Fateful Moments (CC ALL,ADULT) Part 55 COMPLETE Dec 13 2008

[Chrisken]

Title: Fateful moments, part 21
Author: Chris Kenworthy
E-mail: kelworth@chriskweb.net
Disclaimer: I don't own anything in Roswell, more's the pity.
Spoilers: Up to the beginning of 'Cry your name'


(Maria):

"Hey, what are you doing??" I asked as I wandered into the kitchen and immediately heard something sizzling on the grill. "Unless I very much missed something, we don't have any customers."

"Customers aren't the only people who need to eat, you know," Michael laughed as I half-hugged him from behind. "This is for *my* dinner. Care to place your own order??"

I thought about that for a second. "Yeah, a plutonium platter sounds good, actually." Michael half-turned, brushed aside a lock of hair to kiss me on the forehead, and went to collect the fixings. "Heck of a day, huh??"

"Yep." We had had a couple dozen customers over the course of the day, people rushing in from the rain to grab something quick to eat, but for long stretches of time the dining room had been deserted except for staff... as in the three of us waitresses - me, Liz, and Tess. Rain was still coming down pretty hard, and the radio was talking about flooding in the streets in various parts of town.

"I'm not sure if I can ever remember it raining this hard," I muttered, looking out through the orders window to the dining room, where you could just make out all that water pouring down on the other side of the glass. "Flooding in the streets. I wonder if there's anybody whose homes are being flooded out, too."

"I doubt it," Michael said, smiling at me. "Flooding in the desert is a familiar problem, historically speaking, and most of Roswell has been built to be flood-resistant. Besides, they'd have mentioned it on the radio. And Kyle didn't mention anything when he called Tess, so your place is pretty definitely okay."

"I wasn't just thinking about home, but yeah, I guess you're right," I sighed, turned away, and just watched Michael as he worked at the grill for a long moment. "Do you want to book out of here at seven? Are you even going to be able to leave when your shift is over? We're supposed to be keeping this place open just in case, and with Juan's car engine being flooded..."

"Mrs Parker got in three-quarters ago, remember?? I figure she should be able to relieve me -- but no, I'm not really in any hurry to check out. Rain's supposed to taper out later this evening, and there's no particular water buildup in the streets anywhere between here and my place." He came over and wrapped me in his arms. "Being that we'll both be quite tired out from that point, and I'm not sure that it would be safe to venture west of Sunset, your mother can't possibly fault you for staying the night at my place, now can she??" He grinned teasingly.

"Hmmm..." I thought. "Could fly. I'll have to give her a call at the right time, though, and it'll help if the rain doesn't taper off TOO much too soon." It had been so difficult to leave Michael's side last night and drive through the first drizzles of rain back to my mom's house.

I looked up to Michael and saw that he was putting together a burger on his plate, and then he turned back to the grill and flipped my hash browns. "Something's changing with us, isn't it?" It wasn't even really a question. Somehow, by now I could trust that he felt almost the same way that I did.

"Yeah, over the past day or so," he agreed. "That 'screw like there's no tomorrow' urge has faded away considerably... though you're still so sexy it nearly kills me..." I had stepped near and Michael ran his finger and thumb lightly, teasingly, over my cheek, so delicately that it was almost like he wasn't really touching me. "But things just got *thicker* again -- in a good way, I'm pretty sure. I adore you so much, Maria, and I feel this incredible compulsion to..." He sighed, shaking his head. "To protect you, to cherish everything that we have together."

I smiled at that, reassured despite my blind faith. (Knowing faith was better.) "Yeah, I feel pretty much the same way... well, not so much the protective bit, though I'd just about rather die than see anything happen to you that I could help... but you know. You don't generally need to get defended by me, and it would probably hit your male ego if I were to try."

"Somehow, I'm not sure that I could bring myself to mind much," he murmured sexily, his voice soft and tender.

"But it's like everything that we've become as a couple is solidifying... becoming stronger and durable. I care for you *so* much, Spaceboy..."

"I know." And when he took me in his arms, it was as if the entire cosmos was embracing me and being embraced... this sensation of transcendent peace. (I know this might sound really corny guys, but I'm not sure how I can explain how I felt any better, so cut me a little snack.) By the time I was really aware of my surroundings again, supper was ready.

As we were getting ourselves settled at the nearest table to the kitchen, Tess came over. "Hey, can I get a chili rocket and some saturn rings??"

"Maybe," Michael told her with a smile. "But not until we're done, 'kay??" He grinned and actually picked up a forkful of my meal and held it a few inches in front of my face for me to take. It was one of the most adorable (and certifiably 'cutesy') things I've ever seen him do.

Tess caught the hint immediately. "Sure, sure. Take yer time, guys." And she headed off, probably to try and look busy before Liz could start torturing her (friendly-like,) again.

----------

(Isabel):

"Hey, princess?" It was an unfamiliar voice, and at first I didn't even think of the possibility that whoever was talking to me? "Princess? Hello??"

At that point I turned around, in annoyed frustration to find out who the caller was wanting to talk to more than anything, but the nod he made as soon as he was within my line of sight made it clear that that was me. "What the hell do you mean by that??" I shot back.

The guy, a short young man with dark hair and a cheerful face, blinked in surprise. "Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you or anything. You seemed so serious and... detatched during class."

I shook my head, trying to clear away the hostile reaction that had come because he used the word 'princess.' "I'm the one who should apologize -- I totally took your head off there, didn't I?? I really shouldn't have, it's j... well, there's a long story that I don't want to get into." Deep breath. "So, which class?"

He took a second to clue into what I meant by that ambiguous question. "Western philosophy... I think we're going to be in the same tutorial group on Monday... I'm Rick, by the way."

"Right, duh." I sighed. "*Now* I remember your face, really I do." At the philosophy lecture yesterday, the various tutorial groups of fourteen or so had met quickly once the professor was done, but I had been focusing on getting back to the dorm and calling Alex, so hadn't paid much attention. "Isabel."

"Nice to meet you," he said politely. "You live here at Rhodes?"

I shook my head. "Boyfriend. You?"

"Guy friend told me about the party here, and I took the tunnels."

There was a quiet, slightly itchy moment. "I don't mean to be rude, but..." I started uncertainly.

"Oh, hey, by all means," Rick said, gesturing outwards. "I'll see you Monday?"

"Well, yeah," I agreed, smiled, and headed off in the direction that Alex had gone. It occured to me that while Rick hadn't used a cheap come-on line or anything like that, he hadn't seemed to show much interest in continuing the conversation after finding out that I had a boyfriend. Hmm... hard to tell one way or the other.

When I found Alex, he had just stepped out of the bathroom, and he smoothed back an errant strand of hair as he noticed me. "Hey... you look a little bored. Want to book it?"

"Naw, more mingling is fine," I assured him. "Just, I want to do it with you. 'Kay??"

"No arguments here," he laughed. "How about some munchies??"

"Sounds great." So we went down the hall to a residence lounge where some people had set up a big punch bowl of weak-tasting sugarfree coolade. Instant lasagnes had been heated up in the microwave, and bags of potato chips and other snack treats had been opened. I had to wonder whether this was a co-operative effort on the part of the students participating, or if maybe the supplies that had been bought for some other function had been raided... but I have to admit I didn't really worry about it very much at the moment.

There were even more goodies in the small kitchen adjoining the lounge, actually. I grabbed a can of no-name pop, moved two warm enchiladas over to a paper plate, and met up with Alex at a small loveseat. "Hey."

He smiled at me, put down a forkful of cheesy lasagna, and called out "Hi there!!" and gave a bit of a wave as I sat down. I looked at him quizzically, since I didn't really need that much volume or the gesture, and he pointed past me. I looked, and realized that he'd been saying hi to another couple who had just wandered in, looking a little aimless and confused.

"Do you know them??" I asked Alex in a soft voice, one notch or so above a whisper.

"No, just being friendly. They seemed nice... and a little lonely. I can relate." He laughed silently.

I looked back again. They seemed to be about our age, at least compared to the seniors or grad students. The guy was kind of... distinguished looking, which seems an odd word for a young guy, especially one with a shaved head only just growing out with hair no more than a tiny fraction of an inch yet, but the term suited him... his face had a lot of character and strength, though I wouldn't call him classically 'handsome.' The girl was a little on the short side, but pretty, and her blue eyes were set off dramatically by her jaw-length dark hair, with bright artificial blonde highlights. I waved too, and they headed somewhat timidly over.

There was a pause as they came near, and the two of them shared an uncertain look before the boy spoke up. "Hi... should I remember you? Either of you??"

Both Alex and I laughed at the same time, and the girl joined in a little tentatively. "No, I don't think so," I said. "You guys just looked like you could use a friendly face, or something like that. Umm..."

"Well, thanks," he said, pulling up a chair and sitting down, while the girl took an armchair that was in the area. "Neil. You guys aren't by any chance new here too??"

Alex stifled another chuckle. "Yeah, actually... Isabel got here -- what, day before yesterday, and I've been on campus for all of a week. I'm Alex -- nice to meet you man."

Neil acknowledged Alex and half-bowed politely to me, and then turned to his girlfriend (I was assuming,) to see if she wanted to introduce herself. "I'm Cara... nice to meet both of you."

"I just got here on Monday myself," Neil explained, "and though Cara's been here for a term, she's feeling a little bummed that the friends she made are all gone for summer."

"Oh, so you started in January?" Alex asked Cara, and she nodded. "Picked a major yet??"

"Actually, kinda yes... it's inorganic chem, at least I think so."

"Hmmm," I went, and everybody kind of turned to look at me. "Okay, I'm not quite sure how to beat around the bush with this, so I'll just ask it, and apologize later if I'm off-base. How long have the two of you been together??"

Neil and Cara shared a knowing, spooked glance, and Cara giggled. "You're not off-base, really, but it's a kinda funny story..."

"Okay, then you *have* to explain more," Alex put in. "I live for kinda funny stories!"

She blushed a little and reached out to grab Neil's hand in hers. "I'm from Santa Fe, and Neil is from Akela, a... a 'roadside souvenir stand,' to use his own term, about 45 minutes west of Las Cruces. We met, what, about a year and a half ago??"

"Yeah, December of Ninety-nine," Neil agreed. "At a Save Ferris concert in Albuquerque."

"It was one of those incredibly amazing nights," Cara put in, her eyes shining a little at the memory. "We danced in the aisles together, and went to a party that I knew about after the show. It was, what, almost three AM when we actually figured out just how far away we lived, and I had to be back home well before dawn."

Alex and I were hanging on every word by now... I knew that he had to be as aware as I was of some of the similarities with our own history. December of '99 was about when we showed up on each other's radar, though it took longer before I let him past my defences, of course. And 'Save Ferris'... did he remember that amazing dream that I walked into??

"So what happened?" Alex asked.

"I kissed him goodbye and gave him a glass slipper," Cara giggled.

"Really?" I asked, confused.

"More like glass and a slipper," Neil clarified. "Specifically, a costume jewelry pendant and one red low-heeled shoe. This one's got a bit of a 'Cinderella' complex..." he shot a fond glance at Cara, "but it was cute at the time, and made for a good story afterward, I have to admit. Myself, I like to think I did better than the storybook Prince Charming, in that I made sure Cara had my digits before she pulled her disappearing act."

"Wow," Alex whispered. "What happened next??"

"About what you'd expect," Cara said with a soft laugh. "I called him, the next night, we traded addresses, I gave him *my* number. And we arranged to meet again over the christmas holidays that winter, this time in Socorro, so that he could give me my stuff back. That kinda set the tone for things... "

"Hey, I think it's your turn to be on the hot seat by now," Neil interrupted suddenly. "How long have the two of you been a couple?"

Now, apparently, it was Alex's and my turn to share a long look and take turns explaining that it was a long and slightly confusing story. (So we did.) "Well, let's see," Alex said after a moment's thought. "It would have been late winter in 2000 when I started to make my move the first time. We actually dated for a brief period in early May, but things got really confusing and she broke up with me. It's been about a month since we really got our act together, now."

"Really, only a month?" Cara said. "And you guys went to the same school and everything??"

"Yeah, we're from Roswell by the way," I told her. "I guess when you get used to the thought that someone will be there waiting for you whenever you're ready, it becomes easy to take that for granted."

"But still... Alex seems like a great guy," Cara pressed. "I mean, I don't really know him -- but anyway: Why did you wait so long before letting him catch you??"

I thought about that for a second. "I guess, deep down, I kinda thought that I was a complete mess and that a great guy like him deserved better..."

-------

(Max):

I hit the key combination that told the computer to hibernate, stood up, took the cell phone out of my pocket, and hit speed dial 1.

Two rings. "Hello?" It was Liz's voice, of course.

"How bad is it out there, right now??"

"Umm..." Liz softly giggled over the line. "I'm not sure... I ran up into the apartment for a moment, and I'm in the living room. Hang on." There was a pause, and I started down the office stairs towards the third display area, as Liz presumably made her way to a window. "Yeah, it's still coming down pretty hard and regularly. Not quite as impressive as it was earlier this afternoon, but still quite emphatically wet. Why do you ask?" There was a bit of quiet amusement hidden in her voice.

"Because I can't take it any more," I informed her seriously. "I *need* to see you as soon as possible, and so I'm contemplating dashing across the street."

"For li'l old me, seriously??" Liz hmmmed quietly for a second. "As much as I'm flattered by the sentiment, and would love to see you too, are you sure ya just want to charge blindly into the fury of the storm, consequences be damned?? The radio says that the last of the cold front should pass over us in an hour or two, and things will be much less vigorous then."

"I can't help myself," I told her. "Been cooped up in Brody's office all day again, staring at his research and thinking of you. Can't wait even an hour." I paused. "Unless 'storm' was actually descriptive rather than hyperbole. I mean, are we talking thunder/lighting/gale force winds, or just a downpour of rain."

"Okay, I was taking poetic licence," Liz admitted. "Haven't noticed any thunder or strong wind, not that I've been looking or listening outside the whole day." She paused a moment, and somehow from the sound of her footsteps over the line I guessed that she was coming down the stairs to the cafe level. "So are you really coming??"

"Umm, yeah," I said, pausing near the entrance area to look around. "Just..."

"There an umbrella or something you can use??"

"I don't think so. I took a light jacket when I drove in this morning, but..." I took it out of the little coat room and started to put it on.

"Not gonna be enough, I think..."

"I'm not made out of sugar," I said. "I'll survive. See you in a minute." And I hung up the phone, tucked it into my shirt pocket under the jacket, and jogged up the stairs and out into the rain.

The first surge falling down onto me was nearly enough to knock me off balance. I charged out into the street, feeling the water surrounding my shoes and seeping inside with every step, checked to make sure there were no cars on the road and forged on through as the water continued to drum down onto everything in sight, which unfortunately included me. It seemed a moment and half an hour later when I finally threw the front door of the cafe open and staggered into the relative shelter.

Liz was right there next to the door waiting for me. "Oh, my god," she muttered, throwing a large clean dishtowel at me. "That was... possibly the stupidest thing I've ever seen." But she was smiling.

"Hey, what can I say?? I'm in love," I declared, and leaned in to kiss her.

"Ewww, sheesh!!" she shrieked in delight after a few seconds. "Come on, Max, you're dripping all OVER me!! Dry off first."

"As you wish."

After I'd soaked up rainwater with about three different towels, Liz took me upstairs to the apartment and told me to strip off my drenched clothes in the closet and got me some old clothes of her father's to wear. Then it was back down into the cafe for venus meatloaf and Sheliak spuds. I hadn't planned things this way when I decided to run through the rain, but it was kinda nice to get taken care of by Liz like this.

"So, how's this stuff with Brody's new project coming??" Liz asked once we had started on our dinner. (She had a Sigourney Weaver and garden-planet salad.) "Are you going to be able to climb out of that computer of his soon and start doing real work in the field??" She seemed a little uncertain about the whole thing, still.

"Actually, yes," I told her in a low voice. "I've agreed to help Brody out with some quid pro quo. There's someone who has information that Brody thinks is very important to our goal... someone who, as it happens, was a big follower of Atherton's work. I've agreed to show them the secret chamber under Atherton's geodesic dome house in Marathon, and to give them the key. The contact is going to hand over the info Brody wants to us in exchange... and he knows that Atherton's notes have already been removed. Just interested in it for the sake of the trivia value, or something."

"Hmmm..." Liz considered. "I'm not so sure that's wild. Atherton knew an awful lot... about Nasedo, about the crash. What if there's something that everybody's overlooked in that chamber that might..."

"That might lead this guy straight back to us?? I thought about that, but it seems REALLY unlikely. Atherton can never have known too much about US - he died decades before we came out of the pod chamber. And the special unit found out about that chamber when Topolsky followed us there. They took out everything that was even conceivably relevant."

"I hope that's true," she agreed, and took a bite of her salad. "Well, it sounds like this'll earn you some good credibility with Brody, at least. Did he ask you about how you found the key and the chamber??"

"Well yeah... I gave him a very lightly edited version of the story. He already thinks I'm this rabid UFO chaser, so going and swiping the key from Valenti, finding the picture of the geodesic dome in Atherton's book didn't suprise him much. I made up something about there being a picture of the dome with the key, since I obviously couldn't mention the flashes."

"Well, Isabel told him she was psychic, during that whole mess with the gandarium," she pointed out. "You could have used that to explain the flashes."

"You know, you're right. I didn't think of that." Ate some more loaf. "So, after dinner, can you continue your break, as long as no customers show up? Go and hang out in your room a little??" I shot her a look that would leave no doubt as to what I was really thinking of doing.

My message got through... but it didn't have the desired reaction. "Umm... sorry, no, not as long as your wearing my dad's clothes. That's just too weird an image, Max."

Sigh. "Well, I could always take it all off."

Liz actually gulped. "T... tempting," she said, looking into my eyes. "But -- but again no, not as long as my parents could show up at any minute."

"Can't blame a guy for trying."

-------

(Maria, once again):

I looked out the window at the light rain still drumming down on the road as Michael drove through nearly-deserted streets. "So... I have a topic of conversation, actually."

He smiled a little. "Yeah?"

"Was just kind of wondering... when you thought it'd be a good time to tell other people about us... that we're doing the kind of stuff we do. I mean, you know that I've told Liz and you're pretty much okay with that, but..."

"But I'm still showing no interest in confiding in Max, or anyone else in the gang??" he filled in. "Yeah, well... maybe soon. I dunno. At the beginning, it seemed like it was something very special and private... not that I'm ashamed of sleeping with you, or anything like that..."

"Sheesh, I should hope not," I muttered under my breath.

"You know what I mean," he told me. "Umm, don't you??"

"Yeah, actually, I think I do. Sorry, I'll try to turn down the sarcasm dial."

"Thanks. On the other hand, it might be a little hard for Max to hear about this sort of stuff, considering that he thought Liz was his soulmate and they're going to break up..."

"What!?" I yelled, gesturing wildly.

"Umm, well, it might not be for a little while, and I could be wrong, but don't you get the sense that there's something the two of them aren't dealing w... Say, doesn't that hurt?" he interrupted himself, pointing to something on my left arm that had been swinging slightly when I gesticulated.

"Hmm??" I tried to get a better look at the thing... it was a tiny little baby bunny rabbit, chomped down firmly onto the underside of my forearm. "Naw, you'd think, but I can barely feel it. Kinda comfortable."

The dashboard of the car started to beep loudly. "Hey, why's it doing that??" I asked.

"I'm not sure. Try hitting it."

I made a fist with my right hand, but before I could put it to use... there was a sudden huge, mental re-orientation, and I realized that I was lying on the bed in Michael's apartment, with one of his arms and part of his upper chest draped across my body in a comforting embrace, and that the beeping was his clock radio's alarm.

Which would mean that the car ride stuff was a dream - explaining a lot, come to think of it. It was friday morning, the clock said quarter after six in the morning, and I growled in frustration, swiping so vigorously at the 'alarm off' button that I knocked the clock partly off the short bookcase that Michael used as a bedside table -- it slipped a few inches and then hung at an angle off the edge, held by the power cord. I quickly pushed the thing back on lest it snap free and fall onto the floor.

"Well, I guess it's time for me to hit the shower," Michael groaned.

"No, no, come on." I turned over to face him. "Stay." A quick kiss on the lips. "Snuzzle."

He laughed and shook his head. "You know I'd love to, darling, but you know I gotta pay the bills. My shift starts at seven, and we've been late too much this week as it is."

"Awww." I pouted, but even that didn't work, (maybe it would have had more effect if I'd been fully awake,) and he ran his hand through my hair a bit before getting up and going through his dresser a bit. "'Zit okay if I try to go back to sleep here??" I called out, closing my eyes already.

"Sure, knock yourself out... well, not literally. You're on shift when, one o'clock today??"

"Noon," I answered. "And I kinda want to swing by my place and get some laundry through first, but that'll only take an hour."

"Okay... I'll take the bike in, and you can borrow the brachio."

"Alright." It took me a second for puzzlement to sink in. "Borrow the what??"

"The car, the dark green one. We need a nickname for it, and I'm not even sure what kind it is beyond 'old,' so I thought naming it after a dinosaur would fit."

"Brachio," I repeated, considering how the sounds rolled off my tongue. "Yeah, that'll do I think, and thanks again." I drifted off, only vaguely thinking that I'd rather not pick up where that odd dream had left off.

I didn't... in fact, I don't remember dreaming at all when I got back to sleep that morning. When I surfaced, it was after eight in the morning, and Michael was long gone, of course. I showered myself, scrounged up a little breakfast, and then, since I had nowhere particular to be for a little while, sat on the couch in Michael's living room listening to some of his mix tapes while I dawdled over breakfast.

We actually hadn't done any more than hugging and kissing last night, a bit of a break from precedent, but not really an unpleasant one. One possible reason was that my mom knew I had spent the night over at Michael's place, so if she asked I didn't want to have anything to lie about... well, not about this particular occasion at least. It had been a nice break, though thinking about it, and about him, as I finished the bowl of honey flakes, I realized that I was just starting to get horney again. Damn.

Well, nothing to be done about that. I finished dressing, made sure everything I needed was in my purse, locked Michael's place up and headed down to where Brachio was parked.

The drive across town was uneventful, and DeLuca house was empty by the time I got there... my mom had some business to take care of, and Sean was at class, or so a note from him said. (I hadn't realized that his course at the junior college started today.) So I went into my room, changed into different clothes, and started to assemble the laundry I needed to do today. I'd only just gotten a few skirts into the basket when the phone rang. Grab the cordless and two green blouses from the dresser at once, talk button. "Hello?"

"Well, you're there, and obviously quite able to pick up and operate a telephone," a familiar voice echoed in m ear. "Dare I ask the obvious question?"

"Alex!" Belatedly it hit me that I had been meaning to return a voice message and an email that young Mr. Whitman had left me over the past five days. "I've got no excuses, I'm afraid. How are *you* doing??"

"Well, they're keeping me pretty busy in general, though session was called off yesterday on account of the rain and Izzy and I had a nice day off. What about you? I've got a little slip of paper saying that you'll make it up to me next time, so just when is 'next time?' I can probably keep the rest of the computer geeks from bugging me one day this weekend."

"Umm... sorry, just a second," I mumbled into the phone, feeling like I needed a moment to reorient. First, a quick recheck of the clock confirmed that I was doing alright for time... didn't need to worry about this fool load of laundry, for instance, as long as it didn't get delayed going in for any more than forty minutes. So I tossed the few clothes I was still holding into the basket and took the phone out into the living room. "Ummm... this weekend?" A moment's pause, and then I muttered "dammit."

"Damn what??" Alex asked, the concern and disappointment clear in his tone.

"Ohh, it's just that Michael and I already made plans," I said, not hiding the disappointment that I felt. "He wanted to go to Stanley hill. We were going to do it tomorrow - it's our last day off together before, umm, before next Thursday, and Jim Valenti has got us co-opted for handypeople duty... not that I really qualify as a handygirl, but try telling HIM that."

"Umm... handypeople duty??" Alex repeated.

"Ohh, well, he wants to fix Ed Harding's house up a little before he shows it to Mom and tells her about the plan of having us all move in there... Tess still holds the title on it, or Ed does and they think he should finally be declared dead, or something like that. It's a cool idea, but painting and cleaning and... I dunno, sandpapering things is not really how I want to spend a day off."

"I see," Alex said. "Well... I understand that you're busy; I am too. It's just that I was really looking forward to..."

"Well, let me see what I can do," I suddenly blurted out. "I really do want to make up for missing out on the big campus visit last time... and come to think of it, there's no really good reason to go to Stanley Hill on a weekend, they'll just be more crowded then, even in the summertime."

"Probably, yeah," he agreed. "What are you thinking of."

"Well, I've got a day off on Tuesday - if Michael can switch with somebody to get Tuesday as well, we can go on our thing then, and I can drive up to see you tomorrow!!"

"Okay, that sounds great," he agreed. "Just drop me an email when you know for sure. Sound like a plan??"

"Of course. So... tell me more about this rain day that you and Isabel had yesterday!!"

"Well, umm... where do I start? There was kinduv a party in my dorm building, and we met up with another couple who seem REALLY cool. Their names are Neil and Cara - she's a scholarship student who's only been here at the university since January, and she lives down on the second floor..."

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Title: Fateful moments, part 22
Author: Chris Kenworthy
E-mail: kelworth@chriskweb.net
Homepage: http://www.fanfiction.net/~chriskenworthy
Rating: ADULT
Disclaimer: I don't own anything in Roswell, more's the pity.
Spoilers: Up to the beginning of 'Cry your name'


(Max):

I brought one of my hands up into Liz's hair from underneath without breaking the kiss, feeling its softness and luxurious texture with every nerve fiber in my skin, just about. Liz made a soft mewling sound, deep in her throat, and I gently broke our liplock in order to be able to plant soft kisses up and down the edge of her jawline. She grinned with delight and plunged one arm up under my shirt, her slender and delightful fingers exploring the skin they found underneath, teasing and fondling.

After about fifty fun seconds of that, Liz rolled backwards, which because of the various ways we were holding onto each other leveraged me up so that I was on top of her, straddling her midsection on my knees, as she pulled my lips inarguably back to meet hers. I went without any resistance... (what, are you kidding?) and let my lips slip open, ready to have my tongue pass between them and ask to come in and play with Liz's, when I realized that she had taken the initiative, and beaten me to it. Finding my lips already parted, her tongue entered my mouth, meeting mine with a soft stroking motion that somehow made my brain explode. Wanting to return the favor in an extra-special way, I reached up with my left thumb and forefinger, brushed the curtain of hair away from Liz's right ear, and softly stroked her earlobe from both sides in that special way that never fails to drive her nuts.

It seemed to work... at least, she let out an almost orgasmic moan and dropped her head down back to the pillow so hard that she almost slipped out of the french kiss, but I was able to follow her motion, pressing my lips to hers as she continued to writhe in evident ecstasy. "Dssr niigh, thha moo," she mumbled, or something like that... I wondered if she was getting a flash, but wasn't about to stop and ask her about it right then. Leaving my left hand just touching the edge of her shoulder, (and supporting some of my weight,) I went out exploring with the other, touching the curve of her hip through tight blue jeans, tracing down the side of her left leg, then around behind her and back upwards, working gently between the bedsheet and Liz's perky, denim-sheathed posterior. She giggled as I tickled and poked her soft and resilient butt cheek... (well, one of them, anyway.)

Liz seemed to have recovered some of her usual animation, along with her spunky sense of humour, because both of Liz's hands also went feetwards, grazing softly past my crotch with a mere trace of a touch that had me fighting not to bite my lip, (especially since her tongue was still in that area and would have gotten chomped too.) After that little tease, she started to rub her palms up and down my inner thighs, which have been a hot button area ever since I first started puberty, and the fact that this morning I was only wearing thin khaki shorts didn't make things any less stimulating. I got a flash myself... of Liz and me, our first date at Senor Chao's, dancing and flirting, and that moment when we were just about to kiss again... before Maria burst in and interrupted things.

Okay, at this point I should probably stop briefly to explain what the context is and why Liz and I were lying there making out like it was no tomorow. (Some of you, gentle readers, probably don't care -- if you like you can just skip the explanation and pick up again two paragraphs down when it gets back to the action.) Well, yesterday, after I ran across from the UFO center to the cafe in the pouring rain, you might remember that we were flirting something fierce, and I actually propositioned her to something pretty much like this, but she regretfully declined on the grounds that her parents could be checking on her room at any moment.

It's now Friday midmorning, my parents are off at work, both Liz and I don't have to be in at our own jobs for a few hours yet, and so I swung round to pick her up for a quick breakfast at the fresh croissants place that Liz likes, after which we silently agreed to come back to my place and take the opportunity to do everything that we couldn't yesterday. That's pretty much it.

After the quick flash ended, I had to pull away from the tongue-noshing action a bit so that I could look into Liz's gorgeous eyes. She stared back, her hands still busy on my legs, and then quickly she moved and wrapped her arms around my back, bringing my head back down towards hers, but not in quite the same position. I heard a lusty chuckle come from her as she kiss and lick all over my neck. My lower chest was pressing against the contours of her body, though the weight didn't seem to be causing her any discomfort at the moment. Maybe even the opposite of discomfort.

I reached down with a few fingers to caress her cheek, but the way she was going after my throat from the outside, even nibbling just a little, was really winding me up, and suddenly I couldn't hold back. I shuffled back, kissing her quickly on the lips and on *her* throat, then brought my mouth close to her ear and whispered, as passionately as I could, "Can I open up your top??"

She made a kind of an ambivalent whistle, so I kissed the inside of her ear softly and continued the persuasive sell. "Come on, I just want to see you, to touch you for a moment. You're so beautiful, every part of you..."

"And yet, you seem to have a very particular fixation on THAT part," she noticed out loud. "Or THOSE parts, I guess I should say."

"Now gee, I wonder why that could be?"

"Okay, okay." And Liz actually tweaked at my crotch, gently. "You got clearance, buddy. A little, at least." I smiled and started to undo the buttons... Liz was wearing a fancy silk short-sleeved shirt today, light purple, with the collar folded down. Carefully and slowly I opened it up down to where the buttons got tucked into her jeans, (which I resisted the urge to manipulate... might send the wrong message,) and uncovered the bra beneath... a simple-looking number in a blueish pale-pink that went with the shirt pretty well... (had she been expecting that it would get uncovered??) I reached out and very softly cupped my hand around the bra, and it felt nice, like linen and lace, as well as a slight hint of what was underneath.

Sensing that Liz was a little nervous about letting me go this far, here in a bedroom with no parents around, (or even sisters or friends, for that matter,) I went slow and didn't try to undo her bra. I stroked and massaged the skin that was exposed, and rubbed her through the material of the undergarment, noticing how her nipples were already distinctly stiff peaks, and got tighter and higher the more attention I paid to them, even indirectly. She gasped a little, making me wonder if it was just an unfamiliar physical reaction or an incoming flash, but she didn't say anything. Then I kissed her again and tried slipping my fingers up inside, and that's when Liz sat up and pushed me, very regretfully, away a little bit.

"I... I'm sorry to keep doing this to you, Max," she said after a moment. "I just don't... don't want to go beyond a line where I don't... don't have the self-control to hold back any more. I know this has got to be frustrating for you."

I thought a moment before replying, adjusting my sitting posture to keep my embarassment from being too evident. "Frustrating for me? A little -- frustrating for my power source?? Very. But I think I understand what you mean, about crossing the line." I laughed for a moment. "So, I think we'd both agree that the line is on something like a sloping hillside. Going down towards it, very easy and a lot of fun. Moving back away from the line, not as easy or as fun."

Liz chuckled. "Yeah. And so the question naturally arises... is it worth it to go down in the vicinity of the line at all, or just stay on the nice flat plateau where there isn't any hard climbing to be done?"

I smiled. "I don't know about you, personally I'd rather keep on playing near the line. Spent years on the plateau, because, well, they don't really let you off it without a suitable partner, and so I'm really bored with it. Plus, maybe one of these times we'll both realize and agree that the line has moved... or that we're both ready and want to cross the line."

Liz grinned. "Yeah, that works for me, actually. But not today." She got up, stretched, then looked down, blushed, and started buttoning her shirt back up. "I need to, um, use your bathroom, and I'm guessing maybe you will too. And then... how about we take things back down to the living room?? Less trouble we can get in down there, line-wise."

I snickered. "Sounds fine."

Once I came downstairs, Liz had opened up her backpack on the couch, and she held a black ballpoint pen uncapped in one hand and a spiral ring notebook open in the other. She didn't seem to be doing much with either of them though, just watching me as I came in and sat down in the armchair. "Umm, yeah?" I said after a moment.

"What?" she asked as innocently as ever, which I've learned is a warning sign.

"You just seem a little expectant... or something like that. I think there's something you want to ask me, but you're not sure how."

"As it happens... um, well, I think you're right about that." Liz dropped her gaze, blushing slightly.

She didn't say any more, and I chuckled softly. "I don't think there's anything that you could say that really deserves so much bashfullness at the moment. Just blurt it out, or whatever: I don't think I'm likely to get offended."

She looked back up into my eyes and smiled, and I literally felt my heart skip a beat with delight. "Well, do you remember that potential project that I mentioned the other night? The library of Czechoslovakia thing?"

"Umm..." I had to think a moment, then got it. On the way to the dance club a few evenings ago, (was it really just the day before yesterday?) Liz had replied to the news of my new quest with Brody by suggesting that she work to compile the things that the gang as a whole already knew about alien origins, extraterrestrial agents on earth, homeworld artifacts, possible UFO hunters, and other such things, so that hopefully when the next crisis hit we wouldn't be fumbling to play connect-the-hint as usual. It was a good idea, and... "Do you want to interview me? Right now??"

"Pretty much," Liz admitted, blushing again but not looking away. "Nothing too intense, was just looking for a little introductory material on anything you and Isabel might have found out about your alien status before the shooting... and a few more details about the key and how you guys found it. I'll talk to Michael as well, but... well--"

"I think I understand... he and Maria are still inseperable when they're not at work, and sometimes when they are," I said. "I meant to tell him and Tess about your project, but I haven't really had a chance." Let out a silent whistle of air. "Okay, before the shooting, huh?"

"Yeah." Liz nodded and flipped back a page. "I have a few questions here actually - just a second..."

----------

(Tess):

I had been sitting at the table for a few minutes before Jonas and Trevor walked into the dining room; after a second of looking around, they headed straight for me. "Tess, hi," Trevor started. "Since it's been a few days since you, uh, you volunteered, we just wanted to touch base about a few things."

"Sure, yeah, that's what I figured," I said as they sat down, trying to hide a vague feeling of disappointment. "What's the word?"

"Well, we're going to be starting to cast the film any day now," Jonas said with a smile. "Probably the process will be more than a little chaotic, depending on the schedules of the would-be actors, but I'll try my best to keep you in the loop and I'd like you to attend as many screen tests as possible... considering your shift schedule here at the cafe, and all that."

I jumped slightly in surprise. "You'd heard about that? That I'd got a job, I mean."

"People talk about all kinds of things in a small town like this," Trevor replied with a small smile.

"I hope it's not a problem," I blurted out. "I mean, I know the scheduling thing will probably be crazy, but I think I can do both."

"Of course, we understand," Trevor assured me, with a glance at Jonas, who nodded. "A lot of people involved will probably have summer jobs... like Martin does. Now, I'm a little nervous about showing you these because I'm not exactly qualified to be an artist under any stretch of the term," he continued, pulling some kind of notebook out of his bookbag, "but I thought that these might give you an idea of what I was thinking of, in terms of costumes. Obviously, we won't be able to get things exactly right the way I'm thinking of -- considering that we're going to be working on a shoestring, but it helps to have a target to aim for right??"

"Um, yeah, I guess so," I replied, and then stretched my hand out because he hadn't put whatever it was down on the table or anything. Coughing a little with embarassed surprise, Trevor opened up the pages, riffled through them for a second and then handed it to me, open to a particular point.

I smiled when I saw the first sketch -- sure, it was rough and unpolished, but good enough to show me what he was thinking of. A tall, slightly reedy young man with an honest face, dressed in what looked like a cross between Robin Hood and Errol flynn, a short blade sheathed at his side as he held a grappling hook in one hand and ran the rope between his other thumb and finger. "Um, okay." I fingered the page and shot a look at Trevor, wondering if it was okay to look further ahead, and he quickly nodded.

Plenty more sketches on the next few pages. A slightly short and stout guy with some kind of spiked club (mace) and a shield with an odd design on it, wearing what looked like light armor... a war cleric or something?? Might be a sidekick role that Trevor was hoping to play himself. Short, pretty dark-haired girl wearing soft, slightly draping clothes, wearing intricate jewelry, and carrying an elaborate metal rod. An evil knight, arrogantly handsome in his heavy armor. Some kind of mysterious, chuckling wood elf. And a pretty maiden dressed all in black... possibly the knight's daughter.

"They look pretty good to me, actually," I said, putting the sketches down, still open, on the table. "Could you make me copies or something, so I can start trying to figure out what we can get? How's the grant coming, by the way?"

Trevor seemed thrown for an instant as he took back the book and closed it. "What grant??"

"From your aunt," I prompted. "In Denver."

"Oh, that," Jonas said, as Trevor shook his head slightly. "We're in the final stages of application, and will almost certainly get something, though I'm not sure how little yet."

I smiled a little, nodded calmly, and asked the real question as smoothly as I could. "Did Martin have to work right now? I was kind of expecting all three of you."

"No, but he's stuck watching his little brother," Trevor said. "Since he's the script doctor, he probably won't be working too closely with wardrobe anyway."

I let myself wonder silently if it was such a good idea to jump on the wardrobe idea as soon as it was mentioned. The only reason I was doing this film crew thing was as a responding gambit to Martin, who had come up to Mister Valenti's door and asked for me -- Martin Bryce who just might, possibly conceivably, know something about our secret. But it was better to keep all of that from becoming obvious, of course. Wardrobe would do me just fine, and at some point Martin would have the chance to approach me casually. All that I needed was to be patient.

"Okay, um... mind going over those and telling me briefly who's who, and how you connect the dots between them??"

Trevor smiled and flipped back to the first sketch.

--------

(Michael):

"Hey, bud, sorry I'm late," Steve Vilchez said after poking his head into the kitchen and beginning to change into an apron and hairnet. "How's things??"

"Not too bad," I said, taking a quick look at the clock - my shift had ended a little more than five minutes ago, which to me sounded like it was a perfect time to ask for a favor. Almost. "Been a lot of orders for the grill so far tonight - got more than a dozen different burgers cooking away here. The deep fat seems to be a little on the gritty side."

"I'll get it set up to strain before I leave tonight," he volunteered, picking up a spatula and peering critically at the burgers I mentioned. "Extra careful. There anything else??"

"Yeah, actually... I was hoping to be able to trade off days with you," I blurted out.

