The Consequences of Turning Green (CC/Teen) Complete 6-12

[ultimatepickupline]

Title: The Consequences of Turning Green
Author: ultimatepickupline (Reese)
Couple: All CC mainly M/L
Rating: Teen
Disclaimer: Yeah....I don't own it, which is probably a good thing. The first chapter specifically contains lines from EOTW, or rather it contains very close paraphrases. I obviously didn't come up with those by myself.
Summary: Liz made a possibly bad decision before Future Max left, and now her future seems to be even worse than giving up her soulmate.




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Chapter 1

Liz stared at the ceiling from her sprawled out position on the bed where she had collapsed earlier. She didn’t even know how much time had passed. All she could think was “How could this happen? How could I allow this to happen to me?” She turned her head to stare at the bathroom door. It seemed to draw her attention and say “Your life is changed forever”. As if she didn’t already know it would be when she helped Future Max with his plan to save the world. But she never dreamed that it would end so terribly for her. Sure she knew that she was going to be giving up her happiness with Max, but she didn’t think that it would end up taking her own personal dreams away too. If anything it should have given those dreams back. If she wasn’t with Max she wouldn’t have to worry about any of the alien business and she wouldn’t have to worry about running away from the FBI. She would be free to pursue her life-long dream of going to Harvard and getting her degree in molecular biology. But when she helped Future Max change what was suppose to be, she became so devastated that she had made a stupid mistake. A very stupid mistake that would now change her life forever. Now she would still have to give up her educational goals and dreams and deal with the stupid alien business. And this time Max wouldn’t even be there to help her deal. Or to make it seem like the whole thing wasn’t really that bad and totally worth it.

Liz got up and went back to the bathroom door. After pausing with her hand above the handle for a few seconds, she opened the door and walked in. Then she picked up the pregnancy test. Yep it was definitely positive. Like she really needed to look at it again. She had already checked it five times and it wasn’t even the only one. It was the third pregnancy test she had taken. As if she didn’t already know what the outcome would be with the first. A week and a half ago she had started to crave tabasco sauce on everything, burgers, fries, ice cream, fruit and her personal favorite right now, in her chocolate milk. On top of that she had started to exhibit powers a week ago, accidentally changing the color of her shirt, opening locked doors and lockers without really trying, warming up cold food on accident without realizing it. But the final straw had been this morning, when she got out of her shower and looked in the mirror to discovered a tiny silver hand print on her stomach. Yep that was the one that took the cake. She had assumed that the first two symptoms were just side effects from sleeping with Future Max two weeks ago, that maybe she was just changing, becoming more alien, but with the hand print she couldn’t just assume that anymore. She had immediately called herself in sick to school and went to the drugstore to buy the three pregnancy tests that now littered her sink.

Liz put down the pregnancy test she held, looked into the mirror and lifted up her shirt. It was still there all right. That little, tiny hand print still glowed half under the top of her jeans. This symptom might be a little harder to cover up than her craving of tabasco sauce or her small powers. She would have to start making sure that she always kept her pants pulled up and her tops pulled down. Well hey at least this would definitely make sure that Max stayed away. Being pregnant definitely proved that she had slept with someone. Wait what was she thinking? She wouldn’t be able to tell Max or any of the other aliens. They would figure out sooner or later that her symptoms were not normal, and she couldn’t afford to have them find out who the real father was. In a weird way, that might bring Max closer, and that was just not acceptable.

“What am I going to do?” Liz panicked. She had to get out of here. She had to get away. But she couldn’t just leave everything she’d ever known. And she wouldn’t be able to do this without help. She would need an ally when she gave birth. She obviously wouldn’t be able to give birth to the baby in a hospital with it being half Czechoslovakian, especially with her recent signs of powers. Who knew what was actually going on in her body right now?

Suddenly all the stress caught up with her, and Liz was exhausted. “I’ll just go to sleep and I’ll deal with this in the morning” Liz thought. Liz changed into some pajamas and walked over to the bed where she sprawled out, and gave herself over to a fitful sleep.

*****

Max was restless. He didn’t know what was going on, but for the past two weeks he had been on edge. “Of course, I’d be upset” Max thought “Two weeks ago I saw Liz in bed with Kyle!” Max had been completely devastated. In fact he still was. He couldn’t believe that Liz had just slept with Kyle like that. She wasn’t one to just jump into bed with someone. And despite her attempt to get him together with Tess, and then her speech about not wanting to die for him, Max felt that things had begun to get better between the two of them. At least they had been, up until the night he had gone to serenade her from the street below her balcony. He just couldn’t figure it out. That night seemed to be a turning point, but he knew that there was nothing he did that night to change anything. He had planned that night out meticulously. The only thing that had gone wrong was the color of the rose. And that was such a minor glitch which he had quickly remedied. He just couldn’t figure what went wrong. He couldn’t wrap his mind around it. “Why would Liz just sleep with Kyle? I just can’t believe she would do that” And that would actually be the problem. He had seen it with his own two eyes, but he still wouldn’t accept it. It couldn’t be true.

Actually he was suspecting that more and more as time went on. When he first saw Kyle and Liz in bed together, he could only focus on the pain that consumed him. He thought about it every waking second. But after a few days he started to realize that something was different. The usual connection he had with Liz since he had saved her had changed somehow. He wasn’t exactly sure how it changed or why, but he was reasonably sure that it didn’t have to do with the Kyle thing. Or at least he was pretty sure that the change in their connection wasn’t a result of the Kyle thing.

Max was sick of thinking of this, but at the same time he couldn’t stop thinking about it long enough to actually do anything else. “Maybe I’ll take a walk” Max muttered under his breathe. He grabbed his jacket and rather than disturb his family at this late hour of night by walking through the house, he climbed out his window and started his now nightly walk. After an hour Max found himself at the bottom of the ladder to Liz’s balcony. Big Surprise. This is where he found himself every night. And as every night, he wanted to go up, but couldn’t face it considering what he found the last time he had gone up.

*****

In her sleep Liz could feel Max close by, although she didn’t realize she knew it, but her dreams reflected this unconscious knowledge.

“Ugh, the look on his face. I hurt him. I hurt him” Liz cried. She couldn’t deal with the pain of hurting the person she loved most in the world and collapsed on the rooftop.

“Liz stop,” Future Max said picking Liz up and carrying her to the lounge chair, “you can’t beat yourself up about this. I asked you to do this. You needed to do this. The fate of the world depends on it. I will always l love you, not just as I exist now, but as I did in this time. I know this hurt you, but I thank you, and I’m proud of you.”

Liz looked up into Future Max’s eyes and couldn’t stop herself from reaching up and gently kissing him on the lips, thanking him for his comfort, even if she knew that the comfort would only last temporarily. Max couldn’t believe that she kissed him. He had just kissed his wife! That was something he never thought he would do again. Unfortunately, he didn’t think he could stop with just a kiss. Not when he would never be able to be with Liz again, and not when she didn’t try to stop him. Liz couldn’t stop Max. After what she had done tonight, she would never be with Max again. She would never kiss him again. She would never get her perfect wedding. And she would never be able to get back what she felt die in her when she saw the hurt on his face. After that there was no way she could stop Max, and she didn’t even want to. She wanted more. So as Max picked her up again and carried her to her bed, she didn’t stop him. And when he looked into her eyes with a question, she nodded and pulled him down to the bed on top of her. She at least wanted one night with Max and if it couldn't be her Max, Future Max would do.

Outside below Liz’s balcony, Max sighed in pain and turned around to go back home. Upstairs, Liz’s dream shifted.

Liz woke up inside her dream. At first she didn’t know anything different, but then she realized that she was sore and naked. And it all came flooding back. Her mission with Future Max, fake sleeping with Kyle, hurting present day Max, and finally seeking comfort by sleeping with Future Max. What had she done? What was this nightmare? She had told Future Max that she wasn’t ready to make love to anyone, and she was telling the truth then. And now Future Max had disappeared, and her Max might as well have disappeared, because he was never going to talk to her again. The grief was unbearable, and sobs wracked her body.

With this Liz woke up. She was sobbing just as she had in her dream, which was really more than a dream. It was a nightmare. It was a nightmare because it was exactly what had happened. And now it was the reason her individual dreams had to die too. But at least that one night was going to leave her with a piece of Max. It was weird that it wouldn’t really be a part of her Max, but Liz’s son or daughter would be a piece of Max. And even with everything that Liz was going to have to give up, and with everything she would have to deal with now, it would be worth it, because she would still be able to feel close to Max in some way. Now she just had to find a way to deal. And she would have to find a way to get someone on her side. Liz was done with her grief, she had a future to think about, and a child to care for, and she would do that to the best of her ability. With that decision made, Liz went back to sleep, and this time she didn’t dream.

[ultimatepickupline]

Hey guys thanks for the feedback. The hope is to update at least once a week.

bluebballjumper-I'm glad you like my writing style.
begonia9508-Thanks for the encouragement.
montee916-I hope that I'll be able to keep your interest even though this fic will relvolve predominately around Max and Liz. But I will have some of all couple in it, so hopefully you'll like it.
Elizabeth Kivana-Also thanks for the encouragement. Hope this update was soon enough for you.
PMP-Glad you're interested. I hope it keeps you on your toes some.
Robyn-Glad you liked it, and I just really liked the idea that Max's baby would leave a handprint on her, just like Max did. I'm glad you also liked the idea.

And now without further ado...

Chapter 2

The next morning when Liz woke up, she felt better rested than she had in a several weeks. She had been reliving that terrible night in her sleep every night since she had done it. She could never get the sight of Max's hurt expression out of her mind. And before that night, she had been tormented by what she was required to do. Last night had been the first time she had slept without dreaming, and now that she had some sleep she would be able to plan her newly changed future. Future Max was definitely right, her future was yet to be determined, and she would take control of it herself. Unfortunately, Liz didn’t get to relish her determination, because she suddenly felt sick. Liz threw off her covers and ran to the bathroom. Apparently now that she knew she was pregnant she was going to start suffering from both alien and human pregnancy symptoms.

After throwing up everything in her stomach and then some, Liz started to get ready for school. There would be no way she could skip school again today without making her friends worried, and that was not something she would be able to do. Not if she wanted to make sure the Czechoslovakians didn’t find out about her predicament. As she left the house she grabbed a bottle of water and some saltines to eat for breakfast. She didn’t want to chance eating something too heavy.

When Liz got to school she walked to her locker to drop off her backpack and get her textbooks for the next couple classes. As she was grabbing her math textbook Maria walked up. “Hey chica. Where were you yesterday? You weren't sick were you?”

“No Maria. I just wanted a day off. A day away from everything.” Liz replied.

“I can understand that.” Maria started to ramble, “Do you know what my idiot ex-boyfriend did? After I confronted him about the whole Courtney thing, he denied that anything was going on! How could he possibly believe that I would believe him? I freakin' saw her come out of the bathroom in a towel! Just a towel! How could he be so inconsiderate? So dense...” Maria continued to ramble and complain on the drama that had become her life when the Czechoslovakians entered it, but Liz spaced out just thinking about how she would exactly deal with her current situation. “Hello? Liz? Are you even listening to me? What’s up with you?”

“Nothing Maria, I’m just tired that’s all. And I’m worried about my math test today.” Liz lied.

“Oh man, Liz the Brain is worried about a simple math test. Granted it’s not actually a simple test, but for you it should be. You have nothing to worry about Liz”.

“Thanks Maria.”

“No prob. Now I have to go to Geometry. I don’t know why we have to take it in the first place. It's not like I'll ever need to know how to write a proof.”

