Please Stand Up, CC, M/L I/A M/M Av/R, Mature, COMPLETE

[Chrisken]

Part Eleven - Upstated

"Okay, so, what now?" Isabel said after Liz had explained a bit more. "Do we really need to head right out of town yet?" She sighed a little theatrically. "We've been just running and running for so long, and now we can kinda see the light at the end of the tunnel. Would it be so bad to... to grab an actual meal here in Scranton before leaving town?"

Max looked at Liz and Alex, and saw the hopeful looks on their faces. "Okay, umm, I'll call the others." He rang up Michael's cell phone. "Hey, I've got some tired and unhappy campers over here, and they want to go hit a sit-down joint before leaving town. How about you guys?"

Michael laughed slightly. "Sounds like a good idea to me, but let's not try to fit everybody into the same venue this time. We can pick one restaurant and you guys go to the other, and we each call in when we're done. Sound good?"

"Umm, alright," Max agreed. "Anybody.." But Michael had already cut the connection. "Oh well." He looked up. "Michael and the others are going to do the same, but go somewhere else... wherever we end up going."

"Hmm..." Isabel considered that. "Well, erm - how about, nah, nowhere really good here." She sighed. "No, nothing good on this street." She sighed. "Try turning right at the lights, honey." Liz had her nose pressed up against the window, but she didn't comment out loud.

Before they'd even gotten to the traffic intersection, a sign had appeared into view that probably caught the attention of all four teens. "Wranglers!" Max exclaimed with delight. If Michael was still behind them, and spotted that himself, he'd probably get upset that the other group got dibs. Then again, there probably wasn't any big shortage of barbecue places in town, even a few southern barbecue joints. The cheers of acclaim were unmistakeable, and Alex laughed as he pulled into the parking lot. "Whatcha gonna get, honey?" he asked Isabel.

"Not sure yet - I'll have to see their menu." The restaurant was loud and busy but not obviously packed, and a slightly frazzled waitress with long kinky brown hair led them to a booth table. "Hmm... chicken sounds good."

"Yeah... maybe I'll try the steak sandwich," Max mused aloud. They talked about food for a minutes, and then Max checked to make sure that nobody seemed to be listening to them. "Liz, Christin - she implied that she really put a lot of important stuff into that flash - stuff that she maybe couldn't say even over the Institute's communication link. Do you have any idea yet what that was?"

"Hmm, no, not really baby." Liz wrapped herself around Max's arm for a moment. "I... I'm remembering more of the trip - like picking Laurie up at the airport in Louisville, and you crashing into me on the stairs of that restaurant bridge." Max smiled slightly. "But, for whatever actually happened to me there in the museum, I still don't think I can remember anything." She thought. "Except maybe that Ava was involved. She... she seems important to me now, and I'm not sure why."

"Are... are you sure that it was Ava?" Isabel asked. "Not... not Tess? I'm just asing."

"No, definitely not Tess... or, at least not the same way," Liz said. "Their faces might be the same, but - but it was more about Ava's personality, her inner self, than the way she looks. There'd be no possible way of mistaking the two of them on that basis."

"I guess that you've got a point there," Alex admitted. "Maybe... maybe if this thing is so important, we could try slightly more extreme measures?"

"Like what?" Max asked, but Alex didn't reply, though he looked over at Isabel and blushed.

"You... you mean that Liz should try and fall asleep, and I go walking through her dream?" Isabel asked.

"Well, that's had impressive results in the past," Liz admitted. "And if I'm psychologically repressing what I saw or something, then it's probably down there in my subconscious, and a dream's as good a way of getting to it as anything else."

"Are - are you sure, Liz?" Isabel asked. "I mean... I've been using dreamwalking a few times as a communication tool since this trip started, but deliberately using it to violate your privacy..."

"It's not something you're doing to spy on me, just to help me figure this out," Liz insisted. "Like you're a dream doctor or something like that. If - if you don't want to do it, then that's okay. I - I just wanted to ask. And thank Alex for suggesting it."

"Well," Isabel said, and made a grumping sound. "We'll see - once dinner's over and so on."

"Okay," Liz agreed. "Um, so, let's see..."

"What do you think about Michael's theory," Max asked, and right then the waitress came to take everybody's food order.

"Sorry, umm, Michael's theory?" Isabel repeated once she was gone. "About how Larek sent a ship to carry all of us to safety?" She considered. "I... I certainly think it's possible. Maybe I even hope that that's it, just because it's the only thing I can think of that can actually save us." She sighed. "Though I'd be disappointed to really have to leave earth behind, and know that... that if I ever see Mom and Dad, it won't be for a long long time." She considered. "It kind of makes sense that SOMEBODY sympathetic would have thought of sending us... a vessel of some sort, after the deal with the Granilith and Tess. Just didn't take much to guess, at that point, that Kivar might get pissed off enough to come to Earth with backup."

"I... I don't know how to feel about it," Alex blurted out. "I mean... Isabel, I love you a lot, of course, and the rest of you guys - you're the best friends I've ever had, and I don't know what I'd do without you... but on the other hand - I know what it was like for my parents when they thought I died. So soon after that, for me to just disappear off the face of the planet, so that they'd have to wonder if something happened to me again, but they wouldn't even know for sure..." He sighed. "I hate to put them through that."

"Yeah, well, on the other hand, that kinduv gives you a reason that you'd have to go," Max said slowly. "If he hasn't already, Kivar would probably find out about your supposed death, and wonder if there were alien allies of mine that were behind it. He'd investigate you, do anything he needed to to rule out that possibility - and he probably wouldn't believe that it was Ava and Rath who saved you and they were off on the ship with us." He groaned. "If you went back to Roswell he'd probably try to use your parents against you - torturing them in front of you or something like that."

"Okay, come on, Max," Isabel said severely. "No talk of the T word - we're getting ready to eat, for chrissakes."

"Sorry," Max mumbled, and sighed. "Okay, Liz - drill time. When we had breakfast in Jackson, what was the first thing you had to eat?"

Liz blinked, seeming to be completely at a loss for a second, and then she brightened. "Umm... a dutchie with lemon filling. I have no shame - but man, that sugar rush really did wake me up."

"Cool," Isabel said. "What did we use to make the pants I wore into the nightclub in Dallas??"

"Umm... two denim jackets - mine and Ava's," Liz replied.

"When we went to check the diner the first time, when Lonnie wasn't there, what..." Alex started

Liz grinned. "Somebody came up to us in the parking lot and tossed a sign onto the windshield of the van. The sign had a bible verse - Luke thirteen four I think, and a warning about the angels of Satan coming to the earth, which we all thought was a little bit too on the nose." She sighed. "This is fun, and it seems to be helping."

So they kept quizzing her until nobody could think of new questions, and around then their food and drinks arrived. Liz and Alex got off onto a nostalgic kick, talking about his Aunt Louise visiting before they started freshman year at the high school, and taking them and Maria down to Carlsbad caverns. "She said that we could all come out to California to visit her, and bring boyfriends and girlfriends, after we graduated," Liz remembered with a sigh. "Guess that's not going to..."

"Come on, Liz," Isabel put in. "Dwelling on it won't help."

"I dunno, it's kind of freeing to at least admit things out loud." Liz sighed. "What's the one big regret that you'll have if this is our last 24 hours on Earth??"

"Umm..." Isabel thought about that as she tore strips out of her chicken. "Probably... well, this is cliche, but I always wanted to see Paris."

"I get that," Alex admitted. "Frankly, it'd be kind of nice to actually make it to Sweden for real, but oh well.

About two thirds of the way through their main courses, Max's cell phone rang. He picked it up and checked the number - it was Roswell, and not anyone who was on the road trip with them. What was going on? Were some of the parents trying to track them down? They'd certainly been gone long enough for Alex's parents, or Liz's, to be getting agitated. But the number didn't seem to fit with either of them, and yet it was familiar. He picked it up on the third ring. "Who is this?"

"Evans, it's me, Brody." Max gasped slightly, recognizing the voice. "Umm, I can't really explain how, but I've got a message for you, and I think it's important. Where are you, anyway?"

"Umm, in a restaurant in Scranton," he said. "What's the message?"

"Umm... that K and his lackeys are heading northeast on a commercial airliner. Probably going to land somewhere in the tri-state area, but not sure." Max stifled a string of curses. They'd been taking too much for granted - he should have anticipated this. And the tri-state area - that was about as far north as Scranton was - and not much to the east of the Albany area. Kivar could come out well placed to race them to the end... and that was assuming he hadn't been able to catch a flight that would simply LAND in Albany, potentially cutting them off.

And who could have given Brody this message? Max put that thought aside. "Thanks man. By the way, the lead for the Drazen institute paid off." And with that, he hung up. "Alright, we can take, umm, three or four minutes to eat as much as we can, and pay." As he spoke, Max was already checking in his wallet for enough money that they wouldn't get upset at the four of them taking off. "Kivar is coming by air - much closer than any of us want him to be."

"Ohmigawd, I'll call the others," Isabel said, getting out her own cell phone. So she made the call, and they ate a bit more, though nobody was quite able to clean their plates in time. Max just let money on the table without bothering to ask for the bill - he had been adding up as they ordered, and was good with the math in his head - it would work out to plenty, and a generous tip for the waitress in return for the slightly unconventional tactics. A tall, broad guy, maybe the acting manager, asked them if there was a problem on the way out, and Max blurted out something about having just heard that a friend was in the hospital. The manager waved someone over to the table to check on the money that Max had left, and then they were allowed to get on their way, with best wishes for the injured friend.

"I... I should maybe switch back to the motor home, as soon as we get a chance," Alex said as Max pulled the van out. "The laptop and cell card are there... I might be able to find out more about Kivar's flight from there - it's important information."

"Okay, yeah," Max agreed. "Isabel, Liz, do you still want to try the dreaming thing??"

"Oh, god, like I could fall asleep at a moment like this," Liz complained, and Isabel poked her, annoyed. "Well, I'll try. I guess this could be important too, yeah?"

"Definitely," Isabel said. "Umm... I'd like to have, let's see. Michael and Lonnie over here, in exchange for Alex. Lonnie might have useful info on this sort of thing, even if she's not so good at dreamwalking herself, and Michael... in Alex's absence, he's probably the one that I feel most comfortable with."

"Wait, are we going to do it here?" Liz asked. "Why... why don't we go back into the motor home?"

