A Roswell Homecoming (CC/UC,MATURE) A/N 4/10/05 [WIP]

[Chrisken]

A Roswell Homecoming, Part 4d: "Pick up the pieces" 1/2
Author: Chris Kenworthy
Email: Chris_Kenworthy@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: No, I don't own any of the Roswell characters. I don't plan to steal them and lock them up in white rooms either. I just let them out to play from time to time and see what happens.
Distribution: Distribute anywhere you like, currently based at fanfiction net: http://www.fanfiction.net/~chriskenworthy
Feedback: YES PLEASE!
Category: Alternate timeline epic. Conventional couples angst leading up to UC in later parts - you have been warned!
Rating: PG-13, for now
Summary: Alien mysteries lead to an interesting year...
Spoilers: Up to 'Ask not'

(Still morning of Wednesday November 29th.)

"Ah!!" Maria watched as Alex bent down to the desert floor under the platform and retrieved his small metal disk. He found the string a few inches away, but didn't bother trying to re-tie it around his neck, just putting the washer and the string in opposite pockets.

"So... what now?" Maria asked aloud. The eastern sky was brightening - dawn would come any minute now. "I mean, first off, there are seven of us here and we won't all fit in Kyle's car. Do we hotwire the SUV or something?"

"We were about to, to save Isabel," Alex reminded her. "And I'm not so sure that we should leave it out here."

"The chemical company is going to notice their geologist is missing at some point," Isabel said. "Maybe it'll best if his car is missing too. Make it look like he just bugged out on the job and left Roswell."

"I just hope nobody notices that Grant and Steve Banks disappeared at the same time," Michael muttered. "Assuming of course that now that his cover is blown Steve doesn't go back to the radio station."

"Um, I have a question," Kyle put in. He had finally gotten out of his car and crept closer to the group, Maria noticed. "Where the heck is Tess??"

Mentioning her name sent a double-take through the whole group, except perhaps for Liz and Alex. "Tess?" Isabel repeated. "You mean she isn't back at your father's, Kyle?"

"No, that's why I'm here," Kyle told them. "I woke up in the middle of the night, I was walking around a bit, and the bedroom door was wide open, she was nowhere to be found. I was cruising the neighborhood looking for her when I saw Courtney heading for the highway like a crazed person, and I figured that might be relevant. She led me here."

"Mental note, find out how Courtney knew to find Steve here," Michael muttered under his breath.

"Tess goes up by Frazier woods," Liz spoke up, surprising everyone. "Grant said something about it while Max and Isabel were in the tunnel. She goes up there every night, he didn't know why, but they didn't expect Tess to come running to the rescue."

"Well, *I* wanna know why!!" Michael exclaimed. "We're supposed to be a team, and Tess hasn't been pulling her weight for a while now! If she had our backs, this would have been much less of a close call... no offense Liz, and thanks for saving all our butts by the way." He nodded solemnly at the dark-haired girl.

"Wait a second," Maria put in suddenly. "Alex, you future self said that four skins could come up against the royal four at any one time, right?"

"Yeah," Isabel chimed in. "That arbiter woman confirmed it. Steve, Grant, and that other doof made three. Where's the fourth?"

"That's a good point..." Max said slowly. "Who launches an attack like this without their full complement? Another guard could have been the one to stop Liz before she set us free." He took a deep breath. "Unless the fourth skin is going after the fourth hybrid. Tying up loose ends." He looked pale as he sad it.

"You mean one of these nutcase aliens might be trying to kill Tess?" Kyle exploded. "Then why the heck are we all sitting around here? Frazier woods, next stop, all aboard."

"I think we'd better go check on her," Max agreed. "Even if all this conjecture about the fourth skin is unfounded, there's Steve to think about. He might try to make up for the failure of his plan A by taking out Tess before she's on her guard."

Michael looked over the group. "Max, Liz and I go with Kyle to find Tess," he suggested. "Isabel, you Alex and Maria take the SUV, swing through town just long enough to pick up some spare wheels, and..." he thought a second. "You can find somewhere to hide it where it won't be found, right?" He looked at Grant's ride critically. "It'd be a shame to total it if we don't have to."

"I can handle things," Isabel assured him. "Go and make sure that Tess is okay, And then read her the riot act for me, okay?" She smiled faintly.

Quickly Max and Liz bundled back into the Prowler, this time with Michael, and the other three approached the SUV. Isabel got behind the drivers' seat, waved her hand over the dashboard, and the engine roared into life. Another wave and it died down.

"What's wrong, Isabel?" Maria asked.

"Just think we'd better secure the area first," Isabel said, walking back over to the platform as Kyle's car drove away. "Make sure that there isn't anything left around here that could connect us to it... fingerprints and such..." She was climbing the ladder, and as her head cleared the platform she did a double take. "Wait a second, I thought you said that Liz roasted the third alien doofus with the ray gun up here." She glared down accusingly at Maria.

"She did," Maria insisted.

"Then what happened to the body??" Isabel asked. Alex took a look up from where he was, half underneath the platform. It was obvious that Zentar's body was nowhere to be seen.

"Check for dust," Alex called up. In a few seconds it had been confirmed - Zentar's body had collapsed into dust when nobody was looking, much the same way Nasedo's had in the pod chamber.

They cleared the area, (Isabel doing fingerprint duty with her powers,) and collapsed the platform so that it was nearly level on the rocky ground, hoping to make the tunnel opening less suspicious by depriving anyone of an easy way to look down into it. Then Isabel led the way back to Grant's car.

"So... what do we do after we stash the wheels?" Maria asked as she climbed

"I dunno about you," Alex quipped, "but I think we've earned another 'personal day'."

* * * * *

"That's her!" Max pointed out, spotting a car going the other way down route 380, towards Roswell. Kyle's car had just passed through town, leaving the city limits behind about five minutes ago.

"Probably wanting to get home before Sheriff Valenti wakes up," Liz commented.

"Can you catch her?" Michael asked Kyle from the shotgun seat. "We need to have this out, *now* and out here in the middle of nowhere seems like the safest place.

Kyle shrugged. "Sure." He pulled his car through a U-ie across the bright yellow line down the middle of the four-lane highway and charged off, honking at the Tess-mobile when he got in range and waving at her to pull over. Tess started driving faster, but she wasn't any match for the enging under Kyle's hood. He drag-raced her, pulled ahead, and gradually cut Tess over to the shoulder.

Tess was storming out of the coupe by the time Kyle had parked. Eloquent as always, she glared at the four individuals as they piled out of the Prowler and snarled "What the fuck??"

Kyle was the next to speak up, though he didn't show any sign of having heard Tess' words. "Are... are you okay, Tess? Did any aliens try and kill you too?"

Tess stared at him in confusion for a few seconds. "No, Valenti, I'm fine," she muttered. "What's your problem?"

Michael waded into the conversation at this point. "Well, *my* problem is that Skin assasins came *damn* close to taking care of Isabel, Max, and myself fatally, and the person we expected to have our backs after she's put all of us through so much was nowhere to be found!!" Michael paused a moment and brought his volume down three notches. "What were you doing going out by Frazier woods, Tess??" The intensity was thick on Michael's voice and written in his face.

"I, um... god!!" It took Tess a moment to come to terms with the news Michael had dropped. "I, I go up there to think when I can't sleep, which is all the time, lately," she admitted. "If I'd known that the Skins had an assasination planned, I'd have stuck in town!! Everyone's okay, right? Isabel didn't..."

"Isabel's fine," Liz said, her words to Tess somewhat distant and impersonal out of habit. "It was touch and go there for a while, from what I heard, but thanks to Michael and Alex she'll be fine. Alex and Maria are okay too, thank you *so* much for asking." The sarcasm seeped in on that last sentence. "They're tying up a few loose ends."

"Well, I'm glad everyone's all right," Tess said sincerely looking intently at all of them. "But maybe you guys should get used to the idea that I won't be coming to the rescue any more."

Max got a sinking feeling in his stomach. "What is that supposed to mean, Tess?"

She turned to focus narrowly on Max. "You want me to spell it out for you, sweetie??" she spat angrily. "I'm thinking of leaving Roswell."

The stunned silence lasted for nearly half a minute, and then Liz charged forward and got right into Tess' face. "You selfish little bitch!"

"You came into Roswell with your little games, trying to make everyone dance to your tune. Manipulating *all* of us.

"But these people," Liz waved at Max and Michael, "never held it against you. They accepted you as you are, because you were one of them. Max, Sheriff Valenti, and even Kyle have gone out on a limb for you. And Michael and Isabel would do anything for you, because you're family."

"Bull shit!!" Tess declared. "Do you really have blinders on so heavy that you see your friends that way, Liz?? Because the reality is that you declared war with me over Max, and you've won! Nobody wants me around any more. 'The tribe has spoken.' I'm just doing what all of you want me to."

"'Bull shit,'" Liz mimicked. "You're not really planning on leaving, are you Tess?" A cold smile came across Liz's face for a second, and then she caught herself, apparently not being too comfortable with the feeling that went along with it, and shook it off. "You're just trying to blackmail Max into feeling something for you, because you KNOW he can't afford to let you walk out on the team, now of all times! This is a time when the pod squad has to be all 'all for one and one for all,' and all you're thinking about is if it gives you a chance to steal your boyfriend back!!"

The two girls glared at each other for a few seconds and then, surprisingly, Tess broke away first. "I'm not tring to change Max's mind," she mumbled towards the highway shoulder, "really I'm not." She looked up and shot a forlorn look in Max's direction. "You get that, don't you? I'm not gonna give you an ultimatum and say 'Love me, or else I leave and you lose.'" The blonde girl chuckled hollowly. "I'd probably give it a try if I thought it stood a shot of working, but it doesn't. Clueless as I am, even *I've* learned that love doesn't work that way." She sighed again, looking away from Max.

"I'm not gonna refuse to join the race back to the home planet." Though she was avoiding eye contact, this time Tess' voice was steady and loud enough to be heard clearly by all of them. "If you get the tickets back one way or another, you can always let me know. I wanna come along for the ride, and try to make a better life for myself on the homeworld -- I know I'll probably never be able to find a place to fit here on Earth, after all.

"But I can't stay here, not right now, not around you, Max," she insisted. "Please, just let me go, and then maybe I can actually start to put what I feel for you behind me."

"I don't think that would be a good idea," Michael said softly, pulling something out of his pocket and passing it from hand to hand. "Kivar Andraicus' people tried to murder us tonight, as I said. They know that each one of us are keys to the challenge. This time they were dumb enough to go after Max, Izzie, and I at once, and to bring Liz, Alex, and Maria into it, partly because they had cooked up a trap that worked well with that. But if you leave Roswell on your own, Tess, you're going to be the vulnerable target. They won't stop hunting you until they've killed you."

