Roswell Fanatics

Dee is really suspicious of Tess......and I'm glad. Someone needs to be!
Thanks,
Carolyn

^^^^ I've always wanted to see a Dee/Tess face-off. No doubt in my mind who would win that one.










CHAPTER FORTY-THREE





October 30, 2000, 3:30 p.m.

Evans residence








Over the years, Dee had gotten very good at lying, so good, in fact, that the speed and ease with which she fabricated and concealed could be unsettling. Anthony was fond of teasing that she really should hit Vegas and apply her skills to poker. He was assuming that Vegas would be the ultimate test, but it turned out the ultimate test was here, in her son's living room, with the Queen of Antar inches away and watching her closely. She'd been made, but not by the FBI, or Philip, or even her own grandchildren. Jaddo's charge wasn't just up to something, she was on to something. Too bad Jaddo wasn't alive. He would be so proud.

"I'm sorry," Dee said slowly, "but what did you say?"

"You know they're not human," Tess insisted. "You know they're aliens."

"Aliens," Dee repeated. "As in…'alien' aliens?"

"Don't bother denying it," Tess ordered. "I know."

"Is that so? And what exactly is it that you think you 'know'?"

"I know you were here the night Nasedo died," Tess said.

"Am I supposed to know who that is?" Dee said. "And to which night are you referring? I'm here lots of nights. I'm Philip's mother."

Tess eyed her in silence for a moment before sitting back in consternation, displeased by the lack of reaction. "I was hoping I could keep this between us, but I could just go to their mom. She already kind of knows. Isabel was talking about a fire Max put out with his powers, and their mom thinks he's 'special', or something."

Why, you little brat, Dee thought darkly, although she couldn't quite blame Tess completely; this had Jaddo written all over it, with confrontation followed by threats. "So," she said slowly, "if I understand you correctly, and this conversation is so very odd that it's quite possible I do not, you're insinuating that my grandchildren are not human and threatening to inform their mother. Is that a fair assessment? Because if it is, I should warn you that telling a woman who lives in Roswell, of all places, that her children are aliens is downright daft. You'd do better with the 'special' angle. Although I can't for the life of me figure out what you hope to gain with this extraordinary tale, or what any of this has to do with photo albums."

"You're good," Tess admitted. "Really good. But then, if you've been doing this for a while, you would be. Lying takes practice. I should know."

Dee arched an eyebrow. "Are you an accomplished liar, my dear?"

Footsteps sounded on the stairs; Diane was returning with the promised photos. "Admit you know, or I'll tell her," Tess warned. "Max and Isabel don't want her to know, and you must not either because you've helped to keep her in the dark all these years."

"Almost there," Diane called from the kitchen. "I couldn't carry them all at once, so I need one more trip."

Footsteps clattered back down the stairs as Dee resisted the urge to throttle Jaddo's charge. Unfortunately, the threat was real; Diane had enough suspicions about Max that she just might pursue even a laughable announcement that he was an alien. Pursuing Max would lead her to Isabel, and pursuit of either would awaken Philip's curiosity, at which point the cat would be out of the bag, or near enough. They faced off in silence, with Dee calculating the risks of various responses behind a mask of puzzled bafflement.

The kitchen door slammed. "I'm home!" Isabel's voice called.

Rummaging sounds came from the kitchen, the refrigerator opening, liquid pouring. "I gather you didn't expect her home so soon," Dee murmured as Tess stared at the kitchen in dismay.

"It doesn't change the fact that I know you know," Tess insisted.

"So certain, are you?" Dee said, leaning in closer. "Let me tell you something I'm certain of. Isabel and her mother are close. Very close. How do you think she'll respond if she learns you just threatened her mother?"

"I didn't threaten her," Tess protested. "I threatened to tell her. Big difference."

"Not to Isabel. Or so I'm guessing." Dee paused. "Shall we see if I'm right?"

Dee waited as a look of horror spread across Tess's face, the full extent of her peril becoming clear. Isabel was Tess's one friend among the hybrids; losing her would be devastating. If Isabel learned what had just happened here, the consequences would be severe.

Isabel appeared in the living room doorway a moment later. "Hey, Grandma...Tess?" she finished in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"I...forgot you had a meeting after school," Tess said awkwardly.

"It got canceled," Isabel sighed, flopping on the couch. "So what'd I miss?"

Tess threw a pleading look in Dee's direction, but Dee's mind was already made up. To say nothing would give this little upstart power over her. This had to end now; a lesson must be learned, assuming she was capable of learning, that is. Jaddo certainly never had.

"I'm not quite sure," Dee said as Tess's head shook slowly, desperately. "Tess and I have been having the strangest conversation. She seems to think that you and your brother are...aliens."

The silence that descended on the living room was suffocating, a fog of shock and fear which was almost palpable. Isabel's eyes flared and darted to Tess, who stared at the floor. "That's not all," Dee said regretfully as both girls looked at her in terror. "It seems that your friend believes I am aware of this…'fact', and am hiding my knowledge from you. Now," she went on as Isabel recoiled in horror and Tess tried unsuccessfully to shrink into the woodwork, "under the circumstances, I have to ask...are either of you doing drugs? Or drinking? I won't tell," she went on quickly, "not either of your parents. It's common to experiment at your age. I just want you both to think about what you're doing to yourselves, to examine the choices you're making very carefully. I won't say anything, but if someone else does, life could get very complicated very fast. I'm told schools have a zero tolerance policy for that sort of thing. We could be looking at suspension, even prosecution, with court-ordered counseling. I'm quite certain neither of you want that."

Diane appeared in the living room, arms laden with photo albums. "Hi, sweetheart! Tess asked to look at some pictures while she waited for you to come home."

"Did she, now?" Isabel said coldly.

"She did," Dee confirmed. "She specifically asked to see those from when you and Max were first adopted."

"But I don't have those here," Diane said quickly when she saw the look on Isabel's face. "Grandma and I thought we should ask you first before showing her something so personal."

"Thank you," Isabel said tightly. "Tess, I need to talk to you. In the kitchen. Now."

Isabel retreated, with Tess following, ashen-faced. "Oh, dear," Diane said, setting the albums on the coffee table. "What do you suppose that was all about?"

"Who knows?" Dee shrugged. "Kids and their spats. Unfathomable."






**********************************************************






Crashdown Cafe






"Dead?" Larak said in astonishment. "Vanessa is dead? How could she be dead that fast?"

" 'Fast'?" Courtney said in disbelief. "You've been gone for weeks! I've been checking and checking, and this is the first I've seen of you!"

The cafe was starting to fill up with teenagers fresh from school, the resulting noise making it unnecessary to even bother speaking quietly as Courtney and Larak faced off across the counter. Rath's charge sat several stools down, eagerly tucking into his banana split, unaware that two aliens were having a political debate only feet away from him. "But it doesn't make sense that Brivari would execute her before hearing what I had to say," Larak protested. "You told him I'd taken the terms back to Kerona, didn't you?"

"I did nothing of the sort," Courtney answered. "Brivari was in no mood to hear about treaties when he got back, especially after Vanessa kidnapped the Queen."

Larak stared at her, stunned. "She did what?"

Rath reappeared from the back. "Couldn't find Maria," he said to Courtney, "but she's on the schedule."

"School's out," Courtney noted. "She should be here soon."

"Can we get some lunch over here?" Rath asked, taking a seat beside his banana split-scarfing friend.

"Do not leave without an explanation," Larak warned.

"I have to take some orders," Courtney said. "You came all this way, you can wait a few more minutes."

"A few more minutes" turned into twenty minutes; by the time she'd taken several orders, the first were showing up. She'd just delivered lunch to Rath and his friend when she felt a familiar wave of hostility behind her.

"Who's that?" Maria asked eyeing Rath's companion suspiciously as she tied her apron.

"No idea," Courtney answered.

"You just brought him lunch," Maria noted.

"For which you don't need to produce ID," Courtney said. "Interrogating customers is your schtick."

"Is that for him? I'll take it," Maria announced, helping herself to the ketchup bottle in Courtney's hand.

"I've got the counter today," Courtney said.

"Not that seat, you don't," Maria replied.

Shrugging, Courtney returned to Larak with a sandwich which he promptly pushed away. "I didn't come here for food. I came here—"

"I know why you came here," Courtney interrupted. "You'll look weird if you don't eat, and I'll look even more weird if I'm talking to someone who isn't eating. Down the hatch."

"I'm not familiar with that human expression," Larak said testily.

"Eat," Courtney translated. "Your host likes this sandwich."

"Doesn't mean I do," Larak grumbled.

"No food, no story," Courtney said firmly.

Why is it that I'm always battling Warders, Kings, and Premieres? Courtney thought as Larak reluctantly picked up her offering. Was this what it was like to work with young children, constantly fighting to get them to do what they couldn't see was best for them? No wonder she'd never cottoned to day care centers or motherhood. Too damn much work.

"There, I took a bite," Larak said.

"Keep biting," Courtney instructed. "It's your cover, remember? Human eating at diner? And if that doesn't work, remember the no food, no story bit? Good," she continued when Larak resumed eating, albeit with a glare. "Vanessa panicked when Brivari got back to town after executing the operative that killed Jaddo. I warned her he was coming, told her to get out of town, but she decided she needed 'leverage'."

"And the queen was that leverage?" Larak said. "I'm surprised it wasn't the princess."

"She was going for the princess, but she didn't know which female hybrid was which," Courtney said. "Turns out she grabbed the queen, and held her for ransom. She claimed all she wanted was a sit down with Brivari so he could hear the terms of the treaty."

"But she'd threatened his Ward's wife, so of course he executed her," Larak said.

"I'm sure he would have, but Vilandra beat him to it."

Larak gaped at her. "Vilandra? Vilandra executed Vanessa?"

"I don't think she meant to," Courtney said. "Ava managed to call Vilandra to her, and—"

" 'Call her'?" Larak interrupted. "What do you mean?"

"I'm not sure," Courtney admitted. "But Ava was able to connect with Vilandra over a distance of several miles and give her enough information that they were able to find her. I think Vilandra was just trying to protect the two of them, not actually kill her, but it kind of doesn't matter; if she hadn't, Brivari would have done it anyway."

Larak was quiet for a moment. "I'm not sure which is more disturbing," he said finally, "the notion that the princess would execute someone without meaning to or the fact that they can form a connection over that distance."

"They're definitely powerful," Courtney said. "Brivari thinks they're more powerful than he is, but he's not in a big hurry to tell them that."

"Of course not," Larak said. "They will need to learn to use their new strength in responsible ways. We can't have them accidentally executing courtiers. Just as well everything was delayed."

"Delayed?" Courtney said hopefully. "Does that mean what I think it means?"

"Hey, sweet cheeks!" Rath's friend called. "Gimme another banana split, would you?"

"You gonna talk all day, or you gonna work?" Maria said behind her. "You've got the counter."

"Except that seat," Courtney reminded her. "You wanted it, remember?"

"Well, now I don't," Maria informed her.

"You not only wanted it, you demanded it," Courtney said. "So yours it is! Besides, none of my cheeks are sweet, top or bottom."

"Maria?" Rath said impatiently. "Hurry up! My friend is hungry."

"See, he wants you," Courtney said. "Doesn't that make you happy?"

Maria dug into the ice cream savagely while Courtney returned to Larak. "Gracious," he murmured. "What was that all about?"

"Female sniping," Courtney said, declining to point out that Zan's Second sat only a few seats away from him. "It exists everywhere. So did the treaty fly or not?"

"It did," Larak answered. "The basic terms were accepted by the five planets, with the royalists on Antar pledging their support."

"So what's the 'but'?" Courtney said. "Because I know there is one."

" 'But'...everyone is at odds over what to do until the Royal Four reach adulthood," Larak continued. "No one wants to just leave Khivar there, but we don't have a good alternative. Ousting him and installing a temporary government, only to have that change a short while later could do more harm than good."

"Better the devil you know," Courtney remarked.

"Sorry?"

"A human expression," Courtney said. "Sometimes it's better to stay with the 'devil you know'."

"I'm not so sure about that in this case," Larak said. "I came back here hoping to have Vanessa sell it to the Argilians. Without Vanessa, you're the ranking Argilian who supports the treaty. It will now fall to you to bring your race on board."

"Shit," Courtney muttered.

Larak looked down at his nibbled sandwich. "If my host likes this, perhaps you should pack this up for him. I'm afraid he has an upset stomach at the moment."

"Him and me both," Courtney sighed.

"Then it looks like we'll both be feeling poorly when we deliver the news to Brivari."

Courtney blinked. " 'We'?"







**********************************************************






Evans residence






Tess's heart was pounding as she followed an obviously furious Isabel into the kitchen. Talk about a left turn. Never had anything gone so badly for her so quickly, but then again, never had she taken on an opponent of such power and experience. If she didn't fix this fast, this just might go down in history as the single stupidest thing she'd ever done, including Chemistry class.

It certainly hadn't started that way. This had begun as nothing more than a reconnaissance mission, a way to gather information. Isabel had been reluctant to believe her grandmother knew more than she let on, while Tess thought otherwise; determined to prove her point, she'd chosen to launch her own investigation beginning with when Max and Isabel had come out of their pods. Isabel's memories of her earliest days were sketchy, and she was reluctant to talk about it as it wasn't her favorite subject, unsurprising given that it emphasized her otherness, something she wasn't comfortable with. Tess had decided the best place to start would be Diane Evans, always a sucker for stories and photos of her children, and she'd picked this afternoon because Isabel was supposed to be attending a meeting for some dance or other after school. She should have had an hour at least to pore over photos, but of course Isabel's grandmother had been here, and of course she'd steered Diane away from giving her what she wanted. And then...and then…

And then what? Tess thought despairingly. Any photos might have been helpful, and she might have been able to soften up Diane into producing the ones she wanted. But she hadn't thought that far ahead, instead bristling at the grandmother's intervention and confronting her head on. She'd expected at least a flicker of surprise when she'd announced Max and Isabel weren't human, at least a glimmer of recognition when she'd said Nasedo's name, but...nothing. Frustrated, she'd pressed harder, threatening to tell Diane, who pretty clearly didn't know her own children weren't human, but even that hadn't provoked the expected reaction from the Ice Queen. This lady was good. No, this lady was scary good because not only had she not batted an eyelash as her grandchildren's biggest secret was uttered aloud in their living room, she'd somehow managed to turn that around and use it as a battering ram, admitting the conversation to Isabel and adding another threat as well—if anyone even intimated she was using drugs, the school would indeed respond, and with Nasedo gone and her living basically illegally with the sheriff, that could get very messy indeed. What a masterful performance. If she weren't in such deep shit, she'd give her a standing ovation.

But she was in deep shit, and that came first. The kitchen door had barely closed behind her when Isabel rounded on her, both hands to her head as though she feared it would explode. "What did you do?" Isabel demanded. "What on earth were you thinking? What could you possibly—"

"Isabel, calm down," Tess said. "It's not—"

"Calm down?" Isabel repeated, her voice high-pitched and breathy like she'd just run a marathon. "Calm down? You just told my grandmother we're aliens! This is the one place where I feel safe, the one place I don't feel exposed, or hunted, or in danger, and you just ruined that!"

"No," Tess said soothingly. "This is still a safe place. This isn't what it looks like. It's not as bad as you think."

"Oh, no?" Isabel said, sounding downright hysterical. "Then what do you think it looks like, Tess? Because to me it looks like exactly what it is, and it's just as bad as it looks! So please, tell me why this isn't what it looks like, because I'm just not seeing it."

Isabel stopped, dropping—no, collapsing—into a chair, nearly in tears. Tess watched her miserably, the kitchen counter pressing into her back as soft voices floated in from the living room. This was her fault. She'd gotten irritated when the grandmother had stopped her, and gone all in, and then she'd made things worse by threatening to tell Diane. She held that back, Tess realized, noting that Grandma had not told Isabel that her mother had ever come up in their conversation. Well, of course not; good ol' Grandma would want something to ensure her silence in the future.

"Okay," Tess said, deciding to go all in again. "I think your Grandmother knows about you and Max, and I wanted to prove that to you."