"What, tomorrow for tuesday?? Thought you and Maria were going down to Stanley Hill for a fun day together... she was really looking forward to it."

"That's actually kind of why I need to change my plans," I admitted. "She got invited down to Las Cruces to see a good friend on Saturday... tomorrow I mean. Well, tomorrow is Saturday. Anyway, so hopefull she's going to go off and do that on Saturday, and we'll fit Stanley Hill in on Tuesday."

Steve considered this for a moment. "Well, okay man, sure. It's fine by me... good trade actually. Make sure you get here nice and early tomorrow, though, 'cause I pulled the six am shift."

"I remember," I told him with a sigh, and gestured for him to take my place in the kitchen. "Thanks again."

"Not a problem at all."

I went into the bathroom, cleaned the worst of the grease off myself and took off my own apron and the other little aspects of the uniform. Came back out of the bathroom, went over to open my locker, and was immediately struck by something, though I wasn't sure what.

The locker wasn't the way I had left it. Not obviously disordered... (it would be hard to be less tidy than the way I usually have it,) but disorganized in a definitely different way. I hadn't been into the locker when I got in this morning, or all day for that matter, but it hadn't been quite like this yesterday when I left with Maria. That was weird.

I grabbed a book and shut the locker. Could it have been Maria?? I would probably have noticed if she'd been around the lockers, and she came in a lot later than I did today. Plus, she knows I get a little touchy about this kind of stuff and, since she didn't seem to have any reason to intentionally piss me off lately, (at least not that I'd seen,) she would have asked first. Right??

I went out into the dining room with a bit of a frown on my face. Maria was heading back from a table, not in any great hurry, so I nabbed her for a kiss and a quiet moment together away from the customers. "Steve said alright to the switch, so you're okay for going up to Las Cruces tomorrow. Should I send Alex a quick email on your behalf when I get home?"

"Umm, yeah sure," she said, and kissed me back, a little harder. "That'd be great, thanks."

"Okay, and car keys?? I'll come back and get you, ten o'clock"

"What about the bike??"

I shrugged. "Don't feel like taking it now, it can stay here for a few days as far as that goes. Don't think anyone's going to steal it. How's your day been, by the way??"

"Pretty good, except that my feet hurt already." Carefully made the appropriate sympathy face to this revelation.

I thought about asking her about my locker, but decided not to. If it had been Maria, she'd have said something by now, I was sure of it. And I didn't want her to get worried or anything, becuase I had to admit I was a little worried myself. If someone else had searched through my locker last night... what would they have been looking for?

Maria tossed me the keys to that dinosaur of a car I now have, and I kissed her goodbye and headed out. First I had to go back to my place and send the email to Alex. And then... I needed to find someplace where I could really get some good thinking done.

--------

(Alex):

I yawned and stretched myself under the sheets, and realized that I was awake. Oddly enough, the next thing I was aware of thinking, for the second morning in a row, was about the fact that the girl I loved wasn't here. Isn't that strange? - it was only one night that Isabel stayed over here, and slept though the night in my arms, but something deep in my subconscious was already starting to get the idea that that was how it should be. (Well, it was the second occasion I guess, counting the night after the Beth Orton concert, in her room back in Roswell.)

I kid you not, the tinny little ringing of the phone in my ear took me entirely by surprise. I had no memory of grabbing the phone or dialing, although I had a shrewd guess whose number I might have dialed. Sure enough, after the fourth ring a familiar voice yawned over the line, and then said "Hello? Las Cruces catholic convent, sister Isabel speaking."

I laughed at that. "Good morning, sister. It's your secret boyfriend. Did I wake you up?"

"Umm..." A loud, contented sigh rang over the line. "Yeah, I guess so. Was kind of drowsing, more on the 'asleep' side than 'awake' really."

"I'm sorry. I didn't really think of what I was doing until the call was going through."

"Sorry??" She seemed genuinely surprised at that idea. "Why for?"

"Ummm..." I thought about that. "Come to think of it, I'm not sure. The usual cliche is 'I know I'm not supposed to deprive you of your important beauty sleep,' but based on a few years' worth of evidence, I don't think you need any such thing to stay gorgeous, so that's out." Isabel laughed, which was the reaction I'd been going for obviously. "Maybe I just know that sometimes it pisses me off to wake up because a phone is ringing, and I didn't want you to have to go through that??"

"The phone can be annoying, but hearing your voice on the line more than makes up for it," she replied sexily, and then, before I could get ready to flirt back at her, changed the subject. "So, what's the word? Will Maria be making it down the road to join us this weekend?"

"Yeah, sometime this morning, so she says. Michael dropped me an email yesterday afternoon, and she actually called to confirm late last night."

"Cool."

"I told her that we'd meet her in the lobby of my residence... we can set up camp there around eleven, bring a few games to play and occupy the time until she actually..."

"Gonna have to stop you there, sorry honey," she broke in. "Marcie's drafted me into helping the last occupant of our monastery move in today, around noon. We can meet for breakfast, and I'll catch up with you and Maria when it's done, kay?"

"Um, alright," I said slowly, feeling a little bit disappointed. "Wait a sec, Marcie drafted you to help someone else move in? And this is the girl who made herself until you and Kyle had finished carrying your things in??"

"As it happens, I asked about that myself," she told me, giggling slightly. "Marcie's comeback was that no-one ever convinced her she had to be consistent." A short pause. "Myself, I suspect that our number five might be a friend of hers or have some cool gear that she's willing to share with the rest of it. Not a big deal in any event; I want to get along in here. You don't mind too much, do you? Come to think of it, you and Maria will probably be more comfortable catching up without me, at least to start."

"Maybe, I guess," I said without any particular emphasis. "Okay, you promised breakfast... where??"

"Umm, err... well, you could come over here, but I can't guarantee that there won't be other girls around, and they might try to tease you."

"Doesn't sound unappealing," I joked, "but maybe not this morning. How about that dining hall in the basement of your dorm??"

"Alright. See you in, umm... twenty-five minutes?? I'll meet you there."

"I'll be there with bells, no, not with bells on. Would you settle for shorts and a t-shirt?? Plus some sort of footwear I suppose."

I could practically hear Isabel shaking her head as the chuckles escaped her easily. "Yeah, that sounds great. Now bye -- I gotta get ready!!"

In the middle of showering and getting dressed and deciding if I needed to bother shaving or not, I noticed the laptop sitting on my desk. Did I dare check my email?? One message from Luis or someone else on the team could take away my day off and leave Maria stranded here, with practically nothing to do until Isabel was done with her moving chores.

The chances of that were pretty slim, though, and if they *did* try to reach me, and weren't able to, I'd get into some serious trouble with the project, which would certainly come back and bite me in the ass when it came time to try using the computers for translating the alien book, which was the purpose of this whole thing in the first place. I woke the system up and popped the mail server. One lonely little message... and it was a letter from my mom. I left it there, to read when I had a little more time to appreciate it, and dashed off with three minutes to make my date.

Breakfast from the dining hall was pleasant enough without being particularly impressive in any way. Iz had scrambled eggs, french toast, and grapefruit juice -- all with tabasco added. I grabbed a few sausages which seemed dubious in appearance, but were edible and even tasty, whereas the waffles which had seemed so appetizing ended up less-than. A bit of sliced honeydew made a nice capper.

Isabel had dressed up very casually too, which made sense considering the moving job: light blue cotton shorts, and an oversize lime green T-shirt that didn't quite go with the blue. She still looked very pretty, of course. We chatted for a bit about her art history class, which she'd had again yesterday, and some of the people I was working on the project with. I hadn't remembered before this to mention that Luis had a cousin who worked with Isabel's father, so I did, although she didn't really seem pleased or impressed with the thought.

And soon enough our time was up. Both of us had slept in quite late, and Maria had insisted that she was getting up at the crack of dawn and I'd better be there waiting for her around eleven. Isabel decided that she could stand to wait for me a little while before going back to her suite, and we played a little I spy and kissed more often than the other people in the lounge seemed to think was appropriate for public behavior. But soon enough she had to go.

I had just managed to grab a bag without looking in it before leaving my room, it turned out to have some computer disks that Luis had given me, and the CD that Isabel had said she wanted to borrow. Also a paperback book, slightly arty and 'literate' fantasy, but I got into one of the sailing chapters deeply enough that Maria had to tap me on the shoulder twice before I realized that she was there.

"Hey, bass-man." She gave me a quick hug, (slightly odd, as she and I don't generally have a huge touchy-feeley element to our relationship, but maybe it was because she'd missed seeing me,) and looked around as if confused. "No Isabel??"

"Not at the moment, she got drafted to help someone new move in back at her dorm," I explained. "She'll be meeting us for a late lunch if everything goes well. Did you grab something for breakfast on the road?" She nodded, smiling. "Okay, guess we'll start with the grand tour."

"Umm... if it's alright, let's not, okay??" she suggested. I shot off my best questioning look. "Well, I kinda get the impression that you've been on 'the grand tour' a few times by now... getting shown around yourself when you first came, when Liz and Tess came up last week, and maybe again with Isabel after she was all moved in." I thought about it, then gave a small nod. "On the other hand, you can't have been to every part of this campus already. Let's go exploring together, instead of taking a boilerplate tour... that just kinda sounds more fun to me at the moment."

I grinned, freshly reminded of just how unique Maria could be sometimes, when she wasn't setting her mind to it. "Alright Lewis... I think there may be vast unexplored territory to the south."

"Lead on, Alex Clark!!"

---------

(Max, again):

Yeah, right.... there. For several miles I had been waiting for the spot that Liz, Isabel, and I had been stopped by a roadblock the first time we had travelled this way... the motel where we had found Michael and Maria, and where Kyle had found us. Even though it was practically noon instead of the middle of the night, there was no way of missing the motel.

Trying to distract myself lest I blurt something out that I didn't want Brody to hear, I decided to take the offensive a little. "So, this guy that we're meeting in Marathon... do you mind if I ask what he's bringing to this trade??"

More than halfway I expected Brody to just keep the secret close to his chest again, or try to stonewall me with some vagueness about 'just some information.' But, after looking around a bit as if to satisfy himself that no-one was crouching in the back seat or clinging to the outside of the Jeep, he spoke up. "A name. The name of a retired FBI agent who knows something about the kind of... of object that we're looking for."

For a second I had to fight back a cold sweat. An FBI agent?? Like, someone from the special unit who had gotten out before Nasedo had started to destroy that branch of the agency... or who had lost his job then and, for whatever reason, not been reassigned elsewhere?? And what if, by some mischance, he knew anything about the Special Unit's investigations into my life and my friends? Memories flashed through my mind, not just Pierce keeping me locked up in the White room, but Kathleen Topolsky watching me as I walked down the school hallway, and large men in blue suit jackets following Liz and I down the street as unobtrusively as they could,. and a tiny little camera sitting hidden on the top of Michael's fridge, broadcasting images of us when we thought we were alone, sending them who-the-hell-knew where??

But Nasedo/Ed Harding didn't seem like the kind of guy who would have let anybody who knew that much about me live, did he?? No matter if they didn't have a source of funding or not. Then again... I didn't know exactly how far the knowledge might have spread at the special unit, and there had to be a limit to the number of deaths that Pierce/Nasedo could have engineered without drawing too much suspicion onto himself. (I tried to fight down a sick feeling at this point.) Maybe there were people he let go because he didn't think it was in their character to try hunting any of us down on their own. But... how would a man like that react, if I just showed up at his door??

"You seem very introspective, Max," Brody commented, and I shook myself so hard I nearly drove off the road.

"Sorry, just wondering how many chains this hunt we're on is going to have," I muttered. "And what, if anything, we're going to find at the end."

"I have to admit, I'm not sure, but I'm up for the challenge," Brody said. "And thanks very much for volunteering this little secret of yours in trade. It... well, I feel like this is the proof that I was right to trust you about all of this."

I smiled as naturally as I could. "Yeah, I like to think so. So, it shouldn't be too long now before we get to town. Do you know this cafe where we're supposed to rendezvous with the guy?"

"Not really," Brody admitted. "But it shouldn't be too hard to find. I don't think Marathon counts as much of a town." He paused a moment. "And where is this dome house, relative to town??"

"About two miles, east north-east," I said. "Don't worry, I won't steer you wrong... if you'll pardon the pun."

"Pardon, never. Groan at, certainly," Brody quipped.

--------

(Kyle):

"How much longer is everything going to be?" I called, picking up the community college course calendar.

"Three minutes," Amy Deluca shot back decisively. "*Maybe* four. Tess, honey, could you drain those noodles into the colander I put in the sink??"

After a second's consideration, I put the book back down and wandered over to where I could get a decent look into the kitchen. Tess had picked up the heavy, boiling hot pot by now, (using those little potholder squared of heavy cloth to protect her hands from the two tiny metal handles,) and was tipping the contents into the sink with at least a smidge of apparent skill. Sean DeLuca was stirring something on the stove with what looked like an intensely bored expression on his face. My dad was grating white mozzarella cheese onto a plate, topping off what looked like a reasonably huge mountain of shreddings already there, and Mrs DeLuca (just when am I expected to start thinking of her as Mom, I wonder,) was a whirl of activity in between the three of them and several other points, moving so fast it was hard to pick out any details for certain.

I wasn't sure whether to feel sorry for Maria or envious of her, that she was down in Las Cruces today and was missing this 'family lunch' that Amy had decided to come over and organize on short notice.

Actually, once things had gotten sorted out and served, it was really pretty good. The noodles were spinach linguini, smothered with a tomato rosee sauce, and there was dark meat chicken on some kind of weird whole-train toasted bread, green beans and squash, all washed down with a wildberry punch. Once we had started eating, Amy turned to my foster sister.

"So, Tess. Maria mentioned that when you're not working as the Crash's newest waitress lately, you've been helping out as the wardrobe designer for a local film crew."

"Umm, I think 'wardrobe designer' is overstating the state of affairs a little," Tess mumbled, clearly more than a bit embarassed. "So is 'film crew' actually, considering that they haven't actually shot any video yet -- 'wannabe film crew' is more like it. And I'm not really designing anything, just... well, once they're casting, I try to find some stuff for costumes that fits with what the director has in mind."

"You're going to be assembling different... different clothes and props and what-have-you and building them into a wardrobe for the film," Dad restated, and took a few noodles. "How is that not 'design'??"

Tess didn't answer that, just played somewhat nervously with her squash and tentatively tried the beans. Then, all of a sudden, "I'm glad you brought it up, Miss... um, Amy, actually. The casting starts tomorrow... and I've been trying to find some way of, um, of suggesting to a few people, that maybe they should try out." She looked at Sean and I meaningfully.

"Oh, really?" Dad put in. "Got any parts in mind??"

"Umm... well, it's not me so much as, well... I have to admit that Kyle would cut a very impressive figure as the Black Knight, the villain of the piece." She giggled awkwardly. "So would you, Sean, if Kyle didn't want to do it, and there are few other parts that you could audition for otherwise. But, well, the one who I'm most nervous about approaching isn't here... but I was hoping that you could help me talk to her, Kyle."

"Uh-oh." I went over possibilities for a second... "Oh, no. Not... Liz??"

"Yeah." She gave me just a hint of those cute puppy-dog eyes. "I know that she may not want to do it, what with her own plans for the summer, but I think that Trevor really had her in mind for the female lead, and maybe they just took me on because they were hoping that I'd ask her. I'd like to be able to say at least that I mentioned it to her, except... well, I know she still doesn't really like me that much, because of the Max thing." She jumped slightly, as if realizing that she might be saying too much in front of the grown-ups.

I smiled slightly and realized that I was about to take pity on her. "Yeah, I think I could come along for moral support on that one, at least. So... does the Black Knight have any kick-ass fight scenes? He has to, am I right??"

Tess nodded for a moment, and then shrugged. "Well, I haven't seen the script yet, but I think so. He's supposed to be this really hard-core warrior that the heroes can't beat with a frontal assault, so they have to try to outsmart him.

I thought about that. "Curses, foiled again!!"

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part 23

(Maria):

"Well, I have to admit, it looks like a great campus," I said as I put a lunch tray down on the table. "Maybe I'll apply here, in the fall." Thought about that a little more as I sat down. "Any idea what kind of SAT scores they generally insist on?"

Alex laughed softly, and for an odd instant I wondered what the expression on my face looked like. "No clue, offhand, but I can probably find something out, if you're curious."

We had been 'exploring' the less-travelled parts of UC New Mexico at Las Cruces for about three hours, and then Alex got a quick call from Isabel on his cell phone, suggesting that we all meet at the student union food court. Alex and I had come, waited around for a few minutes, and he'd suggested getting some food and going ahead, since Isabel would find us as soon as she got here.

There were quite a number of interesting food kiosks - Alex got chicken fritters, curly fries, and a coke, and I had a foot-long hot dog, garden salad and an ice cappucino. I speared a few vegetables with the plastic fork, (not really an easy feat,) and looked up to Alex, only to realize that he was staring at me with an oddly intent expression on his face.

Thought about asking him what he was thinking, but decided 'not yet.' "So, um, you seem to be doing pretty well here, except for the long hours they have you working. Must be nice to spend some time with Isabel far away from the craziness of Roswell... well, you know what I mean I hope."

He laughed. "Yeah, I guess. Not as much time as I'd like, but hey -- I'm not quite sure how much would be enough at that. By the way, you look great... you're practically glowing."

"Umm, well thanks!"

"So, how, ummm... how have things been going with you and Michael??"

"Err... really great, actually. We haven't had a pointless argument in, wow, in about as long as I can remember, and..."

"Ohmigawd," Alex interrupted, his eyes as big as flying saucers. "You... you and Michael, tha-- That's why you look so different." He dropped his voice, leaning over the table a little. "The two of you did it, didn't you??"

"Um, I, err... what, uhh, what makes you say that??"

He smirked a little. "Well, I think I know you well enough to take that reaction as confirmation. To answer your question, I'm not quite sure why, I just guessed. The way you look, the way you move a little differently today, or something like that. The way you were flustered a little when I asked about the two of you, just now. It just kind of all came together in my head. You're not going to deny it to me, are you??"

"Ummm..." I shook my head. "Nope, I can't. But you *have* to keep it quiet - Liz is the only other person who knows so far. Michael hasn't even told Max!!"
,
"Umm... okay, you have my word," he said. "Not even Isabel. But come on - when did this happen? Was it that thing in Albuquerque, that you went to instead of coming up with the other girls last weekend?"

"Um, that was when it started," I admitted. "Since then... well, I think I may have lost count, but suffice to say we've been doing it a LOT."

"That good, huh?"

"Umm... yeah." I made a flailing kind of attempt to change the subject. "What about you and Isabel?? Don't tell me you haven't messed around, up here."

"Well, a little more than run-of-the-mill making out," he allowed. "Nothing really like going all the way though."

"No??"

"Not really. A little bit of third base action, kinda, but that's the limit." He paused and continued in an even lower whisper. "I was a little worried about getting her pregnant."

"Umm, why?? We just, y'know, use a condom. Well, almost every time we have sex."

"And just exactly when is that??" Oh, no. I looked up -- neither of us had seen Isabel approach close to our table in the midst of the secrets being revealed. And I couldn't even blame this one on Alex -- from all the signs, I was the one who had opened my big mouth at the wrong time. "Sorry," she said, pulling up a chair. "I really didn't mean to overhear, but I can't exactly pretend I wasn't listening to that, now can I?"

"Michael and Maria have been, um, doing it for about a week," Alex said softly. "Apparently a lot. Max still doesn't know - only Liz and now the two of us. As well as themselves, I mean."

"Umm, I see," Isabel said. "I'm gonna need a pretty big burger to digest this kind of news with."

"Uhh, let me," Alex said, jumping up and kissing her enroute. "The 'big as the whole wide west' one, with relish, tomato, and tabasco?"

"Please -- and that hashed potato stuff they have too." Alex took off, and Izzie let out a loud sigh, looking up to the ceiling, and then focused her attention on me. "I -- I've gotta ask, was it? Umm, I mean, Lonnie and Rath said something about..."

"Amazingly mindpoppingly explosively incredible," I whispered back. "Michael says so too. There's no way it can be the same as regular human nookie."

She smiled a little. "So, you think it'd be the same if Alex and I ever..."

"I don't see why not. One hybrid seems to be all that's required... if you're in love that is, and you two definitely have that part all sewn up."

* * * * *

(Liz):

"Umm, hey," I said as Kyle poked his head a little way up the stairs into the super-Crash apartment. (As it were.) "Yeah, come on up."

It was Saturday night, and Kyle had called me to see if he and Tess could come over and talk. Now, Tess is still not exactly my favorite person in the world, but since she's been trying to be really nice and start over with me lately, I certainly didn't want to be rude to either of them, and I kinda got the feeling that she had asked Kyle to set something up as an intermediary, which suggested that it was something that she was nervous about. So, I tried to be as nice as I could and help her relax. "Hi, Tess, glad you could come. Can I get either of you something to drink, or a light snack or something??"

"Yeah, a coke would be nice," Tess mumbled softly.

"Do you have any of those little chocolate milk boxes that your mom used to get?" Kyle asked with a big grin.

"You know, I think she just might," I answered with a laugh. "Anything else??" Went into the kitchen and got a small bottle of coca cola for Tess, a chocolate milk for Kyle out of four that were sitting on the bottom shelf of the fridge door, and then, on impulse, I grabbed a second box for myself. Brought them back into the living room, where Kyle and Tess had taken placces on the couch. Tess, at least, still looked very stiff and uncomfortable.

Drinks were opened, I sat down in the gray armchair near the sofa, and Tess started to relax a little bit after she had taken a swig of the soda pop. "Umm, so..." I mentally debated for a second whether to ask about why they had come, or go for small talk first. Small talk seemed to be the polite thing to do. "Kyle, did you ever decide about taking some classes during the summer? A little advanced college stuff or something, I think you mentioned."

"Umm, err." He seemed surprised to have that topic brought up out of the blue. "Actually, I got a course catalog, but I've missed the deadline for the first round of the summer schedule, so there might not be much that I can get into, that I'd actually want to do. Also, well, I might not have quite as much free time this summer as I thought." He nudged Tess very discretely, but she didn't say anything.

Okay, so much for the small talk. "Tess, Kyle wouldn't say anything about why you guys wanted to come over and talk to me. You wouldn't happen to know anything about it, now would you??" I forced myself to take a drink of the chocolate milk, instead of rambling along. The silence hung heavy for a few seconds.

"Umm yeah, I asked him to come along," she blurted out finally. "Did, er, did you know that I've been working with this movie thing??"

"Umm, yeah, I think someone happened to mention," I replied calmly, smiling as reassuringly as I could.

"Well, they're going to be having auditions starting tomorrow. Kyle's going to be going out for it, maybe Sean DeLuca too, but I'd really appreciate it if you read for the part of Lissanna. Consider it a personal favor, even."

My mouth dropped open in surprised... of all the things I had vaguely thought might be in store, none of them had come even close to THIS. Kyle noticed my reaction, and put in, "Tess has this crazy notion that the only reason the director took her on is because he knows she knows you, and she didn't want to disappoint him."

"It's not crazy," Tess insisted, fishing into a purse for something. After a bit she came up with a few folded and photocopied pages, and she sorted through them, pulling one out and putting it on the table. "Tell me that doesn't speak for itself."

I picked it up, curiously, and examined the sketch as well as I could through the slight blurring and odd shadow from a not-perfect copying process. Up at the top right corner, which I presumed was what she meant, was a pretty good drawing of a young woman with dark hair, a mysterious sorceress type I supposed. Allowing for slight idiosyncracies in the eye and hand of the artist, it could well have been based on me... before I got my hair cut. The sorceress definitely looked very pretty. On the opposite corner of the page was some kind of stocky warrior or knight-errant, who looked a little like... um, I couldn't remember him, but he definitely seemed familiar... "That guy who was in the back row of Mrs Green's english class, next to the windows."

"Trevor Adams," Tess supplied. "He's the director, and the one who came up with the storyline. Has his heart set on playing the sidekick, and I think he wouldn't be too bad."

"Okay, umm..." I tried to think of a response to Tess' question. There was my job at the Crash to think of, certainly, and my little side project organizing the Czechoslovakian archives. Even together, they wouldn't be taking up all of my time. If I auditioned... there was no guarantee that I'd get the part, but I probably had an edge if the director wanted me there, and I would have to be prepared to put in the time and effort.

"I'm sorry, but do either of you, find it weird that he cast this character in the mold of me?" I asked. "I mean, well... it kind of looks like she's a love interest... am I right??"

"There's not that much of a romantic plotline," Tess said, blushing, "but yeah. Just slightly."

"I'm a little uncomfortable with the notion," I continued. "I mean, what if Trevor..."

"Is interested in you, personally?" Kyle finished. "Well, then you tell him you're very happily involved with someone else, and that'll be the end of it, almost certainly. I don't think Trevor's the type to force his company on anyone."

"And if he has a hard time getting the idea of no," Tess finished, "I probably won't be too far away, to help him absorb the message."

I smiled in thanks. "It's probably nothing to worry about anyway," Kyle said. "Creative types get inspiration from all over the place... it doesn't have to mean something deeply personal. The black knight has an uncanny resemblance to me, actually, I think... and before you ask, no, I've never given anybody involved with this movie a hard time. Pretty sure."

I smiled. "Well, I'm okay with it in general, I think," I said, slowly. "Would want to talk to Max about it, I mean, I don't think he'd have a big problem with the notion of me kissing another guy on camera or something, but I'd rather give him a veto option straight off." Pause. "That is about the level of 'romantic plot' we're talking about, right??"

Tess nodded. "One single kiss. No need to even fake tongue, I think."

"Alright." There was a looming silence again. "You guys wanna play rummy or something? It seems weird for you to come over, ask a favor, and then leave again."

They shared a look. "Yeah, that'd be cool."

I went to get a pack of cards.

----------

It was midmorning the next day when Max called me... I'd been idly flipping through a couple of old hardcover books, and sprawled myself out over the bed when I saw his name on the caller ID. "Hi, honey."

"Hey, sweetheart." He made a kissing noise. "Sorry that I didn't call you yesterday night."

"It's okay," I assured him. "So, how did everything go in Marathon?"

"About as well as I could expect. The contact was... well, not what I'd expected. Some kind of government surveyor I think. Would have never guessed that he was a UFO alien freak if it hadn't been for what we were there to do."

I nodded, smiling, (even though Max couldn't tell either of the above.) "Goes to show, you can never be sure about people I guess. So, what did you get back in exchange??"

"Contact information for someone that Brody wants to talk to... an old FBI guy. I'm going to be making sure to stay away from that part, as far as I can."

"Yeah, that probably makes sense." Max has all kinds of reasons to avoid anyone who might ever have been involved with the FBI and aliens.

"So... did Maria call you after she got back from Las Cruces??" Max asked after a moment.

"Umm, no, actually, but I'm not too surprised at that one. It's a long drive out there, and she's been working so many hours at the Cafe lately. She probably just got in and went straight to sleep." I thought for a second. "We'll be on shift together this afternoon... I'll find out how things went, and get my secondhand hellos from Alex and Izzy then. Hmmm... I guess it's kind of sinking in for you that she's gone about now, huh??"

"Come to think of it, yeah. Really weird, I kept expecting her to come in the door, just in time for dinner with mom and dad or something." He sighed. "But I know she's having a great time out there, and she'll be back in Roswell in about a month and a half."

"Yeah. Umm, Max, there was something I wanted to ask you about."

"Yeah??"

"Well, Tess asked me to audition for this movie that she's involved with. It's a pretty big role, kind of sidekick slash love interest." I went on to outline some of my thoughts from yesterday to him, including that I was shocked at how the character sketch seemed to be drawn from me, and the fact that I'd have to kiss the leading man, whoever that turned out to be.

"Hemmmmm..." Max went once I was done. "Well, I don't think I have a problem with you kissing another guy for something like that... it's just play-acting after all, part of creating the illusion. And I think I agree with what Kyle and Tess said about Trevor... you probably don't have anything to worry about there, and even if you do one or both of them will be around to help out."

"I guess," he continued after a few seconds, "the question is whether you really want to do this? It's going to be a big investment of your time, probably coming at the expense of your personal project and/or other things, like your hours at the cafe... or spending time with me, come to think of it. To me, that means that it really isn't something you should jump into as a favor to Tess, no matter how much you want to smooth things over with her. If you really want the experience of being in a movie, go ahead and try out, otherwise tell her that you're really sorry but you can't do it."

And something just kind of clicked into place inside my brain when he said that... it was perfectly obvious, but I hadn't thought of things that way until he'd mentioned it. "Yeah, I really do want it. It's not like anything I've ever done before, and that's kind of appealing."

Max laughed. "Then break a leg, and let me know when your audition is if you'd like me to come out for moral support."

"Yes, I'd like, I like," I assured him. "Not quite sure when; Tess gave me a website to check out... come to think, it should probably have the open call time on it now." I scrambled over to the computer desk, fired up a browser, and ran through my pockets looking for that little slip of paper. Darnit, these were different pants, weren't they?? Rather than extend the search, I took a wild guess at remembering what the address had been... and hit what looked like a jackpot. "Two-thirty this afternoon, over at that bandstand in the Eighth street park. Can you make it??"

"I'll be there," he promised, "no matter what the wild horses have up their sleeve."

I laughed. "And then you'll have to take me out to dinner, to celebrate, if I get the part?"

---------

(Isabel):

I turned around, surveying the room, picked up a small purse, checked in the mirror on the back of my door one last time... (hair down, camisole top, semi-short skirt, everything seemed fine,) and headed towards the door of the suite.

That, of course, was the exact moment when my cell phone rang. Just figures.

I took it out of the purse, looked at the listing, (CS Research,) and put it into talk mode with one practiced gesture. "Don't even."

Alex chuckled a little sadly on the other end. "I'm really, really sorry."

"You have to cancel?"

"No... at least, I don't think so. Not right now." He sighed a little. "Postpone dinner, on the other hand--"

I thought for a moment as my sweetie trailed off, and decided to head back into my room for this. "Are you kidding me? How can they make you work this late on a sunday, for crying out loud??"

He made a sympathetic sound. "It isn't a five days a week kind of thing, not for us lowly grunts. I thought that was pretty clear." And then Alex groaned himself. "Pryor wants to be ready with the full rewrite of the software Friday, because he's been talking to some bigshot linguist who's coming down from Nova Scotia or somewhere like that, to attend a big symposium in Arizona this week. He can swing by through here on his way home, and so everything has to be as close to perfect as possible."

I sighed, weighed the pros and cons of complaining further and gave it a miss. "So, any idea when you'll be through??"

"We just have to get this hierarchical graph relaxation run set up," he said. "Umm... probably forty-five minutes to an hour. And then, it'll be running all night, and probably most of tomorrow morning. Plus, there'll only be a little more stuff we'll need to do to be ready by the time it's done."

"Meaning you might actually be able to hang with me a bit after my early history lecture tomorrow??" I teased. "Okay, well, give me a call when the computers have started to relax."

"Ummm... hh-- ohh, right." He laughed softly. "Got it. I love you, babe."

"Love you too, studly," I whispered back, and just heard a bit of his laugh before the line shut down.

Okay, well, it looked like I had a little time to myself... now what? I didn't really feel like hanging around my room or the dorm any more, so I resumed my previous manuever and this time, nothing interrupted me as I slipped through the suite's front door and down the stairs. Walked out into the campus proper and just kind of started wandering, heading vaguely sorta towards the restaurant where Alex had invited me to dinner, but not at any kind of great speed or directness.

It was weird how Maria coming yesterday actually made me more homesick. I hadn't really been expecting it to matter one way or another, since she kinda was more Alex's friend than mine, even after all this time, but it had been so great just to see a familiar face, someone from 'the gang' as it were. After lunch, the three of us had taken a bus from the campus into Las Cruces, done a little shopping and just kind of wandered around catching up, then Maria and Alex had noticed a bar marquee announcing a rock band that they had each heard was absolutely, completely rotten, and insisted that we should all try to get in. It wasn't that hard, actually; nobody asked us for IDs, (maybe because they're used to getting a lot of college students,) and we didn't order anything hard, just really bad junk food and ordinary beverages, and when the band came on even I got into the fun of mocking them quietly and making sarcastic remarks.

It turned out that the bar was also a designated spot for townie guys to come out and hit on girls from the college... Maria and I got about four or five bad come-on lines each. (There were a few girls who I think I saw giving Alex the eye, but they didn't approach; maybe it was specifically a 'guys make the first move' kind of deal.) Maria and I got into a big of a game with who could get more over-the-top with a negative response, but it was Alex who came up with the untoppable reply when he managed to convince two tall men with cowboy hats and beards that we were all going to have a threesome later. I don't think Maria stopped laughing for about twenty minutes, after they were safely away.

But now, well, all day I'd felt even more aware of the fact that I was so many hours' drive away from everything familiar in Roswell. The fact that Alex had been busy today with the Quantum computer project hadn't helped of course. After wandering around for maybe twenty minutes, I went to the video arcade in the student mall, fed a two dollar bill into the machine in exchange for quarters, and proceeded to kill time with Tetris. It worked pretty well, and I was actually surprised when my phone rang again, and of course it was Alex saying that he was finally done and would be meeting me at the bistro just as soon as he could. I checked my watch out of curiosity, and it was about fifty-six or fifty-seven minutes after he'd called me the first time to say he'd be late.

Dinner was great. For some reason, there were a trio of clowns wandering through the restaurant, serenading people on clarinet, ukilele and a tiny little trumpet, and Alex paid them extra to stay at our table and do 'Don't be cruel.' After the bistro, we took a walk along the strand of trees that was planted winding hither and yon throughout the campus, and found a relatively isolated spot to lie down on the cool grass and kiss.

"Have I thanked you lately for all of this hard work you're doing for us?" I whispered. "I get impatient, I know that. I don't like having to share you with anything, even my mysterious secrets."

"Actually, yeah, I think you *have* thanked me," he shot back. "Quite thoroughly."

"No, I know what you're thiinking about," I teased, "and that didn't count. I did THAT..." kiss, "just because I wanted to."

"Hmmm." He kissed me back, and teased my earlobe with his fingertips, only just brushing my skin about as faintly as possible, and I sucked in a deep breath, every fiber of awareness startled to full attention. "Well, what do you have in mind then??"

"Well, Michael and Maria are doing it already, not that I'm suddenly consumed with a need to catch up," I told him. "But... well, we could move things along a bit further."

"Hmmm." He smiled. "And just how could we do that??"

"I'm thinking tongues would be involved."

"Tongues already *are* involved," he insisted, and proved the point by licking the tenderest pulse point on my neck. "See??"

"Tongues and... more private parts than that," I elaborated.

"Hmmm..." Alex considered that as he nuzzled near my collarbone. I reached out a hand to check his... private part, just out of curiosity, and it was definitely stiff and incredibly excited. "You wanna start tonight??"

"Up to you, of course."

He laughed to himself softly. "Actually, I think the anticipation will be enough for tonight all by itself. But we will definitely get on that SOON."

I smiled, and kissed him on the cheek while he was trying to straighten himself up. "Should I walk you back to your dorm??" He asked, standing up and offering me a hand.

"Please, sir." We walked back, hand in hand, and he returned the kiss on the cheek at the door to my dorm before heading across the way to his own room.

I stood there for a moment, watching him go, and reflecting that I'd just have to dreamwalk him tonight. Not to interfere or do anything... but just because I couldn't help taking a peek about what he would be dreaming of.

----------

(Maria again):

"Hey." Michael gave me a hand out of the car. "Any idea what you'd like to do next??" He kissed me after asking the question, like a pleasant little afterthought.

"Umm." I checked to make sure that the go kart was parked within the white outline, as the attendant had said, and stripped off the little racing jumpsuit that they had provided if anybody wanted one, to protect bare arms and legs from parts of the car that might get hot. We had been at Stanley Hill for about two and a half hours now, and having a blast, I thought.

"Actually, I could do with some FOOD," I insisted. "Whatcha think?"

"Already??" Michael's face turned down in thought slightly as we walked back to the pathway. "Well, I could eat a little something I guess... surprised that you'd be really hungry already. You had like three plates of breakfast at my place before we left."

I thought about that. "Yeah, I'm not quite sure what that's about, I'm just hungry a lot of the time lately." Sighed. "I think I'm putting on weight."

Michael stepped away slightly to give me that appraising, top-to-bottom look that might be either offensive or flattering, depending on my mood or the context. "Yeah, maybe... in ALL the right places." I smiled as he gathered me up in a bear hug that lifted my feet up off the ground. Okay, certainly didn't mind 'the look' this time. I had put my hair up in a ponytail and worn white sneakers, short acid-washed cutoffs, and a tight yellow crop top blouse, knowing that Michael would love the effect of the look. (Besides, although this was supposed to be a PG-13 date for the two of us, even PG-13 needs a little sex appeal.)

We went to one of the larger and less crowded food stations in the area, and I got two big slices of pizza, some finger chicken and french fries, a thick grape-ice slushy drink, and a belgian waffle-ey thing for desert. Michael shook his head at me a little as he watched me devour all that food, nursing his little bottle of snapple and enchilada the whole time.

"Okay, so now it's your pick what to do, I think," I told Michael once the last of the belgian delight was done with.

"Umm... hit the shooting gallery for a bit?"

Thought about that. "Sure, but I may just watch for a while. Not sure if I'm entirely in the mood to rifle down little ducks and bunny rabbits, even if they are just metal cutouts or whatever."

"You sure?" He shot me a look. "I'll teach you how to hold the gun right... hands-on if you get my drift."

Oh, boy. How the hell did he manage to make that sound *so* sexy?? "You could possibly twist my arm."

Well, Michael was as good as his word and it was as fun as he had made it sound... standing right behind me, his arms touching mine all the way along. I think, a little later on, he used his powers discretely to help me shoot enough targets in a row to rate as 'expert marksperson' and win a giant stuffed animal. Of course, he probably hadn't expected that since I had won it, (technically,) I could give it to him and make him carry it around the rest of the afternoon, including up on the hanging wire-cars that ran high above all the other attractions, which I insisted we go back and ride again after we'd been everywhere else, including the batting cages. (The wire-cars had been the first thing we did when we got there, too.)

And we sat together a little while, arms around each other, at a lookout point that gave a great view of the New Mexican desert, before getting in the car to go home. "I love you so much, Michael," I whispered, almost in his ear.

"I love you too, babe," he said with a wide, appreciative smile. "Probably not more than you, just because I haven't had quite as much practive. But 98.5% as much as you love me, at least."

I laughed at the way he put it. "You doof," and swatted him lightly on the shoulder, for good measure. "Let's go back to the car."

"As you command, my lady love."