*****

At lunch Liz was happy. She had started to relax during the day, because she had finally been able to just concentrate on her schoolwork. And school was not nearly as complicated as her own life. Academic problems had definite answers, and they were easy to figure out because she just had to think as she had for nearly her entire life. She was able to forget that she had problems she had to worry about. So as Liz went to find Maria and Alex at lunch she felt light. “Hi guys. What’s up?”

“Alex was just telling me about a gig the Whit's got for this weekend. I’m trying to decide if I'll sing for it.” Maria replied.

“Maria. We don't need you to sing for us. Last time you ended up practically taking over the band, and then you almost chickened out!” Alex argued.

“No I didn't. You guys needed some serious help with wardrobe. And the whole 'chickening out' thing was just so that you guys would forget your nerves. It's called acting.”

“Whatever. We don't need you to take over the Whit's again.”

“Please Alex. I did a good job. And this is my dream.”

“Fine, I'll see what the guys have to say.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you Alex.”

“Yeah sure”

Maria leaned over and kissed Alex's cheek in appreciation, and while Alex wiped his cheek off Maria turned toward Liz to see what was going on with her. Liz had just been happily eating her pizza with tabasco sauce, relishing the normal teenage conversation going on around her. As the conversation between her two best friends had gone on Liz was trying harder and harder not to laugh. She knew that Maria would eventually sing no matter what, so there was no reason for the whole convincing process anyway. “Liz. So how was your te-? Liz? Is that tabasco sauce that your pizza is practically swimming in?”

“Yeah so? Hey can I have some of your chips?” Liz asked nonchalantly and reached across the table to steal some of Maria’s food. However, all hope a semi-normal lunch was completely shattered when Liz's top rode up, and Maria saw Liz’s stomach.

“Liz! What’s on your stomach? Is it glowing?!"

Maria’s questions made everything come crashing back down on Liz, and she jerked back to her side of the table and yanked her shirt down. It was then that Liz saw Isabel heading in the direction of the table and dragging a reluctant pair behind her. Liz panicked. She couldn’t tell anyone anything. “Nothing is going on Maria. Nothing is on my stomach, and I guess the tabasco sauce is just some weird very late side effect being healed by a Czechoslovakian. Now I just remembered that I have a world history test after lunch, and I didn’t finish studying for it, so I’m going to go to the library to study. See ya later. Bye.” Liz said quickly as she picked up her books and left the table. It was then that Isabel, Michael, and Max reached the table.

“What’s going on with Liz? She left in a hurry.” Isabel commented. Max looked uncomfortable, he had a hard time accepting that with one night his and Liz's relationship, friendship or otherwise, was completely ruined. And now she couldn't even stand to be around him. Well it was probably better that way. Max didn’t think he would be able to spend a lot of time around her anyway right now.

“I don’t know. She said that she had to study for a test,”Maria explained. Maria wasn’t about to tell them about the tabasco sauce and the glowing spot on Liz’s stomach. She didn’t want to be involved with them if she didn’t have to. Not when Michael still hadn’t apologized or even recognized that anything was wrong. But she knew something was up, and she was going to find out. “I actually have to go too. See ya guys later.” With that Maria quickly gathered her stuff, shot Alex a glance warning him not to mention any of the weird stuff with Liz, and rushed out of the Cafe to the library to see what was going on with Liz.

*****

As Liz was about to head into the library, she felt her lunch wanting to come back up. So she ran to the bathroom where she promptly threw up everything she had eaten for lunch and breakfast plus some. “I hope no one walks in on me here. I don’t want any more rumors running around this school than necessary. Besides I can’t have any of the Czechoslovakians know what’s going on. But I really need to let Maria and Alex in on the plan...as soon as I come up with one that is.” Liz thought as she spent the rest of the lunch period in the bathroom. She washed her face, brushed her teeth with the toothbrush and toothpaste she had put in her purse that morning just in case something like this happened, and fixed her make-up. By the time she felt like she looked ready, the bell rang and signaled that she only had five minutes to get to her next class. As she opened the door to the bathroom she nearly knocked Maria over.

“Where have you been girl? I searched the library three times over for you, but I didn’t see you anywhere!” Maria exclaimed.

“Oh, I just barely got to the library when I realized I had the wrong books, so I went to my locker to change them out, and then I had to go to the restroom.” Liz quickly lied. She hoped her best friend wouldn’t see through the lie too easily. She had been lucky with her cover-ups so far today, because Maria was still upset with Michael. But Liz knew that Maria would catch on soon, and when she did, Liz was going to have to have a plan ready.

“Okay, well we better get to class like now” Maria said as she eyed her friend suspiciously. Oh yes, she was definitely going to get to the bottom of Liz’s little lie fest here soon.

[ultimatepickupline]

Hey all! Thanks for the feedback again!

PMP- I made Maria make the comment about geometry because I said the same thing when I was in geometry. Unfortunately I regret to say that I have used the logical thinking that a proof needs in real life. So I guess some good did come out of it. Anyway, I don't think that Liz would make too many stupid decisions. She's a smart girl.
begonia9508-yeah Maria is Liz's best friend and deserves to know the truth. I think you'll like this part. At least I hope.
montee916- I didn't think about Maria spotting the handprint being like a flashback to Kyle seeing the handprint in the pilot. That's a good point though
duckybears-I'm glad you thought I showed Maria's and Liz's friendship well. But I can't tell you what will happen with Tess. You'll just have to keep reading.

And now...


Chapter 3

After school Liz went up to her room to get a little bit of homework done and work on a plan. After she had done all her important homework, Liz laid down on her bed to contemplate her situation and possible solutions. As she was thinking she absent mindedly started using some of her powers. She changed the color of her bed spread a couple times, made a few light objects like a pen and a hairbrush chase each other around the room, and she tried to think of any other powers she might have access to that she could test out. Liz was so busy thinking and using her minor powers that she didn’t realize someone was at the door watching her until Maria exclaimed “Okay girl no more lying, what’s going on? Because last time I checked you weren’t able to change the color of things and make objects chase each other around a room.”

Liz looked up startled and the pen and hair brush drop to the ground. She hadn’t expected someone to come in. She should have locked the door anyway. Next time she would. “Ummm Hi Maria. What are you doing here?”

“I thought I would come over and see if my best friend wanted to do something tonight after she’s apparently been so stressed that she had to skip school a day. What’s going on with you that you’re exhibiting powers all of the sudden? How long has this been going on?”

Liz looked up at Maria and bit her lip trying to decide what she was going to say. She could lie some more, but what would be the point? Eventually people would find out that she was pregnant, and it might be nice for at least one person to know what was real. At least then she wouldn’t have to keep up pretentions around everyone around her. Liz started hesitantly, “Okay Maria you might want to sit down for this, and please don’t freak out.”

“I’ll sit down, but I reserve the right to freak out, because this seems like it’s going to be big.”

“Whatever” Liz sighed. Then she told Maria all about Future Max coming and telling her she had to make Max fall out of love with her. She told Maria of her ploy to get Max and Tess together, then the speech she had given Max, and finally her scheme to make Max catch her and Kyle in bed together. Surprisingly enough, Maria was actually fairly calm through the whole thing.

“Okay well now it makes sense why you’ve been so depressed the last couple of weeks, but what’s up with the powers, none of your story explains them.”

Liz took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay Maria here’s the part where you can’t freak out.” She waited for a second as Maria gave her a worried look. “Maria, I’m pregnant.”

“What?!” Maria shrieked. “I thought you didn’t sleep with Kyle?”

“Maria keep your voice down!” Liz admonished “And I didn’t sleep with Kyle” Maria gave Liz a confused look until Liz continued her admission under her breath “I slept with Future Max.”

“What?! Liz you lost your virginity to a thirty year old guy?!”

“Don’t say it like that Maria. It was Max”

“He was fourteen years older than you! I don’t care if it was Max! That’s just crazy!”

“Okay you have a point. And if I hadn’t been so upset at the time I wouldn’t have done it. But I can’t go back and change what I’ve done, and hey if I’m now meant to never have Max in my life, at least I can have a part of him with my child.”

"Still!" Maria let out an exasperated sigh, looked at Liz's depressed expression and decided to let up. So she gently prodded Liz for information about her powers. “So is this the reason why you’re getting powers I’m assuming?”

“That's what I'm guessing, and I think it’s also the reason for the sudden change of taste of food.....and this” Liz lifted up her shirt to show Maria the hand print on her stomach.

“So that’s what I saw at lunch?” Liz nodded, and Maria continued. “Wow that’s kind of amazing. It’s so tiny!” Maria reached out to trace the outline of the hand print.

“Maria! That tickles!” Liz said while laughing.

“Okay so do you have a plan for all of this?”

“Well that’s what I was thinking about when you walked it. The way I see it, it’s October, so the baby will be due in July, which will be good for me since I won’t have to miss school. But I don’t want the czechs to even know that I’m pregnant. So I think I’ll leave school here at the semester and transfer somewhere else, like a boarding school. I shouldn’t be showing by then so I’ll be fine. And if I am then it won’t be much so it should be relatively easy to cover up. I’d like you and Alex to come out in June and stay with me for the summer, and I’m going to have to ask you to do me a big favor and learn how to deliver my baby. I can’t chance going to the hospital to have it, especially with the changes I’m going through. I haven’t decided what to tell my parents yet. I suppose I should tell them I’m pregnant now, but I’m kind of debating about waiting until after I move out so that they don’t suspect anyone here of being the father.”

“Um Liz? I think you’re parents know that it takes nine months to have a baby; so they might realize that when you’re baby is born in July completely healthy that he or she wasn’t exactly conceived after you left. Unless you leave now.”

“I know, but I was trying to think of a way to use my powers to my advantage and keep it from them a little longer.”

“And what lie to you’re kid about how old he or she is all the time? I dont think that’s gonna work.”

“Yeah probably not. Okay, maybe I could leave in like the next couple of weeks? That might work, because I’m only two weeks a long right now. Of course then my parents are going to have to think that I’m a slut just sleeping with like the first guy I meet at my new school.”

“Maybe you could tell them you made a bad decision while under the influence of alcohol?”

“Possibly although that might make them bring me home before the baby is born. But I guess that could work as long as everyone believes that I got pregnant while away. Uuggghh I don’t know! Right now maybe I should focus on when to tell Alex. That might be a little easier. Or maybe I should just let him believe the story I let everyone else believe. But no. I refuse to lie to him again. I’ll tell him the truth tomorrow. In the meantime, I need a break. What did you have in mind for tonight?”

“Well, we could go to a movie.”

“Okay let’s go. I need to get my mind off of things.”

[ultimatepickupline]

Hey all, thanks for your feedback. I love it. Just ask my sisters. Anytime I get feedback I get really excited and even do a little dance.

PMP-I agree about the support thing, and since it's my fic, I though hey why not?
begonia9508-I was thinking that it would be more like Maria delivers the baby while Alex plays the father part. You know he gets to hold Liz's hand and tell her to breath and basically tick her off while she's giving birth.
bluebballjumper-interesting. We'll see.
kittens-A connection with the baby would present a bit of a problem. But Liz is just hoping that her pregnacy goes as normally as possible with the exception of her development of powers and the silver handprint.
Tanya7496-I'm glad you couldn't stop reading. I feel that that is one of the best compliment ever.
montee916-see my comment to begonia. Also I'm glad to see you back.
L-J-L 76-where were all the questions I normally see on your posts? JK. Glad you liked it. Hope this was soon enough

On a sidenote that may or may not be interesting...This chapter is the first chapter that I'm posting that wasn't written months ago.

And Now...


Chapter 4

The next day Liz planned how to tell Alex about her situation. She definitely wanted him to know what was going on because she didn't want to keep a secret from him and risk their friendship again. And she had already decided to tell him soon before he could start to detect something was wrong or different and asked her about it. But how was she suppose to just bring it up? "Hey Alex I can't wait for your concert on Friday. Oh and by the way Max came back from the future, and I slept with him and now I'm pregnant. So do you think your concert will make you guys big?" She didn't think that was exactly the best way to go, unless she wanted to give Alex a panic attack. She was so anxious about telling Alex what was going on, that she ended up getting up earlier than she had intended.