"Well, if it'll be much easier for you to fall asleep over there, I guess we can," Isabel replied. "I was just going for what looked like the simplest scenario."

"Umm... what do you think, Max?" Liz asked.

"I - umm, I think that you should go with whatever you're most comfortable with," Max told her. "I'll come with you guys to the motor home if you want, or stay here and keep driving."

"Okay, then, no question," Liz said. "We're all going back to the motor home." Alex chuckled slightly. "I hope people don't mind playing musical vehicles."

"There might be a little friendly grumbling," Max admitted. "But anything for the cause, I think that's appropriate in this case."

"Okay, my turn to call over I guess, and break the news," Alex said, picking up his cell phone. "Hi, Maria? Yeah, you're probably not going to believe this, but..."

-----------

In a little while, they'd finished the switch - Jim Valenti and Amy, Kyle and Laurie had all gone into the van. Maria was driving the motor home, with Rath keeping her company, Max and Liz were in the sleeping chamber, and Isabel was up in the alcove waiting for her dreamwalking powers to work on Liz. "Do... do you want to mess around, or would that be counterproductive?" Max teased his girl.

"Umm... I'm not sure," Liz admitted. "I do tend to, umm, to get sleepy after that, but it might just get awkward with Isabel waiting for us, and anyway it might take too long. Not that much of a drive to Albany." She sighed. "Maybe, actually, you could just give me a massage." She stretched out over the mattress. "I feel so tense, and I know you have good hands."

"Hmm... okay, twist my arm," Max said, crouching over Liz's legs, and using his powers to open up the back of her top where there hadn't been a seam before. He reached out and started to rub the small of her back. "How's this?"

"Okay, except you're being too gentle," she said with a soft giggle, so Max tried to push a little bit harder without going too far. "Yeah, hmm, that's nice. Now a little bit further up." Max considered, He could reach a bit further up just by leaning at an angle, but if she wanted him to go up more than that he'd have to change where he was crouching. Well, worry about that when the time came. "Oh, yeah, that's good, keep doing it like that."

"Maybe you should think of relaxing things," he suggested. "Like..."

"The crashing of waves, on the ocean beach?" Liz asked dreamily.

"Umm... I can't remember what I was going to say now, but yeah, that could work," he agreed. "Hey." Concentrating, he reached out, and connected to Liz. It wasn't hard to slow her breathing, relax all her voluntary muscles, and calm some of her higher mental processes. "How... how's that, Liz?"

"Hmm, mrfngrr," she mumbled, and Max took that as a cautious good sign. He kept rubbing her back, but in a few minutes it was clear that Liz was quite soundly asleep, and he got off of her and crawled a bit away so as to not risk disturbing her. He was actually a bit disappointed that he hadn't gotten a chance to move the back rub a bit higher and see if she'd object to him sitting on her butt. Oh well, another time - it could have been a bit awkward for him. Not really wanting to open the door, he just lay on the other side of the mattress and looked at Liz as she slept. He couldn't help but wonder what her sleep was like - if she was dreaming yet, and what Isabel thought of it. Max sighed.

He probably ended up drowsing a bit himself, though Max was never sure. A little while Liz rolled around a bit, shook herself, and mumbled, "Umm, little help putting myself back together here??"

"Hmm, what?" Max looked up. "Oh, right." Liz's shirt was still split wide open up her back, and that was clearly an awkward sensation for her. "Okay, come on, sit still and stop squrming or it's not going to go back together straight," he warned her. Actually, getting the fabric to rejoin exactly as it had been was no problem - Max had had a bunch of practice with this sort of thing. A few of the first times he'd tried it, the clothing didn't turn out to be nearly as strong as it originally was - prone to rip or tear at the same points that it had been split and then rejoined, but Max was pretty sure Liz wouldn't need to worry about that. "Do... do you think you've dreamed enough for Isabel?"

"Umm... I'm pretty sure I had a dream, and probably a significant one, though I can't remember the details." Liz sighed. "Let's go out and see what your sister thinks." So they emerged, and Isabel waved at them from the alcove up above the cab.

"Should I come down, or do you guys want to come up here?" she asked.

Max sighed. "You come down here," he said. He didn't really want to squeeze into that alcove with two other people again. So Isabel got down, and the three of them gathered around the kitchen table. Michael took Rath's place up front around now, and Rath and Ava went up into the alcove just so that the living room area wasn't too crowded.

"Alright, I got a bunch of imagery that I'm not sure if I can fit together, but it's certainly suggestive," Isabel told them with a sigh - or maybe she was mostly telling Liz - Max wasn't sure. "First off, the old pod chamber up in the Maideckezne rocks - and a bunch of people inside, crowded around the pods. Not sure how many people - three to five, at a guess. And one of them might have been Christin - she didn't look quite like the young Christin that you mentioned, but maybe she's got another, slightly more mature 'look'. Then, a whole bunch of faces... including your parents, Liz, looking younger than they are now, and somebody who I think, based on a picture you showed us once, would be your Grandma Claudia."

Liz jumped, slightly. "How many other faces, beyond those three?"

"Umm... three others - two men and a woman."

"Can... can you send me pictures, in flashes?" Liz asked, stretching out her hand. "I've got an idea... wondering if they're my two grandfathers and my other grandmother." Isabel shruged, reached out and touched Liz, briefly concentrating. "Yeah, that's them."

"But... but what does it all mean?" Max blurted out, and both girls looked at him. "A bunch of unfamiliar people - probably all aliens, in the pod chamber. We were still inside the pods I assume?"

"Yeah, as far as I could tell," Isabel said. "It was hard to see anything at all inside them, but there wasn't any of the, umm, messy stuff left over from when we broke out."

"And then Liz's parents and grandparents?" Max said. "What... what's the connection??"

"I dunno, sweetie," Liz said, patting his arm. "Was there anything else, Isabel?? I guess this wasn't one of the kind of dreams with an actual narrative structure and random weirdness like talking to gophers."

Isabel laughed. "No, it doesn't seem so. Do you often talk to gophers in your dreams??"

"Umm... I'm not sure," Liz admitted. "Vividly remember one like that from a little while ago, though." She sighed.

"And yes, there was some more, though, umm..." She seemed to be deep in thought. "Something kind of weird. Two, umm, two bubbles meeting, touching - and joining into one larger one."

"That could be, umm, not related to the Christin flash," Liz mumbled. "Just, err, a sexual metaphor - or a romantic one, I suppose." She considered it. "Pregnancy fears?"

Max jumped slightly, and she turned to look at him. "Sorry," he said, and Liz nodded. "But if it was about pregancy, or conception - Isabel, were the two bubbles the same size?"

"Not quite."

"Hmm, yeah," Liz said after a moment. "For conception, I guess I'd expect them to either be VERY close in size, or VERY different - since I know that an egg is much larger than a sperm cell." She sighed. "Of course, if it was symbolically romantic, then that might fit." She sighed. "I mean, you're a bit bigger than me, Max, but not very much."

"Actually, it looks like quite a bit different when you're both standing up," Isabel teased. "But I won't presume to dictate interpretations, especially since these might have come from your own subconscious impressions, Liz." Isabel sighed. "Let's see... that's three images or image sequences... what else? Oh, right - a bunch of little kids playing musical chairs."

"Really?" Liz asked. "Where were they?"

"Umm, it was just like a cartoon, against a blue background or something," Isabel said. "Cute four or five year old kids running around between big wooden chairs." She laughed slightly. "And, umm, and one more that might have been from somewhere else in your subconscious, other than the flash from Christin. You getting dressed for a wedding, Liz." This time, even after Liz shot Max a look, he remained calm.

"So, I was seeing myself in the dream?" Liz asked.

"I... I'm not sure," Isabel admitted. "Maybe... yeah, I think there was a mirror, so maybe it was your own point of view, but looking into the mirror." She looked at Liz. "You looked gorgeous, I have to admit - white dress that was a little bit fancy, and kinduv sexy all at the same time." Liz giggled. "With a necklace or a pendant hanging down into your, umm, down the front of your dress, and a tiara in your hair."

"Hmmm..." Liz thought about that. "Not really how I always pictured my wedding day." She shot one more look at Max, speculatively, and seemed to be debating whether or not to say something for a long moment. "In fact, with the tiara... it's almost as if I was picturing myself as a ROYAL bride."

"You mean, like we were getting married on an alien world or something?" Max asked, and Liz nodded. "Well, considering all the talk of leaving Earth, I guess that's understandable. When we get to some other place - I don't know exactly how they'll react and how closely they'll identify me with King Zan, but there'll probably be some royal ceremony if I want to get married."

"Yeah," Isabel agreed. "Did either Michael or I tell you about the pledge pendants, Liz?"

"Umm... I don't think so," Liz said. "What are..."

"It's something cultural I picked up when we were on Stellynfrus," Isabel answered. "I... I noticed after a little while that the colony leader, Gird - that he always wore two necklaces, usually going down under his tunic. He wasn't the only one around there who did, either. When I asked him about it, it turns out that it's kind of a comparable tradition to the way that we use rings. Two lovers will exchange necklaces, and each wear the other's, when they are betrothed or promised to each other, and a second pair when the bonding or matromonial vows are enacted. There's a whole line of symbolism about it that I quite liked, how the necklace represents the circle of emotion, leading its way around the head, and drawing emotion close to the heart."

Liz grinned. "Yeah, I guess I kinda like that too. But I'm pretty sure that I've never heard it before - so if the necklace in my dream was supposed to be a pledge pendant or whatever, then it must've come from Christin's flash I think." She hmmmed for a long moment. "I actually think that all of this came from there, though we're probably missing bits that represent the connection." She sighed. "Alex, man, how's it going with the flight tracking??"

"Umm... not so good news," Alex replied. "As nearly as I can make out, Kivar and four of his people either landed at Newark within the past fifteen minutes, or they're just doing so now."

"Oh boy," Max muttered. He wasn't sure where Newark was in connection with them, but that didn't sound particularly good. "Maybe we should start ignoring the speed limits except for where it looks like there's speed patrols."

"Don't go into panic mode quite yet," Isabel suggested. "He'll probably be tied up some before he can just drive away from the airport."

"I dunno," Liz said. "Sounds like his crew is starting to get the hang of things on Earth. And they're powerful enough to take shortcuts... just go into the parking lot, find a car that's big enough and steal it. Hotwiring wouldn't be any problem for somebody with alien powers. Nobody could really stop them." She sighed. "And they're certainly not going to worry about the speed limit - or highway patrols - if it means catching us."