----------

(Tess):

"Well, okay, not *trust* exactly I guess," Trevor said. "But there's a kind of bond that the two of you recognize instantly. Does that make any kind of sense??" Dave Porter nodded slightly. "Okay, then, could you take it from the top of the scene then??" Dave and Martin walked off to take their places for that point, and at Trevor's gesture, Dave walked into the open space and started to ad-lib his way through the script.

As you might have guessed, the movie was already into early rehearsals. We were practicing... well, the actors were practicing, Trevor was coaching, and I was just kind of watching -- the same place that the auditions were held, an old bandstand in the park. Right now Kyle and Liz were off talking among themselves, since their scenes didn't come up until later, and it was the hero's first meeting with his sidekick at the moment.

I'm not sure if this was a last-minute change or if I had just mis-guessed from the clues, but Trevor was not actually playing the sidekick role that I had pegged him for, Father Rezan the adventurer cleric. Maybe he had just realized that he couldn't play a role that was onscreen for so much time and shoot most of the footage simultaneously. Nobody had auditioned openly for the role.

But now that practice had begun, the Father was... surprise, surprise... my very mysterious mystery guy, Martin Bryce. As his scenes continued, I tried to make myself look busy and write as many little notes for costume ideas and wardrobe questions as I could think of.

After quite a while with Dave, (playing the lead,) Martin, and Liz some of the time, Trevor gave them a break and switched to the bad guys for a while. Pam Troy was playing the Black Knight's daughter, and she and Kyle struggled through a few introductory scenes.

I realized that this was maybe an opportunity and walked over to Martin as he grabbed a can of lemonade out of the cooler that Jonas had brought out. "Hi there, Father," I quipped. "Any idea yet how heavy you want your gear to be??"

He smiled, those green eyes like the sea focusing on me. "Not really, except for 'intermediate.' You know... if the shield and mace are too light it looks really fake. Too heavy and shooting would get incredibly tiring and painful, I think." He smiled apologetically. "I kinda get a trick back sometimes."

"Okay, I'll let you know when I have an idea what's available, and you can try some of them out," I told him. Now, how to bring up...

"You've been wondering why I showed up at Mister Valenti's house, asking for you," Martin blurted out. "I mean, haven't you?? Is that why you wanted to work for this movie in the first place??"

"It... it piqued my interest," I managed to get out.

"I was wondering if Mister Valenti had told you that I came," he said in a small voice.

"Strictly speaking, he didn't need to," I said. "I was there the whole time, but I'd told him 'If it's someone for me, I'm not here.'"

"Ohh." Martin rolled his eyes to the side a little as he considered that little piece of information. "And even though I wasn't who you expected, you didn't feel like you needed to change that decision... or at least not in time before I had already left, huh??"

"Something like that." I nerved myself and tried asking the key question. "I was also wondering... what's a czechoslovakian??" I knew the answer, of course, and he might well tell me so, but that would at least give me the info I was after.

It didn't happen like that. Confusion crossed Martin's face. "Umm, I dunno," he mumbled. "I mean, well, I guess there aren't any." Tiny little bit of hope there that was dashed as he finished the thought. "I mean, not since..."

"Since they split up," I finished. "The Czechs and the Slovaks??"

"Umm, pretty much, yeah."

Okay, so, that was that. Martin was completely clueless about the alien thing... (barring some million to one chance that he was just playing dumb really well.) He was just a sweet, cute, arty and sensitive human kid who had a crush on me. And I was on the hook for this whole movie thing.

"So, um... you wanna grab a soft drink after practice or something, Martin??" I asked, my voice hardly more than a mumble. "Tell me a little about yourself?" What the heck, he wasn't a bad guy or anything.

Just all too human.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Okay, this chapter is quite long, but I couldn't bear to split it up so it'll just have to stand as all part 24. Get yerselves ready.

Part 24

(Michael):

I drove the brontosaurus into the wide driveway, joining Max's jeep and Valenti's old minivan. The woodworking bridegroom happened to be walking our way at that moment, just coming around a corner of the house and carrying a long metal ladder, so I stood up out of the car quickly and waved a hand. "Hey, reporting for handyperson duty!! Where do you want us??"

Jim waved back with his left hand, paused to get the ladder set up against the wall, and hurried over. "Well, there's plenty to do with this place," he said with a wide smile. "Max and Liz are getting the dining room ready for painting, and Tess and Kyle are wandering around the place, cleaning and tidying. As far as other things... there's floors to be swept and washed, and the back door looks like it's seen better days."

"Well, we can get started with that I guess," Maria said, coming around the back of the car and putting her arm around me. "Sweeping and washing, I at least have a lot of practice with."

"Yeah, I can take a look at the door," I agreed. "Do you think it can be repaired, or will someone have to try to make a new one??"

"I'm a little on the fence about that very question, actually," Valenti admitted, leading the way towards the back of the house.

Now, in case you haven't been following along closely, Mister Valenti had managed to co-opt, (ie guilt-trip) all of us into giving up our days off, (well, except for Kyle, who is kind of between jobs at this point in the summer and thus doesn't really have days off in the strict sense...) helping him get Tess' old house ready to show to Maria's mom, with the idea that at some point both families will move in, and Jim and Amy will hopefully put their old houses on the market to help swing the mortgage on the Harding place, since the money that Nasedo left for Tess has almost run out.

Truth be told, I don't really mind that much about pitching in... honestly, it's the least that we owe Jim Valenti for all the crap that we've put him through over the past year or so, (including that trip to Vegas, which - yeah - was fun, but probably not the brightest idea I've ever had.)

"Oooh." I sucked in my breath as the back door came into view. Whittaker must have done this, when she broke into the house, looking for some clue to the Granilith's hiding place maybe? It was broken into two different pieces, each of them now swinging independently, and one of them almost hanging off of its hinge.

"Yeah," Valenti agreed. "Normal techniques won't be much good on this, if that's all we can use, then it'd be better to just start from scratch." He dropped his voice. "On the other hand, maybe more unique talents might avail, if we can get the pieces taken off and brought downstairs."

I thought about that. "Well, I'm not sure, but it might be worth a try, yeah."

"Okay."

"I'm going to go inside and start sweeping, 'kay??" Maria confirmed. I opened the doors up for her and stole a kiss while she was en route.

Jim was smiling broadly as I turned back to him, and for a second it seemed a little weird. Mother and daughter... one of us was madly in love with each of them. Maybe eventually that would be the foundation for some kind of bond between the two of us, but at the moment it seemed squicky to even define that relationship. Was he a father figure or a friend??

"So, do you want to hold steady or work with the screwdriver??" Jim asked, gesturing to the door hinges. Well, I guess that was a place to start.

"I'll do the heavy lifting, let you take the clever finger work," I said, smiling.

------------

(Maria):

"Are you sure that it's stable?" Michael asked for the second time.

"I tell you, it's like a rock," I replied. "Come on, I feel like you're coddling me just a little. I'm a big girl and I'll be fine." I climbed up one stair and half turned, bouncing up and down a little as if to demonstrate.

"You don't have to show off," he warned me.

"And you don't have to still be here," I shot back. "The others need your help, come on."

There was a lot of painting going on in the house at this point, and the smell of it was disagreeing with me for some reason, so Jim had suggested that I come out, get some fresh air, and struggle against the ivy that was clinging with incredible stubbornness to the south side of the house. Michael had come out to help me get the ladder set up, which I appreciate, but now his solicitousness was starting to bug me just a little.

"Um, okay," he said, his face falling a little and blowing up a kiss. "See you a little bit later."

He turned to head in, and I started to feel a little guilty. Calling "I love you, sweetie" after him helped a little. Getting into the job made me start to forget the rest of it.

It was weird. (Y-yyank, and a little clump of green leaves and stems pulled away from the wall, but was supported by all the rest of the network.) I kinda thought that Michael and I were rock solid at this point, but apparently misunderstandings and little foolish prides and the rest of the relationship badness could strike at any moment. Well, I'd apologize in a little more detail later, and that should smooth things over I think.

Another thing that was weird was the thought of leaving the house that I'd grown up and moving into this place with Kyle and Tess and Mister Valenti. That was kinda the deal though... the parental units were going to be getting married, they were even narrowing the date down now... (probably before I went back to school in the fall,) and by then, they and me and Kyle and Tess, and even vaguely cousin Sean, would all be one single family. Freaky.

I wonder if Mister Valenti's going to want to tell my mom about Michael and the others being alien. It kind of sounds like the sort of thing he'd support... all of those old-fashioned family values he keeps talking about. Not wanting to keep a huge secret from your wife kinda sounds like it would fit in as one of those values. But what's Mom going to think of Michael if she finds out that we're not even technically of the same species?

Liz told me a few days ago about this movie thing that she's in now. I have to admit, I don't really see why she's adding yet another project to her plate, and just because Tess asked her to. Well, no, she said that that wasn't the real reason - she found out about it through Tess, and Tess asked her to try out, but Liz insisted that she wouldn't have done it only because of that... I suspect that part of it is that Max isn't paying enough attention to her... he's off chasing flying saucers and so Liz is looking for validation from the camera, instead of him. That's just a wild guess though. I bet, though, that if she and Max were spending as much time together as Michael and I have been lately, that the movie thing would not even have been considered.

I finished ripping away and cutting apart all of the ivy within reach of the ladder where it was, so after a second I climbed down, moved it with only a little difficulty four and a half feet to the left, and started to climb up again.

I must have done something wrong. It seemed steady at first, but when I was about two-thirds of the way up, there was a weird bumping and a click, and the ladder started to slowly tip away from the wall. I shrieked and tried to hang on, but there was no way. I remember thinking 'uh-oh, this is not good' while flying through the air, with my eyes closed.

Then... well, there was a sudden sense of collision, a faint cracking sound, and an awful lot of pain. It hurt even to think, but I realized dimly that the worst of the agony was near my left hand, and from that and the cracking noise, it wasn't too much of a leap to guess that the forearm might be broken. "Hello?" I croaked, trying to get as much volume as I could. There had been an open window nearby, I remember noticing it. Was anyone inside the house near enough to hear me. "Help, Michael, I'm hurt!!"

I think I might have passed out for a moment there; certainly I don't remember the next bit really. A vague sensation of being carried maybe, and then I deliberately opened my eyes and realized that I was lying on a couch somewhere inside the house. Jim Valenti's hands were moving underneath my hair, carefully examining every section of my scalp, I realized, One section of my scalp complained and I moaned loudly. "What... what are you doing that for??"

"Well, you took a bit of a knock there," he told me softly, moving away from the area that complained as if he could tell it by the feel... (maybe he could,) "but there's no lump or any sign of a concussion, which is lucky. I'd say that the worst you got is that arm, which is probably fractured in two places." He shook his head slightly and looked into my eyes. "Do you remember what happened??"

"I moved the ladder, I must have gotten it unhooked at the top of the roof by accident or something," I said in a rush. Everyone else was here in the same room watching me... Michael looked stricken. "It was fine until I was nearly to the top, and then the ladder started to tip over and everything was bad."

"So that's it?" Michael asked softly, coming near, and Jim moved aside to led him sit down near my head. "Just an accident? You didn't notice anyone around, watching from a window nearby or something like that??"

"Umm..." I was struck by the oddness of the question. "Not notice as such, but everything happened pretty quickly... why? How did you find me??"

Michael ran a hand carefully over the side of my face. "I'd left open a window to keep half an ear out... not sure why. Heard a bit of a clatter and was debating whether to go and investigate or what, when you started shouting and settled the issue nicely." He sighed. "When I got out and saw you lying there... there was an odd notion, as if it hadn't been just a mistake, but that someone had wanted to hurt you. But maybe I was imagining it."

"How's the arm??" Liz asked, coming a little closer.

"It really really hurts," I complained. "Man, this is going to be such a pain, isn't it?? I'm going to have to keep it in a sling for weeks... which means I'm going to be at least half useless at the cafe..." And messing around with Michael wouldn't be nearly as much fun either. "Unless... Max, you can heal it right now, couldn't you??"

Max jumped a little at being put on the spot. "Umm, I guess I could, Maria. Are you sure that that's what you want?" He looked around. "Are we all sure? I mean, I'm not trying to be an ass about it, I'd like to help you out Maria, but there are some risks that we have to think about; this isn't something like..."

"Like Michael getting shot by a crazed gandarium killer??" I hissed. "Or is it that I'm not one of your best buddies that's making the difference??"

"Okay, come on," Kyle said softly. "Maria, I understand that you're in a lot of pain, but Max has a point. This is an iffy situation, so we need to take a step back and go over the situation rationally."

"I'll get you some painkillers for the meantime if you want, Maria," Tess volunteered. I didn't say anything, but Jim nodded at her and Tess hurried off.

"Why don't you go on moderating, Kyle??" Liz said softly. "You seem to be the best one at the rational thought thing at the moment."

He nodded softly. "Okay, Maria has asked Max to heal her arm. I think we can all agree that if that's something he can do without bringing risk or suspicion to our little cabal, or any other substantial counter-indication, then it's a reasonable request. Agreed??" There were nods from several people, and finally even Max himself shrugged noncommitally.

"To be fair, Maria, it's not as serious an injury as Michael's, or any other time when Michael's used his healing talent among the group, so the precedent does not stand unsupported." Kyle took a deep breath. "Does anybody want to bring up a consideration??"

"Will it leave a handprint??" Liz asked.

"It didn't when Max healed Michael," Maria pointed out. "Trust me, I would have seen it if it had. I think that's only when the person being healed is near death."

"Did anyone see you get hurt?" Max asked softly. "If they did, then they might think that it's odd when..."

"No," Michael answered. "I don't think anyone was watching when she fell, and there was no-one when we got out there and carried her in. Even if someone caught a glimpse, there's no way that someone could tell that she had broke her arm... she might have fallen that way and gotten no more than a few bruises."

Tess rushed in at this point, and offered a tall glass of cold water and a few kinda-big white pills. I shrugged them off for the moment and stared at Max. "If there aren't any objections, then I don't think I'll need them. At least, not until after he's done." It was unspoken that Max would probably leave the other bumps and scrapes from my fall untreated, but I'd decide if they were worth taking a tylenol for once I could concentrate on them.

"Okay, if it's what you want," Max said, and Michael moved away so that Max, in turn, could squat next to me. I nodded, and he moved the light blanket aside to reveal my arm, which had been wrapped up in some old rags. I nerved myself and looked deep into his eyes.

There was a moment of discontinuity, and a brief flash of standing out in the desert with Max, Michael, and Tess. Where was that familiar from?? There was some oddly memorable shape in the background... and then it was gone. Max was in front of me again, looking down. I pulled the wrappings away from my forearm, and sure enough, it looked nearly as good as new, except for a few superficial cuts and scrapes. Compared to the raging, pulsing pain that I remembered, it was a considerable improvement.

"Thanks, Ma..." I broke off, confused. "What's wrong, Max??"

"Um, it's nothing," he mumbled.

"No, it obviously isn't," I countered. Had he... had Max seen something while he was healing me? Maybe something about Michael and I? Well, that was a wild guess, but I didn't want to be keeping any secrets from the people around me. "Did you notice something while you were connected to me, Max??"

"Well, umm, I'd really rather talk about it in private," he mumbled. "You, me, maybe Michael..."

"No." I cut that idea off with a fierce shake of my head. "No secrets, not among 'our little cabal' now. Please, whatever it is, just say it." Was I, deep down, hoping that Max would spare me the trouble of putting the new status of my relationship with Michael out in the open?

Well, he did, but not quite the way I'd expected. "Okay, Maria, if that's the way you want it!! It looks to me as if you're pregnant."

"I'm..." my throat suddenly, got dry, and I snatched at that glass of water Tess had brought, tipping it into my mouth so fast that some of it dripped onto my shirt and my throat half choked on it. "I'm... I'm what??"

"He, he said pregnant," Michael said, coming forward and sitting on the edge of the sofa next to me. "Ummm... congratulations, sweetie? I'm not, urr, not exactly sure what else to say at a moment like this."

WHHAP!! I didn't even consciously decide to slap Michael, it was just something that happened. "Ohh, ohh, I'm sorry baby, I didn't really mean to do that, it just kinda happened," I babbled, not even really caring if I was making any sense or not by this point. "But... I mean, well, how could I be? We used protection."

"Not that time in Max's room," he reminded me, and I blushed so hot I thought I might well just explode. Hello, Michael... little thing called tact?? But I kinduv understood that he had other things on his mind at this point. "Any we weren't sure if we'd forgotten some other time."

"Plus," Max said, trying to keep his voice soft, "well, Alex had the thought that human contraception might not work so well with an alien, or half-alien, in the picture. It's... well, it's one of the reasons he and Isabel have been moving slowly." He sighed. "I'm not sure that why this happened or whose fault it is is really the point, though. We need to figure out... well, this is a partially-alien baby, or it's going to be when it gets to be a baby. That kind of affects all of us, even if you two are the parents."

"Umm, yeah I guess." I still couldn't quite get my brain around this. Was it really possible that I could be a mother? "Umm, Max, while you were, err, healing me... did you get any notion of how old the, um, the fetus was??"

"It was still really small," Max said. "I don't know that much about early development rates even for people, but to hazard a guess... maybe nine or ten days??" That would mean that we'd conceived a few days after Albuquerque... the timing would even work with that one time in Max's room where we'd both forgotten the condom. And... and it had been about a day or a half later when both of our sex drives has started to reduce to a manageable level... after the mating instinct, if that was what it was, had accomplished its goal, after I was carrying Michael's child. Ever since then, we'd been starting to 'nest', emotionally... Michael being really sweet and trying to take care of me, and me... falling deeper in love with him as I got ready to bear the baby to term, whatever that would entail.

"Is the baby okay, Max?" Michael asked. "I mean, from the fall."

Max shrugged. "Yeah, I think so. At least, nothing seemed to be wrong, though I'm not quite sure how I would tell."

"Oh, boy," I muttered to myself. "Okay, umm... what happens now??"

"Well, on a practical note, we kind of need to let Alex and Isabel know," Liz said softly, "but not over the phone, I think. Nobody may be 'listening', but it still seems like the kind of information that shouldn't be passing over long distance wires if there's any way around it. I'm not sure if they can come back, but..."

"Tell her to come for a visit in her dreams," Tess suggested. "That's secure enough."

"Okay," Michael said a little vaguely. "Umm... how are you feeling, babe??" He reached out towards a bit of hair that had fallen into my face, and then froze in mid-gesture, looking very uncertain and embarassed. I nodded, as if giving him approval to brush it out of the way, and he did. It's weird how even the sweetest and littlest thing changes at a moment like this, I remember thinking.

"Physically, I'm fine, now that the arm is better," I assured him. "Remember, if I'm only ten days along, the baby has gotta be, what, about the size of a pinhead or something? If it hadn't been for Max, I wouldn't even have guessed for days yet. I'm not suddenly made of porcelain now that we know I've been eating for two, spaceboy. I won't break." There was a slightly awkward silence there... (you might even call it a pregnant pause. Groan.) "On the other hand, I think the paint fumes are starting to bug me again."

"I don't want you working outside alone again," Michael insisted.

"Fine, then I'll head upstairs and start tidying up the master bedroom and the office," I shot back. "Wanna come with me?"

"I insist," he assured me, and with that he stood above me and offered a hand.

"Umm, well... I guess that means we go back to the painting," Max pointed out. "We've only got about half of today left, we'd better make it count."

"Well, except for Kyle," Tess said mischievously. "He's got no job... when he isn't on a rehearsal for the movie he has nothing else to do with his time... all summer..."

"Hey!!" Kyle protested. "Who was supporting this household for months on end sweating his ass off in a greasy bodyshop, draining septic tanks and what not?"

"Yeah, but what have you done for us lately??" she shot right back. "Break's over, buddha-boy. You didn't want to get another job... I somehow predict you're going to be spending many a day working on this old house. Without getting paid."

"In all fairness, the house is practically brand and spanking new," Liz noted. "Appearances to the contrary."

"Well, this new house doesn't have quite the same ring to it..."

After spending a few hours trying to sort through the wreckage of Nasedo's stuff after Whittaker had been quite through with it, Michael and I got back to the subject. "Are you sure you're okay with... with this??" I whispered, gesturing lamely in the vicinity of my belly button. "I mean, seventeen year old having a baby, it's practically the definitive after-school special. And we're talking about..."

Michael hushed me as he scooted over, and kissed me warm and soft. "I'm still a little bit in shock, I admit that," he said. "But I love you, and I promised to cherish you and take care of you when we started this." He smiled and, a little foolishly, kissed the tip of my nose, which made me dissolve into laughter. Maybe that was the point. "Our baby is going to be beautiful and passionate and a little bit nuts, and I can't wait to meet him or her."

I smiled at that. "Do you realize, neither of us said anything about... about not having the baby, or not raising it ourselves??"

"Umm, yeah I do, though it's not quite like we've discussed anything much in detail." He took a deep breath. "Do you.. I mean, are you thinking about..."

"No," I admitted. "As crazy as it sounds to take care of a baby ourselves... heck, neither of us are that good at taking care of ourselves all by ourselves yet. But I can't abide the thought of... of doing something to 'take care of it', and, well, considering that Max and Isabel were adopted and you grew up an orphan, I don't think that I could bear to give this child to a stranger. Not to mention that those poor people wouldn't know what they'd be in for."

He laughed. "I wonder if it has something to do with the mating urge again. If this is how my Antarian DNA has conditioned me to react, and it's spreading to you because of the way we're connected. Now that we know we're bringing a new life into the world, we have to feel protective of it until he or she is able to go out into the world alone."

"I dunno, humans kinduv have that one too, when everything works right," I pointed out. "Though maybe it doesn't tend to kick in anything like this early."

"Well, after a little bit more of this, why don't we take off and go out for dinner," he suggested. "Somewhere nice. We really do have something to celebrate, after all."

"Sound nice," I admitted. "D'you have money??"

"Actually, yes," he replied with a laugh. "Should be more than enough." He sighed. "And frankly, at this point, I think we need to do anything we can to distract ourselves from the fact that we're going to have to tell your Mom sooner or later."

"Oh, god," I breathed.

------------

(Max):

"So, how is she??"

This was Friday evening, the day after 'handy-person spectacular.' The day after we all found out. I hadn't been able to get a confirmation from Alex or Isabel yet, after leaving several messages. Liz's parents weren't around, so the two of us were having a quiet dinner together above the cafe. Liz had spent most of the afternoon on shift with Maria.

"It's a little hard to tell. I think that she's starting to realize all that this means. One moment it seems like everything is completely normal, and then I look around and she's wearing a look on her face like she's trying to figure out exactly when she stepped into the twilight zone. Which to be fair, she kinda has, somewhere along the way, though I'm not sure where I'd put the threshold." She sighed and took another bite of casserole. "At least she's not very clearly flipping out, though I'm not sure if that isn't yet to come. Like maybe about when her, um, regular visitor would be coming around, except that now we all know it's not gonna."

"Hmmm, yeah," I thought about that. "That'll kinda make it real, as opposed to just something that I told her about. Right??"

"Yeah, something like that," she admitted. "On the other hand, apparently she took an HPT this morning out of scientific curiosity. She was wondering whether it would react any differently than normal, because Michael's... not like other guys."

"Oh. Pretty smart thinking, actually, it might give us a lead as to how safe it would be to involve a human doctor in all of this. What were the results??"

"Nothing spectacular. Seemed like a slightly different shade than the 'positive' sample on the box, but there could be all kinds of perfectly normal explanations of that. It didn't turn into a completely distinct color from either of the usual alternatives, or show a weird pattern or anything at least." She sighed. "But from a safety angle, you might have to face the notion of taking on the duties of Maria's attending GYN, Max. You're the one who started this whole thing after all."

"I did not," I insisted. "I just clued in that it was happening a little earlier than anyone else." Big sigh. "But I see what you mean, even though I hate the idea for a whole bunch of reasons. And I guess I'll have to start by using what spare time I manage to scrape up, between UFO hunting and spending every minute that I can with you, reading up on pregnancy and studying obstetrics information online. I just hope my parents don't catch me at it."

"You could tell them that you're thinking of medical school," Liz suggested helpfully.

"Well, in that case... " I blushed and started to laugh. "I can't quite believe I'm actually saying this, but you wanna play doctor??"

She blinked in surprise. "When you put it that way... just let me get the dishes cleared away!!"

I almost choked on a mouthful of coke. "You serious??"

"Ummm... if we're talking about what I think we are... and if you are," she insisted. "Like naughty little kids playing doctor, right?? I never did, but I kinda got the idea."

"I didn't either," I quickly assured her. "Umm... heck, no way am I going to turn down the opportunity! Especially if I might have to get far more familiar with the equipment of my best friend's girl than I'm comfortable with, I'd certainly rather see yours first!"

"Okay." She sat back, uber-casually, and then flashed a bright, teasing smile as I was about to burst out with an exclamation. "After dinner sound good??"

I fought with the urge to rush through my food, letting the upper level of my thoughts get drawn into small talk and choice of desserts, even while another part of my attention was focused on the much greater treat to come afterwards. (Yeah, I know that's kinduv a bad pun... live with it!!)

Finally the dishes were all cleared, and Liz looked at me, a little nervously. "Umm... your room??" I asked, uncertain myself.

"Hmmh, yeah, probably might as well," she said after pondering the issue for a moment. I wasn't sure what factors she had evaluated... the psychological intimacy of doing this in her bedroom and the practical privacy of having a door in the way in case her parents came home unexpectedly?? Once we were there, her eyes locked onto mine. "Any idea just how we do this? I mean, you know, procedurally??"

"Not really. Just start taking stuff off, one thing at a time, about as casually as we can each manage??"

She considered that. "Fair enough. Mind if I lay a few ground rules?? For... I mean, as far as anything but stripping and looking?"

I blinked in surprise. "Feel free."

"Umm, okay." Liz closed her eyes and took a breath. "Initiator has to be the person who'll be doing... who'll be touching or whatever. No single act that involves activity on both our parts to be allowed. Everything has to be agreed to by the other party. Is -- is that clear??"

"Er, I think so," I mumbled.

"To help establish, an... er, an example," Liz continued. "If you wanted to, say, to suck on my nipple, once it was uncovered, you could ask me. But if you wanted me to suck on, er, on your nipple, you couldn't do anything about that. Except, possibly, to ask to do things to me that would hopefully give me the hint."

"Gotta admit, I kinda like your ground rules," I admitted. "Okay, who's first??"

She dug into a pocket for a second, put her hands together, fists closed, and then seperated them. "Guess where the quarter is," Liz told me after a second's pause.

"Ummm... there." I waved at her right hand, remembering that the last few times she'd tried a trick like this, she'd gone with the right.

Not on this occasion. The right hand, when opened, held nothing, and the left had definitely had a shiny and fairly large coin hidden inside. Had she been going against the pattern deliberately? Well, it wasn't as if I really minded going first so much.

"Casual, right??" That seemed to suggest that we weren't sticking by strip poker rules or anything, so I sat quickly on the edge of her bed and got my shoes and socks off right away, and then tried to pull my tee off in as graceful a motion as could be managed. Kinda got tangled up in the arm holes for a bit, but I did my best to shake that off and smiled as I realized that Liz was running her eyes over what she could see of my chest and biting the edge of her lower lip. Obligingly, (and doing what I could think of to set up a very useful precedent,) I turned around slowly twice to give her as much of an eyeful as she wanted. Felt a little foolish, but hopefully that was just because I had to go first. "Okay, your turn," I mumbled through a grin, and made a 'go-ahead' wave at Liz.

"Umm, okay." Liz was blushing pretty hard, and I guess she decided to try to fight off her nervousness by making a slightly bigger production of it... not that I minded. She took her sandals off with no hands, pushing the heel off with the toes of the other foot and kicking each one a few feet away. Then her slender, agile fingers went to the collar of the light purple silky blouse that she was wearing, clicking open the pearly-white snaps that ran down the front of it. Soon the top was falling apart in a sharp, narrow V shape, and my breath caught in my throat already. Was my brain going to go on overload before we had even finished this little game, if I was affected this strongly be seeing just a little peek of skin, most of which might have been in public view if she'd work a different top... oh, and a little glimpse of her bra?? (Lord have mercy!)

And then, all of a sudden, she was untucking the blouse from her jeans and shot me a smile that was somehow sweet and sexy all at the same time, and spread the front wide. Then there was a kind of a bouncy motion that I don't think I could ever describe, and one sleeve was entirely off of her arm, while the other was hanging off her opposite forearm. (Did she just do that instinctively?? It kind of looked like it required rehearsal... hmm, the thought of Liz practicing stripping off her clothes, maybe in front of a mirror...) But that mental image petered out, replaced by pure sensation as I drank her in with my eyes as entirely as I damn well could.

A lot of it, of course, was just confirming things I already knew about Liz, physically... small, slender, lithe, and sleek, skin glowing with innocent beauty and health... quite a lot of skin, though not as much as I was going to be able to see when this was done. Pale skin, with just a touch of pink color to it, and somehow it actually managed to *look* smooth. I have to admit, my eyes locked onto the lacy white bra that she was wearing... trying already to penetrate to the secrets it was hiding, even though the more logical part of my brain knew that it would be coming off in due course.

I've kinda got the impression that Liz is insecure about the size of her breasts, and mentally compares herself against some of the other girls at school. Personally, though, I can say with one hundred percent honesty that I've always thought her figure was perfect. (Normally this might be the cue for a rant about how even the most beautiful girls somehow find some detail about to fix on and obsess over how ugly it is, but now really isn't the time.) I suppose another part of it is that if I were in an intimate situation with a girl with larger hooters, within a certain range anyway, I'd probably be reminded of Isabel, and that's as good as a cold shower. Not that Izzy isn't hot objectively, of course, but I think all guys with sisters instinctively look for someone as a partner who's about as different from the sister as possible. But I'm getting off the subject, obviously.

So Liz was standing there, right in front of me, without her shirt on. Her upper body was nicely curved, and the above-mentioned undergarment gave a nice little peak at the contours of her cleavage. After a moment, I managed to make eye contact again, and her gaze was focused on my face like a brown laser. She had been watching me the whole time. "Your turn."

"Ehh-eh," I managed to protest. "You do the little spin around thing too. Every time."

Liz arched an eyebrow, and then lowered it. "Very well your majesty, if you insist." And she pirouetted there like a dancer, as slowly as I had turned around, while I stood there and enjoyed it. Noticing little things like how the curves of her breasts seemed to express themselves differently, seen from different angles. How her now-shorter hair rustled just a little bit as her head moved, and the way the nearly-hidden muscles of her back, (which was now uncovered, except for some white straps,) and lower thighs (which weren't,) would tense and relax at the same times.

Once Liz had turned about twice, she didn't beat around the bush at all. "Your jeans. Off. Now." I smiled, moved my hands to the center of my waist... and stopped short. If I went through with this, stripped down to my undershorts, (or further!) my, erm, my 'probe' would be all too visible. (Yes, I'd got myself worked up into quite a lather just watching Liz take off her shirt. You probably would have too, but ya didn't get to see it so nyyah.) Liz made a sound that was halfway between a friendly snicker and a nervous giggle... it looked as if she was starting to realize my predicament already.

Well... so what was the big deal, I told myself. Liz seemed to be getting excited herself, between looking at me shirtless and seeing the way I'd been staring at her. The tint of blush that had started with her cheeks and throat was now starting to become visible on her chest, (the part of it that was bare already,) and her upper arms, and yes, I thought I could make out distinct bumps through the lacy bra cups that hadn't been there a moment ago. Gathering up my courage, I unfastened the belt, snap, and fly zipper all as quickly as I could and pushed the denim fabric down my legs, stepping out of the pants and pushing them aside with one foot. So now all I was wearing were blue striped boxer shorts and yes, they looked a little funny and for the entirely obvious reason.

I shot a glance over at Liz, who seemed to be about as intriugued with 'the little king' as I was with her cleavage. Suddenly guessing what was coming, I turned around twice, a little faster than either of us had done it before, and wondering whether she would complain about not getting as much 'exposure time.'

Liz had an undecided expression on her face when I finished the second spin, as if she were mulling over that very question. "Well, I do kinda feel like I didn't get my whatever's worth there," she said slowly after a few seconds. "So I'm going to make the first request I guess. Can I touch your legs, Max? Maybe rub them a little?"

I blinked in surprise. We hadn't quite worked out how this part will work, but I went on a gut feeling. "Yeah, sure I guess. Do you want me sitting down, or to stay standing, or what??"

"Right there is good." She grinned, stepped closer and squatted down, then sat on the floor. Slowly, slowly, her palms reached out to touch one of my thighs each, just above the front of the knee, and then the tips of all her fingers and thumbs started to lightly stroke my skin as well. The effect was like each bit of contact, every skin cell that was touching hers exploded with an arc of energy, shooting from that spot though my body, down into the soles of my feet, up into my heart and brain and hands, and a lot of that energy running through my 'power center' too. Then I was hit with a flash... a strange one, or at least one I didn't understand. Someone wearing a pendant or a necklace... no, make that a necklace AND a pendant, a silver and blue gemstone looking thing on an intricate golden chain. A man, defintely, which seemed strange as it wasn't exactly masculine jewelry... not typically feminine either. Maybe alien in style?? But I couldn't see the guy's face.

When the flash faded out, I realized that my knees were shaking as if they were about to give out and the rocket in my shorts was twitching like it was thinking about launching all by itself. Liz had an entirely consumed smile on her face, one of her hands exploring my left upper-inner thigh, pretty close to my crotch, and the other having wandered around back; I suppose that helped explain my reaction. "Umm, maybe, maybe you'd, umm, better l-leave it at that sweetie," I managed to stammer.

She looked up at me with incredibly sad puppy-dog eyes. "Really? But I was just getting started." A moment's pause, in which I almost crumbled, and then she was using her hands to shove herself backwards along the floor a few inches, so they were no longer touching me. She got up using the side of the bed to push herself up against. "But I'll remember this when it looks like you're the one having fun touching, or doing."

I moaned softly, in slightly pained anticipation, but the whine faded away as Liz went to unfasten her own jeans, which were sassy button-flies. The blue pants only dropped a little bit at first, as if deliberately teasing me with a flash of white material underneath, and then slithered quickly down Liz's smooth and slender legs.

Apparently Liz was still feeling quite wild and playful. She managed to hook the toes of one foot into the waist of her pants and lift the garment back up to where she could bend down, (oooh, boobie shot along the way,) and grab it with one hand. Smiling at me, she held the heavy denim fabric up in front of her as she began to slowly turn around, and after the first revolution, she teasingly threw the pants at me, actually managing to get it so that one leg was hanging over my head. I quickly pulled it away, (not wanting to have my vision obstructed by anything just at that moment,) and held it at my left side, noticing that the cloth was still slightly warm from Liz's body heat.

Quick Liz Parker update, since at this point she's standing right in front of me in nothing but her unmentionables... the lacy white bra I mentioned earlier and a modest, and cute, pair of white cotton panties. When she had done the double spin this time, she'd done it fairly slowly, but the pants had been blocking her for nearly a third of the time, either held in front of her or hanging over my eyes. Still, I'd seen enough to realize that the things I'd noticed when she took her shirt off, the enticing curviness of her chest and sleek smooth lines of her back and stomach, just continued on into more enticing curviness (hips and butt,) and more sleek smooth lines, (legs, oh lord what a pair of legs Liz had!) I thought about making a 'touch request' of my own, but decided to hold back. We'd have time.

Without a word I maneuvered the hem of my boxer shorts past the evident bulge, squatted down to maneuver them down my legs, and set the blue stripy cloth aside. It was a little weird to stand up straight again, my stiff and erect penis, (yes, I'm sick and tired of silly euphemisms at this point, I have a penis, get over it...) sticking up and a little bit out, completely impossible to miss. That was it. I was naked... and it just occured to me that Liz still definitely had two pieces to go. Well, in between I could make my first request. That sounded good.

First, I had to complete the ritual. Somehow I couldn't make the bit about spinning around feel even slightly graceful now, with all protection stripped away. (What is it they say, the female form nude is a work of art -- a man's body naked is functional??) So I shuffled around as well as I could, taking care not to go to fast, and trying not to be too conscious of how much 'it' was bobbling around. When that was done, I finally made eye contact with Liz, and realized that by this point she was looking at my face too, not my penis. She was smiling a little. "Not, emm, not bad," she managed to get out, and suddenly was overwhelmed by laughter for a long moment. "Sorry, sorry, it's not that you look funny or anything, well, not really. I'm just... I'm just not sure what else to say, really, in this situation."

"It wasn't the worst thing that you could say," I admitted. (Not bad as in the length of it?? I'd never really thought about penis size in comparison to other guys... well, no more than the bare minimum that an eighteen-year old boy can't help but have it occur to him I guess. But the thought that Liz found me 'acceptable' was good enough and more.) "Your turn now." I had to admit, I was looking forward to this point, seeing the bra come off.

"Do you have to grin at me like that the whole time?" she shot back. Umm... busted, I guess. (As it were.) I shrugged uneasily.

"Well, do you, um, like, have a facial expression you'd prefer??"

"Errr..." Liz seemed to be getting kinda nervous about this whole thing herself. "Not too solemn I suppose. A little smile is okay, just... how about you try with no teeth?? Yeah, that'll do." I hadn't even been conscious of following her instructions, but I tried to keep my little smile pretty much where it was and at the same time, not to let it get too creepy.

Liz smiled reassuringly as if to say without words that she appreciated the way I was acting with the whole situation, and brought one hand to the little bridge between her bra cups, and... whhoa!! Front clasp -- does she wear that type often, or was she expecting to bring up this possibility today? (Or maybe it was just an odd coincidence.) Once the great treasures had been unveiled, she shrugged out of the arm loops, and winked at me. "You don't want me to turn around this time, now do you??"

"Ummm... actually no." Yes, I was staring more than a bit, that was kind of the point of this whole game, wasn't it? 'Look a lot, only touch a little' or something like that. Everything I saw was good... ripe, peaked nipples, a kind of a rosy-pink color. Soft, lush curves, light and perky all over, softly sloping away from her upper chest, well defined on each side, and sticking out just a little on the bottom. Now yes, I *have* seen Liz braless before, in the parking lot of that dance club, but... well, can you say BAD lighting?? (And getting to suck on them a little had just made it more frustrating that she'd never let me near her puppies since.)

Besides that poor glimpse, I'd never really seen a girl's breasts naked before... a few dirty pics on the net that I'd looked at out of sheer curiosity (or been ambushed by.) But it was completely different when I knew the person that, well, that they were attached to, or something like that. And when I was madly in love with that person.

Okay, I told myself. Enough with the ogling. "Well, since I have nothing left to take off this time," I said softly, "I'll take the opportunity to make a request."

"Sounds good," Liz agreed. "Ask away."