"And plus," Max said, stepping into the conversation for the first time since the Liz/Tess shouting. (It kind of embarrassed him to be the center of such focused emotional struggle, to be honest.) "It isn't enough to be willing to go along for the ride, Tess. To be ready to show up and phone it in at the very end. If we're gonna live up to this thing, we're gonna need your help all the way through. Your talent with the power. Your experiences from growing up with Nasedo." Max tried a slight smile. "Your gift for looking at a challenging problem from a completely different perspective. Our people need you, Tess."

"I don't *care* about our people!!" That confession was an embarrassed whisper. "I know that makes me sound horrible and selfish, but there it is. If I can't be with you, then..."

"Then *do it for me,*" Max urged her impulsively. "We can't be true loves, or husband and wife or whatever it was that you were expecting, but we *can* be a part of each other's lives. If you'll let us."

Tess looked uncertainly into Max's eyes, and shot glances over at Michael and Kyle. Obviously, she wasn't about to set herself up for another tirade from Liz just at the moment.

"I think," Max began again, his voice soft but still persuasive, "that you're probably right if you think that each of us have, at some point or another, been unfair to you, Tess." Though he was tempted, Max didn't rub her nose in the fact that it had been a two-way street. "But everything's changed now. What would you say to starting over??"

Tess weighed what Max had just said, (and, probably, what he hadn't said.) And then she finally turned back to Liz. "What do *you* say to that, Liz?? Can you find it within your heart to give me a clean slate, assuming that I quit putting the moves on Max?"

Liz, stunned, was silent for a long moment, and Tess must have caught the curious looks that some of the others were giving her. "Liz is... the heart of you," she explained in a short soliloquy. "I don't know why, but somehow she IS. If Liz carries a grudge, sooner or later the whole gang will turn against me."

Liz spoke up at this point. "I have a few questions to ask you, before I make my decision," she told Tess matter-of-factly. "The sort of things I might not be able to bring up if we start over. What's the story with the kiss, Tess?"

Tess blinked in surprise. "Which... oh, right. *That* kiss. But what about it? Did I enjoy it? Yes, of course I did."

"Not that," Liz spat out. "Did you use your powers on Max to set up that kiss?"

Tess' jaw dropped. "You think I... No!! Liz... Maz... if my word of honor means anything to you, I swear it: I didn't *make* Max kiss me." Faced with a look of stony disbelief from Liz, Tess tried logic. "If I had that kind of power, to *make* people do what I wanted, why did I never use it when it could have saved all our butts? Against Pierce, or Whittaker for that matter."

Liz was unmoved. "Sensory projections can have quite a subtle effect, especially on someone who isn't out-and-out hostile."

Tess nodded slowly. "Ah, I see what you're driving at. Well, I'll admit that I used a mindwarp on Max once, to try to get him interested in me, the same way as I was in him." She cocked her head slightly, then nodded. "You were there, Liz, yeah - it was earlier that day in the chemistry lab, when we were first assigned as partners."

Tess sighed. "*Not* the brightest idea I've ever had, I realize that now. But I didn't mean any harm -- really I didn't. It was just..." she searched for the right words. "A pleasant little fantasy that occured to me, and I decided to share it with you, to show you what it could be like. I didn't know you were going to stick your sleeve into the bunsen burner." Another deep sigh. "And obviously I didn't appreciate how much Liz meant to you, back then."

"Wait, wait a second," Max broke in. "You're claiming that was the only time you ever mindwarped me, Tess? What about the *night before* that, at the crashdown? You didn't try any little tricks then?"

Tess scrunched up her face in thought. "The night before... I remember coming to the cafe - I thought you'd probably be hanging out with Liz on her shift, and I wanted to see you." She paused. "You and Liz were acting very couple-y, but when I got close to you I got a flash of the two of us together."

"That's what I'm talking about," Max said. "In the backroom, for a second it was like I was out in the desert and you were holding my hand. And, umm, well while I was kissing Liz - for a moment I thought that she was you." He looked accusingly at Tess. "You're claiming you didn't help those effects along with your powers?"

"Only with my proximity, I think," Tess told him. "As I just said, I was having flashes like that too. Venus had moved into Aries, and that was the cue to awaken the instincts that told us who we were supposed to have been..." Tess caught herself. "Not getting into Destiny again, that ship has sailed."

"Okay, but what about that kiss?" Liz pressed. "Are you saying that was probably instinct too?"

"I don't know," Tess told her. "It came as a complete surprise to me. I had set up that meeting between us, the broken-down car... I guess I was hoping Max would offer me a ride home. But he was acting... weird. Like he was struggling against some big shadow." She sighed.

"But I didn't make him do anything. If I could... if I were the kind of person who could stand to manipulate him like that and power to back it up... why wouldn't I have done it again since??"

Liz wasn't sure how to reply to that question. "Is it possible that someone *else* was controlling his mind?" Michael suggested. "Nasedo?"

"Ed didn't have that kind of power either," Tess reminded them. "And though he wanted the best of luck for me with Max, he was a lot more worried about the special unit right then."

"Well then..." Michael thought a second. "Maybe this 'dark shadow' Max was struggling with was just his alien Venus-in-Aries instincts??"

"Do you remember anything about that night, Max" Kyle put in, just when Max had forgotten that the young human man was there too. "Do you have anything you can tell us about how it felt?? Did you see any flashes or weird imagery."

**He's trying to clear Tess' name,** Max realized. As long as there was any doubt about this episode, Liz would remain slightly suspicious of the hybrid girl. Max was nervous about what this line of investigation might reveal about *him*, but he knew he had to go along with it. "No, no flashes, no imagery. But I remember feeling seriously wigged about Tess - between the flashes in the crashdown and the incident in the chemistry lab, I think you could see why. And I guess maybe I was feeling some kind of vague bond with her - the instinct thing. When you put it all together... I'd been nervous about her all day. Like I was gonna see her again sooner or later and I wasn't sure what would happen then."

Kyle nodded as if something he'd been suspecting had just been confirmed. "Had you already come to the conclusion that Tess had some kind of weird power over you?"

"Yeah..." Max agreed with a little surprise. "'She could make my mind go places where I wasn't taking it'," Max quoted Isabel's description... though what Isabel had been talking about might have been one of those Venus-Aries deals. Still, it reflected what he had felt about her at the time.

"And you could tell that she liked you?" Kyle continued, and Max nodded. "Did you think she *wanted* you to kiss you?"

"Yeah, yeah I think I remember that thought passing through my mind when I first saw her on the street." He was so intent on the memory that his eyes were almost closed.

"So Tess wanted to kiss you, and Tess had a power over you. So you kissed her," Kyle said softly.

"Yes. I mean... what?" Max sapped his eyes back open, and flinched a bit at the brightness of the morning, since dawn had broken over the desert while they had been involved in their discussion.

"This is just a theory," Kyle quickly disclaimed, "but I'm remembering something my dad told me once about sollipsism. Police tend to pick up some weird bits of abnormal psych - you can never tell what kind of nut you're gonna run across.

"Anyway, Sollipsism is when someone becomes convinced that real life is a dream. It's known to happen in Alaska when the winter nights get long. The thing is, people with sollipsism act as if nothing matters, very erratic and unhibited, because it's all a dream."

"Max, if you thought that Tess could manipulate your thoughts and emotions, that might be even worse than sollipsism. The world would be real, but you wouldn't, in your mind, because what you did, even what you thought, was only what Tess wanted. I think in that state of mind you might have been psyched into kissing Tess because it's what you thought she wanted. Not your fault, just your subconscious playing tricks on you. Does that fit with what you remember?"

"Umm..." Max thought about that, and looked at Liz, who seemed to have a poker face on. "Yeah, yeah actually it does. It all fits." He shot a semi-apologetic glance over at Liz.

"I'm sorry, Max," Tess told him. "I had no idea..."

"It's okay," he told her. "Not your fault either."

"Why can't it be *somebody*'s fault," Liz griped, but a second later she smiled at Max and he could tell she wasn't really pissed off.

"So, uh... Liz," Michael said, "are you going to put Tess through the ringer any more or are you ready to make your decision??"

Liz thought about it a second, then stretched out her hand for Tess to shake. "If you hurt me or the people I care about in the future, Tess, there'll be payback," she warned. "But the past is behind me."

Tess smiled slightly. "Works for me."

They all looked around for a moment once the deal was done, each expecting someone else to bring up the next item of discussion. Finally Kyle said "Well, are we heading back into town again, or what??"

"Seems like there's nothing else to do around here," Max agreed vaguely, waving at the highway (which was starting to get busier) and the plain beyond.

They started back towards the cars, and then sudddenly Tess called out "Michael!! Where did you get that?"

"Uh, where did I get what?" Michael shot back, confused. Tess pointed silently at Michael's right hand, which was hanging at his side. Michael opened the hand up into a shallow cup. "Have I been fiddling with this thing long?" he asked, a little sheepishly.

"Yes," Liz told him softly.

"What is it? Max asked, stepping closer, as did Tess. Michael showed it to them - a shirt button, on the large side, white with a hint of color in concentric rings - here purple, there green...

"I musta picked it up while we were searching Grant's car for the healing stones," Michael said. When Tess gave that a confused look, Michael explained, "Grant Sorenson was one of the skins that tried to kill us tonight. So was Steve Banks, and the guy who attacked Liz at the Banks party... wait, did you ever hear about that?"

"I heard there was something of a broohaha, but I never asked about the details," Tess said in an abstracted, faraway voice, her eyes focused on the button. "This is weird."

"Why?"

"Because that's Ed's button," Tess replied to Max's gentle prompting. "At least, he had three buttons like that on a shirt he used to wear often as 'Ed Harding.' I've never seen any other buttons like that."

"It is a little distinctive," Liz commented, having moved in beside Max. "So, any idea where the shirt is now, Tess?"

"Probably in our old house," Tess replied offhandedly. "I didn't have a chance to go through his old things before Max bundled me off to Valenti's..."Tess' voice trailed off as she was struck by the connection between tonight and the circumstances under which she came to the Valenti's.

Max picked up the train of thought. "Grant was a skin. The skins broke into your house. Could *that*," he pointed at the button, "have been part of what they were after?"

Tess considered that. "Harding showed me how we could use our powers to archive large amounts of information inside ordinary objects."

"Like Alex's washer?" Kyle put in.

"Not really," Tess explained. "Alex's doo-dah was able to initiate a link with him automatically, and he's a human. That's obviously a much more complicated thing. What I'm talking about is more like a molecular diary - an ordinary object as far as any human could tell, hard to recognize even for other aliens."

"Well, here," Michael said, handing Tess the button. "It is one or not?"

Tess held the button, her fingers sliding over its surface, and then out of the blue she laughed. "What is it?" Max asked.

"It's a molecular archive, kinda, but not really a diary," Tess explained. "I heard Ed's voice saying close but no cigar. This is a decoy, a red herring."

"So where's the real diary?" Liz asked. "Does Steve have it?"

"If I know Harding," Tess said, "he'd have found some way to slip it to one of us. Me, Max... maybe Isabel. We may not know what it is, but I bet one of us still has it."