"We talked about this!" Isabel exclaimed. "I told you she didn't! I told you about the fire, and Max being 'special', and—"

"I know," Tess said quickly. "I just don't think that explains the number of times she's right where she needs to be and seems to know exactly what you need."

"You've never had a grandmother," Isabel said bitterly. "That's what grandmothers do."

"So I decided to a little investigating," Tess went on. "I came over to—"

" 'Investigating'?" Isabel said in disbelief. "You call telling her I'm an alien 'investigating'?"

"I didn't mean to," Tess insisted. "I just wanted to look at pictures from when you were little to see if there was anything to learn from them. But then your grandmother stopped your mother from showing them to me, and I got...annoyed."

"So of course you blurted out my biggest secret," Isabel said miserably.

"I was trying to get a reaction out of her," Tess admitted. "I even said Nasedo's name just to see what she'd do."

Isabel's eyes snapped up. "What? What did she do?"

"Nothing," Tess answered. "She didn't react."

"Not even a little bit?" Isabel said.

Tess shook her head. "Not even a little."

Isabel visibly deflated. "Oh."

Tess studied her for a moment. "You want her to know, don't you?"

Isabel blinked. "What? No! It's not safe for her to know. It's better if she doesn't."

"But what if she already knows?" Tess said. "Because I think she does, so it's already 'not safe'. Don't you see?" she went on desperately. "I did this for you! Just think of how wonderful it would be for you to be able to talk to your grandmother, really talk to her. Just think of what it would be like to have someone like that on your side! Nasedo was a pain, but he was on our side. I know what it feels like to have that, and I know what it feels like to lose it. I wanted you to have that, us to have that. That's why I did it."

Isabel stared at her seemingly without comprehension as Tess stopped, waiting for an answer. When it came, it wasn't what she expected.

"I get it," Isabel said, sounding much calmer now. "I do. You had someone watching over you, and now you don't, so of course you want that back, and somehow you nominated my grandmother for the job. And I don't blame you, because she'd be great at it. But here's the thing, Tess—she's not Nasedo. I know it hurt to lose him, and I'm really sorry you did, but my grandmother can't take his place. She doesn't know, and as much as I'd love for her to know, I don't want her to because that would put her in danger. I'm not that selfish." Her eyes dropped. "At least not yet."

Tess stared at her, resisting the urge to gape. She'd wanted absolution, but she'd never expected it to come this way. "So," Isabel said briskly, "here's what we're going to do. You're going to go in there and tell Grandma that you were just pulling her leg, and then we're both going to forget this ever happened. And—

Isabel stopped as Diane came into the kitchen. "Is...everything okay, girls?" she asked warily.

"Yeah!" Isabel said brightly. "We just had to...talk...about a few things. But we're good now," she went on quickly. "It's all good."

"Glad to hear it," Diane said. "I left the photo albums on the coffee table for you."

"Thank you, Mrs. Evans," Tess said.

Diane disappeared into the back of the house. "Let's go now," Isabel whispered. "I don't want my Mom to hear any of this."

Tess followed Isabel into the living room, mentally noting there was no way in hell that grandma would ever believe she'd just been "pulling her leg". Said grandma was leafing through one of the photo albums, and she looked up when they entered the living room.

"I'd forgotten how cute you were when you were little," she commented.

"So I'm not cute now?" Isabel teased.

"Not even remotely," Grandma said. "Now you're drop dead gorgeous. So," she continued, closing the album, "where are we, ladies? Are the two of you all right?"

"Yes," Isabel said quickly. "We're not doing drugs, or anything like that. Tess was just trying to make a joke, and she'd like to apologize for upsetting you. She—"

"Why don't you let Tess speak for herself?" Grandma broke in. "I'm guessing she's perfectly capable of that."

Two pairs of eyes swung toward Tess. "I'm sorry," Tess said promptly. "What I said...didn't come out the way I intended."

Isabel stiffened at this very true statement, but Grandma didn't flinch. "I imagine it didn't," she agreed.

"Tess just lost someone really close to her," Isabel added. "He died a few weeks ago."

"Is that the person you mentioned to me?" Grandma asked. "The one you thought I knew had died? Well," she continued when Tess nodded, "I'm very sorry to hear that. It's hard to lose someone close to you. Makes you do and say all sorts of things you normally wouldn't."

"Exactly," Isabel said quickly, leaping on that explanation. "That's it exactly. So can we just drop this?"

"Of course," Grandma said briskly. "Especially since I doubt Max would appreciate having his species called into question in his own home."

Her tone was casual, but Tess nearly stopped breathing. Max. In all the hoopla, she hadn't given so much as a moment's thought as to how Max would react if he learned of her indiscretion, and it was clear from the look on Isabel's face that the same thing was dawning on her. If Max found out she'd outed him to his own grandmother, that would be worse than a whole year's worth of Chemistry class mindwarps. No explanation would suffice. He'd never speak to her again.

"Actually," Isabel said faintly, "instead of dropping it, can we just forget it ever happened?"

"Perhaps that would be best," Grandma agreed. "Unless I hear about it from you, you'll never hear about it from me."

"Thank you, Grandma," Isabel said in relief, giving her a hug.

"Don't you want the photo albums?" Grandma called as they started to flee.

Tess grabbed a couple with a brittle smile and followed Isabel out of the living room, but she didn't need them—she'd seen everything she needed to see, heard everything she needed to hear. The contract was clear—if she didn't bring this up again, Grandma wouldn't either. She still thought the woman knew the truth about them, but being "right" wasn't worth the loss of her husband. She would never, ever raise this subject again.





**********************************************************





Langton residence






The Scotch sloshed into the glass, leaving a puddle on the table's polished wood. Brivari downed it in one gulp, not caring about the puddle or the way the liquor burned his throat even though he couldn't taste it. This was reportedly an acquired taste even among humans; many didn't like it. He couldn't comment on its aesthetic properties, but he liked the way it softened the edges of existence and dropped a gauzy curtain over the mess which had become his life. He sank into a chair, his eyes closing, the familiar dull ache receding a bit. A few more of these, and it would fade into the background, at least until the alcohol wore off.

KnockKnock

Go away, Brivari thought, life already beginning to blur. Probably a traveling salesman, or some schoolchild selling cookies. Vacuum cleaners and Thin Mints wouldn't do much for him, more's the pity.

"Mr. Langton?" a voice called. "I brought you a casserole."

Brivari's eyes flew open. Dee. Well, of course it was Dee. Wasn't it always Dee? She'd been knocking on their door all the way back to when that door had been on a spaceship, and she'd just have to keep knocking because he wasn't in the mood. He sat silently through several more rounds of knocking and doorknob rattling before the voice, predictably, became irritated.

"I need to speak to you," Dee said firmly. "Something's happened, something you should know about."

Sitting in his dark living room with his empty glass of Scotch, Brivari winced, halfway between a chuckle and a sob. Something's happened. Hadn't something always? And from now on, it would be his phone that would ring, his responsibility to fix whatever mess their troublesome hybrids had stumbled into or caused themselves. It was all in his lap now.

"Open the door," Dee was saying insistently. "They need you."

Of course they do, Brivari thought as she continued her harangue. Don't they always? But for the first time since their ship had crashed, since that little girl had knocked on their door…

...he didn't care.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



I'll be back with Chapter 44 on Sunday, February 14.

Hello and thank you to everyone reading!








CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR




October 30, 2000, 4:30 p.m.

Langton Residence, Roswell






Stranded on Brivari's front porch holding a casserole dish in a wicker basket, Dee felt increasingly like an idiot. Located in one of the older sections of town, this was the house he'd lived in back in 1959 when he'd been a clapper loader for that awful movie, and the same house Courtney had lived in briefly that same year. He'd bought the place when the hybrids had first emerged thinking he'd be here more often to keep an eye on them, and he had been...at first. But as time had gone by with no mishaps or memories, he'd gradually spent more and more time in Los Angeles, returning only sporadically. It had only been in the last year that he'd spent measurable time at this place. They'd barely seen him these past few weeks, and she was guessing he was holed up here.

Or maybe not. She'd been knocking and calling with his current Roswell pseudonym for the past several minutes with no answer, but as he wasn't answering her messages, she wasn't satisfied with just walking away. Setting the casserole dish on his porch chair, she rummaged in her handbag. Other middle-aged women carried lipstick, Kleenex, and Tums; she carried lock picks, Mace, and a cellphone which could contact someone from another planet. If she was lucky, the resident nosy neighbor, because these neighborhoods always had a resident nosy neighbor, wouldn't suspect a woman of her age of doing exactly what she was doing. A couple of minutes later, she marched inside and stopped dead at the living room threshold.

"What the hell is this?" Dee demanded.

A shape in the easy chair shifted slightly in the gloom. "I believe it's referred to as a 'living room'. Or a 'parlor', although that would be the archaic form."

"Why didn't you answer the door?" Dee said. "Or at least open it. And why is it so dark in here?" She went to the window and threw the curtains open. Sunlight flooded the little room, drawing a wince of protest, and when she turned around, she saw why.

"So," she said slowly, taking in the slumped form, the half empty glass, and the more than half empty bottle. "This is what you've come to. Sitting in a dark room swilling Scotch and ignoring my phone calls, not to mention my presence."

"For all the good it did me," Brivari said. "Most people take a locked door as a 'no', but then you're not most people."

"You never gave me a key," Dee said.

"I obviously didn't need to," Brivari retorted. "Maybe I want to sit in a dark room swilling Scotch. Maybe I wasn't in the mood for company."

Dee pondered that for a moment. "No," she said finally. "That's not it. You could have sealed that door without moving a muscle, even parked on your ass and half sloshed as you are. You wanted me to come in."

"Now you're reaching," Brivari muttered.

"I told you something had happened," Dee noted. "Don't you even want to know what?"

"Why should I?" Brivari said. "Something's always 'happening', and whatever it is can't be serious or you'd be ringing my phone off the hook, not banging on my door brandishing a 'casserole', whatever the hell that is."

"I wasn't 'banging', I was 'knocking'," Dee protested.

"And yelling," Brivari added.

"Calling," Dee corrected.

"So you broke into my house to argue semantics?"

"Tess figured me out," Dee announced.

Brivari's head swung around. "Say again?"

Gotcha, Dee thought, secretly grateful she had a decent sized bomb to drop. "I said, Tess figured me out."

"Figured out what?" Brivari said. "That you're skilled at breaking and entering?"

"She told me Max and Isabel were aliens, and that she thought I knew that," Dee replied. "She claims I'm 'always there', including the night 'Nasedo' died. She actually said that name out loud in Philip's living room. And she threatened to tell Diane her children aren't human if I didn't 'fess up."

"Finally," Brivari said with a snort of disgust. "Jesus, I thought they'd never figure it out."

Dee blinked. "Say again?"

"But 'they' didn't figure it out, did they?" Brivari went on. "She figured it out. At least one of them has working brain cells."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dee demanded.

"It means that it should have been Zan and Vilandra saying this to you ages ago," Brivari retorted. "You're their grandmother—why haven't they noticed you lurking and eavesdropping and always conveniently nearby? Vilandra you can't expect much from, but Zan? He must have the powers of observation God gave a dead man. Or an idiot."

Dee took a seat across from him as he took another swig of Scotch, drained the glass, and poured another. Two religious references in a row meant he was frustrated beyond belief and reaching for outlandish ways to express that, similar to the way humans spat profanity when under duress. "So...you're not worried that Tess figured it out."

"Worried? Hell, no!" Brivari said sourly. "That one of them has a pulse and working eyeballs can only be good news. Not the one I would have expected, never mind wanted, but beggars can't be choosers."

"And you're not bothered that she confronted me about this?" Dee continued.

"And guts," Brivari said, raising his glass. "I'll drink to that."

"So you don't mind if they all find out that I know who they really are?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Brivari said crossly. "Of course I mind. If they find out about you, they find out about me because they won't stop hounding you, and you'll give in. But they won't find out because you stopped her."

Dee's eyes narrowed. "Are you so sure about that? Don't you think I just 'gave in'?"

"She's not one of your grandchildren, and she's no match for you," Brivari said. "You put a stop to it. The only question is how."

Dee's fingers tapped on the arm of the chair. "I told Isabel what she'd said."

"Really?" Brivari said, showing a flicker of interest. "And?"

"She made Tess apologize, and blamed it on a 'recent loss in her family'."

Brivari shook his head. "Someone tells her the truth to her face, and she still doesn't see it. Classic Vilandra. What's that expression…'you can't fix stupid'?"

"Maybe they're not as 'stupid' as you think," Dee said, finding it increasingly difficult to ignore his jabs at the kids. "Maybe they've noticed all the same things Tess did, but prefer to write it off to coincidence. Maybe they like it better that way."

"Yes, well, Zan was always good at ignoring anything he didn't want to be so," Brivari said darkly. "Why should this be any different?"

An uneasy silence settled over the room, still gloomy even though afternoon sunshine was pouring through the opened curtains. She'd seen him angry, usually with Jaddo, but this was a level of bitterness and detachment she'd never seen before, and she wasn't sure if the best way to counter it was to confront it or ignore it. "I also noted that Max would not be happy if he learned what she'd done," she went on, opting for the latter for the moment.

"And there we have the end bell," Brivari said. "She won't risk both Vilandra's good will and Zan's approval. She's having enough trouble as it is. Well played. By both of you."

"I'd hardly call her behavior 'well played'," Dee objected. "She attacked me in Zan's house. She threatened to tell Diane, which means Philip would have found out, which would have made things very messy. That's not guts, that's recklessness. That's myopia. That's selfishness."

Brivari stared at the glass in his hand. "And who does she sound like?" he said quietly. "She did exactly what he would have done."

"And you approve of that?" Dee said incredulously. "You've spent the last 50 years railing against Jaddo's way of doing things."

"Maybe if he'd kept doing it that way, he'd be here now," Brivari said.

"He was trying to broker peace!" Dee exclaimed. "You know, 'peace'? As in the absence of war?"

"And in the end, it was 'peace' that killed him," Brivari retorted. "Like I said, if he'd stuck to what he knew, he might still be alive. The universe does love irony."

"So you're saying there's no point in trying to end the war?" Dee demanded. "It'll just go on forever, and no one should lift a finger to stop it?"

"I'm saying you can't broker peace with people who are totally invested in war!" Brivari snapped.

Dee raised an eyebrow. "You mean like you?"

A chill settled over the living room as he stared at her, Scotch halfway to his lips. "What did you say?"

"You heard me," Dee said firmly, her patience exhausted. "You just described yourself. You've been locked in a defensive crouch for so long, you've forgotten how to get out of it. You've been fighting so long, you've forgotten that it's supposed to be a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. You won't even think of compromising, never mind talking about it. War has defined your existence for so long, it's become who you are. I would have expected that from Jaddo, not you. The universe loves irony even more than you thought."

The glass lowered, the hand that held it shaking. "How dare you," Brivari breathed. "How dare you!"

"Look at you," Dee went on, "entombed in a dark room, sloshed and acting like it's all hopeless. Jaddo died, Brivari, not you!"

"Don't you think I know that?" Brivari demanded. "Don't you think I know I'm the only one left?"

"And your solution to that is to have a pity party!" Dee said with savage cheerfulness. "Because that's so going to help!"

"Get out," Brivari snapped.

"Not likely," Dee fumed. "Somebody has to drag you back to the land of the living, and it looks like I'm elected. Lucky me!"

"Get out!" Brivari roared. "Now!"

"Make me!" Dee shouted.

The doorbell rang. "Oh, for Christ's sake, what is this?" Brivari snapped. "Grand Central Station? Get rid of whoever that is."

"I thought you just kicked me out," Dee reminded him. "Now I'm the butler?"

"Get rid of them, and then get rid of yourself," Brivari retorted.

"Not likely," Dee said grimly. "You'll have to actually get off your ass and throw me out, and that requires effort, something you're allergic to at the moment. I'll go usher in the little Girl Scouts, and you can pick out your cookies."

"Don't you dare bring one more human into this house, or I'll fry them for breakfast!" Brivari warned.

"You don't even know what time it is," Dee muttered as she stalked to the front door and threw it open, catching herself just in time when she saw who was standing on Brivari's front porch. Exactly how many curve balls did fate intend to throw her this afternoon? Because here was another, and three was too many.