"Can I touch your..." I had to push through a mental block to actually think of something that was appropriate and not 'pushing it.' "...your stomach?? You know, the general midsection area?" Her eyes glinted as she nodded. "Umm... maybe go and lie down on the bed, if that doesn't make you too uncomfortable."

Her nose scrunched a little in vintage 'Liz thinking face.' "Umm, sure, I guess." She stepped back to the bed, pulled the blankets back, and climbed on, lying down on her back near one edge of the mattress, head propped up a little with several pillows, knees sticking up and bent a little. "This alright??"

"Looks perfect," I said, stepping close, and kneeling down so as to be about the same level, taking one and putting it near her belly-button, stroking it a little. For the first time in over a year, it occured to me that this was the same area as I had touched her after the shooting. Where I had left the glowing silver handprints that had caused so much trouble for the entire group. Where I had repaired tissue ruptures that would otherwise have killed Liz in a few seconds.

Somehow, by this point, it didn't seem weird or squicky to be going back and repeating that touch, in such a different situation, it felt like a loop closing, slightly satisfying. I looked at Liz's face to see if she was suddenly extra-nervous, but it wasn't clear that she had even made the connection, and I didn't want to mention it in case she took the idea badly.

Her skin felt amazingly soft and smooth and just, well, everything else that made skin pleasant to touch. Slightly warm, trembling ever so slightly with tiny motions that Liz couldn't control. I brought my left hand into the operation, rubbing a little more emphatically, though still gently and tenderly, at least I hoped so.

Suddenly another vision appeared in my hand, and somehow I knew that it was a flash that I was sending to Liz too, or something that was hitting both of us at the same time. A dark room, lit only by dancing blue and reddish flames... candle-like, but not quite candles, more like tiny candle-sized gas lamps. The ceiling was on the low side, and the entire floor was soft and yielding, as if the entire chamber was just one giant bed. Liz was there, wearing... whoo, this really provocative white nightie, that went from just beneath her shoulders almost to her knees, but was made of such an open weave lace that it hardly counted as wearing anything at all. (Needless to say, I loved the effect.)

And I was there too, wearing nothing but black undershorts. And as I watched, (and Liz was watching too, I was sure,) the two of us inside the flash came together, quickly stripped off those last remaining clothes and got down to very serious foreplay... his tongue on her nipples, (okay, my tongue technically, but it didn't seem like that, it was as if I was watching the two of us on a hidden camera,) her mouth around his power center, and then the passion overwhelmed them both and they got ready to come together in the most traditional and intimate way possible, Max kissing Liz hungrily as he...

And then, just as it was getting to the hardcore stuff, the flash popped out. For a long moment, I could still see it perfectly in my memory, the way Liz's hair, longer than it was now, had fallen down on the mattress-floor of the bridal chamber, (and yes, it had looked very much like a honeymoon night I realized,) the way my own image had assumed the missionary position, without using a condom or any other obvious form of birth control.

"Umm, Max??" Liz asked, and I was startled back to the reality of the situation. My hands started to stroke Liz's tummy again of their own volition. "Umm, well, I have to say I'm very curious if that's a fantasy about me that you've ever had before."

I laughed. "Not entirely sure that it was a fantasy I was having about you now, though I probably will deliberately revisit it later. But, well, it felt like a flash for me. Like something that hit me because I was here with you, not coming from my own mind. You didn't dream it up yourself I'm assuming."

"Umm, no, not... well, not exactly like that at least," she admitted. "I guess it doesn't really matter where it came from, as long as we both realize it ain't gonna happen for real for a good long time. Clear??"

"Aye-aye, mister," I quipped, rubbing a little harder with both hands, massaging her stomach muscles. Liz let out a loud sigh and hummed happily to herself, but she didn't seem to be reacting the same was as I had to her touch... possibly just because she was a girl and less prone to spontaneously exploding than a teenage boy. After a few minutes of touching her in that area just about every way I could think of, teasing, tickling, (which was very interesting... Liz is VERY ticklish in certain spots, and she felt that according to the rules she couldn't try to brush my hands away,) I stood back up and smiled down at her. "Okay, I think 'is your turn' again."

She grinned mischievously. "Should I just stay here and you can go around to the foot of the bed?" She winked at that thought. "And then if you want I can stand up and give you the butt shot."

"Umm... yeah, actually that sounds great to me, if you're serious."

"Well, tonight is about fantasies, up to a point... so fine. Go." She made a little gesture to wave me over, and I gingerly stepped around until I was, well, facing straight down Liz's bare legs towards that sensible but suggestive white scrap of underwear. And with a wide grin Liz reached down, slid it along down her legs, and left the panties sitting with her other bedclothes. Spread her legs a little bit wider, just to make the point.

Now this was entirely new territory for me. (Well, except for the anatomy diagrams in health class, which were always really hard to mentally connect to actual girls.) I think I'm not going to explain what I saw in great and gory detail, since we're kind of at the point where it's a little insulting to Liz. So in brief then... dark brown hair, trimmed short; little pink nubbin; pale and tender lips framing a mysterious-looking slit. I looked at her for a while, trying to get used to the idea that all girls had equipment like that downstairs.

Liz got up after maybe a minute or two, propped herself up on all fours so that her cute and juicy-looking rear end was pointing at me, then got up to stand beside the bed, still facing away, and looked over her shoulder and winked at me. Little max was very obviously just waiting for SOMETHING to happen to it; it was big and stiff and twitchy and leaking just a little bit of sticky fluid. "Umm, do you have a request th- this time?" I asked in a rough voice.

"Well..." Liz smiled, considering it. "No, actually, I don't have anything. You??"

I took a deep breath and went for the big one... at least, the biggest one I could think of under Liz's ground rules, or the one that I was craving most. "May I, Liz, suck on your nipples?"

Her face fell a little bit. "I -- I dunno, Max. Not wanting to be a party pooper, but... lemme see if I can explain this right, okay??" Her gaze was fixed on me, and I nodded slightly. "I told you that I don't want to get particularly near 'the line' today, and that particular thing, nipple-sucking I mean, is pretty well known for getting both people involved to lose their heads, become WAY too excited, and quite possibly go much further than they were planning on. For my own part, the one prior experience I have of it bears that conventional wisdom out all too well. Do you see what I'm getting at?"

"So basically, you think if you let me do it, it'll get both of us way too horny and we might well end up going all the way?" I recapped, and Liz nodded. "Well, yeah, I think I understand what you mean, though I'm... well, I'm really REALLY disappointed, and I still like to think that we're careful enough to keep ahould of just enough of our willpower. I would force myself to stop it whenever you give the word, and we could go seperate ways and take care of the lust monster our own selves."

"Ohhh." Liz blinked, and blushed again... or, well, blushed more again, since it was probably pretty fair to say that she'd been blushing at least a little throughout this whole time. "I, um, actually, I don't really, um, that is, you were talking about... masturbating, right?"

I blinked in surprise. "Okay, that'll teach me not to make assumptions, I guess. Kinda thought that all teenage girls... all teenagers, for that matter, did it."

"Well, I've, um, I've experimented," she confessed. "Never really found anything particularly, err, satisfying. It's harder on girls than it is for guys, you know!"

"Yes, of course. I *do* know that much."

"Even tried a few techniques that, um, that Maria mentioned, but I couldn't really get them to work." She looked up into my face with an oddly strained half-smile.

"Tried doing it with an aid??" I asked, and Liz's jaw dropped open. Feeling a little naughty, I continued. "Could probably sneak one of Isabel's 'little friends' over to you, though not right this minute obviously. She only took one down to Las Cruces I think."

Liz's face stayed shocked, but there seemed to be something about her eyes that was intrigued by the notion. "And you'd actually do that for me?? You wouldn't be, um, I mean, I don't know... threatened or anything, by the thought that I'd be letting a battery-operated device down where you can't yet go?"

"Umm, I kinda wish you hadn't put it exactly that way," I admitted. "Though not a big deal. The real deal is, I do think it's um, healthy for a young woman to get in touch with her sexuality in a safe way, and if it lets us do a little bit more when we're messing around because you have an option to blow of the steam, that's a bonus for both of us. Do you want it?"

"Uhh, yeah, I think I do." She smiled. "And before we get to that, I have a counter-proposal to your request."

"Oh, what's that??"

She started counting off points on her hands. "No sucking, no licking, no nuzzling. No lips or tongue or anything in the head area for that matter. But if you want to use your fingers on them for a little bit, only until I say to stop, then I'm game. And then we put our clothes back on and it's over for today. How about it??"

"My fingers and I LOVE that offer," I laughed, and stepped closer to her. "Can they touch the rest of your breasts too??" Liz giggled and nodded. "Okay, um, do you want to lie back down??"

"You really like that, don't you?" Liz smiled and got back onto the bed. I knelt down next to her again, realizing that after all the fuss I'd made I'd darn sure have to do this pretty well, and I'd run out of delaying tactics. I stretched out both hands, fingers first, and started by just moving them ever so lightly across the tender skin of her boobs. (Harder to go wrong when you're only touching lightly, I've decided.) Liz smiled and 'hmmmm'-ed a little, so I kept it with the light touch, moving up and in towards the patch of more sensitive-looking pinker flesh, and then the small but proud peaks. At first I hardly touched Liz's nipples themselves, but after a few moments I grew more confident and started to brush them a little more solidly, hold one between my finger and thumb, push it from the side just a bit.

I was rewarded by a soft moan from Liz, a hot flush coming to all of her skin in that area, and quicker breathing. That encouraged me to play around even more daringly, betting on whether I'd be able to see a trace of moisture between her legs before she called me off.

I won that bet, but only just. "Okay, okay, thank you very much, but we're done now." And she sat up and kissed me very quickly. "Go get your pants on."

I sighed, and brushed a little hair out of her face. "Yes, sweetheart." And turned around to figure out where my shorts had ended up.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part 25

(Alex):

"Umm, okay, so, err, is there a particular way you were thinking of doing this?" I asked.

There must have been more nervousness in my voice than I realized, because Isabel cocked her head speculatively at me for a moment, and then reached out a hand to ruffle my hair. "Maybe you should relax a little, honey. Sheesh, after all that the two of us have done already in this bed, I didn't think that just lying down with me would creep you out so much."

"It's not the lying down part," I insisted. "More like, 'trying to follow you into the dreams of several of my close friends.' When, I should point out, you've never really dreamwalked more than one person at a time before, *or* tried to take someone in with you the same way that you go."

"Oh." She pouted cutely. "THAT. Well... you know that it's safe, right? I mean... objectively I can't explain how I know that, but I've just got more confidence in it than I usually have about, well, about *anything.* Some kind of intuitive awareness that the capacities of this trick are broader than I realized. You do know that I would never even have suggested that you go in with me, if I weren't sure that you'd be okay, right??"

"Well, yeah, of course I do," I said, smiling slightly. No matter what I could say about Isabel, she would never hurt me, either intentionally or negligently.

"And, can you trust in my certainty?" she asked softly.

That was a slightly tougher one. I did believe that Isabel was completely certain and sincere about my safety... she was sure of it, come hell and high water. But that was based on nothing objective and concrete, just an intuitive feeling, and some intuitions aren't worth the paper that they aren't printed on. However, the answer came after a silent moment, from where I wasn't sure... which meant, I guess, that I was being intuitive about her intuition.

"Yeah, I do trust you," I said, and when she beamed in reply, I reached up to touch her cheek for a moment, and then let my hand fall away again.

"Well, um, to get back to your question," she said after a moment, "err... I'll need to have real easy access to the picture, so how about I lay on my side, facing outward, and you can spoon me from behind??" She frowned slightly, not seeming entirely happy about that pattern. "I'd feel somehow better about taking you in if you were in front of me... if I could watch out for you as you went first, as it were, but I don't want you to be constantly holding the picture up so I can see it over your shoulder, because it could take a while for everyone on the other end to fall asleep. Mmmmrgh."

I smiled. "Well, how about we start it with me behind you for monitoring. Once you've picked the right moment, we can each roll over, and you hand me the picture just before we go in."

Isabel thought about that plan only a second or two before grinning. "Yeah, that's why they call you the brainy one. It sounds like a perfect plan."

We had each already changed into pajamas by this point, or the nearest equivalent. Isabel had brought over real pjs, really soft flannel white ones with little puppy dogs on them. I was wearing a pair of comfortable shorts with the pockets cut out and sewn over, and an extra-large black T-shirt. Isabel lay down near the edge of the bed, putting the prom photo in front of her, and I got onto the bed from the other side, scooting up behind her, putting one arm around her midsection and propping my head up on the pillows as well as I could so I could see above hers.

Just looking at that picture brought back a rush of feelings. Junior prom '01, a galaxy to remember. Isabel had had to pull every persuasive trick she had to get me to ask her to the dance, because I'd gotten tired of her always leaving me behind and I didn't want to get burned. But that night had been the beginning... I fell in love with her all over again, and she... was it just that she'd finally been ready to commit to a relationship this time? Or had me playing hard to get scared her into realizing that she had to take responsibility for the consequences of her actions? Whatever the explanation, she hadn't played any more games with me, intentional or not -- Isabel was as serious about me as I'd always been about her. Just thinking that made me smile again.

Maria in her floaty white dress and Michael in his cooking clothes. That was a nice memory too, thinking of how amazed and happy Maria had finally been when he'd come to the dance, formal suit and all, to meet her, and explained that he'd been afraid of looking like an idiot dancing. Even Max and Liz, who had not had nearly as happy a prom experience, seemed to be happily together now. Only Kyle and Tess had definitely failed to make a love connection, realizing that their relationship was more like family... and even realizing that you had a brother or sister that you could count on was nothing to sneeze at, I suppose.

Isabel's soft fingertip dragged across six of the faces in the picture... avoiding the two of us, of course, and Mrs DeLuca. "Hmmm..." she muttered. "Kyle's dreaming, Max is asleep but not dreaming, and Tess is nearly asleep. That's it for now. Might be a while before we can catch a window."

"Sokay, I'm in no hurry." I moved my arm slightly to rub fingers along her smooth neck. "What did the message from Max say again?"

"Just that Michael and Maria had big news and I should walk over some night for a chat." Her voice sounded a little... I'm not quite sure what to call it. Petulantly confused? "Since there's no way that I could literally walk back to Roswell, and he mentioned night, I'm assuming that he was trying to indicate dream walking. And so I called back, talked about a bunch of other things, and at the end of the call I thanked him for the suggestion and said I'd be there at 11:30. But it doesn't seem worth it to try if not one out of Michael, Maria, or Max is dreaming."

"Relax," I told her. "They might have had other things tying them up. We have all night, right?"

"Yeah, I guess," Isabel admitted. "So, just what is it that's been going 'pretty well' down in those computer labs? I know I said I wouldn't give you a hard time about spending so much time on the project, but I'm curious about what's going on, if there's anything about it that I'd understand."

I laughed. "Well, you remember how I said that the senior team members were writing a new compiler, a new instruction language for us to use to tell the Q computer what to do and how to do it?"

"Umm, yeah, actually I do." She sounded surprised to have followed in that much detail.

"Well, that's been done, and a few simple proof-of-concept programs have been compiled and run through the Quantum processor, just to demonstrate that in theory, we've resolved the issues that were causing problems before."

"But whether you've accomplished anything in practice is another question?" Izzie anticipated.

"Yeah, though most of us are hopeful. Now there's a huge amount of source code that has to be carefully rewritten into the new source language, adding greater detail where necessary. At least most of it was written by people who are still with the project. Once that's all done, and any unusual bugs and kinks worked out of the system, then we'll have a powerful transcription program to put through its paces." Isabel sighed a little.

There was a long pause, and I tried to come up with another subject for conversation. "Anything interesting happen with your suitemates recently?"

"Umm, not that I can think of." Isabel yawned herself, and I realized that I needed to keep her awake long enough to do this dreamwalking thing before she started to dream her own dreams. "I haven't been spending that much time playing well with the others I guess... just kind of disappear into my own room. Maybe it's a little rude and antisocial, but... I dunno, I guess I miss the gang back home, you know? Not having to pretend so much. And it seems like so long before my classes will be over."

"Yeah, well, you haven't had that long to settle in," I reminded her. "Not surprising to be feeling homesick. And the Fourth of July is coming up soon, we're going to be taking the bus home to see everybody, right."

"Yeah," she agreed. "Maybe the next time you get a day off we can go down to El Paso, sounds like there's some cool stuff we could do." She reached an arm back to rub the side of my waist. "And... and I've been thinking of asking Max or Michael if they can drive up for a visit - I know that they're busy with stuff, but if Maria could make it... you know?"

"Yeah, it's worth asking at least."

--------

We laid there and talked on and off nearly until one AM, mostly about stuff that really isn't terribly important. Isabel had counted off a few people going to sleep or similar changes in their status, but had seemed content to keep waiting. Suddenly she blurted out, "We're losing Maria."

I thought about that for only an instant. "Wait, who do we have? Already in dream state??"

"Maria, Max, Michael, and Liz."

"Then who were we waiting for?"

"Umm... Tess to come back in?" Isabel said tentatively. "Never mind. We're going in, 'kay??"

"Fine by me," I assured her quickly, and rolled over on the bed. Quickly Isabel nestled up behind me, and handed me the picture. I held it for her as she reached out and touched the faces of the four of them, holding me close, and then... everything changed.

Isabel's never been able to describe much to me about what it's like for her to dreamwalk, so I'm not sure if my own experiences fit. (Of course, this was a multi-dreamwalk too, something entirely new even apart from my own inclusion.)

I distinctly remember a brief, rippling sensation, like I was flying into the photograph as two hundred miles per hour. (That might have been just my overactive imagination... maybe.) And then, for a long, quite frightening period of time that was impossible to measure, my mind was hanging in darkness, unaccompanied by anything that could conceivably be mistaken for a body. It was like an entire universe composed only of the darkness and my thoughts, which were quite unpleasant company at that point in time, as you can maybe imagine. I was screaming and ranting silently into the night, wondering what would become of my soul if something had gone permanently wrong, and I was marooned wherever this was forever, when a familiar presence somehow floated near, calming me immediately. After that, it seemed like only a few seconds until....

BAM! Out of the darkness, suddenly, came light. A standard issue floodlight apparently, white with just a tinge of blueness to it, from at least twenty-five feet up, maybe thirty. As I wondered to myself 'up relative to what?' it became clear that a few points of reference had appeared at the same time as the light - a floor, to start with, polished gray slate or something like that, a body for me standing on the floor, and some of my friends too. Had all of these things been created by the light, or by whatever had created the light??

"Okay, that was weird," Maria said, looking around her with plenty of confusion to go around. "What the heck is happening, has happened, or will happ -- oh. Princess Evans, I presume. This is your doing??"

"Err, yeah," Isabel agreed, waving a hand and instantly conjuring walls, furniture, and less harsh lights around the six of us. "Sorry, I was trying to experiment with how far I could push the dreamwalking thing. Mucho apologias if the results were uncomfortable or disturbing for any of you."

"Is no big," Maria admitted, sitting down on a big sofa that had room for at least one person to take his place beside her. "Just a little startling... I had been swimming down in the bahama corals, breathing water, and then things were going kinda fuzzy, and WHAM I was here."

"I think you were starting to wake up when I dream-walked you," Isabel explained. "Must have felt like you were waking up here instead of in bed... I'm not surprised that it seemed strange. Again, sorry."

"Well, I didn't quite expect you to do things like this, Isabel, but it's nice to have the old gang back together for a bit, I admit," Max said. He and Liz had already taken their place in the comfyest loveseat, and I quickly looked around for a place that Isabel and I could go. There was a paisley chesterfield against one wall for some reason, and it looked better than nothing. Michael quickly hurried over to take his place next to Maria, and Isabel frowned at all of the single chairs and whiffed them into nothingness, since it was quite clear that nobody wanted them. Then she sat down too, next to me.

"So, umm, mind if I ask what the big news is that couldn't be said over the phone or any of the other long-distance communication media we have at our disposal, here in the twenty-first century?" Isabel joked.

There was a moment of strained silence, and then Michael blurted it out. "Maria's pregnant."

I blinked in surprise, trying to absorb those two words in such close proximity. "Oh, nice going bonehead," Isabel shot back with a shortness that startled me quite a bit. (But hey, I guess we all have our ways of dealing with sudden shocks.) "Sorry, that wasn't exactly called for," she admitted a second and a half later. But, umm, well, didn't you use pro--"

"We did, or at least tried," Maria said. "The theory going around is that you guys have an instinctive mating drive that kicks in once sex begins, that among other things, tries to subconsciously work around birth control devices. It spread enough to affect me too, because I was with Michael. Between the big horny and the little voice in the back of our heads telling us not to worry about it, we probably forgot the condoms a few times. Word to the wise."

"I'm suddenly very glad you didn't want to move our relationship to the next level yet, Alex," Isabel muttered. I"m not sure I deserved all the credit, since she hadn't been pushing to 'deflower' me that hard at all, but decided not to get into it at the moment.

"Umm, how are you dealing, Maria??" I asked softly. "Feels like a stupid question to be asking, but..."

"Surprisingly, I feel pretty good about it," she repiled. "Not sure if that's alien instinct still, or plain old human hope and hormones, but... it'll be alright. I know that getting a bun in the oven before senior year is not generally accepted as a good idea, but -- since when have the normal rules applied to this group, you know?? The cosmos owes us a break, and I mean to collect on it."

"I'm not sure that the cosmos plays by anybody's rules but its own," Liz said softly, with a worried tone but somehow soothing, not trying to upset Maria as such. "The rules of karma don't always make much sense to us, at least not without a lot of hindsight."

Isabel shook that part off. "Is there anything that we can do for you? Either of you?"

Michael smiled. "No... at least I don't think so." He looked into Maria's face for a long moment, and she shook her head slightly, caramel waves flowing in the still air. "Thanks anyway. You guys are kind of tied up at Las Cruces for now anyway. We just wanted to make sure that you'd heard, really. And I think you realize now why we wanted it to be as in-person and secure as possible."

Isabel nodded slightly. "As far as this goes, yes." She stared out at Michael suddenly, her face incredibly still and intense. "But what are you not telling us, Michael??"

He spluttered in surprise for a moment. "How... how could you tell?"

She smiled slightly, sitting back into my enfolding arm. "Actually, I really couldn't. Call that speculation, or a very good bluff, whatever you like."

Michael groaned. "But there *is* something, isn't there?" Maria pressed him. "You've given that much away already, admit it. So you'd better come clean with whatever it is, if you know what's good for you."

Michael shrugged a little awkwardly. "It's not definitely anything. But a bunch of really little things have been starting to form a pattern in my mind. Tess getting odd and extremely vague premonitions. Someone breaking into my locker at the Crashdown and searching it. The way we found out about Maria being in the family way -- she was on a ladder that fell for no particularly good reason, broke her arm. While healing it, Max realized that something else was going on inside her body."

"I told you," Maria said, "I didn't hook the ladder up properly, and that's why it fell. You don't need to start getting worried about that..."

"You're not *sure* that you didn't do it properly," he told her softly, "you're just assuming that because it seems like the most likely explanation. I'm not so convinced." He sighed. "I think it's quite possible that there's some malign person or group in Roswell. Scouting us out, ready to make his or her or their move."

"Oh lordy, can't we get a break from that??" Maria sighed.

"We have had a break, I think," Max put in. "It's been over three months since the Gandarium were wiped out, and they were the only things this year that really qualified as 'hostile alien forces.' We probably haven't put the time off to much good use, but those are the breaks. Could be that the next thing has started."

"I so didn't want to hear that," Liz grumped. "Thanks a lot Isabel - your speculative bluff got the rest of us into this."

Alex laughed a little bit, and sighed. "Well maybe. Would you rather not have known, Liz??"

"Yes." A pause. "I dunno, not sure maybe. But still, let me blame the messenger a little, kay?"

"Michael was the messenger," Isabel protested. "If there is one. I was just the message to the messenger, or... or something that makes a little more sense than that."

"Don't know that we need to worry about blaming anyone," Maria put in. "Time to be a little more careful I guess."

"Not too careful I hope," Isabel quipped. "Remember, we're coming back home for the Fourth weekend, and Alex and I expect big festivities. Someone mentioned something about having a barbecue and campout in Frazier woods? An actual, honest-to-god campout, not telling the parental units that we're going camping as a cover for big hairy danger??"

"Sounds good to me too, Izzie," Max told her. "We'll do the best we can to deliver, but big hairy danger doesn't necessarily keep to a schedule."

"It just better not piss me off, that's all I'm saying," Isabel muttered under her breath.

There was a pleasant silence for a few moments. "Okay, so just how do we all get out of this dream??" Michael asked.

"Umm, I guess that might be up to me," Isabel said with a smile. "Sure there isn't anything else??"

"Max, Michael, Isabel wants one or both of you to come up in person to visit her if you can," I said, so quickly I hadn't even had time to think about it. I realized that she was going to turn and glare at me even before she did. "Well, you had mentioned it to me," I maintained, "and this doesn't really seem like a good time for trying to beat around the bush."

"Okay," she admitted. "Maybe it's better for that thought to be out here in the open. Not a huge deal, guys, I'd like to point out. Just... I miss both of you, and that isn't something that dreams or phone calls or email can really do that much about."

"Of course," Michael said. "I'll try to get down there when I can... that's okay right Maria? I mean, I know you said that you don't need me around every single minute, but three-hundred plus miles is kinda different, and...."

"It'll be fine," she assured him. "I was just up there, remember? Though I'm not sure if I'll be going again very soon, I admit."

"Okay," I said. "Is that the last of it??"

"I have a question for you about hair conditioner, actually," Liz admitted, looking a little embarrassed to admit it, "but I don't.... (huge yawn,) remember all the details. Will probably send them along in an email some day soon, 'kay?"

"Um, sure, of course," Isabel agreed. "Nothing else? Okay, ten second warning." She held up her hand, and I moved closer to her, hugging her tightly. Wasn't sure if there was any chance that the trip back out would be as freaky as the ride in, but I wasn't looking forward to finding out. Somehow, being so close to her seemed like it would push the odds in my favor, even if her holding me close before hadn't done that much good that I knew of.

I didn't have anything to worry about. The dream room seemed to shatter around me, and after an odd moment of reorientation I realize that I was back in my bed, Isabel behind me, just as we had been at the start. "Whew," I muttered.

"Umm, Alex??" Isabel had an odd, probing tone in her voice, and I sat up so as to be able to swing around and face her without trying to roll on top of her. "Did something go wrong there? Like, right at the beginning of the dreamwalk??"

"Umm, yeah, actually, I kind of think so." I didn't want to admit it straight out, so instead I took the initiative and asked *her.* "What was it like for you, going into those dreams, before the light came on?? Before Maria spoke to us??"

"Umm... Kind of weird even by dreamwalking standards, I have to admit," She said. "Normally I just kind of appear somewhere that already exists. But this time there was no pre-existing dream with all four of them in it, so I kind of had to fly around on some sort of a dream plane, bringing them together."

"What did it look like to you?" I persisted.

"Umm, well, not 'look' as such, but it was kinduv blue and silvery, with different people's dreams like gigantic balls or spheres, of all different colors. Why?"

I explained what the transition had been like for me, as tersely as I could, and her eyes grew wide in belated concern and regret. "Oh, sorry honey. I didn't realize it would be like that for you. I'm surprised that you didn't chew me out as soon as we got there... well, no, actually I'm not surprised. With anyone else I would be... but it's not particularly like something you'd do, though maybe you should have said something, even in front of the others." She looked deep into my eyes. "Or were you too proud to admit to fear in front of them?"

"Maybe a little... it's not like I haven't admitted being scared to them before, but this was different." I sighed. "Not sure if I've ever really believed in an afterlife, but being stuck in a state like that permanently... to me, that's a pretty good depiction of hell."

"For me too, I have to admit." Isabel sighed. "I think that maybe you're just not equipped to perceive the dream plane in the same way as I am, because it's a unique talent -- maybe not even to move around in it by yourself. Everything else... not being able to speak or hear or feel that you have a body... I think I experienced all of that too, but I was just too busy to really get wigged out by it. But... I promise you this, I could see you the whole time, and I don't think I was ever too far away. If there was some kind of danger, I would have come for you, and there was NO way I was ever going to leave you there. I didn't realize that you couldn't see me as easily as I saw you."

"Yeah, I think I realized that," I said. "but thanks for saying it out loud - that helps. Not sure I want to go through that again anytime soon, even so."

"You don't have to," she said. "I think I'd like to take you into a single person's dream sometime, because I think that'll help you not be afraid of it so much. You don't see the dream plane hardly at all that way. Just 'poof' and you're inside someone else's head. If you don't want to, I'd understand, but..."

"No, it's okay, probably," I told her. "I think I'd be up for that, some other night." I yawned and looked at the clock... it read one twenty-nine AM. "Now I think I'd probably get some real sleep. You wanna stay over?"

"Mmm... heaven." She leaned over and kissed me, long and sweet. "'Specially since I'm already in my jammies."

I wondered briefly if I'd be scared of the darkness in my room, and the blankness of sleep, after what I'd been through... and also whether lying down with Isabel would get me worked up. Neither seemed to be an issue, actually - as I lay down with my arm around her, everything seemed to be more or less right with my world, and it can't have been more than five minutes before I drifted into a deep and apparently dreamless sleep.

---------

(Maria):

"Thanks for understanding," I said into the cell phone. "I don't know why my Mom insisted on me going to her office and doing this, but it seemed really important to her. I promise it won't take long."

"Don't worry about it," Michael's voice came back via the radio frequencies or whatever. "You'll get here when you can get here, right?? I certainly don't mind you doing a quick favor for your mother... we're trying to get on her good side right now, aren't we? Considering the kind of news we're going to have to tell her eventually?"

"Um, yeah," I agreed. "Thanks, I love you so much. Umm... kinda gotta go now, alright?"

"Yeah, sure. Maybe give me another quick ring to let me know that you've finished the errand and you're on your way??"

"Yeah, definitely," I assured him.

My mom got this business office last fall, a two-room affair on the second story of a stumpy red brick building. The rent on it isn't much and she says that it pays for itself just as a PR thing... there isn't much she can do at the office that she can't do working out of our house, like she used to do, (and still does at least half the time,) but she can make more deals when she has an office to invite customers or suppliers to. I hadn't heard the cell phone ring while I was at work at the cafe, but when I was on my way to pick Michael up I'd found out that there was a voice message waiting on it... Mom, asking if I could grab a few flyers that she'd had made up with picture samples of Jim's carpentry work on them, stamps, and pre-addressed envelopes sitting on her desk, put it all together and drop them into the mail so as to be sure they'd be picked up with the early morning post. I parked the bronto in the parking lot, hurried through the front door, up the stairs, and used the spare key that Mom had given me to get inside. Okay, there were the catalogs, there the stamps, and... were these the envelopes? No, because there were no addresses on them. Hmm. She'd said on her desk, right?? I looked around quickly, then got my cell phone out to check the message again.

I didn't hear footsteps behind me. I didn't see movement out of the corner of my eye. Just a sensation of...

Blackness.

----------

For a relatively pleasant, dizzy moment, the only thing that existed was the darkness. And then, from out of the night, a strong hard slapped me hard, and brought pain with it. Not just pain on my face, where the slap had connected, but in my elbow and knee joints, hands and feet, and in my midsection... oh, no! Was the baby okay? What the futz was going on??

"You with us, sweetheart?" the rough, deep voice asked. For a second, I thought it was... no, it couldn't be.

Then I opened my eyes as another thought occured to me, and heard a few chuckling voices. Focus seemed to take forever to develop, but somehow I knew what I would see, when I could see. Yes, it was Rath and Lonnie, not quite in their full New York punker regalia, but looking similar enough to the way they had last November to be unmistakeable. It was something about their faces that made it clear more than anything else, cruel and arrogant expressions that Michael and Isabel had never come close to.

Okay, we had obviously reached the bit where the truehearted pregnant girl is abducted and held hostage by bad guys. "It... it wathh you," I blurted out, and felt obliged to correct for the clumsiness of my mouth after getting knocked out or whatever. "Was you. The ones that Michael thought were snooping around town, plotting something."

"Oh, so weasel-hair was onto us, huh?" Lonnie laughed. "Too bad he didn't keep a little closer eye on you, my precious, my little dollface. But then, he's a rank pitter and always will be. Which is why we're gonna trounce him and his friends within an inch of their lives this time, heh heh heh."

"You talk big, you always did," I said quietly. "Of course, last time you made a move on Max, it didn't go too well for you. Really that confident about the rematch??"

Rath spat nearly in my face. I suddenly realized that I was lying on some sort of couch, with the two Dupes sneering down at me, and beyond their faces were some kind of really bright lights, many of them in distinct primary colors. "Those bitches back here in Roswell had one trick that we weren't counting on, and that's all it takes. But we haven't missed anything this time, and you'd better believe it."

"For instance, you're probably hoping that Michael will charge though the doors any minute to save you, right? Well, he'll be coming to try, but we're prepared. We know more or less how long he'll take to find the clues we left at yer mommie's office, and that he'll go back to find Max for backup. Max will want to let one of the others know, but they're all out on that queer little film shoot, and the prima donna director didn't let anybody else take cell phones. So it'll just be the two of them, and they'll be worried and probably won't stop to check out the sitch enough." Rath started to laugh, a very ugly sound.

"And... and my mom?" I blurted out for some reason.

"Oh, she's fine, off doing business in Carlsbad just like ya thought," Lonnie told her. "Doesn't even know that you went near her hideout." She mimed picking up a phone, and suddely Lonnie's voice became a perfect replica of my mom's. "Hey, angel. Just wanted to say thanks for getting those flyers into the mail for me. Love yas a bunch and I'll be back home tomorrow night. Toodles!!" And then it was Lonnie's usual voice again. "Direct molecular alteration of the vocal cords. Can be a real pain to find the right combination to impersonate another voice, but real useful occasionally."

This was all a little too much, and there didn't seem to be anything I could practically do at the moment, so I just lay my head back, closed my eyes, and let out a huge, long groan of frustration. The dupes, for whatever reason, didn't bother me. Anything Rath had woken me up for, he'd given up on... or he'd already gotten it and I didn't even notice.

-----------

Might have passed out or fallen asleep again - I'm not really sure. When I was clearly aware again, this time nobody talked to me. I looked around.... was still on the couch, which in turn was on the auditorium stage of West Roswell High, which explained the primary-colored bright lights I had notices.... all of the stage floodlights were on. Rath was glaring at me.from about twenty feet away. Now that I could focus on him a little more clearly, he didn't look that much like he had last time... His hair was grown out of the mohawk or whatever, but it was still shoulder-length in the back and a little big up top, and still that same ash brown shade as Michael's.

He was wearing a white T-shirt with a thrash band logo, a long-sleeved jean jacket with none of the snaps fastened, and fairly plain black pants. It was hard to tell if he still had any of his tattoos, since all of the sites that I remembered were covered up.

Following Rath's line of sight past me, I spotted Lonnie, sitting on the stage floor, knees pointing up and her hands on top of them, eyes closed, apparently concentrating very deeply. Her hair was a bit longer now, neck length and nearly straight, with all the ugly frosted tips and dark roots gone now, though it somehow still didn't seem quite as bright as Isabel's. Same tank top and long loose pants that I remembered. Something caught my eyes on one of the fingers or her right hand - a ring, some sort of jewelry again. With a pretty gem stone, red like a ruby or pretty garnet, except that when it caught the light just right, it seemed pale yellow instead. Huh... must be a trick of these floodlamps I supposed.

After a while.... maybe two minutes or so, she got up and went over to Rath. "They're here. Call it T minus one-fifty."

Rath nodded, taking what looked like a simple radio-frequency remote control out of his jacket pocket. "Places, everyone." He and Lonnie wandered over near the two stairways down from the stage.

One fifty... one hundred and fifty seconds? That was two-and-a-half minutes. I tried to count off seconds, but I kept counting way too fast, and I'd lost count a couple of times before the auditorium door opened, a faint rectangular window of light down in the darkness of the audience, and two figures stepped into that light. One of them raised up his hand, then reconsidered, and they both stepped through quickly, getting out of the way of the door so it didn't make them a tempting target.

Rath laughed and triggered his remote. The stage floodlights went off instantly, and the door swung itself closed. I think I heard the sound of a lock bolt slipping home, but that might have just been my imagination.

There were pale, eerie blue lights illuminating the audience section now... had they just been switched on now too, or had they been on the whole time, drowned out by other light?? Max and Michael could now be clearly seen at the back of the auditorium, and there was nowhere for them to hide from the light. Except the obvious way -- they each scrambled to dive behind the back row of seats in the audience, effectively hiding them from view of the stage at least.

The stage itself had to be just a threatening patch of blackness to them. I could see Rath and Lonnie's silhouettes against the house lights, because I was behind them. Was there any way for me to go and turn the stage lights back on? Not from backstage... they were controlled from the control booth, up in the catwalks above the audience. But... but if there was just a chance that I could get to Rath's remote control...

I crept up from the couch, my body still feeling sore but not unuseable, and headed towards his silhouette as quietly as I could. Not nearly quietly enough, I guess... I caught a bit of motion and suddenly my ankle was complaining loudly, not supporting my weight. I balanced on the other one for a few seconds before toppling gracelessly to the ground, catching the impact with my knees and hands as much as possible to reduce the danger to the baby. "Bad move, sweetpea," Rath growled. "Get yerself back there, if yo can." Frustrated, I scrambled back in the direction of the couch, none too quickly. The ankle REALLY hurt - it felt as if something had been fractured in that area. Dammit.

Max and Michael, meanwhile, had heard the noises and started to scramble up the aisles, covering themselves as well as they could. Lonnie laughed and sent a faint power bolt in Max's direction, and he yelped as it passed over his head and returned fire... not even close.

After a long moment, they were close enough to maybe make a run for the stage, and Lonnie and Rath started shooting more in earnest. "C'mon, Max," I mumbled under my breath, and sure enough, that green shield blossomed in mid-air, big enough to cover Michael too even though they were still on seperate aisles. Lonnie and Rath hit the shield a few times with big bolts, and then dropped down to firing the occasional buzzer, apparently trying to make Max keep the shield up for as long as possible.

Some shape dropped out of the catwalks, just behind Max. He saw it, but didn't dare drop the shield, so tried to fire one blast of invisible energy the other way, but it didn't seem to work. The new guy, (who seemed a little short, but that was all that I could make out through the wavy green light,) sent some kind of shimmering energy field at Max, who tried to dodge, but it was no good. He collapsed, and his green shield collapsed. Michael, caught by surprise, looked around and vaulted over several seats, orienting on the new intruder, who waved and created a dark red shield, which swallowed up Michael's blue energy pulses. Then Rath caught Michael with what looked like a yellow phaser beam, and he screamed and staggered. Lonnie glared at him, and he wilted and finally lay still, half sprawled over the back of two uncomfortable seats.