Michael smiled at Tess. "Can you give me a lift back into town? Kyle's convertible doesn't have much leg room.

* * * * *

Once again, an episode of horror and danger had a subtle effect on the gang in the days and weeks afterwards. The feeling of nervous energy had been moderated with quiet confidence. And yet each of the group felt the need to savor each day after fate had come so close to taking many of them away forever.

Tess, Max, and Isabel started the search in earnest for Nasedo's molecular diary. There was some discussion about trying to find the skin Steve Banks and run him to ground, but a lack of real ideas about how this was to be done. As Michael put it one night over a hand of Hearts, "he can change his name, he can probably change his face though we don't know that for sure, and he has contacts, other aliens working for Andraikus, all over the world. We don't even know how quickly or how far he can travel. Nah, there's gonna have to be a few more surprises in our bag of tricks before we can really plan on tracking Steve down. Call out your spades." (That last bit was about the game.)

Work resumed again on translating the book, though at a less breakneck pace than in the last week and a half in November.

TBC...

[Chrisken]

A Roswell Homecoming, Part 4d: "Pick up the pieces" 2/2
Author: Chris Kenworthy
Email: Chris_Kenworthy@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: No, I don't own any of the Roswell characters. I don't plan to steal them and lock them up in white rooms either. I just let them out to play from time to time and see what happens.
Distribution: Distribute anywhere you like, currently based at fanfiction net: http://www.fanfiction.net/~chriskenworthy
Feedback: YES PLEASE!
Category: Alternate timeline epic. Conventional couples angst leading up to UC in later parts - you have been warned!
Rating: PG-13, for now
Summary: Alien mysteries lead to an interesting year...
Spoilers: Up to 'Ask not'


(Sunday, December 10th, 2000)

"Hmm... how about... here." Maria parked the Jetta carefully behind a desert hill. "D'you think we could be seen from the highway at all here??"

Liz got out of the shotgun seat, vaulted herself up against the doorframe so that her head was clear above the Volkswagon's roof for a few seconds, and turned her head back and forth. "Considering that I can't see the highway at all, no, I don't think so. What are we doing out here, Maria??"

"You'll see, just as soon as I get my b..." Maria had gotten out of the car as soon as Liz gave the parking job her dubious blessing, and was scanning the horizon herself, focusing on the terrain *away* from the direction of the highway. "Ahh, this way. Come on." Having (presumably) oriented herself, she led Liz away from the car.

After walking in silence for about twenty seconds, Liz felt the impulse to say something. Since their destination still seemed to be a forbidden subject until they had actually arrived, she searched for another topic.

"So... how are things going between you and Michael??"

Maria couldn't hide a goofy grin. "Pretty great. I mean, well, he's been spending a lot of time practicing his powers, but I don't really mind that considering the alternative. And he's been working on your surprise, too - what I'm about to show you."

"Really?" Liz muttered, trying to fit that tidbit of information in amongst the other hints that Maria had dropped.

"Yep. How about you and Max??"

Liz considered. "No complaints. Oh, he's been working on the big diary search with Isabel and Tess..."

Maria harrumphed at the moment the second name was spoken, and Liz glanced at her best girlfriend sidelong. "Sorry, I -- I just still cannot believe that you let the gerbil off the hook so easily!"

"Maria!!" Liz exclaimed, pondering the significance of Maria's choice of term for a moment, and then letting it go. "I... I don't want to hold a grudge against Tess or give her a hard time, really I don't. She keeps her..." Liz giggled softly. "Her tiny little gerbil claws away from Max and we're cool."

Maria laughed, and Liz continued on. "I still haven't figured out what to get Max for christmas though."

"We'll think of something, chica, don't worry," Maria said. Oooh, here we are!"

"Here where??" Liz replied. Maria was a little in front of her, but she couldn't see anything other than desert aroun-- Oh, boy!! All of a sudden what looked like a large sinkhole had appeared in the desert ground before them. (Well, presumably *it* had been there the whole time, but until Liz got within a few paces of it she hadn't realized it was there amidst the rocky terrain.

"Okay, this gets a little tricky now," Maria said, holding out a hand for Liz to take. "There's a bit of a footpath over here..." Liz was speechless as Maria led her down into the hole... but she noticed how practiced the other girl's movements were. How often had Maria come down here?? Soon they were standing at the bottom - or were they? Maria fumbled out something from her belt pouch and flicked it on - it was a miniature flashlight, and as Maria started shining it around Liz realized that a winding tunnel passage continued on from the bottom of the 'sinkhole'. It was down this tunnel that Maria led her next.

"Okay, *really* wondering what all this is about," Liz teased her friend. After rounding the second turn, Maria kept Liz from going any further, and to her surprise Liz realized that the way was barred by a jagged chasm - a very deep and scary looking crack in the floor, too wide to jump and too sheer to climb.

"Okay, we're here," Maria announced. Another flashlight hit them from the other side, and suddenly Maria was rising into the air and over the chasm. Once Liz was feeling very alone except for the mysterious light, she felt weight being lifted off her own feet and she was flying through the air too.

"SURPRISE!!" several voices yelled at Liz as she touched down. Liz opened her eyes (she had kept them closed during the trip over the chasm, and looked around. All of the gang was here - Maria of course, Alex, Max, Michael, Isabel, even Tess and Kyle. And the small cul-de-sac left before the tunnel finally dead-ended was especially crowded, because there was also...

A car. A royal blue four-door sedan, to be more specific. Liz reached out to run a hand down the side of the vehicle, wondering how much effort it had taken alien powers to get it here, and where it had come from in the first place...

"Like your present, Liz?" Michael asked. Liz whirled around to stare at him.

"*My* present? Huh??" She shook her head, trying to clear the fuzziness out. "Where did this even come from??"

"It's what's left of Grant's SUV, Liz, now that Michael's almost through with it," Isabel explained softly, and Liz blushed with embarassment for not having made the connection. "We've all talked it through, and we think you should have it. To the victor go the spoils, and all that - and you're the one who saved the day."

"Plus, you're the only one who doesn't already have access to wheels of some description, Liz, what with your parents never being able to lend you the car and all," Tess added.

"I, I..." It was all too much to take in at once. "I... I can't just suddenly 'show up' in a car!!" she exclaimed, turning to Max in a search for support. "My parents would have about a year's worth of questions that I couldn't answer."

Max smiled comfortingly and walked up to her, putting an arm around her shoulder. "We know that, and nobody's suggesting that you just drive it into town. We've got a plan -- or at least, the first draft of a plan. Where's the draft?" Alex passed a piece of paper into Max's hand, who passed it to Liz for her to read.

Liz skimmed over the note uncertainly, muttering the key phrases aloud. "Dear Mister Parker... writing you this letter to say an unusual thank you... A year ago, I was in Roswell on business and ate breakfast at your cafe. I was also in a bad way emotionally at the time -- or at least I was until I talked a brief while with the waitress, a young girl with long dark hair, brown eyes and a dimple in her cheek when she smiled... She probably won't remember me, but her simple kindness and friendliness gave me the strength I needed to keep from taking my own life and seek help for my depression... Due to an unexpected windfall, I'm able to express my gratitude to her in a material way... if for any reason you are unable to get in touch with my personal angel, please don't hesitate to take the gift yourself, with my gratitude..." Liz looked up from the note.

"Lemme guess - this gets sent to my dad along with the faked registration and a set of keys, knowing that the clues planted in this letter will lead him to think it's me?" Michael and Alex nodded. "We'll need to talk details, but -- it could work. And thanks, all you guys." She looked around. "How did you even know that this place was here??"

"I found it years ago," Michael explained. "Poking around the desert was a good way to stay out of Hank's hair. There's a lot of these tunnel caves scattered around the Roswell area, but I've never seen one as this for keeping out unwelcome visitors. Until recently even *we* didn't know how to levitate across that final gap."

"Okay, okay," Kyle broke in. "We've shown her the car -- is anyone else up for lunch??"

* * * * *

(Friday, December 15th, 2000)

Alex strummed to himself on the bass guitar he held across his lap, blinked twice, and took what Maria would call a 'deep, centering breath.' Isabel poked her head through the doorway from the kitchen to the little storeroom where Alex was sitting, (perched on a short bench next to the back door out of the restaurant,) and smiled. "There's my radio star!!"

"Hehe, very funny," Alex shot back.

Isabel's face dropped for a second, and she kicked over a crate so she could sit down opposite him. "I wasn't teasing you -- much," she informed him with a quiet smile. "Seriously, I know this gig may not be a 'big break' but *I* think it's cool. And I'm going to be sitting in the front row out there, clapping my hands together the loudest."

"Nah," Alex told her with a big grin. "You can sit in the last row. Max, and Michael are gonna be back there."

Iz reached out and playfully swatted Alex on the shoulder. "You goof!! I didn't really mean the LITERAL front row, I just... I'm your biggest fan, Alex Whitman."

"And you're my inspiration, Isabel," Alex whispered softly.

Isabel smiled, and then her face quirked into a question. "Max and Michael? What about Liz??"

"She'll be on duty as a waitress, remember??" Alex said. "The whole point of this thing is kinda to sell food and such..."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it, Einstein." Isabel looked around the back room as if seeing it for the first time. "Where's the rest of the group??"

"Upstairs." Alex pointed through the ceiling towards the Parker family residence. "Getting dressed, or made-up, or some such. I came down here to get a little air, and actually, could you do me a favor?"

"Sure, anything," Isabel assured him.

"Can we talk about anything that *doesn't* remind me of my fabulous Crashdown debut performance in..." (he leaned forward to see the wall clock in the kitchen,) "ten minutes?"

Isabel blinked in surprise. "Uh, okay. Well -- Oh, Max and I found Ed Harding's molecular journal today!"

Now it was Alex's turn to be surprised. "Really? So soon?! Where was it??"

"Right around Max's wrist," Isabel said, and beamed at Alex's confused expression. "Somehow Ed managed to switch watches with Max, probably the night he died. Max has been wearing the journal around for weeks now, hee heh."

Alex chuckled - it *was* an ironic situation. "Tess has been teaching us how to read it," Isabel added.

"Cool," Alex remarked simply, then thought of something else. "Oh... you said something about taking Tess up to see River Dog??"

"Yeah," Isabel agreed. "Actually, it was Michael and Max who went with her, to make the introductions -- they know him better. I've only ever really met River Dog the two times, and there wasn't exactly much occasion for conversation at either of them."

"Uh... yeah," Alex muttered, working it out. The first time was healing Michael: all six of them had been there that time. The second would have been on the Frazier Woods camping trip, when Michael and River Dog had met Max and Isabel near Nasedo's old cave and found the whirlpool galaxy icon that he had left for them to find.

"Anyways," Isabel continued, "Max said that she hit it off with 'the Dog' fairly well. She was supposed to go up by herself yesterday afternoon."

"Oh." When she said that, something came together in Alex's mind. "Oh, no!"