*********************************************************






Don't answer, Courtney prayed silently as Larak rang Brivari's doorbell. With any luck, he'd be out moping somewhere, anywhere, anywhere but here, and she might actually get to live another day.

"Tell me again why I'm here?" she said to Larak. "You don't need me for this."

"I certainly do," Larak answered. "You keep telling me Brivari won't support the treaty, so the more people who do support it, the more pressure it places on him, on everyone. With Vanessa's death, you are now the sole supporter representing your race—"

"Yeah, yeah, I heard," Courtney said crossly. "I just can't figure out how I'm supposed to do that. I haven't even tried getting the Resistance on board, and I can promise you Nicholas and Khivar won't give a rat's ass what I think."

"Nicholas and Khivar won't give a...won't care what anyone thinks," Larak finished. "I told you, the Resistance may be tiny here, but it has grown on Antar, and we have Khivar and his missteps to thank for that. Your opinion will carry a great deal of weight exactly where it's needed."

"Then shouldn't I write it down, or make a video, or something to make sure my holy opinion gets back to the right people?" Courtney said desperately. "Because he's going to kill me when he finds out I brought the treaty to you instead of him."

"He will do no such thing," Larak answered. "What's a 'video' again? Is that the same thing as a 'movie'?"

"Oh, good grief!" Courtney exclaimed. "Who cares? The point is—" She stopped, her heart nearly stopping with her as footsteps approached and the door opened.

"Thank God!" Courtney exclaimed, leaning against the porch wall with relief. "You're here! I might live through this after all."

"Everyone's got religion today," Dee said dryly, casting a suspicious eye on Larak. "Who's this?"

"It's okay; it's Larak," Courtney said.

"It is," Larak confirmed. "Premier of Kerona and ill-mannered ambassador to the court of King Zan. Or so you felt when we met several weeks ago."

"And I still do," Dee said, steely-eyed. "But I thought you only came out at night. Sort of like an Antarian vampire."

"I'm not familiar with 'vampires'," Larak confessed. "I do usually confine myself to nighttime visits, but this was too important to wait. We're here to see Brivari."

"You've been gone for weeks," Dee said. "This is about the treaty, isn't it? What happened? Was it accepted?"

"I'd prefer to deliver that message directly to the Crown," Larak said.

"If memory serves, I represented 'the crown' when we last met," Dee noted.

"In Brivari's absence," Larak said. "He is no longer absent."

Dee snorted softly. "Is that so? But of course you want to speak to him directly," she amended when Courtney gave her a please-shut-up-and-don't-pick-a-fight look. "Protocol, and all that." She stepped back and gestured grandly. "Come right in. I'm sure he'll be delighted to see you."





*******************************************************






Michael's fingers tapped on the steering wheel as he waited for the light to change and looked nervously at his passenger. Hal Carver sat stiffly in the passenger seat, his gun on his lap, his eyes out the window. He'd been this way ever since their target practice had turned into something else entirely, climbing into the Jetta without a word and leaving Michael wishing he hadn't just gone and done a Max—he'd used his powers in front of strangers, but not to save a life, which had always been Max's failsafe excuse.

The only time I ever stuck my neck out to save anything...and it all went to hell.

Unbelievable, Michael thought darkly, mentally kicking himself. They'd ragged on Max for over a year now for using his powers in public, and even though one guy hardly counted as "public", he'd still just done exactly the same thing, partly because he'd felt sorry for him, partly because he'd felt responsible, but mostly because he'd felt…grateful, Michael realized grudgingly. He owed this man his life, this mouthy former soldier with a fondness for ice cream and expletives. Without him it was a good bet that none of them would be here, and he'd wanted Hal to know his ruse had worked, that pulling that fire alarm had somehow saved them. Hal had been flabbergasted, then hugged him—man, had that been awkward—then zombie-walked to the car and lapsed into a silence which continued to this moment.

"Dude, say something," Michael commanded.

Hal's eyes jerked sideways as though he'd forgotten Michael was there. "What?"

"Say something," Michael repeated. "You're freaking me out."

Hal looked blank. "What do you want me to say?"

"Something!" Michael exclaimed. "Anything! Recite the Gettysburg address. Or your grocery list. Or just yell and scream, but don't sit there like a stone with a loaded weapon in your lap like you're going to shoot me."

Hal's eyes dropped to the gun in his lap. "Oh...sorry," he said, abashed, as he tucked the gun into the back of his belt. "I was just...processing."

"Then try 'processing' out loud, because this is beyond awkward," Michael said.

"Right," Hal nodded. "Right. I...I've never met an alien before."

Michael raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Didn't you just get through telling me you did?"

"Wouldn't call that a 'meeting'," Hal said doubtfully.

"Fair point," Michael allowed. "If it makes you feel any better, I've never told anyone I'm an alien before. At least not voluntarily."

"So no one else knows?"

"Yeah, they know," Michael answered. "Just not because I gave them a demonstration."

"Say, can you...can you do that lighter thing again?" Hal said. "Just so I know I'm not crazy?"

Michael shot him an annoyed look. Seriously? Here he was all wrapped around an axle about doing it once, and the guy wanted him to do it again? But he'd already done it once, so what was the harm in doing it a second time? He held up a thumb, heard the gasp when the flame flickered from its tip.

"Show's over," Michael said when the traffic light changed.

"Wow," Hal said faintly. "So it was real. I was wondering if I'd just imagined it."

"You didn't imagine it," Michael confirmed.

"I thought you didn't make it out that night," Hal said. "Somebody told me they held an alien prisoner at the base for years."

"They did," Michael said. "Just not me. Or anyone else in those sacs you saw."

"Who, then?" Hal asked.

"Beats me. Must have been one of those glowy things."

"Don't you even know if one of your own people was held prisoner?" Hal said.

"My 'own people'? Dude, I don't even know what that means. We came out of those sacs looking like human kids, and we were adopted out. We don't know where we come from, or why we're here, or anything. We just know we're different."

"Sheesh," Hal muttered. "They didn't even send a travel book?"

Michael shrugged. "Maybe we never signed up with the alien AAA."

"That would explain the lack of roadside assistance when your ship crashed," Hal allowed.

The mood lightened. Hal was almost smiling, and Michael was feeling much better now that a loaded weapon wasn't parked inches away. Granted, he'd just equivocated—okay, lied—but given they'd known nothing for years, it was still an accurate description of most of their life to date. And he really couldn't afford to tell this guy any more than he already had, gratitude or no gratitude.

"So what's the rest of your story?" Michael said. "What happened after you left the base that night?"

"I already told you," Hal said. "I left, and never came back. Until now."

"That's it? You never found out who killed the reporter? Never saw Rosemary or Ritchie again? You just moved to the Bahamas and forgot all about it?"

"Tampa," Hal corrected, "and I never forgot about it. Never." He paused. "Like I said, I've never told anybody this much of the story."

"I'm not just 'anybody'," Michael noted.

Hal winced. "No argument there. Okay…" He thought for a moment as they continued down Roswell's main drag. "Cavitt found me. He was an asshole, but he wasn't stupid, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the most likely candidate for a guy who had the nerve to yell 'Fire!' was the one who'd just missed a dishonorable discharge by the skin of his teeth. He was afraid I'd tell what I saw, so he bribed my landlords to watch me. As long as I stayed put and stayed quiet, he left me alone. I stayed away from my family because I didn't want them caught in his net."

"Jesus," Michael muttered.

"Almost three years later, that nurse I met after the crash and a captain from the base looked me up," Hal went on. "Don't remember how they found me, but they wanted to know what I'd seen. They said they thought they could get justice for Betty. They were working with the local sheriff, but he needed witnesses, and they wanted me to make a statement. I told'em no, but then I thought about it, thought about Betty and how she wouldn't have died if I hadn't handed her those classified files, and I changed my mind. So I went to the sheriff's station—"

"Wait—I thought you said you hadn't been back here until now?" Michael said.

"Not counting police statements. Don't interrupt. I found the deputy, somebody named...Valetti? Valento?"

Michael's eyes widened. "Valenti?"

"Yeah, that's it. I found him, and—"

"Jim Valenti?"

"You want me to tell this or not?" Hal said crossly. "How should I know what his—wait. There was a picture on this guy's desk that looked like a kid had drawn it, and it was signed 'Jimmy'."

"Holy crap," Michael muttered. "This just gets better and better."

"Anyway, I gave him my statement. A few weeks later, Ritchie shows up at my apartment."

"And?" Michael said. "Did you two duke it out?"

"Nah. Almost didn't let him in, but then he told me Cavitt was dead. Son of a bitch killed himself. He wanted me to know that Cavitt couldn't hurt me any more, that I was free. So I let him in."

"And then you duked it out," Michael said.

Hal shook his head. "We never mentioned any of that. We talked about old times, and we left that part out...and I'm glad. That was the last time I saw him. The next day, he flew to Korea. Got himself killed." He paused. "I should have been with him. If I hadn't gotten mixed up in the crash, I probably would have been."

"Then you might be dead," Michael noted.

"And my kids would never have been born," Hal added.

"Me neither."

Hal looked at him, startled, then looked away. "I'm glad you and Ritchie got to make up, sort of," Michael went on. "At least he wasn't a dick right to the end."

"Ritchie wasn't a bad guy," Hal said. "He thought he was doing the right thing. Had his head up his ass for a while there, but don't we all sometimes? I'll tell you, I thought of him every single time I applied for a job because a dishonorable discharge would have haunted me my entire life. It's worse than a prison record. Ritchie knew that, and he made sure that didn't happen. Even people who drive you crazy can have your back. He had my back even while he was being a dick. We're all dicks at some point or other."

"Don't I know it," Michael murmured.

They had reached the motel. "One more thing," Michael said. "You said you'd never told anyone the story before. Why'd you tell me?"

"Truth?" Hal said. "I was hoping you'd write it up and someone would notice, maybe look into it. That's the first and last time I tell it because if someone noticed, they might find you." He paused. "Do you think you'll ever go home?"

Michael shrugged. "Maybe. I don't know. I don't know where 'home' is."

"I hope you find it," Hal said. "I mean that." He opened the car door. "I'm glad I met you, kid. You're okay. For a smart ass."

Michael smiled faintly. "You're not so bad yourself. Thanks for sticking your neck out. It didn't all go to hell."

"Guess not," Hal agreed. "Sorry I didn't give you anything to write your paper about. When's it due?"

"Today. I procrastinate," Michael allowed when Hal shook his head. "I'll punt, but I've gotta do something else first."

"I thought you were gonna flunk if you didn't get that paper in," Hal said.

"School's not the only thing you can flunk," Michael said. "I need to go talk to some people who drive me crazy, but always have my back."





********************************************************






Langton Residence





"This is very much like my host's dwelling," Larak remarked as he and Courtney stepped into Brivari's front hallway. "He moved in my absence."

"It's been quite a while since you've been back," Dee noted. "I suppose you could have left a message in the usual place you and Courtney use."

"I could have," Larak allowed, "but sending my host on a journey of that length in the middle of the night is risky, and my news is somewhat complex. We can still use the drop point at the museum and meet at my host's dwelling at a suitable hour."

"Assuming we live through this," Courtney said under her breath.

"Where will we find the King's Warder?" Larak asked.

"In there," Courtney said, pointing. "That's the living room."

"You've been here before, then?" Larak said. "I thought you said you hadn't."

"Not recently," Courtney said. "I lived here for a little while, back when I first came to Earth."

"She did," Dee confirmed. "Brivari lived downstairs and Courtney lived upstairs, until he found out she was an Argilian and she had to run for her life."

"And here I am, about to die again in the exact same place!" Courtney said with mock enthusiasm. "Points for consistency."

"No one is dying," Larak said, smoothing his jacket in the nearby mirror. "How do I look?"

"Just fine," Dee said. "Why?"

"I have quite the announcement," Larak said. "One wants to looks one's best. It's odd how I've become used to having hair," he continued, running a nervous hand through his host's hair. "Sometimes when I'm home, I find myself reaching up to touch it. It can produce rather strange looks from my colleagues which I'm not at liberty to address."

"Well, you needn't worry about this colleague," Dee said. "At the moment, he's unlikely to notice much of anything."

"A Royal Warder is not a 'colleague'," Larak noted. "Ever."

"Leave him alone," Courtney whispered to Dee, who frowned as Larak continued adjusting his host's clothing in front of the mirror. "Every second he spends out here is a second we don't spend in there."

"For all the good it will do," Dee whispered back disdainfully. "No one who stands there fussing with his hairdo is any match for what's in there. He's going to bow and scrape, and that will be the end of it."

"So I gather Brivari's no better?" Courtney said.

Dee shook her head. "Worse."

Great, Courtney groaned as Larak finished his preparations and motioned to her to follow him. The living room wasn't that far away, but it still felt like a death march. Brivari was slumped in a chair nursing a glass of Chivas Regal. Only the best for the King's Warder.

"I thought I told you not to let anyone in," he groused without looking up. "What part of 'not' do you not understand?"

"Brivari," Larak said, nodding slightly. "It's good to see you again."

"Oh," Brivari said, looking up in surprise. "It's you. Didn't expect to see you again. I thought you'd seen sense and stopped this nonsense."

"I was busy," Larak answered.

Brivari gave a snort of derision. "And I wasn't? Jaddo's dead."

"I heard," Larak said quietly. "It's a great loss, for you and for Antar. You have my deepest sympathy, and that of the Resistance, I'm sure."

Courtney, who had been doing her best to stay behind Larak, found herself front and center as Larak stepped aside. "What are you doing here?" Brivari said peevishly. "Come to think of it, what are any of you doing here? Is this some kind of intervention?"

"Because God knows you need one," Dee remarked.

"Oh, shut up," Brivari muttered.

Courtney watched Larak's eyes flick back and forth between Brivari and Dee, no doubt surprised at the intimacy of their relationship just as she had been. But then the moment ended, and dangerous business was back on the table. "I'm here about the treaty," Larak said.

"Then you can turn around and go right back where you came from," Brivari said, "because there is no treaty."

"There is if someone else agrees there is," Dee said. "You're not the only one who gets to weigh in on that."

"Quite right," Larak agreed.

"Like hell I'm not!" Brivari declared. "If you think for one second...wait," he said suddenly, looking at Dee. "Why do you two sound like you know each other? You've never met."

Larak looked at Dee, who raised an eyebrow. "Actually, we have," Larak said. "We met when the treaty was presented to me."

Brivari stared at him. " 'Presented' to you? By whom?"

"By the Argilian Resistance and the Crown," Larak replied.

Courtney's heart sank as Brivari's head swung from one to the other, his face like a thundercloud. "Per diplomatic protocol, I presented the treaty to a delegation from the five planets," Larak continued. "I am here to deliver their answer."

Brivari stood up so quickly, he knocked over his glass. Expensive Scotch seeped into the cream-colored carpet, leaving a ghastly stain. "You did what?"

"Congratulations," Dee said, her voice heavy with irony. "You've done what I couldn't. You got him out of that chair."






*********************************************************





Evans Residence






Isabel's fingers hovered over the keyboard, the cursor blinking in the search box. She wanted to know, but she also didn't want to know. What would she do if she found what she thought she'd find? One thing at a time, she decided as her fingers began to move.

1947 Roswell C—

"Iz?"

Isabel jumped, her fingers spazzing on the keyboard so that last word turned into something other than she'd intended, causing AOL's search engine to have its own spasms trying to decide what to do with it. "Max! Don't scare me like that!"

Half in, half out of her bedroom doorway, Max looked puzzled. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"Well, you did," Isabel said, her heart still racing as she quickly backspaced. "Did you want something?"

"Michael called. He wants us to meet him at the pod chamber."

"Why?" Isabel said irritably.

"Said he had something to tell us," Max shrugged. "Said it was important."

"Isn't it always?" Isabel muttered.

"Maybe he found the drink dispenser on the Granolith." Max paused, waiting for a smile from her which never came. "Anyway...I told him we'd come after dinner."

"Fine," Isabel said shortly.

Max gave her a strange look. "Are you okay?"