For some reason Liz was more nervous about telling Alex the truth than she was her parents. Of course, she didn't have to tell her parents about her pregnancy any time soon, and even then she would be lying, so she would be able to hide behind her act. But telling Alex the truth was a little more daunting.

Liz chose clothes for the day that made her look good. She wanted to feel confident when she confronted Alex. After deciding on a cute jean skirt and a plain white top with some cute white sneakers, Liz called Maria to ask for a ride to school. Liz wanted to make sure that she could talk with Maria first and figure out exactly how they were going to tell Alex what was going on, and how to ask for help.

After Liz was completely ready for the day, she left her room to have breakfast. She needed to make sure that she took care of her body, especially since she wouldn't be able to actually go to a doctor or anything. Besides, she had gotten up early enough today that she had some extra time to actually make a semi-decent breakfast. As Liz was fixing herself an egg and toast her mother walked into the room.

"Well I'm shocked. What made you get up early enough to make yourself a decent breakfast instead of just grabbing a pop-tart on your way out the door?" Nancy asked as she poured herself a cup of coffee.

"Um... we were talking about health in class the other day, and someone mentioned how beneficial is was for you to eat a good healthy breakfast in the morning, and I thought I would actually try to reap some of the benefits of it." Liz felt bad about not being able to tell her mom the real reason she was eating something healthy, but there really wasn't anything else she could do. Even if she hadn't been pregnant by a guy who visited her from the future and then disappeared leaving her with an alien child, she wouldn't have wanted to tell her mom about her pregnancy just casually over morning breakfast.

"Well I think that's a great idea honey. I always wished I had raised you to take your eating habits more seriously."

"Yeah I know mom." Liz frantically shoveled her food in her mouth and hoped that she didn't get sick from eating so fast, because she didn't want to have to sit and keep lying to her mom. "Gotta go Mom. Maria's picking me up today, and I don't want to be any later than necessary." With that Liz put her dishes in the sink, grabbed her bookbag, and kissed her mom on the way out the door.

Luckily for Liz, Maria was actually running a little early, and was all ready for her as soon as Liz came down the stairs. Liz dashed to the Jetta and got in as quick as possible.

"Geez Liz, where's the fire?" Maria asked as she put the car into gear.

Liz fastened her seatbelt before she replied. "Nowhere, I just didn't want to be in the same place as my mom any longer, when I had to keep lying to her. I wanted to start eating better for the baby you know? But when I actually made myself a healthy breakfast, my mom was shocked and asked me why. So I had to make up something about wanting to 'reap the benefits of healthy eating'. I hate lying to my parents. I always think that they're going to know that I'm not telling the truth. Then if they never find out that I lied, I feel even guiltier. I mean they trust me Maria, and I just completely screwed up my life!"

"Calm down sweetie. Your parents won't know that you're lying to them, unless you act really strangely. And you've lied to all kinds of people in the last year of being envolved in the alien abyss. Don't you think you should have learned to lie sufficiently by now? And if you haven't you might want to work on that pretty soon here. Because you're going to have to lie to a lot of people about the truth of your baby."

"I know, Maria. But it's a lot harder to lie to my mom than it is to the rest of Roswell. The rest of Roswell doesn't have so much faith in me. Or so many dreams."

"Well you'll handle it Liz. You're amazing." Maria pulled into her parking space and turned off the engine. "And now it's time to tell Alex. When and where do you want to meet?"

"I guess we should meet during lunch in the eraser room. It's the only time we all have free, and I don't want to skip class and then try to convince my parents to send me to a boarding school. And I definitely don't want anyone to overhear what we say."

"Okay eraser room at lunch it is. I'll tell Alex. All you have to do is show up. 'Cause I am not about to tell Alex about this all by myself."

"Thanks, Maria. You're a great friend. I'll see you at lunch." With that Liz got out of the car and confidently walked to her locker. Today was going to be the last day of secrets with her best friends, and the first day of many that would consist to keeping secrets from the rest of the world. Liz was determined that even if she didn't feel confident, she was going to act like it for the rest of the world. She was going to only care about her own opinions, and she was going to do what was best for everyone, even if she had to sacrifice her own dignity to do so.

*****

As Liz pushed the door open to the eraser room, her stomach flip-flopped. It had been her intention to get to the eraser room early and use her few spare minutes to calm herself down and plan out exactly how she was going to tell Alex what all was going on in her life. Unfortunately, before she even got the door open, Liz was shocked to discover that both Alex and Maria were already there fifteen minutes early. Now she had no choice and no chance to gather her thoughts, because the look on Alex's face demanded to know why Liz asked for this meeting. He was obviously more than a little worried about what was going to be happening. "Hey Alex, Maria. What's up?"

Liz knew immediately that her attempt at light-hearted normalcy did not fly, because although Maria made a half-hearted attempt to reply and joke around, Alex just frowned and softly said "What's going on Liz."

At that point, Liz gave up and just started with a confession. "Okay Alex. I know you're worried about why I wanted to talk to you so secretively. But before I start I just wanted you to know that everything I'm about to tell you is true, and that I'm telling you out of respect for our relationship, because I never want to get the way it was when I kept the Czechoslovakian secret from you. But you can never tell another soul about this ever. Not even Isabel."

"I can keep a secret, Liz. And my first priority will always be you and Maria. Besides, I doubt that Isabel will ever even give me a second glance, let alone actually start to return my admittedly somewhat obsessive feelings toward her."

Alex joked a little in an effort to somewhat lighten his earlier expressions, and Liz was grateful for the reprieve. She knew that Alex would support her no matter what, but it wasn't until this very moment that she had actually felt reassured. So Liz told Alex everything, even her impending motherhood and the fact that she had already told Maria.

"Wow. That is a really incredible story. If I didn't know for a fact that aliens are real and that you would never do drugs, I would think you were making this all up. You're seriously pregnant?" Alex asked in amazement at the end of Liz's story.

"Well it's not like I planned it. It just sort of happened. I wasn't in the best state of mind to be making major decisions." Liz said somewhat defensively.

"I'm not accusing you of anything." Alex clarified, "It just seems pretty out of character for you. But then again I guess if I were given the chance to have one night with any Isabel I would." At this Liz and Maria looked at each other; they didn't know that Alex already felt so deeply about Isabel. Then Maria mouthed 'He is a guy' to Liz, and they both rolled their eyes. After seeing the interchange between the two girls, Alex interrupted and continued with his apology. "I'm just a little shocked at it all."

At this point Maria finally decided to speak up. "I know. Think of how shocked I felt when I walked in on Liz changing the color of her comforter and random stuff flying around the room. I was almost worried that I was hallucinating."

"Yeah that would be quite a shock," Alex conceded. "So...can I see?"

"See what? My powers?" Liz questioned while her eyes darted around the room.

"Well yeah. It's not like anyone's around to see right now. And I'd also like to see the hand print, if you don't mind."

"Um. Okay," Liz said hesitantly. Then she looked around the room for something she could do with her powers easily. Seeing a stack of white computer paper she walked over and picked it up. Then she took out a few sheets, tossed them in the air, and made them swirl around while she also concentrated hard enough to be able to change every sheet into a different color of the rainbow. By the time the sheet finally fell to the ground, Liz was starting to sweat and felt reasonably drained. "That's the best I can do right now," she admitted quietly. "Most of the time I just do things inadvertently, especially when I'm thinking hard about something. I think that's what happened yesterday when Maria came over. But it's hard to actually concentrate on something and make it happen at will. And I really need to work on it more, 'cause I can't just let something happen when I'm not trying to do it."

Alex just looked at Liz with his jaw dropped. "Liz if you didn't notice, normal humans can't do that. That was no small feat."

"I know Alex. But I need to be stronger. I'm not going to be able to protect my kid when I'm alone and all I can do is make some paper fly and change color. What am I going to do? Try to paper cut my opponent to death?"

"Why would you need to be stronger, Liz?"

"I guess I kind of left that part out..." Liz trailed off uneasy with telling Alex that she was going to leave. She knew that Alex would want her close by in order to take care of her better. She gave Maria a pleading look, and Maria gave her a slight nod and then started a halted explanation.

"Liz doesn't want to be here for the at least the beginning of her pregnancy. Because she doesn't want anyone in Roswell to think that Max or Kyle is the father of her baby. In fact, that's where you can help us out Alex." Maria stopped her explanation to give Alex a hesitant smile and then proceeded with a quick "We need you to help find Liz a place to go", and ended with a puppy dog look.

Alex felt like he could be knocked over with a feather. He wanted Liz to stay close so that he could protect her. If no one else was going to know the truth about what was going on, he and Maria had a right and a duty to take care of their friend. And that would be very difficult to do if she weren't in near him. But as he slowly processed it all he realized that at least by helping Liz find a good place to go, he could take care of her the best way he could. He could make sure that he spent as much effort as possible to find the perfect place for Liz to go. So after a minute of silence, Alex quickly reassured Liz that he would do everything with-in his power to find the perfect place for Liz to run. They all shared a group hug and held each other for a couple of minutes before the bell rang, and they all separated to go to their various classes.

[ultimatepickupline]

Hey all, thanks again for the feedback and for the pms from a few of you.

PMP-I kind of think of Liz, Maria, and Alex as having a nearly perfect friend relationship.
montee916-I'm glad you thought I nailed Alex, because my sister, who happens to be my beta, kind of disagreed with me. So I got to throw your comment in her face (in the best manner possible of course).
bluebballjumper-Yeah, Michael and Maria are still in a fight right now. As to their future and Alex and Isabel's future, you'll just have to wait.
L-J-L 76-No problem about all the questions. I just won't answer them all. But I will answer one. First of all the answer to your first question will be in the next chapter. And as for the length of the pregnancy, the way I see it, Liz is fully human, and Max is half human, so the pregnancy will last a traditional nine months.
begonia9508-glad i met your expectations. And as for Alex's reaction when Liz gives birth? I think that will be a funny scene.
Allie Xie-Alex will be more of a coach, doing more of the dad's job. but yeah, it should be funny.

Thanks again to all of you.

Now for a special big thank you to tanya7496 for making me a banner and a something to put in my signature to advertise for my fic. You rock! Here it is!



And now...On with the show...

Chapter 5

Alex wearily rubbed his eyes and turned the computer off. He had been up all night searching for the perfect place for Liz to go, and he thought he found it. He found a prestigious boarding school on the east coast where Liz could go in the middle of the term. It was called Winnamen Academy, and while it was an all girls school, there was an all boys school very near, so Liz would have no problem coming up with a guy to be the "father" of her baby. Plus he had found an article online that said that many of the prestigious boarding schools, tended to have somewhat wild students, because they tried to rebel against having so many rules. This meant that Liz should have no problem convincing her parents that she had gotten mixed up in a wild crowd. The best part was that the school was actually set up so that the kids who knew what they wanted to do in college, or at least thought they did, could could take more classes in that area and even start to get college credit. It was almost set up like a major in college, and the science department was was one of the best in the country. So again Liz should have no problem convincing her parents that it was best for her to try to go there. Now that Alex had spent the whole night researching it all, it was time for him to get ready for school and tell Liz. All Liz had to do was forge a couple of documents and sit down with her parents tonight and convince them that Winnamen was a great opportunity for her.

Once Alex got to school, he immediately started looking for Liz. But before he found her, he quite literally bumped into Isabel. "Hey!" Isabel exclaimed as her and Alex's books fell to the ground.

"I am so sorry. I was just so anxious to find Liz that I wasn't watching where I was going" Alex apologized.

