lower. He frowned slightly, then bent down and picked up one of the pictures that had fallen to the floor. He stared at it for a full minute before he raised his eyes to look at her again. "Liz?"

Liz felt the blood rushing to her face. "Oh." She grabbed the picture out of his hand, stuffing it back into her apron. "Maria and I…we’re making something for your birthday," she improvised lamely. She tried to ignore the hope that was appearing blatantly on his beloved face.

"Liz, my birthday is in March," Max told her, although of course she knew that. "What’s going on?" he asked again.

"What are you doing here?" Liz blurted out instead of answering him.

She was surprised when she saw colour beginning to rise in Max’s face too. She loved how his ears always turned slightly pink when he was embarrassed. "Er, well, it’s kind of a long story," he replied. "Um, Isabel was bored last night…" He coughed. "She…well, she dreamwalked you."

Liz blinked. "She did?" She felt panic rising within her as Max’s words absorbed. What had Isabel seen? Did Max know the truth? Did he know about Future Max and that what had happened with Kyle wasn’t real?

"Yeah." Max grabbed her by the hand. Liz felt her heartbeat begin to slow. Just touching him was enough to calm her down. Well, if not calm her, at least make her heart beat in an entirely different way, she amended silently to herself. "Don’t be mad. I swear I told her not to, Liz." He paused. "I need to talk to you." He looked around the busy restaurant uncomfortably. "Alone," he added, unnecessarily.

Liz closed her eyes briefly. It looked like Maria was right. Fate was stepping in. She was no longer going to fight it. She and Max had been on a collision course back towards each other for weeks. It was time to deal with it head on.

She was going to tell him.

The feeling of relief that flooded through her as she accepted it caused her to stumble slightly. Max caught her. She was staring at his chest as he held her tightly. Glancing up, her eyes met his.

The naked love she saw there only solidified her resolve. It was the shadows that still slightly existed there that made her take his hand, lead him through the back of the restaurant, and up the stairs to her room.

She didn’t say a thing. Neither did he. It was a silence ripe with expectation, with hope.

She and Future Max had failed anyway. Max still loved her, in spite of it all.

She had to take those shadows out of his eyes.

"What’s going on, Liz?" Max asked, once they reached her room and she had shut the door firmly. She wasn’t looking at him. She was looking out the window at the balcony, at where he had appeared and totally screwed up her entire life.

And yet, she had loved him. He was Max. He had just been wrong. They belonged together. Whether or not Tess left, it could not be enough to keep her and this Max apart.

It was meant to be.

"Maybe you should tell me what Isabel saw," Liz suggested, turning back to look at him. "So I know how much you already know."

"Just…" Max cleared his throat, sounding embarrassed again. "You were dreaming about me - about us - together." He gazed at her hopefully. "I mean, I know it might not mean anything, but, when she told me, I couldn’t help but think that…" He trailed off, glancing away. Liz saw his eyes light on the picture of the two of them that still sat on her bed-side table. He walked over to it, picking it up.

"That was a great weekend," Liz said unnecessarily, still stalling, still trying to work up the nerve to change everything again.

Maria had taken it without their knowledge during the six weeks between the time that they found the first orb and when Tess arrived, the only time that they had truly been happy together. They had all gone out into the desert for a camp-out during Spring Break. The picture was of her and Max sitting on a rock together, she between his legs, his arms wrapped around her. They were both gazing off towards the horizon. Liz remembered the sunset that day, how beautiful it was, how much more she had appreciated it, simply because she was with Max.

When Maria gave her the picture, Liz knew that she would treasure it forever. It had become even more precious to her since Tess came and everything had been screwed up. She put it away for a while after that. It was too painful to look at it. And, yet, she had taken it out again very recently.

Maybe she knew even then that it was time to fix things between them.

"Yeah," Max agreed, setting the frame down again. He looked at her. "I guess it’ll never be that way again?" But the way he raised his voice, like it was a question, it told Liz he hoped that it could be.