"Alright," Isabel agreed, sighing. "I'll tell Michael to hit warp nine." And she reached out to touch the intercom button.

The next ten minutes or so were pretty uncomfortable, as Maria got the hang of driving the motorhome at seventy-five miles per hour or more, which was no small feat, especially since the highway was crowded enough that she had to deal with another car in her lane that wasn't going so fast every so often - which required either a quick sideways course correction, or a last-resort braking maneuver. Eventually Rath insisted on taking over the wheel, and he managed to prove that he could deal with going eight much more smoothly than Maria could handle seventy-five. The van was having fewer problems, and was soon driving ahead of them and helping to scout out or clear a path.

"Oh, right," Liz said a few minutes after Rath had started driving, reaching into the pocket of her jacket, hung up near the door of the motor home. She pulled something out, took it back to the kitchen table, unwrapped some plastic, and began to nibble on the brown stuff underneath. Max chuckled. "What??"

"Oh, just - I didn't even notice that you doggie-bagged your riblets," he pointed out. The boneless delicacies seemed to be wrapped up in a sheet of plastic cling-wrap.

"Yeah, well." Liz shrugged. "I didn't think that anyone from the restaurant would mind, since we had to leave too quickly for them to wrap anything up for us." She sighed. "Have you got a problem with it?"

"Oh, me? No, of course not," Max assured her. "I'm a little curious why you brought the plastic wrap into the restaurant in the first place."

"Hmm." Liz peered closely at the clear material, as if expecting the answer to be there. "You - you know, I'm actually not sure! I... I was thinking that it would be a shame to leave any of the meat behind, and... and I put my hand into the jacket pocket, and there it was. I - I didn't think about it any more at the time. I certainly didn't put it into my jacket just before we left the van to go eat."

"Hmm indeed," Max said, and Liz laughed a bit. "I... I suppose it could have something to do with your mysteriously emerging alien powers, like a bunch of other subtle things. You could probably have turned... I dunno, a bit of material from the jacket lining or something, and turned it into plastic. That stuff is synthetic - it probably has all the same molecules. Just turning one kind of artificial hydrocarbon into another."

"Hmm." Liz reached out a hand, and the jacket flew away from its hook and into it. "Let's see now." Ignoring Max's frankly amazed stare, she opened up the jacket and started looking at the lining. "Well, no holes in the lining... there's a big patch here where it seems thin, but that *might* just be from ordinary wear. Nothing conclusive."

"Well, except for the way you moved the jacket telekinetically," Max pointed out. "That might not say anything directly about the cling wrap, but it's definitely conclusive about SOMETHING!"

"I... I did?" Liz asked, looking confused.

"How else do you think it got here?" Max asked, as nonconfrontationally as he could. "You didn't get up. You just reached out your hand, and the jacket flew over to it."

Liz still looked doubtful. "You didn't do it yourself?" she asked, and Max shook his head. "Um, Ava? Isabel??"

"Nope, wasn't me girl," Ava said from up in the alcove. "In fact, I caught a brief glimpse of the power, and it came from inside you, Liz. I *told* you that you'd be changing."

"Huh," Liz muttered, still staring at the jacket as if unable to quite believe it. "Well, I guess if there was ever a time where we needed someone else with alien powers... with Kivar and his lackeys chasing us, this is probably it."

Nobody replied to that.

-----------

"Okay, coming up on Albany," Lonnie said, coming back from the cab. "Are we pulling off here, or just heading on through??"

"We keep on, unless we get or see some kind of sign from Christin," Max decided. "No way of telling how close Kivar is behind us." He sighed. "Head for the park by the quickest route, and then, I don't know, keep driving through it. Dammit, she should have told us more."

"Maybe... maybe one of us should try going back to sleep," Liz said uncertainly. "She might try dreamwalking as a communication method."

"Hmm... I suppose that's worth a try," Max agreed, sighing. "Anybody have a New york map? Just what IS the quickest way from Albany into the Adirondack park?"

"I'm on it," Alex said, clicking and typing on the laptop. Max couldn't tell offhand if he was in Streets and Trips, or had gone online with the cellular modem to Mapquest, but figured that Alex knew what was best. "I think northwest is the best way to go, actually... the I-90 northwest through Schenectady and then the route 8 north, once we get to Amsterdam." The border of the park comes furthest south there, so I think it's less distance to cover than going straight north."

"Okay," Liz agreed.

"Wait a second, how close are Schenectady and Albany?" Isabel asked curiously.

"Umm... real close - maybe 20 miles," Alex replied after a moment. "Maybe 25 minutes... I guess we can time it and see."

"Huh," Isabel replied. "I never thought that they were that close... though I never really thought much about the geography of upstate New York I guess." She sighed. "Would have been nice to be able to spend a bit more time on a road trip through here, instead of having to zip along because the Renegades of Antar are at our heels. Oh well, bygones."

"Yeah," Lonnie agreed. "Oh well, on the other hand, there'll be other lands that you can explore when we get out there, back to the Antarian sector of space. Of course, it probably won't be safe to go back to Antar for a little while, but I've heard bunches of good stuff about all kinds of planets around there. If we go back to the Sanctuary and meet up with Grandma Queenie and Tess, well... I'm pretty sure that the Sanctuary is on Vrelayan, which is known for the pretty hill country of Landorin. On the other hand, if Larek is calling the shot, maybe we'll be off for Rahlicx and get to see the Crystal seas of Merenditzh."

"Wait a second, back up a moment," Max said. "Do Kivar's people know that, about the Sanctuary??"

"What do you think?" Lonnie joked. "Actually, I think that they suspect a few places, but there are reasons that he's not able to call the navy in and find the Rebels there, political and practical reasons. Kivar's a very practical guy. Anyway, I have sources of information that he doesn't have."

"And did it ever occur to you to give him access to that information?" Isabel said coldly. "Like, if the price was right enough?"

Lonnie shrugged. "Maybe. I never went looking for one of his crew. And now - it's a wash. I'm not going to go flipping on you now - I may be slick and slippery, but once I give my word, I stick to it. And I'm sitting fairly pretty, as long as you don't change your mind and keep me from getting on board the ship, which I don't think you would."

"No... I don't think we will," Liz said, only a little grudgingly.

Max, for his own part, took a long time to revise everything that Lonnie had said to him, that first time, when she was trying to control him before and during the Summit meeting, and if she had ever broken a promise. "You... you don't tend to make many promises, do you, Lonnie?"

She turned to face him, slightly surprised. "No. And I guess that should tell you that I do take them seriously, that I don't go back on my word. If I did, I'd promise people more - at least, when it counted, because it still wouldn't pay to let people realize that they couldn't trust me to keep up my end of a bargain too early. But... well, I don't like to close down my options, so I generally stay away from giving my word away for real. When I do, though, you can stand by it."

Max thought about it and decided that Lonnie probably meant that. She hadn't hesitated to manipulate him, to lie, to deceive him by pretending to be Isabel, to play on his emotions by invoking the suffering of his alien people, and eventually to attempt to kill him, doing Nicholas' dirty work for him, but nevertheless she lived by a code of honor. It was just that all of those other things weren't offenses against her sense of honor, but breaking her vow would be. "And would you promise to not tell Kivar anything that would work in his favor, that he could use against his enemies, against people who might possibly be friendly to us, or who we might care for in any way?" Max asked. "I'm not sure that that's covered by what you told me back at the diner. You said best behaviour, and agreed to not selling US out, and to treating everyone here decently. But you probably interpret that very narrowly - telling Kivar the location of Sanctuary wouldn't be directly selling me out, especially if I'm not going to Sanctuary straight away."

Lonnie thought about that, and looked hard at him. "You're starting to get clever, Max. You're right, that wasn't covered, but I'll agree to it. No helping Kivar against the Royalist rebels, or against any of the other planets, or in anything that isnt clearly a noble and altruistic pursuit really. No making deals with him except as under the above. No leaking info to him that's privileged by others. How's that??"

"It'll do I think," Max said, and both of them smiled at the same time. "So, umm... anybody want munchies? We've still got some snack foods squirrlled away behind the couch I think."

"Yeah for food," Isabel agreed. "I've been eating so much for being nervous... oh well." She stopped with a bag of barbecue potato chips in her hands, not opening it. "Hey, I wonder what food on a spaceship would be like."

"Ehh, probably not bad." Lonnie said. "They've got fancy high-tech devices to synthesize perfectly nutritious foods with whatever tastes and textures you want, I think." She smirked a little and helped herself to some caramel chews. "Of course, if you start to think about what raw material they've got available for feeding into the food synthesizers, well... it can be a bit hard to keep up your appetite."

"Ewww," Liz groaned.

Max just took some pretzels and shrugged. He wasn't that picky about eating food that came out of waste products, as long as the process was hygenic enough. After all, that was essentially how the Earth's biosphere worked... raw materials from animal elimination, dead animals and plants were converted through solar energy and specialized living cells into grains, fruits, meats and just about anything else they ate. It just probably took longer in a biosphere than in an Antarian waste processer/food synthesizer unit.

"Hmm," Alex mused, taking some of the chips from Isabel's bag. "Will we get to see out the portholes I wonder? Will there be any good views?"

"Probably nothing much will ever change, as long as the ship is in normal space," Lonnie put in. "Any serious distances get covered at several times the speed of light, in warp space, and I have to admit, I'm not sure what that's like." She sighed. "You went through warp space, Isabel, but you were in the Granilith, and it'd probably be different in a conventional spaceship."

"Yeah, I'd imagine," Isabel agreed. "Inside the granilith, well, our bodies seemed to be part of the thing as long as it WASN'T at warp speed, or whatever. When it was, then we found ourselves in a little, vaguely cone-shaped room, and there was shifting whiteness and vague pastel colors outside." She dusted her hands off on a paper napkin that had been sitting on the coffee table and picked up the laptop. "Is this online? I want to check the news reports for back in Roswell, just to make sure that there isn't..." She clicked a few buttons and looked at Alex. "Did... did you punch this in??"

"Umm... no, I don't think so, but maybe I'm not sure," he admitted, slightly wonderstruck. Max hurried over, but all he could see was that there was an open notepad window with a bit of text in it.

"What does it say??" he asked urgently.

"Childwold," Isabel read. "Dirt track north eight miles. Ten pm, eastern daylight time. Try not to be late. C."