"Just really busy," Isabel answered. "And really not in the mood for Michael and his endless emergencies. And definitely not in the mood for that smelly pod chamber. And yes, I know I spent time holed up there. It still smelled."

"Okay," Max said. "Just checking."

"Shut the door on your way out."

Max gave her another strange look, but he complied, closing the door quietly behind him. Isabel stared at the now empty search box, wondering if the universe was trying to tell her something. Maybe she should just drop this. Maybe she should leave well enough alone. Could it be coincidence that she'd been interrupted at the very moment she'd started to look? But Michael was famous for interrupting just about anything with some life-shattering event or information, and if she tried to read warnings into all of those interruptions, she'd go crazy. Steadying her trembling fingers, she started again.

1947 Roswell Crash

She hit "enter" quickly, before she could change her mind, and a flood of hits appeared. It would probably sound curious to anyone who knew their secret, but she'd never actually read anything about the '47 crash. Living in the town where it happened, she heard about it constantly, so much so that she spent most of her time trying to get away from it. For a girl who wanted to be human, to be surrounded by constant reminders that she was not was difficult. She'd often wondered what it would have been like to live somewhere where she didn't encounter bulbous alien heads around every corner, where she could blissfully forget she was different, at least for a little while. But she didn't; she lived here, where alien lore was embedded in the very fabric of the town, its populace, its media, and its commerce. There was so much hype, so much embellishment, so much outright chicanery on the subject that trying to ferret out genuine details was worse than searching for a needle in a haystack, so why bother? They were here; nothing could undo that. The precise nature of their arrival was beside the point. Except now, when it wasn't, when she wanted to know.

Five minutes later, after combing the first few pages of links and eliminating the obvious ones like MUFON, she settled on some promising, supposedly eyewitness accounts. Names swam in front of her, mostly military as it was the military who'd discovered their ship. So far, so good, Isabel thought, breathing easier as familiar snippets of information enshrined in popular folklore floated past. The local military base had taken the call...Jesse Marcell…Sheridan Cavitt...found by Mac Brazel, a local rancher and his next door neighbor…

Isabel's hand flew to her mouth as she nearly stopped breathing.

Dee Proctor.




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


I won't be in town 2 weeks from now, so I'll post Chapter 45 on the following Sunday, March 6.

Hello and thank you to everyone reading!











CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE



October 30, 2000, 5:30 p.m.

Evans residence






Stripping off his jacket, Philip Evans set his briefcase on his desk and heaved himself into a chair. He'd actually made it home in time for dinner tonight, very much an open question for most of the day, but he still had work to do. Rolling up his sleeves, he leafed through the stack inside his briefcase, sorting the contents into piles of depositions, statements, rebuttals, and postponements which made a sort of thatched paper cover on his desk. Diane always wondered how he could find anything, and truthfully, he wasn't sure, but he always did. Messy desks were supposedly the sign of a creative mind, but lawyers weren't usually creative types, at least not in the classic sense of the word.

"Dad?"

Philip looked up. "Izzie! Come in!"

"I brought you some coffee," Isabel said, handing him a steaming mug.

"Thank you, sweetheart, that was very thoughtful," Philip smiled. God, he had great kids.

"Is...this a bad time?" Isabel asked, eyeing the mess on his desk.

"What? Oh...no, my desk frequently looks like this."

"Wow," Isabel remarked.

"Yeah, I know," Philip sighed. "That's what your Mom says. Well...actually, she usually says a lot more than just 'wow', but I never lose anything, so it works for me. How was school today?"

"Good," Isabel said, sliding into a chair. "I just wanted to ask you something."

Philip slipped his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. "Is this about the counseling? Because I know you're not happy about it, and I'm not exactly thrilled, but your mother—"

"No," Isabel said quickly, "it's not about that. I mean, I'm not thrilled about it either, but...that's not it."

"Just try it," Philip advised. "If it's really awful, we can say you tried."

"Right," Isabel nodded. "Right, I...I wanted to ask you something. I'm doing a...a school report about the crash in '47, and—"

"You are?" Philip chuckled. "Didn't think any teacher here would give an assignment like that. Everyone usually avoids it like the plague. Sorry…go on."

"And I found something about the guy who discovered the crash site," Isabel went on. "It said he had his neighbor with him, a 'Dee Proctor'. Isn't 'Proctor' great-grandma and grandpa's name?"

Philip gulped his coffee, certain he'd need it now. "Yes," he answered, "yes, it is."

"So...is this 'Dee Proctor' any relation to grandma?" Isabel asked.

"You could say that," Philip allowed. "That Dee Proctor is your grandma."

Isabel's eyes widened. "It...what?"

" 'Fraid so," Philip said. "Congratulations, honey—you've just stumbled onto the big family secret. Not a bad one," he added hastily when Isabel paled, "just one we don't talk about. Everyone's got at least one skeleton in their closet. This one's ours. Could be worse."

"I guess," Isabel said faintly.

"Your grandmother lived next door to William Brazel," Philip went on, "the man who used to own Pohlman Ranch. She called him 'Mac'; I understand most people did. She used to go with him to the ranch sometimes, especially during the summer when school was off, and she went with him that day in '47 when he found...well...whatever it is people think he found."

"So...you're telling me grandma was with him when he found the ship?" Isabel said, flabbergasted.

" 'Ship'?" Philip said skeptically. "More like a Russian spy plane or an experimental aircraft. Must have been something unfamiliar to have tripped the UFO story, but it definitely wasn't a weather balloon judging by the tap dancing from the military."

"How come I never knew this?" Isabel said in astonishment. "My own grandmother was at the crash site, and I never knew?"

"We don't talk about it," Philip admitted. "It's not exactly something we want passed around."

"Why not?" Isabel said. "Some people go on and on about where they were during the crash."

"They do, don't they?" Philip said. "I gather it was pretty exciting. Roswell was in the news, reporters and tourists were pouring into town. But you have to remember that some people believed the hype. They actually believed an alien ship crashed on Pohlman Ranch, and they were scared. Some of them went after Brazel, and your Great-Grandmother Emily fended them off, if I remember the story correctly. I think she and your great-grandfather wanted to keep your grandmother's role in this very quiet, so she stayed out of the fray."

"Huh," Isabel said. "One of the sites I looked at thought Dee Proctor was a boy. That's why I wasn't sure it was grandma."

"And I think your great-grandparents would have liked to keep it that way," Philip said. "Most people around here don't bring it up unless they're trying to make money off it. I'm not knocking it; I know that's how Jeff Parker makes his living, and the UFO Museum, and if they didn't, someone else would. I just think that with all the tall tales that followed, and the tourists, and the kitsch, everyone just got tired of it. Now it's considered bad form to even bring it up, never mind believe it."

"Maybe it's better that way," Isabel murmured.

"Maybe," Philip agreed.

"So...who else knows?" Isabel asked.

"No one," Philip admitted. "At least not that I know of."

"Not even Mom?"

"She knows my mother was around here in '47, but I don't think she knows the details," Philip said. "Like I said, we don't talk about it. God knows your grandmother doesn't."

"Yeah," Isabel said quietly. "I bet."

"Which made it all the more weird that night we found you and your brother," Philip said.

Isabel blinked. "What? What was weird?"

Philip eased back in his chair, nursing his coffee. "I don't think your grandmother had set foot on that ranch since the crash. The government took it off Mac's hands right quick after whatever-it-was fell out of the sky, or at least the part of it they wanted. But the night we found you and your brother, we were driving nearby, and Grandma insisted we go onto the ranch. She even told me to drive past the 'No Trespassing' sign. Mom thought she'd gone nuts, although, to be fair, she thought that about my mother a lot. They didn't get along as well back then."

"But...why did she tell you to do that?" Isabel said.

"Honestly? I'm not sure," Philip admitted. "But we found you and Max not far past the sign, so we assumed she must have seen something."

"Like what?" Isabel said. "It was nighttime. It was dark, wasn't it?"

"Yes," Philip allowed, "but it's hard to argue with her given what we found." He put a hand over his daughter's. "Whatever made her do it, I'm awfully glad she did, sweetheart, because if she hadn't, we wouldn't have found you and your brother. Someone would have, but not us. I'm awfully glad it was us."

"Yeah," Isabel said, squeezing his hand, her voice husky. "Me, too."

"Say, why don't you call her?" Philip suggested. "She won't want to be included in your school report, but I'm sure she'll tell you the story off the record. It's family lore, after all. We've got a few minutes before dinner; maybe she's free tonight?"

"Good idea," Isabel said, taking the desk phone he handed her. "I guess she's not home," she said a minute later. "No one's answering."

"Probably out causing trouble," Philip chuckled. "My mother excels at that."





********************************************************






Langton Residence






The silence was deafening as two of the most powerful men in another part of the galaxy confronted each another, one furious, the other curiously serene. Perhaps serenity was a gift one earned by slavishly following the rules, but protocol wasn't going to save them. The only way to give the treaty a fighting chance was to bypass the king's wounded Warder, so furious with grief that he wasn't thinking straight and probably wouldn't be for a very long time. She predicted Brivari would bluster and Larak would bow out, leaving her to defend Courtney. What a monumental waste of everyone's time.

"Did I hear you correctly," Brivari said in a strained voice, "that you took the treaty to the five planets?"

"I did," Larak answered.

"And presented it to them like a...like a legitimate proposal?"

"Correct," Larak answered. "And they—"

"No!" Brivari said savagely, holding up a hand. "We're not there yet! Hell, we're not even close! What in the name of all that's holy could have convinced you that some cockamamie 'agreement' drummed up by the woman who killed Jaddo could ever be legitimate?"

"Vanessa killed Jaddo?" Larak said. "It's my understanding that an operative killed him after she released him from their custody."

"Details!" Brivari said impatiently. "He's dead because of her!"

"He's also dead because of a risk he willingly undertook for the good of all of us," Larak said. "It should be noted that Vanessa undertook that risk as well."

"Oh, it should, should it?" Brivari said sarcastically. "And did she also 'undertake a risk' when she kidnapped the Queen?"

"That was, of course, unforgivable," Larak answered. "I'm told Vilandra executed her, and rightly so. But none of that makes the treaty she and Jaddo constructed illegitimate."

"Like hell it doesn't," Brivari retorted. "And you," he went on, rounding on Courtney, "how dare you bring that infernal thing to another planet without consulting the Crown?"

"I represented the Crown," Dee said.

Brivari whirled around. "You? You? You're a freaking grandmother! You know nothing about Antarian politics!"

"Perhaps," Dee said coldly. "But I know plenty about unstable Royal Warders."

Dee held her ground as Brivari glared at her, Courtney's eyes widened, and Larak raised an eyebrow. "You overreached," Brivari said flatly. "Whatever you've done for the Crown does not qualify you to present treaties to neighboring governments. As you're not a subject of that Crown or a citizen of any neighboring planet, I'll let that go. But she," he continued, pointing to Courtney, "she is a subject of the Crown, and she certainly knew better."

"You weren't here!" Courtney protested.

"Then you should have waited until I got back!" Brivari said furiously.

"What for?" Courtney demanded. "You would have said 'no' if I'd waited until the cows came home!"

"Damn straight I would have," Brivari snapped. "Negotiating behind the King's back? Your actions amount to treason!"

"Great, so somebody else thinks I'm a traitor," Courtney said. "Just get in line behind Nicholas. I was trying to broker peace!"

"There is no 'peace' which denies my Ward his throne!" Brivari shouted. "And there is no excuse for your behavior! Do you remember what we do with traitors?"

"So execute me, already, and get it over with," Courtney retorted. "Because we all know you've got such a huge pile of allies that you can afford to just throw them away."

"You're no ally," Brivari said grimly, advancing on her as she shrank back. "You, I can afford to throw away."

"Stop."

Brivari pulled up short, and it took Dee a moment to realize why. She'd been all set to step between Courtney and Brivari, but Larak had beaten her to it. They faced off in an almost straight line, Larak in front of Courtney and Brivari in front of him, all only inches away from each other.

"Move," Brivari ordered.

"Your quarrel is not with her," Larak said. "Your quarrel is with me."

"You were equally stupid, but I'll get to that later," Brivari said impatiently. "At the moment—"

"You'll 'get to that' now," Larak said firmly. "Courtney presented nothing. I presented the treaty to the five planets. I negotiated with other governments. I contacted The Resistance and The Royalists on Antar."

"And you shouldn't have," Brivari said. "But these two probably made up something about me agreeing to this poppycock."

"They did no such thing," Larak said. "They made it clear that you were unaware of the existence of the treaty, never mind its contents, and that they fully expected you to reject it."

"Then why did you listen?" Brivari demanded. "You should have sent them both packing, not trot it home and wave it around!"

"They convinced me the circumstances were extraordinary enough to warrant a departure from the usual protocol," Larak answered. "Ultimately, I agreed. That was my decision."

"You had no right," Brivari said flatly.

"I had every right," Larak said firmly. "I rule a planet; you do not. You are a Warder, not a king."

Dee and Courtney exchanged glances. It was safe to say neither of them had been expecting this, nor had Brivari, judging by the look on his face.

"I may not be the king, but I speak for the King," Brivari said angrily. "I'm the only one left to do that, or haven't you been keeping up?"

"You speak for him only until he attains his majority and reclaims his throne," Larak corrected, "and only with an eye to the interim nature of your situation. Your primary duty is to keep the King alive so that he may rule."

"Oh, you want him to 'rule', do you?" Brivari said in astonishment. "Have you seen him? Do you know what condition he's in? He isn't fit to 'rule' on what he had for breakfast!"

"That's not fair," Dee protested. "He's learning. He's much further down that path than any of the rest of them."

"But he's not there yet," Brivari said, "which means that in the meantime, I—"

"Safeguard his person and his interests so he may reach maturity in his new form and render a decision on this or any other matter," Larak finished. "You have no authority to rule in his absence. That would fall to a second, a regent, or a council."

"None of which we have!" Brivari shouted. "Don't you get it? I'm it! After everything we've gone through for the last 50 years, I'm all that's left! So if I say the damned 'treaty' goes, it goes!"

Larak fixed him with a level stare. "You forget your limits. The service you've rendered the Crown does not qualify you to refuse overtures of peace in a time of war. Remember your place, Warder."

Larak's rebuke hung in the air like a slap as Brivari gaped at him. No one said anything for a moment.

"My 'place'?" Brivari said finally, nearly shaking with fury. "My place? I've been tanked here for 50 years! I've gone through hell for 50 years—50 years—and you presume to lecture me about my 'place'?"

"And what do you think the rest of us have been doing these past 50 years?" Larak said. "You're not the only one going through hell, Brivari; we all are. Jaddo and Vanessa's treaty is the first real chance we've had at peace, which is why the delegation from the five planets, including Antar, agreed with my re-interpretation of the boundaries of protocol and gave it their full consideration. I am here to deliver their answer."

"Oh, by all means, let's hear it," Brivari said, the scorn in his voice so thick, you could cut it with a knife. "I'm positively giddy with anticipation."

"They agreed to pursue it as the first step in the peace process. While by no means perfect," Larak continued as Brivari gave a snort of derision, "it struck enough of a balance to appeal to all, which isn't surprising given that it was written by two of the most severe personalities on their respective sides."

"So they bought it," Brivari said derisively, "hook, line, and sinker. I could have told you that. They're so desperate, they'd jump at anything!"

"It is, of course, contingent upon hammering out the details, upon the Royal Four reaching maturity, and upon Zan's approval once he does so," Larak went on, ignoring him. "This is only the beginning."

"It's also the end," Brivari declared angrily. "I have no intention of presenting this mess to the king, now or at any time in the future."

"You have no choice in the matter," Larak said. "It is your duty to relay this armistice to the king regardless of your personal feelings. You may, of course, offer your opinion if he wishes, but you may not withhold information. That is protocol, the very same protocol you've expressed such love for."

"And that you flushed down the toilet when it suited you," Brivari retorted. "If you can flush it, so can I."

"But I did not act independently," Larak noted. "When the vote was taken as to whether to consider the treaty under the circumstances it was presented, there were virtually no dissenters. Are you willing to put your re-interpretation of protocol to the same test?"

"You don't give me orders," Brivari said flatly.