At Alex's explanation, Isabel looked up and stopped gathering her stuff. She wondered if Liz was acting as strange as Max had been lately, and if Alex knew anything about it. "Hey Alex. Has Liz been acting strange at all recently? Because Max has been moping about more than usual, and he seems to be avoiding Liz."

Alex was a little shocked that Isabel was actually talking to him of her own free will. And hey even if he couldn't tell Isabel exactly what was going on with Max and LIz, he could still use the situation to get a little closer to her. "Well, I'm not exactly sure what is going on with Max, but Liz has seemed a little distracted lately. Actually she's been really withdrawn too, now that you mention it. Almost as if she's been trying to avoid all of us and not just Max in particular." Now that Alex thought about it, there really had been warning signs that something was going on with Liz way before she actually had Maria call him to the eraser room to let him in on the little conspiracy. He wished he had been a little more attentive to his friends, instead of being so wrapped up in trying to get some good gigs going. Alex was just happy that Liz had given him a chance to get more involved in her life.

"I wonder if something is wrong." Isabel interrupted Alex's thoughts. "What am I talking about. Something is definitely wrong. At least with Max. I just wonder if it really revolved around Liz yet again. Are you sure you don't know anything Alex?"

Alex felt like he was put on the spot. He really wanted to be able to tell Isabel, but he couldn't betray Liz's trust like that. And at the same time he didn't want to lie to Isabel. Well he guessed he would just have to settle for one of those misleading truths. "Liz doesn't tell me everything Isabel. Remember when she first found out the truth about you guys? She left me out of the loop for weeks. All I know is that when she comes to me for help I'm there for her. And I usually don't ask too many questions, which actually is probably not the smartest idea."

Isabel looked into Alex's sparkling eyes and couldn't help but admire how good of a friend he was to Liz and Maria. Each one was an only child, but they were so close it was almost as if they were siblings anyway. They could trust each other with everything, and they seemed to give one another whatever was needed, no questions asked. Actually Maria probably asked a lot of questions, but she still pulled through. Isabel had wished to be able to have that kind of relationship her whole life. But she never could. Sure Max was her brother and Michael might as well have been. But it wasn't the same. She had lived her whole life in fear of what could happen. And because they had been so distrustful of the outside world, they had also been somewhat distrustful of one another. Max and Michael had never been able to just trust her opinion on something. It was the reason why her parents still didn't know the truth about her and Max. It was the same reason why it was Liz who ended up telling Alex the truth without getting permission first, while Isabel had only been able to briefly say that it might be okay. But they had always loved each other, and none of them wanted to rock the boat. So they had always stayed to themselves, and allowed themselves to be distrustful. Even after they had let the humans in on the secret, Isabel still had not allowed herself to completely trust anyone the way Alex did.

"No Alex. I think that just proves that you're a very loyal and trusting friend. You trust Maria and Liz not to take advantage of you. And you trust them to eventually tell you why they need your help. Everybody should have someone like that."

"Maybe." Alex just stared back into Isabel's eyes. She hadn't broken eye contact with him for a couple of minutes now, and he was beginning to feel lost. But at her passionate words about his friendship, Alex was brought back. He felt entirely to many emotions to name. He was ecstatic that Isabel thought so highly of his friendship, but he felt disappointed that Isabel only thought of him as a friend. He also felt guilty that he had just spent ten minutes talking to Isabel, when he was suppose to be finding Liz so that he could let her in on his findings, and she could start getting things together to talk to her parents. "Well I actually have to go Isabel. I'll see you later." With that Alex made sure he had all his stuff and walked off, while Isabel watched him and contemplated if she was ready to trust someone so completely.

*****

As Liz walked to her locker she contemplated her situation. She had woken up this morning with the sudden urge to completely empty her stomach, and this was the third day in a row. Tomorrow would start the weekend, and she was worried that if she was home for too much longer, her mom might start to think something was wrong with her. Of course she didn't expect her mother's first suspicion to be pregnancy, but if her mom thought that Liz was sick, then Liz wouldn't be able leave for school right away, and that could be bad. Liz was already nearly three weeks along, and while that wasn't far at all and could probably pretty easily be covered up, Liz needed to get to boarding school as soon as possible. She needed to be able to establish herself as a partier quickly because she needed to have a potential "father" to her baby soon. Maybe even a couple of potential fathers. She just couldn't risk anyone in Roswell suspecting that she had actually been pregnant before she left, and if she didn't leave Roswell soon, they would. Liz didn't even want to think of the possibility that with her pregnancy being alien, it could last a different length of time.

As Liz was completely ignoring the world around her to focus on her own thoughts, Max saw her from across the locker bay. Liz looked so beautiful to Max, but he just couldn't believe that she had actually been able to hurt him so deeply. Actually that was a lie. He had always known that if he was going to let Liz closer to him, that he would be practically asking for heartache. He had never really truly trusted anyone, until he had let Liz in, and now her betrayal was that much worse because of it. Max shook his head to try and focus on something else. Anything else. He considered trying Michael's mud technique again, but before he even got through that thought he discarded it and slammed his locker. Then he quickly turned and walked to his first class with hopes that he would at least be able to concentrate on his classwork.

Maria had witnessed Max's whole reaction and felt a little sorry for him. When Liz had gone through with the whole plan to get Max fall out of love with her, she had willingly discarded her soulmate, but Max had had no choice. Maria sympathized with him because Max was the victim in all of this, just like she was the victim of Michael cheating on her. She hadn't wanted that to happen, but it had, and now she couldn't even bring herself to try to work things out. Just like Max, she seemed to be giving up. She had had enough with Michael. Sure she loved him, but everything was just so hard. Michael just didn't seem to want to trust Maria. Sure she understood that he didn't really want to trust anyone after he had spent such a screwed up childhood with Hank, not to mention the fact that he was Czechoslovakian. She understood trust issues. She had only trusted one guy in her whole life: Alex. And that was because she had known him since kindergarten and he had always been there for her, even after her dad left. But Michael trusted no one, and it seems that he completely sabotaged their relationship on purpose by going to Courtney's house. She just couldn't handle it anymore. She was just glad she didn't actually see Michael and Courtney in bed together. Maria didn't know how she would handle it if she saw what Max had seen between Liz and Kyle. But it was time for Maria to put away her own problems, at least for now. Right now the most important thing was for her support Liz and try to help her out.

With her new resolve to put all her energy into Liz, Maria marched over to Liz and said in the most perky voice she could muster, "Ok Liz, let's find Alex and see if he has anything for us today."

"Alex has been researching practically nonstop for the last 48 hours. I think the least we can do is wait for him to come to us and stop pestering him." Liz said reasonably. Sure she had just got done thinking about how important it was to get to boarding school soon, but that didn't mean that she wasn't petrified of the idea that she would be leaving Roswell. Once she left, she knew that the whole pregnancy thing would become even more real, and Liz wasn't quite sure if she was ready to deal with the emotions of it. Right now she had just be frantically thinking up plans. She hadn't given herself a single moment to decide how she felt. But once she was away from home, she would have tons of time to just sit and think about everything, and she was slightly anxious about that.

"Fine." Maria replied, "But we can still find Alex and make sure that he doesn't look like the living dead and has eaten at least something since yesterday's lunch."

"That is a must." Liz quickly gathered her books and shut her locker and was just getting ready to leave to find Alex, when Alex walked up to her and Maria with a dopey expression on his face. "Alex should I be worried by the look on your face? Because I doubt you've gotten much sleep the last couple of nights, and I'm not so sure that the pleased expression isn't in fact an expresion from a man who is delirious."

"Nothing's wrong. In fact, everything is just perfect right now." Alex forced himself to concentrate on the situation at hand and straightened his face. Then took off his backpack and rooted through it for the packet of information he had printed off about Winnaman Academy while he briefed Liz. "Okay so I found pretty much the perfect place for you to go. It has pretty much everything you could ask for and I downloaded a couple of articles about boarding schools that might help lead your parents to the 'right' decision both tonight and later when you need to come home."

Liz was a little surprised that the folder Alex gave her was so thick, but more than anything she was grateful. "Thank you so much Alex. I wouldn't have been able to do this with out you. I guess now I just need to write out a couple of documents and sit down to talk with my parents tonight."

"Yeah good luck with that chica." Maria put her arm around Liz's shoulders, "Hey, do you want to spend the night with me sometime this weekend? I want to get in our last overnighter."

"Yeah Maria, that would be good. Plus it'll get me out of the house for at least one morning of morning sickness. I'll call you tonight after I talk to my parents. Right now I'm going to go to the library to work on these papers before class. Thanks again Alex. I'll see you guys at lunch."

Maria and Alex bade goodbye to Liz and then went to their classes, while Liz walked to the library, and someone else stood from a distance and watched the exchange. They didn't know what exactly was going on, but they were going to find out.

[ultimatepickupline]

I have exciting news! (For me at least.) I have been asked to do an author's chat later this month. It will be on the Saturday, July 29th at DAS (Dreaming among stars). I am not sure what time it will be yet, but as soon as I find out I'll be putting the link to the website along as the exact time in my signature. Please everybody come out and participate.

Thanks again for all the feedback all.

PMP-I'm glad you liked the part, but you won't find out who the person at the end of the last part is until chapter 7.
mlover25-great! that's what I was going for.
c_which-i didn't think any of my readers would think about the fact that Liz's baby is the heir. I wonder what the characters will think? Btw, Max isn't going to find out for a long time.
L-J-L 76- obviously Liz's parents are going to find out that she's pregnant eventually because she has to keep the baby, but the won't find out for a while yet. It's part of her plan to make sure that noone thinks she's pregnant from a guy in Roswell, not even her parents are going to know that she was pregnant before she left.
Tanya7496-Yeah I love Liz, Maria, and Alex's friendship. I think they're the kind of friends that will always be there for one another.
izzyandkyle-glad your enjoying it.
bluebballjumper-That could be a pretty funny scene with everyone blaming Kyle and Kyle insisting that he didn't even sleep with Liz.

A/N: For the purpose of this story I have changed the location of Winnaman Academy. It is NOT located in Vermont in this fic. Instead if is located in Boston and is therefore much closer to Harvard.

And back to the story...

Chapter 6

Liz felt nervous. She was about to completely lie to her parents, and she had to make it good, because whether or not her parent wanted to go along with her plan would determine the course of her future more than they would even realize. She had written a fake letter from her science teacher recommending her to go to Winnaman Academy today, and had put it with an application for Winnaman Academy along with a brochure. Of course the only thing that was actually authentic was the application, because there would have been no way for her to get an actual brochure for Winnaman between the time Alex had given her the information this morning and now. Instead, Liz had taken a brochure for Harvard from the Guidance office and then altered it with her powers to make it look like a brochure for a boarding school. It had been hard work for Liz and had actually taken her two hours to do, but she was really proud of it. She thought that Harvard had been a good choice for the brochure to offer because Winnaman was actually in Boston, so some of the stuff should look similar. Now all she had to do was bring the whole thing up at dinner and convince her parents to sent her there in just a week. How she was going to do that, she wasn't entirely sure. But at least Winnaman had a lot of things going for it.

Liz took a deep breath, sat down on her bed, and looked at the clock. It was almost 5:30 which meant that in just a few minutes her mom would call her down for dinner, and Liz would have to present her information. Liz didn't really feel like she could just sit still and wait for everything to start, so she decided to take a little bit more of a proactive approach. She gathered her stuff and went to the kitchen where she saw her mom and dad finishing up dinner.

Nancy heard her daughter come in and looked up. Liz had been quiet all afternoon, and Nancy wondered why that was. "Oh sweetie, I was just about to call you for dinner. Could you set the table?"