"Then... then I think that we've got our message from Christin," Max muttered, "though I still wish she'd stop being so mysterious and cryptic."

"But what the heck is a childwold??" Isabel complained.

"It's a place," Alex explained. "A... a little town inside the park borders, northwest edge I think." He was moving quickly to some sort of computerized map. "Well, not that close to the edge, but certainly that part of the park." He whistled. "If we're going to get there, and then go eight miles down a dirt track, for ten pm, then we'd better keep moving fast. We won't be able to maintain this speed once we're inside the park, but still..."

"There are towns inside the park?" Liz asked.

"Yeah, I think that they had already been founded when the park was declared," Max replied. "They can't grow beyond the town limits, already settled farms or whatever, but nobody made them get out." He sighed slightly. "And onward we go."

"I guess it's better that they're expecting us close to the limit of when we'll be able to arrive," Isabel said dubiously. "Less chance that Kivar's going to be able to interfere. But... but how did she send that message? Did she make Alex type it out without realizing that he'd done it??"

"Either that, or some very fancy manipulation of the computer circuitry at long distance," Alex said uncertainly. "You couldn't really do it with traditional internet communication... well, just MAYBE possibly with really fancy hacking techniques. And it'd be much easier just to find out what our messenger screen name was, and send the message that way, if it came over the computer."

"Okay," Liz sighed. "I'm going to lie down for a bit - don't think I can sleep, but I need to rest." And she went back into the sleeping chamber. Max tried to figure out if he should follow her, and went ahead, hoping that she wouldn't mind.

Liz hugged him fiercely before the door had even finished closing. "I... I'm scared," she admitted.

"I'm a little frightened myself," Max admitted. "Not sure if it's more of Kivar catching up and attacking us, or the thought of leaving, or - or that Christin and whoever else is up here in the woods might not actually want to help us."

"Yeah, we're stuck between a rock, a hard place, and some kind of unpleasant third thing," Liz agreed, and lay down, her arms still around Max, and his about her. "Just hold me like this, and tell me that no matter what, you'll never forget me."

"I love you," Max whispered. "I don't know what else is going to happen tonight, if someone may try to kill us... but you can count on my love." Liz seemed to consider this for a moment, then paused.

"No matter what, I'm yours," Liz insisted. "And I don't intend to let anything seperate us."

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part Twelve - Running in Circles

"Uh-oh!" The exclamation seemed to electrify Max's nerves, and he hurried towards the cab. Unfortunately, Alex got to the door leading that way at about the same time, and there was a brief delay while they tried to figure out who should go first.

"What... what's wrong?" Max asked, hurrying in. Already he could tell that something seemed to be wrong with the way the motor home was handling... a lack of energy, a particular kind of unresponsiveness. Soon Rath had started to pull over to the edge of the road - a maneuver that he only just managed before the vehicle's engine died entirely. "What happened? It... it was if we were running on..."

"On fumes, yeah," Rath replied. "I... I just checked the gas gauge a few moments ago, and... and it was okay, maybe a little bit on the low side, but..." He growled. "Someone had better go and check the bottom of the tank."

"Yeah," Max said, hurrying out. "Someone call the van." As he rushed out the side door of the RV, he could tell that that probably wasn't necessary - someone in the van must have noticed that they were having problems, because the vehicle was in the middle of a three-point turn a little ways down the road. Max oriented on the gas tank and rolled himself halfway under the motor home and groaned loudly. Something - maybe a big chunk of gravel, had somehow managed to tear a noticeably big hole in the bottom of the tank. It was as freaky a thing as Max had ever seen, but presumably an honest accident, not freaky alien sabotage. Such a gap could probably have dumped out quite a bit of gas out on the road in a reasonably short time.

"Is it breached??" Rath called from next to Max's legs.

"Yeah, pretty badly, but I think I can fix it," Max said, concentrating. He 'pulled' a bit of metal away from the edge of the frame of the motor home to help in the repairs he was making - ensuring that the tank was tight was much more important than anything else. After about a minute, he was fairly satisfied. "Okay, that's fixed the hole, but..."

"But we're outta juice," Michael added grimly. Max pulled himself out from under and stood up. "Well, except for what we've got in the van, and that's none too much."

The van had pulled up by now, and apparently somebody had told them about the problem. "Well, there's probably enough to get both vehicles to the next town, if not more," Jim put in. "We'd probably have had to gas the van up once more before getting where we were going anyway."

"But... but how do we share it out?" Maria asked. "We... I guess we could try that stuff with sucking it up through a hose, and... and I'm not sure what then. Having to use a mint afterwards to get the gasoline taste out of your mouth."

"You... you kinda need to know what you're doing with that, I think," Isabel put in. "Or you could get really sick, if you accidentally swallow the gas or breathe it in."

"Like anybody would do that," Rath snorted.

"How about this?" Michael suggested, and he jumped into the van for a moment, to try and line its gas tank as closely to the motor home's as possible, though this was complicated by the occasional traffic coming down the road and the thick forested grown on the other side of the highway shoulder. Getting out, he unscrewed both caps, and concentrated. A swirling stream of liquid gasoline came out of the van, flew through the air - and sprayed against the side of the rv and under it. "Okay, that didn't work."

"Don't try that again, Michael," Maria said. "We don't have much gas to waste with stunts like that."

"Alright, but come on." Michael sighed. "I thought it would work... and would look really cool, too." He sighed. "We can probably make a hose if we've got something big enough that's made out of plastic."

"Yeah, but we could still lose gas that way," Liz pointed out. "And I think some cars have guards against that sort of thing."

"Not a van this old," Rath argued.

"Okay, come on, let's do the simple thing," Max suggested. "Five or six of us go back to the gas station we passed five or ten minutes ago, in the van. Get plenty of gas for the motor home - and a fill-up for ourselves too."

A few glances were exchanged - actually, it was probably more than twenty, though that wasn't nearly enough for everybody in a group that large to glance at everybody else. "Okay," Maria agreed. "Who goes and who stays?"

"At least three aliens stay," Michael suggested, "and two go."

"I'll go with the van this time," Max suggested. "And Rath is with me. And Mister Valenti, Kyle, and... and Maria. Everybody else stays put here. Sound good?" Nobody objected, and Max got into the back of the van. Valenti took the wheel. "I just hope that we don't lose too much time this way."

"We should be okay. This was the only way to do it," Kyle reassured Max. "And Liz'll be fine." Max looked at Kyle and sighed slightly.

----------

It did take them ten minutes, if not a bit more, to get to the gas station, and Kyle started filling up the van while Kyle and Maria went inside to see about if they could buy some cans, or get cans to put gas that they'd pay for in. Max and Rath looked around, keeping watch, and Max caught a glimpse of something that seemed weird. A woman had come around the edge of a building nearby, started walking down the street, caught sight of the group - and suddenly turned back around the way she'd come, heading for cover. Max looked over at Rath - he'd seen it too. "What do you think that was about?"

"Umm... I don't know," Rath admitted. "Doesn't really seem like what an enemy would do if they caught us. But it was damn weird, any maybe we shouldn't ign--"

That was about as much as Max heard, before he started chasing down the street to catch the woman. She hadn't been expecting pursuit, and didn't quicken her pace even when Max was loudly running toward her, from not far away. "Um, excuse me," he panted, drawing near, and the woman turned around. She was attractive in a mature way, forty-something, and she didn't seem to recognize *him* particularly. "I... I'm sorry to bother you, ma'am, I just... well, it kind of seemed like you were avoiding me and my friends, and I was curious as to why."

"I... I don't see that I need to answer any question like that, punk," she replied.

Max stifled a laugh, thinking that if she was calling him a punk, what would she have thought of Zan, or of Rath in his full New York regalia?? "No, I guess you don't."

The woman sighed, perhaps regretting what she'd called him. "But... but if you must know, I just didn't expect to see my ex-husband and my son here."

"WHAT?" Max exclaimed. But... but that made a very strange kind of sense. "You're... you're Kyle Valenti's father?"

"Yes," she said, nodding slightly. "Michelle Patrick, once upon a time Michelle Valenti. And if you're about to try persuading me to go and say hello to him, well..."

"No, no, that's okay," Max insisted. If the circumstances had been different, Max might have indeed tried to set up that reunion - he knew that Kyle had always been disappointed by the fact that his mother had left his life... and possibly the fact that Kyle would be upset or embarassed at an unexpected reunion would have counted as a plus in Max's books. But there definitely wasn't time for this, especially if Michelle wasn't interested. "I... I thought that maybe you were someone else. Really sorry."

"That's okay," she said. "Are you one of Kyle's friends?"

"Umm, kind of," Max allowed. "For a long time we were more like rivals than acquaintances, but - well, yeah, I think we're pretty much friends now. Not the best of friends, but..."

"I see." And without another word, Michelle Patrick turned and walked away. Max jogged back to within sight of the gas station and gave Rath a thumbs up. Rath waved, and then made a gesture like Max should look around up there anyway - maybe he misunderstood, and thought there was still some reason to be worried about Skins laying an ambush. Max sighed, looked around, and spotted the name and description of a nearby storefront. For a second he resisted the impulse to go inside, but wasn't able to stop himself for long. There'd be time, if he didn't let himself hesitate in indecision.

By the time Max had left the pawn shop with his purchase the van was already filled up, but they were still working on filling up cans for the motor home. These had been provided fairly cheap by the gas station proprietor, (after a fair bit of 'eyelash batting' by Maria, the way Kyle told the story,) and a plastic funnel contraption thrown in for free. "It wasn't anybody to worry about," Max told to Rath as they got in.

"Alright, good enough," Rath said. "I think we should probably only put a bit of gas into the tank first... just to be on the safe side. I mean, not to doubt your craftsmanship, but..."

"We put in at least half," Max said. "We can't afford to spend the time worrying about it." He sighed. "It'll be fine."

And it was right then that a bolt of energy whizzed through the air outside the van, heading right for them. Max threw out his hand to erect a shield completely by instinct. "Dammit!" Rath muttered. "What the heck's going on?"

"I... I don't know," Max muttered, diving for the van door and cautiously taking a look out.

"If that's Kivar and his entire hand-picked squad," Rath muttered, but Max ssshed him. He *knew* what it meant if that was the entire squad. They couldn't overcome a force like that with just the two of them, and... and what would happen if Max led them back to the others waiting at the still-immobile motor home? There were way too many possibilities for someone to get hurt. Suddenly brave to the point of foolishness, Max threw himself out of the van, looking in the direction that the attack had come. He could somehow tell that Rath was opening one of the van windows a crack and looking for his own moment - yeah, that would hopefully work. Max would draw fire, and Rath could lower the boom. Assuming it was only one shooter.