Larak raised an eyebrow. "Shall I fetch the one who does?"

Dee closed her eyes briefly. The voice was soft, but the threat was real, and what a threat it was, hitting square in the middle of Brivari's biggest problem, the fact that the king could compel him. Defeated, Brivari sank back into his chair, his face set.

"Shall I tell the delegates the Crown is willing to pursue consideration of this treaty?" Larak asked.

"Tell the delegates to go to hell and stay there," Brivari said coldly.

"Is that what you really want me to say to your Ward's loyal subjects?" Larak asked.

"Why don't you ask her?" Brivari said irritably, stabbing a finger at Dee. "She 'represented the Crown' before. If I'm doing such a crap job, maybe she should be the King's Warder. I'll just retire to Florida and take up golf."

Larak's face remained impassive as he turned to Dee. "Madam, shall I tell the delegates the Crown is willing to pursue consideration of this treaty?"

Startled, Dee looked at each expectant face in turn. "Well?" Brivari demanded. "Answer him! Delegates from the Five Planets are awaiting your decision because it seems that you represent the Crown, and I don't."

"I...don't understand," Dee said. "Didn't I already weigh in on this?"

"You weighed in on whether to present the treaty to the Five Planets in the first place," Courtney explained. "Now they've all seen it, and maybe some changes were made or conditions imposed, so now everyone has to agree to keep pursuing it. There was no representative for the Crown there to cast a vote in the King's name, so Larak is here to collect that vote. It's just…"

"Protocol," Dee finished despairingly as the weight of responsibility became crushingly heavy. Changes? Conditions? What kind of changes and conditions? She hadn't been there for the discussion, so she had no idea, although Brivari certainly hadn't either…

"I wasn't present at these...negotiations," Dee said, "so before I give you an answer, I want to hear every detail of the discussion and any changes that were made."

"A fair request," Larak agreed. "I need to return my host's body before I attract suspicion, but we can arrange to meet at his house, although I fear the hour will be inhospitable."

"I'll come at any hour," Dee said. "And I'd like all of you there. Including you, Brivari."

Brivari turned hard eyes on her. "What for? Nobody cares what I think."

"I care very much what you think," Dee said. "I just don't care for the way your personal grief is overshadowing everything else."

"I'm terribly sorry my 'personal grief' arrived at such an inconvenient time for you," Brivari said acidly, "but it appears that you now speak for Antar. Good luck with that. You'll need it. Now get the hell out of my house, and stay out."





********************************************************





"Wow," Max said.

"Yeah," Tess said wonderingly from the jeep's back seat. "That's quite a story."

"Tell me about it," Michael said. "I've been listening to it all day, and it just kept getting better and better."

"Someone saw us when we were still in the pods," Isabel said faintly.

"Nasedo must have, but he never talked about it," Tess said.

"Hal didn't just see us, he saved us," Michael said firmly. "Lots of people saw us, but most of them didn't save us."

"I can't believe you showed him your powers," Isabel said. "You were taking a huge risk."

"He deserved to know," Michael said. "He thought the whole thing had gone bust, but it didn't. He deserved to know that what he did worked."

"Someone's singing a different tune," Max remarked.

Michael shook his head. "Already on it, Maxwell. I've been apologizing all afternoon, and yes, that includes Liz. Like I told Maria, we owe more than I could have imagined to all of our friends and some old guy named Hal who lives in Tampa and plays shuffleboard."

"Nasedo was held captive for three years, but he escaped because he had help, human help," Tess said. "I met one of them."

"You did?" Michael said, twisting around in his seat. "Who? When?"

"Some old lady," Tess said. "Before we moved here. She said she was a nurse at the base when he was captive. I'd never seen Nasedo act the way he did with her. He cleaned the house, fussed over the dinner, wanted me on my best behavior...he actually respected her."

"Did you get her name?" Max asked.

Tess shook her head. "Nasedo called her 'Marie', but I'm willing to bet good money that wasn't her real name."

"What was she like?" Isabel asked.

"She was...nice," Tess answered. "Calm. Friendly. And not afraid of him, which was weird because everyone was afraid of him. She said he was 'difficult to live with'."

"I think she got that right," Max remarked.

"I got the impression he was showing me off, like he wanted her to be proud of me," Tess continued. "He wanted her approval. He always hated humans, but not that one."

"Add her to the list of humans we owe buckets," Michael said.

"It's even longer than that," Isabel murmured.

"What do you mean?" Max asked.

Isabel looked up, startled that she'd said that out loud. "Nothing. I...was just thinking about how many people would have had to help to get Nasedo off the base when it was fully staffed. It took a small army to get you out with just a few Special Unit agents."

Murmurs and nods greeted this point, neatly covering her gaffe. Michael's momentous day with Captain Carver was huge, but her discovery today was even more so because her "Captain Carver" was her own grandmother. It simply couldn't be a coincidence that Grandma Dee had been there when their ship was discovered. It couldn't.

"Here I was going on about how we're separate, and we're alone, and we've never been alone," Michael was saying. "I feel like a dick."

"Because you were a dick," Max noted dryly. "Look, you apologized," he went on when Michael gave him a look. "We're all trying to find our way through this, and every time we think we have, something else happens or some new information pops up. We'll figure it out. And in the meantime, just stop being a dick or apologize when you are."

"I apologized to the sheriff," Tess said. "I was pretty nasty when he invited me to stay with him after my house was broken into. I wanted to stay with you and Isabel, and...I didn't behave very well that first night. But you were right, Max; it's so much nicer living with people who know. It would have been very hard to live with someone who didn't."

Seated behind Max, Isabel watched Max's eyes flick to hers in the rear view mirror. Neither of them had wanted Tess to live with them, albeit for different reasons. "I'm glad it's working out for you," Max said. "The Valenti's are good people, and we're lucky to have them on our side."

"Yeah, especially since one of them's law enforcement," Michael said, completely missing the subtext rippling past. "So...any thoughts on the other set of pods Hal saw?"

"Freaky," Isabel said.

"I meant useful thoughts," Michael clarified. "Did Nasedo ever say anything about more of us out there?"

"Nasedo never said much of anything," Tess said. "But he only showed me photographs of the three of you. You were 'The Others', and once we moved here, he only referenced you."

"Looks like there are other 'Others'," Max noted.

"Could be other family members," Tess suggested. "If the government was overthrown, I'm guessing a lot of people died, and more had to run."

"I'd love to know what happened," Michael said. "Who killed us? Why?"

"Enemies killed us," Max answered, "for the same reason they always do—power."

Shrinking further into the back seat, Isabel listened uncomfortably as the speculation continued. According to Whitaker, the motivation for their downfall had been quite different.


You had a great love, and for him...for us...you betrayed your brother, your race. You sacrificed him. You sacrificed everyone...even yourself.


It was that last part which had never made sense to her. If she had a "great love", why would she sacrifice herself? Wouldn't she have wanted to be with that great love? Had the great love died in the carnage? Had she flung herself from a rooftop somewhere in paroxysms of grief? She'd told herself over and over that Whitaker hadn't made sense because she was lying, that she shouldn't spend so much time on the proclamations of a crazy woman. But it wasn't working because deep down, on some level so hazy she was only barely aware of its existence, she knew Whitaker was right. Maybe not on all the details, but basically right nonetheless. Somehow, some way, she had had something to do with the downfall of their planet. It was not a comforting thought.

"Iz?"

Startled back to the present, Isabel found all eyes on her. "Are you okay?" Max asked, concerned. "You're, like, a million miles away tonight."

"We just found someone who saw us right after the crash," Isabel said. "Don't I get to be awed by that? Even Michael's awed by that. He's just louder about it."

"Of course you do," Tess said quickly. "We all are."

"You know what the most awesome thing about it is?" Isabel said, leaning her head against the side of the jeep. "We were babies."

Tess blinked. "What?"

"We were babies," Isabel repeated. "Carver told Michael that he saw human fetuses. That means we grew just like humans do, so at some point, we were babies."

"So?" Michael said.

"So we never knew that," Isabel said. "All we know is that we looked like 6 year-olds when we came out of the pods, but we never knew if we always looked like that. Now we know."

"I repeat," Michael said. "So?"

"So, haven't you ever gone over to a friend's house and seen all the baby pictures, and baby booties, and baby footprints, and baby everything?" Isabel said. "All of our pictures and stuff start from age 6. We never had that. And every single time I'd see one of those 'baby footprints' hanging on a wall, I'd be reminded all over again that we're different."

"That's because we are different," Tess said carefully.

"But now we know we grew just like everyone else," Isabel said. "We're not as different as we thought."

Isabel fell silent as Tess looked away and Michael stared at her like she'd lost her marbles; only Max shot her a sympathetic look. Of course Michael and Tess didn't care about not having baby pictures; Tess had lived in a world where she was never allowed to forget she was different, and a lack of baby pictures hadn't been Michael's biggest problem.

"We're here," Max said, helpfully changing the subject. "Are you sure this is okay, Michael?"

"Only one way to find out," Michael said.

They climbed out and filed after him, stopping in a tight huddle as he knocked on the motel room door. "Just a minute," growled a grumpy voice, followed by heavy footsteps and the rattle of a chain lock. A moment later, the door opened to reveal an older middle-aged man whose eyes widened when he saw them.

"Hey," Michael said. "I hope you don't mind...I've got some friends who want to meet you."

Total silence met this announcement. Carver gaped at them in astonishment as it lengthened, growing downright oppressive. "Maybe I should have called," Michael said finally. "I mean, I should have called. I'm sorry, I just...I'm sorry."

Carver stared at them wordlessly as Isabel felt a pang of sympathy for Michael, who never apologized but had apparently spent the entire day doing just that. "Um...maybe this was a bad idea," Michael allowed. "We'll just...we'll just go—"

"Four."

It was a whisper, such a quiet whisper that Isabel thought she may have heard wrong until he repeated it. "Four," Carver repeated. "Four of you." He looked them up and down as they shifted uncomfortably. "So you're...you're all…?"

Isabel felt her face burning. "Yeah," Michael finished self-consciously. "We're all..." He paused, glancing nervously around. None of them liked saying the "A" word out loud.

"Grateful," Max finished, gracefully filling the awkward silence. "We're all grateful, Captain, and that's why we're here." He held out a hand. "I'm Max Evans."

The prospect of a simple handshake seemed to shake Carver out of his fog. "Hal Carver," he said gruffly, grasping the proffered hand. "Glad to meet you."





**********************************************************





Proctor residence






It was dark by the time Dee arrived home, having spent the last couple of hours nursing a cup of coffee at the Crashdown while Courtney shot her sympathetic glances as she rushed by serving the dinner crowd. She'd been ready to strangle Brivari, but by the time it all went pear shaped, she'd been feeling sorry for him. And now she had an appointment to negotiate with the leader of another planet? How the hell had that happened? Climbing out of the car, she trudged wearily toward the house, climbed the porch steps, and nearly jumped a foot.

"Isabel!" Dee exclaimed. "You scared me!"

"I'm sorry," Isabel said from her seat in the gloom. "I didn't mean to."

"How did you get here?" Dee asked. "I don't see the jeep."

"I had Max drop me off," Isabel said. "He went to get gas—he'll be back soon. I thought I'd missed you." She paused. "It's okay that I'm here, right?"

"Of course it is, sweetheart, but why? Is something wrong?"

Isabel's eyes dropped, and Dee's heart dropped along with them. She'd nearly forgotten about their afternoon encounter with Tess; what had been a big thing earlier today seemed small now that she'd suddenly been nominated to speak for a planet she'd never set foot on and probably never would—perspective, and all that. But the look on Isabel's face made it clear that something was up, and Dee was willing to bet that particular episode wasn't over yet.

"Honey?" Dee prompted. "Is this about what your friend said earlier? Because—"

"Is it true that you were with Mac Brazel when he found the crash site on his ranch back in '47?" Isabel blurted out.

Good Lord, Dee thought wearily. Curve ball number four.




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



I'll post Chapter 46 on Sunday, March 20.

Can't wait for Dee to answer Isabel's questions about the crash.........
It must have been strange for Isabel and Max not to have pictures when they were babies.
Loved Max telling Carver how grateful he was. That would be an understatement.
Great part,
Carolyn

I love Max. I love your Max! Always so diplomatic

I feel so sorry for Brivari. To be shut up like that and reminded "you don't get to play with the big boys" aaaawwwnnnnn. I mean, I know how grief is affecting everything, but still ::

Let's see how Dee gets out of this one!

Misha

Thank you to everyone reading, and special thanks for the feedback!

keepsmiling7 wrote: Loved Max telling Carver how grateful he was. That would be an understatement.

I've always wanted Carver and the whole Pod Squad to meet. Fortunately, one of fanfic's chief aims is wish fulfillment.

Misha wrote: I love Max. I love your Max! Always so diplomatic

Perhaps I'm unconsciously making up for all those times he wasn't so diplomatic.

Brivari is grieving, yes, and he blames the treaty for Jaddo's death, not to mention he's pissed he was left out of treaty-baking process by virtually everyone. And now he's reminded that he's a guard dog, not a top dog. Here begins the final descent to the Kal we saw on screen.







CHAPTER FORTY-SIX




October 30, 2000, 8 p.m.

Proctor Residence






Dee sank into a porch chair next to Isabel, whose face was only barely visible in the dark. Hopefully hers was equally inscrutable because she was mentally scrambling, preparing to dodge yet another bullet in the hail which seemed to keep coming. She'd been expecting something about Tess's monumental indiscretion, but she hadn't expected her granddaughter to go looking up crash stats. She'd long ago decided what to say if this subject ever came up, but that was when the kids were small and everyone thought they'd remember who they were in short order. Dodging near adults was another thing entirely.

"So," Dee said as Isabel sat silently beside her. "You uncovered the family secret."

Isabel's features remained in shadow, but from the way she stiffened, Dee was willing to bet she would have voted for something else as the top contender for "family secret". "I just...I didn't know," Isabel said. "How is it that no one ever mentioned it?"

"How is it that you found out? I can't imagine your father would have brought it up, and your mother doesn't know."

"I...was doing a school project," Isabel said.

"A school project?" Dee repeated in a deeply skeptical voice. "In Roswell? About the crash? That's the last thing anyone here wants to talk about."

"We had a sub. Look, I'm just surprised," Isabel said. "It's kind of weird when your own grandmother's name comes up in an internet search. Especially when some of them think you're a boy."

Good, Dee thought. Native Roswellians' natural reluctance to seriously talk about what had put their town on the map had come in handy for her and Anthony, who had wanted to suppress their role in events as much as possible. Anthony's part had never made it into the history books, hers had been somewhat garbled, and Philip had been told to keep mum so she wouldn't be bothered by tourists, something everyone here could understand.

"I was a tomboy," Dee allowed. "Is this where Tess got her odd ideas?"

"Maybe," Isabel said cautiously.

"Well, I hate to disappoint her, but I'm afraid it's not that interesting," Dee said. "I didn't do anything but go with my neighbor to his ranch and spend the rest of the summer watching the town go crazy."

Isabel twisted sideways in her chair. "What did you see? What did it look like?"

Dee shrugged. "A pile of metal. Mac called the military base nearby because that's where most planes came from around here. And they never let him back on his ranch."

"I know all that," Isabel said impatiently. "I mean what did you see?"

"I told you," Dee said patiently, "a pile of metal. I was 8 years old, and I liked to go to the ranch with Mac. He lived next door," she said, pointing to the house next door, "with his wife, Rose, and I was over there a lot. There was a storm the night before, with lots of thunder and lightning, and I thought I saw a star fall while I was watching out my bedroom window. I wanted to find my star."

Isabel shifted slightly. "Did you?"

"I guess I did," Dee answered, "assuming what I saw was that plane, or whatever it was. But they hustled Mac away so quickly that it hardly mattered. And then the reporters came, and the sightseers, and the Army, and...well, it was a right royal mess."

"So...what was it?" Isabel asked. "What fell out of the sky?"

"That's the million dollar question, isn't it?" Dee said. "It was big, and shiny, and very broken. Everyone's still debating what it was and why it was there."

There came a long pause. "That's it?" Isabel said finally.

"Why?" Dee said. "Did you think there'd be more?"