Liz looked at her mother and felt her adrenaline start to rush. "Sure Mom." As Liz started to get out the plates and glasses she decided to go ahead and start in on her spiel. Might just start now and play it off as if she were just too excited to hold it in. "So guess what happened in school today?" Liz started.

Nancy and Jeff looked at each other. The had just been talking last night about how Liz used to tell them all about her day at school, and now they never felt they knew what was going on in her life. They were a little shocked that she was volunteering information this way, but they weren't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. "What happened, Liz?" Jeff took the initiative to ask.

"Well you know how last year we got a new guidance counselor, and she went through all of the kids she was responsible for and asked them what they wanted to do with their lives and stuff?" Liz paused for a moment waiting for Nancy and Jeff to nod. Once they did, she continued. "Well some people in the administration thought that it was commendable of her to make sure that her students had a plan and stuff. So this year they decided that they would give everybody a career placement test along with a questionare designed to see if the students had future plans yet and what they were doing to achieve them."

Liz was pretty pleased with how this was going to so far. Her parents seemed interested and she was started to act genuinely excited about what was coming up. "So of course I wrote that I wanted to go to Harvard and study microbiology and then eventually be the head of the science department there. Apparently, as part of this new program they're instituting, the guidance counselors then sent the information to the appropriate teachers to see if the students were doing everything they could be doing to get on the right track. Well today after biology class, my teacher called me up to her desk and said that she had read my file, and she wanted to help me more than she could by just teaching me. Apparently she has a sister who lives near Harvard and her sister told her about this boarding school they have there. It was designed to help promising girls get into some of the top colleges and universities in the country. It's an all girls school obviously, and its actually set up so that for the students who already know what they want to study, can essentially major in that subject and then be extra prepared for college. My teacher decided to recommend me for one of the science scholarships there, and today she gave me the recommendation letter and a brochure from the school. See?" Liz handed over her papers to her mom and waited for a few seconds. She felt she had done pretty well trying to get her parents to see that this was a great opportunity. Now she just had to reel it in. Hopefully.

In reality, Nancy and Jeff were just too shocked by the whole thing to say anything. They had never thought that their daughter would come home and talk to them about a boarding school.

"Mom? Dad? I know it's on the other side of the country, and I'd have to leave home, and it costs a lot of money if I don't get the scholarship, but I think this would be a great opportunity for me. I think it could really ensure that I get into Harvard, because I don't think that Harvard is going to think too highly of a graduate from Roswell, New Mexico, no matter how high my GPA is. Can I please go there?"

Nancy and Jeff looked at each other again, and then flipped through the brochure that Liz had given them. It seemed like a beautiful place to go, and it really did seem like a great opportunity. "Well assuming we say yes, when would you go? I know it looks really great, but is one year at boarding school going to make all that big of a difference?" Nancy questioned.

Jeff picked up what Nancy was asking and quickly added on. "Maybe if you could go at the semester, you might get more experience and it might be worth it, but do you even know if you can enroll at the semester?"

Liz was starting to feel even more hopeful. Her parents obviously saw the wisdom in the plan, and they were willing to talk about it. But here came probably the hardest part about the plan. She had to tell them that she wanted to leave next week. Liz started out slowly. "Well actually, I checked out their website online at lunch and found out that I could enroll at any point in the semester, which means that I could apply on Monday and leave as early as that following week. They like to get through all the paperwork and stuff quickly during the school year so that the students can actually start rather quickly."

Jeff looked at his daughter. He wanted this for her, but he wasn't ready to let go of his little girl. He had promised her when she was born that he would give her everything he could to give her the best future possible. He looked at Nancy and gave her a slight nod that went unnoticed by Liz who was playing with her food now. Nancy knew exactly what Jeff was thinking because she was thinking it herself. She decided to give Liz an indefinite answer. "Liz, we realize that this is a big opportunity for you, but it's also a big decision. Your father and I will have to talk about this. We'll try to decide this weekend though."

Liz finally looked up from her food with a hopeful smile on her face that wasn't entirely an act. She needed for her parents to say yes. She almost hoped that she had Tess's ability to mindwarp so that she could make sure that they said yes. But even if she did have that ability, she couldn't really see using it on her parents. People were entitled to make their own decisions without being so strongly influenced by someone else. She would just have to wait on her parents. "Okay. I really, really, really want to do this though."

"We know honey. We just need to talk about it okay?"

"Yeah." Liz nodded. "Can I be excused and go spend the night at Maria's?"

"Yeah sure. Just take your dishes to the sink and wash them off." Nancy replied and watched Liz leave. "I really want to give this to her Jeff. I'm just worried about the money and the fact that she'll be so far from home."

" I know. If she goes there and then goes to harvard, then she'll only be here for one more week before she'll be gone for at least six years, if not forever. I don't know if I can handle that."

"I've been dreading the day Liz would leave us since the day she was born. I really don't want her to leave us nearly two years earlier than."

"But she's right. If she really wants to go to Harvard like she's wanted pretty much all her life, she really needs the back up of graduating from a school like this academy instead of just a high school in Roswell. And we did promise her when she was little that we would do everything in our power to give make her future the best possible."

"Well if she does go, she will still be able to come home at every break. And we could always, make sure that she calls and email us every week."

"So we're going to say it's okay aren't we?"

"I don't think we have any choice. We have to at least see how it all plays out. And if she leaves next week she'll only be there for a month and a half before she come home for Christmas. So it should be a good trial period." Nancy leaned over and gave her husband a kiss on the cheek once he had given her a reluctant nod.

*****

The week passed quickly. Liz had faxed her application into Winnaman on Monday. She had gotten her acceptance email on Thursday, and she and her parents had bought her bus ticket to Boston on Friday. Now it was Saturday, and Liz was going to leave in just a few hours. Liz had packed everything she wanted to pack last night, and now she was just sitting on her bed cross legged and looking at the strip of pictures of her and Max from the photo booth.

Liz had run into Max in the hall yesterday, and she had told him that she was going to be leaving for Boston the next day. To her disappointment, Max had not reacted in any way. Apparently he didn't care if Liz left. Liz knew she was being irrational to want Max to care after she had practically ripped out his heart four weeks ago. But she wanted him to care at least a little bit.

The last two weeks had been really weird for her. The group had pretty much completely split. It was the humans vs. the aliens. The relationships that had been keeping the two groups together had really been Max and Liz's along with Michael and Maria's. Alex and Isabel hadn't started a real relationship yet, and Kyle and Tess seemed to be in their own group altogether. Liz even missed Isabel and Michael. Unfortunately, no one in the group had really bonded as friends. It was just a whole bunch of couples hanging out because the aliens were friends and the humans were friends and each human happened to have an alien counterpart and vice versa.

Liz was going to miss everybody. Never had she regretted more that she had pushed Max away. Liz looked down, put her hand on her stomach, and cried for a little bit.

*****

Life sucked. Michael had never felt so alone. He had grown up feeling alone, but he at least had Max and Isabel. The thing was that Michael had known that he wasn't really like Max or Isabel either, so he had put up walls. Over the last year, he had actually gotten close to people. Maria had systematically broken down his walls, and Michael had let himself feel wanted and needed by people. He even let himself be closer to Max and Isabel. Now something drastic had made Max withdraw into himself. And Michael had never been good at the emotional stuff, so he had let Max withdraw. Michael didn't really feel comfortable with just Isabel either, so Michael had no one.

The person he really missed though was Maria. Unfortunately, he didn't feel that he could just go up to her and try to win her back. He wasn't like Max, and he wouldn't even know where to begin, and Maria didn't even seem to give a care. Yep, life sucked.

[ultimatepickupline]

Thanks again to everybody who left feedback. I was very happy to note that you all keep me on the first page until today, which now that I'm updating, I'll be back on the first page anyway.

PMP-I always thought of Liz being close to her parents and her parents being supportive of whatever she wanted to do. Liz won't be arriving at Winnaman until the Chapter 8, but I hope you like it then.
L-J-L 76-Of course the Parkers will let Liz go. They already bought her ticket. Besides they want to give her the best, and Winnaman will be the best for her. Nothing is wrong with Michael per se. He's just lonely because Max is pulling away from everybody, he didn't really have that much of a relationship with Isabel by herself, and Maria dumped him after finding him with Courtney. I hope that this next chapter (Chapter 7) will answer the question as to who was watching Liz, Alex, and Maria.
begonia9508-I think you only missed one part, but either way, it's okay. Anyway, it may not be the best decision for Liz to go alone, but she really has no choice. She wouldn't be able to take a friend unless she ran away, and she wants to have some support, so she's going to do this legitamately. Besides, if she ran away, it would look suspicioius.
Montee916-I'm glad you liked the Michael bit. Hopefully that'll mean tht you'll really like this next part. I do feel that this would effect the whole group, and therefore this story will revolve around everybody, not just Max and Liz. I hope you like it.
bluebballjumper-thanks, I'll try.
Tanya7496-I do feel bad for Michael, but Maria was hurt too, and now she's also without her best friend. So we'll see what happens.
BETHANN-I'm glad you think all my parts have been terrific. It means a lot.

Thanks for all the support ya'll. Please come out and support me some more on my author's chat on Saturday, July 29th at 10 PM EST. I think I may even answer questions about what's going to happen in the fic, as long as I've written the part already. So far I'm three chapters ahead with writing, and by then I hope to be four or five chapters ahead. So we'll see how it goes.

And now for the feature...


Chapter 7

Tess was sitting next to Kyle watching TV. It was their usual after-school ritual, and lately it was the only time Tess ever felt good. She used to watch TV by herself when she lived with Nasedo, but she always got frustrated with the characters, because she couldn't figure out why they were so weak. They did so many stupid things while they were run by their emotions. They would fall in love and then get hurt when their significant other left for one reason or another, which always happened. They killed other people in the throes of anger, and instead of thinking it through and cover it up effectively, they would panic and then get caught. She never understood the reason for the panic itself either. She had always been taught that humans were pretty useless anyway.

But for the past month, Tess had been living with the Valentis, and they were teaching her what it truly meant to be human. They made her wonder if she were really missing out on something by always following her head and not her heart. Because if she were honest with herself, the truth of the matter was that she had only ever tried to get Max to be with her out of a sense of duty. She had never really felt anything for him, and she didn't even remember what her life was like back on Antar, though she had told Max otherwise. So she had no way to know if she had loved him then either. She had always just believed what Nasedo told her. Now she was starting to see why Max had fought to stay with LIz.

Unfortunately, there was a problem. This just made things incredibly confusing for her. She didn't know what to believe anymore, and the person who had raised her and kept her focused was dead, so she had no one to encourage her one way or another. Of course, that almost made it worse, because she felt she had a duty to Nasedo to carry out his plan, especially now that he was dead. But Tess didn't know if she wanted to get rid of Liz anymore and be with Max.

So Tess made an effort to stay away from the people that left her so confused, and that meant that she spent more and more time at the Valenti's home than she did anywhere else. She just couldn't work up the courage to continue with her plan, but she couldn't find the courage to completely abandon it either. So she ignored it for a while instead, and that meant that her favorite place in the world right now was sitting in front of the Valenti's TV, watching whatever Kyle thought was funny at the moment. She felt safe there, free from judgement and comforted by companionable silence.

*****

Max felt numb. It had now been four weeks since he had found Liz in bed with Kyle, and all of it passed in a blur. It was all he could think about and he had to make a conscience effort to concentrate on anything else. That meant that Max had been spending a lot of time working on school work and even getting ahead, because at least schoolwork was somewhat productive, and if it was difficult enough he might even be able to put Liz into the back of his mind.

The only time he hadn't felt numb was two days ago when Liz told him she was going to be leaving for boarding school. Then he had felt disappointment, relief, hope, despair, rage, and compassion. It had crashed his system and made him unable to physically respond to Liz in any way. He ended up just kind of staring at Liz, and he hadn't realized that she felt anything at all about it until Liz's face slightly fell.