It seemed to be. Partially hidden by a fancy sports car parked on the other side of the street from the gas station, a dark-haired man, possibly thirty-something, pointed and shot another burst red-orange power straight at Max. Just as it approached, Max's shield winked out - apparently he couldn't maintain it and concentrate on where he was going. Rather than try to re-establish it in time to save himself, Max focused on the charge and managed to safely deflect it above him, crashing into some kind of old shed on the edge of the gas station lot, collapsing it. Great.

The skin with the porsche, (Max thought it was a Porsche,) swore something that was garbled into unintelligibility by the wind, (or had started out in an alien language that Max didn't know,) and focused again. Suddenly Max knew that he was about to face a rock crusher - some sort of attack that he couldn't deflect, and quite possibly, if there was one, something that he couldn't even shield against. A particle blast or something like that. He had one trick left up his sleeve, and that was it. If it didn't work, he was toast. He waited while the shooter took his aim - and dodged to the side. Something created a horrible pain in his leg, and then... and then he was lying amidst some gravel and loose straw, and there were sounds that he didn't quite follow. He tried to turn to see what had happened to the shooter, but... but he couldn't orient himself, and his calf didn't feel at all right. Then... "Oh, god, Max?? Are... are you all right?"

"My... my leg's hurt, and... and I'm still in a lot of pain," he managed to mutter. "Did Rath get him?"

"Oh, yeah." After a moment, Rath and Kyle came - carried Max into the van, though he complained a bit, not very effectively since he wasn't at all sure about trying to limp over the distance himself, that he had dived across with such abandon just a minute or two earlier. They stretched him out over the back seat, where he could smell the cans of gasoline, and hope that they weren't leaking. "What... what happened to the guy? Was... was he alone?"

"Yeah, I think he was alone," Rath confirmed. "One agent who followed the trail north from Nashville instead of south with Kivar, who stayed on our ass the whole time and finally caught up when we turned back." He sighed. "That car of his must have helped - probably stole it from somebody early on." A pause. "And yeah, I got him - blue laser just as he particle blasted you, Evans. Skins are usually on the ball enough to use mirror reflection shields against laser light, but this one had other things on his mind. Nice tumble, man, but you weren't quite quick enough to dodge that particle blast."

"Umm, yeah," Max mumbled. "Just check to make sure that there isn't anybody behind us - and get us back to the motorhome quick. Kivar's real guys aren't going to be far behind. And they..." He didn't have enough energy or concentration to finish the sentence, but it didn't seem to matter. Everybody knew.

Max probably passed out during the drive. Certainly he wasn't aware of anything, even of pain really, for a while, and then he realized that someone was holding his hand. He looked up and saw Liz crouching next to the middle seat of the van, looking back at him. They were still moving - no, if Liz was here, it had to be that they were moving AGAIN, because she couldn't exactly have come in while the van was at speed. Things didn't really work that way. "How... how are you doing?"

"Better now that you're here," Max said, but the wince of pain somewhat ruined the effect of his sweet remark.

"Well, maybe... maybe you should try to heal yourself," Liz said. "It might be hard to concentrate sufficiently, but it'll help you later on." She sighed. "To be brutally honest, things were hairy enough even before you got yourself shot, and we can't afford to keep you out of action."

Max hesitated, and then nodded. "I... I'll need your help, though, I think."

"Umm... why? I mean, err - how??"

He laughed slightly. "Just... just stay here with me." Max reached down and used his powers to cut away the fabric of the pants around his calf. The blasted would was very evident, and Liz gasped in shock, but she remembered to reach out and squeeze Max's shoulder supportively when he slipped his hand away from hers. "Here we go," Max said, shuddering with pain and distaste. "Just... just lend me what strength you can." Liz nodded, her eyes wide.

Max concentrated and probed into the state of health of his leg. There was, as he'd more or less expected, good news and bad news. The bad news was that the 'blast' was terribly effective at what it did - a narrow column of flesh reaching nearly all the way through had been struck, killing nearly all living cells in its path. The good news, or at least noticeably less bad, was that the major nerve and vein running through the leg had been missed, and the primary artery had been just 'nicked' and seemed to still be functioning at around 95%. He had lost skin cells, muscle, connective tissue, and a bit of bone marrow, but nothing more critical. Also, there seemed to be very little radioactivity or unstable isotopes spreading through his body, which he'd been worried about - maybe a trace that would contribute to his weakness in the short term, but nothing that seemed to be threatening in the long term.

Okay, he had to prioritize, because he didn't have much strength to do more than look - even staying connected to himself in this way was draining, and Liz could only offer so much support in his weakened state. Firstly, he did what he could to 'clean up the mess' from the dead flesh along the path of the blast - left to itself, those ruined cells would release unhealthy byproducts into Max's bloodstream that would make him even sicker in two hours or so. He did what he could to remove those byproducts from his system entirely, or convert them into other substances that wouldn't be as harmful, but he didn't have enough effort to deal with all of it. Then, the muscle. He might very well need to stand on this leg before the night was out. He could not heal the muscle that had been struck, but other muscle cells nearby would eventually duplicate and move in to replace them. Max sped up that process as much as he could- and then the connection broke, leaving him panting and unsuccessfully fighting back tears of pain, exhaustion, and frustration. Before he knew what was happening, Liz had crawled forward, and was wrapping him in a tight, reassuring embrace. "Oh, baby," she whispered. "It... it'll be okay. I'll make sure of that somehow."

Max smiled weakly. "You... you should get back into your seat and buckle in. I'll be okay back here."

"Hmm..." Liz drew back and Max stared into her face. He wasn't quite sure what to make of her expression - obviously, she could see the sense in his suggestion, but she didn't want to leave him alone, even if they could still speak to each other - she wanted to be able to see him, to reach out and touch him. "Justa sec." She gestured with her hands, and Isabel appeared from around the edge of the van's middle seat. Liz whispered something in Isabel's ear that Max couldn't hear, and Isabel giggled, and the two girls seemed to be rearranging so that they were as far away from that seat as possible. Then Isabel raised a hand, using her powers... on the car seat, and part of it flipped around and shifted... and Max gaped.

She had rearranged the seat so that it faced backwards, towards his own, rather than into the front of the vehicle. Max had to grin - it was an out of the box answer to the problem, but relatively simple given the use of her powers, and he would definitely enjoy the company at a time like this. Liz took the far side of the seat, meaning that she was closer to his feet than the rest of him, but she was still close enough to reach out and touch him, and that seemed good. "Okay, so... have we made it into the park yet?"

"Not quite, but soon," Isabel said. "Don't worry yourself about that any more than you have to. And before you ask, the motor home is okay - right behind us." She gestured past Max, and he realized that she could see over his seat and out the back window of the van.

"I'll try... it's hard not to obsess," Max admitted. "Feel like I could have done better against that enemy agent, but everything just happened so fast." He sighed. "And... and even though he was trying to kill or capture us, I still feel weird about the idea that he's dead."

"Yeah, I know," Liz said softly. "But... but that's how it goes sometimes, I think. If Kivar's declared war against you, then the soldiers loyal to him - their lives are an extension of his will. You have to resist them with every bit of force you can muster up, if you aren't content to submit to Kivar's power - which I don't think you're about to."

"No, I'm not," Max confirmed. "And... and I think I understand all of what you've said. But while I can convince my head, my heart isn't so sure. It bleeds for those poor guys, caught between our righteous indignation, and the wrath that Kivar surely reserves for traitors and deserters of his cause."

"War is hell," Isabel summarized succintly.

"Something's bugging me," Max muttered, and thought a second, as hard as he could through the slightly dizzy spells, until he had it. "Shouldn't... should the motor home be ahead of us, and we in the van bringing up the rear??"

The girls paused for a second, looking at each other. "Umm, why??" Liz asked him.

Max struggled to sit up. "Because.. because if there's danger, it'll come from behind. The motor home has a big blind spot, because nobody can really see through the living section behind it. In the van, you can look out the back window, you might even be able to fight through it. The motorhome doesn't have that ability."

"Oh," Isabel realized. "Yeah, I'll call in."

"Alright." Max smiled slightly, and lay back down, but pointing himself the other way on the back seat, so that his feet were towards the right side of the vehicle, nearer the door, and his head was right opposite Liz. She smiled at him, and he smiled back - and promptly fell asleep again.

----------

Max looked around, blinked, and smiled. His mind must have retreated into dreams as an escape from the pain, and that was just fine by him, for the moment. He was standing on the beach back at Corpus Christi, except that the sands and the sidewalks that had always been incredibly crowded, in the real town, were so absolutely empty that it was eerie - but then, dreams were generally good at eerie. Seabirds wheeled in the sky - some kind of gulls or something (Max wasn't good at seabirds,) and a dog barked somewhere in the distance, but he couldn't see any other people aside from himself and Liz. They were both in bathing suits - Max in a pair of fairly baggy shorts, and Liz in her 'Baywatch red' that some of the others had teased her about when they went to the beach. Of course, Max thought it looked really hot on her, so he wasn't complaining.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Liz asked, and she quickly nestled up to kiss him, and then dashed away for the breaking waves. Max laughed half of a laugh, and rushed out to race her - he had longer legs and more practice with running... (he'd never been that athletic, but had always made a point of keeping in shape and once had even tried out for the West Roswell High track team, in freshman year, before he really met Liz.) He passed her just as they splashed into the very edge of the ocean, and turned around so that she would run into his open arms. Which she did, and between that and the unsteadiness of moving water around his ankles and wet sand under his feet, they both lost their balance and splashed much more thoroughly into the shallow water. Max kissed Liz back, and stroked her face and her neck, loving this. It occured to a small part of his brain that he would never have been able to do that in real life - to run on his injured leg, but there was no trace of it in the dream.

Liz led him out further, to water that was up to her shoulders and Max's mid-chest, and then further, so that they were alternating between treading water and doing lazy side strokes, floating amid the waves, which seemed calmer out here, away from the very edge of land. "I... I can't believe that we're together like this," she said, "after everything that we've both been through."

Max thought about it. "Well, someone pedantic might say that we're not really together like *this*," he argued, splashing a bit of water toward her, not directly into her face, but some of the edge of the splash landed on her shoulder and her neck.