"Well...what about the night you found us?"

"What about it?" Dee said.

"Dad says you told him to go past the 'No Trespassing' signs on Pohlman Ranch," Isabel said. "Why would you do that? How did you know to do that?"

"I saw something," Dee said.

"It was dark. There are no lights out there."

"Cars have headlights," Dee said.

"But how could you have seen anything off the road?" Isabel persisted. "Headlights only show in front of the car."

"Roads have curves," Dee noted. "And how did we get from the crash to this subject?"

Isabel fell into a frustrated silence as Dee waited to see how far she was willing to take this. First Tess, now Isabel...It's about time one of them figured it out, Brivari had said, disappointed that it hadn't been Zan or Rath. He'd be even more disappointed when he heard both girls had gotten there first, assuming he was still speaking to her, that is, which was somewhat of an open question.

"Grandma," Isabel said slowly, "is there something you're not telling me?"

"Isabel," Dee said gently, "is there something you're not asking me?"

The silence that followed was long and more pregnant than a lifetime of pauses. "Okay," Isabel said carefully, "here's the thing. I think you know that Max and I are…"

"Are...what?" Dee prompted.

"Are...special," Isabel finished.

"Special," Dee repeated. " 'Special' how?"

" 'Special' like...like when Max put out that fire," Isabel said. "You convinced Mom that he was 'special', which means you know...don't you?"

"Well," Dee said slowly, "I 'know' that there are people who can do things no one else can, and none of us knows why. I 'know' what would happen to these people if the wrong sort got a hold of them, like the government, the military, and whatnot. They may mean well, but too many of them would never be able to resist the urge to profit from it. So I 'know' it's best that no one ever learns of that. And I know that you and your brother were found wandering together, so it makes sense that you might be related, and that what applies to him might also apply to you."

"I knew it," Isabel said, excitement mounting in her voice. "I knew it! I knew that's what it was! I told Tess that's what it was, but she still thinks we're…"

"Aliens?" Dee finished.

It suddenly got very quiet, even the bugs falling silent as the word no one ever said out loud in any kind of earnest hung in the air like an open invitation.

And then, just like that, the invitation was declined. "I told her it was just about the fire," Isabel said, "but she didn't believe me. Grandma," she went on intently, "you got Max out of seeing that psychologist, didn't you? You got him out of it because you knew, didn't you?"

Dee shrugged. "I didn't like the man anyway. And I really don't think he was doing a thing for your brother. I just had to convince your Mom of that."

"I need you to do that again," Isabel said urgently. "Mom's sending me to therapy, and I don't want to go."

"I'm afraid even I can't pull that off," Dee said sadly. "I only managed it with Max because he'd been going for a while and he was feeling better. Your mother's quite insistent that you both go."

"But what if whoever I'm seeing finds out?" Isabel said.

"Finds out what?" Dee said. "You haven't put out any strange fires, have you? Or is there something else you don't want anyone to find out?"

"Well, no, but…I'm still worried I'm going to say something I shouldn't," Isabel finished, declining yet another invitation for full disclosure.

"The only way out I can see is if you tell your mother what you just told me," Dee said.

"You mean...tell her I'm…"

"Yes," Dee said.

There followed a very long pause. "No," Isabel said finally. "I can't."

"Why not? She knows about Max."

"That's not the same," Isabel said. "She'd want details, lots of details."

"She didn't ask your brother for details," Dee noted.

"That's because he's Max. She'll want something different from me, something I can't give her."

Headlights appeared down the road, drew closer. "I think your ride is here," Dee said.

Isabel sat silently beside her as the jeep pulled into the driveway, her misery palpable even in the dark. "Okay, well...thanks, Grandma. Maybe—"

Dee took her hand, silencing wherever that last sentence had been heading. There was no getting the kids out of Diane's insistence on therapy, but new vistas had just opened. Isabel wasn't ready to share her deepest secret, settling instead for something close, if not quite there. But even this represented progress because she could now let on she knew something, even if she still had to pretend she didn't know everything. She could now reassure her in ways which before had been impossible.

"You're not going to the same doctor your brother saw," Dee said.

"I know," Isabel said miserably. "Dad said he insisted on someone different, but it doesn't really matter."

"It does," Dee corrected. "Because the doctor you're seeing is one I recommended, and I promise you, she will never betray you. There is nothing you can say to her or do in front of her that would make her betray your confidence. So you do have to go, but it's not like last time."

"Why?" Isabel asked warily. "What does she know?"

"Ask her," Dee advised. "She'll tell you. I promise you don't need to worry about saying the wrong thing. Not this time."

There was a pause before Dee found herself enveloped in a crushing hug. "Thank you, Grandma," Isabel whispered fiercely. "Thank you."

Dee watched the jeep back out of her driveway, waved to her grandchildren, then went inside. It was 8:30 p.m. She had exactly six hours before the next curve ball came her way.







*******************************************************






Parker Residence






The bedroom door swung open. "Girlfriend, put those books away!" a voice boomed. "We are celebrating!"

Liz looked up from her trig homework, lost in a swamp of sines, cosines, and tangents. "Maria? I'm in the middle of...wait. Is that ice cream?"

"It certainly is," Maria confirmed, plopping a sweaty container down on her desk and narrowly missing a pile of trig notes as Liz scrambled to save them. "A whole half pint, just for you. And do not start with me about the 'whole half pint'. That's a real thing. It's a half pint, and it's a whole one."

"It's also melting," Liz noted, her math notes safely stashed in an ice cream-free zone. "What's the occasion?"

"First things first," Maria ordered, brandishing a spoon. "Begin!"

Lids came off. Spoons dipped. "Chocolate Fudge Brownie," Maria sighed. "Sheer heaven."

"I would have called this a drown-your-sorrows flavor," Liz said. "Are you going to tell me what we're celebrating, or do I have to guess?"

"Great idea! Guess," Maria commanded. "You'll never guess!"

"You…got a dispensation from having to take any more math courses?" Liz ventured.

"Good one," Maria allowed, "but no."

"You got the next month off from work with full pay?"

"Don't I wish," Maria sighed. "But no."

"You won an all-expenses-paid trip to the Bahamas?"

"Boooorring," Maria declared. "C'mon, what would I want more than any of those things? What have I been going on and on about? Okay, lots of stuff," she admitted when Liz raised an eyebrow, "but what's at the top of the list of things I've been going on and on about? Oh, never mind, I can't wait for you to guess," she declared. "Michael and I are back together!"

Liz blinked. "You are?"

"Yes!" Maria squealed, sending flecks of chocolate ice cream flying. "Can you believe it?"

No, Liz thought incredulously, having considered that for a you'll-never-guess scenario, but not voiced it, because to do so would be mean. Maria had been pining after Michael for months now without so much as a chink in the armor. What could possibly have brought that wall down?

"And the funny thing is, I can't believe I was so mean to that guy!" Maria went on. "I mean, yanking his chain about banana splits? I'd bring him a dozen banana splits now if they wouldn't melt before he ate them all. I just had no idea what they were talking about—"

"Maria?" Liz said.

"Although Michael did try to tell me this guy knew something important, but it really wasn't sinking because—"

"Maria?"

"—Space Boy was trying to borrow my keys, and Courtney was being, well, Courtney, which means, you know, insert-unprintable-four-letter-word—"

"Maria?"

"—and the guy was stuffing his face like he hadn't eaten in months and insisting on more, and I was just really aggravated, and—"

"Maria!" Liz exclaimed. "I don't know what you're talking about! What guy? What's with the banana splits? And what does any of this have to do with you and Michael?"

"Okay," Maria said, helping herself to a spoonful of Liz's ice cream. "Space Boy had to write a paper on a war veteran. The vet he interviewed happened to have been around on a certain day in 1947 when a certain something fell out of the sky."

"Lot of people were around," Liz said.

"But did lots of people see our Czechoslovakians while they were babes in the pod?"

Liz's eyes widened. "He...he what?"

Maria leaned in closer, so mesmerized by her tale that she momentarily forgot her ice cream. "This dude says he saw Space Boy and the rest of them as babies in their pods. He said they looked like 'human fetuses'. And he also says he rescued them, or let someone else rescue them. He pulled a fire alarm to let some glowy alien thingies get them off the base."

Liz stared at her, stunned. "Oh, my God, Maria, that's...that's huge!"

"Oh, it's bigger than 'huge'," Maria declared. "Space Boy figured out that humans have been saving his bacon ever since he got here, and he managed to connect the dots to those of us who've been saving his bacon since last year. He actually said 'thank you', out loud and in English, and he actually sounded like he meant it."

"That's why he apologized," Liz said faintly.

"Who apologized? Michael?"

"Yeah, he was really...abrupt this morning," Liz said.

"Meaning he was a jerk," Maria sighed. "Continue."

"I was telling Max that people were still calling about Congresswoman Whitaker, and what did he want me to say, and...well, we wound up talking later because Michael just cut us off. But then he showed up at the end of the day and said he was sorry, and that we'd figure it out."

"Space Boy has seen the light," Maria sighed happily. "Finally! So," she went on briskly, "what did you think of that thing in the pod chamber?"

"What thing in the pod chamber?"

"The thing that has had them all tied up in knots. The glowing thing?" Maria added when Liz looked blank. "The beam-me-up-thing? The upside down ice cream cone from another planet?"

"I...have no idea what you're talking about," Liz said.

Now it was Maria's turn to stare. "Max didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"I thought you said you talked to him?"

"I did," Liz said. "About Whitaker. That's it."

"So...you don't know what they found in the pod chamber? Behind the smelly pods in the space-agey room that they didn't even know was there?"

Liz felt her face growing warm. "Well, that's a...it's a really big rock formation, so there could be, you know, all kinds of things in there." She shoveled furiously, filling her mouth with ice cream so she wouldn't say something she shouldn't.

It didn't work. "It's okay," she babbled as Maria regarded her dubiously. "It's okay that Max didn't say anything because, you know, I've been saying that I want a fresh start, and obviously he listened. And—"

"Liz?"

"—he deserves one too because of the whole destiny thing, so of course he wouldn't tell me—"

"Liz?"

"—and that's perfectly okay because it's none of my business, not really, and—"

"Liz!"

"What?" Liz said.

Maria retrieved both spoons and set them down, denoting the gravity of the situation. "I knew Michael loved me," she said quietly. "I knew that. So I couldn't figure out why he kept pulling away, and I think it's because he was scared. He was scared of what they learned from that Mom-Bot, and he was scared he was going to hurt me or I was going to hurt him. And now he's not scared any more, or not enough to keep him away."

"That's...great, Maria," Liz said warily. "But what does that have to do with..."

"You?" Maria finished. "Everything! You're scared too. You're scared that Tess is better for him than you are. You're scared that you can't measure up to some alien wife ideal. You're scared that Max isn't going to pick you when he already has."

"No," Liz protested, shaking her head furiously. "No, that's not it. I'm giving him space. I'm staying out of his way. I'm—"

"Packaging it that way because it hides the fact that you'd rather cut him loose than the other way around," Maria finished. "You know, Max and I, we spent the whole summer trying to get through to you and Michael, hoping you'd come around. I never thought Michael would beat you to it."

Liz stabbed her spoon into her ice cream because she couldn't stab it into Maria. "Well, I'm sorry you feel that way," she said stiffly, "because you're wrong. I'm doing what's best for Max, for both of us."

"What you're doing isn't best for either of you," Maria said. "But if you really want me to believe you're 'doing what's best for Max', why would you do that if you didn't still love him?"

Liz's eyes dropped. "I never said I didn't love him."

"Then if you love him, and he loves you, why are so determined to make both of you miserable?" Maria demanded. "Isn't there enough misery in this world already? Hell, there's misery in their world, so there's plenty of misery to go around without you manufacturing more."

Liz was quiet for a moment before parking her spoon in her ice cream, where it rose from the container like the Sword in the Stone. "I think you should go. I have homework. Take the ice cream," she added, pushing the container away. "We've celebrated. I'm done."

Maria sighed and leaned back in her chair. "Okay. Maybe…maybe...I went a little too far there—"

" 'Maybe'?" Liz said skeptically.

"—but I will leave you with one last thought," Maria continued. "You know what Michael said to me today when he wanted to borrow my car, and I got all mad at him? He said, 'I'm an alien. You're human. Our lives do not mix.' Three hours later, he'd totally changed his tune. He'd figured out that not only do we mix, we're dependent on each other. We're dependent on each other because we're all in the same fight. You know how they talk about bullying at school, and how you can be the 'courageous bystander'? We're the courageous bystanders, Liz, but we're not standing by. We're right in the middle of it, and we should be, because it's not right for anyone to be treated the way Michael and the rest of them are being treated. And the people who treat them that way will treat anyone that way if they can get away with it, so we can't sit back and say, 'it's not us, it's just them'. The people who do that don't care about species. They're bullies, and species is just an excuse for them to bully."

"Is this just another slightly different, but long-winded announcement that they owe us?" Liz asked.

"No," Maria insisted. "I mean, yes, they do owe us, but we owe them too. If not for them, I wouldn't have a best friend. And we wouldn't be having this conversation because you'd be dead." She pushed Liz's phone toward her. "Call him."

"Call...who? Max? No," Liz said, shaking her head firmly. "No, calling him will just lead him on. Calling him will just get his hopes up, make him think—"

"That you love him?" Maria finished. "Oh, right! Because you do!"

"That I think we should get back together," Liz corrected. "Because I don't. Besides, I don't need to call him. You saw it; you can tell me without dragging Max into this."

Maria wagged a finger. "Nuh uh! You want to know? Call him. And keep the ice cream. You need it more than I do."

After Maria left, Liz stared at the phone for what felt like a very long time, long enough to form a small lake beneath the melting ice cream container. Finally she picked up the phone, put it down, picked it up again. Put it down, went back to her trig homework, gave up, picked it up again.

"Hi," she said shyly.

"Hi," Max said. "I haven't forgotten about Whitaker; we were just a little busy."

"I heard," Liz said. "Sounds like lots of things have been happening."

There was a pause. "Yeah, I...I knew you wanted your space, so I—"

"It's okay," Liz said quickly. "I get it. And I appreciate it. Although...I am a little curious."

Another pause, longer this time. "You are?"

The hope in his voice was heartbreaking, but even more heartbreaking was the way it made her own heart sing. Face it, Liz thought sadly. It wasn't Max's hopes she was afraid of raising.

It was her own.





*********************************************************






October 31, 2000, 2:15 a.m.

Davis Residence







"You're quiet."

Dee pulled her eyes away from the dark house down the street. "Is that a bad thing?"

"Maybe," Courtney allowed. "Definitely unusual."

"Perhaps you'd like me to hop out and do a tango on the nearest lawn?" Dee suggested. "Throw a few rocks? Yell, 'Fire!' and see if anyone wakes up? No? Well, then, quiet it is."

"At least you're still sarcastic," Courtney said dryly. "You're not too far gone."

"Maybe I'm just trying to figure out how I came to be sitting outside someone's house in the middle of the night, nursing a cup of coffee and waiting to speak for a planet I've never set foot on and probably never will," Dee said.

"I wouldn't fret about it," Courtney said, taking a swig of her coffee. "As 'speaking' goes, you're not saying much. This is just a formality."

"Just 'protocol'," Dee said.

"Yes. That. I know, I know," Courtney went on. "You're not big on protocol. Join the club. But everyone has their 'protocol'; you just call it 'Robert's Rules of Order', or 'legislative protocol', or something like that. Same difference. It can work for you or against you. This time it worked in our favor."

"Did it?" Dee said sadly.

Courtney stared at her. "Don't tell me you're feeling sorry for Brivari."

"Aren't you?"

"Hell, no!" Courtney said. "Why should I? He all but threatened to kill me."

"He's not thinking straight," Dee said.

"Fat lot of good that'll do me if I'm dead," Courtney said darkly. "He got exactly what he deserved."

"He did just lose Jaddo," Dee reminded her. "And he has been holding down the fort for years."

"Big, fat, hairy deal," Courtney said flatly. "I've been here for years, I've lost people too, and I haven't turned into some maniacal warmonger. And he held that fort down with a lot of help, from you, Anthony, your parents, Malik, those soldiers at the base who helped free Jaddo, and now Valenti. He didn't exactly do it alone."