"What, what is it??" Isabel asked, her face all concern suddenly.

"I was talking with Kyle... about nothing in particular, but he mentioned that Tess came home last night 'pissed off as all hell.' Kyle didn't know where she had been, but..."

"Uh oh," Isabel muttered. "You're right, that's not a good sign."

"But..." Alex countered, "it's not really our problem. You guys did what you could, you put Tess in contact with him. Working things out is between the two of them."

"You're right." Isabel smiled. "Ohh - there's something I've been wanting to talk to you about," she looked about, and then locked her brown eyes onto him, "and now that I have you alone..."

Alex laughed with only a trace of nervousness. "Well, what is it?"

To his surprise, Isabel didn't say anything immediately, and a faint pink flush spread about her face. "It's a little... I'm not quite sure how to put this..." Alex nodded encouragingly, and she started again. "I almost died. I know... we've had close scrapes before, and probably will again. but this was the first time when it really kicked in that I might not wake up to see any particular tomorrow. And so... well, I've been thinking that I want to... *experience*... certain things, in case I never get another chance to. Are you... do you know what I'm talking about, Alex??"

Alex blinked in surprise and blurted out the first thing that came to his mind. "Is this the 'I don't wanna die a virgin' impulse?? Literally?"

"Pretty much." Isabel smiled temptingly at him, and all kinds of things that he'd like to 'experience' with her ran through Alex's mind, but... He couldn't figure out what to say.

And of course, at that moment, they both heard about eight footsteps coming down the stairs, and Maria called out "Alex!! Get yer butt over here, we're on in two minutes!"

Isabel grinned. "We'll talk about it later." She quickly leaned over and kissed him on the lips. "Have a great show," she whispered sexily in his ear, her long golden hair falling against his face and his arms. And then she was gone, presumably heading back to join Max, and Michael in the back row.

Just as Maria had said, in about a hundred and twenty seconds the group of amateur musicians that Jeff Parker had assembled were set up on an impromptu stage, and Jeff was making his introductory speech from the piano seat. "Hi everybody, and thanks for coming to our first 'Music night at the crashdown.' Don't be shy about ordering food or drinks between songs, and... I hope you all have a great evening!" (quiet applause broke out here.) "And now... well, no time like the present, right?" He sat down and played an introductory set of chords on the piano.

Someone in the audience laughed. It seemed quite clear that Maria was staring off into space, not really paying attention. Alex nudged her gently with an elbow. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said, shaking herself out of the daze. "I forgot where I was."

On that cue, Donald, (the junior college student,) got busily to work on the drum machine, pounding and rapping the various touch-sensitive surfaces with his drumsticks so that a furious rhythm emerged from the speakers. Alex joined in with a deep riff a few heartbeats later, and Maria broke into the song proper.

"I try to think about Elvis,
Memphis,
Oprah in the afternoon.

I try to think about palm trees!
Fig leaves,
The creature from the black lagoon."

Sandra, the marketing secretary in her older twenty-somethings who was on the accoustic guitar joined in with a few well-timed chords.

"I try to think about high heels,
And good deals,
Anything to get me through!!

I just can't con--cen--trate..."

This was where Jeff joined back in on the piano. Maria's stare had a thousand watts of heat behind it and was aimed right at Michael Guerin in the back row as she sang the last line in the verse:

"YOU'RE ALL I THINK ABOUT THESE DAYS!!!

I try to contemplate the cosmos;
What goes,
Round and round the sky at night."

Alex reminded himself to loosen up, throwing little improvisational bits into his bass line. There was something so incredible about being part of a group like this, making music. And the song was a great first number. A lot of people in the audience seemed to be getting into the fun of it.

"I try to think about champagne,
Freight trains,
Slowly rolling out of sight.

I try to focus on the headlights,
Street crimes.
But every time I think I might..."

Max called out from the back "Go, Maria!!"

"...I just can't con-cen-trate --
You're all I think about these days!"

Sandra did some impressive hot-picking to bring Maria into the bridge.

"My mind wanders where it will,
And when it settles right on you.
I forget what I should say,
I forget what I should do!!"

During the pause in the lyrics, Sandra and Jeff each took their turn with instrumental solos, wowing the crowd, and Maria belted out a repeat of the bridge. As she got back to 'I forget what I should do...' all the instuments quieted down for another little joke part as Maria pretended that she really *was* driven to distraction by love.

"C'mon, Maria -- get it together!!" (Instruments break back out of their pause.)

"I try to think about Shakespeare,
Leap year,
The Beatles or the Rolling stones!

I try to think about hairdos, (whoop!)
Tatoos,
Sushi bars and saxophones.

I try to think about the talk shows,
New clothes!!
But I guess I should have known...

I just can't concentrate!!"

Alex tried to squeeze a little bit more pizazz into his bass playing as Maria built up to the final climax. She was staring at Michael again, he noticed.

"You're all I think about these days, whoa.
You're all I think about these days!!"

Over four measures, Alex finally brought the bass line back down to nothing with a last flourish. The audience went wild with approval.

* * * * *

(Wee hours of Monday, December 18th 2000)

Max tapped lightly on the window. No response. He tried again, slightly louder.

There was movement within the dark room beyond... and finally Michael opened the window up, wearing a bathrobe.

"Forgive me if this is a stupid question, Maxwell, but as a matter of curiosity why didn't you knock on my front door??"

"Tradition I guess," Max replied, hopping over the window sill and into the bedroom. "Sorry for dropping by so late, but Isabel was asleep already, Liz needs to get her rest for that physics final tomorrow and I didn't think you'd mind."

"Of course," Michael agreed under his breath. "It's not like I ever get any sleep anyways."

Max ignored that remark and continued on. "I've found something. Something that could be huge." He waved a silver dress watch in front of Michael's face.

"Where did you find..." Something about the look on Max's face clued Michael in. "You found something *in* it - that's the watch that has Nasedo's journal inside?"

"The very one." Max headed out of Michael's bedroom and down the short hall.

"Umm... Max, maybe we should just st--" Michael started, but Max wasn't paying attention, so Michael trailed along.

"We've been working on this thing for a few days now - it's not too hard to learn how to 'read' it, but it still tends to give me a headache and there's a lot to go through. But I think, to borrow a phrase, the jackpot has been hit." He opened Michael's fridge, looked at the door, and waved at the iced tea bottles. "You mind?"

"Hmm?" Michael tried to catch up. "Not as such, but we really shouldn't..."

Max tossed Michael a lemonade snapple and took one for himself. "Nasedo didn't seem to care about the alien artifacts that the Special Unit had taken," he continued as if he hadn't even missed a beat. "His usual tunnel vision - the only thing on his mind was our safety, to the point of monomania." Max sighed. "Not to mention homicide." He held the watch in front of his hands in a certain way, closed his eyes, and concentrated.

"Subject case file number ninety-three." Although Max was moving his lips along to the words, he wasn't voicing them and the voice that he heard aloud wasn't his own - more like splitting the difference between Ed Harding's and Daniel Pierce's. It was an odd effect, but none of the three of them had figured out a way to turn the messages from the diary into words (as opposed to silent thoughts) any other way. Max knew that Michael would be a little creeped out, seeing and hearing the effect for the first time, but he hoped his oldest friend would also be able to pay attention to the content. "Doctor Neil Thompson."

"Despite his doctorate in Psychology from Stanford, Thompson's role in the Special Unit is essentially little more than that of a glorified data bank. He has memorized the details of sensitive Unit activities all the way back to its inception in 1948, and even its predecessors before that -- Places, people, facts, dates, and events. This unique talent has enabled Special Unit top brass to eliminate damning physical evidence of some of their most controversial programs.

"If there is a single individual currently in the Unit who exemplifies the concept of 'the man who knew too much,' Neil Thompson is surely he. The data he will carry locked forever in his brain is just as dangerous to my charges as it is to his old employers.

"And yet I have to be careful at this point how many Special unit personnel I plan to 'liquidate.' If it were up to me I would destroy every last son-ofabitch who ever signed up, but the consequences of such a move would be disastrous. These are paranoid people who move within paranoid circles, and too many 'accidents' would inevitably end up shining the light of suspicion on Daniel Pierce... and on his mission to Roswell. That could expose my charges all over again."

"And Doctor Thompsons' one saving grace is that he has no great loyalty to the Special Unit or its causes. When I engineer the disbanding of the Unit, the chance seems great that he will simply take another job or retire into anonymity as a man of leisure, never telling another soul of the special unit information. Yet can I afford to take that chance, when the lives of my kids hang in the balance??"

"What the heck??" The voice startled Max out of rapport with the diary, mostly because it was *not* Michael's voice. Max had been bracing himself for Michael to say something, but the usually irrepressible teenage hybrid had been quiet during Max's entire recitation of the diary entry. The voice had come from behind him...

Max opened his eyes and spun around in a 180 turn. Through the dimness of Michael's apartment he could just make out Kyle half sitting up on Michael's couch, his legs still covered by one of the comforters Max and Isabel's mom had given Michael as a housewarming present. "Why... why are *you* here, Kyle??"

"Well, after being banished to the living room for almost three months, I thought I would give crashing on someone ELSE'S couch a try," Kyle groused, "and Mister Guerin here was good enough to take me in."

"I... I tried to tell you he was out here and we shouldn't disturb him," Michael said. He had, Max realized that now. He had been so jazzed about the diary thing that he hadn't really been listening to Michael - or letting him finish sentences, even.

"Um... Sorry. Both of you," Max mumbled embarassedly.

"So... what did Nasedo do, anyways??" Kyle asked. "About this total-recall guy??"

"What?" It took a moment for Max to change subjects mentally again. "He decided against bumping him off -- though you're gonna have to find out about all the people he *did* butcher for our sakes sometime, Michael." Max gave a shudder in spite of himself. "I did a quick search for this Neil Thompson guy on the internet before coming over. He's living in this place called Puerto Penasco - tourist town in Mexico, not that far from here. No record of what he's doing there, so he may have retired, like Nasedo thought he might."

"Working for the forces of evil must pay pretty well," Michael mused. "Okay, road trip."

Max smiled slightly. "Road trip?"

"Yeah, right after all the Christmas hooplah is over next week, Wednesday or something, we head across the border. Kyle's dad can come along as a chaperone..." Kyle gave Michael a look, and Michael forestalled the objection before it could emerge. "Well, I'm sorry, but we *need* to do this: those in the group cursed with parents aren't going to be happy seeing their progeny take off to a foreign country without adult supervision, and your father is the only parent in on the secret. We won't be able to find out what this guy knows if we're always worrying about keeping the secret from... Max's mom, say. Or Liz's dad."

Max broke in here. "There's plenty of time to sort out details like this. Like you said, Michael, we won't be able to go until classes let out and Christmas comes and goes." He looked around. "You should probably go back to bed, Kyle. I'll let myself out the front door. Michael??" He nodded to his best friend to come with him.

Once they were outside of the apartment proper, Max turned back to Michael. "So, what's in it for you??"