"Are you trying to be all cryptic and mysterious on me, just because we're in a dream?" Liz asked. Max jumped slightly. It was something so exactly like what Liz would say if she had been dreaming about him... at least, so he thought. He had never really had a chance to observe her behaviour in dreams, but from what he knew about her from her waking life it seemed entirely in character. Of course, that didn't mean that this couldn't still be a Liz image, created by his subconscious because he wanted to be with her, and acting as if she knew that it was a dream... but still, Max couldn't help but wonder. Could he and Liz be sharing a dream? Of course, that would mean that Liz was sleeping now too, and he wouldn't have expected that - she'd been so concerned about him that he thought she'd watch as he slept, just to make sure that he was okay. But - well, it didn't really matter, and Liz was looking at him exactly like she always did when she was wondering what was on his mind because he was staying silent and had a thoughtful expression.

"Maybe I am," he said finally, smiling. "Is there anything wrong with that?"

"Anyway, I didn't really mean like this in terms of the beach and Corpus Christi," Liz continued, swimming backwards for a bit. not really a proper backstroke with her body horizontal and legs kicking out of the water, but like she was inclined backwards at something slightly flatter than a forty five degree angle. "It's a nice diversion, yeah, especially considering all that's going on. I... I just meant, we love each other, and we're... we're going to be leaving home together, off to start a new life together somewhere else. Not - not exactly the way I thought it would ever happen, but... but I always hoped that we'd spend our lives together, back before... before we ever kissed, or anything." She sighed. "That... that was one of the things I wrote about you in your journal the time it went missing, and then when it came back you wanted to look at it and I was afraid to show it to you." She sighed. "I just... I wasn't ready for opening myself up to you just then - I knew that it would change everything if you knew how I felt about you." Max had seen her journal since then, of course - once Liz felt a bit more comfortable opening up to him, she'd let him read most of it, though she still had a few passages she didn't want him to look at.

"And it was Michael who swiped it all along, and you promised not to tell me," Max said, wondering what this dream Liz's reaction would be.

She didn't quite swallow water, but it was a near thing. "Wh... what makes you think that?" she said, and despite her cool words, Max could tell... well, if he had been sure this was really Liz, he would have been sure of the answer. As it was, the possibility that the dream was really all in his own subconscious still provided one slim element of doubt.

"Rath said that, when Kyle was telling Ava part of the story of the missing journal, on our way to Corpus Christi."

"Wait a second," Liz insisted. "The... I think the only time you, Rath, Kyle, and Ava were in a car together on that trip, I was there too."

"This is so," Max agreed. "But you slept some, in the back seat. Remember?" Liz considered, and nodded. "I haven't asked Michael about it - didn't want to embarass him or put him on the spot. But it seemed to fit with everything about that incident better than any other theory I've ever had, and I do think that Rath has some insight about the sort of things that go on in Michael's head." He sighed. "They're more alike than either of them wants to think, really... a few differences in character, but largely Rath is the person who Michael would have been if he'd grown up in that environment, I think." Max sighed at that thought. He didn't like the notion that Michael could have plotted to kill him... but, well, there but for the grace of a few shapeshifting aliens --

"And, well, I guess none of us will ever really know Zan, but I think he was pretty close to what you would have been like if you'd ended up in New York. Ava's told me quite a bit about him." And then Liz giggled slightly. "The girls, though, are quite a bit more different - Lonnie and Isabel, Tess and Ava. That's... that's the key."

Max looked over at Liz, startled. "The key to what??"

"Umm, among other things - the meaning of Christin's message," Liz said, wrapping her arms around Max's neck, but still staying at arm's length from him, (literally,) not coming in for a kiss or a close embrace. "I've... I've figurd it out now, though the Liz who's awake now won't clue in yet for a bit. And... and let me tell you, Max - it's a GREAT secret! Kind of blows that whole you-and-Tess thing out of the water forever, and good riddance!"

"What? The Liz who's awake now??" Max was kind of confused about that remark to start with. "So... so Liz isn't sleeping... but you're NOT just a product of my subconscious mind. I'm... I'm sure of that, because I really DON'T know what the deal is with what you're telling me about." And then, it seemed to clue in. "Liz isn't sleeping, but I still managed to draw some aspect of her subconscious mind - the dreaming self - into my own dream. She's not dreaming, but you're the same part of her that... that would be creating her dream if she were." Liz just giggled in reply, not commenting, as Max absorbed that idea, certain that he was right.

"Okay... what do you mean it blows Tess out of the water, or Tess and me and destiny?" he asked. "I... I thought Tess being my destiny was already in the past - a forgotten thing, a non-issue. How... how can this."

"Yeah, I know, we moved on, we made our decision, but... but I think there was still a part of us that couldn't let go of the symbolic beauty of it, the idea of a love that stretched beyond death," Liz told him seriously. "Even when you found out that Tess wasn't who she pretended to be, that she didn't really love you, you still missed the idea. We chose to make a new destiny, but that didn't seem as fitting, as momentous. But this... it may not have the free-will stubbornness of making our own destinies, but it gives us everything that was on the other side." Liz giggled. "Destiny wins, but we win too."

"WHAT?" Max exclaimed, completely baffled by all of this, and then Liz kissed him, and so great was the passion of that kiss that it shattered the ocean and the beach - leaving him washed up back on the back seat of the van, still feeling very tired and his leg aching - but not so much as it had been, at least he thought so. "Umm... where are we?" he asked.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part Thirteen - All a board

Liz smiled slightly, seeing him awake, and Max tried to think of a way to test what he had learned from his dream of her, but couldn't be sure. Obviously she hadn't been dreaming too. "Umm, we're nearly at that town Childwold, where we're supposed to get off the main road. A... a few twinges of - well, we think that Kivar isn't too far away, but he hasn't shown his car yet."

"Uh-oh," Max muttered. "Wait a second - how long have I been out?"

"Over two hours, maybe close to three," Isabel replied. "You needed the rest." Max nodded slightly, accepting this.

"Is... is there some way we can try to use our powers to obstruct pursuit?" Max muttered. "Once we're on the dirt road, perhaps. Blow holes behind us as we go or set up nasty speed bumps."

"Hmm... possible," Liz decided. "Would be big inconveniences to any innocent passers-by, but I think maybe our needs outweigh theirs a little. We should be careful not to do anything potentially fatal though." She sighed. "And I don't think you're strong enough to be taking part in an operation like that." Max opened his mouth, but - "No arguments, mister. Rathers!!"

"Yeah, your majesty?" Rath said. Max did a bit of a double-take about that - was he just being sarcastic because Liz was so close to him, 'the king'?? Something seemed to tug at Max's mind, but he couldn't work it out.

"How long before we make the turnoff, do you think?"

"Not sure, maybe fifteen minutes or so. And if you're asking me if I'll be interested in coming back there and laying some booby traps for Kivar's car - I'd be delighted."

"Who else is up there?" Max asked, trying to look at the front of the car but unable to see past Liz and Isabel's seat from where he was - he tried to lift his head but Liz would have none of that, reaching out and pushing him back into a fully reclined position. "Is Rath driving?"

"No, Jim is behind the wheel, and Rath's been co-piloting," Isabel explained. Well, that made some sense - he didn't think that they'd have asked him to go back if Rath had been the one driving. It would probably be possible to switch drivers here in the van using the same techniquest that they'd been using in the motor home, but it would probably be a bit trickier, and for best effect they'd need to have someone with alien powers in the co-pilot's chair, holding the controls steady using a telekinetic grip while a third person took over driving.

Max put that thought aside, and turned back to Liz. "I... I had a dream, and you were in it," he blurted out. "Talking about your hopes, and your journal... and the message from Christin. I... I realize that this sounds a little weird, but I think that I might have been dreamwalking your subconscious self when you were awake."

"Hmm," Liz considered this. "Doesn't really pass my current litmus test of 'weird.'" Max laughed at the way she put that. "What... what did she say about the message? Anything useful?"

"Umm..." Max thought about it. "That... that it had something to do with Isabel-Lonnie and Ava-Tess - why they were so different from each other. And... and maybe why I fell in love with you instead of Tess."

"Wow," Liz said. "Hmm... gonna have to think more about that, see if it shakes anything loose. Though I suppose if my subconscious mind really has things all figured out, then I don't need to worry - it'll come to me when I'm ready."

"But possibly thinking about what it might mean is how you help yourself get ready," Isabel put in. Max shot her a none-too-patient look. "Sorry, I just - umm, didn't mean to interrupt a private moment there, it's just -err, a little hard to t..."

"That's okay, Isabel," Liz said to her. "I know that you have a lot of experience with this dreams and subconscious stuff, and I value your input." She sighed. "When... when did you first realize that you had the dreamwalking power, anyway?? If there's a story there, I don't think it's one that I've ever heard."

"It's not a great one," Isabel decided. "I think the first time I did it was with my Dad, and... and I didn't even realize it had anything to do with dreams at the time. I... I had woken up in the middle of the night and gone downstairs to get some chocolate milk, and I went into the living room to drink it, and I saw a picture of him and reached out to touch it. I didn't understand what had happened, was worried that I'd fallen into some strange other world like sometimes happened in story books, you know?? And then my mom found me lying on the couch with my eyes closed and shook me out of it, and when I tried to explain what had happened, she said that I must have been dreaming. I didn't understand that it was really other people's dreams until, well..."

The story took a long time, and was one that Max had been familiar with, so he mostly zoned out what his sister was saying and watched Liz's face. All of a sudden, the Van slowed down, made a sharp right turn onto much bumpier ground. "Okay, I'm coming back there," Rath said, and he did, although it seemed to take him a while to maneuver between the two front seats, around the turned-around middle seat, and crouch next to Isabel. They concentrated out the back window for quite a while, and Max wanted to take a look, but he didn't want to get in the way of their concentration. He head a bunch of interesting sounds from outside, behind the van, though.

Eventually Isabel tugged on Rath's arm. "Okay, okay, that's enough, I'm slightly pooped, and we can't worry too much about this sort of thing," she muttered, and Rath hesitated a second before nodding.

"Okay, how far did that message say?" Jim called from the front. "I've been keeping an eye on the odometer since we left Childwold."

"Umm... eight miles," Max muttered, and Liz repeated that more loudly for Mister Valenti's benefit. "The people in the motor home will probably be counting too."

"Right," Isabel said, still puffing a bit.