"Don't forget River Dog," Dee said. "An Indian from the nearby reservation," she explained.when Courtney looked blank. "They were quite close."

"Great," Courtney said sourly. "He makes friends with every Tom, Dick, and Tonto he runs across, but threatens to kill me."

"You know, right before you got there today, I was ready to throttle him," Dee said. "He actually ordered me out of the house."

"I'm glad you didn't go because my knees were knocking," Courtney said. "I knew he was going to flip, but even I didn't think he'd flip this bad."

"And then I thought Larak was going to bow, and scrape, and 'Yes, Your Majesty' right out of there," Dee went on. "I thought protocol would kill the discussion before it had a chance to start. I never thought it would be used to bludgeon him."

"Larak rules a planet," Courtney said. "He's not about to take any guff from a Warder. They're protectors, not politicians, and definitely not rulers."

"Brivari's been both these many years," Dee said. "A kind of battlefield promotion, I suppose."

"Only until the battle's over," Courtney noted, "and that's what we're trying to do—end the battle. He's not helping."

"Not sure I am either," Dee said.

"This is just a procedural vote," Courtney said. "They're voting on whether to seriously pursue the treaty, and that will take years. It doesn't matter that Zan can't vote on it now because they'll probably still be fighting over it when he reaches adulthood."

"I asked to hear about the discussion," Dee said, "but what for? I don't know any of these people. I don't know anything about where you come from. Brivari's right—I'm not qualified to do this."

"Do you think any of us are 'qualified' to do this?" Courtney demanded. "None of us are qualified to do this because none of us could have seen such a bizarre scenario coming. You may not know much about Antar, but you're willing to at least try to look forward. Brivari knows plenty, but he's too screwed up to care. 'Knowing' doesn't help unless you actually show up."

"I still don't like it that he's not here," Dee fretted. "He should be here."

"Yes, he should be," Courtney agreed, "and whose fault is it that he isn't? His, that's whose. It's not like we told him he couldn't come. He chose not to come because he's too busy feeling sorry for himself. Jaddo's death affects all of us, not just him."

"Someone's bitter tonight," Dee remarked, blowing on her too hot coffee.

"Bitter?" Courtney repeated with savage cheerfulness. "Me? Why would I be bitter? I stuck my neck out and almost got myself killed, but hey, it's all in a day's work."

Dee stared at her. "Are you okay?"

"You know what the weirdest part is?" Courtney went on. "I hated Jaddo. Hated him. I wouldn't even come back to Roswell until I knew he was gone, and yet now...now I'd give anything to be dealing with him instead of Brivari. Jaddo was a first class, top of the line asshole, but you knew that going in, so you could prepare yourself. You always knew where you stood with him because he always told you, whether you wanted to hear it or not. If their positions were swapped, he wouldn't be calling me a traitor. He'd understand."

"Would he, now?" Dee said skeptically. "I'm guessing he wouldn't call you a traitor because he wouldn't bother calling you anything—he'd just shoot first and ask questions later. At least Brivari gives you a chance to defend yourself. Jaddo wouldn't have waited that long."

"I'm not so sure about that," Courtney argued. "Jaddo was practical, ice cold practical, maybe, but practical all the same."

"He was practical where he was concerned," Dee allowed, "but that doesn't mean he would have extended that to you. One of Jaddo's biggest faults was his inability to see things from another's point of view. Don't be so quick to assume he'd 'understand' a blasted thing if this were Brivari's treaty that he didn't know about."

Courtney shook her head. "Doesn't matter. We'll never know anyway, so the only thing that matters is what we have now. I made some decisions after our lovely encounter this afternoon. It's time I started taking matters into my own hands."

"Meaning…?"

"Meaning I'm going to take your advice and act like the leader of the Resistance," Courtney said. "My husk is getting worse by the day; I don't have much time left. It's now or never."

"But Brivari said he would—"

"Find a way to save my life?" Courtney finished. "Yeah, he said that, didn't he. Wanna bet on how keen he is on that now? Vanessa said she'd get a new husk for me, but that's not going to happen. See, he really doesn't have to rouse himself from his chair to kill me. All he has to do is wait me out."

"I think you're being a bit melodramatic," Dee said. "He'll come around."

"Maybe," Courtney allowed. "Maybe not. Probably not in time to do me any good. If I'm going to do something, make any contribution to putting my world right, I have to move now. Sending this treaty back for formal consideration is one of those contributions. The other one is Rath."

"Michael?" Dee said. "What about him?"

Courtney swigged her coffee, taking a big gulp as though bracing herself. "I've been watching the hybrids for months now, and frankly, I think we had it right the first time—Rath would make the better ruler. And Rath and I would be good together, not to mention our marriage would unite two warring factions. I think Jaddo had the right idea."

"You know, it's amazing how the dead are suddenly sanctified," Dee said dryly. "I'll allow that he did a smart and unexpected thing with this treaty, but he's not the Second Coming."

"Didn't say he was. I just said he had the right idea."

"So, what, you're going to out yourself and propose marriage to Michael?" Dee chuckled.

"Something like that."

Dee stared at her. "I was joking."

Courtney shrugged. "I'm not."

"And...what about Maria?"

"What about her?" Courtney said. "He'll be leaving her behind when he goes home, and he knows that. It's time she did too."

"And if Michael says 'no'?" Dee asked.

Courtney's hand tightened, denting the paper cup slightly. "He won't. Not when he knows what's at stake."

"He might," Dee warned, "so if I were you, Ms. Leader, I'd have a Plan B."

"You were the one who wanted me to act like a leader," Courtney said crossly. "So why are you mocking me now?"

"Being a leader means being persuasive, considering all the possibilities, and having contingency plans," Dee said. "It doesn't mean bashing around like a bull in a china shop and bending everyone to your will."

"You mean like Brivari did today?"

Dee shook her head sadly. "I mean like he usually does. He wasn't being a leader today."

"Tell me about it. Larak's here," Courtney announced, pointing to his host's house, where a light now shone in the previously dark living room, their agreed upon signal. "Time to go be leaders."




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



I'll post Chapter 47 on Sunday, April 3.

Dee already had her story in place for when the time arrived.
Aliens and humans are dependent on each other......
Courtney is still a Rath admirer.......and thinks he would be a better leader.
So, is Plan B now in motion??
Thanks,
Carolyn

Hello to everyone reading!

keepsmiling7 wrote:So, is Plan B now in motion??

Things are about to get very dicey for Courtney, so I'm guessing she'll be on Plan L pretty soon, if not Plan M, N, O, or P.

Thanks for the feedback! Always makes my day brighter when I see that you've posted.









CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN





October 31, 2000, 7 a.m.

Pineview Lodge





Hal Carver methodically opened and closed drawers, leafed through the closet, and checked the bathroom. His long years of driving trucks had found him tanked in many a motel room, and he'd long ago devised a way of making certain he hadn't forgotten anything, a systematic check of every nook and cranny. It was easier to pack when leaving a motel than it was to pack when going in the first place; in the latter case, you were taking a subset of your stuff, with all the requisite handwringing about exactly which stuff to take, while in the former you simply removed everything that belonged to you. He smiled when he almost grabbed the extra soap and tiny bottles of shampoo from the bathroom; his kids were long past the time when trinkets like that would have excited them, yet he still collected them out of habit. Ten minutes later, he plunked his key on the front desk.

"Checking out?" said the manager. "But I thought the reunion lasted for two more days."

"It does," Carver confirmed, "but I'm done."

"Oh...I see," the manager said knowingly. "Didn't go so well, did it?"

"Sorry?"

"Reunions," the manager went on, shaking his head. "Never had much use for'em. Who wants to find out that everyone they knew has gotten old, bald, and fat? Or wants everyone to know they've gotten old, bald, and fat? No one, that's who."

"Speak for yourself," Carver muttered.

"I went to a high school reunion once," the manager continued as he swiped Carver's credit card. "The most beautiful girl in our class weighed at least 300 pounds and had three chins. The football stud had put on almost as much weight and could barely walk, never mind throw a ball. Now whenever I think of them, I can only see them that way. I liked it better when I remembered them the way they were when they were young. Wished I'd never gone at all. Is that what happened to you?"

"Not exactly," Carver said.

"You're smart to leave early," the manager advised. "Pull the plug on the misery, you know? There's your receipt, and look us up the next time you're in Roswell."

"There won't be a next time," Carver said. "I'm done. With reunions," he added when the manager looked blank. "Weren't you just telling me to be done with them?"

Fifteen minutes later, Carver watched the cab driver heave his suitcase into the trunk as he climbed into the back. It was a beautiful sunny day as he looked the window, watching the streets of Roswell roll past for the last time. As he'd told the manager, he had no intention of returning, but not because his reunion had been a bust. He had no intention of returning because he didn't need to. He'd only come in the first place because the memory of what had happened back in '47 haunted him to this day, both what he'd seen and what he'd done, how his military career had come to an abrupt end when he'd decided to stand on principle. He could have just let things go, turned a blind eye. Instead he'd chosen to whack the bees' nest, and he'd spent the rest of his life wondering if he'd done the right thing.

"Going home?" the cabbie called back.

"Yep," Carver answered. "Tampa."

"Ah," the cabbie nodded. "Warm, like the desert."

"Nah. Warm like an armpit."

The cabbie laughed. "True. Our heat is more like a furnace blast."

Tell me about it, Carver thought, having noticed Roswell's dry desert heat the moment he'd arrived, a heat he still associated with that summer of '47 when his life changed forever. Now it would be associated with the second time his life changed forever, when he'd learned his actions had not been in vain, that he'd tossed his career away for a good reason. Last night, four of those good reasons had huddled on the edge of his bed, nervous and shy as they'd thanked him for keeping them alive, a fitting end to a tumultuous day which had begun with that mysterious soldier convincing him to sneak away from the reunion's tour of the base to make their own tour. "Brian's" revelation that an alien had been held at the base for several years, coupled with the obvious remodeling done to one of the buildings, had him convinced he'd wasted his time standing up for those Privates whose parents had been lied to about the way they'd died, never mind what had been in those sacs. He'd been so upset that he'd told his story to a punk from the local high school, supposedly in the hopes that someone would see it and investigate, but really just because he'd needed to spill, only to find out that punk had been one of the inhabitants of those sacs. He could still see that flame flickering out of the kid's finger, still feel the astonishment as it had sunk in that they'd survived, that it had worked, that he'd done something right. Meeting the rest of them, seeing those fresh, young faces so like anyone else's, had filled him with a sense of peace he hadn't felt in ages. These weren't "evil aliens", they were kids. They could be anybody's kids; hell, they could be his kids. If his kids ever ran out of gas in a strange place, he could only hope there'd be someone nearby willing to lend a hand or go out on a limb, if need be. He'd always felt like something of an idiot for being among the willing, but no more. The biggest question of his life had now been settled.

And having been settled, his time here was done. He'd come to this reunion because he'd had unfinished business here, but that business was now finished. Now he could put that part of his life behind him, tuck it away in the mental scrapbook marked, "Here's what happened, here's what I did about it...and it was all worth it." The irony was that, having never told anyone the story, there was no one to tell about its final resolution. But didn't everyone have stories they never told, secret stories all their own? Those kids certainly did.

"Wait," Carver called suddenly. "Pull over."

The driver looked puzzled, but complied. "How much do I owe you," Carver asked, "and how much do you want to come back in an hour?"

The cab drove off as the Crashdown's sign flashed, gaudy even in early morning light. Yeah, it was kitschy, but it was all that was left of Parker's, his Parker's, and this was probably the last time he'd see it. It deserved one last look, for old time's sake. Trundling his suitcase behind him, he opened the door and went inside.

"Boo!"

"Jesus!" Carver gasped as a waitress with a fake nose and glasses grinned. "What was that for?"

"It's Halloween!" the waitress exclaimed. "That's why we're all dressed up!"

"Weren't you dressed up already?" Carver said.

"Dressed up different than usual," the waitress amended. "Okay, not much different because Mr. Parker won't let us lose the aprons, but we do get to lose the deely boppers. Take what you can get, that's my motto."

"A good motto," Carver agreed. "I'll just sit at the counter," he went on, waving away her offer of a booth and taking a seat one stool away from a man in a leather jacket.

"Cool. Coffee?" she asked. "Or...wait. I know you! You're the banana split guy!"

Carver blinked. "What?"

"I'm Maria! Remember me from yesterday?"

"Uh...not really," Carver confessed.

"Well, I guess I didn't exactly make the best impression. But I'm determined to make up for that," Maria announced. "I'm going to get you the biggest banana split you've ever had, on the house!"

"For breakfast?" Carver said.

"Sure, for breakfast. Why not for breakfast? Life is short. Live it up!"

"It'll be a lot shorter if I start eating ice cream for breakfast," Carver said. "Coffee, black, and toast with jam."

"Whatever you want," Maria assured him, "and it's all on the house."

"Why?" Carver said. "What'd I do?"

Maria gave him a dazzling smile. "I can't tell you. It's a secret."

"Fair enough," Carver said, being well acquainted with secrets. "Can I have my coffee now?"

"And can I have my check?" the man next to him asked.

Carver glanced sideways as Maria dug in her apron pocket and leafed through her checks. "Here you go," she said, setting the check down on the counter.

Carver's hand shot out. "He doesn't want his check," Carver said, pulling it toward him. "He's not done yet."

The man next to him, none other than the mysterious "Brian" from yesterday's tour of the base, smiled faintly. " 'Hal', wasn't it? But I do want my check."

"No check," Carver commanded. "He wants another cup of coffee."

Maria looked back and forth from one to the other in consternation. "What are you doing?" Brian demanded.

"What am I doing?" Carver said. "What the hell are you doing, leading me around by the nose, dropping tidbits, and then pulling a disappearing act?"

"As I recall, I didn't exactly have you on a leash, and we aren't married, so I can disappear if I feel like it," Brian retorted. "Check, please?"

"Love to, but he's got it," Maria noted.

"Then get me another check," Brian said.

"Get him a cup of coffee," Carver corrected. "He and I have some unfinished business."

"No, we don't," Brian said flatly.

"Yes, we do," Carver insisted.

"Boys!" Maria admonished sternly. "Don't make me come around this counter!"

"Stay out of this," Carver snapped.

Maria's eyes narrowed. "Look, pal, I may feel all warm and fuzzy over your recent contribution to my happiness, but that doesn't mean you get to rough up the customers, or me. Give him his check."

"He gets his check when I get an explanation," Carver said.

"Jesus," Brian muttered, fishing a twenty dollar bill out of his wallet. "Keep the change. Hey…! What, now you're taking my money?"

Carver waved the twenty in the air like a flag. "Come and get it!"

"Right, so now I'm working at a daycare with toddlers," Maria said sourly.

"Is there a problem here?"

It was a little old lady standing behind them, complete with a cane and a bemused expression. Just as Carver was about to tell her—politely—to mind her own business, he found himself looking into familiar eyes, the eyes of a young nurse from the base he'd put on a bus all those years ago, only to have her disappear into the night.

"Yvonne White?" Carver whispered, flabbergasted. "Is that you?"

"Lieutenant White?" Brian said, equally flabbergasted. "Is that you?"

"Wait," Carver commanded. "You know her?"

"How do you know her?" Brian retorted.

"Fascinating as it is to have men fight over me at my age, I'm of the opinion we should move somewhere more private," Lieutenant White said calmly. "I suggest we all retire to a booth, preferably the back one. Would you be a dear and bring whatever they've ordered over to the table?" she added to Maria.

"Gladly," Maria declared. "See? Want a problem solved? Ask a woman. Works every time. Up and at'em, boys! Fight Club's over."

Still in shock, Brian and Carver slid off their stools. "And I thought Czechoslovakians were high maintenance," Maria muttered as the now elderly Lieutenant White led them away.






**********************************************************






West Roswell High School







"Happy Halloween!"

Tess peered around her locker. "Wow. That eye make-up looks painful."