Now Max felt empty. He hadn't realized how much he had taken for granted the fact that he could feel Liz before. He had always been able to feel her when she was near from the moment her saw her as he got off the school bus in third grade. But after he healed her in the crashdown he had been able to feel her all the time. He had thought that the new connection was permanent and that he would be able to feel Liz anywhere. But apparently he was wrong; the healing must have just strengthened the connection he had always felt and lengthened the distance it reached, because early this morning, once Liz had been on the bus for about ten hours, he had felt the connection snap and then stretch. It stretched in such a way that with every passing minute he felt it less and less, and he was pretty sure that in less than an hour he wouldn't be able to feel it at all. He felt empty without it.

Max wanted to escape from his life, but he didn't see anyway of doing that. He didn't even have the courage to tell Michael and Isabel what was going on. So he had isolated himself, and he had no clue how to get out of his depression.

*****

Liz had left less that 24 hours before, and already Maria felt the weight of her friends troubles crashing in on her. For the past week and a half, she had been completely wrapped up with finding out what was going on with her friend and then helping her with the problems. Now that Liz had come up with a plan and had left, all Maria had left to do was think, which left Maria worried. What if something alien related happened during the pregnancy and Maria wasn't there to help? What if people found out that Liz was pregnant too early and she had to be sent home earlier than planned? Where was Maria suppose to learn how to deliver Liz's baby? How was Alex suppose to help with the birth when he couldn't even stand to give blood? But what was bothering Maria at this very moment, was her own problem. Liz's problems couldn't even be answered for a little while yet, and that left Maria with a lot of downtime to think.

Maria had broken up with Michael weeks ago because of his escapade with Courtney, and now that her anger was wearing off, Maria had to admit that she missed him. She tried to just tell herself that she was missing a boyfriend in general, because how in the world could anyone miss Michael? He was like one of the worst boyfriends ever, and he probably hadn't even realized yet that Maria had been avoiding him. But Maria couldn't really convince herself that she just missed having someone in general, because she did miss Michael, plain and simple, and Maria briefly wondered if she loved him.

*****

Alex was playing his guitar on his bed and trying to write a new song for his band, but as with all his friends across town, he had a hard time concentrating. One of his best friends had just left, and now that he got over the shock of her situation and dealt with a way to pull her plan off in a timely fashion, Alex couldn't deny the fact that he was angry. He was angry at Liz for making the decision to sleep with someone with out protection and then getting pregnant. He was angrier with Future Max for taking advantage of her. How could Future Max claim to love Liz and then ruin her life by not only forcing her to loose her soul-mate, but then make a careless decision and ruin her "normal" future by getting her pregnant? Alex was even angry with present Max for growing up into the kind of man that did that to the woman he claimed to love, and for not realizing that the Liz and Kyle thing was all staged.

The thing was that the person Alex was angriest with was himself. Alex should have been there for Liz. He should have made sure that she knew that she could come to him for anything. And now Alex should get up his courage and go deal with Max. He had punched Michael without a concern for his own safety when Michael had cheated on Maria. But Alex had done nothing to avenge Liz. He almost wish he hadn't taken the news so calmly and had just rushed out of the eraser room and pummeled Max. Because that was another thing. If Alex had confronted Max, then maybe Max would be aware of what was going on, and then Liz wouldn't have to go through everything by herself with out any alien help.

*****

Kyle thought things were weird. He had been indoctrinated into this crazy "I know an alien" club, and now it seemed the club was splitting apart, with out him ever actually being included. All the aliens seemed to be staying away from each other, and while Liz, Maria, and Alex seemed to be even closer lately than they had been, they seemed to be completely on their own. He could guess that it might have something to do with Liz asking him to pretend to sleep with her. Or rather it probably had something to do with the reason Liz asked for the favor. But Liz had not been very forthcoming with the details or the request, so Kyle had been left as much in the dark as he assumed Max had. The only difference was that Kyle knew it was a set up made to look like something took place that didn't actually happen at all.

This was part of the reason Kyle seemed to be acting as a loner lately. He had started to stay away from all of his jock friends after Max had healed him, because he had needed to come to terms with what the whole aliens on earth thing really meant for him, and now he couldn't go back. Anytime he was around another jock, he just thought they were dumb for worrying about such inconsequential things. But He couldn't just go be with the rest of the group either. He didn't really fit in, and there didn't seem to be much of a group left anyway. So Kyle had started his daily after-school routine with Tess, and he had to admit that it was the most comforting thing available to him right now.

*****

Isabel was worried about Max. As she had told Alex last week, he wasn't being himself lately. He had been pulling away, and it hurt Isabel. Max had always been her security blanket. He was the one that took care of her. He was the one she went to when she had a problem. He was the one that she avoided the most when she wanted to keep something a secret because he would know that something was up, but he was also the first person who would ever actually know her secrets. Isabel was afraid she was losing her brother, and that wasn't something she could deal with.

Isabel only had one clue as to what was going on with Max: Liz Parker. Isabel had made a point to observe Alex, Maria, and Liz's interaction lately, and they seemed to be awfully secretive. She had even seen Alex giving Liz a huge folder of information, which couldn't have been for anything with school because Liz and Alex only had one class together, and Isabel was in it too, so she knew that they didn't have a group project or anything. The whole thing seemed a little suspicious to her.

Isabel was determined that she was going to get answers, and since she knew that Alex liked her, she thought he was the best choice. The problem was that she knew how loyal of a friend Alex could be, and if she had any hope of pumping Alex for information she would have to do so very subtly, which is why Isabel planned on a mini seduction of Alex for information. She wouldn't actually let the physical relationship go very far at all, but she would get Alex to trust her if it was the last thing she did.

*****

Liz was just a few hours away from Winnaman. She had been traveling for a day already and she was completely ready to get off the bus. But with every passing mile, she was more and more nervous about such a major change in her life. This was her first time out of the state of New Mexico, and she was alone. Plus she was starting a new life for a short time with no support. Liz was more than a little worried as she laid her head on the window and went to sleep.

[ultimatepickupline]

As always everybody, thanks for all the feedback, and for any lurkers out there, thanks for reading, and please, go ahead and let me know what you think about the story. And to people who are already leaving feedback, let me know if the style i put my feedback to you in is hard to read. I'm starting to think that it might be a little difficult to easily distinguish between my comments to one reader vs. another. I also want to give a shout out to my sis who was nice enough to allow me to read this part to her even when she didn't really want to do it. Thanks for being my beta sis!

begonia9508-yep, my beta was kind enough to mention to me that she thought Alex would be angry with Max for everything. I'm glad to see that the part I wrote for that was well received.
PMP- yeah I think Max definitely still cares for Liz, he's just so completely devestated, that it's changing his whole life. I think you'll like the part I just wrote, but unfortunately for you, that was chapter 11, so you'll have to wait about a week and a half for it.
bluebballjumper-I'm glad you liked the Tess part. I kind of see Tess as a victim of her upbringing, so I think she would change. You know the whole nurture vs nature arguement. You have a very interesting quote at the end of the comment btw
orphyfets-glad you're enjoying the story, but you'll have to wait on the Isabel part.
montee916-Hmm....you may be right about that needing each other thing.
L-J-L 76-Well I regret to inform you that Max and Liz will not be seen together for some time. But happy reading until then.

And now on with the show...

Chapter 8

Liz woke up as the bus came to a halt. She sat back up in her seat and took a look around her with a dazed expression on her face. Once she got her bearings, she turned to look out the window and was amazed at how the city of Boston was so different from her own state of New Mexico. It was amazing that she could tell a difference so quickly without even getting out of the bus, but they really were so different from one another.

After staring out the window in a amazement for awhile, Liz realized that pretty much everyone had gotten off the bus already, so she rushed to stand up to get her small bag and get off. She had decided to pack relatively little since she knew that she would have to drag her stuff pretty much all over the city in an effort to actually get to Winnaman Academy, and she didn't want to have too much to carry.

As Liz waited by the side of the bus for her one larger suitcase, she ran over the directions to Winnaman Academy that she had to follow. She was really glad that Alex had taken into consideration the fact that she would want to be self reliant and would therefore have to know the layout of the city off the top of her head, because Alex had ended up including a map of Boston along with a bus schedule in the packet of information about the academy.

Liz finally spotted her suitcase and quickly grabbed it and wheeled it out of the way of the other passengers on the bus. Then she looked around once more and headed off in the direction of the next bus stop she needed to get to.

*****
Liz looked up at the main entrance of Winnaman Academy and tried to get up her courage to actually ascend the steps and go see the principal/president of the academy so she could get her room assignment and get settled in. The entrance made the campus look so huge, and Liz was worried that she would have a hard time adjusting.

Liz took a deep breath, picked up her bags, and slowly walked up the steps. Once she got inside she looked for a sign that would point her in the right direction, but couldn't find one. Alex had included a map of the academy's campus with all of her information, but unfortunately in the rush to change busses, it had somehow been lost, and since Liz hadn't memorized it, she was a little out of luck.

Liz looked around and saw a whole bunch of girls in uniforms and tried to decide who she would ask for directions. She saw a girl with purple hair so dark that it was almost black wearing a nose stud listening to a CD player and decided that since the girl was the closest person to Liz she would be Liz's best option. Plus she looked like she might be a partier and that meant Liz might be able to get in with the partying crowd. "Excuse me" Liz said in a somewhat timid voice. "Could you point me in the direction of Ms. Noble's office?"

The girl tilted her head up, pulled the headphones from her ears, and looked Liz up and down from head to toe and back again while smacking her gum. "Ya new here?"

Liz swallowed, and nodded. Maybe she got in over her head, but she decided she should make some kind of an effort and stuck out her hand. "Yeah. My name is Liz."

The girl gave Liz another once over and quickly shook her hand. "Serena." Liz suddenly felt like the world was closing in on her. Here she was suppose to be running away from all her alien problems and yet she ran into the one person Future Max had mentioned from the future. How in the world could this happen? Liz shook her head and continued to stare.

Serena studied Liz carefully. It felt like Deja vu meeting this Liz girl, but Serena pushed it to the back of her mind and responded to Liz's stare with and smirk. Then she asked "Cat got your tongue?"

"Um...no...I just...um...Could you point me in the direction of Ms. Noble's office?" Liz stuttered.

Serena gave Liz a curious look and started to walk away, then called over her shoulder to Liz "If ya wanna get ta Noble's office, ya should follow me." Liz picked up her suitcase and scrambled to catch up with Serena. After a few minutes of walking, Serena stopped and gestured to the door. "Here ya are."

"Thanks" Liz looked at the door and nodded.

"No prob. See ya around." Serena shrugged and quickly turned to leave.

Liz watched Serena leave for a little bit and then faced back to the door. She took a deep breath, pushed back her shoulders, raised her chin, and knocked on the door. "Come in," she heard. Liz put her hand on the knob, turned it and opened the door. She saw Ms. Noble sitting at her desk looking over some papers. "How can I help you?" Ms. Noble asked without looking up.

Liz paused for a second and then started introducing herself. "Hi. My name is Elizabeth Parker, and I'm going to be starting school here tomorrow. My acceptance letter said to come to your office to get my room assignment."

"Ah yes, Ms. Parker. Have a seat while I pull up your information and and go over our rules here quickly. Then I'll take you to your room. We're rather strict here and some people say we have a lot of rules. So I hope that doesn't bother you, but you said in your application essay that you liked structure, and your recommendations said you adapted well to change which is one of the reasons why we chose you as one of our mid-semester enrollees." Ms. Noble paused as she found Liz's paperwork and she looked at Liz.