They bumped and rumbled along the rough road for a breathless interval of time more. Max started to wonder if someone had already been along this track, trying to make it impassable, but decided that that was probably unlikely. Suddenly... Mister Valenti must have slammed on the brakes, and Max very nearly fell off his seat. Rath kinda stumbled a bit too, and Liz and Isabel were pushed back against their seat. "What... what happened?" Isabel called out.

"Umm... I think something happened to the motor home," Valenti said. "Isabel, Rath, why don't you go out and see."

"No, I'm not taking my eyes off the road behind us," Isabel insisted. "Barriers or not, I don't trust Kivar to come out of nowhere just when we least expect him." She sighed. "But since Rath is going out to take a look, I, umm, I'll keep rear watch from outside the van." She slipped out the wide panel door, which Rath had left open.

Liz helped Max back into his seat, and sat there, waiting with him, holding both of his hands in hers, as they waited for word. Finally Rath was back. "Umm, maybe you guys had better come out," Rath said around a minute later. "It... it's not clear, but the general feeling is that we'll have to carry on on foot from here - at least, most of us will be on foot, Max. We might be able to..."

"Oh, come on, I'm not completely helpless," Max said, and he sat up and limped out the door. "Don't look at me like that, Liz," he said. "It's partly just because I haven't been on my feet for so long."

"I... I was looking at you more because I'm fond of you than because I'm worried about you," she said, and Max smiled slightly, and put an arm around her shoulders to help support him while his legs woke up. He was pretty sure that he'd be able to keep pace after a few minutes of getting used to walking again.

He wasn't quite prepared for the sight that greeted him. The motor home had managed to get well wedged between two trees that were both very close to the edges of the trail. "Hey, Max," Michael said. "We... we could probably get it free by cutting the trees down with our powers, or even just sawing pieces out of the trunks where they're touching the chassis, but it doesn't really seem worth the effort."

"The trail just gets narrower up ahead?" Max guessed. "Lots more tight scrapes??"

"Well, the car trail hangs a left," Ava put in. "Turns west. Now, since our directions were to go eight miles north, I have to say that I think that means that we shouldn't continue along a trail that's going at least a mile and a half in a direction that's not north in the slightest."

"Is there a way to go straight north?" Liz asked. "A footpath or something?"

"Yeah," Michael agreed. "Not sure how far that goes, but it seems promising. We've gone a little over seven miles from the town I think - it's not that much further on foot."

"It's do-able, I guess," Max agreed. One mile on foot through a narrow path would take them much longer than seven miles in their vehicles, on the trail - but that was the way it went. "Okay, let's round up and get going. Leave both the vehicles."

"What... what about our stuff?" Maria asked. "I... I know we won't need the snacks or the computer gear, but - I've got some sentimental items that I want to...."

"Alright, get'em quickly," Michael insisted. "No more than you can carry easily. We can't let sentiment slow us down here." Maria headed back into the motor home.

Max turned to Liz. "Is... is there anything you need to..."

"No," she said quickly. "I... I've got you, and as much as you protest, I suspect I'm going to have my hands full making sure that you get where we're going. I... I don't really need anything else, and that's the truth." Max smiled. "What about you?" she asked.

"No, I won't worry about taking anything," he said. "I also suspect I'll have enough trouble carrying myself." Liz chuckled.

"You guys can carry the orbs," Michael suggested, chucking the small fist-sized alien artifacts at them. "Shouldn't slow you down much, and I suspect that they might be of interest to those who are paying our fare. Couldn't really hurt." Max smiled and jammed one of the orbs into his pants pockets - a bit of a tight fit, but that was better than carrying it and not having his hands free. Soon everyone was ready, and they headed off to the small, uneven path that had been found continuing north by northeastish. After only a few minutes progress, Max could hear somebody heading the other way, approaching them. "Halt!" Michael called out. "Who goes there??"

"Well met on this quite impressive journey of yours," a semi-familiar voice answered. "It's Christin. Thought you might have a bit of trouble with this part."

Liz rushed forward, nearly dragging Max along behind her. "Christin - Max is hurt," she said. "His leg... took a particle blast, and he wasn't able to heal himself fully. "Can - can you help?" Right around the end there, Liz pulled ahead of Michael and Lonnie, who'd been leading the way, and they both caught sight of Christin - the old version. It seemed very odd to Max that she would take this shape for wandering around in the woods instead of the younger, cute and healthy version, but oh well. (As far as that went, old Christin was probably just as fit as any of them, or more so, and as agile and as good endurance and so on - she just didn't look particularly like it.) Somehow, it seemed to help when she took hold of Max's hand and looked into his eyes - it was easier to remember that this was a medical event. With the pretty redhead, Max would have been hard-pressed to shake the notion that Christin was trying to hit on him.

He hadn't thought of the fact that Christin had healing powers in connection with himself until Liz asked for her help. Of course, she had healed Jenni, so he probably should have put it together. A sudden rush of imagery flashed through his mind... nothing he could immediately make sense of - arguments with other people, maybe shapeshifters and maybe humans. Running through an old-fashioned slum district late at night - had the Special Unit been after her then? And examining some odd-looking cells through a powerful microscope.

Then the connection was over, and his leg was almost entirely better. Max blinked in bemusement - he'd never been on the receiving end of a healing in that way - mostly because he'd never known of another alien who had healing powers. Maybe Zan had... but nobody had ever really mentioned them in connection with him. (He'd have to ask Ava about that.) "Th- thanks, Christin."

"Not a problem. Now MOVE YOUR ASS, your majesty!" Christin replied, obviously taking some considerable pleasure in being able to say such a thing, just once. Most of the group had drawn near, and Michael and Rath had already passed the three of them (Liz, Max, Christin,) and led the way as the entire group hurried as quickly as possible. "It's about three quarters of a mile from here to where the ship was landed, and some pretty rough going. Hopefully Kivar's people will have some problems following us too - but they're skins, and none of you can match their pace, even if they haven't figured out some kind of conveyance capable of following is through here."

"Oh, great," Isabel said.

"Christin," Maria suddenly blurted out. "My mom - Kyle's dad, and Michael's sister. They... they followed us here this far, but - but I don't think any of them are really comfortable with jumping into a spaceship and going to some other planet. Is... is there any way that they can be kept safe here on Earth? Will Kivar be eager to chase them if - if the rest of us get away safe?"

"Umm... wow," Christin muttered. "I - I'm really not sure about that one, to be honest. Might need to ask the others. All of this plan has been jerry-rigged at the last moment, especially when Larek couldn't get to Roswell in time to talk to you."

"Speaking of the spaceship and other planets," Max panted, noting that Christin was definitely keeping pace with all of them easily despite her apparent age. "What... what's the destination? And - and do you have room for all of us in any event, if there isn't any other safe way?"

"Oh, shit, I hadn't thought about the space," Christin said. "How many of you ARE there, anyway?"

"Thirteen," Laurie supplied helpfully."

"Okay, then, yeah, three people staying behind here on Earth would definitely help. We could probably handle more, but it'll mean overloading the sleeping chambers, putting three into quarters meant for two, over a long journey - and that's bad. It's easy enough to get cabin fever on a trip like this one even when you aren't crammed in there like Sardines." Christin shook her head. "And to answer your other question, Max - the intended destination is -- is the planet of Sanctuary, where you'll be able to see Queen Alinda and Tess. Of course, if you have other preferences, they'll be considered, but..."

"No, that sounds fine, to me at least," Max agreed, and then groaned as a stitch popped out in his side. He forced himself to keep lurching forward slightly, breathing heavily to try and get more oxygen into his bloodstream. "What... what's that sound??"

"I... I don't hear anything," Liz said. But Christin dropped back slightly to keep pace with them, and she was cocking her head to one side slightly.

"Damn it all."

Max and Liz both turned to Christin, who blazed with light suddenly and was back to her young appearance for some reason. "Okay, somebody from Kivar's team is going to be here any minute, maybe more than one," Christin announced loud enough to be heard further away than just the three of them. "There's no way to outrun them - they're coming by air."

"By... by air?" Max muttered. "Where would they get an air vehicle from?"

"From whatever car they were driving," Christin replied. Max stared. "It's... it's a known earth survival technique - taking a post-1980s automatic transmission and using it to make an air vehicle with a Startanian power conversion engine." She sighed. "Somebody Kivar took with him MUST have learned it." She looked around. "Stick tight, cover the people who don't have firepower of their own." She lowered her voice to talk to Max and Liz. "I... I'm going to need your help for my offense."

"Why... why Liz?" Max blurted out. "She... whatever powers she has, she can hardly even use them yet."

"No, she's ready," Christin insisted. "She's ready to become who she was always going to be. Healing her was just a detail." She turned to Liz. "I... I thought it might help - so I got a few of my friends to pay a visit to the Crashdown one September day."

Liz's mouth dropped open. "You... you arranged for my shooting - because you *wanted* Max to save my life?? You... you turned our lives into hell for a year, if not more! How did that *help*??"

"Incoming," Christin replied, so matter-of-factly that Liz didn't realize the point for a moment. Then she realized that something was zooming over the trees behind of them, and a single power blast rocketed down through the path, landing well clear of any of them.

"It... that doesn't seem like a terribly effective way to launch an attack in this situation," Max decided. "If we get into the underbrush, they'll hardly even be able to see us. And they can't shoot directly underneath, from what I can tell of the design of that thing."

"Yeah," Kristin put in. "But we don't want them to set fire to the forest, because they can't find us - or fly around far enough to spot the ship." She sighed. "And if they can't see us, we can't see them." By this time, most of the rest of the party had taken cover well away from the path. "Now that they think they've got us, they'll probably loop around and do another pass, to the side of the path, so that they can shoot over the side of the vehicle down among us." And Christin smiled fiercely. "Everybody picks a body and SHOVES. Actually, no, we've gotta pick now. I'll take the guy in the lead, the pilot - Max, you do the rearmost, and Liz, you take someone in the middle if there is one. Got it?"

"N-no," Liz insisted. "Why... why do you think that I'll be able to do th..." She trailed off, a look of wonder on her face. "Oh my god... I get it now."

"Then look alive?" Christin insisted. Sure enough, the plane was coming back for its pass, the aliens aboard it shooting horrible energy weapons down all around them. "Three, two, one, GO!!"