A cold chill ran through me. So far, we were doing really badly the worse for this confrontation. And then I recognized the face of the new player in the soft blue light that was still shining in the audience area. Nicholas Crawford, the pint-sized warlord of Copper Summit, who had very nearly zapped away ever human being in Roswell... and Kivar's envoy to planet Earth.

He must have been following Lonnie and Rath, pissed off with how they had disappointed him in New York. Now they'd let him to Roswell, and I couldn't guess what would happen next. Would they shoot it out right now? If Nicholas overpowered the dupes, what would HE want to do with me and the others??

"Okay, I admit it," Lonnie's voice sounded. "Your timing wasn't bad. Ready for phase two?"

"Yeah," Nicholas agreed, smirking. "Give your better half a kiss goodbye if you want it... I know he's bummed about having to pull the guard duty."

Oh, *CRAP*!!! Nicholas wasn't gunning for Rath and Lonnie after all, it was worse. He'd teamed up with them. Was it even conceivable that our ass wasn't toast now??

The stage lights came up a bit, and Lonnie and Rath shared a passionate kiss before Lonnie hopped down the entire height of the stage, walking around Max's still body and back out of the auditorium with Nicholas. I groaned and decided that right now would probably be a good time to pass out again. Of course, it didn't quite work like that, and I sat there on the couch, unable to stop crying, my ankle hurting worse and worse, as Rath started to gather up the unconscious or worse bodies of my friends.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part 26

(Kyle):

"Cut, I'm sorry. Cut!" Trevor waited a few seconds before walking into the shot. "Kyle, I'm not sure how to say this, but... you're playing it over the top, and that's not really the point. The Black Knight isn't supposed to be ha-ha-ha aren't I evil. He's..." The director broke off, trying to figure out how to explain things.

"He doesn't think that he's the bad guy," Martin put in. "For the movie, he is, but that's not something he believes about himself. Am I right?" Martin turned to Trevor to see if there would be agreement about his analysis of the character.

"Yeah, that's it," Trevor replied, nodding enthusiastically. "The Knight is doing what he thinks is necessary to keep order here in his little piece of the world. The more the insurgents cry out that the old laws are unjust, the more determined he becomes that enforcing them is the right thing to do. They worked well enough for his father and his grandfather, after all."

I sighed a little. Never claimed to be that much of an actor, after all, and the film geek threesome seemed to be acting especially twitchy now that we were out of rehearsals and actually shooting video. But I breathed for a second and tried to look at the situation from their point of view -- I had chosen to sign up for this... I owed it to Trevor and the rest to try as hard as I could, and it was the director's job to tell me about what was needed and help me deliver it, among other things.

"Umm, okay yeah, I think I can... can work with that," I said with an odd trace of uncertainty running around in my mind. What that description had instantly brought to mind... was Tess and Liz's stories about Nasedo. I'd never met him myself, but... self-righteous bastard who can do the most heinous things while believing that he was completely justified... check. Now, could I actually draw on that indirect experience to help my performance any?? "Do you want to do another take right now??"

Trevor considered that for a few moments. "No, you take a moment with your motivation, Kyle, and I want to try something different with the camera. That's five, people!!" I walked back out of the shot, and noticed that Liz and Tess were standing a little ways off, so I went over to join them.

"Are you two arguing about one of Liz's costumes??" I asked.

"Actually, no, just talking about, erm, about some stuff to do with before I came to Roswell," Tess muttered. Oh, right, that would be connected with Liz's other new role this summer -- she had appointed herself the mistress archivist of all things alien-related, interviewing all of the pod squad and trying to cross-reference everything that had happened to them here in Roswell, going back before the shooting.

"I thought you were pretty good there, Kyle," Liz said, smiling slightly and brushing a stray fallen leave out of a chink in my fake 'armor.' "But of course, I'm not the big film genius."

"Well, thanks for the reassurance anyway," I told her. "Hopefully, next time will be right... Trevor might explode if we don't get some good dailies on file today."

We chatted amongst ourselves for a few minutes more, and then Martin called me back for my scene. I really got into the notion of being the Black Knight as an Ed Harding-like guy, whose actions were over the top but believed that everything he was doing, or saying, was completely justified, if not reserved. All of a sudden, there was an odd sound. Soft, at first, but people started to mutter, and then exclaim in voices just not quite loud or defined enough for me to make out what they were saying. "The hell?" Trevor burst out, obviously frustrated that the crew were ruining what had been a perfectly good shot. "Cut! What in the name of unholy Thespis is..."

"Kyle?" a single voice rang out, and there was a hard-to-define quality about the word that instantly sent a peculiar pulse of tingles all the way up my spine. It was Liz who had said the word, definitely, and she was... worried. I couldn't tell immediately if she was worried about me, or worried about something else and hoping that I could help, or what, but I intended to reassure her one way or another, if I possibly could.

I started to run down the path, towards where Liz's voice had come from. As I brushed past Trevor and his camera, (which made the angry look on his face even more pronounced,) there was another soft sound, and something I couldn't make out whizzed through the air just inches above my head, and slightly off to one side. One instant later, I was lying in a heap on the ground and forest roots... would like to tell you that was a deliberate move, hitting the ground so as to take cover from whatever it is, but... no. I was just scared and fell down. (It kinduv works about as well that way, though.)

Another wizzing projectile sound, louder and nastier... and someone screaming. Possibly -- oh boy, it sounded like Donna Mason, the assistant producer, who was a funny girl a grade behind us in school. Whatever was going on, either she was in pain, or very very frightened. Either of those possibilities made me angry.

Taking a deep breath, I scrambled up a little, and tried to crawl down the path as quickly as I could without presenting much of a target. It wasn't easy or pleasant, mostly because of the many exposed roots and little pointy stones in the ground, but... suddenly I realized that Liz was about ten feet away and scrambling towards me in an awkward kind of crouching skuttle. "Kyle... You're okay!?" It was halfway between a relieved exclamation and a question.

"Yeah... you?"

"I'm f... f... fine," she managed to stammer out. "But I... I nearly got roasted by a, by a firebolt or something." She waved back the way she had come, and I realized that a few of the trees were burning. "And -- and Tess!!"

"Oh, no." Air and energy seemed to whiz out through my lungs and throat with the face that Liz made, saying Tess' name. "What happened to her? Is she hurt??"

"I... I don't know!! She just... Kyle, it was like an invisible hand picked her up and carried her into the thickest trees."

"Oh, great." A few things were starting to become very obvious here. The film shoot was being attacked by aliens of some description... and the only person here who had alien powers to fight back with, was also the one who was in the most trouble, and nowhere nearby. "Any idea what we do now??"

"Ummm, well..." Right at that moment, ironically enough, a blue pulse shot out from behind a tree and slammed into Liz's side. Her eyes rolled up into her head, and then closed, and her body slumped down completely, like she was a puppet whose strings had been cut. I grabbed her hand and felt for a pulse at the wrist... still seemed strong and regular. Hopefully, that meant she was just stunned and not badly hurt.

"Well, I might do that yet," I mumbled out loud. "But it doesn't seem like that great an idea. So..." I tried to dash off, at an angle compared to the tree that the energy blast had come from. Like I was doing a forward hook pattern on the football field, except slightly different because I didn't need to worry about people shooting at me when I was playing football. Then pivot, and charge again in a new direction...

It worked pretty well, compared to some of the possible outcomes. I managed to grab the arm of somebody who'd been hiding behind the tree and drag them out halfway into the open. The first thing I realized was that she looked like Isabel, except for the hair being different, shorter than shoulder-length and a kind of light brown, or blondish-brown. She was wearing a low-cut gray tank top.

The second thing I realized was that she packed one heck of a strong punch... literally. I had a vague impression of a fist coming towards my head, then a burst of pain, and a realization that my awareness was fading. Oh, really great job Kyle. Knocked out by a girl with a single hit. Even if she was an alien g...

----------

(Liz):

Everything was black, and then dizzy, and then swimmy. I looked around, but the surroundings were dim: some kind of...

"Liz!! You're awake??"

It was Max's voice!! I followed the direction, and noticed that the dark lump next to me looked kind of Max-ly, if I squinted at it a little. At this point, I also noticed that my wrists and ankles were all tied together behind my back, in a very awkward and undignifying way. Suddenly, everything that had happened at the movie shoot came back to me, the alien attack. But... but Max hadn't been at the movie shoot, had he? No, he hadn't. He must have... have gotten caught some other way. Dammit!

"Megz..." Okay, one, my mouth hurt, and two, that didn't come out right. Tried to enunciate a little harder. "Maxx..." Slightly better. "Can you... can you do anything? Cut these ropes, or..."

"No, noo." Max groaned. "I... I don't know what they did to me, but I can't use my powers. Dammit."

"Is... who else is here?" I asked him softly.

"Michael and Maria, and Tess. Not sure about Kyle... I think I heard them put someone else on the other side of you, who I can't really see. Is that him?"

"Um, yeah, yeah it is." Kyle had a big black eye starting to form on his insensate face. Details were starting to occur to me about the place where we were... a rough, functional room with concrete walls and no windows. The air smelled stale and dusty... possibly we were underground. "Any idea where we are?"

"I remember getting carried down through a hatchway from the open desert," Max mumbled. "Maybe an abandoned missile silo or army bunker."

Oh, that's just great. Somewhere that nobody at all would ever think of looking for us. "And... well, who was it who captured us?? I didn't get a good look."

"Nicholas, and Lonnie," Michael groaned from somewhere over on the other side of Max. "And Rath. They've teamed up again, dammit."

"Oh, no," I muttered.

"I'm... I'm really worried about Maria," Michael muttered. "She's passed out again, and I couldn't get a straight answer out of her about what happened... she was the first one they got, Liz. I just... I have this awful feeling about..." He didn't need to finish that sentence. We all knew what he was thinking, which was: 'The baby!'

Not long after that, an incredibly bright light snapped on, some kind of floodlight or something like that. It was pointed from one end of the room, hitting Max and Kyle and I more or less in the direction that we were tied up facing. "Alright, losers, I think you know the score by now," a sarcastic voice called out... a familiar voice. Little Nicholas. "You're helpless. You can't do anything to free yourselves now that we've slapped resonant nullifiers on all of you. Notice, if you like, that we're learning. Maybe the only ones who really needed to have their powers taken away were the true hybrids, but Parker -- you ruined things once before, you and the Vilandra knockoff with the long blonde hair, and that little bitch Ava. Thus, you have some miniscule potential to develop superhuman powers at the worst possible moment, and if you have, it was probably because Max healed you, so Valenti would have a miniscule fraction of a miniscule fraction of that potential too. And everybody's sweetheart, Maria DeLuca, well... it didn't take that much insight to realize that she's got a quarter-alien bun in the oven. Better safe than sorry."

"Enough of the rambling grandstand speeches," I muttered, more out of reverse psychology than anything. Nicholas had just given away something that might be useful... I realized, once he mentioned it, that there was some kind of thong or string around my neck, holding a smooth and cool metal object flat against the skin of my throat. Max and Kyle had them too. If they were what were keeping alien powers away, then maybe we'd be able to get rid of one somehow. By griping about Nicholas' rambles, he'd just be more likely to grandstand even more, as a way to piss someone off. Or at least, I thought that he was ornery enough to do that.

"Alright, down to business it is then. We want three things from you."

"Let me guess," Max muttered. "One is the granilith, two is for me to come along for a public execution in Kivar's court, and three is, umm... actually, I'm blanking a bit here."

"A good pair of elevator shoes?" Tess put in.

"No disrespect." The growl was Rath, I think... and the sudden gurgling was Tess... I'm not sure who had pulled a Darth Vader on her. My guess would be Lonnie, actually. "The next one who smartasses any of us gets a lot worse than that, so remember respect." Tess was sputtering by the time he finished saying that, which meant that she'd been allowed to breathe before suffocating I suppose.

"Just tell me one thing," I blurted out. "The film crew... the other people who were there when you attacked us in the woods. Did you hurt them??"

"Well, of course I hurt them," Nicholas laughed again. "It wouldn't have been fun if I hadn't. Not quite sure, to tell you the truth, if I killed anybody. But I definitely got a *kick* out of trying out the double-barrel plasma rifle!!"

"As he was saying," Lonnie chimed in now. "Three things. The first, yes, is access to the Granilith. Second is the book that Tess got from the handprint in the public library wall. Nicholas will be able to read it, and it has instructions for working the Granilith. Third, we'll need the key, it's a short crystal rod."

"We... we don't have anything like that," Michael said. "Really, really we don't."

"Don't give me that," Rath shouted from behind the light. "They must have given it to you, because we don't have it."

"Maybe... maybe the shapeshifter hid it somewhere," Tess burst out. "He was like that. He could have planned to tell us about it, but he was killed suddenly. I... I might be able to find it for you, if you give me a chance. Just don't hurt anybody."

"Find it," someone insisted. "Finding it is good."

"I dunno," Lonnie countered. "I don't think she *needs* to find it. That's some kind of trick, a ruse to get herself free. The protector wouldn't have hidden it from them that long. They have to know where it is already."

Uh-oh. This really didn't sound good.

----------

(Isabel):

"Aaaaggh!" I sat up straight on the couch so suddenly that I bounced a little, right in the middle of the 'Dark Angel' rerun. Alex turned to look at me.

"What... what is it, honey?"

"I... I just got some sort of a... a premonition, no, that's not quite right. A very clear impression of danger, of something going wrong right this second in Roswell."

"Really?" Alex shook himself and sat up, (we'd both been relaxing about as much as possible on the couch in his room,) and turned the television off. "Do you... as much as I respect your abilities, this is outside their usual pattern, and something that kind of happens to us humans all the time without meaning anything. Maybe I should call someone."

"Well, alright," I allowed. "But... okay, this is *really* going to sound silly. But don't call anybody's cell phone. If they really are in trouble, that might... that might let the wrong person know that we know, that we could be coming to help. Do more harm than good."

"But... come on, given how secretive the gang usually is... it's possible that nobody's reachable without calling their cells, and that doesn't necessarily mean that anybody's in danger."

"I know that it'll be difficult to be sure without taking that chance," I told him, "and that's just plain TOUGH! I... I'm really sure of what I detected, Alex. Though it's hard to put into words. Like... like what's happening to somone I care about, Max maybe, or Michael, was received in my subconscious mind. There always seems to be that reversal when it comes to my power specialty, what's subconscious on one side is direct on the other, and vice versa. It fits together."

"Alright, so... so you want to head back to Roswell, tonight? It's a four hour drive, Isabel, and we don't have a car here."

"I'm not going there by land," I insisted. "We can catch a taxi to the airport, and... and I dunno, either charter a pilot or steal a plane!! Alex, I know that I sound hysterical, but there may not be time to waste on this crap."

At first Alex didn't say anything, he just gathered me into his arms and hugged me. "All right, here's what we're going to do. First, I'm going to try calling some of the home lines, talk to parents, try places any of the gang might be hanging out. As long as you think that'll be safe?" I nodded. "You... you just try to relax, do those breathing exercises that the therapist taught you, and maybe that'll put you in better touch with this subconscious whatever."

"As ever, the voice of reason. But *hurry* with the phone calls." I sat there as he got up, breathing as slowly and calmly as I could, but it wasn't helped by the fact that a, every time I relaxed a little more I got more frightening images in my head, and b, the conversations that Alex was having on the phone kept distracting me."

"Okay, I think we'd better get moving," he said after a little while. "I couldn't reach Mister Valenti himself, but he called Liz's mom a few minutes before I did. The film shoot that Liz, Kyle, and Tess were at this afternoon was... well, they don't know what happened, but some of the other crew were hurt, and those three are nowhere to be seen. I don't think Max, Michael, or Maria are in touch either."

"They're, they're tied up somewhere I think," Isabel muttered. "Dark, but with a bright light shining in their face, and mean aliens yelling at them."

"Oh, boy," Alex moaned. "Come on, I've called for the cab. It'll be downstairs waiting for us in a few minutes."

I grabbed my purse and my sweater, and let Alex lead me out of the room, trying not to shiver too hard.

----------

(Michael):

"You can torture me, you can kill Liz or whatever," Max was shouting, "but you cannot force me to tell you something that I simply *don't know,* alright!!" He let out a loud moan. "Come on, Lonnie... you can get into my head, right?? The same way that Isabel could? You can see that I'm telling the truth."

There was a moment's silence, and then this really evil chuckle. "Ooohhh... get into your head. Why didn't I think of that before?" That was Nicholas, and all of a sudden the floodlight flicked to a new setting... not quite off, but much softer, just a faint light in our area. Nicholas himself walked out and crossed the distance between the light source and Max, his small body casting an eerily vague shadow across all of us. "But you know me, Max... I'd never settle for just looking inside someone's mind for a moment." He stretched out a small hand. "I like to really poke around in there and get my hands dirty... so to speak."

So, that was it. They weren't fooling around anymore. Nicholas was about to brainrape Max... (Got, could there be a more disturbing way to phrase that??) All kinds of things were running through my mind and crashing into each other at that moment... how horrible that would be for Max, how many interesting things Nicholas might find out if he did it. I had to stop it, but I was as helpless as he was.

And then there was a voice, a soft voice, but almost literally as clear as a bell. "Okay, Michael, I've found the hatch. Will be coming inside in a moment, but you'll need to create a diversion so that they don't notice me. And for god's sake, don't let them check the perimeter."

It was a familiar voice, but at the moment that familiarity was just an extra source of confusion to me. I looked over at Tess, but she didn't seem to have heard what I heard. The words just plain didn't make sense... found the hatch, will be coming inside.

Nicholas was almost at Max's side, but he turned around and called over his shoulder. "Lonnie, check the perimeter. This is the last moment that we need an unwelcome surprise."

Check the perimeter. Okay, I didn't understand what was going on, but following those instructions was the only course I could see to follow at the moment. Create a diversion, stop Lonnie. But how...

Lonnie stepped forward a bit, so that her figure was partly visible in the edges of the soft light. "Aww, jeez? I'll do it, but dontcha go starting on the guy until I'm done, Nicholas." She stretched out her left hand, and I saw something glinting on one of her fingers. "You know how much I love watchin' ya work."

"Thief!!" The word just kind of burst from my mouth without any conscious intent. All of the evil trio stepped closer, surrounding me.

"Now, it seems to me that we told yous about respect," Lonnie muttered. "And it also seems to me that that word ain't a very respectful one. So, the question naturally occurs to someone who's been followin' along... are you too dumb to pay attention to what's good for you, 'Guerin', or do you actually have the balls to back up fightin' words??"

"I've got all the balls I need," I muttered. "Take this damn thing off my throat and I'll prove it."

Rath considered that, and laughed nastily. "Naw, we're not quite *that* dumb, buddy."

"An' I didn't steal nothin," Lonnie hissed at me. "Rath gave this to me."

"Then he's the thief," I argued back. I hadn't planned any of this, but it seemed like somehow I had stumbled onto the one line of conversation that would work as a suitable diversion, and damned if I wasn't going to push it as hard as I could, short of literally, actually asking them to kill me right now. "I don't know how I recognize it, but I do. That thing is *mine.*"

"Well, whatdya know," Rath laughed. "You got enough of your alien DNA straight to think so. Sorry Mikey, close but no quite. You think that it's yours because you've got the memories that were meant for me, to realize that it's MINE. That's why I got it, before you even realized you came from outta this world, huh?? And I gave it to Lonnie a year ago, to seal our alliance, and because she can use it. But that doesn't keep it from being mine, really. Someday, maybe, it'll pass on to one of our brats, if we ever get old and decide to get her knocked up. Not dumb enough to do it right now, like some people that I could mention."

I let the reference to Maria's kid pass by without comment. "Well, I don't know who gave it to you, if it was your shapeshifter or what, but whoever it is was wrong. You may have more alien DNA than I do, but I'm the real heir of Rath. *You're* the mistake."

"Well, then, maybe I'll just need to kill you right away," Rath snarled, stretching out his arm and flexing his fingers.

"Come on, Rath," Nicholas groaned. "As much as I hate to admit it, we can't afford to kill anyone yet. Michael might be the only one who has vital information that we need." He looked down at me, (because I was still tied up on the floor,) and grinned an evil grin. "Which means, I guess, that he gets to be the first one whose brain I search."

"No, I don't think he does." This time, everybody did a double-take at the voice, and the three of them instinctively looked around to see where it was coming from. Which seemed to be an utterly unremarkable part of the ceiling of the bunker. By this time, though, I'd kinduv figured out what was going on.

That sentence hadn't been spoken out loud, it had been mindwarped -- the last little bit of misdirection necessary to throw all three of them off the track.

Two blobs of brilliant purple-white light streaked from the far end of the bunker, a little bit off to the side of the floodlight where the Trio had started to harass us from. One blob struck Nicholas dead on, and he screamed as violet flames engulfed his body. The other streaked past Rath, burning his arm badly, and knocked Lonnie back several feet from the gust of superheated air generated as it whizzed by. Those of us who were tied up were safe from the original charged, being forced a few feet below the level that they stayed at, but the plasma flames or whatever licking at Nicholas' shoes were starting to make me feel nervous. He was concentrating, though, and managing to get the flames around his face and chest put out though.

As the second small ball of white fire smashed into the far wall of the bunker, its light brightened the entire space, and I looked over at where the two shots had come from. I could feel a smile cross my face. Another familiar face with unfamiliar hair... pale golden hair, but short, a little shorter than Lonnie's. She was wearing a yellow t-shirt and simple blue jeans, and carrying something that looked a little bit like it might have been a martian shotgun. She smiled at me, and the thin leather strip around my neck snapped, falling away entirely.

The sensation was like flipping a switch back on. Immediately my powers were back at full strength... no time required to charge them up or allow the interference to fade away. Altering the molecules of the ropes tying me up was a simple thing... that's a trick that I've practiced, actually... seemed inevitable that sooner or later it would be important. Before anything else though, I looked up at Nicholas, and we made eye contact. He noticed that my neck dealie was missing, and his eyes narrowed in fury. Somehow I could tell... it didn't matter if he was going to die regardless. Nicholas would do anything that he could to see me in hell, as it were.

I automatically seized as much of the element of surprise as was up for grabs, realizing that it might be my only chance. Picked up Nicholas' body with my powers... (it wasn't that hard, since he didn't weight much,) and slammed him as well as I could against the wall, trying to break the seal on his Husk. But that didn't work, and Nicholas' eyes seemed to flash as he counterattacked. But I didn't feel anything, and a strangled groan from a few feet away told me the truth. Nicholas *hadn't* attacked me.

He had realized that the best way to cause me pain was to hurt Maria.

That was the last pain that Nicholas would ever have the chance to cause. I dropped him down about a foot away from the wall, used my powers to pick up a heavy length of pipe, maybe two feet long and two and a half feet in diameter. It was heavy, but I had the raging strength of twenty hybrids. Heavy was GOOD, right now.

And I sent the pipe crashing into the small of Nicholas' back. The expression on his face was still smirking slightly as he exploded. I spared one second to look around and evaluate the tactical situation.

Things were dark, but Max was definitely up, and Tess was working on untying herself... I couldn't tell if her throat dealie was off or not. Lonnie had backed up against one of the walls, and Rath was... Rath was staring at Max with an expression of concentration on his face, and Max was distracted, part of his attention on Lonnie, part of it on Liz. He wasn't ready to put up his shield, and Rath could hurt him very badly in a moment. "Nooo!" I screamed... not the most effective warning I know, but it was a confusing situation.

Ava... it had to be Ava who had saved all our asses thus far, responded to my shout by orienting on Rath, making a slight adjustment to the 'shotgun' so that the barrels pointed in slightly, focusing on a single target, and blasted. Rath growled slightly, deep in his throat, and one of the plasma bolts screamed in a wide arc, turning back towards Ava herself... but when the other charge slammed into Rath's body, the other one stopped turning and so ran into the wall behind and to one side of her, not that far from the ladder that presumably led up to the hatch and out of this little hellhole.

I didn't waste much thought on my cruel doppleganger, or anyone else... something else was still on my mind. "Max!! Maria -- I think she's hurt."

Max took about three seconds to absorb what had happened before nodding his understanding, and scrambling over to where Maria lay. I wanted to go right over there and join him, but if there was anything I could do to help, Max would let me know, and other things to worry about. Rath was trying put out the plasma flames clinging to him the same way that Nicholas had, but not having as much luck, and right now I was more worried about what he'd do to someone else if he had the chance, than his own safety. Liz and Kyle seemed to be alright... Tess and Ava were both guarding Lonnie and watching to see if she'd make a move or not.

I could hear Maria gasp a little bit, and then breathe heavily, but a regular breath that sounded very reassuring, and Max sighed slightly with relief. Rath had put out most of the flames at this point, but he'd also collapsed, and somehow it seemed clear to me that he was dying. There were a few things that I wanted answers to before that happened. so I knelt carefully down next to him, all of my senses on guard, and quenched the last licking violet fire myself.

"The ring... whose was it? What does it mean??"

Rath made a sound that was halfway between a moan and a gargle. "So that's what you want to know?? It... it was the prize of our house, our family back home... the house of Selezir. The jewel of Kindarra. Rath's only inheritance... but he couldn't use it. Nobody male can, something strange and mysterious about it. Tha's why I gave it to Lonnie, because she could."

"For girls only," I muttered, seeing it. "What can it do?" Something occured to me, how Lonnie had lifted the hand with the jewel on it before. "'Check the perimeter... ' Rath, does it do some kind of distance viewing mojo? Let you see what's going on somewhere that you aren't?" That would do a lot to explain how the evil trio had planned this mission so well, and it explained why Ava had wanted me to interfere. If Lonnie had used the jewel and spotted her as she prepared to enter the bunker...

"That... that's part of it," Rath muttered. "All ye'r gettin' from me this time... brother." He coughed loudly, and raised his voice. "Lonn?"

"Umm... yeah, Rath??" She sounded honestly worried. "You gonna be okay??"

"No, I... no, I think I'm not gonna be, Lonnie. Just... don't go out fighting. I think if you swear a truce, these people will let you walk outta here alive today. Make the deal and stick to it, no double crosses. It may not be as good as goin' home, but you can do okay here on Earth. Lot better than bein' dust, I'm pretty sure ah that."

"No... no, come ON Rath!!" Lonnie shouted. "If I'm makin' any deal, then it's for both of us, nothin' else. Maxxie boy here can heal you, I know he can."

I looked over at Max in the dim light, who looked uncomfortable and shrugged. He was helping Liz to her feet.

"No, it's too late for me," Rath said, and coughed up something slightly sticky as if he needed to prove his point.

"It's never too late," Lonnie insisted.

"Max, how's Maria?" I asked nervously.

"She'll... she'll be fine. The baby's alright too." Max let out a long breath. "If Nicholas had made up his mind if he wanted to stop her heart or crack her skull, she'd have been dead instantly. As it was, he left both jobs half undone."

Wow... that was worse than I had thought it might be, but at least there had been time for Max to do his thing. And Rath... he could have done something as bad, but he hadn't, and did I want to see him punished for Nicholas' sins too? If he really was dying, then agonizing over the decision was essentially the same as letting him die, but I wasn't sure I wanted both him and Lonnie to walk out of here today.

"Take a look at Rath if you want to, Max," I mumbled, thinking that he was probably undecided enough to take his cue from me. "I might regret it, but I don't... I just don't particularly want him to die if he didn't have to. I'm not sure why.

Max looked doubtful too, but he walked carefully around Kyle and crouched down next to Rath. As soon as he had taken my dupe's hand and looked into his eyes, though, Rath's body started to turn white and fade into crumbly dusty bits, just like Nasedo's had. If he'd been there a little sooner... but maybe this was the way it had to be. I wasn't too choked up about Rath dying, even though he had apparently seen something worthwhile as he was dying.

Liz was untying Kyle and waking him up. I went over to Lonnie. "You heard what he said... I'm sorry for your loss. But if you want to make a deal with us, I suggest you start talking terms."

"Umm... yeah, I'll deal, I'll deal. We go our seperate ways, I leave Roswell very quick and you'll never see me again, I promise. No trouble, no payback, nothing."

"How did you bring us here?" Tess asked, her face resolved and a little bit mean. "We'll need wheels to get back into town. If that means you're walkin', then tough."

"They've got two cars up above," Ava said. "I came in on a motorcycle."

"That means... that means if Lonnie gets a car, six of us have to squeeze into the other," Liz figured. "Or five into the car, and two on the bike."

"You know," Kyle muttered, "somehow I don't see that happening. Lonnie, you got a problem with walking or hitching a lift?"

"No, I guess not," she muttered."

"And one more thing," I demanded. "The ring. Hand it over." Lonnie slipped it off of her finger, with ill grace, and I slipped it carefully into my own pocket.

----------

"Okay, erm... who rides with whom??" Max asked.

We had all climbed out of the bunker and examined the area, including the various vehicles. Lonnie had already started to walk off towards the highway by herself. There was a fairly roomy red four-door sedan, and a black Mercury Comet.

"I call dibs on the back seat of the big red one," Maria sighed, "and you're with me spaceboy." Maria was kind of wrapped inside one of my arms... she had insisted on being near me when she woke up again after Max healed her, and I had no problems at all with that. In fact, I felt a little guilty that I hadn't been right there with her when she woke up. "Max, you wanna drive?"

"Um, alright I guess," Max said, and looked at Liz. "Shotgun?"

"Try and stop me," she replied. "So, erm, that leaves..."

"I can take the bike again," Ava said, indicating a pretty mean looking Kawasaki twelve hundred about thirty feet away. "That'll leave..."

"I can drive the Comet, I think," Kyle said, though he seemed slightly disappointed. "You're with me, Tess?"

"Well, kind of obviously... oh, boy. I just thought of..." She reached into her pocket, and pulled out a mangled mess of wires and circuits, shedding shards of broken plastic. "Umm, anybody have a cell phone that might actually work??"

I went for mine, and found it. "Signal's low, but worth a try." I tossed it carefully to Tess.

"Maybe we should get going," Liz suggested. "Try to find somewhere with better coverage, at least."

"Um, yeah," Max mumbled. "Ava... just where are we, and where's town??" She came back and gave him some brief directions.

Once we had driven to the highway, Liz started making a call of her own... at least once, it was pretty clear that she had called the same person as Tess was talking to and blipped her onto call waiting. I didn't pay much attention to it, focusing on Maria and feeling overcome with how close I had come to losing her... maybe to losing everything.

"That was Mister Valenti," Liz announced after hanging up her phone. "All kinds of people have been looking for Kyle, Tess, and me... the sheriff's department was called in after Nicholas and Lonnie attacked the film shoot. Nobody died, yet... but Jonas Wilson is in critical care at the hospital, and some of the other people are badly hurt too."

"Oh, boy," Maria moaned. "This'll mean more complication and coverup, at the very least, yeah?"

"I don't know," Liz whispered, looking pale. "Oh, and I'm not sure I follow this part, but Isabel and Alex are on their way to Roswell, in a private plane. She was able to tell that something had happened to us... or some of us, at least. Mister Valenti's going to try to reach them and let them know that we're okay."

"Okay," Max said. "Any idea where we should go first??"

"Umm, the Crashdown?" Liz suggested. "I want to find my parents, make sure that they can see me and know that I'm alright. There might be some questions that are hard to answer, but..."

"Alright," Max said. "Downtown Roswell, here we come."

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part 27

Note: The song that Maria sings in this part is on Steve Fox's album 'Small world.'

(Alex):

"So, this Jonas guy, he's going to be okay?" I asked. The nine of us were all crammed into Michael's living room at this point, getting on for midnight.

"Yeah," Liz replied. "I helped Max sneak into his room and use the healing touch." That got Isabel's attention.

"Handprint?"

"No handprint, Isabel," Max insisted. "I'm learning how to be careful with that, and he wasn't hurt too bad. He shouldn't wake up next year with antennas either, and I didn't fix enough that the doctors would notice that something strange had happened... I think. Just cleaned up a bunch of the internal bleeding, and repaired the worst damage to his heart."

"Sounds good," Kyle put in. "He was a good guy." He sighed. "I'm sorry that it looks like the movie isn't going to happen now, I was looking forward to all of it."

"It's not?" I asked. "Well... yeah, I guess I can see how it'd be hard to continue on right away, but..."

"It's not just that," Tess spoke up. "Trevor's parents got really upset about the attack, even though he got off pretty light with a broken arm and a bit of a nasty laser burn. They're going to be picking up and moving to Flagstaff in about a week. I don't know all the details, but apparently it's an almost sure thing."

"Ahh, I get it," I said. "And Trevor was the one who was really making the movie happen. Well, I'm sorry I guess."

"Enough of the film festival crap," Michael joked. "What's the deal with the two of you?? How... how did you know to come?"

"It was Isabel, of course," I said. "She... well, I'm still not sure how much of it I understand, so maybe you should try telling it again sweetie."

"Umm, okay, though I'm not sure how much I can say." Isabel sighed. "It was just in the middle of television, and at first I was only aware of it in vague terms... very sudden, but vague at the same time... this certain conviction that something important, and more than a little dangerous, was happening to some or all of the six of you. If I concentrated, I could get a few images or impressions... the darkness, the sense of confinement... no, not confinement so much. Restriction."

"Because we were tied up," Michael filled in.

"Yeah. And also some other images that are less clear, like Max's shield shimmering across a room lit by strange blue lights, with bolts of light hitting it from the other side." Isabel made a soft eeeshing sound. "Would rather not talk about that part any more right now, to be honest."

"Of course," I said automatically. "You guys shoulda seen her though, so determined to get back here as soon as possible and save your asses. She would probably have tried to steal a plane and fly it herself if that was the only way. But there was this lady pilot at the airport who kinduv took pity on us, even though she didn't understand what Isabel was so upset about or why we had to get to Roswell so quickly. Only charged us four hundred dollars for the trip at the start, and knocked it down to three hundred after we got on the radio with Hanson and he told us what they knew about what had happened in the park."

"Three hundred," Michael muttered. "Was that, erm, real money, or..."

"Yeah, real," Isabel confirmed. "I haven't had the nerve to fake money with my powers yet, and this didn't seem like the right occasion to try it for the first time. If she noticed anything unusual about that cash afterwards... well, that was the last thing we needed. I had enough saved up, and can probably make it up somehow or other." She looked at Max. "Dad wouldn't be too surprised if I call him and say that I've been shopping too much down in Las Cruces, would he?"

"No, though mom might want to see what you bought," Max warned. "We can probably chip in some, err, at least, I know I can. You shouldn't have to make all of that up yourself... you were doing it for us."

"But it was her decision to do it that way," Ava put in. Everyone turned to look at her. "I mean... I'm not tryin' to interfere in nothin' here, just wanted to point out that Izzy didn't have to come charging back on the wings of a Cessna one-seventy. Her heart was in the right place, but she didn't actually help out, and as far as she knew, there might have been time to get here by bus. You wanna reward her for that kind of impulsiveness, it's up to you."

"Okay, first off, thanks for your help and everything," Michael put in, "but you don't know how we do things over here, so maybe you should keep a lid on the smartass remarks for a little while. And yeah, Isabel, I'm in for helping you pay off that plane fare too." There was a clear agreement from Liz, Tess, and Maria.

"I'll chip in what I can, but, well... still not having a job, there isn't much I can contribute," Kyle said.

"Thank you all," Isabel said. "I'm not sure if I'll accept the money, but it's a nice gesture. As Ava said, it *was* my decision and my responsibility." She sighed. "The worst part of it was, while we were still in the air, after talking to Hanson and to Valenti, that sensation in the back of my mind just disappeared. I didn't know what had happened, if you guys were dead or somebody was blocking you off, or if what you were going through was bad enough to break up the connection. There were a few scaps of sensation from the fighting, and then before I could even focus on them they were pretty much gone. No sense of 'everything's okay' or anything like that."

"Oh, man, that must have been horrible," Maria said.

"Kind of... at the very least it was incredibly frustrating, not knowing." She turned to smile slightly at me. "Alex pointed out that it was possible if the stress and trauma was creating the subconscious link, the link going away might mean that everything was okay, but I could hardly even bring myself to hope."

"So, what's your story Ava?" I asked. "I mean, last I heard, you had left Roswell specifically to avoid Rath and Lonnie. Now you've come back, and pretty clearly you knew that they were here, going after Max and the others again. By the way, love the hair."

"Ehh, not sure there's a really big story," Ava muttered. "Been on the road for most of this time... cooled my heels for several months in a bad neighborhood of Norfolk. And, well, maybe three and a half weeks ago, I went back to the Big Apple, just wanted to see the old neighborhood again. Checked carefully, of course, with some mutual friends to make sure that the pair of them weren't around... I finally went down to the lair in the subway, right?? And when I sat down on the couch, I got a monster flash, of Rath and Lonnie talking there, making plans with Nicholas. I got a little freaked when I realized that what I was seeing had been well after the Summit, maybe only a few weeks earlier. Tore up the whole place, trying to get some more flashes, and by the time I was done there, I realized that I needed to head down here and figure out what was going on."

"I know that I could have tried to meet you guys before this, or sent some kind of a warning message, but I knew that they were watching you, and it was hard to tell just how much Lonnie could see or hear when she was using the damn ring. I had the notion that being able to run to the ring unexpectedly might make the difference, so that's why..."

"I think we get the picture," Max replied. "And it seems to have worked out, so thanks again. Umm... have you thought about what you want to do now, Ava?? If you want to leave town that's okay, but I think some of us would like the chance to get to know you a little better, and I don't think you need to run away again for safety reasons. Lonnie will probably stick to her word I think, at least for a little while, and anyway you might be better off here where we can look out for you, rather than out on the road."

Ava blinked. "Yeah, I don't think I'd mind stickin' around. But, well..." For the first time since I'd showed up, she looked straight at Tess. "Is there room here in town for a second girl with Tess Harding's face? I mean, wouldn't that attract a bunch of attention to you guys that you'd rather avoid?"

Tess looked a little uncomfortable. "I dunno... I have to admit that I find it weird to have you around, Ava, and I know that you feel the same. But I'm not going to stop you."

"Nobody really knows that much about Tess' past here in Roswell," Isabel mused. "We could probably spin a tale about identical twins who got seperated in a messy divorce, or something like that."

"You'll need to find somewhere to crash," Liz mentioned, "and I'm not sure you can stay at my place with the parents around."

"I've got some room here," Michael added. "Which reminds me, Alex, Isabel... when are you heading back to Las Cruces?? It would probably be a good idea if none of the parents knew that you'd come so quickly."

"Except for mine," Kyle added. "Things are a little crowded already chez Valenti, but... oh, of course. I think the new house is fixed up enough that the two of you can crash there for a night."

"Wow," Ava muttered, seeming surprised by all of the discussion about settling her in here in Roswell. "Well, thanks. By the way, I know that this might be a big one, but any notions about finding a gig? I mean, I'd like to help out with the bills wherever I end up, and have something to spend my time on as well, y'know?"