"Let me go over some of the stricter rules here Ms. Parker. One, there will be no drugs, alcohol, or tobacco on campus. If they are found in your room, you will be sent home no questions asked. Two, we have a curfew of ten o'clock at which time you must be in your own room. We don't care if you stay up after that as long as you are quiet. Three, there are to be no boys in your room at anytime. If you want to meet a friend who is of the male gender you must meet him in the lobby or off of school grounds. Four, you are not allowed off of school grounds during the week unless you have special permission from you floor counselor, or a field trip. Five, you must where your uniform for all school functions including classes, club meetings, sport games, and any special assemblies. We did have an assembly today which is why you may have noticed so many girls in the halls wearing uniforms. It's also the reason why I am in today. We do want you to be an individual, so other than the actual uniform, your appearance is your decision. That's it for all the major rules, but they are strictly enforced. Failure to comply, would result in a warning for a first time offence, public service for the second and third offence, suspension for the fourth, and expulsion for the fifth. Each time you break a rule, you will be judged before a board of teachers and students to be sure that the regular punishments still apply. If you violate any rule in the extreme, you could be sent straight to the expulsion board which is comprised purely of faculty and alumni. Is everything clear?"

Liz shakily nodded her head, wondering if she was really ready to live in an environment like this. "Good" Ms. Noble briskly said, then rose to her feet and motioned for Liz to stand as well. "I'll show you to your room."

As Liz and Ms. Noble walked down the hall and then up several flights of stairs, Ms. Noble continued to talk to Liz about the school. But this time it was much less intimidating. "I know that we have very strict rules here and enforce them somewhat ruthlessly, but that is no reason to not feel that you can be yourself. Our teachers and tutors are always available for academic help and we have several counselors for help with anything else. Do not be afraid to open up to us if any problem arises. Just remember to handle yourself with decorum and you should be fine. I'm sure you will have no problem doing that. Here's your room." Ms. Noble abruptly stopped and knocked on the door.

A kind looking blond came to answer the door, and rose one eyebrow when she saw that the person who had knocked on her door was Ms. Noble. "Ms. Burrows, I'm glad you are here. This is Ms. Parker and she will be your roommate for the remainder of the year." With that, Ms. Noble turned to Liz, told her to have a good night, gave her her schedule for the next day, and walked down the hall back toward the stairs.

Liz watched her go and then turned to face 'Ms. Burrows' who happened to have gone back into the room to lay on her bed and flip through a magazine. Liz shifted her weight to reach back to her suitcase and then dragged it into the room. "Is this my bed?" she asked softly.

Her roommate nodded without looking up, then threw her magazine to the foot of her bed and sat up. "You don't have to be timid around me. If fact I would prefer that you weren't. My name is Eileen. What's yours?"

Liz felt more of her confidence come back as she realized that Eileen reminded her somewhat of Maria and smiled. "My name is Liz, and I'm from Roswell, New Mexico. You?"

Eileen smiled back and answered Liz's question, then fired back her own. "I'm from Georgetown, Kentucky. So why are you here?"

Liz sat down on her bed and looked at Eileen with a puzzled look. "What do you mean?"

"Well I got sent here because my father didn't think that Kentucky schools were good enough, and he wanted to get me out of his hair. Plus he's rich, so he paid of the dean of admissions and had me accepted. I've been here since I was in seventh grade."

Liz was a little shocked by the animosity in Eileen's voice but shrugged and told Eileen what she had told her parents when she convinced them to send her to Winnaman.

Eileen smirked then said "Oh, you're one of those students. Well, I'll try not to hold it against you. Now I need to meet up with friends before curfew. I'll introduce them to you later, but you should probably unpack before curfew, because there are some really prissy girls next to us that have incredibly sensitive ears, and you unpacking might just be too much noise for them. You don't want them to complain to the counselor on the first day about you."

When Eileen had been talking about the girls next door, she had been making faces, and Liz found it difficult not to laugh. Instead Liz ended up snorting and then said "Guess not." With that, Eileen smiled, waved, and walked out the door, while Liz went back to her suitcase and started to unpack.

[ultimatepickupline]

As always thank you so much for all the feedback everybody. For the following chapter, I want everybody to realize that I've changed a few things from the show, because at the point of the episode TEoTW, a lot of the stuff about their past lives hadn't been introduced yet, so I took my own liberties with that. Please enjoy this chapter. I hope to have the next chapter posted in the next three or four days, but tonight is opening night of a production of Fiddler on the Roof that I'm in, and I don't have very much time to write because of it. I'm only a villager but it's still time consuming.

Tanya7496-Yeah I had Eileen come from Kentucky because that's where I go to school, and I thought it would be funny, if I could bring some of that into the fic. I'm glad it amused you as well.
orphyfets-thanks, is this soon enough?
begonia9508-I think so, although I was iffy about bring Serena in at first
lab6651-I'm glad you like the Serena twist, I hope you also like the other things I have planned for her.
Roswelllostcause-there will definitely be more, and it'll definitely be soon.
PMP-I plan on pulling Serena in more, but that's all I'm saying here.

And now one with the show...

Chapter 9

Thehlec was worried. He had never seen the kind of readouts that he was currently witnessing. He was just suppose to be doing a routine check. He wasn't actually suppose to be finding problems with anything. As far as he knew there hadn't been any difference in the readouts for over a hundred years. It was why it was now the task assigned to the most junior worker in the employment. It was used as a way to get new employees used to reviewing the type of readouts they would have to analyze when they were looking at the power suppressors.

The power suppressors had been designed about a hundred years ago, and it would have made sense for them to be common technology by now, except for the one tiny little detail that said that they were kind of technically illegal. Of course that didn't stop the current King from using them. And it didn't stop every up and coming scientist to from wondering if they were real or not, and if something just like them could be invented to counteract them. The problem was that whenever a new person joined the population of the capitol city, he or she had to take an oath to serve the King, and the power repressors were in the capitol, so no scientist could get even close to the power repressors without taking the oath.

Of course it wasn't really the oath that was the problem. There were tons of dishonest people who would have taken the oath just to get closer to the repressors so that they could steal the rumored technology to implement it in their own kingdom. The real problem was that every oath was accompanied by a "loyalty chip". The loyalty chip monitored all brain activity, and any brain activity having to do with the repressors was automatically sent to the King's brother, whose sole job was to find suspicious activity. Then anything of suspicious nature was sent directly to the King, who usually dealt with the occurrence by ordering the person beheaded. No questions asked. It was even rumored that sometimes the King just ordered a few people beheaded to keep the rest of the scientists dealing with the repressors in-line.

The loyalty chip also had GPS (Galaxy Positioning System) placed in it so that the bearer of the chip could never run away. He or she should would be found. And he or she would be killed for trying to run. But if the person was discovered to having anti-royal thought patterns prior to running, then the prisoner that was found was first tortured and then beheaded. That alone made people resist running more than anything. And no one helped the runaway for fear of their own lives.

Maybe if the population actually knew what was being done to them, they would all band together and fight for their previous lives back. Everyday, the power of the people was diminishing and it was making things harder and harder to deal with. Previously, hunger and disease had been practically eradicated, because even the most common man could stimulate crops to grow for food, or could sanitize their own food and water before they ate and drank. Everybody had their own specialties of course, just like some people were faster than others, or stronger than others, their other abilities varied in the same way.

Everywhere you went there were people who specialized in healing, blasting, dreamwalking, mindwarping, emoting, time manipulation, telepathy, telekinesis, teleporting, etc. Some of the stronger ones would make a living off of teaching others their technique, or performing their technique. Everyone could heal, but only a few were good enough to heal fatal diseases or injuries. Everyone could blast, but only a few had enough energy to continue blasting for the long periods of time needed for hunting. Everyone could dreamwalk, but only a few could actually make it so that the person would remember it in the morning. Everyone could mindwarp but only some were strong enough to captivate entire audiences with a movie in their heads. It was the same for every other power. Only some of the citizens were good enough at emoting to relieve emotional pain for more than a few hours, only some could manipulate time enough to actually affect more than a few seconds at a time. All of the people of Antar could enter another's mind to communicate, but only some could enter at great distances without the presence of a blood or marriage bond. And likewise rarely could someone have enough power to lift a boulder by themselves, or travel more than the width of a small town in a split second and still take people with them.

The citizens of Antar had been using their abilities to get around in their world since before anyone could remember. They had developed into a completely harmonious society because no one lacked anything. Those that were greedy enough to try to hurt others to get it, were always found and punished accordingly by the rest of the community.

Unfortunately, something incredibly horrible happened to the planet of Antar just about a hundred years ago. The King died. It was a well known fact that the source of powers for the planet was the blood of the royal line. The royal line had been established at the beginning of Antar because the gods had deemed one man pure enough to be the ruler. He had given the man the right to be ruler along with the strongest powers of any other person. It didn't matter what power was used, the man was always the strongest one around. To make sure that no one tried to overthrow the King thinking that then the usurper would be the heir to all the power. The gods insured that the people's powers only existed for as long as the King was alive.

A hundred years ago, when the King died, it was a great tragedy, because not only did the King die, but he had no direct heir. He had gained kingship only one year before when his father before him had died quite unexpectedly, and while the new King had been trying to procure an heir, the procedures of the planet had not allowed him to actually marry his bride yet. He died the day before he was to marry her, but the marriage was obviously not destined because his sudden death as a result of an unexpected aneurism. Later it was determined that a blood clot had traveled to his brain and killed him instantly. There was absolutely nothing anyone, even the King himself could have done about it.

The King's bride, sister, and second-in-command were all very distraught. His sister and bride even went so far as to committing suicide together just a week after the King's death. After that the second-in-command was left without anyone from his closest friends. He was left without even his betrothed, the King's sister, and was rumored to have died of heart break a month after his King.

All of these deaths left the population of Antar in grief for a very long time, and while the King's distant cousin had taken the throne, and they had hoped that the blood line would be continued enough to keep everyone's powers strong, it was obviously not enough. Little by little the planet's powers had diminished to the point where only the people who were once the strongest on the planet had enough strength to keep their things sanitized. Now crime ran rampant while everybody was stealing and fighting everyone else for the things they needed. They had never needed to figure out how to sanitize and grow things the way humans had, and they didn't even know where to begin. The planet had been reduced to an existence very much like the earth's dark ages, and there was no sign of recovery.

It was for that reason that more and more promising students were being sent to the palace to study science that would allow them to help the people. Thehlec was raised in one of the worst neighborhoods possible. His mother had nine children all without the presence of a father and she could barely afford to feed them all. Thehlec had watched his mother and older bothers and sisters nearly kill themselves just to feed and take care of him, and he had vowed to himself that someday he would pay them back. So he had worked as hard as he could in school and he had become the youngest student to ever be allowed to work at the palace. He was only nineteen and already he was starting to learn how to read the power suppressors. The problem was that the instrument they usually used as the constant was reading something new. Thehlec didn't know who exactly should know about it, but he decided to just check with his trainer and see if everything was okay. "Sir?" he called to the next desk over. "This doesn't seem to have the same readouts as it did yesterday."

"What are you talking about Thehlec? The thing always has the same readouts. It's why the trainees get it for their first assignment."

"I know sir. But I think you better get a look at this." Thehlec's trainer backed away from his desk and stood up enough so that glance over to Thehlec's area and see the readout better.

"Holy Crap! That is different! We have to tell Soirafen immediately!."

*****

Khivar was lounging in his throne thinking. Everyday the power suppressors he set up were diminishing the power of the people, and soon no one would have any powers at all except him, and when that day came, Kivar would indisputably be the most powerful person on Antar. Then he would use that power to take over the Galaxy, planet by planet until he could rule the universe, and essentially be god. And to think it had all started when he had murdered his cousin, King Zan. If he had known then how easy it would have been to murder all of the royal four, and then spread his own propaganda, he wouldn't have waited so long. But that was of no matter now. He was nearly able to execute the end of the first phase of his master plan anyway, and he would take great pleasure in doing so.