Max reached out with his mental energies and PUSHED, and three humanoid bodies fell out of the air vehicle, which suddenly dived without anyone at the controls. Christin rushed back down the path towards where it was going to hit, while Max headed for where the Skins would land. Lonnie, Mrs Deluca, and Jim Valenti were near there, as it happened, and in front of Max's eyes, one Skin landed the wrong way on the small of his back and disintegrated immediately. Lonnie picked up a tree branch and instantly killed the second. Max just had time to scream out as Valenti took aim for a swift kick at the third. Jim's aim didn't waver from the interruption, though. "Oh, my god."

"It's... it's the way it had to be," Liz assured him. "They... they wouldn't have surrendered if you'd offerend mercy. With their powers, they were living weapons - one of them could probably have killed Valenti in a few seconds. He - he had too..." Max knew that Liz was right, but somehow that didn't make it easier.

"Anyone who doesn't want to get on the spaceship, get over here!" Christin called. Curious, Max and Liz followed along with Jim, Amy, and Laurie, as everyone else headed further up the trail. It turned out that Christin had salvaged the air vehicle in operating condition. "Any of you have experience piloting?"

"Um, a little, but just propeller planes," Jim insisted.

"This is easier," Christin assured him, and quickly went over the controls for turning, increasing or decreasing airspeed, climbing or dropping. "If you head west, it should take you nearly to Waterton, on the edge of Lake Ontario," she suggested. "From there, you can get a rental car. Have you all got good passports?" They nodded. "Then go north from Waterton, I'd suggest, across the Canadian border, to Ottawa. You can catch a plane back into the states from there. Good luck."

Max turned to Jim and Laurie, his head whirling. "Are... are you guys sure about this?"

"It - it seems to be our best chance," Jim said, hugging him briefly. "Good luck, Max. It's been incredible getting to know you."

"Give all my love to Maria, Liz," Amy insisted, hugging Liz.

"And tell Michael that he damn well better come back to visit," Laurie added, and all of them laughed. Max and Liz insisted on staying and watching until the plane had taken off safely and was out of view. Then Christin made them keep running.

"Liz - what - what did you mean when you said you got it?" Max panted. He knew that they should save their breath for running, but somehow he - he had to know this, he couldn't afford to wait.

"What... what Christin had been trying to tell me back in Pittsburgh," Liz said. "It... it was too much to take in all at once like that, which is why I got the amnesia. Christin - there was... there was some kind of power struggle over the Roswell hybrid pods, there at Maideckezne rocks, wasn't there??"

"Yeah," Christin agreed. "Keep going. I - I want to see how well you've worked it out."

"Okay. Let's see... somebody wanted to... to abort Isabel, or to flush Vilandra's soul out of her and let her develop as a clean slate. Because... because Vilandra had betrayed the Royals, and they didn't think that she deserved another shot." Liz sighed. "Somebody else... was fiercely devoted to Vilandra, and wanted to make sure that she lived again. I... I'm not quite sure how it happened, but - but things ended up with Vilandra's soul inside Tess' pod - Ava's soul... without a permanent home, and Isabel's body without a soul. Umm... Christin, a little help here?"

Christin helped her up the steep incline, and also, Max wasn't sure if this was what Liz had meant, but helped her tell the story on. "Yeah. That was where things stood when I got to New Mexico. Because Isabel's body had already been through trauma having the Vilandra soul extracted, and we couldn't complete the switch and insert Ava's traumatized soul. It would have been too much, Isabel would have aborted. But Isabel wasn't going to develop properly without a soul - there are all kinds of neurological implications of the soul implantation technique."

"So... so they needed the soul of someone else who died to put into Isabel," Liz added. "Someone who was very closely related to Vilandra, ideally, to help the soul take a firm root in her DNA..."

"Princess Arynda," Max filled in. Christin nodded. "So Isabel's my little sister... and TESS was Vilandra? She's my sister too, in terms of her soul, and when... when we..."

"Don't worry too much about that part, Max," Liz put in. "I mean... the baby, he'll have the DNA that really was queen Ava's. He'll be okay."

"Still, that doesn't help with the emotional squick factor," Max put in.

"I'd say 'serves you right', except I'm not sure you ever had much choice about sleeping with Tess," Liz put in. "How about 'life sucks sometimes'?? But anyway - the Ava situation was different, right? You had her soul - but you couldn't make a new hybrid clone body for her." Christin uh-huhed. "And... and as weird as this sounds - you were able to divide the soul in half, and implant it deeply into - into two young women who lived in the Roswell area in the fifties."

"Two... two women?" Max asked. "Liz... your - your grandmothers?"

Liz looked to Christin for one final confirmation, and she nodded. "Yeah, looks like it. I - I can hardly believe it myself, but that's what happened. They passed their soul fragments onto their first children, when they had them... a boy and a girl, who grew up into a man and a woman - who fell in love when they first met each other, because those buried half souls recognized that they could become one whole." Liz blushed slightly, looking as if she was trying not to get a swelled head from that. "And... and they did, when I was born." She chuckled. "I... I was born to be your bride, Max, and neither of us ever knew it until now."

"So... so you've got an alien soul?" Max asked. "Ava's soul, the original Queen Ava. But... but you were human - until Christin arranged to have me save your life, and start spreading alien DNA into your system."

"I... I'm really sorry about how the shooting attracted the Special Unit's attention, by the way," Christin added. "I hadn't really... well, I, umm..." She paused. "There it is!"

Sure enough, there was a clearing ahead, and in the clearing, a large and definitely alien looking... Max would have thought it was a kind of building instead of a space vessel if he hadn't known better, but he could definitely believe that it would move. There was a port, and Kyle and Lonnie were just going inside. "They're using airlock protocols," Christin mentioned. "There are pure Antarians on board, who can't breathe earth air with all the pollutants in it, even here. So they run off the l..."

And just then, there was the sound of a tree toppling behind them. The three of them ran towards the ship as quickly as they could. When they were almost there, Max heard a roar, and he turned around to face back. He caught a glimpse of a tall, handsome and intelligent looking dark haired man, pointing his hand at Liz. Max generated the shield just an instant before the white laser beam bounced off it, carrying enough energy to stagger him. Then Liz was pulling him into the airlock. "Deflectors on!" Christin shouted at a spot on the airlock wall, and just before the door closed Max saw a field of glittering blue sparked emerge a few inches beyond it. "That... that should hold him off until we've climbed out of range," she managed to breathe.

"How... how long before we can go in?" Liz asked. Already there was a rumbling, and Max wondered if the ship was beginning to climb into the air so soon.

"Maybe a minute and a half."

"Well, I can't wait," Max decided, turning to Liz. Her eyes widened slightly. "Didn't picture having a witness like Christin for this, and I certainly never expected what we found out tonight. But..." Max pulled out something from his pocket, and Liz let out a squeak.

"I... I had a chance to duck into a pawn shop while we were off on that gas run, and I remembered what Isabel said about Antarian customs." He opened up the jewelry box, took out a necklace with a golden heart pendant, and held it out towards her. "I... I love you and I want us to be together, to be husband and wife, no matter where we spend our lives. Say you'll marry me."

Liz giggled. "It'll probably end up being this incredibly huge State wedding that neither of us can control, and we'll be more than glad for it just to be over," she said. "Would've been much simpler to elope to Las Vegas when we had the chance."

Max smiled. "Even so."

"Oh, come on. Of course I'll marry you, what, did you really think I'd say anything else?" she teased him. Liz turned her back, sweeping her hair out of the way, and let Max put the two ends of the chain together, then adjusted the pendant to make sure that it fell over her heart as per tradition.

When they finally got through the inner airlock door, Liz blurted out the news to Maria and Ava, and quickly happy chaos was reigning through the ship.

-----------

EPILOG:

"Come on, Jim," Philip Evans said, trying to restrain himself from sounding like he was cross-examining a hostile witness. (Especially since he DIDN'T to trial work, so it would send entirely the wrong impression.) "We... we just want to know what happened. We won't blame you for anything, and we won't spread around any secrets. It's just..." His voice dropped, and he took his wife's hand. "All of our kids are gone, and we just want some kind of closure."

"We're... we're not asking for everything to be explained at a stroke," Nancy Parker put in. "I... I realize that that might be more than you'd want to get into at this point. But... you've admitted that you left town with... with the whole gang."

"...not asking you to tell the whole story about that Tess girl, who was inseperable from Max for - for nearly a month, and who was living with you because her father had disappeared, or that's what people said," Diane Evans was apparently stuck on contiuing her husband's line of thought. Maybe it was a speech that they had worked out together. "And then she disappeared, supposedly gone back east, but I *know* I saw her back in town just a few days before everybody left - saw her with Michael. I'm not asking you to say if Max and Isabel really had anything to do with why you lost your job, or what you know about all the other times they disappeared for a few days, or left town, or..."

"It - I think it comes down to a few very simple questions, at this point," John Whitman said in his quiet voice, and everybody else - including his wife, Liz's father, and Amy DeLuca turned to him. "Where were the kids when you last saw them. What did they tell you about their immediate plans?"

"Well..." Jim sighed, looked over at Maria's mother. She nodded slightly. "We were... were all in the Adirondack state park in New York, several miles north of a place called Childwold. And they... they said that they were going to go into an alien spaceship, that had landed there in the woods, and go with the aliens when they left the planet."

"C-come on, Jim," Jeff scoffed. "I... I can understand your desire to keep their confidence, but don't - don't insult our..."

"THAT IS THE TRUTH!" Jim insisted fiercely, his eyes blazing at Jeff Parker. "Don't... don't tell me that you're insulted at it, Mister Crashdown. There... there are more things in... on earth and in the heavens, than are *dreamt* of in the minds of - of just about anybody. Think about that. Think about it when the tourists come into your restaurant tonight. Sure... nobody really believes in it now - but there is a kernel of truth behind every rumour."

"Amy, come on," Gloria Whitman insisted. "You can't seriously tell me that..."

"Jim - Jim is getting to sound a little bit like a nutjob, I admit," Mrs Deluca said affectionately, "but I... I saw the spaceship, Gloria." She sighed. "Just... just a glimpse... as we were flying out of the woods in a... in a flying device that was itself rather unearthly." She stood up. "We've... we've told you what you wanted to know, and I think that it's better to let you chew on that much now rather than elaborate any further. Come on, Jim." He rose, put his hand in Amy's, and she patted. "Dinner at my place tonight, I think. Helps to make it seem a little less empty, now that Maria's gone."

And they left the Evans living room and headed out to the Jetta parked in the driveway.

THE END... for now