Michael blinked in surprise. "Come again??"

"Kyle, crashing on your couch. Is it just you being gracious or is there some kind of quid pro quo??" Max smiled at Michael.

"Well..." Michael smiled himself. "He's helping me a little with Maria stuff. Don't ask."

"Uh... okay." Max shrugged and headed off back to the Jeep. "G'night Michael."

* * * * *

(Tuesday, December 19th 2000)

"Hmm..." Liz clicked the mouse on Alex's computer. "Long-stemmed roses??"

"Flowers are not exactly Christmas-ey," Alex reminded her.

"I guess you're right," Liz agreed. "Well, mister Picky, do you wanna take the helm again??"

"I dunno," Alex sighed. "What do you get a girl to tell her 'I love you madly but I'm not sure if I'm ready to sleep with you'??"

Liz blinked several times in shock, and turned away from the computer screen to look at her best guy-friend. "Umm... I'm not sure. I didn't realize that guys ever *needed* to say that."

Whoops. "Ummmm, uhh..." Alex lurched over and crashed into a sitting position on his bed. "Isabel's brought up the prospect of us, ummmm... 'closing the deal,' and I guess I'm not sure how I feel about it. I mean, I know how I *feel* about it... and I know how I *think* about it, and unfortunately they're completely opposites."

Liz was looking at him cooly. "Go on."

"Umm, well... I mean, of course I feel the, um... the push to do it. But I... well, as corny and naive as this sounds, I was brought up to believe that there's a right time and place for making love... I'm not quite sure if it's the wedding night or what, but I don't think that Isabel and I are quite there yet. You know??"

Liz nodded. "Wow, a teenaged guy capable of rationally turning down sex when his girlfriend offers it. Popular american culture would have it that you don't exist, Mister Whitman."

"Ha ha," Alex pronounced.

"Umm... feel free to say no if this is too weird, but how did Isabel 'bring this up'??"

Quickly Alex related the key parts of the conversation before music night, while Liz weighed each line of dialog carefully. "Well... it kinda seems that the reasons Isabel wants to do this have more to do with the stuff she's working through after deathtrap night than your relationship. Which I can understand... but I think it's something you need to talk to her about. And in the mean-time... I don't think you need to worry about sending any message to Isabel with your christmas present other than 'I care about you very much.'" She smiled.

"Yeah, I guess you're right. Get out of the way." Alex headed over to the computer desk, and Liz quickly scrambled out of the chair to let him sit down. "So... have you decided what you're getting Max, by the way?"

"Uh, yeah... an MP3 disc player for the Jeep. :] I found out that his father's getting him a burner for his computer, and he's always complaining about running out of CDs to play on the long drives we take hither and yon, so I figure he can make a few mix discs that will last for days on end."

"Yeah, that's cool, he'll like that," Alex agreed. "Guys are so easy to shop for. You girls are lucky."

"You're not that easy, bud!!"

"Okay, let's see..." Alex split-screened his online shopping windows on the computer. "We have... the white cashmere sweater... or the golden necklace with sapphire setting. Watcha think??"

"Go with the sweater," Liz assured him. "Isabel will love it."

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Title: A Roswell Homecoming: the Mexican Tango. Part 4e 1/2
Author: Chris Kenworthy
E-mail: kelworth@chriskweb.net
Homepage: http://www.fanficarchive.net/~chriskenworthy
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own the Roswell characters, though if I did I'd treat them better than Jason Katims.
Category: Sci-fi drama. Canon couples romance leading to UC pairings in later part.
Spoilers: Up to 'ask not'

Part 4e: South of the border

"Sometimes I can't believe we really pulled that first show off," Maria laughed as they sat around the DeLuca living room, sharing a moment of nostalgia before moving on to the next house. "We had, what, two and a half practice sessions and we totally *killed*!"

"Yeah, you were great, babe," Michael agreed with a soft chuckle. "I can't believe I actually dragged us all off to Mexico so soon."

"There were *some* of us who didn't need too much convincing," Maria laughed.

* * * * *

(Wednesday morning, November 27th 2000)

"You are now entering Dona Ana county," Isabel read off the sign as they approached it on the highway.

"Yeah," Liz agreed softly, keeping an eye on the Jeep, further down the road. "Just, what, five hundred more miles to go??"

"Closer to four hundred and fifty, I figure," Max corrected. Liz shot him a sideways look and forced a smile. "Relax, sweetie, you're doing great."

It was no secret that whatever Liz Parker's many talents might be, a great driver she wasn't, despite having had her full license for about a year - lack of practice. But everyone was so excited about Liz's new wheels from her quote unquote 'anonymous benefactor' that Max and Michael, among others, had insisted she christen the Sedan by driving it off on the gang's latest harebrained scheme.

Max wanted to ride with his sweetheart, of course, so Michael and Maria were driving the Jeep down. Valenti was bringing up the rear of the convoy, along with Kyle and Tess.

"Umm... not quite sure about bringing this up," Liz said softly, still keeping her eyes fiercely on the road, "but is anyone else a little... worried about this whole trip?"

Max, Isabel, and Alex all managed to share a look. "Umm... worried how, exactly?" Isabel probed.

"Well..." Liz sighed, trying to put her thoughts in order without taking too much of her attention away from the driving. "You found out about this professor guy, Max, and that's great. I hope we learn a lot from him. But... well, we don't even know what we want to find out or how we're going to go about it. There's a lot of the 'book' that's still untranslated and avenues of investigation back home that have gone unfollowed - like those other marking points on the map. You guys..." Liz made a vague motion that pointed to Max and Isabel, forward to Michael and back to Tess, "have mentioned ideas for new ways to use your powers, but you haven't gotten any opportunity to practice them. Given all of that, doesn't it seem like this might not be the best time to go and investigate a top Special Unit official in a foreign country? We don't have any idea what we're going to find waiting for us in Puerto Penasco." Liz sighed, realizing how much she had rambled. "Sorry."

"It's okay," Max whispered. "The same thing's occured to me." Alex and Isabel were nodding in agreement too. "But this was Michael's idea, and I guess I didn't want to squelch him again. Plus... ready or not, this is probably the best chance we'll have to take a jaunt like this until spring break, and that isn't for another three months."

"I'm not sure if that's a good enough reason to put our lives in danger," Alex said half-jokingly. "'It'll be too much of a hassle to do it later.'"

"Look, no-one said you had to come along, Alex," Max shot back, a little annoyance in his voice. "But we've got a deadline to meet here, and killer aliens coming at us whether we're taking risks or not. I would think you of all people could..."

"Okay, okay, that's enough!" Isabel called out, throwing herself forward in between Max and Alex as well as she could and stretching a hand out in either direction. "We do *not* need to start bickering about this! Whatever our reservations, we've made the decision and put a reasonable amount of effort into planning this trip, so let's just make the best of it, all right?"

Alex smiled slightly. "Yeah, okay." He looked Max right in the eyes. "Sorry man, I was only joking."

"And I kinda over-reacted, didn't I?" Max admitted. "My apologies, Alex."

"No need." For a little while they carried on down the highway in silence. "Hope we can find a little time to enjoy ourselves too."

* * * * *

"A lot depends on good recon," Michael was saying as he drove the Jeep west down I-10. "We won't have any ideas what the true risk factors are until we arrive and take a good look around. Carefully, of course. I mean yeah, taking off all of a sudden like this is a little foolhardy - I'll cop to that. But this guy is a retired government functionary -- There's no particular reason to expect a threat attached to him. If there is, considering all we've been through so far it won't be anything we can't handle, and I think we'd all feel pretty foolish waiting for months if when we finally make it down, there's no danger."

Maria sighed. Michael had been going on like this since five miles past the Roswell city limits, and she *hated* listening to him talk strategy. Not that it reminded her of his past self, the alien soldier, princes Isabel's fiancee and all that. Not at all -- it's just that about a month and a half ago, she realized that strategy was deeply boring stuff. True heroism, showing up in the nick of time to save the day, 'oh, my knight in shining armor,' yeah, that kinda stuff she could get behind. But if strategy was what it took to get to that point... **Well, work out your strategy, just so long as I don't have to hear about it.**

Maria knew that this attitude was pretty hypocritical of her... there were so many things that weren't Michael's cup of snapple that she had asked him to throw himself into for her sake... and this was so obviously the kind of thing Michael LIVED for. That was why she hadn't said anything so far. And yet, Maria couldn't quit squeeze this topic into the 'He's my darling spaceboy, so I forebear,' category. It was *bugging* her, it was *grating* on her, and she wasn't sure how much more of it she could take!!

Suddenly pushed into action, Maria leaned over, stroked Michael's right leg near the knee with her right hand, and teasingly kissed him on the ear. "...need to make sure we're not over-confident, but WHOA!!" Michael's ramble came to a belated halt as the stimulation of Maria's actions kicked in. "Umm... what're you doing there, 'Ria?"

"Why... can't you tell?" Maria whispered, moving the kiss down along Michael's jaw line and her hand up his thigh. "And, more importantly... don't you like it??"

"Um, yeah, I like, I like," Michael mumbled. "I like so much that I might end up driving Max's jeep into a ditch, and therein lies the problem." Indeed, their course down the road was starting to veer this way and that, and behind them Max had probably already noticed and started to worry. He tended to get a little bit anal about his wheels sometimes. Weighing the cons against the few fun and naughty pros, Maria pouted and retreated back to her own side of the car. "This isn't exactly like you, Maria," Michael said, straightening the car and some of his hair that Maria had ruffled along the way. "What's up??"

"No... I guess it isn't," the young girl agreed. "I guess... I was bored of listening to Michael the soldier ramble on and on and wanted to see if Michael the irresponsible boyfriend could come out to play. Pretty stupid, huh??"

"Umm... not really," Michael agreed. "I mean... I know that I tend to get a little over-obsessed about this sort of thing... I'd hate to see something happen to you or one of the rest of the gang on these madcap capers -- but I have to admit it really isn't going to make a difference if I'm going over counter-offensives right this second. So... do you want to talk about something else while I drive??"

"Yeah. Uh, let's see..." Maria thought for a second, then something occured to her. "'Ria??! We have *got* to get you a better pet name to call me, spaceboy!"

Michael's groan seemed to echo across the desert plain.

* * * * *

At a rest stop somewhere between Tucson and the Mexican border, all three cars pulled off the highway for an early dinner and a stretch break (not to mention another chance to answer the call of nature.) Maria watched from the queue as Max and Isabel left the food stand with their burritos, and Michael with a couple of tacos.

"You know... I don't think there's going to be any shortage of Mexican food once we actually GET to Mexico," she deadpanned with a smile.

"What was that?" Tess asked, following behind Michael. She had an enchilada.

Soon they were all set with their food and sitting around a couple of tables out near the parking lot. As she started in on her slice of pineapple pizza, Maria started conversation again. "Can anybody switch over to the Jeep?? Michael drives me crazy with passenger-seat driving every time *I* get behind the wheel, so he's been driving for like seven hours straight."