Khivar's concentration was so completely wrapped up in his plans, that he almost didn't even notice when his second-in-command burst into the throne room unannounced. But Khivar was nothing if not a stickler for the pomp and circumstance due to him, and he was not about to let Nikolas off the hook for bursting in without being summoned. "Nikolas what did I tell you about coming in without my express permission? Did I not say that you would be severely punished upon the next infraction of my laws?"

It was at this point that Nikolas realized how dire the situation was to him personally. Not only did he have to be the bearer of bad news, but he was starting off on the worst foot possible by ticking off the King before he even got a chance to deliver the news. "Y-yes L-lord Khivar. B-but there has b-been a horrible development that m-might change your current plans L-lord."

"I DON'T CARE!" Khivar roared, then he backed down to an obscenely calm voice that petrified Nikolas to the point that he wasn't even sure if he would be able to continue. "You are always to follow the rules of seeing me, no matter what the circumstances. If you can not get that through your tiny little mind then I will have to demote you as well as punish you, and trust me you won't like the punishment. Now quickly tell me what this 'horrible development' is in a timely fashion, and I suggest that you do not stutter like before."

"Yes, Lord Khivar." Nikolas hesitated and then rushed out the terrible news in one breath. "Thegranolithdetectedanheirtothethrone."

"Nikolas, if you do not slow down to the point where I can understand you, I will be forced to mind-rape you to get the information."

Nikolas swallowed. Khivar had been the only one allowed to keep his powers, which meant that Nikolas had no defences against him, and Khivar's mind-rapes were some of the most painful things a person could endure. Many people suffered hemorrhages that left them dead or paralyzed after the mind-rape.

"Sir. Today a junior scientist who was just hired yesterday was doing routine check-up on the read outs of the Granolith, and he discovered that the read out was different than normal. It appears that there has been a new person with royal power conceived, and we can only conclude that it is the heir to the throne."

"WHAT?! I thought that the royals had been taken care of! You told me that no one could survive the crash that occurred. How could any of them still be alive enough to conceive an heir?"

"It appears sir, that our informant wasn't quite truthful."

"You mean to tell me that after all the trouble I went to to plot the deaths of the royals without anyone knowing, execute the plot, come up with the propaganda to explain away the people's powers, and sabotage the one effort made to recreate the royals was all for naught?! I refuse to believe that. I cannot afford for Zan or an heir to come back here and try to reclaim the throne. I refuse to loose."

"Yes sir. What do you want to do about this little problem?"

Khivar stood up and went to the window before he gave out his command. "I want ten of the best warriors along with any of the scientists who know of the changed reading to be put on a ship that will leave tomorrow. We are going to be departing for earth to find this heir and kill it, along with any of the royals that are still alive."

Nikolas waited a bit for any further instruction, and when he received none, he meekly bowed and backed slowly out the door, while Khivar stood at the window and continued to make plans as to how he was going to defeat his cousins once and for all.

[ultimatepickupline]

Hey everybody, thanks for all your feedback. I was a little worried about your reaction to the last chapter at first, because not very many people were leaving comments, but the comments picked up and I ended up getting the most I've gotten to date, so thanks for all of you. Just so everybody knows, I'm thinking that there are going to be skins in the story, but Courtney isn't one of them. You'll see the explanation for her in this chapter.

orphyfets-I'm glad the update was soon enough for you. I hope to have all my updates only three or four days apart. So....
Tanya7496-yep could be potentionally bad
bluebballjumper-I hope this cyan color is easier to read, I'm glad that this was your favorite chapter so far. It was the chapter I was most proud of too, because I got to make up almost an entirely different world. It was fun. So did I hook you up soon enough here?
lab6651-unfortunately, you may not see how everything works together for quite some time, but stay tuned.
izzyandkyle-yep it gets worse, that usually happens before it gets better.
alizeleven-well I'm glad you found this. What made you finally read it?
Lorastar-I'm glad you like the way this is written. Sometimes, I have doubts about my writing style, so I'm glad to know that at least a few people like it.
Roswelllostcause-We'll see if Liz would have been better in Roswell. I think...

And now, the dining room proudly presents...your dinner...


Chapter 10

Michael was fed up. He had been isolated from everyone for nearly a month and a half now, and he was sick of it. At one time, he would have considered the idea complete bliss to be able to do whatever he wanted without anyone questioning him. But now he considered it torture. He had tried to talk to Max, but Max still seemed to be in his own world, and without the presence of his best friend, Michael seemed to have no one to even hang out with. He had also tried to spend some time with Isabel, but that was rough too. Isabel could be bad enough by herself, but Isabel on a mission was even worse, and currently she was obsessed with why Max was acting the way he was.

The only other person, Michael had ever really connected to was Maria, and Maria wouldn't even look at him. The only time he saw her was when the two of them were working at the same time, which was rare because Maria tried to switch every shift the had together. Then even when they were working together, all Maria would do was give him the order and pick it up. Sometimes she would spare him a frosty glare, but that didn't count as actual contact with her.

Well, Michael had had enough, and he was going to do something about it. He just had to get ready to shuck his dignity first. Michael had actually been sitting on the couch looking at the door for the last half hour, trying to convince himself, that it would be worth it to go over to Maria's and try to apologize, and he thought that he might have actually gotten up the courage to do it. With a deep breath, Michael stood up, picked up his keys and walked out the door to his bike.

Within half an hour Michael showed up at Maria's and he was happy to note that it looked like Maria was home, so he wouldn't have to try to get his courage up another time. Michael paused for a second then got off his bike, walked to the door and rang the door bell. He waited nervously for a few minutes before Maria answered the door.

As soon as Maria opened the door, all her thoughts went out the window. She had just been considering trying to do something about her relationship with Michael, but she really didn't want to be the one to do all the work of making Michael realize he had messed up again. She was sick of trying to teach Michael how to be a good boyfriend. But as sick of it as she was, she missed Michael more, and if she hadn't just opened the door right now to find Michael standing on the other side, she had to admit that she probably would have broken down in a couple days and gone to Michael herself. But now, the choice was taken out of her hands, so without a word to Michael, she opened the door, gave Michael an impatient look and waited for him to step inside.

Michael had expected Maria to still be holding his whole little escapade against him, but he had expected Maria to immediately show some kind of passionate action, like slamming the door in his face or screaming at him. It was the last thing he expected to have her be silent and just give him an annoyed look, and now he was a little worried that she had moved on. Nonetheless, Michael stepped into the house, and at Maria's motions, he walked into the living room and sat down.

Maria sat down on the chair opposite Michael, crossed her legs, and folded her arms across her chest. Michael saw the expression on her face, and his nervousness multiplied exponentially. This was definitely going to be harder than he expected, and with his tendency to bungle apologies, things were not looking too hot. But he started anyway, "Um, I just came over to say that I think it's ridiculous that you're still avoiding me. I assume it's for the thing with Courtney, but I already told you that I was just making sure that she was safe. I just wanted to make sure that you were safe. I mean, you were working with her too, and I can take care of myself. But what about you? What if she had hurt you to get to me?"

"Michael, Courtney ended up being nothing but a drug dealer, who happened to keep her product in lotion bottles. I doubt she had anything against you personally, and even if she did, I highly doubt she would have had the presence of mind to link me to you."

"Maria!" Michael exclaimed exasperatedly. "I know that now, hindsight being 20/20 and all. But I didn't know that then, and I just wanted to protect you."

Maria felt herself immediately soften at Michael's words, despite his tone. She had been trying her best not to give into him too easily because she was still upset with him, but she couldn't help but feel touched that he had wanted to protect her. She wasn't naive enough to think that Michael had only wanted to protect her; she knew he also wanted to protect the rest of the group because it was his "job" as second-in-command. But she also knew that he had thought of her specifically, and that touched her. "Well that's sweet Michael, and I might even accept your apology, pitiful as it is."

Unfortunately, Michael didn't seem satisfied with just having Maria accept his apology, and he wanted Maria to also share some of the blame. "Well you should. It's not as if you were completely blameless in this entire thing. If you had just listened when you first found me, you would have known what was going on."

"Michael you should really just stop while you're ahead."

Michael considered this for a second and then gruffly said, "Fine. I'm sorry."

Maria smiled, leaned over to brush Michael's hair off his forehead, and said, "I'm sorry too, Spaceboy."

Michael smirked. "So do admit that you were partially to blame?"

"Oh no. I'm sorry that you did what you did. Otherwise we wouldn't be here right now."

Michael started to protest, but before he could really get anything out, Maria got out of her chair and and went across the room to sit in Michael's lap, where she pressed her mouth to Michael's and effectively cut off any protest he had been formulating in his head.

Sometime later, Amy walked in to find her daughter and Michael lying on the couch and making-out.

*****

It was Friday night, and Kyle and Tess were continuing with their new tradition. For the last four weeks in a row, every Friday night they rented a movie and watched it at home while eating popcorn and candy. They were also continuing the tradition of arguing about which movie they would watch. Why Kyle even began to fight with Tess anymore was a mystery seeing as anytime Tess lost, she would do something with her alien voodoo to make the night less than pleasurable for him. But at least she was with him, and Kyle craved any interaction he could get with Tess. He had developed quite a crush on her, though he doubted he would ever act on it. He knew that Tess would fight to the death for Max, and Kyle couldn't handle losing another girl to Max. That would just be too much.

Tess was surprised with herself. It seemed that with every day that passed, she grew more and more comfortable around Kyle, and she thought about Max less and less. She was nearly to the point where she could let herself decide to completely give up on Max. He wasn't the person she thought he would be at all, but that wasn't the only problem. Tess was starting to realize that some of the things that she thought she would always like about Max being her husband didn't really matter at all. And most importantly, she was starting to realize that some of the things she actually wanted in a significant other wouldn't be possible for Max at all.

Tess wanted someone who could make her laugh and was carefree, and while she assumed Max could crack the occasional joke, Tess didn't think that Max would ever be carefree enough to do so, let alone carefree enough to make her forget about her own troubles. However, there was someone Tess knew who could do those things for her, and that person was Kyle, hence the reason Tess grew more comfortable with Kyle everyday, and she was reasonably sure that in just a week or two more, she might even be able to fully admit that she was developing feelings for him. Then it would only take a little longer after that to convince herself to do something about it. But for now, Tess would just have fun biding her time and joking around with Kyle.

"Okay, so here are your choices. We can watch Robin Hood: Men in Tights or Titanic. Personally, I'm up for a good cry, so I vote Titanic." So what if Tess didn't really want to watch Titanic. She was holding up the cases for the movies like she was actually giving Kyle a chance, but she knew that Kyle would always choice the other movie when Titanic was given as an option, so she really wasn't giving Kyle a choice at all. But that was exactly what she wanted, because it allowed her to manipulate Kyle into watching what she wanted to watch without the use of her powers. And that just seemed so normal.

"Teeeess," Kyle whined. "That's not fair! Titanic can't even be considered a movie, it's so dumb. The only good thing about it is the naked chick. Give me a real choice. Please! Like Saving Private Ryan or Braveheart."

"I refuse to watch a war movie. I got enough talk of it with Nasedo. I want one of these movies, so choose." Tess pushed the movies into Kyle's hands, and turned to leave. "You better get one of these, or you'll regret it. I'll be waiting by the car, and get me some junior mints." Tess smiled once she was facing the door. Okay so she may have threatened with her powers. Close enough to normal.

Kyle sighed, put up Titanic, and took Robin Hood: Men in Tights to the register to pay. "I don't know why I even bother coming to the store with her. Like it actually makes a difference." Kyle grumbled under his breath as he picked up some junior mints and waited for the line to move.