"Only to take off," Isabel allowed, dabbing at the layers of glittered eyeshadow beneath her sprayed hair. "It's a good eighth of an inch thick. I wore this for the Crash Festival last year, but I never really got to enjoy it, what with Valenti chasing Max. And then we didn't go this year because...well, we were busy."

"With Nasedo dying," Tess said. "Sorry you missed it."

"I'm not," Isabel shrugged. "It was always a bit too personal for us, and now...well, now, just forget it. But Halloween is different. Aren't you dressing up?'

"I'm dressed," Tess shrugged. "Isn't that enough?"

"C'mon, Tess, it's Halloween!" Isabel said. "Halloween is really big around here."

"Tell me about it," Tess said. "Kyle made me leave the house first so I wouldn't see his costume. Doesn't Roswell kind of do Halloween every single day of the year?"

"No, it does aliens every single day of the year," Isabel said.

"Lot of those around today," Tess remarked, glancing up and down the crowded hallway. "Some have horns."

"And some have extra eyeballs. Look, it's fun to pretend you're someone else," Isabel said, "just for a little while."

"Right, because we never get to pretend we're someone else," Tess said dryly. "I do that every day. So do you."

Isabel shook her head. "No, I really don't. I'm Isabel Evans every day."

"You know what I mean," Tess said. "I just never got into the whole Halloween thing. It wasn't a big deal in my last school, and Nasedo never went in for human holidays."

"So, you never, like, trick-or-treated?"

"Never," Tess confirmed. "Or handed out candy, or bobbed for apples, or went to a haunted house."

"Really? So what happened when kids came to your door for candy?"

"We kept the lights off, which is supposed to mean no candy, but every year some would try," Tess said. "Nasedo would answer the door and glare at them, and that was pretty much that."

"Yeah, that would do it," Isabel agreed. "But that's so sad. What about Thanksgiving? Christmas? He didn't do Christmas?" she exclaimed when Tess shook her head. "How can you not do Christmas!"

"Maybe he was secretly Jewish," Tess deadpanned. "We lived together, but we weren't 'family', so family holidays didn't mean anything to us. Why have a Thanksgiving dinner with just me and Nasedo?"

Isabel made a face. "Right. Probably better to not do it at all. Speaking of families, I talked to my grandmother last night. She told me what she knows about me."

Tess's eyes dropped, not wanting to touch this subject with a ten foot pole. "Oh? What'd she say?"

"It's just what I thought—she thinks I'm 'special', like Max is 'special' because he put out that fire," Isabel said.

"She said that?"

"Yes. Out loud, and in English. So she knows something, but doesn't really 'know'."

"Are you going to tell Max?" Tess asked.

Isabel shook her head. "He already kind of knows because he knows Grandma influenced Mom over the whole fire thing, so I don't think he needs to hear chapter and verse."

Thank God, Tess thought, trying hard to keep her relief to herself. Raising this subject with Max in any way was likely to lead back to what had started it all in the first place, that being her massive underestimation of Isabel's grandmother. It was possible this was all her grandmother knew, just like it was possible she was lying through her teeth, but at this point, Tess didn't care if it turned out that Grandma was a shapeshifter just so long as her monumental mistake was not made known to her former husband.

"That must have been what I sensed," Tess said. "At least this way you can kind of talk to her, even if you can't give her all the details."

"She already said she found me a psychologist who won't blab on me...what on earth?" Isabel finished, looking behind Tess. "What are you supposed to be?"

"Guess!" Kyle chortled as Tess spun around to find him wearing high water pants, a pocket protector, horn rimmed glasses, and enough hair gel to lubricate the hinges on every locker on the first floor.

"Uh...you got me," Tess confessed.

"I'm a nerd!" Kyle exclaimed. "You know, Revenge of the Nerds?"

"Isn't that movie kind of old?" Isabel said.

"But still accurate," Kyle said. "And...wait. What the hell is that?"

" 'That' would be Alex," Tess answered.

"Hey, ladies!" Alex said, coming up to them. "Nice hair, Isabel."

"Funny...last time you mentioned the cones," Isabel said dryly.

"What are you supposed to be?" Kyle demanded as Alex flushed.

"You mean you can't tell?" Alex said. "I thought you, of all people, would know. I'm a jock!"

Isabel and Tess exchanged glances, then smiles. "So you think this is what a jock looks like?" Kyle said in astonishment. "Okay, number one, eye black is not eye liner—it only goes under the eyes. And how many pairs of shoulder pads are you wearing? And what's with the sunglasses?"

"Seemed pretty accurate to me," Alex shrugged. "What are you?"

"I'm a nerd, nerd," Kyle said in exasperation. "And jocks do not look like that!"

"Hey, it's cool," Alex assured him. "Nerds don't look like that either. Later, dude!"

"And we don't say stupid things like 'later, dude'!" Kyle called after him as Alex loped away, drawing admiring stares from several students. "What is with him?" Kyle demanded. "I don't look like that! Do you think I look like that?"

"Oh, c'mon, Kyle," Isabel protested. "Do you honestly believe Alex looks like that? Short pants and leather oxfords? He wears sneakers and jeans, for heaven's sake."

"Sheesh. Nobody can take a joke," Kyle muttered.

"Including you," Tess noted.

"I need a better audience," Kyle grumbled. "Hey, Paulie! Did you see Whitman? Can you believe it?"

"Children," Tess said, shaking her head as Kyle went in search of a sympathetic ear. "So that's why he commandeered the bathroom. I didn't think he had enough hair to hold all that gel."

"Aren't you just a little bit sorry you didn't dress up?" Isabel asked as they started down the hallway. "You're missing all the fun."

"This is what you call 'fun'?" Tess said skeptically. "If you enjoy this, whatever floats your boat, but just remember, none of this matters. None of this is real."

Isabel's expression changed. "Of course it's real," she said with an edge to her voice. "This isn't a video game—these are real people, living real lives on a real planet."

"Not our planet," Tess said.

"That doesn't mean it's not real," Isabel argued, "This is where we are now. This is our world. It may not have always been, and it may not always be, but it is for now, and we depend on the people we know here. My mom and dad and my grandmother may not be related to me by blood, but that doesn't mean they're not real or that they don't matter—I love them, and they love me, and that love is very real and absolutely matters. That love is what helps keep us safe. You of all people should know that because you're the one claiming my grandmother keeps intervening on my behalf."

"Okay, fine, it's a real planet, and you have real ties to it," Tess said. "But that's the point—Nasedo didn't want me to have ties here because he knew I wasn't staying."

"What a horrible way to live," Isabel said sadly. "We all need other people, and we need them wherever we are. Maybe Nasedo thought saying it wasn't 'real' would cover up the fact that you had this huge, gaping hole in your life."

"Maybe," Tess allowed, not wanting to get into another argument with Isabel for the second day in a row. "But I'm still not interested in Halloween. I wear a costume every day of my life."

Isabel raised an eyebrow. "Costume? Didn't you hear Captain Carver last night? The fetuses in those sacs looked human. This is no costume, Tess—this is what we look like, what we've always looked like." She leaned in closer. "Know what I think? I think you're the one working overtime to convince yourself that nothing 'matters' because that way, you have an excuse to be alone, and to hide your loneliness behind some 'higher purpose'. I watch Michael do it all the time. Crappy trade-off, if you ask me, but hey...whatever floats your boat."






*********************************************************






Crashdown Cafe






Dying of curiosity, Carver slid into a booth opposite the enigmatic Brian and next to the much older Lieutenant White. Look who's talking, he thought gruffly, mentally noting he must look every bit as old to her as she did to him. The last time he'd seen Lieutenant White was when she and that mouthy Captain had flushed him out when he'd been hiding from Cavitt. Only the eyes were readily recognizable in the white-haired woman who sat next to him now, making him wonder if he bore any resemblance to the dashing pilot he'd been back then. Maybe the eyes, he thought. And the mouth. Definitely the mouth.

"So are you finally going to tell me who the hell you are?" Carver said.

"You know, I might have if you'd asked nicely," Brian retorted. "Are you going to tell me how you know Lieutenant White?"

"You first," Carver said.

"Why me?" Brian demanded.

"Because you're the one being a dick," Carver said.

"Breakfast!" announced Maria, swooping down on the table with Carver's toast and three cups of coffee. "Brought another cup for you," she told Yvonne. "Thought you might need it. You boys behaving yourselves?"

"Yes," Brian and Carver answered.

"No," Yvonne said simultaneously.

"Thought so," Maria said sagely. "Good luck."

"Thank you, dear," Yvonne said, waiting until she'd retreated before holding up both hands. "Quiet, both of you! Brian, may I present Captain Harold Carver. Captain Carver and I were there at the very beginning, right after the crash. We spoke of our various experiences before Cavitt kidnapped me and locked me inside the compound, and shortly after, the Captain resigned his commission. Captain Carver, this is Captain Brian Thompson. Brian was assigned to the compound at the same time I was. This is how you both know me, but I must confess, I never expected to find either of you here. What brings you to Roswell?"

"I'm here for the reunion," Carver said. "What's his excuse?"

"The same," Brian said. "I heard the 509th was giving tours of the base. Nobody's gotten near that base since the feds took it over, so I saw an opportunity."

"Wait—the feds?" Carver said. "The feds bought Eagle Rock? What for?"

"The FBI, to be precise," Yvonne answered. "And I think you know what for. It was already uniquely suited to holding alien prisoners."

Carver shifted uncomfortably. "So it's true, then? You held an alien there for three years, like he said?"

"Of course it's true," Brian said disdainfully. "You thought I just made that up?"

"I don't know what to believe, what with you swooping in and making announcements," Carver retorted. "You kept dropping hints, but never followed through, like a woman around Valentine's Day. Nothing personal, ma'am," Carver added quickly.

"Of course not," Yvonne sighed as Brian bristled at that last slap. "Is this true, Brian? Why were you stringing the Captain along like that?"

"Good question," Brian said darkly. "Especially since it sounds like he bailed after the first ten minutes."

"I didn't bail, I was kicked out!" Carver exclaimed. "It was resign or be dishonorably discharged, which would have followed me for life! Which would you have picked?"

"Kicked out?" Brian said. "For what? Your mouth?"

"For handing information on the deaths of two privates to a reporter, who was subsequently murdered," Carver said. "Those boys' parents deserved to know the truth about their deaths, not the trumped up story the Army made up. So yeah, I guess you could say it was my mouth."

"It was Captain Carver who caused the ruckus which let one of prisoners escape," Yvonne noted.

"Wait—you pulled that fire alarm?" Brian said.

"I told you I did!" Carver protested.

"And I thought you were lying," Brian shrugged. "Everyone knew someone did, but no one knew who." He paused for a moment, looking Carver up and down. "Good move," he allowed.

"Gee, thanks," Carver said sarcastically. "I can't tell you how much your approval means to me. God, could you get any more condescending? Why the hell did you hook up with me yesterday if your middle name is Pompous?"

Brian looked away. "Because you weren't like the rest of them. You weren't just following along like a sheep. Guess I saw a kindred spirit. And my memories of that time are some of the worst I have."

Carver's eyes dropped. "Yeah," he said gruffly. "Same here."

Everyone was quiet for a long moment. "It's the same for all of us," Yvonne said finally. "What happened here changed us. What we did here has shaped our lives, and will continue to shape them as long as we live. There is no 'closure', or whatever the term is now, not for something like this. There is only the knowledge that we did the right thing, regardless of how things turned out. Our choices don't always affect the outcome as much as we'd like, but they definitely affect us."

I did the right thing, Carver thought confidently, and not just because of last night's visitors. He'd always known he'd done the right thing. It was what had sustained him as he'd watched other men head into the sky and rise through the ranks, accumulating honors and accolades from an entity he no longer had any faith in. The Army had behaved so badly back in '47 that he would have had to walk away whether he'd been caught or not.

"Is the captain with you, ma'am?" Brian asked. "You haven't mentioned him."

"What captain?" Carver said. "The one who came with you to my place when you wanted me to spill what I knew about Betty?"

"Which you did, and we were so grateful," Yvonne said. "You helped put Cavitt away. Did you ever find out what happened to Cavitt?"

"Ritchie told me," Carver said. "Came to visit right before he left for Korea and got himself killed."

"I'm sorry about that," Yvonne said as Brian winced. "But, yes, the captain I was with was Stephen Spade. He was stationed at the compound with us, and we wound up getting married. We were married for 50 years."

"Fifty years!" Carver said, delighted to hear some good news. "Congratulations!"

"Wait…'were' married?" Brian said.

Oh, no, Carver thought as some of the light went out of Yvonne's eyes. "Stephen died about a month ago," she said. "He was actually gone for quite a while before that...Alzheimer's, you see. I've moved here temporarily to live with friends."

"I'm so sorry, ma'am," Carver murmured.

"Thank you," Yvonne said, squeezing his hand before turning to Brian, who sat across from him, silent and shaken. "We lived long, full, happy lives," she said gently, "even in hiding, even in spite of the hand fate dealt us, and sometimes because of it. I have no regrets, and I know Stephen didn't either."

"What a horrible way to go," Brian whispered. "He didn't deserve that."

"Most of us don't get to pick," Yvonne noted. "We just get the death we get."

"Look at us," Brian said bitterly, "three fossils from another time, coming back to the watering hole which isn't a watering hole any more, like some kind of demented homing pigeons."

"Parker's definitely looks different," Carver allowed. "But the building is the same. I can still see the outlines of our Parker's. I knocked back more than a few under this roof. Seems like yesterday...and now we're old."

"Old enough to die," Brian said soberly.

"Weren't we always old enough to die?" Yvonne said. "We were just younger then, with all the fearlessness that brings. None of us are sheep, gentlemen; we all share that quality. We all bristle at injustice and cruelty and deceit, even now, even decades later." She raised her glass. "To the rebels we were, and will always be."

Brian and Carver picked up their glasses. "Hear, hear."

Maria reappeared. "Wow," she remarked, dropping off a pile of napkins. "Mood's changed around here. Are we playing nice now, boys? Did she hit you over the nose with a rolled up newspaper?"

"Sweetheart, I know you think you're being amusing, but you're not," Brian said. "You have no idea what we're talking about, but I guarantee you we're not 'playing'."

Maria regarded him in silence for a moment. "Okay...I'll bite. Just how serious is this subject?"

"Life and death," Carver said. "We're all former soldiers from the nearby base."

"Fair enough," Maria said promptly. "I withdraw the snark."

"Don't be too hard on her," Yvonne advised as Maria swished away without so much as a single hard feeling. "That's the next generation of rebels. And we all know what it's like to be one of those."





*********************************************************






6:30 p.m.

Proctor Residence






Dee had just started loading the trunk when a horn honked behind her, and she turned to find the jeep pulling into her driveway. "Hey, Grandma!" Isabel called. "We thought we'd start trick-or-treating at your house. Are we too early?"

"Heavens, no," Dee chuckled. "Your grandfather is inside and rarin' to go, if he hasn't eaten all the candy himself already. All the little ones should be coming out soon."

"I told Iz I thought we were getting a bit old for this," Max remarked.

"And I said you're never too old to have fun," Isabel said stoutly.

"I'm with you," Dee agreed. "Enjoy it while you can. I'm happy to hand out candy to anyone in a costume." She paused, looking Max up and down. "And you are…?"

"Men in Black," Max announced, brandishing a pair of dark sunglasses.

"Ah. Yes. And you are…?"

Isabel patted her heavily sprayed hair, which framed her heavily made-up face. "Visible from space. And open to interpretation. Are you going somewhere?"

"Over to a friend's house," Dee said. "He's not feeling well. I thought I'd help him hand out candy."

"Aw, that's sweet, Grandma," Isabel said, planting a kiss on her cheek.

"Go get your candy before your grandfather eats it all," Dee advised. "And have fun tonight!"

The kids headed for the front porch, Max loping after his sister, as Dee finished loading the trunk. Their one remaining Warder was getting company tonight, whether he liked it or not.





~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




I'll post Chapter 48 on Sunday, April 17.

Great new part....
I especially enjoyed Carver meeting the "inhabitants of the sacs".
That really settled his question of what happened.
I'm surprised Isabel told Tess of her conversation with her grandmother.
And how nice for Lt. White to appear again.......I've always wondered what happened there.
Thanks, Carolyn