The other kids exchanged glances. "Umm... well, I'm good staying with Liz," Max said apologetically.

"Surprise, surprise," Tess mumbled under her breath.

"I guess we could take turns driving the Jeep, hmm?" Isabel said, smiling as she looked over at Alex.

"Sure," Alex agreed. His grin was looking so broad these days that it almost might pop right off of his face.

"I've got a proposal," Kyle piped up. "Speaking on behalf of the Valenti contingent, we'll trade you Tess for Maria."

"Hey!!" Maria, Tess, and Jim Valenti called out in unison.

"C'mon!" Kyle focused his persuasive efforts on Maria. "The three hybrids can get in some quality bonding time... and mister Whitman here with the weird disk memories fried into his brain is kinda half little green man himself these days, so he won't mind, will you Alex??" Kyle took a deep breath. "Just for a few hours, I'd like to be in a homo sapiens only zone. Please??" Kyle's expression was sincere and apologetic as he shot a smile over at Tess.

"Okay, okay," Maria finally agreed. "So that's you, me, and your dad in his car, Alex Isabel Michael and Tess in the Jeep, and Max and Liz get to be all alone."

"Any idea when you figure we'll make Puerto Penasco, Mister Valenti?" Alex piped up.

Jim checked his watch. "If we don't spend too much time eating our dinners... about seven thirty in the evening?"

"Just about enough time to check in, get unpacked, and go to sleep," Kyle groused. "Boy, what a fun first day of vacation."

"All right, Kyle, just what is your problem??" Tess snapped. "You've been like this all day. No-one *made* you come."

"That's not true, he did!!" Kyle's accusing finger pointed straight at Michael, who jumped slightly. "Well, maybe not as such, but it had to be a 'whole gang thing,'" Kyle mocked. "And my dad has to chaperone all week, so I couldn't possibly stay home in Roswell alone, could I?? No-one even asked me if there was someone I'd like to bring along, though I guess that makes sense - god forbid I hang out with someone who isn't 'in on the secret', and everybody who IS in is pretty much sitting around this table."

There was a stunned silence as Kyle's outburst hung in the air. Then Liz repeated slowly, "Like to bring along... Kyle, are you dating someone??"

Kyle paused a second, then nodded slowly. "I didn't *think* you had noticed."

"Who??" Maria blurted out.

"Courtney Banks." At the various expressions of surprise around the table, (though none came from Tess or Kyle's dad, Maria noticed,) Kyle apparently felt he had to defend his choice. "Well... we've kinda been bonding - both of us got dragged into this 'aliens among us' thing kicking and screaming, as you might have noticed. Don't worry, I didn't tell her the real deal about you guys, I know you'd want to break that news in your own time and your own way." He took a deep breath, then continued on. "We've only been on two real dates, but I was hoping to be able to hang out with her over the holiday break, you know?? Get to know each other a little better."

The silence was pregnant. "Man..." Michael finally exclaimed. "You know, you could have said something, man."

"I know," Kyle agreed. "But hey... what's done is done, right? Courtney will be back in Roswell when I get home, and a week's winter vacation in a beach town in Mexico - well, there are worse tortures to inflict on a guy, am I right??"

"Okay," Max cut in on the general soft laughter that followed. "I hate to be the group nag, but precious time's a-wasting, you know? Let's finish our food, anyone who really needs to, hit the head, and let's see how quickly we can get back on the road, huh??"

* * * * *

(Late that evening.)

Max wandered around the motel grounds, trying to relax. It had been quite a day.

The twilight had been fading back when they first got to Puerto Penasco, after more than twelve hours on the road. First checking in to the motel, and figuring out who stayed in each room (two for the girls, Liz and Maria staying together, Isabel with Tess; Kyle hadn't wanted to be in the same room as his father so he was bunking with Michael, leaving Max with Alex and the sherriff in the largest motel room...) then out to find some place to have dinner on their first night in Mexico, then back to the motel to settle in. Max knew he needed to rest, to prepare for the silent campaign that would begin tomorrow, but he felt too keyed up and jumpy. Thus why he had told Jim Valenti that he needed to take a walk.

As he walked around a corner of the building, Max saw floodlights shining down on blue water and belatedly realized that he had stumbled on the motel pool. And that wasn't all he had stumbled upon... he could see a petite, feminine figure floating happily in the water, eyes closed. Max almost turned around and hurried away, not wanting to intrude on another motel guest, but there was something familiar about the cloud of dark brown hair streaming out along the surface. "Liz??" Max called out somewhat doubtfully.

The girl in the pool started in surprise, standing up, and then Max could tell that it was *definitely* Liz, and he felt a little foolish for his uncertainty. "Max? What are you doing here?" She laughed a little and continued in that teasing tone that drove Max wild, "... Or should I guess??"

Max laughed too, and walked up to the edge of the water. "I was just out taking a walk. Can't seem to relax and go to sleep."

Liz Parker's laugh rang out like a soft and beautiful bell. "Me too!! Driving is *hard* work, when you're not used to it." Although Liz had allowed herself to be spotted from time to time by Max and Alex, she had insisted on driving the majority of the way down in her new car, and Max didn't doubt that it had been nerve-taxing. "The pool was a great idea though - SO relaxing." She smiled impishly. "You should try it!"

Max was deeply tempted. "Our respectable chaperone may come looking for me."

Liz giggled. "So?"

He thought about it. "Well, it's almost cliche to say it, but I don't have a swim suit."

"Are you wearing boxer shorts??" Caught by surprise, Max could only nod. "Same difference."

Something inside Max wanted to call the whole thing off, but Liz's eyes were locked onto him, silently daring him to go through with it. Slowly he pulled off his t-shirt, kicked away the new sneakers, pulled off his socks, and took a deep breath before letting his jeans drop to the deck.

Max could see Liz swallow hard and blush a little as her gaze swept across his chest and down his muscular legs, and he couldn't help but smile a little at the confirmation that this incredible girl found him as attractive as he knew she was to him. Wearing only the black boxer shorts that Liz had referred to, he stepped entirely out of his jeans and dove lightly into the water.

As he surfaced and stood up, Max saw Liz walking slowly toward him through the water. Now that he was down in the water himself, he could see that she was wearing a cute one-piece bathing suit in a dark purple that set off her creamy skin and deep brown eyes ravishingly. As soon as she was within striking range, Max darted forward and pulled her into his arms, kissing her tenderly.

"Oh, Max," Liz whispered around their lip-lock. "I love you so much. Promise you'll never leave me."

Then the kiss was over, and Max stared deep into Liz's eyes. "I promise." As soon as he said the words, Liz grinned mischievously, plunging under the water, and pulling Max along with her, Underneath the surface, her lips found his in a second kiss, and the sensation was incredible. It was like their essences were touching as they floated...

*Floated*...

All of a sudden, a flash hit Max, so intensely that he would have staggered if he had had his feet on solid ground, or gasped if his face hadn't been under water. He was still floating... or at least, something that was the center of his awareness was floating, though it would take a quantum leap for Max to be able to reconcile that something with how he felt of himself at the moment.

That something was small... tiny, incredibly tiny, and yet alive, he realized. An embryo. And it was floating in one of the pods. In the next pod over, Max realized as his awareness spread outwards from the embryo, was another embryo, even smaller, younger, less fully formed. Down in another pod... another something living, though this one was so small and formless that Max wasn't even sure if it could be called an embryo... just a cluster of cells that he knew would nevertheless become a person. A hybrid person, probably.

The fourth pod was empty. Max sent his awareness out further - it expanded in a concentric sphere, beyond the four pods, into -- a spaceship. A small spaceship. Mechanical constructs - robots of some description - buzzed about its cramped interior. Three living beings watched the robots calmly, while a fourth was monitoring the controls of the spacecraft.

Max focused on the robots - there seemed to be a knot of them concentrating on something near the pods. As his awareness converged again, he could tell that the subject of all this activity was cells... a collection of cells on which the robots were performing microsurgery. Extract a chromosome here, an mitochondrion from there, inject them carefully into cell C and then...

It was done. A robot carefully carried cell "C" over to the fourth pod and used a mechanism to transfer it into the nutritive fluid. That cell divided into two, and then each of those two cells divided, until they were quickly multiplying into a lump of...

"Max?! MAX!!!" Liz's voice brought Max back to reality, and he realized that he had zoned out into his vision. His lungs ached, and he instinctively exhaled... accidentally spraying a mouthful of water all over Liz. "Hey!!"

After taking in a breath of fresh air, Max couldn't help but laugh. "Sorry. I... I had a flash," he explained.

"Yeah, I kinda figured," Liz agreed. "Though from my experience, flashes are usually QUICK."

"Okay, then, not *quite* a flash," Max sighed. He fell back and sank into the water up to his neck, trying to keep the feeling of 'floating' around him for the moment. "I... I saw the ship in space, I think. Where the four of us were being... conceived. Re-conceived."

Liz caught the point, as she started floating herself and turned around so that Max could wrap his arms around her and spoon in the water, Liz laying her head onto his bare shoulder. "When you were being... being made into hyrbids, you mean??"

"Yes. I was the oldest... two of the others were already in the pods too. The last one was just being finished... his cells being spliced together from, from four or five different cell sources. One wasn't like the others... that was probably the sample of alien genes from the homeworld." Max thought a moment. "MICHAEL's genes... they were male cells, I know that somehow. There were at least three samples of human DNA that were being used to... different chromosomes or parts of chromosomes, selected for I-don't-know-what."

"Maybe the best human genes they could find," Liz speculated aloud, "or the ones that would fit best with your alien DNA."

"Robots were doing the specialist work," Max continued. "But there were living beings there... the four guardians. Oh, my god, Liz... it seemed so REAL!!"

"Wow..." was all that Liz could say for a moment... and then a new voice intruded on them.

"Max??"

"Oh, my god..." Liz breathed. "It's Valenti."

"Yeah, I know..." Max agreed, just starting to dimly realize something.

"Uh-oh... this does *not* look good," Liz sighed, waving at Max's clothing strewn over the deck. "If he finds us here, he's gonna make us go up to bed, and we're not doing anything wrong, are we??"

"Liz..." Max breathed, stunned by something. "I can *see* Valenti."

"What??" For a second, Liz was silent in confusion. "But... he's not here, Max. From what I can tell he's around the corner that way." She waved in the other direction than Max had come.

"I know, but... I can SEE him," Max repeated. "It's like... I dunno, like a new power or something, triggered by that vision. God, I feel like I could *touch* him if I reached out hard enough."

Liz twisted her neck to look up at Max, her brown eyes shining brightly with the reflected floodlights. "Could you... could you 'connect' with him, Max??"

"What??" The suggestion caught Max off guard.

"Like you did with me. If you feel like you can touch him from here... could you connect with Valenti's body, from here??"

"Um, I dunno," Max mumbled. "Why would I want to??"