"Probably not the cafe," Maria said. "We're already pretty well restaffed for the summer, and..." She shot a look over at Tess. "Well, it might not be the best of ideas right now."

"I could ask Brody if he needs any more help," Max said. "Who knows, you could go off chasing UFOs with us this summer."

"Hey, why didn't you offer to try to get me a job there, Evans?" Kyle asked.

"Umm... well, you said that you didn't want to... oh, you mean before, this spring, when you were working at the garage?" Max asked. "Umm... I dunno, I guess it never crossed my mind."

"Well, I might not have accepted with the best of grace," Kyle admitted. "But it sounds fun... though Ava can get first shot if there's only one job up for grabs, of course."

"We'd probably better get going," Liz said. "I know my parents are probably staying up until they know that I'm home and safe, for tonight at least. And I've got a fairly early shift to work tomorrow."

And that was pretty much how things worked out. Ava decided that she'd try Michael's couch out for the night, and Kyle called his parents to make sure that it'd be okay if Isabel and I camped out in Harding House. It was decided that we'd drive Rath's sedan back to Las Cruces tomorrow morning, and abandon it near campus somewhere, after removing any traces that we could.

"You know, this is partly your fault," Max joked to Isabel as we were leaving Michael's place.

"What, me??"

"Yeah," Max grinned. "You said that you didn't want hairy alien danger to ruin our Independence day camping gig... so it happened beforehand. And now, well, maybe Ava'd like to come along too."

"Works for me, I guess," Isabel said. "I'm just glad that nobody got killed... err, I mean... well, you know." She blushed. "Nobody that I care about... though I know that sounds a little callous, but..."

"They started this fight," I reminded her. "They would have killed Maria, probably others, if they had to, and Nicholas *liked* the idea of tearing apart Max or Michael's mind. I'm not sorry that he and Rath are dead."

"Yeah," Max said softly. Isabel nodded. "Okay, well, you guys take care, right??"

"We always do, brother." Isabel hugged him, and then we headed off in different directions.

-----------

(Max):

"Umm... new positions opening up?" Brody repeated. "Umm... well, I suppose I've been thinking that I could do with another hand around here, and been putting off doing anything about it." He shot me a level look. "I'm not sure that I ever expected you to ask me if I had work for one of your friends."

"Hmmm." I thought about that. "Why not?"

"Not sure," he admitted. "Okay, well, erm... are both of you applying for jobs?" He turned to Ava and Kyle and frowned, clearly trying to remember a name.

"Ava... Ava Long," Ava said with a clear New York accent, reaching out her hand to Brody. "I'm pretty new in town, but you've probably met my twin sister Tess."

Brody blinked at that. "Twin sister... just how exactly did that work? I thought that she was orphaned, after her father disappeared last fall."

"Umm, messy divorce," Ava said casually. "We remembered each other from when we were young, but neither of us knew where the other had ended up, until a few days."

"Well, I guess it's good that you've found each other again," Brody replied with a smile, and turned to Kyle.

"Um, Kyle Valenti, we've met in passing," Kyle said. "Ava's really the determined job hunter here. I was just tagging along pretty much."

"Alright." Brody seemed to consider the whole situation more intently. "Max... level with me here. You weren't hoping to get another friend of yours involved in our little chase directly, were you? Because that's not the plan... it'll just be you and me, man. If I hire Ava on, she'll be working with Fuller back here, learning regular operations and getting the museum ready to open again for paying customers, not out..." He hesitated, looked back and forth, and leaned forward to whisper at me, "chasing UFOs."

"Well, that's up to you man, you're the boss," I murmured casually. "On the other hand, Ava has some special experience in this area that might be useful to us." Brody blinked and shot a surprised look at Ava... she just smiled sunnily back at him, as we had agreed. She was looking quite casual today, her hair still loose, wearing a halter top and a skirt that reached almost to her knees.

"Okay, well... we'll start her here at base camp, and if she can demonstrate how valuable she'd be, then she can come along a little later. Kyle, do you want me to give you a try out too? There may be enough work for the both of you."

"Yeah, sure, I'm up for that," Kyle said. Something was starting to strike me a little funny about the way Kyle was behaving with respect to this whole situation... was he fishing for an opportunity to spend time with Ava?? It might fit... he had been attracted to Tess pretty much from the first moment he met her, but they had agreed, or at least one of them had agreed, to keep things platonic, or fraternal or whatever. Ava looked a lot like Tess, and had some similarities in her character, but wouldn't be staying at the Valentis, thus not creating a brother-sister dynamic between her and Kyle. (Even though we were saying that she was Tess' long-lost sister.)

On the other hand, Tess and Ava definitely had unique personalities in a lot of ways, so Kyle might be getting into more than he expected. Well, it wasn't properly any of my business. "Evans, I've been meaning to tell you this," Brody whispered to me again. "We start the next phase of the chase soon. Probably the day after next."

"The next phase??"

"I'll tell you a little bit later today," he said. "Well, Ava, Kyle... why don't I take you to meet James Fuller, my second in command here. There'll be some forms to fill out I think. Max, can you take down the exhibit in booth nineteen and stow it all in storage C?"

"Yeah, sure," I told him, heading off... but not before waving reassuringly at Ava and Kyle. Not that either of them seemed to need the gesture.

-----------

(Tess):

"Knock knock," I called out, actually knocking at the same time, on the almost-closed hospital door.

"Come in, Tess," the voice came back, and I smiled slightly and slipped the door far enough open to enter. Sitting in one of those hospital beds with the electronic controls and bright white sheets, was Martin. There were a few books sitting next to him on the bed, and one sitting in his lap. "Thanks for coming by," he said.

"Oh, no problem," I told him. "I kinda expected to see you around, you know, at one of the usual places. Didn't know they'd be keeping you in here for so long... they said no-one else was badly hurt, so..."

"Oh... they say I have a concussion," Martin replied, gesturing vaguely in the area of his head. "Wanted to keep me around for further observation, and they've been making sure that I don't go to sleep for another, erm, four hours." He dismissed that subject with a casual wave. "How about you, though... are you okay?"

"Umm, yeah, fine." I hadn't been, actually. When Max had used his powers to diagnose anyone from the gang who'd been taken captive, he'd found out that my upper left arm had been broken in three places, one of my ribs had snapped, something-or-other was bleeding inside me, not too fast, but enough that I'd have been in trouble if it hadn't been spotted after a while. Also a slightly sprained ankle and a bad cut on the side of my neck. During the last bit of the fight against the evil trio, I'd been running on adrenaline and anger strong enough that I'd barely noticed any of the pain.

But, of course, I couldn't tell Martin about any of that, because he couldn't know about Max's healing powers, or any of the rest of it. "Umm, a few bumps and bruises, but otherwise fine."

"Wow," Martin muttered. "I... I saw when it first happened, you know. Not sure what they... whoever they are -- hit you with, but you just went flying. Into the trees, must have been twenty-five feet or more. I can't believe that you only got bruised from that. And then, while I was kinduv staring at that in disbelief, this... it felt like a ball of white fire brushing right past me, and that's probably when I fell over and cracked myself one on the head."

"Well, I'm glad that you're going to be okay too," I said with a slight smile. "So, what've you been reading to pass the time in here?"

"Umm..." He lifted the book in his lap to show me the cover, and said the title at the same time. "'The Ringworld Throne.' Not as good as the first two in the series, but not bad either. Also been rereading 'The puppet masters' and Neuromancer." He sighed. "Kinda sucks that Trevor's leaving and we won't get to finish the movie, huh?? Only just started filming and now THIS happens."

"Yeah, it's a shame," I agreed, and took a deep breath, because something had suddenly occured to me that I hadn't realized I would be saying. Maybe I still shouldn't say it... no, it would be awkward, but somehow I felt that it did need to be said, and this might be the right time for it. "Martin... I've really liked getting to know you, and I hope that we can keep on being friends. But, well, I've gotten the impression that you feel a certain way about me."

He blinked, and frowned slightly. "Yeah... yeah, I do... and I think I know what's coming."

I nodded at him slightly. "Sorry. I like you a lot, but I just think you're not my type like that."

"Okay... I can accept that, or try to."

"Glad to hear," I said, feeling some relief that he didn't appear to be completely crushed... I really hadn't wanted to put him through that sort of disappointment. "So, any idea what you'll be doing with the rest of your summer now?"

We chatted for about a half an hour, when suddenly someone stepped through the door, and an oddly familiar voice said, "Oh, there you are, Tess. I know it's short notice, but Kyle and Jim want us to meet Miz DeLuca for lunch. Can you make it??"

I got up, glared at Ava slightly, and turned back to say goodbye to Martin. He was staring at the two of us, his eyes as wide and big as ping-pong balls. "Ummm... and just who would this be, Tess, if that is... is your real name??"

I swatted him slightly. "Yes, I'm Tess. This is, err, my twin sister Ava. Long-lost twin, if you can believe the cliche."

"I think I can." He turned his attention to Tess for several seconds longer than seemed to be necessary.

"Don't get big ideas in your head, Martin," I said to him. "Hope you feel better soon, and sleep well when they finally let you. Yes, Ava, lunch is do-able." I picked up my purse and headed over towards the door, waving goodbye to Martin as I left.

I have to admit, I'm still not quite sure what to think about Ava. Obviously I'm glad that she showed up to help us, and I don't really mind that she'll be sticking around town so we can get to know her better... I think. Still, there was something about having her around that bothered me, and I thought about it as we went down through the hospital to the parking lot.

Part of it was... well, she seemed to be meeting much less resistance in getting accepted by the rest of the gang than I was last summer, after I'd known them for several weeks, helped save Liz when she was kidnapped, getting Max out of the White Room, and all of that. Was it... was that maybe because of Liz?? Liz Parker is the heart of that group, the center of it, in a way that it took me a long time to realize. I tried to replace Liz, tried to take Max away from her without realizing how much he cared for her, and nobody really trusted me for a long time because of that. (Well, the fact that I showed up with Ed, and they had plenty of reasons to dislike and distrust HIM, didn't help.) But Ava befriended Liz, kinduv by accident. And so everyone is letting her in.

Well, I think that Liz and I are sortuv friends now too, even if it took us a lot longer, so I don't really have anything to worry about, if I can keep from getting jealous of Ava about it. Jealousy never leads anywhere good. And then, there's something about the 'working-at-the-UFO-center' thing that gives me an odd feeling, but I'm not sure what that is really, yet? That she'll be working for the same guy as Max is?? That would be kind of silly get get bent out of shape about... given all that Max has been through this past year to get back together with Liz, I really doubt that he's going to drop her and go after the new girl in town. And, well... was I really upset at the idea of Ava spending time with Max? Max and I were friends, now, too, though we haven't hung out that much just recently. Hmm... might have to do something about that later.

Lunch with the Valentis and the DeLucas wasn't too bad. Mrs DeLuca was in pretty high spirits, between seeing the house for the first time a few days ago and liking it very much, some sort of good news about Mister Valenti's carpentry plans, and a sense of relief that none of us kids had been hurt in the strange kidnapping incident. She had a lot of questions for Ava too, and I did my very best to memorize everything that she made up about her childhood, so that if I had to talk about it later, our stories would match as closely as possible.

Sean DeLuca was paying attention to Ava too... in the wandering eyes kinda way. Darnit, is every unattached guy in town going to get the hots for her? Sean never even looked in *my* direction, as far as I can tell, so what does she have that I don't??

"Jim, can you help me in here with the dessert?" Amy asked from the kitchen.

As Mister Valenti got up, Kyle smiled slightly and said "Mmm, dessert," in a satisfied tone. I cracked up laughing.

----------

(Maria):

I sat alone, up in my bedroom, holding my old guitar from songwriter's workshop in my lap, holding it close to me and feeling the smooth back of the box pressing against my belly, where my little baby was still growing so deep down, so tiny yet. Everything seemed different, again. The day before yesterday had hardly been the first time my life had been in danger, since meeting Michael and the others... but it was the first time that my child's life had been risked as well. I didn't know how to reconcile myself with that fact. Everything deep in my brain, in my heart, was yelling at me that I had to do everything that I possibly could to keep the baby safe, but I could do everything right and that might not be enough. I started to fool around with the guitar, improvising some chord changes.

Everything had worked out fine, this time. And some of the most dangerous people out there who might want to hurt us had been taken out of the picture. On the other hand, there were a few people, even more dangerous, who might be ticked off now... like Kivar, whoever he really was and whatever he really wanted. Nicholas had been working for him... sure, he'd failed, but Kivar might still be angry that Michael had killed him.

I had to stop thinking about this stuff. I concentrated on playing, and that was able to clear my mind after a minute or two. Suddenly, something that I'd heard somewhere no too long ago popped into my mind, and I had to start singing it, guessing at the guitar harmony as best I could.

"You're just a little round bubble, in the middle of my tummy,
Some people call you a bun in the oven.
Kicking and rolling around in there,
Soon, you'll be so ready for a breath of fresh air."

Maybe not that soon... it would be months yet before the baby was born, assuming nothing made the timeline shorter than usual because he or she was partially alien, and there wasn't any sign of that so far. (I should ask Max, next time he connects to me for a checkup, to see if he can tell whether it's a boy or a girl yet.) But a few months might go by so quickly, and then I'd really be a mother, and Michael would be a father...

"You might wear pink, you might wear blue,
But either way - I know what I'm gonna do...

I'm packing a cardboard box
With Y2K memorabilia, and home videos.
Of your father and I, in these wonderful times,
Without the lines on our faces yet.
So when you're twenty-one, my daughter or son,
You can see how the world has changed.
And if you're still searching then, or if you're a movie star
I'm will love you -- whoever you are."

Hmm... that sounded like a good idea actually, of gathering knicknacks and home movies and stuff to show to the baby years from now. Would there still be anything capable of playing VHS then? Aww, Alex could probably convert it to DVD. And just what would our kid be like? What passions would she have in life?

Would she always be looking over her shoulder for someone who might be trying to track her down and lock her up or worse, like Michael did sometimes??

"I hope you get dimples,
and a big square chin.
The world likes people with a big square chin!
Make lots of money, and don't get fat.
On second thought - forget all that.
Just like what you see, when you look in this mirror,
That I bought for a dollar, and I'll put right here..."

Everything was crazy. How could I be a mother? How could Michael be a father?? Neither of us have learned the things we need to learn, neither of us has finished growing up yet. A mother is supposed to be wise, and together, and... Then again, my mom hadn't really finished growing up when she had me... which probably accounts for some of my own unique sense of whimsy, and some of my issues... but I wouldn't say that it's totally screwed me up. She loved me, she tried her best. So did Dad, while he was around. That was enough. And Michael... he never really had any decent parental figures at all, but he had friends who did, and they were enough to...

"Into this cardboard box,
With Y2K memorabilia, and home videos.
Of your father and I, in these wonderful times,
Without the lines on our faces.
So when you're twenty-one, my daughter or son,
You can 'check out' how the world has changed.
And if you're still searching then, or if you're a country star
I'm will love you -- whoever you are."

"You better grow a lot bigger, an' don't hurt yerself,
On your way into this world.
Just have ten fingers and toes,
Two feet and two hands,
And a great big heart, when you become a man...
Or a woman."

That's about when I broke off, because I realized that Michael was standing in the hall, watching -- and listening. "How long have you been able to hear me?"

"From, oooh, from about the end of the first verse. It was really pretty... did you write that?"

"Me, nah... I kinda wish that I could say I did, because it fits what I feel pretty well," I admitted. "Heard it on the radio or something like that, or maybe on a CD that Kelly loaned me." Kelly was one of the waitresses who worked evening shifts at the cafe. "What do you think about making some home movies or cliche stuff like that."

"You get the camera, I'll pose," he joked, coming in and sitting on the bed next to me. "I'll do anything for you... for the two of you I guess, hehe. You know that, right?"

"Yeah, yes I do," I told him. Took a breath, and then blurted out some of what was on my mind. "I'm kinda scared, Michael. Scared about having this baby, about whether we're too young and too immature to have a kid of our own yet. Scared about what her life might be like, with evil aliens and government agents who might decide that they want to take her away from us." Thought about it, and something new occured to me. "Scared to tell my mother about it, still."

Michael shook his head, and ran a few fingers through my hair softly. "I'm a little scared too, my love. But we'll take all of that one step at a time, and I think that it'll all be okay."

"Alright," I agreed. "One step at a time. I guess the first one should be telling mom..." Big sigh.

"Yeah," Michael muttered. "But hey, no real big need to rush it, yeah?"

"Do I look like I'm in a hurry?"

"Okay." Something new popped into my head, and if this wasn't a situation where a change of subject seemed like a good idea, I'm not really sure what would be. "Michael, by the way, it was really generous and cool of you to let Ava stay at your place..."

"Yeah... is there a but coming?"

"Well, just wondering if you realized that then we wouldn't have the apartment to ourselves as much."

The look on his face was... well, not quite priceless, but pretty funny to say the least.

----------

(Liz):

"Okay," I said, once Max had led me into his room and shut the door. "What's the deal??" Stared into his eyes as he turned around and licked around the inside of my lips with just the very tip of a tongue. He grinned... (he's told me that that really got his engine running, before I even realized that I did it,) pulled me close, and kissed me. I felt that old familiar dizziness sweep from my head all the way downwards, and then next came a kind of cool, flowy, slightly tingly sensation that started somewhere around my stomach and seemed to shoot up and down channels through my whole body, (arteries??) before surfacing and covering my skin and seeping back inwards. I think I moaned a little, deep in my throat... yeah, pretty sure about that part... and felt like I was starting to melt into Max's arms.

After maybe two minutes of that, I was starting to feel a little more energetic, so I let my lips slide away from his, and started planting kisses down Max's neck, and rubbing my hips softly against his... in, well, in a not totally R-rated way, if that's possible.

"As, erm... as fun as this is," he said, and teasingly brushed a little bit of hair under my ear, "there kinduv is other stuff I wanted to talk to you about, and I'm... oooh..." I probably shouldn't have, but I'd slipped one hand up under his shirt and softly pinched his nipple, "I'm, erm, worried that if you keep doing this sort of stuff, I'll forget about it. About everything, actually, Until next tuesday, at least."

"Ohh, oh, okay," I said finally, disengaging, and taking a few deep breaths quickly to try and calm myself down. I was still feeling a bit mischievous though, so I hopped onto his bed and kinduv sprawled out. Max laughed, tucked himself back in, and turned the desk chair around so that he could sit there and face me.

"Flying saucer stuff," he explained fairly simply.

"Oh... oh, right," I agreed. "You mentioned something about that quickly. I have to admit that I'm a little confused by the whole thing... I mean, the overall point, try to find a flying saucer that the government is hiding - sure. But how Brody expects to do it is something I'm a little less clear on. Have a few notions, actually, on how you and the rest of the Pod Brigade might be able to track one down, with your, erm, special talents. But Brody doesn't have alien powers, and he doesn't know that you have yours, so..."

"He does have money, remember, which can do some things that our powers can't, at least, not as easily." Max smiled. "And he's very clever and resourceful, and has some hidden talents that I have to say that I never expected. Oh, and he's been studying with this guy... I don't really know his story, but it kinda seems like he used to be a cat burglar and has made the transition from being an active criminal to just teaching."

"Teaching people how to be burglars??" I blinked at the notion. "Is that illegal, too? Can't imagine that the police would be wild about the idea, but I'm not sure if I can put my finger on what law it'd be breaking off the top of my head."

"Not sure," Max admitted. "I've sat in on a few sessions with this guy, and I know that Brody's been getting tutorials from him one-on-one. He definitely wants to be prepared for any eventuality." I thought about that, and then made a 'go-on' gesture with one hand because I couldn't think of anything more to say. "Okay, well, I'm not sure what Brody's overall plan is myself, but he's briefed me on the next mission. He's identified a, well... a semi-secret millitary office, somewhere in the suburbs around Albuquerque, and he's set up covers for the both of them. We're going to be journalists coming in to ask some general questions on a deep background basis, or something like that. It's more off-the-record than off-the-record apparently... a reporter who's talking with a source on deep background isn't allowed to directly report on anything that he finds out, but hopes to use the information to put a specific story in context, or something like that. I'll need to get it straight with Brody before we go, even though, well, obviously we're not going to be printing ANYTHING because we're not real reporters."

I thought about that. "But... so Brody thinks that these millitary people might know something about the ship, and the kind of answers they'd give to a reporter might get you a little closer to it??"

"Yeah... or failing that, that we might be able to find something out that they're NOT giving us," Max admitted. "Sneak into some unguarded filing room or a computer that nobody's using at quite that second. I'm not quite sure if it'll work, but I'm willing to go along for the ride... especially as long as Brody's paying me to come."

"Hmmm..." I thought about that for a long moment. "Okay. Just be careful that he doesn't try to stick you with the rap if anything goes wrong." Max nodded.

"I think I'm being pretty careful about that. Brody may have some aspects to his character that I'm not wild about, but I don't think he'd do something like that anyway. He expects me to hold up to my end of the bargain, and as long as I do, he'll look out for me."

"Okay," I said. "Anything else that we need to discuss about flying saucer hunts?" Max shook his head, "Then come on, I was kinduv in the middle of something, wasn't I??"

"Yeah, but I think I'm gonna take my turn," Max said, sitting down next to me on the bed. He swept the hair back from around my left ear and first kissed it, then started sucking lightly on my earlobe.

"Oh, yeah, that's good baby," I moaned. "Don't stop there!"

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part 28

(Kyle):

"Why were you running up into your bedroom with that doof anyway, Liz??" Michael asked jokingly.

Liz shook her head in frustration, blushing more than just a little. "It wasn't like that, we were just trying to keep one step ahead of the madding crowd of radio station well-wishers, as I think you realize quite well," she told him. "I hadn't made up my mind if I wanted to just hide in there with him until they hopefully went away, or maybe tried to slip out and down the balcony."

"I hope you were gonna go down the ladder first," I teased her. "Or he'd have gotten a good look up your dress." We were in Michael's apartment, a little impromptu welcome to Roswell party for Ava. Max hadn't been able to make it, because of some more UFO center stuff, and Maria had managed to get Liz started telling the story of the blind date contest.

She didn't even respond to my jibe. "Well, anyway, as soon as we got through the door, well, the first thing I saw was Kyle, with my freakin' lingerie drawer open, just in the middle of picking up SOMETHING... I never figured out what, and it kinda freaked me out for the next two weeks by the way." I chuckled at that. "Had to wash pretty much everything that had been near the top in there, and still it was driving me nuts worrying, but never mind that. Max was standing over next to my desk, and he comes over and says, 'before you jump to any conclusions, you ought to know that we are really... REALLY drunk.'" Everyone laughed.

It took her a little while to finish getting through the story, and I was surprised by quite a lot of it. Had never really heard what Liz and Max talked about while they were walking through the empty streets that night, or the admittedly sad way that the night ended for her.

"Okay," Tess said, getting herself a drink and walking back into the living room. "What next?" I think that hearing the story had been weird for her... part of Max and Liz's love story before she got to Roswell.

"I have an activity idea, actually," Michael said, taking a little packet out of his jeans pocket... it looked like a square of soft cloth, folded and refolded... when he had finished spreading the fabric out, there was a little golden ring with an odd gem attached. It seemed to go from being red to looking like it was yellow, without covering any shades of orange in between... I don't know the right term for it, but the stone was cut in facets that mostly looked like rectangles.

"Ooooh, the alien thingee of Rath's that you took away from Lonnie before she got sent packing," Tess said. "The gem of Kimball, or whtever."

"Kindarra," Ava finished, an excited look on her face. "What do you have in mind, Michael?"

"I was wondering about testing it a little," Michael admitted. "Rath said that guys can't use it, only girls. We have both here, in a decent mix of human-born and hybrids, although if Ava's theories about spreading Antarrian DNA are taken in the right light, then nobody in this room is entirely homo sapiens any more. Ava, do you have any direct experience in how to use the ring??"

"Me? No, I picked up a bit of the theory, but Rath and Lonnie never let me near the thing," she said sadly. "I think Rath was worried that I'd take it to Zan and the two of us might use it to get the drop on him. Zan would never have done something like that, and neither would I, back then, but it was the way he thought. And after Zan was dead, well, neither of them had much use for me back then, and they mighta thought I'd try to pay them back for what they did to Zan if I got a chance."

"Wait a second," Tess said. "Rath and Lonnie had this thing before Zan died, before they came to Roswell the first time, last November? Where was she keeping it, then? I never saw her wearing a ring, not once."

"She was probably hiding it somewhere under her clothes or something like that, if you want my guess," Ava said. "She wouldn't it want to be obvious enough that you or Max might take an interest, but she wouldn't hide it somewhere that she couldn't guard it twenty-four seven either."

"Okay, erm," Michael muttered, and cleared his throat. "Tess, do you want to take the first try??"

"Umm, sure, if that's all right." Tess looked around back and forth before reaching out and picking up the little gem. "Any idea what I should try to do, Ava??" Hmm... why hadn't Michael asked Ava to try first, if she knew the theory, I wondered. Maybe he didn't quite trust her that much... though if Ava wanted to use the ring's powers to steal it and run away, the other girls trying it on first probably wouldn't stop that. Maybe he wouldn't let Ava try it at all today.

"Close your eyes and concentrate on a place that you know very well," Ava suggested. "Let your mind blank a little and run energy through the ring. If it works, then you'll see exactly what's happening there at this moment."

"Oh... okay," Tess said, taking a moment before closing her eyes, and cupping the hand with the ring on it so that it was shielded from us by the fingers of her other hand. Still, after maybe thirty seconds, I caught a brief but definite glow of yellow light from it, reflected.

"Oh, my god..." Tess muttered, snapped her eyes open, quickly pulled the ring off, and tossed it gently back onto the same cloth that Michael had wrapped it in.

"Tess, what's..." Maria started, then jumped a little herself. "Oh, no, you picked somewhere at Kyle's house, right??" Tess was blushing now, and nodded ever so slightly, silent.

"Maria, why did you ask if..." Liz started.

"Well... my mom mentioned that she was going to drop by and visit Kyle's dad," Maria managed to whisper, and I groaned.

"Where... where were they..." I stammered myself, not really wanting to know, and yet unable to ask. Tess wouldn't have pictured my dad's room, I felt sure, so that left, erm..."

"Dinner table," Tess said in a really small voice, and then, louder, "Someone else wanna take a turn, please??"

Everybody else had a turn, including Ava in the end. All of the girls could make it work for far-seeing, although Liz and Maria seemed to feel that it took quite a bit of effort and energy. (Michael hesitated the first time that Maria volunteered, and he didn't seem to want to let her wear it for long -- I'm not sure what that's about.) No matter how carefully they explained what they had done or how long we tried, neither Michael nor I could get it to do anything for us. The ring was also too big to go on any of Michael's fingers except his pinkie, which was slightly too small for it even when he had the ring jammed on all the way.

"Okay," Michael muttered after Liz had done it the second time, and this time zeroed in not on a place she was familiar with, but a person... she had concentrated on Max and described a room in an office somewhere where Max and Brody were meeting with a short guy in a khaki trenchcoat. "Now, Rath said that the far-seeing was 'only part of it', presumably talking about what the ring can do, or what its value is. Ava, do you have any idea what the rest of it might be?"

"Umm... not entirely, no," Ava admitted. "Like the Granilith, it's a historical treasure on our planet and has some cultural or social value from that, though not quite as much. But I don't think that's what he was talking about." She paused, deep in thought, for a moment. "There's one flash I got when I was trying to figure out what Rath and Lonnie were up to that might be important. Like a lot of flashes, I didn't really get the context, or any details other than a quick series of impressions. Rath and Lonnie were in the lair, Nicholas was nowhere around. But there were a bunch of other people there, and I think they were aliens, not just puppets. Skins maybe, or shifters or who knows what."

"Some of Kivar's people maybe??" Tess said, worried. "He was upset with the way those two had bungled his plans at the Summit, so he sent the personal touch that you only get with angry goons."

"It doesn't really matter," Ava grumped. "The point is, there was a bright light, and it froze all of the other aliens, the goons or whatever, in place. But Lonnie and Rath weren't frozen, and they were able to take off. Afterwards... I think the goons were really confused, like they couldn't remember what had been happening before they got frozen."

"And you think that might have had something to do with the ring?" Michael asked.

"Well, I don't know what else. Never seen either of them do anything like that before." Ava shrugged.

We, well, the girls mostly, experimented more with the ring. No luck on the bright freezing light or anything else really different they tried... a few more successful variants of the far-seeing trick, including just homing in on item. Tess was able to concentrate on a favorite pen that she lost, and see it in somebody's bedroom, but we weren't able to figure out whose or where in town it was. Also, Ava tried doing it without concentrating on anything much, just starting with her awareness in Michael's apartment, then 'looking' down the street and into people's houses, and that seemed to go alright. It didn't seem to work the other way... if you homed in on a distant person or object, you couldn't move away from it, or at least they couldn't figure out how to do it right then.

So Michael put in an old VHS movie from the eighties, and we started arguing about what kind of pizza to order.

----------

(Isabel):

"Hey, sweetie," Alex said as I let him into the suite.

"Hi." Kissed him sweetly on the cheek for a hello. "Hope you don't mind hanging out over here this evening... my mom said that she'd try to call me around six thirty. I think she's kinduv a little worried about how often I'm not here when she tries to get me."

"Oh, right." The two of us have been spending almost all of our free time together, in Alex's room, because it's nicer and more private. "Okay, erm... got anything in mind?" He yawned slightly.

"Are you tired??"

"Not really in the sleepy sense... it's been a bit of a crazy day, though."

"Well, I'll grab some quick snack food and you can tell me all about it," I suggested. Since this was a pretty typical university suite, quick snack food was not at all hard to find in the kitchen. We munched on spicy chicken fingers and barbecue potatoe chips, drank diet cokes, and Alex sat next to my working table and asked a few questions about how my day had gone.

"Ehh, no big. Spent a lot of time in the library working on this art history assignment... called Michael to talk about independence day camping. But come on, you're the one who said it was a crazy day, so tell me about that. I thought you were just still converting the big transcription program into this new source language. Was there a problem with that??"

"Not really a problem, a bit of a hangup though," he admitted. "Umm... okay, I told you about how the point of the new source language was to get finer control on the details of the compiled machine code, since, because of the way the quantum computers work, differences that would be miniscule on any other kind of computer have a huge effect on performance??"

"Umm, yeah," I agreed, and munched. "I think I follow it that far."

"Well, we've got to a fairly substantial module of code that was written maybe eight months ago... and we can convert it into the new source language, that much is not a problem. But there are a couple of different ways to do it, and nobody's quite sure yet which approach would give us the best results for efficiency in the end." He sighed. "We may end up doing it all three ways and doing benchmarks on each version of the module, but that'll be a bunch of extra work and nobody really wants to just charge into it, so a lot of people in the project are arguing which one should run faster in terms of theoreticals. I'm a little bit lost... I try to follow the arguments as best I can, and work on a completely different block of code when it's way over my head."

"Oh," I sighed a little bit. "I guess this may mean more long days in the future where I don't see much of you?"

"Could be," he admitted. "I'm sorry... I know this must be hard on you. But I came up here to get this job done... there's more to it than any of us really understood, but I really believe that this work could help you and Max and Michael, Tess... and now Ava."

"I understand that," I told him. "I realized that I might not get to see that much of you when I decided to sign up for these classes. It's still better like this, even if I'm only getting some evenings a few days a week and half a day on the weekend, than if I was back in Roswell and seeing you just about never."

"But you'd be around all of your other friends," he pointed out.

"Yeah, I know. That'd swing the scales a little bit, but it doesn't compare to these stolen moments with you, Alex. I realize that might be hard for you to believe, but it's true. I love you very much, Alex Whitman, and I want to be near you as much as I can."

He grinned. "You know I love you and love spending time with you too, right?"

"Yeah, I think I can see that," I told him. "Of course, I'm also enjoying being on my own a bit, stretching my wings and living away from my family. That's a bonus too, heheh."

"Okay." Alex thought. "Well, there probably won't be any really long days until the debating is done, one way or another, so probably we should take advantage of that."

"Oh, no," I muttered. "What happens if you get into a really busy time right around the fourth? Can they keep you from going back to Roswell??"

"I don't think they can really keep me from doing anything," Alex said with a soft laugh. "And I don't think they'd kick me off the project for going home over the holiday. Come to think of it, I know a lot of other people there are really looking forward to a day off. Luis is going to be going to Roswell and visiting his cousin... is there some sort of office party at your dad's firm??"

"Umm... yeah, a company picnic actually. He wanted Max and me to go, but we managed to talk him out of it so that we can go on the camping trip."

"Right," he agreed. "So I guess we won't get to meet the mysterious Jesse Ramirez this time... not that I really care, of course."

"Nah, we don't want to meet him," I giggled. "Probably really stuffy and boring. I mean, I love my dad and all, but lawyers? Really not that fun."

"So, what's the deal for the camping trip?" Alex asked. "We said we were going to catch the four o'clock greyhound bus, right??"

"Yeah. Michael had a good idea, that we only go on the bus as far as Ruidoso, and someone can drive up and meet us there. We can save a little money on the bus fare that way, spend a little time on the drive catching up. Most importantly, though, that way, we won't have to go all the way to the bus station in downtown Roswell, and then get picked up, turn around and head back to Frazier woods."

"Hmm... good point," Alex said after a moment, "but Ruidoso is a long way out of town. It's the last scheduled stop before Roswell?" I nodded. "Maybe we should check with the greyhound office, see if they'll drop us off somewhere a little closer... Highway Mill, or maybe Riverside."

"That could work," I admitted. "But they'd charge us the full fare to Roswell for that."

"I don't think the bus money really matters," he said. "But... well, I was just wanting to save whoever was picking us up some driving time."

"Good point. We should find out if your way is possible, and then put it up for Max or Michael's final decision before we buy the tickets."

"Cool. Okay, so what do we talk about n..."

And that was just when my phone rang, so I picked it up and said hi to my mother.

-----------

(Michael):

I groaned when the alarm went off, shut the damn thing down, crawled out of bed and grabbed a housecoat on my way out of the bedroom. Quick trip to the facilities, flush, spit into the sink, scrub my eyes a bit with cold water to help them stay open, and I headed out to the kitchen.

I had hardly gotten my breakfast snapple selected and butter-honey waffles put into the toaster before Ava was stirring on the couch. Having a roommate... and a girl roommate I wasn't dating at that... wasn't turning out to be as annoying as I might have worried. Ava's a pretty cool chick in the best sense of the phrase, and she hasn't even mentioned a word about which way the toilet seat points.

"Hey," Ava said, her usual morning greeting, and wrapped the large blanket around her like a robe. "Early morning shift at the cafe again?"

"Gotta be there by six-thirty, yeah." My waffles popped up and I tossed them onto a plate and added a little tabasco. "You working at the museum today?"

"Yeah, starting at nine." She shrugged, and once I headed out into the living room, opened the fridge in the kitchen herself and considered something thoughtfully. "By the way, I haven't forgotten my promise to kick in for groceries once I get my first paycheque."

"Yeah, it's okay. Help yourself," I insisted. Actually, Ava had offered to pay me some expenses money right away, but I'd waved it off for the time being. Didn't think she had all that much money at the moment, and there had already been some unexpected costs in settling down here in Roswell. I was pretty solvent for the time being, and didn't feel comfortable pushing, realizing how generous the people I knew had been when I was first getting set up on my own, after the emancipation went through.

"Oh, Liz invited me over tonight for home theater and Mexican delivery," Ava mentioned, pouring some brightly colored and sweet cereal into a bowl. "You and Maria wanna come along?"

"No, I don't think so," I said, smiling slightly and having another bite of tabasco waffle. "We've got other plans, though she hopefully doesn't know about it yet."

"K, that's cool," Ava said. "Just wanted to offer." She brought her bowl of cereal over to the couch dry. "Cartoons while we eat?"

"Go ahead, I think I only have a few minutes before I have to go," I told her. "Have a good day across the street from me."

The breakfast shift was pretty crazy, but at least Maria and Tess were there to keep me company and trade witty banter with. (At least, I thought we were all pretty funny.) The very first chance I got, I told Maria to keep her evening free... just in case Liz asked her to the plans that she and Ava had made and Maria accepted. That could be a bit awkward.

"Umm... okay I guess. Why?"

"I..." I almost told her that I didn't want to say, but that would probably be the wrong move. Maria would guess that I had a secret soon enough, and then the pestering, trickery, and sweet questions would start. Maybe, just maybe, I could put that off by trying to play it cool. If she realized it already... then this was going to be a very long day. "Just wanted to spend some time with you. Feel like taking a drive out into the desert?"

"Umm... sure I guess. Want me to see if I can get the Jetta, or are we taking Bronto?"

"Yeah, ask your mom about the VW," I told her. That would fit in well.

"Um okay." Then there was a family of five sitting down, (complete with two kids under four,) and Maria sighed and rushed over to take their orders.

I managed to get quite a bit of reminiscing in while cooking other people's food. (Didn't overcook anything... well, not really, so don't worry about that.) That dark and slightly chilly night that started all of this, glaring at Liz and Maria as they got out of the Jetta in an alley in the north side of town, and realizing that Liz had told her our secret. They'd been following us, and Max had turned the Jeep into an alley trying to avoid getting spotted by the sheriff, and he didn't realize soon enough that the way ahead was blocked off. Liz had stopped the Jetta angled across our rear, so as to trap all three of us there until she'd finished settling with Max.

That was the night that I'd helped Liz and Maria act out an unusual plan to draw Valenti off our tracks... Isabel had pretended to run Maria over with her own car at the Roswell Crash Festival, and I'd jumped out dressed in an outlandish alien costume, put a silvery paint handprint on her stomach, waited until Liz called for the sheriff, and then run away into the crowd. Carefully, I'd led Jim Valenti at enough of a distance that he wouldn't see exactly where I'd gone, but closely enough that he'd spot the only other person at the festival wearing the same costume, which had been Kyle, his own son. The one person who he would never be suspicious of.

Let's see, what else was a good memory, and not one that I'd thought of in a while? Things seemed to pop in my head nearly at random, not the moments that I would really have expected. In the hallway at school, just before we found out about the car accident that Liz and Max had gotten into, she'd accused me of avoiding her. (I'd kissed her once by that point, but wasn't really comfortable around her, so yes, I'd been trying to keep some distance between us.) The time that Max and Liz interrupted us in my apartment just when I was making a good run on second base, and told us that Mrs Topolsky was back in town... I was so surprised when Maria said 'Max' while we were making out, worried that she had gotten us confused or was imagining she was with him. Turns out that she was just trying to say 'Max is here' or something and didn't have the breath to get any further.