He had forgiven her. He had forgiven her without even really knowing the truth.

"What did you want to tell me?" Max asked expectantly, although he sounded a little disappointed that she had not answered his unasked question.

Why couldn’t she just say it? Liz wondered as she licked her lips, continuing to stare at him. Why was it so hard?

"Liz?"

"I never slept with Kyle." She blurted it so quickly, he blinked.

Liz swallowed, hard, waiting for his reaction. She expected either utter joy or surprised anger. She didn’t expect at all what came next.

It looked to her like Max let out a long breath, and then he said quietly. "I know." He sat down on the bed, not taking his eyes off of her. "I’ve known ever since I got back from New York." He smiled slightly. "You’re a really good liar, Liz, but that time…something was just off. And you couldn’t actually say it again. It just felt wrong."

Liz stared at him in shock. "But if you knew…why didn’t you say anything?" she asked in astonishment,

"I realized after what happened in New York - when you saved me - that the bond between us was never broken," Max replied. "And when you lied to me again…" He paused. "Well, I knew you had to have a really good reason and I knew that you’d tell me eventually." He looked down. "Even if the reason was that you had fallen out of love with me and just couldn’t tell me that."

Liz collapsed on the bed beside him, her hands clenched in her lap. She had hurt him so much. She had to make him see that it had had nothing to do with not wanting to be with him. "I’ve wanted to tell you the truth for so long," she whispered.

Max turned slightly. He reached out and gently tucked a strand of hair that had fallen out of her ponytail behind her ear. "Why? Why did you have to do that, Liz?" He looked sad. "Were you really that desperate to get rid of me?"

"Of course not!" Liz exclaimed. "I did it to save you!"

"Save me? From what?" Max asked, confused.

"From me! Max, our relationship was going to drive Tess away from Roswell. We would have been responsible for that and it would have been disastrous. You need her!" She relaxed her hands when she realized that they were clutching at her apron. "You’re not going to believe how I know this, but I do."

Max’s eyes narrowed. "But you told me now. What’s changed?"

"Well, she and Kyle…they seem close. And the sheriff too. She has a family now. And you and her - you’re friends. I don’t think she could just walk away as easily," Liz admitted. "And I just couldn’t do it anymore. I miss you." She realized that she was about to cry.

"You don’t have to miss me," Max told her, his voice cracking as he brought his hands up to cup her face. "I’m right here. All I want is to be with you, Liz. It’s all I’ve ever wanted."

Liz threw her arms around his neck. "It’s all I’ve ever wanted too."

"Then what’s standing in our way?" Max asked, smiling again. "Only you. We’re meant to be together, Liz. I know it."

Liz could feel a smile breaking out across her own face through her tears. "I know it too, Max." And yet, the fear was still there, still pressing against her belly. "But we have to be sure about Tess. I want to be with you, but we can’t let anyone know. Not yet. We can’t give her any reason to leave - not until we’re sure she won’t."

"I don’t care if anyone knows," Max replied. "As long as we’re together, I’ll sneak around behind their backs for the rest of my life." He ran his hands through her hair. "Can I kiss you now?" he asked, his lips only a breath away from hers.

"But don’t you want to know why I lied?" Liz asked breathlessly, her eyes already beginning to flutter shut in anticipation of the one thing she had dreamed of for months.

"Yes, but not right now," Max told her, his own breath hitching.

"Okay," Liz sighed. "But you do need to know one thing," she whispered, as he placed feather light kisses on her closed eyes, her cheek bones, her chin.

"What?" He sounded highly distracted, but Liz knew he was listening to her.

"I didn’t just lie about Kyle. I lied when I told you I didn’t want to die for you. I would die for you, Max. Since I hurt you, I’ve been dead inside," Liz admitted. She felt Max still. He pulled back slightly, his eyes darkening with love.

"Then it’s time to come back to life, Liz." With that, he brought his lips down on hers and she did just that.