"You could make him feel sleepy, Max," Liz suggested, a wild daredevil alive in her eyes. "No real harm, just a few simple adjustments... nudge the blood sugar and the nervous activity down. If he's sleepy enough he'll forget about looking for you and go back to his room to bed."

A part of Max was hooked on the idea. It was like nothing he'd ever done with his powers before, but that was part of the appeal. And then there was the way Liz was looking at him.

Max focused on the image of Valenti he could see inside his mind, and suddenly he was connected. A few images flashed into his mind... a dark-haired young woman James Valenti had known when he was reasonably young himself... holding Kyle in his arms in the UFO center... Max accepted the images without committing to them, and moved deeper into the connection. It took only a second to know that the change was done. Valenti yawned, looked around one last time, and traipsed off to the stairs that led up to the second floor of the motel.

"Oh, my god..." Max muttered. "It worked. That is so cool."

"Yeah," Liz agreed. "You're like a wizard." And she kissed him again, and they floated there in each other's arms.

Half an hour later, when Max and Liz finally crept back to their separate rooms, they found Alex, Maria, and Jim all asleep. They dried off carefully and hung the towels back up, hoping that over the night they would dry off enough to still seem fresh in the morning.

* * * * *

(December 28th 2000)

All nine of them went for breakfast to a coffee shop around the corner from the motel. "So, what's the battle plan, Maxwell??" Michael whispered as he started into his first croissant.

"No battle plans for today," Max answered in an equally low voice, spreading a little jam on his crumpet. "Remember, we don't know what we might be getting into - or who might be watching for us here."

"Why would somebody be watching for us *here*, Max??" Tess asked. But Max didn't reply to her.

"So here's the plan. For today, we're just teenage kids here from New Mexico for christmas break... and their chaperone, of course." Max nodded to Valenti. "One of us," he tapped his chest quietly, "will find a way to do some recon *discretely* and report back. We'll do war council tonight at the motel, along with the usual parlour games club meeting." He smiled at the group. "Sound cool??"

Alex nodded. "Okay with me."

Isabel visibly re-counted the circle, and smiled feebly when she saw that everyone had been watching her do it. "Nine of us... three groups of three, does that make sense?" Enough people nodded that she felt confident going on. "Well... I noticed that they have a place out on the beach where you can rent windsurfers and take them out. Sounds like fun to me."

"I'm in for that," Alex chimed in.

"Yeah, I'll tag along with you guys, if that's okay?" Tess said tentatively. It was no secret that Tess wasn't comfortable spending much time with Liz or Tess in small groups... and didn't want either of them thinking she was spending too much time with Max. So it made sense that she was interested in joining a group without any of the three of them, and that was alright by Alex.

"Yeah, that'd be good," Isabel said with an encouraging smile.

"Well, I'm for just staking out a place on the beach, vegging out and catching some rays," Maria laughed. "You're with me, spaceboy," she patted Michael's shoulder.

"Me?? But I..." Maria gave him the puppy-dog eyes, and Michael was a goner. "Oh, okay, chilling out on the beach. I guess I can dig that. Who's our third??"

Kyle looked around, noticed that his father in particular was not about to volunteer, and raised his hand. "Okay, I'll go with you guys."

"I guess that leaves us with mister Valenti," Liz said slowly, then looked at the sherriff and forced a sunny smile. "What should we do??"

"I was thinking of doing the *sightseeing* thing," Max said. "There's gotta be something worth taking a picture of in this town." He patted the digital camera his parents had given him for christmas meaningfully.

"Oh, yeah, gotcha." Liz agreed. "Sound cool, Mister Valenti?"

"Yeah, yeah, that sounds fine with me," Valenti agreed.

There was a lingering silence as they finished their breakfasts. "So... uh, how about this Mexico weather??" Alex tried vaguely. No-one replied.

* * * * *

About three quarters of an hour later, Alex Whitman was standing in a small changing room on pier nine. "On vacation in sunny Puerto Penasco," he mused to himself, hardly loud enough to qualify as 'whispering.' "About to head out windsurfing with two hot hybrid babes. Sometimes life just DOESN'T suck."

Although he was only in love with Isabel, of course, Alex would have to admit that Tess Harding was also quite attractive. As far as himself... well, as Alex looked at his reflection in the mirror, he supposed he cut a decent figure in his navy blue swimming trunks. He was too skinny, of course, but some kind of genetic accident from his mother's side had given him a subtly muscular physique without much maintenance. His worst feature, the deal-breaker, was his goofy ears of course, but Isabel said she thought they were cute.

"Hey, come on Whitman, we're missing the wind!!" The call brought him back to the moment and he headed out, his clothes and belongings already arranged in the lock-box he had tied the key to around his neck. (NOT including the washer of course, that was around his neck too - it never left him these days. He had mentioned it to Isabel, and she agreed that while they were risking the possibility of the little thing getting loose and sinking to the bottom of the pacific shore, that wasn't too likely and if he 'checked' it they'd be worrying about skins blasting the lockers apart to get at it.)

"Took you long enough," Tess teased as Alex handed his lock-box over to the attendant behind the counter. "Guys always complain about the time it gets girls to get ready, but we were both changed before you." Tess was wearing a one-piece lycra-type bathing suit in a light powder blue. It wasn't particularly concealing, though, with a cutout below her breasts giving a peek at the upper part of her trim stomach and what looked like two other small vents at the side, reaching down to Tess' waist.

"Uhh... well, what can I say. You can't look *this* good quickly," Alex joked back, striking an over-the-top male model pose.

Tess rolled her eyes. "COME on... like I said, we're losing the wind out to sea." She grabbed his hand and hurried him further down the pier to where Isabel and a lifeguard-looking guy who worked for the rental company. Alex's girlfriend was clad in a stunning orange two-piece bikini that wasn't much more revealing than Tess' suit... though that was quite sexy enough! What skin the top concealed or the bottom refused to reveal was just made more intriguing for the lack of total exposure.

"...guys stick together and you should be fine, even without much experience," the lifeguard guy was saying. "There won't be much tidal activity until late this afternoon, but that'll just make it easier to enjoy a relaxing sail. I'll give one of you a warning flag just in case..." Isabel waved a hand and the flag was passed over. "There'll be a spot to keep that in next to your mast. Don't unroll it outside of a truly serious situation. Oh... the marine weather forecast said there might be a calm today."

"Uh... what does that mean?" Alex said, feeling slightly foolish asking it.

"It means no wind, stupid," Tess supplied unhelpfully.

"That's right," lifeguard-guy agreed, missing the sarcasm. "If the wind dies down, you aren't going to be able to get much of anywhere short of paddling if you're too far out for the tide to push you in. If that happens, just sit tight and wait for something to blow back up again. A calm never lasts too long hereabouts. So... any other questions??"

"No, I think we're good," Isabel told him politely. "Where are our 'surfers??"

For answer, the guy led the way down a ladder off the pier to a kind of a floating hanger. "You got 26, 27, and 28, right down there. Enjoy your sail!!"

Alex noticed the guy staring at Isabel as they walked away, but he wasn't jealous - in fact he felt a odd kind of pride about it. Isabel *was* hot, hot enough to make guys' mouths drop open and *he* was her boyfriend.

Um... okay," he muttered out loud as he stepped on to his windsurfer and clutched the bar tightly. "How do you start this thing??"

TBC...

[Chrisken]

Title: A Roswell Homecoming: the Mexican Tango. Part 4e 2/2
Author: Chris Kenworthy
E-mail: kelworth@chriskweb.net
Homepage: http://www.fanficarchive.net/~chriskenworthy
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own the Roswell characters, though if I did I'd treat them better than Jason Katims.
Category: Sci-fi drama. Canon couples romance leading to UC pairings in later part.
Spoilers: Up to 'ask not'


(Approaching noon. Dec 28th 2000)

"So... we just lay here??" Michael looked out across the crowded beach, then over to his friends... or his girlfriend and conspiracy-mate, or whatever.

Maria cracked open one eye to reveal a pissed expression. "I can't veg out properly if you keep asking that," she informed him.

Michael sighed, lay back on his lounge chair, and tried to get into the vegging out spirit. He couldnt' keep his eyes closed any longer, so he kept looking around... and his gaze kept lingering on Maria, which didn't help relax him. She had come out of the motel this morning, after breakfast, wearing a tiny little string bikini, some kind of khaki color that, to be honest, didn't look a whole lot different from her bare skin. He had appreciated the view, at first, but it wasn't something that exactly made him want to lie back on his own lounge chair and do nothing.

To make it worse, he had noticed a number of other guys, apparently both tourists and mexican locals, checking Maria out since they got to the beach. Watching strangers lust after *your* girlfriend sounded fine in theory, but Michael had quickly realized that it wasn't as much fun as it was cracked up to be. He didn't intentionally show off in front of strange girls like this... so why did MARIA have to?

"Come on," Michael groaned suddenly, sitting back up. "Vegging out is one thing, but we don't have to do *nothing.* We could..." He looked around, trying to come up with some sort of an idea, and ended up staring at the table between all their chairs, with Kyle's empty glass and Maria's purse sitting on it. "We could play quarters."

Maria sat up and stared at him. "What the heck is that?"

"You take turns trying to bounce a coin off the table and get it into the glass," Michael explained. "Not playstation, I know, but this'd be *kinda* fun at least, wouldn't it??"

"The boring kind of fun, maybe," Maria joked, and then sighed when she caught the look on Michael's face. "Okay, okay, I'll play if Kyle will. What about it, silent 'K'? You in?"

Kyle looked up, apparently none too impressed with the nickname, which Michael actually thought was pretty clever. "Sure, I'll play, whatever."

As they got the lounge chairs organized closer to the table, Maria warned in a low whisper, "And none of that czechoslovakian telekinesis to get your quarter into the glass, Michael, right??"

"Of course," Michael agreed. "That would be totally against the point." Not to mention that if he tried it, he'd probably end up with a broken glass. Hmm... maybe something like this would be a good exercise for fine-tuning his powers. **Well, look into that later.**

* * * * *

"Flowers for the beautiful lady, senor??" There was no denying that the word was out on the grapevine.

Liz's arms were already full of flowers from nearly a dozen Puerto Penasco 'street enterpreneurs.' Irises, stargazer lilies, carnations, snapdragons, birds of paradise, a few that Max couldn't remember the name of and roses -- pink, white, purple, and of course red roses. The stream of street hucksters looking to make a buck off an american teenager's romantic ego had trickled off to nothing after the first three sales... as if they were expecting the well to run dry soon. But a couple brave young gamin had proved them wrong and paved the way for even more salesmen.

Max didn't mind. He had plenty of spending money and didn't want anything to ruin this afternoon. On the other hand, he didn't want to embarass Liz by going overboard. "Whatcha think?" he asked the girl of his dreams, shooting her a meaningful look.

Liz gave the matter a moment's weighty consideration. "They do look lovely," she allowed finally. "But this is the last batch, understood, Mister Evans?? Maria may die of jealousy from only half this many."