Amy DeLuca came in for a late breakfast, and stopped by the kitchen window to quickly say hi when she realized that I was on shift. I'm glad that she's started to like me, now... though I still don't really know what to expect when she finds out about the alien stuff, and that Maria's pregnant. I've been wondering whether it'd be better for her to find out about those things all together, or seperately, but I'm still not really sure. Especially since the one kind of bears on the other and changes it... Maria's not only going to have my kid eventually, but it's going to be a partially alien baby. Whoo boy.

And I'm not sure if what I'm planning for Maria tonight is going to make either of those revelations easier or harder on her. I just know that I have to do it anyway.

Max came in too, picking up a late breakfast for him and Brody. I managed to talk to him about quite a few things while getting his order ready, actually... he's going to be going off on this Brody thing, posing as a reporter to sneak into an air force office, sometime really soon, probably tomorrow or the next day. He also said that Isabel had left him a message about our fourth of July camping trip, suggesting that if we wanted, they could get off the bus somewhere near Frazier woods so that we could pick them up as conviently as possible... which makes sense to me I guess.

I think that Max is really looking forward to the long weekend... he's been spending every spare minute on this flying saucer bit, though heck if I know what it actually is that takes up so much time. But he's told Brody clearly that he doesn't want to be bothered about any of it for four nights and three days, and he wants to spend as much of that as possible out in the woods, nowhere near civilization. He mentioned something about a game that Liz wants to play all weekend too, something about cards and little sheets with rules on them... I didn't really follow it, but I guess I'll probably figure it out when the time comes.

----------

"Sure you want to head out so early?" Maria asked, getting out of the driver's seat of the Jetta and letting me get in. "I mean, it's not even four o'clock. Ava won't be finished work at the Museum for a while, so we could sneak back to your place and have a little naughty fun there."

"Hmmm... tempting, but no, I want to get started right now," I said. "Come on sweetie, get in."

"Um, okay."

"Any idea what we're going to need for the camping trip??" I asked as I pulled out, once she'd gotten into the shotgun seat. "I mean, well, I have kinda camped out, actually, but not for four nights straight without going into town. I doubt I'll get too bored, considering the company, but I'd like to be as prepared as possible."

"You're asking me?" Maria laughed. "Heheheheh."

"Umm, what's so funny?"

"Oh, I was just remembering the moment when Liz asked me to come with her on the father-kid camping weekend... the one where we all ended up running through those woods at the dead of night looking for the close encounter sighting??" I nodded, smiling slightly. "Well, I told Liz that my idea of the great outdoors was opening up the windows on my way to the mall. Not really the camping type, which is kind of ironic considering how many times we've used that as an excuse with my parents."

"Okay, well... maybe we'll ask the others what sort of stuff we should bring," I suggested, and we spent a few more minutes chatting about plans for the long weekend.

Maria got a bit of an odd look on her face when she noticed where I was heading... which I'd kind of been waiting for. Okay... here it comes. "Michael... why don't you hang the next right you come to, off onto some crazy country road that we don't know where it goes??"

"Ummm..." How best to play this one? "Umm... I'd really rather stick on the highway."

"I see..." Maria stayed quiet for several minutes off of that response, which was actually quite effective at driving me crazy. "Michael, do you have something planned for tonight?"

"Umm, err, yeah, I kind of do. It's a surprise."

"Okay. You're not wanting to go all the way back to Marathon tonight, are you?"

Couldn't help but laugh slightly. "No, that's not it."

"Umm... ohh, there's a fancy french steak place somewhere along here. Are we going out to dinner?"

"Well... we're certainly not going to a french steak place, because the very notion is kind of nuts. Especially in southern New Mexico."

"Okay, erm... we're going out stargazing?? No, if that was it, you wouldn't have wanted to get going quite so early..." I shook my head as Maria tried to think of another guess.

----------

"Oh, lord... I should have known," Maria groaned as I slowed down, coming into sight of the Sultan's Hideaway motel.

I smiled to myself. "Wait... wait a second, where are you... Okay buddy, what the fritz is going on here??" I had coasted well past the motel sign, going slowly enough that someone else had caught up to me on the highway and honked her horn, (or his horn,) so I sped up again slightly. In a moment, though, I turned off the highway on the other side... into the parking lot of a small but decent'looking restaurant.

"I called ahead," I told her once the car was parked. "They brag about their stuffed cappelonni, so you can try that or check out the menu for yourself." Maria grinned and opened the door... she'd always loved good italian food. (I think she had some italian blood in her, from her mother's side.)

Dinner was great. I had some barbecue-rotisserie chicken and fries, and Maria ended up having the double-decker lasagna and loving it, then we both had slices of frosted layer cake for dessert. All through the meal, we chatted about old memories and new gossip and even talked a bit about our dreams and fears about the future.

Once I'd taken care of the restaurant bill, we got back into the car and I drove back down the highway to the motel. Soon we were back in room nine, which I really wanted to be exactl the same as it had been the first time we went to this motel, but alas, no luck. The decor had, unbelievably enough, gotten even cheesier.

Maria sat down on the edge of the bed and shot me a 'well, now what?' look that somehow completely caught me off guard and made me forget everything that I'd carefully memorized. "Um, Maria..." For a second, I thought of trying to improvise an alternative to the whole big speech, but that could lead to unimagined heights of badness. So, erm, cut to the chase I guess. "Will you marry me?"

From the look on her face, Maria had been taken completely by surprise, which I think I appreciated. Smiling foolishly, I stepped forward and got down on one knee in front of her, bringing the alien ring out again. "I know that this isn't something that I spent three months' salary on, but it's a lot better than anything I could afford if I saved up for years, so... will you take it, Maria? Will you have me?" Maria opened her mouth to say something, and in a sudden flurry of panic I cut her off. "Don't answer yet."

Okay, what had I been missing?? I needed to stick a bit more flowery hallmark card stuff in... to show her why I was doing such a kinda crazy thing... asking her to marry me before either of us were out of high school. Somehow the words came naturally. "This isn't just about the baby, my Maria, though that's kind of the reason I made this decision so early. But I... i want to be with you for the rest of my life, Maria... be your best friend, and your lover, and your protector if you need protecting. I don't know where our lives are going to take either of us, but I know I want the two of us to be side by side the whole way."

"Um, uh... okay, I guess that's it. You can answer now."

Maria looked into my eyes, and shook her head... which for a second I was afraid was meant to convey a 'no', but then I realized it was just an expression of bemused disbelief. "Michael, my Michael... my great big clueless Spaceboy, of course my answer is 'yes'. I don't need the ring and I don't need the big hallmark speeches, though I think I appreciate both. From the first moment you asked, it could only have been 'yes'. Yes, I will marry you, when the time is right, and become your wife. Just try and stop me." She took the ring and put it on the second-to-last finger of her left hand, where it fit just perfectly.

"And... as far as the ring goes, it's a family heirloom and more, right?" I nodded. "Well, a family heirloom ring is *much* better than one that was just bought out of a store, no matter how expensive the one from the store is. Just ask my mom about that, hehe." And then she did a double-take. "My mom!!"

"Oh, yeah," I said, sitting down beside Maria and hugging her. "We'll probably have to tell her about everything soon now, so that you can wear the ring without her getting curious. Maybe before the long weekend. But... um, well, do you think she'll be any happier about the baby if she knows we're going to get married??"

"Umm... I don't know, I haven't really even thought about that," Maria admitted. "I just meant... we're both engaged at the same time now. Feels a little weird."

"Maybe that's just fate," I muttered. "Well... we've got the room to ourselves, and something to celebrate... erm -- how abot it?!"

She looked up, grinned, and threw herself at me with a hungry kiss.

----------

"Come on, this way," Mari insisted, leading me through a dark corridor and up one of those old-fashioned winding staircases. "We need to stay well ahead of the creepy horror."

I followed, torn between the way her lithe body moved under that fairly tight silk dress, and the feeling that I should be paying more attention to what she was saying. "The creepy horror??"

"Yes!!"

"Okay, that wasn't as helpful a reply as I'd have hoped for," I muttered under my breath. "What's this horrible thing like??"

"Well, you can't see it... which is part of what makes it so creepy," she explained. We came to the top of the stairs, which was in the open air, at the top of a short castle tower or something like that, maybe twenty-five feet above the ground. Twilight was settling on the grassy hills of the countryside with a vengeance, and the effect was indeed rather creepy. Mari didn't leave me with much of a chance to linger on the view though, for good or for ill, but produced a large silvery key from somewhere inside her outfit, opened a door that led into another hallway, on top of the castle wall. (And more wall was built up on top of it, I think, though it was hard to be sure in the dim light.)

"So, it's invisible??"

"Intangible maybe... it doesn't always have a body, or maybe it doesn't ever have much of one," Maria told me. "But that doesn't slow it down at all when it catches someone. I've seen what was left of a person after it got to them." She shuddered all over, in that particular way which is somehow always distracting. "You can hear it, and feel it in the air when it's near. I... I don't think it's been following us too closely, though it's hard to be sure which way it went. Some foolish young enchanter let it out of the magical Translucent rooms, in which it was imprisoned, deep beneath the castle." She took a deep breath. "Running and hiding won't protect us for long. What hope do we have??"

"Ummm..." I thought about that a moment. "Is there maybe a big two-handed elven sword or magic staff that can be used to fight the horror??"

"Not... not that I know of. If you have any skill at wizardry, we might be able to find a sorcery inscribed upon a spell that can be used to fight it. Or... perhaps a potion or some other artifact, but I know not where such items might be."

"Hmmm... okay. There a library in this castle?" I asked, feeling like I was starting to get into the spirit of things. We had begun to move through an irregular grid of halls and passageways by this point."

"Yes, erm..." Mari took a moment to get her bearings, and set off in a new direction. However, before she'd gone twenty feet she groaned, and I felt a sudden chill in the air that made the muscles of my arm clench slightly. There was a sound in the distance too, or maybe a few sounds... a sustained tone somewhere between a groan and a whine, and an irregular, but awful, bumping. "It is..."

"The horror," I said, grabbing her by the shoulders and helping to pull her back away. We ran off in the other direction together. "Okay, no-go on the library. It'll catch us for sure if we try to get through that way. Umm... any idea what there is this way??"

"The seneschal's sleeping chambers, the kitchen and scullery..." Mari stumbled at that point and shrieked in fear, but before I could get to her she had picked herself up and dashed away. "More than that I remember not."

"Okay..." There was suddenly a long narrow stairway that shot off at an angle to the corridor we'd been using, and I took Mari by the arm and guided her in. We might be able to lose the horror that way, and even if we didn't, we wouldn't lose much time or ground by going this way.

The stairs went a long way, and I couldn't be sure if I was feeling the slight chill of the nameless enemy that was following us, or if it was just the wind of our own swift flight and my imaginagion. Must be below ground level by now... who the heck builds a castle like this?

All of a sudden, the stairs leveled off into a short landing, blocked off implacably by a thick wooden door, with no handles or keyholes. "How the heck do we get in??" I asked. "The horror's coming up behind us!!"

"Ummm... don't yell at me like that, I'm trying to think as best I can," Mari railed. "This must be the master treasure room... an orb of opening perhaps, or a great spell might be necessary to get inside."

"Dammit," I muttered to the people who had built this castle. I don't *want* to break into your treasure room, but it's the only way we can go at this point. Of course, if the Horror can get inside the vault as well, then we were probably doomed, because there wouldn't be another way through. I looked at the door and blurted out, "Silver handprint!!"

The door swung open slightly, and Mari and I hurried in and shut the door behind us as quickly behind us as we could. Then I turned around to see what was in this treasure room... anything that could help us??

There was a giant inverted metal cone, at least thirty feet high, a golden ring with a tiny jewel on it, a short and stumpy crystal wand, and a broken pendant on a leather string. That was it.

=========

"Hey, spaceboy." The words shattered my dream... there was a slight sensation of confusion and disorientation as I opened my eyes in the dim motel room, but the treasure room of the mysterious castle had disappeared instantly. "You with me?"

"I... I am now, I think," I muttered, smiling up at her and wrapping my arms around her naked body. "Wow, really weird dream." Traced my fingers down her arm, up her hand to gently brush the band of the ring. "This was in the dream, at the very end, I think. And you, and the Granilith. We were in a magical castle, running from an invisible killer monster."

"Hmm.... sounds scary," she breathed softly.

"Only a little," I said. "Was kinduv fun actually, not that I'd really want to do it again in real life." Stretched a little. "So, whatcha wanna do now, my love, my promised??"

"Awww..." she said. "Well... I can think of a bunch..." with a lick on the side of my neck, "of fun things that we can do at this point. Problem is..." And she nipped very lightly on my chest, just beneath the right collarbone. "I can't decide which. Wanna help a poor girl out??"

I grinned. "Why don't you keep moving those talented lips of yours in the same general direction, and I'll let you know when you're in the right vicinity."

"Hmm... Okay, I'll go for that." And we played a flirtacious game of... well, I don't want to say 'hot and cold' because we didn't use those words, and neither of them give really the right impression, because nothing was cold, or terribly hot in the literal sense. I felt warm all over, and her lips and tongue were definitely warm and wet wherever they made contact.

"Oh, that!!" she joked, sticking her tongue out and licking the head of my member. "Okay, sure, I'm up for that, and I can tell that you're up, hehe." She wrapped her lips around the very tip and sucked tentatively, a pleasant sensation which promised more and better to come. "This is gonna be a long night without much sleeping, isn't it??"

"Yeah, well wh-- why not," I managed to stutter out. "It's not every night that you get engaged, is it??"

"Well... I'd certainly hope not!!"

"Ooooooh... Schpadangle!! Boy, Miss DeLuca... The things you can do with that... that TONGUE of yours!"


TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part 29

(Max):

The phone rang in the early morning, just as twilight was starting to make itself known outside. I groaned and picked it up, but the groan cut off and a smile came onto my face in the middle of the gesture, as a wildly hopeful thought occured to me. "Liz?"

"So sorry to disappoint," a dryly british voice cut in. "I just got a call from someone at the bureau. It's gonna have to be today. How soon can you be ready?"

"Ummm..." I blinked, trying to keep my eyes from wanting to close all on their own. "Err... half an hour?" Yikes, why hadn't I said three quarters?

"Not bad. See you then, Evans."

Oh, boy. Flying saucer hunting should not start this early in the AM. I literally tripped over my own feet heading towards the bathroom, stumbled and only missed crashing down onto the floor. On the other hand, the shock of that did manage to wake me up a little. Two-minute shower, using molecular pushing to dry myself more quickly... (I could have tried cleaning myself with alien powers from the get-go, but that doesn't wake me up like actual spraying water does,) and getting dressed. I took enough time to send off a quick email to Liz letting her know that I'd be off with Brody today, grabbed a few almost random food items from the kitchen on my way through, and drove into the center of town at a little more than the usual speed limit. When I pulled into the parking lot, Brody said that I was three minutes later than I said I'd be.

"Tough, you're lucky I didn't fall asleep again in the shower," I muttered... and after a second he laughed. Then he grabbed a bag and opened up the passenger side door of the jeep, surprising me and startling me in the middle of unbuckling myself. "Umm... we're taking my car?"

"Just as far as the airport... hope you don't mind," he told me. "I'll pay for the parking."

"We're taking a plane into the city??" I asked. "I don't think the usual shuttle runs this early."

"No, but there's a morning subcharter that runs at odd hours a few times a week," he mentioned. "I've used it before, and they've got two seats waiting for us. Speed is kind of critical here. I want to get in, and if possible out, before someone higher up the chain of command gets wind of any of this."

"Umm... yeah, I guess that sounds good," I told him. "How soon do we need to be there at the airport??"

"Ideally, in ten minutes, but there'll be enough wiggle room to stretch it to twenty," Brody said. I groaned. Going five above the speed limit and not hitting any traffic, it was just maybe possible that we could make it there in twenty.

I went ten or sometimes fifteen above the speed limit, and we actually had a minute or two to breathe before hurrying onto the thirty-seat airplane. The accomodations were reasonably nice in an elitist way... I wondered how much Brody had paid for this plane trip. Then again, considering how much he was probably paying for burglary lessons, tools and gadgets, bribery and so on... why stinge out on the transportation??

Brody and I had two seats next to each other on the left side. There was only one person in the four seats ahead of and behind us, a woman past middle-age who looked like she was looking forward to when she'd start getting senior citizen discounts, though I realize impressions can be deceiving. I wasn't quite sure if we should start whispering about the job or not.

Brody apparently chose to play it safe... or at least, he thought he probably thought he was on safe ground. "So, Max... how did you meet Liz in the first place anyway?? Is there a good story there??"

I could have downplayed it, or steered clear of the weird parts... but something in me wanted to tell him as near to the full truth as I could. "Well, I'd seen her around school since... well, since we were both little, I guess, but never really got a chance to spend much time with her. We were in the same english lit class in freshman year, and ended up sitting next to each other in bio the next year, which meant that we were lab partners. Michael and I started to hang out around the Crashdown then, where she and Maria were working as waitresses.

"This was before Michael was on the payroll at the cafe too?" he asked.

"Oh, yeah, long before. That was after he got legally emancipated and got his own apartment... needed some extra cash to get the bills paid. Anyway, one day just before the big September crash festival in the park, there was an argument between two customers that took a bad turn. One of them pulled a gun, the other tried to wrestle it out of his hands, and the thing went off."

"Liz freaked out, and fell down. I still think she missed getting hit by mere inches, if even that much. I ran over to make sure that she was okay, and that was kind of what broke the ice between us. Of course, things were still weird, because we didn't know each other really well, and I'm kind of a scary loner type, and she was dating Kyle at the time. But... well, she broke up with him a few weeks later, which is really a whole other story in itself, and there was a crazy heat wave in early December that had just about everybody, erm... hot and bothered. Liz and I were back and forth, should we or shouldn't we, for days and days, and there was this really stupid party at the old soap factory, and a fire started and the police came and Liz and Alex were arrested because some jerk handed them bottles of booze. Finally I came up to her balcony AFTER the heat had broken... at that was the first time we kissed."

"Hmm... not a bad tale to tell, Evans," Brody said, a smile on his face. "They could make melodramatic teen soap operas with that kind of material."

"Oh, lord," I muttered. "Well, how about you... do you have any interesting stories to tell? Umm... maybe how you met Sidney's mother?"

Brody made a face. "Not that I think... still a bit of a painful memory. But if it's a torrid tale of teenage hormones that you're after, well, try this one on for size. I was seventeen, and spending the summer at my grandfather's house, near the heart of Liverpool. I got a job with a window-cleaning company, really fascinating stuff, and spent all of my time at this pub around the corner from grandfather's place called the Lamb's head."

"A pub? And you were seventeen?" I asked, smiling.

"Yes... well, they're not quite the same as bars are over here," he qualified. "But, anyway. That's where I met Vicky. Oh, but she was a beauty, Max my boy, tall with legs up to yeah-high, and long straight dark hair. Come to think of it, probably very nearly the same shade as Liz's hair... I'm not sure if I'd ever particularly noticed that before. She was a year older than me, and, well, the thing was..."

The story took us most of the way to a landing in Albuquerque airport, and I listened with a smile on my face, enthralled. Somehow the conversation got from Liverpool and Vicky, (and some morally dubious adventures that the two of them had gotten into back in those days,) to how Brody had come to co-found his company, and what the dizzy ride to the top of the dot-com boom had been like. (He mentioned that the company had apparently just gone bust over the past two months... so the timing and circumstances of how Brody had been bought out seemed to have worked quite well for him.)

Talking about the computer industry stuff occupied us while we were deplaning, going through all the minor formalities of arrival at the airport, and picking up a rental car. Once Brody had driven out into the road, I looked around, and Brody winked in my direction and smiled. "I think we can speak freely at this point. Don't imagine anyone would have gone to the trouble of bugging this particular car."

"Okay. This may sound odd, but have you... have you heard of the Special Unit?"

"Well, of course I have," he laughed. "Considering what a spectacle the Congressional hearings were, I don't suppose there's anybody in the UFO abduction or research field who hasn't heard of them. The only question is... what were they really up to, and who stopped them? Well, actually, there are quite a few other questions, but those will do to start. I was actually rather busy when the whole thing happened, so I didn't get to see much of it unfold directly... was planning the purchase of the center and my move to Roswell, as you'll remember."

"Yeah, pretty much." I don't remember having made the connection, actually, but it made sense now that he mentioned it... it had been, what, four days from the last day of the hearings until the afternoon that I stepped into the UFO center to touch base with Milton, and found myself looking straight at a change of management.

"I've caught up on some of that since, and actually, which might be more in line with what you were really meaning to ask, I'd heard a little bit about them before the scandal hit the papers," Brody added. "Never really heard that name, hardly even more than the usual mysterious rumors of government agents showing up wherever there's suspicious alien-related sightings. But a few elements in common kept appearing... the association with the FBI, but not quite close enough to be a true FBI department, like in 'X files'. A two-tiered system, regular agents, usually wearing subdued blue suits, for routine operations, and higher level operatives who worked in plainclothes, almost always undercover."

"Hmm... s-sounds interesting," I said, and hoped that he didn't realize how nervous I was.

"And then, the leader of the Unit at the time that it was disbanded, Daniel Pierce, is a fascinating and enigmatic character," Brody went on. "There's some considerable evidence that he blew the whistle on the whole deal himself, and yet before that he seemed the most dedicated agent and leader imaginable. He's completely disappeared now, and there are a few people who told me that they saw him in Roswell just before I came to town." He thought about that. "Don't suppose I'll ever find out the whole story about that."

"Maybe not," I admitted. "Probably good stuff to keep in mind... if the Special Unit was real and competent, they'd probably have had something to do with hiding the alien spaceships we're looking for. Speaking of which, where's this office supposed to be?"

"Not too far," he replied. "Maybe we should pull over and rehearse our parts?? We should probably arrive there at ten, and it's a quarter to."

"Okay."

------------

"I... I wasn't expecting either of you quite so soon," the young uniformed officer said as he led us down a gray corridor. "Actually, erm, Mister Bilson, I left a message on your phone, back in Roswell, saying that maybe you shouldn't bother coming in. Didn't realize that you were probably already on your way... well, since you're here, we can talk for a bit, I suppose."

"Thanks, Lieutenant," Brody replied. (He pronounced it with that 'f' sound in the word, which I'd never really understood except to know that it's "a british thing.") "This is Mike Edwards by the way, one of my best young hotshots." I shook the Lef-tenant's hand politely after he'd opened a door.

Inside was a small table and a few chairs, one of those white-boards that you write in with the dry-erase markers, and very little else. "Okay, so... exactly what does a small-time tabloid rag from Roswell want with the 507th public relations division?"

"Nothing but what you'd expect," Brody replied. "The fifty-fourth anniversary of the crash is this week, and we're... well, as they say, we're just looking for a new angle on the Roswell incident. The air force division that supposedly cleaned up the crash site was under this unit's command. I realize that it's been a long time, but... come on, Give me something."

"There was no Roswell incident," the man in uniform muttered. "You know it and I know it."

"Yes, you know it and I know," Brody replied softly after a moment... "But I'm not going to tell our readers that. Heck, I'd sooner tell my daughter that there's no Father Christmas, you know, even leaving aside for the fact that it's their belief in aliens that pays my meager wage. This is all off the record, and nobody's going to believe it anyway." He sighed and tried a slightly different tack. "You were stationed in Roswell for more than four years, Jackson. You must have heard some kind of story, something that hasn't seen print yet, maybe??"

"Hidden flying saucers are very hot since this spring," I mentioned, as if it were a casual thought, (at least, I hoped that it sounded casual.) "Area 51 and all of that."

"I've been to area 51, actually," Jackson said, "but I'm sorry, there weren't any UFOs in storage. I could tell you about the next generation of stealth bomber that'll see action abroad in three years... well, except that it's classified."

"We're on deep background, right??" Brody said a little vaguely. "We could take a few key details... US government finally cracks the alien's cloaking device, Dubya Bush wants to use it to beat Sadamm and avenge his poppa's honor."

"Hmm... could use a little work Br... umm, Bilson," I muttered. Oooh, that was close... Jackson would have been confused if I'd used Brody's real name.

"Plus, that's not deep background," Jackson complained. "Even if you change around the details, and don't attribute to me, that's just 'off the record', and I don't think I'm willing to go off the record about ANYTHING I saw at Groom Lake. Err, that's the real name of Area 51."

"Right," I muttered.

"On the other hand, there's... umm, no. I'm sorry you came all this way gentlemen. I don't think I have anything. Good luck with the anniversary edition and all."

"Please," I said. "There was something you were about to mention. Can't you even tell us what it was in the most general terms?" I reached out and touched the Lieutenant's fingers with my own, hoping that I might get a flash.

"Ermmm..." WHAMMP! "Just a rumor, like you said, and not one that I feel particularly like repeating for it to get printed. You have to understand the difficult situation that you've put me in here, gentlemen. Ever since those FBI hearings last fall, command has insisted on strict denials of ANYTHING, erm, alien-related. Some of my people saw you come in, and if any story sees print, they might connect the paper with your arrival, and..."

He was lying. Not about the crackdown on alien-related leaks - that might well be true enough. But whatever he'd been thinking of, and hiding from us, it wasn't a rumor. I had seen, quite clearly, a file cabinet in a dim room, the second drawer from the top open all the way, and someone's hand returning a folder to a position about three-quarters of the way back. It was marked 'operation dinner plate', which seemed a vaguely appropriate, if whimsical, reference to a real alien flying saucer."

I caught Brody's eye, and tried to telegraph my intention as clearly as possible. We had to get to that file before we left here... which meant that I had to, since there was no way to even let Brody know about it. Staying here was just getting Jackson agitated, so it seemed like time to bring the formal interview to a close. We'd mentioned, yesterday or the day before, the possibility of Brody distracting an official while I tried to sneak into a records room. That seemed to be our best alternative at this moment... as long as Brody could be cued in to play his part. And as long as I could find the door to the room with that file folder in it.

"Okay, okay," Brody said. "No story. Got it, officer. Umm, is there any chance that you could show me a little more of the base before we go, though??"

"Erm... it's not a base," Jackson grumbled. "But yes, I suppose so." He stood up and we did too, letting Jackson get the door again.

"The crackpots are going to be disappointed," I said softly. "No tales of hovering dinner plates direct from the man." I was taking a risk saying that much, but it seemed to pay off... he had just opened the door when I said the words 'dinner plate,' and for a second, I saw his eyes dart to the side... probably to a door on the same side of the hallway as this one, back the way we'd come. Jackson was leading us deeper in first, though, and I couldn't sneak away at once. There was nothing to do but tag along and hope that Brody would distract him sufficiently to give me my opening.

He did, sure enough. We were only a few steps further down the hall before the two of them were deep into a discussion about Operation Desert Storm, and Jackson's back was to me. I wasted no time in slipping back silently down the hall... the first door had a small window in it, and was clearly a break room or lunch room, so I headed over to the next. Locked.

This one had to be it... there were no other alternatives before the hallway twisted at an angle. I used my powers to unlock the door and slip through, re-locking it the old-fashioned way with the little knob on the inside. (Hmm... that seemed a little weird, having a one-way keyhole on a small room like this one. What if someone locked the key inside?? I would think it'd be better to have a deadbolt that couldn't be closed while it was locked, but oh well.)

Yes, that was definitely the file cabinet I'd seen in my flash. Second drawer, three quarters of the way back, dinner plate. (How the heck was I going to explain to Brody how I'd found this so quickly without telling him about flashes?? I could always say that he seemed nervous about something down this corridor, which was true enough, and that I happened on everything else by blind luck...)

"Jack... pot!" I whispered out loud before I could stop myself. The details on the first page of the file were amazing... secret government installation in Salina, Utah, hidden underneath a convenience store. The details were about as dry and clinical as even government records could possibly be, but they talked about how a 'reconstructed extraterrestrial lander' had been stored there since April of 1973...

There were footsteps in the hallway outside, and I suddenly realized that I couldn't just stand here looking at confidential records. Had to MOVE, and quickly. Grabbed a few sheets of computer letter paper from an opened package on an overhead shelf. Did a quick 'alien xerox' of the first two pages in the file onto blanks, then dropped the folder back in, attempted to erase any trace of my fingerprints, and bumped the file drawer clumsily closed with an elbow. The two xeroxed copies were quickly folded into quarters and I stuffed them down my pants.

Was this thing in Utah really what we were looking for? That date seemed... unusual. Long after 1947, of course, but the powers that be could have been storing it earlier, or maybe there was another crash that we didn't know about. What I *did* know, though, was that April of 1973 was just after the Apollo mission had ended. Was this thing just a reconstructed piece of an Apollo spacecraft? Or, maybe, had someone been looking at an alien ship to see if it could help them with NASA stuff, and then they were done with it??

By this point, I was back out of the filing room, and went off to sneak back and join Brody and Jackson.

----------

(Maria):

"Oh gawd Maria, I can't believe that you're *engaged*!!"

That was Liz talking, though I don't think at this point I've entirely gotten used to the notion myself. One more thing that I never expected to happen to me, or well, at least not until I was in my mid-twenties. "Yeah. It's pretty though, isn't it??" I stretched out my hand with the ring on it to admire it.

"Yeah, it's pretty. It's also a mysterious alien artifact with unknown and possibly dangerous powers," Liz teased me. "I'm happy for you. Best happiness, girl." And she spread her arms wide to hug me, a gesture that I copied hastily and embraced her. "So... do I get to be the maid of honor??"

"Sure, of course... but we have *no* idea when we're actually getting married," I pointed out. "Probably before the baby arrives... well, I'd tend to think so. Haven't even asked Michael about that part."

"Maybe should be before we go back to school in the fall," Liz pointed out. "Just from a logistics point of view... but then, I guess I'm not sure what you'd need to organize beforehand." We were sitting in the back room of the cafe, taking a short break from work.

"'Ria, orders up!" That was Lori, the new cook that Mister Parker hired about two weeks ago.

"There's nobody named 'Ria here, Lori," Liz called back helpfully. She knows that I don't really like people calling me that, especially people who I'm not really close to.

"Don't make me come back there and hit both of you with a rusty spoon," was the reply, which set me off giggling. Lori was pretty cool actually... she's almost got her culinary arts sheet from junior college in Santa Fe, and is working here in Roswell for the summer to help pay her tuition. Lots of people who are training to work in really fancy kitchens would probably get a bad attitude in a little fry-joint like the crashdown, but Lori, aside from sometimes going all no-nonsense on us, just kind of takes it like she's paying her dues.

I carefully took the ring off and put it away before going out... not sure if I'm going to wear it more in public and so on in a little while, but right now it definitely doesn't make much sense, until later today, when we're going to go and lay everything out on the table for my mom. Last thing I want to do is have some friend of hers notice that I'm wearing a fancy ring and go tell her. Once that's done... well, it's a gorgeous ring, and Max said he thinks that the stone, whatever it is, is nearly as hard as a diamond, so there wouldn't be any worried about scratching it. (Not quite sure how he could tell, but anyway.)

On the other hand, it might attract so many questions, both from people who'd be surprised to see a girl as young as me wearing what looks like an engagement ring, and because the way this thing glints from red to yellow isn't like anything any of us have ever seen on a usual gemstone... that maybe I'll just keep it hidden when I'm not with friends who know the score.

Things got busy quickly once I was delivering plates, and there was no more time to think of such things for a while. I was more than a little surprise to find out, after getting called over to a table and saying "Hi, can I take your order??" -- that it was Max who had called me and that Liz was sitting opposite him. Michael was sitting next to Max.

"Are you busy?" Liz asked quietly.

"Umm..." I shot a look over at Lori's kitchen window... she'd just put a Will Smith and a Blue moon burger out for me, and one of my tables was pretty clearly waiting for their check. "Gimme a few?"

"Sure," Michael said with a smile.

"I'd better go check on those guys too," Liz said, getting up. It was a few minutes before the four of us actually had a chance to talk.

I slipped into the far side of the booth first this time, so I could be opposite Michael, who was also sitting up against the wall, and Liz sat next to me. "Okay," Michael whispered. "Max has found something that could actually be really important."

"Umm... huh?" I blinked and looked back and forth between all of us. Liz looked nearly as confused as me, but a bit more interested. "Found it where??"

"Umm... somewhere that Brody and I went this morning," Max said in a low voice. Ohhh... this was more UFO hunting stuff. I thought of asking if we should take the conversation outside, but nobody seemed to be paying any attention to us, and I figured that Max and Michael would be more worried than secrecy than I would, so presumably they felt pretty secure. "There's this place in Utah... it could have a reconstructed spaceship in it."

"Just how did you find out about it, Max??" Liz asked softly. Quickly, and a little vaguely, Max related how they'd gone into the air force press office as tabloid reporters... Max had used some kind of a cheap trick to get this officer thinking about something he was trying to avoid talking about, touching him -- and getting a flash, which had kind of shown him where to break in and look for the files.

"I should have looked to see if there was anything important past the first two pages of the file, but I was rushed and didn't want to have TOO many copies to hide," he muttered. "Told Brody about it on the way back to the airport... he doesn't suspect anything too unusual about how I snuck into that particular room, I think, and he's really excited about following up the lead."

"I wish you hadn't promised that you'd share everything with him," Michael grumped.

"It was the only way to get on board," Max reminded him. "I'd never have had the chance to find this much out about Utah without his resources and contacts. I don't regret sharing the results."

"Yeah, not now," Michael continued. "But what happens if we find out something really important at the end?? If you guys get the ship, how are you going to split it up??"

"We'll worry about that if we get that far," Liz said.

"Did that guy, Jackson..." I started. "Max, did he realize that you'd been gone??"

"Nope, neither of us think so. Brody was still arguing with him when I got back. Brody cut the tour short not long after that."

"Okay," Liz said. "I think that's enough for now... I'll come over and get the whole story later, k?"

"Can't wait," Max told her.

"And we've got the thing with my mom tonight, right," I said to Michael.

"Yep, I'll be there," he assured me.

The rest of the afternoon was pretty nondescript. My shift was over at two, but at a quarter to Lori had some sort of personal crisis, and asked Michael if he would be able to take over for her as a personal favor, which he decided to go along with and collect the favor later. (Considering some of the things that happen to our group, getting favors in advance does seem like a good policy.) But it left me something at loose ends for the rest of the afternoon... Max and Liz were working then too, and though Tess had the day off, I didn't really feel like tracking her down and hanging out with her. Not that we're not friends now, well... I guess maybe we're still not good friends. Hmm...

Well, I put 'spending some more get-to-know-you time with Tess' on my to-do list for another time, maybe over the big camping long weekend. I went back home and started chatting over the computer with Las Cruces. Alex was locked up with the Quantum project stuff again, but Isabel was hanging out in his room, (he'd offered to let her do that whenever she wanted, since his room was much nicer than hers.) She was missing him a little, and bored, and we typed to each other for quite a long time actually. I told her about Michael and me getting engaged, (I couldn't help it, the words just kinduv burst out of me,) and wanted to show her a picture of me wearing the ring, since she didn't get a good chance to look at it before leaving town last time, but Mom musta took her cheap little digital camera to work... or else Sean swiped it, because it wasn't anywhere I looked in the house. Isabel said not to worry, that she'd be able to see once we all got to the campsite tomorrow.

She was SO excited about really getting a chance to spend several days with all of us, which kinda make sense. She's probably a little homesick for her friends, I know I would be if I'd been off somewhere with Michael for several weeks, away from everyone else I knew... excited too, just like Isabel, but really homesick. She talked a bunch about her classes, and the girls in her dorm and a few other people that she's met... like this couple that Alex mentioned to me a little while ago, and that Isabel's stayed in touch with.

After quite a while, she said that Alex had just gotten back, and he got onto the computer to say hi to me briefly before Isabel came back to say goodbye and log off. I didn't really mind... Alex and Isabel deserve to be able to spend time together like this. Michael would be coming by soon to pick me up and take me over to the Valenti's for the thing with my mom.

Hmm... going off somewhere with Michael. I'd never really thought about it before, but considering the sort of thing that Alex was working on now, and the recent developments between Michael and I... the baby, the engagement... maybe sometime soon Michael would have a chance to leave, to go to some other planet, and he'd want me to go with him. As far as that goes, maybe I'd suggest it myself... for the sake of the baby, or just because I wanted to go to where Michael's other side had come from, to understand him better. On the other hand... that sort of thing was likely to be a one-way trip. As Rath had told Tess, outer space is very big, and it can't be easy to get from place to place. Could I really handle leaving the Earth and not knowing when I'd ever get to come back??

Maybe I could... if some of my friends were coming along with me.

----------

"Hi sweetie," Amy said as she stepped through the front door, and kissed Jim on the cheek. "Hi Maria, Michael..." Stepping into the living room, she paused and sniffed slightly. "How long is it gonna be until dinner?"

"Um, a little over half an hour," Jim said softly. "Lasagna's been in the oven a while, and I just put the pizza in." She smiled faintly... I got my taste for italian food from my mom, and pizza with lasagna's been a favorite combo since she was little I think. And then, my mom frowned slightly. "Why did you tell me to come over so early?? I mean, I don't mind spending time with all of you, of course, just kind of wondering if there was some sort of..."

"Yeah, mom, we, erm, we kinduv do have an ulterior motive," I blurted out. Michael shot me a look, and I half-shrugged at him. "Um, err..."

"Why don't we all sit down," Jim said, smoothly moving in to try and cover up my flub. "Amy, can I get you a beverage??"

"Yes, err, but I'm not quite sure what," she admitted. "Jim, is this a pink grapefruit juice kind of moment, or more like 'single malt on the rocks'? Or maybe just water... it's a little hard for me to tell when I'm not quite sure what the deal is??" She sat down at one end of the couch.

Jim smiled, just a little awkwardly. "Hmm... well, how about a fairly light screwdriver??" She thought a bit, and nodded. I gestured that Michael should take the desk chair, and sat at the other end of the couch myself, leaving the spot in between for Mister Valenti. He came back after a few moments, with cokes for Michael and I, and a glass of water for himself. "Okay, err... I guess I'll start. Amy, do you happen to remember... that first time we had dinner, after we met in the school offices and I, er, bumped into you at the Crashdown? What you said about Maria and her friends that night??"

"Ummm..." Amy concentrated. "I'm trying to remember, it seems a little familiar but I'm afraid that you're going to have to give me a hint."

"That you felt like you weren't as close with Maria as you used to be, and didn't really understand why Maria and Liz weren't speaking to Alex at the time."

"Okay, yes, I remember now," Amy said, but she still had a very confused look on her face. "Why... why did you bring that up?? That... I mean, that was just everyday teenager stuff, right?? Not something extremely important, but..."

"Not quite, Mom," I put in. "For parents and children to lose touch somewhat as the kids grow up and not completely understand each other, yeah, that's normal. But it wasn't entirely the normal stuff that started happening then, and it definitely wasn't a normal teenager situation that was playing out with Alex at the time." Mom leaned forward slightly so that she could glare at me without Jim getting in the way. "Did... did you ever put together that all of that... that distance, those things I never explained to you, a lot of it started after I met Michael, and Max and Isabel, and started spending more time with them??"

"Umm... well, kind of," she said. "Not that I really realized much about them at the time, but over the next year I realized that you had new friends, and got to meet them, and I just kind of thought that was part of this new thing you were doing, wanting to be more independent." She frowned. "I didn't think that you were doing something with them that you didn't want to tell me about... well, not quite in those terms. Michael, we've had our differences, but I know that you're not a bad young man deep down. And Max and Isabel are... well, come on, I'm starting to get very annoyed and confused at all of this beating around the bush. What exactly are you trying to tell me??"

All three of us, (me, Mister Valenti, and Michael,) exchanged worried looks. We'd all hoped that we could keep my mom from getting impatient like this... so much for wishful thinking. "Okay, I'll tell you," Valenti said. "I want you to try to believe in what I'm going to say, or at least listen with an open mind, and not to overreact once you believe. Above all, please bear in mind that this is information that we've decided to trust you with, and several lives could be ruined if the wrong people get ahold of it." Mom glared at him for a long moment, and then nodded, still looking pretty angry that he was dragging out. "Max, Michael, Isabel, and Tess are, err..."

"We, well, we're not entirely human," Michael said softly, and Amy's head whipped around to stare at him. "Aliens. Hybrids, actually, though things start to get complicated once you mention that. We didn't originate here on Earth, anyway. That's the first out of three things that we have to tell you."

"You, you're... no." Mom shook her head, trying to sort everything out. "Jim said to believe in what he said. Michael, are you asking me the same thing?? You're not... you're not joking with me or... or--"

"We're very serious, mom," I heard myself say in an oddly flat voice.

"Do you want me to show you a few inhuman powers?" Michael asked. "I mean... would that help you accept it?"

"I... I dunno," she whispered. "Go ahead if you think it's a good idea."

Michael shrugged, lifted mister Valenti's glass in mid-air, and started the tv going without the remote. "If you have something that you don't care about, I can try changing its molecules, but..."

"No, let's leave it with those for now," Amy said. "Start telling me your story, the whole truth. Go from the beginning."

Michael took a moment to organize his thoughts. "I... I remember the, err... not really the moment that I was born, but the closest equivalent that I have. A vague sensation of ripping apart a tough, flexible membrane, like, erm... like something halfway between plastic and taffy. The thick, gelatinous liquid I'd been floating in drained out once the membrane was torn, and all of a sudden I was breathing for the first time. I climbed out of what was left of the pod, not knowing what would be outside.

"It was dim, and I wasn't used to using my eyes, or other sense, but I could soon tell that I was in an enclosed space, like a stone room, and I wasn't alone. There were two other little kids, a boy and a girl, and two other empty pods in the same device that had housed mine, both still getting their bearings. And another little girl was still inside the fourth pod, not... not awake, or trying to emerge, yet.

"The three of us didn't talk... we didn't know words yet, but I felt like I knew what they were thinking, maybe just from reading the expressions on your face, and they seemed to understand me and each other too. I kind of wanted to wait for the other girl, and the other little boy was willing to hang around, but the girl who was out already was impatient, she wanted to go somewhere else or see something else. She started exploring the room we were in, and when she got near a particular part of the wall, a huge slab of rock moved away, creating an open doorway leading to open air. I moved a little closer and saw stars in the night sky, and mountain rocks and a bit of the desert sand. The first girl left and the other boy followed her. I still wasn't sure, but eventually I followed them... the door started to close again but let me through when I got close to it. After I was outside, I heard it starting to close again, and came back just as it closed solidly. Going near it from the outside didn't open it up anymore... I didn't know how to get back in, so eventually I turned to follow the others, who had started to make their way down a kind of path. The door was most of the way up a small rocky peak.

"The girl could hear, or sense, me following her, and slowed down so that I could catch up. But now that I was out in the big wide world, I wasn't at so sure that I could trust these other kids. I hung back, deliberately not reaching them, dodging behind an obstruction when I could if I say either of them looking for me. But once they had led the way down the peak, and through the rough terrain for a while, I knew that I'd rather be with them than without. I ended up climbing up onto a small rocky hill where they could see me. I wanted to see what they would do.

"And Max... the little boy was Max, in case you hadn't figured that much out, and the girl was Isabel. The girl who was still in her pod when we left was Tess. Max reached out his hand, as if he wanted to give me a hand down, and for a moment that simple affectionate gesture made everything all right. I took it, and Isabel took my other hand once I was down, and we walked through the night together. We heard some odd noises, and followed them, and they turned out to be cars on a highway.

"One car slowed down, and parked on the shoulder, so that its headlights were shining in our direction. Max and Isabel had each other's hands at this point, I wasn't between them any more - I don't really remember how or when we shifted positions. Max held out a hand for me, but... I was frightened. I knew that these two little kids wouldn't hurt me, but I could see taller people starting to come out of the car, and I wasn't so sure about them. I made a little moan or something, and then ran back into the desert, in the night." I was starting to cry just a little at this point... Michael had told me most of this before, in bits and pieces, but the effect of hearing it all at once was hitting me hard.

"And those were mister and mrs Evans?" Amy asked. Michael nodded. "I heard about how they found Max and Isabel out in the desert, but... well, go on."

"Not really sure of how long I walked on my own," he said, his voice and his head both low. "Noticed the sky brightening and the desert sun rising... Finally a tall man in a big black hat saw me and ran after me, and I was too tired and hungry to run away from him too, and there really wasn't anywhere to hide. He took me to..."

"I, I think I get the picture from here, or at least enough of it," Amy muttered. "You didn't know anything more about your background than that??"

"They found out a little over the past year or a bit more," I put in. "But it would be complicated to just tell you that without explaining the whole story."

"How did you guess you were aliens?" Amy said. "Aside from the fact of growing up in Roswell, where I imagine you'd hear about them all the time."

"We all knew that we were different from other people, we figured out pretty soon that we could do things that other people couldn't," he said. "Once I met up with Isabel again in school, I mean, and found Max again through her. We considered a few other theories... that we were mutants or magic or whatever, but aliens seemed to fit best. Once Max started growing up into a little scientist, he did some experiments, looking at blood cells through a microscope and so on, that seemed to confirm it." He sighed. "My DNA may be different, but in a lot of ways I think of myself as human at heart. If you prick us, we bleed red blood, though the red blood cells aren't disc-shaped."

"Jim?" Amy asked. "How did you get involved in this? I think I can guess some of how the kids got involved, Maria and Kyle, Liz and Alex... but you??"

"There was... was someone who wanted to hurt them, or lock them up in fancy high-tech cages," Jim said softly. "Pierce. He had the resources of the government behind him... but he was, was twisted inside by his fear, by his hatred. He wasn't the right man who was capable of judging what was right and wrong. He got Max, and Liz and Maria came to me, asked for my help in setting him free. I helped, and while we were all trying to escape together I saw Michael use his powers. Kyle rushed into the path of danger, because he was worried about me, and he nearly died. Max saved his life. That's... that's when I decided that I needed to protect their secret... protect them, as much as I could."

"And you lost your position as Sheriff because of that decision?" Amy asked. Jim nodded. "Okay... I think I'd better hear the other two things that you said you wanted to tell me now."

Oh, no... I'd almost forgotten about that. "Okay, I'll say it straight out," I told her. A little voice in my head was urging caution, but I wasn't really listening to it. "I'm pregnant - Michael's the father. We're going to have the baby. And he's asked me to marry him..." I dug the ring out of my pocket and stabbed my finger through it, "...and I said yes. I realize that this isn't really what you wanted for me, but..."

"Ohh, oh -- oh my lord," Mom gasped. "Pregnant... with a partially alien baby?"

"Erm... about quarter antarian, as near as we can figure out," I muttered lamely.

"I... I can't be here right now," Amy muttered, staggering up from the couch. "DON'T try to stop me," she hissed, turning around to stare at Mister Valenti, who had half risen himself. "I'm sorry, but I just need some time by myself to come to terms with all of this stuff. I'm not going to call the papers or the army or anyone, but I can't just sit down and have italian food with the three of you either. And I'll talk to you about all of this later, young lady."

"Oh... okay mom," I muttered. "But just so you remember, we're leaving on the camping trip tomorrow afternoon. Probably the first time that we really are going camping when we say we are."

"Yes, I remember dear." She came back, and I stood back up and we hugged, and she kissed me on the cheek. "I still love you, and I'm doing my best to trust in your judgement. This is just way too much to deal with all at once."

I smirked a little. "Heck, sometime soon I'll tell you how I dealt with the news when Liz first told me... and there wasn't as much of it way back then. Take the time you need."

She nodded. "Jim, I'm really sorry that I have to..."

"It's okay," he told her. "There'll be plenty of leftovers, you can come by and pick some up whenever you like."

My mom grinned. "I think I'll do that... or maybe we can have a little candlelight snack of our own?" Jim smiled too, and nodded. "Thank you... for telling me. I realize my reaction might have been hard on you guys... but I *am* glad that you trusted me with nothing but the truth."

And with that, she left.

For a minute, nobody said anything. The oven timer started to buzz.

"Umm... well, do you guys still want to stay?" Jim asked a little awkwardly.

"Yeah, I could eat," Michael muttered. "Umm... maybe we could call Tess and Kyle, and invite them over? As long as there'll still be leftovers for Miz DeLuca."

Jim smiled. "Yeah, I think that'll be okay. The lasagna's huge, and if we eat all of the pizza, I can whip up another one. There's still grated cheese and sliced toppings in the fridge."

Michael grabbed the phone, I took a seat at the table, and Jim started serving out squares of creamy, cheesy, pasta.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part 30

(Alex):

"Highway mill," the driver said, (well, half-mumbled,) as he pulled into the parking lot of a small convience store/gas station. A bunch of other passengers gave Isabel and I dirty looks as we got out, but I don't think we cared. It wouldn't slow the rest of them down more than a minute, and the bus company said that we could get off here if we wanted to.

Once we were off and had gotten Isabel's big suitcase out of the lower baggage compartment, the bus driver put himself back into the gear and wasted no time roaring back out to the road. "How are we doing on time?" Isabel asked me with a smile. She had a watch on her own wrist, but I don't think I really mind her asking me anything... for one thing, I just love the sound of her voice. Sheesh, does that sound sappy much? Well, still, it's true.

"Umm... not bad, it's around nineteen minutes to eight. Tess should be here soon... we can probably call her cell if you like, but..."

"Nah, we can wait a bit, and call if she isn't here by five to, or something like that," Isabel decided. "Oh, I can't wait to get there, to spend some time with everybody. I can't believe that Michael asked Maria to marry him!!"

"Yeah, I know," I said. "Since you've told me so about ten times now -- not that I'm complaining." A pause. "It *will* be good to spend some time with all of our friends. Camping is a bit of an unusual venue for us, but it sounds like fun - especially if the weather stays this nice all weekend." It was maybe in the low eighties, dry and hardly a cloud in the sky - about as good as July weather in New Mexico ever gets for staying outdoors.

"Oh, did you hear about the thing with Maria's mom?" Isabel asked me.

"Umm... no, what now?" Suddenly, something occured to me. "Oh, last night was when Mister Valenti, Maria, and Michael were going to tell Maria's mom about the alien stuff, and how Maria and Michael were having a baby and getting married, right? What... how badly did it go?"

"They're still not really sure," Isabel sighed. "She seemed to be freaking out more and more as Michael explained, and finally just took off. Maria hasn't even seen her since then."

"Oh boy. Well... hopefully everything will be okay." I sighed.

We chatted about a few safer topics, and then about ten minutes later Tess' sport-ute showed up, and she apologized as we loaded our luggage and ourselves in.

"Not to worry, girl," Isabel told her with a smile. "We weren't waiting long."

"Have you been to the campsite already?" I asked her. "How are things going??"

"I only spent a few minutes there," she said. "To make sure that I knew where it was, and drop Ava off. We were both working pretty late this evening. But things look pretty good." Isabel took the shotgun seat, I got into the back seat, and Tess drove off.

Didn't really take us too long to get to Frazier woods from where Tess picked me up. Isabel was full of questions about what had been going on in Roswell since she left, and Tess wasn't able to answer all of them, but that didn't seem to bother my girl unduly. I just sat in the back and relaxed a little.

The campsite really was pretty sweet. small parking lot off of one of the better unpaved roads through the woods, which led by a fairly well-worn and wide, but still nicely 'foresty' path to a pleasant clearing, just the right size, not too big or too small for the nine of us. Off on one side of the clearing, another short trail led down to a small riverside beach... frankly I hadn't realized that there was a river quite this wide or this deep IN Frazier woods. It looked like there were some other people, a few different families maybe, who were camping near to the other side of the river, but that was nearly forty feet away from this side.

The sun was sinking really low behind the trees at this point... of course, it was after eight in the evening, and if we hadn't been so close to midsummer's, there probably wouldn't have been any light at all. "Hi, guys!!" Max said, when he spotted us coming back from a quick look at the river. He hugged Isabel tight, and did the cool-guy-handshake thing with me. "Your tent is pitched already... you did say that you wanted to be sharing, right??"

Isabel blinked slightly. "Umm... yes, I did, actually, but I wasn't quite sure if *you* were serious about that."

"Ehh, why not?" Max smiled. "We had three two-person tents, and Michael/Maria wanted to use one. We're not weighed down with chaperones this time, so... why not??" I smiled at the thought.

"Umm... who's in the other tent for two, Max??" Isabel asked in a light, jokey voice.

"Kyle and I," he said. "The rest of the girls are in the bigger one." Oh, right... that would be Liz, Tess... and Ava. Wondered just how THEY'D get along. "Ohh, and you'll need to get your packages for the game." Max led the way over to one of the picnic tables in the clearing.

"Packages??" Isabel asked. "You mentioned something about a game, but..." She broke off as Max picked up two envelopes and handed one of them to each of us... small manilla envelopes, maybe five by eight or five by seven and a half inches. They weren't marked with anything identifying on the outside, like our names or something like that. "Can we open them??"

"In a moment, I'll give the spiel, since you're the last ones here," Max said. Soon enough the entire gang was gathered around the campfire pit in the center of the clearing, which already had a good starter fire going, and some more wood packed up next to it. Kyle fed the flames a little more as Max cleared his throat, putting on a nice big log that would take time to get going, but wouldn't, (ideally,) smother the fire that was already going before it did.

"Okay, hi everybody, glad you could all, erm, make it," Max said, grinning as he realize how formal he sounded. "I know we're all hoping to have a lot of time to relax and veg and hang out with people we haven't gotten to see that much of lately... but I've helped to organize a little game to run all weekend as well. Each of you should have a packet, which you'll be opening soon. The packets will contain several numbered 'rule slips'... these rules will determine how the game is scored, and finding out about as many of them as possible before the game ends Monday evening is part of the point of the game. These slips are not to be destroyed or defaced, and it will be in your advantage to conceal yours from the other players unless you have something to gain."

"There will also be counters of two different types in your packages... standard playing cards, and index cards of many different colors. The rules are all about assigning points to these counters in various different combinations. At the end of Monday evening, all nine of us will seal our final choice of counters into our envelopes and place them on the camping table. At that point, the full set of rules will be revealed, the packages will be scored, and a winner determined. Ties will be settled by some form of sudden death decisionmaker. You are allowed to withhold counters from your package if you so choose."

"A few more rule slips and counters will come up for grabs during the course of the weekend. Otherwise, the majority of game-play will take the form of dealing. Any players may make deals involving trading counters, trading rule slips, or viewing rule slips held by another... among other possible elements of trades. Deals may either be witnessed by an uninvolved player, or secret, but they must all be honored regardless. I think we're all capable of holding to our word and not backing out or lying about what was really agreed on, yes?? Also, any use of alien powers to change the nature of the counters, steal from someone else's package... or basically any other use other than in a deal, as part of a dare or contest of skill, is strictly forbidden, Okay... any questions?"

"Do you know what all the rules are, Max?" I asked.

Max grinned. "No, I do not. I'll be finding out about them as we go, just like the rest of you. Mister Valenti was kind enough to draw up the rules and prepare the packages, which I handed out randomly."

"What's the prize??" Maria called out softly.

"That... um, I think I'll leave that as a secret for those few of you who aren't already in the know. I think it's worth it though."

"Can we play as teams?" Isabel asked, grabbing my arm in hers.

"All nine of us will start play seperately, opening our own packages, and will finish seperately, turning in our own packages," Max said. "However, if you want to closely co-operate with one other player, I imagine that you can think of some good deals to make along those lines." I looked over at Izzie, and she was grinning. "Okay, open your packages."

We did, and before I could look in mine or she looked in hers, Isabel asked me, "I propose a deal of mutual collaboration, such that each of us will show the other any rule slips that we acquire, or tell each other about any rule slips that we get to see but not take." She smiled. "We can exchange counters for the sake of trading with other people, and plan our final submissions together too, but that one seems like the most important detail to establish at the start."

"Agreed." Working together with Isabel on this promised to be fun, and between my logical mind, and her own mix of insight and creativity, we might have a very good shot at one of us winning the prize. Several other people had started to scatter to examine their packages in relative privacy, so both of us got up without saying a word and sat near the entrance to the tent that Max had said was ours.

We had ten different rules in our packages, with two duplicated in each, a total of six rule slips for each of us. They read as follows:

(mine)
3. trio playing cards are worth 2 2/3 times their values, plus 10
10. A royal flush in spades, ONLY as far as the ten, will score a special award of 150 points instead of following the usual formulae
14. A straight from 2 to 10 can triple the value of any particular pair.
15. White index cards are worth 4, Blacks worth 6, and reds are worth 10
16. Yellow index cards are worth 12, Green worth 15, and blues 18
18. Three or more black cards are valued at an extra 50%

(Isabel's):
1. Any odd playing card is worth blackjack points (face value, 10 for jack-king-queen, 11 for ace.)
6. flush bonus for seven or more cards in suit: 2 points per card. (in addition to odd card points or set points.)
9. Straight flushes can be extended downwards for 20 points per extra card.
24. Any three of a kind in playing cards will increase the worth of browns by two
She also had her own copy of 3 and 18.

"Okay," Isabel muttered. "Your rule three builds on rule one... so three aces would score... eighty-eight plus 10 extra, ninety-eight. I think there's probably some missing rules about pairs and quartets, straight flushes... and maybe a straight bonus. Three or more black cards would be worth 9 each... we don't yet know what the base value of browns is... Hmm. A lot of missing rules, looks like."

"Yeah, I guess so," I agreed. "Okay, let's see what else we have... umm..." Dug deeper into the envelope. "Okay, here's my playing cards... three hearts to the Jack, Queen of spades, and, erm, a low club, the five. You??"

"Umm... I've got some hearts, two middle ones," Isabel added. "Six and Eight. King-low of clubs, and the jack of spades. Not that much to build on, but we have a few possibilities. We've got two jacks, no other sets yet. And, erm, index cards... green, black, yellow, and brown."

"I've got a yellow too," I said. "And two whites and a blue. The blue is pretty good, right, and the brown is one of the one's that's missing, which means it might be in rule 17 and be the best yet."

"Yeah," Izzie said. "Okay, well... there's plenty of time yet, so we don't really need to rush off and start wheeling and dealing first thing. We can settle in here, and then everybody's probably going to spend the evening around the campfire right?"

"Yeah," I agreed. "We can let other people come to us... what they ask for will give us some insight into the other rules. Remember... in a game like this, information is really more important than physical assets, even though it's the counters that eventually equal scoring criteria. Get other rules whenever you can, and show them only when there's no other alternative."

"Got it."

Sure enough, it wasn't long before the last twilight was fading, and the campfire was burning strong, and all of us were gathered around... roasting hot dogs and marshmallows and banana boats, (which are darn tasty let me tell you.) There was plenty of true storytelling... Max relating some of the UFO hunt stuff that had been happening with Brody, and Maria telling us all about Michael and how he asked her to marry him, and Isabel and I told everybody some of what had been going on in Las Cruces... I didn't go too much into detail about the computer stuff because I didn't want to bore everybody, but Tess and Max seemed pleased to know that I was making some progress.

Ava told a few stories about New York and life on the road, and Tess shared a short anecdote about what growing up pre-Roswell had been like for her, and then, somehow, there was a bit of an awkward silence.

"Okay, anybody got a purple index card that they might be interested in selling?" Liz asked with a smile.

"Hmm... maybe," Kyle replied. "What were you looking to give for it?"

"Umm... I've got some lovely diamonds that you might be interested... or some reds."

"Err, no sale like that," Kyle replied. "How about a peek at one of your rule slips??" Hmm... interesting. Kyle's trying hard to accumulate rule slips too, and Liz likes for the purple.

"Okay, maybe," Liz said. "Umm... Can we continue this one in private? I'd rather not announce to everyone else which number rules I have, just yet."

Kyle chuckled softly. "Well, I don't really feel like leaving the campfire, but I could scooch over and let you sit here, whisper them in my ear." He clearly moved so that there was room for Liz on the short square log he'd been using for a seat.

Liz looked at Max, but he was grinning I think and barely supressing a laugh of this own, so she got up, and walked around behind the circle to join Kyle. "Anyone else have business they'd like to propose?" Ava asked.

Something clicked in my mind at this point. We had, on rule 10, the description of something that was probably one of the highest scoring combinations in the whole game... the straight flush in spades, and we also had two cards that made up that combination already between Isabel and I... the Jack and the Queen. On the other hand, asking for even one of the three remaining cards we needed straight out would probably raise too much attention - especially since someone else probably had that same rule slip already. It would pay off, I hoped, to wait and inquire about those high spades more discreetly later, maybe even when we had something that somebody else already wanted in trade.

"Umm, okay, maybe I shouldn't ask for this straight out," Michael said, "but I'm looking for the King of Clubs."

There was a pause. Not many people had brought their packages out to the campfire, but... "Yeah, that's me," Isabel announced after a moment. "A specific playing card, though... that's kinduv gonna cost you. Since you're asking about it specifically, I have to assume that it's worth a lot if you can get it."

"What do you want??" Michael sighed.

"To look at two of your rule slips, that you don't have," Isabel said. "Do you have four, five, or seventeen??"

"Hey, I'm not letting you get first pick," Michael grumbled, coming around the circle. I realized that Kyle was looking at Tess and she seemed to be giving him signals as he finished negotiating with Liz... were Kyle and Tess teaming up too? It kind of made sense, they had grown very close living together at the Valentis. On the other hand, Max, Liz, Michael, and Maria hadn't given any sign of alliances so far... which maybe just meant that they were being secretive about it.

I'm not going to go into all the details of Isabel's negotiation with Michael, because it doesn't seem very interesting written down like this. Isabel did pretty well I think... she got two rule slips, mostly chosen by Michael, that neither of us had so far... but in exchange, she was able to negotiate posession of one of them, (instead of just getting a look at two slips,) and asked for 'an index card in a pretty color -- like blue, purple, or green.' (We knew that blue and green index cards were pretty high scoring, and Liz seemed to have a bead on purple ones.) Michael gave her a green card to seal the deal.

There were a few other deals... Max and Ava switched some playing cards, and Tess gave Michael a mid-club and a color card in exchange for two different colors.

By this time the fire had burned down quite a ways. Michael started to tell us all the story about Hal Carver, doing his best to punch up the scary bits I think, and that got Kyle going on freaky alien tales he'd heard from his grandfather. Max got out the fixings for campfire s'mores... well, we already had marshmallows out I guess, so that was just graham crackers and little squares of chocolate.

"Might as well turn in soon I guess," Michael said softly. "Some of us have sleep to catch up on, and it's going to be light pretty early in the morning I think."

"Yeah, makes sense," Max said, poking the campfire with a stick idly. "Guess we should either use water to put the fire out, or someone gets to stay it up until it burns out.

"Fire safety GEEK," Kyle coughed loudly into his hand. Ava snickered.

"Maybe it's a little geeky, but no sense in taking chances," Maria said. "We don't really need a fire for keeping warm through the night, in the middle of the summer with all our gear, do we?"

"No, guess not," Tess answered. "Though we'll want one for cooking breakfast over maybe, and the woodsmen over there took long enough getting this one started." She gestured over at Max and Michael.

"It didn't take that long, and we can start a fire the easy way if we have to," Michael insisted. "Just wanted to do it with safety matches and Indian kindling tents because... well, I'm not sure why really. Just 'cause." Isabel laughed softly, leaning up against me.

Max ended up going down to the river and bringing up a little water in a camper's saucepan to put out the fire, and everybody went back to their individual tents. I crawled into ours first, and switched on the little battery powered lantern that had been hanging from the top pole. (Like a flashlight, except that it shines in all directions, or a camper's light bulb.) Isabel was following as I turned around, taking her boots off before her feet came inside the tent and pulling her hair out of a scrunchie. I belatedly took off my own shoes and handed them to her to put outside the tent.

"Okay, what were the rules you got from Michael?" I asked in a soft whisper.

Isabel smiled, without a word, reached into the big suitcase that she'd packed in Las Cruces, and after a moment pulled out a little blank notebooks, one of the ones with maybe sixty lined pages inside, only a few inches big. Then she picked up her game package, which she'd taken to the campfire in order to finalize her deal with Michael and then brought back to the campfire.

I saw what she was planning immediately. Using that little notebook would not only let us keep track of rules that we didn't get to keep copies of, observations about other players' behaviour, and so on. It would also let the two of us communicate such things without speaking, and thus without being overhear. Also to specifically plan strategy together and communicate anything else game-related. When we weren't using it, the notebook could be slipped into Isabel's envelope, and thus be protected, because stealing anything from the envelopes was forbidden.

While I'd been thinking abou that, Isabel had been busy. Opened her package, sorted through a few rule slips, identified one in particular, and handed it quietly to me. Then she took the ballpoint pen I handed her, (with a pretty smile,) and started writing into the notebook.

The rule slip that Michael had sold to her was number 19, and it said that if a group of 4 or more greens were together, they would only be worth 1 point each. Ah, tricky. By the time I had looked at that and put it away, Isabel had finished writing in the notebook and handed it to me. This was what she'd written, set up in two different sections a few pages away from each other, (so as to allow for new details to come in under each category.)

OTHER RULES WE KNOW.

21 - Any full set of all 8 color index cards, aka a 'rainbow collection', is worth 30 bonus points, AS LONG AS no other special condition rule would adjust their values from the base value.

OBSERVATIONS - THE OTHER PLAYERS

Liz wants purple index cards
Kyle is trying to acquire more rules
Michael wanted the king of clubs... why? Other high clubs for straight flush? Other kings? Some special rule we can't guess at yet??

"Cool. Pen?" I asked, and she handed it back. I noted a few other details under 'the other players', like what Liz had said she was willing to trade to Kyle, and a few details about Max and Ava, Tess and Michael from the trading around the campfire. I also set up a section marked GENERAL STRATEGY, put down the 'get new rule slips at any cost within reason' bit, and also 'possibly put together the royal flush in spades... we have two already and know it's worth a bunch.' Showed that to Isabel, and she noted down (in very tiny printing,) that we weren't sure just how much 150 was by the terms of the game. But she seemed to agree that it was something worth trying for, if there was an opportunity.

"Okay... I think I'm ready to turn in," I said out loud, handing the book back and letting Isabel stow it. "Been a long day... travelling for so long always seems to drain energy away for me. We can get back to the wheel-n-dealing tomorrow."

"Yep," Isabel agreed, and with a smile she started to take off her top, a kind of a light yellow cardigan thingee, and after putting that aside she got out a big white T-shirt to wear, presumably as a nightshirt. Once that was on, she slipped off her jeans and started to unzip the big double sleeping bag. I changed quickly into some comfy sleeping stuff and joined her, wrapping my arm around her.

"Don't forget to turn the light out," she said in a soft, lilting voice. I had to crawl partway out again to reach far enough up to hit the switch on the lantern.

I remember yawning once in the darkness, I remember Isabel sighing and settling herself closely next to me.

And sorry if it's a disappointment, but that's all I remember until the morning.

----------

(Liz):

"It all started just like any other night," I said, tenting up my knees inside the sleeping bag and letting the glow of the flashlight play over one wall of the tent. "I'd been looking for reference sources for my history paper in the library, and then I walked home. This was only a few weeks after I first found out about Max, Isabel, and Michael... and so I was a little jumpy. Really managed to freak myself out while walking alone in the dark, actually... kept hearing footsteps that sounded like they were keeping pace with me, but when I looked around I couldn't see anybody. Even the corny alien heads in the window of Maria's mom's shop were looking scary, which is saying something. I ran the last fifty feet or so down the alley behind the cafe and up the fire escape, instead of going inside and up the regular way."

"Okay," Ava said, smiling at me. Obviously, she was wondering exactly where this was going.

"Once I was inside, I felt a little better, and went to my room to go do a journal entry. Back then, I was keeping it in the bottom drawer of my dresser, always making sure that it was underneath something... that's where I keep some of my skirts and a few fancy tops. But it wasn't under anything on the top level... I dig further down rooting around, I empty almost everything out, and it's clearly not there. I check a few other likely places where I might have left it in my room, or out on the balcony... and that's when I start to freak out. I'd written so much stuff already in that journal that no-one... no-one who wasn't already in the know about Max and the others should ever read, and that was all that I could think about. What if... what if..."

"Well yeah, wow," Ava muttered. "I can see how that'd be a panic attacker. Do you still keep the journal??"

"Yeah, though I didn't write in it for about a year," I said. "Started up again a few months ago. But don't worry... I'm keeping it hidden away a LOT more carefully, if only so that I don't give myself a heart attack, which I probably would if this kind of thing ever happened again. Well, first thing I guess was that I got over to Maria's place as quick as I could to ask her advice... I don't really know what I was expecting of her, but... I wasn't as close to Max back then, and things were especially strained because I'd broken up with Kyle because his football team buddies had beaten Max up, and so Max didn't want to look like he was immediately moving in and becoming the other guy." Also, this hadn't been too long after Grandma Claudia died, but I didn't really feel like mentioning her at the moment. Not that I had any problem with telling Ava about it, but it wasn't really connected with this story and Grandma Claudia dying was way too big a thing to cover in an offhand reference. When I brought it up, I'd have to be ready to go through the whole thing.

"And Alex didn't know about the alien stuff yet at this point... I should have convinced Max to let me tell him earlier I guess, but I was telling myself that he'd be better off if he didn't know, and that we'd be able to keep the secret better if as few people knew as possible. So Maria was the only person I could come to. I only really had time to tell her how bad things were before her mom showed up and shooed me out, saying that it was too late for either of us to be up on a school night, but she met me next morning, full of ideas for... for 'reconstructing the crime', yeah. She gave Alex the third degree and really pissed him off, actually. I ended up telling Max about it, just because he kind of had to know in case it was the worst, and I ripped apart the entire apartment and, well, inadvertently started interrogating my mom, and..."

"I'm sorry, could you guys either take it outside or just lie down and stop the story??" Tess said. I turned around to see that Tess had sat up in her sleeping bag. "I mean... I'm sorry, not trying to be a wet blanket here, but I'd really just like to go to sleep."

"Oh, okay... whoops," I muttered. I'd been under the impression that Tess was actually asleep, mostly because she had looked so peaceful lying there when we came in. Guess it's not so easy to tell. Well, I didn't really feel like going back outside, so I lay back down myself and switched off the light. "I'll tell you the rest tomorrow, huh?"

"Yeah, cool."

Hmm... that reminded me, exactly how would I finish the story? I'd kind of promised Michael that I'd never... well, I'd promised Michael that I'd never tell MAX that he'd been the one to take my journal... I'd never even told Maria though. I guess I could have, and sworn her to secrecy. Wouldn't want to tell anyone who would let it get back to Max... both because it was kind of violating the spirit of what I'd told Michael, and because he might be a little upset not to hear it directly from me. But I think Ava'll sit tight on it if I ask her. Hmm...

----------

When I woke up and crawled out of the tent, the sky was a dark gray and the air was chill with just a trace of dew. I hesitated just long enough to crawl into some warm pants and a jacket, put my shoes on outside the tent, and walked through the woods for a few minutes. Nobody else was up except for a few birds and small chipmunks or something, scurrying around in the brush.

I hadn't brought my journal with me, but there was some paper in Ava's bag that I didn't think she'd mind if I took, and I sat at the picnic table for a while and tried to do a little sketching. Not sure I came up with anything that was much good, but it was fun to try something new. The trickiest part was having something to hold the paper up against while I was working on it with the pencil... the table itself didn't work too well, because there was such a rough grain to it, that always wanted to come through and overpower what I was trying to draw, and there weren't many alternatives for something flat around. I ended up going back into the tent and seeing if I had anything in what I'd packed that would work. A hardcover copy of a book about different birds of the southwest kinduv fit the bill, and also reminded me that I wanted to do some birdwatching before we left. Hmm... right now would probably be a good time for that, but I didn't feel like "birding", so I didn't. There would be other early mornings.

Once the twilight had brightened some, I put my sketches and the book back away and changed what I was wearing again. Tess was starting to stir, maybe she'd woken up and maybe not... I hoped she wouldn't be mad at her if I had woken her up. Shivering slightly, I went over and tried to knock on the door of the guy's tent. Ever tried to knock on a tent door? It doesn't work very well. I ended up running the zipper up and down several times over, holding the zipper head slightly at an angle so that it'd make as much noise as possible.

No response. Sighing slightly, (I hadn't wanted to have to do this,) I unzippered the door further and poked my head in a little ways. Max was almost right there in my face... he was sleeping on the side of the tent I had opened the door on, with his head pointed towards the door. Kyle was laying the other way. I ruffled Max's hair a little and leaned down to kiss him, upside down, on the forehead.

His eyes blinked open very suddenly, while my lips were still touching his skin I think. "Umm... umm, Liz? What are you..."

"I know it's early, and a little cool outside still," I told him. "But I was thinking of having an early morning swim, and I was wondering if you wanted to join me."

Max blinked again and turned around so that he was laying on his front, head and shoulders propped up on his arms, and rubbed his eyes a little, trying to get a good look at me. I was wearing a brand-new swimsuit, absolutely black nylon-lycra. Max's jaw dropped a little... the suit was just a classic bikini style, nothing especially revealing, but that's still a lot more skin than I'm used to showing in public, or even around Max... except for very special occasions, and those haven't been very frequent as of late.

It certainly seemed to me that he was appreciating the view. "So... do you wanna put on a swimsuit of your own and come join me??" He nodded, silently, and I couldn't help but giggle.

"Um, er, yeah... just give me two minutes, kay??"

"Sure." I backed away a little, and Max pulled the tent door back closed. There were some sounds of movement from inside, the unmistakeable minor impact of somebody bumping some part of their body into a tent wall accidentally, and a fairly loud Kyle Valenti groan.

A little while later, Max slipped out the door of the tent, wearing pretty much nothing but his waterproof watch and a pair of blue and yellow checkered swim trunks. I smiled and headed off towards the river path, and Max hurried to follow. Just about the time we were walking hand in hand across the sand, I realized that he hadn't even put on any shoes. Well, that saved time I guess.

"Okay, erm... how do we do this?" he asked as I slipped off my own sneakers. (I'd been wearing them without socks since I woke up.) Max went over and dipped a toe onto the edge of the water, and made a big show of shivering. "You... you know, I'm the kind of person who likes to get into cold water all at once... preferably by diving. But... well, there's no dock or anything to jump off of, and I don't think this river even gets deep enough to dive."

"Yeah, I'm kind of the same way," I admitted. "But, well... I *do* really want to have a swim. We could run in together, or..." I stopped as an idea occured to me, and looked around carefully. There was no sign of anyone awake on the other side of the river, or on this bank. "Max, this kinda sounds a little trivial, but you could use your powers, couldn't you? To get us into the water quickly and safely??"

"Umm... what, like make a dock out of grass and sticks??"

"No, no, not like that at all," I told him. "We don't NEED to jump off a dock. Couldn't you just, you know, push me out there??"

Max thought about that for a second, nervous but definitely liking the notion. "Okay, umm... maybe. We'd have to both be very careful... wouldn't want you to land too hard, or the wrong way up, or whatever. But yeah, since I've been practicing my powers lately, I think I can do it. If you're sure."

"Alright," I said, smiling.

"Do your best to stay upright," he said, looking around himself and getting an intense look. "I'll be coming afterwards once I get my concentration back, so watch out." He took a deep breath, and I did too. "Three, two, one, takeo--"

I didn't hear the end of the word 'takeoff', because all of a sudden it was like an invisible angel had whisked me off and was carrying me above the water, my toes dangling a few inches above the surface. I yelped a little, but it was actually pretty comfortable. By weight was mostly being supported in three placed, my sides underneath each shoulder, and the small of my back just above where my behind started. That seemed to work well enough, though it was unfamiliar.

In only a few seconds I was out into the middle of the river, and slowing down. I could feel myself drop slightly, so that my toes were dipped into the icy water, and then my feet up to the ankles. And then, the invisible soft hands supporting me just went away, dumping the rest of me into the frigid wetness.

It wasn't that bad, like jumping into the deep end of a cold swimming pool from the edge. My head probably made it down a few feet below the surface, and I thought I could feel just an impression of sandy grit swirling in the water between my toes, and then started to float back up. I had to take a deep breath once my head was up above the surface, and then shivered, but I could feel that my system was already startying to adjust to the cold.

After a little while, I wondered when Max would be coming in himself... it was hard to even make out the small figure on the shore... well, at first I had gotten myself turned around and was looking at the other side of the river, and then I managed to get some water in my eyes. By the time I was seeing clearly again, I realized that Max wasn't on the beach anymore.

He was coming much more quickly and less carefully than I had been... probably he had been able to brace against the beach when lifting me up, but didn't have enough control to do that to himself. It kinda looked a little like he'd been shot out of one of those pneumatic cannons, and when he finally made contact with the water, he landed about fifteen feet away with a splash large enough to completely soak me. I hurried into the middle of the turbulent waters, worried that he might have hurt himself.

But Max grinned at me, and said "Hi, gorgeous," and wrapped his arms around me and kissed me in the water. We had a great time, splashing each other, and floating side by side and talking, and diving down to see who could explore the most river bottom without having to come up for air, (Max won that... he could hold his breath for a really long time, which I suspect has something to do with the alien DNA,) and kissing some more. We even tried kissing while completely underwater, but it wasn't as fun as it looks in the movies.

Around that point, Kyle and Ava and Michael and Isabel came into the river to join in the fun too. By the time we were out, the sun had risen, though you couldn't really see it yet back at the camp because there was a thick patch of high trees just to the east of our clearing. Tess was lighting the campfire, and Alex and Isabel were started to cook breakfast on an old-metal barbecue grill.

TO BE CONTINUED...