With that settled, Max turned back to the dusky young man. "How much?"

"For half a dozen... ten dollares," he replied with a strong accent.

I thought about haggling, but handed over the cash without a word. As soon as it had changed hands Liz asked "What kind of flowers are they??"

"They are called... 'Alstroemeria'." He counted out six stems to hand to Max as he spoke, and as soon as they were passed to him Max gallantly gave them to Liz, who managed to add it to the armful. The flower seller took off, hopefully to spread the word that the limit had been reached.

Liz smiled at him, looked around, and noticed something new. "Oh, Max, you've got to get a picture of that!" She pointed behind him, and Max turned around to see the mural that Liz was pointing at... a wide, fantastic landscape that seemed somewhat Tolkien-inspired to Max. He grinned and whipped the digital camera out of his pocket.

"Do... do you wanna get in the scene, sweetie?" he asked, squinting into the viewfinder. 21 pictures left, the digital readout overlaid onto the mural scene reminded him. Quite enough.

"Yeah!!" Liz walked over to stand in front of the mural wall, turned back to face him, flowers still in her arms, and posed. "How's this?"

"A little to the right," Max suggested. "No, I meant my right. You were blocking the fight between the wizard and the demon."

"Cheese!!" Liz grinned. Once the megapixels were all safely recorded and Liz was walking back, Max noticed Jim Valenti hovering silently. He hadn't said a word for about five crowded blocks, Max noticed. "You okay?" he asked the older man softly. "I hope we're not boring you."

"Not at all," Valenti whispered back. "By now, I've found that you can learn a lot if you just keep your mouth shut and listen... and keep your eyes open." The sherriff touched his face briefly in an enigmatic gesture, and then turned away.

"Hey," Liz snuck into his arms and stole a kiss, but Max's mind was whirling too fast to appreciate the nearnessof his dearest beloved. What had Valenti learned. Something he had heard, or seen, since they had started sightseeing, that he felt he couldn't talk openly about??

Should they cancel the reconnoiter at the professor's place, then? No, Max was sure that Valenti could have devised a stronger warning if he thought that such a serious reaction were called for. This seemed like a milder warning... be on your guard. Give nothing away.

Now that he had come to a decision, Max wrapped Liz Parker up in his arms and kissed her, but he made sure to whisper in her ear, as if it were a secret endearment, "Careful. We may be under observation."

It was only a few minutes more before they got to the Professor's place, each of the three of them 'getting into character' by acting as innocuous, as stereotypically 'normal' as they could: Valenti telling the teenagers what not to do, Liz gigging and skipping from one thing that caught her attention to the next, and Max 'snapping photos' of everything in sight (though he didn't actually save many of those pictures.) Finally they were there. Max pointed the building out to the others as unobtrusively as he could.

"Oh, that's a cute house, Maxxie!" Liz exclaimed, running towards it in full ditz mode, and giving the rest of them an excuse to examine the premises. "What do you think? Wouldn't it be amazing to just leave the real world back home and move in to the edge of paradise, here?"

"Sounds great to me, Liz. But how would we pay for a house like this... or the grocery bill, for that matter."

"Reality has no place in this fantasy. mister," Liz scolded, shooting him a dark look, and then let her 'mood' lighten again. "Take a picture of me with the house, Max!"

Max obligingly swung the digital camera in the direction of her voice and snapped off a pic. He had already been acquiring as many relevant pictures of the premises as he could. **Liz looks so pretty right there,** he thought, admiring her through the viewfinder. **Wait a minute...**

He could see most of an arm through the open window. Leaving caution to one side, Max dashed to the side, trying to find the right angle for the face that was attached to that arm. No, wrong way, though he snapped a pic of the hand holding a book, just in case. So...

"Max..." Valenti's voice came.

"Just a second." There it was... a face wearing glasses, middle-aged, obviously concentrating on whatever he was reading. Max had never seen a picture of the 'professor' they were looking for, but this guy seemed to fit the cliche. Not to mention that he was the only one supposed to be living in that house.

"Max!!" Valenti called again. "We need to get back to the motel, your friends will be waiting for us." *No, they won't,** Max thought in confusion for a second. None of the three groups were supposed to get back to the motel from the day's activities for more than an hour and a half yet. And then, it hit him.

**This is it. This is the abort-mission warning I was thinking about earlier.** Max couldn't resist taking the picture of the professor's face, but he turned away from the home immediately after, trusting the sheriff's judgement. "C'mon Liz." But she was already waiting for him with Valenti.

* * * * *

"Whoooo!! Oh, MAN!" Alex exulted as he swooshed in a graceful arc past the girls. After some tips from Isabel, (who used to windsurf on the lake at the summer camp she used to go to, it turned out,) Alex was definitely getting the hang of the windsurfer. It was an incredible feeling... as if he were catching the wind with his bare arms and standing upon the waves with his own feet alone, instead of depending on a sail and a floating board.

"Go you, Alex!!" Isabel called out, grinning.

"You're a nut, Whitman, you know that, right?" was Tess's response. But she was smiling too. Alex took one hand off the bar to waggle them up behind his head like alien antennae and suddenly Tess was angling her 'surfer towards him, arranging her sail so as to get the best possible speed. Alex tried to take evasive action, but she zeroed in on him like a homing missile, laughing the whole time.

Just as she was closing in on him, though, something changed and with a faint jerk she started falling behind. Alex chuckled and was about to make a victory whoop when his surfer started slowing down too. They drifted to a stop about fifteen feet away from each other, buffeted back and forth slightly by the mild waves. "What the cripes?" Alex muttered even as he remembered the answer.

"Calm rolling in," Tess pointed out. "Nothing for it but to hunker down. We'd better meet up with Isabel again, tho, she's the one with the emergency... oh." Tess looked back the way she had come, where Alex was pointing to draw her attention. Isabel was already paddling over in their direction, sitting down on the board of her surfer and pushing the water back with her bare hands to get forward momentum - a slow process, obviously, but they had time. Alex and Tess also sat down and set about figuring how to turn their 'surfers around so they could go meet her part-way.

Once they had all assembled together and it was established that each of the three was okay to wait it out until the wind picked up enough to get back to the pier, an awkward silence settled in.

"Soo....." Tess sighed. "Heard any good evil alien schemes lately??" That got a brief laugh. "Actually, Isabel, there's something I've been meaning to ask you about, but it might be awkward. You know, in front of Alex. Though his perspective might help, too."

Alex thought about it a minute. "Well, it's not like we have anything else to talk about, obviously. Set a course for 'awkward.'"

"Okay." Tess closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Isabel, how did you... know??"

"Ummm..." Isabel tried for a few seconds to decipher that with sheer will-power, and then gave up. "Know what??"

"That... well, that you loved Alex. Instead of... oh, I'll just come out and say it. Michael."

Boom. There it was. Isabel wheezed for a bit in surprise, and then got her breathing system back under control. "Well, first off... I do love Michael, very much. But it's totally different -- he's like a second brother to me, and I'm not sure that anything's ever going to change that. But Alex... well, his love set me free." She shot him a tender look across the water. "It was the first thing to ever make me really feel safe in the human world. I couldn't help but love him back for it." She paused for a moment. "You're still having a hard time dealing with the Max and Liz thing, aren't you Tess??"

"'Hard time' is an underst..." Tess broke off, then started laughing sardonically. "Actually, 'hard time' is just about right. Some days I feel like I'm in a prison or something." She stifled a sigh. "I love Max so much... but I know he doesn't feel the same way about me. Everything was perfect for Max and Liz that year until I showed up, and I know that both of them still resent me a little for that."

"Well... wait a second!" Alex shook his head. "'Everything perfect'? Where did you get that notion??"

"Umm... I'm not sure," Tess muttered, frowning in concentration. "Why??"

Alex exchanged a knowing look with Isabel, who stepped in to take her turn. "Things were far from perfect with Max and Liz for most of that time. They both had problems opening up to each other right after the shooting, and Max backed out for a lot of months... thinking that it wouldn't be safe for Liz to get romantically involved with an alien. They had actually only really gotten things on track when you moved to town, which probably made it all the harder."

"Oh." Tess was silent for a little bit. "I don't know what to do with that." She sighed. "You know, we could just *push* ourselves in, and take you with us Alex."

"No," Isabel sighed. "No using powers. I know that it's not likely that anyone would notice anything weird, but it's always a possibility."

"Yeah." Alex looked around, trying to see any indication that the wind was coming in. "Anyone up for hand-war??"

Tess stared at him. "What the heck is hand-war??"

Alex smiled. "Have you heard of rock-paper-scissors??"

"Well, yeah, of course."

"Around my old grade school, there were a few variant symbols floating around... dynamite," he demonstrated a hand clenched together with a thumb sticking up, "which can only be beaten by snipping off the fuse with the scissors," and he mimed that with the other hand. "And water, which defeats even dynamite, but can for whatever symbolic reason be beaten by splashing a rock into it." He made the symbol for water, a hand with palm down and fingers spread out.

"Okay, with you so far, I guess," Tess agreed.

"Now, really all that does is replace some of the old symbols. You're left with rock, water, and dynamite, basically. Paper and scissors become sucker bets because in any given situation, water will be an equal or better play than scissors, and dynamite will be an equal or better play than paper. When I was in grade five, I actually worked out a variant with five different symbols, none of them obsolete." He quickly sketched out the essentials of his system.

"So, invasion is beaten by trade, (since the people who sell the weapons always come up on top,) but trade is beaten by politics (since politicians can levy taxes,) and politics is beaten by invasion. All three of them together are the mortal pursuits, and are all beaten by sorcery, which is beaten by religion, which in turn is beaten by the mortal pursuits."

"You had way too much time on your hands as a ten-year-old, Alex," Tess informed him. "But it might be decently amusing in so boring a situation as this. What do you say Isabel??"

Iz smiled, she had known she would have to play as soon as Alex started talking about it, and actually she was kind of proud that he was so brainy. "I'm in."

* * * * *

(That evening.)

"Hi, welcome to the club," Max said, taking Liz and Maria's coats with a smile. Their two guy rooms at the motel had been hastily converted for the 'parlour games club' meeting, with borrowed card tables and chairs brought in and one game board set up on Jim Valenti's immaculately made bed. "We've got a new diversion to try this evening."

"Oh, gawd, what is it with new games today?" Tess complained lightheartedly as she approached the open door. Max shot her a confused look.

"Just something Alex showed us while we were stuck out in the calm," Isabel explained. "So, what's the challenge tonight? Something with dice??"

"Nope," Michael explained as he set down a tray of cola cans down on an end table. "Turn chess." Several dubious looks. "It's like regular chess, except it isn't each piece moving is one complete turn. Each player goes back and forth moving as many pieces as they want to in a go, and once any given piece has moved it can't go again until you start the turn over." He explained the rules a little more and play began.

Max showed his pictures of the professor's house to a few people over the course of the evening, particularly Isabel. She agreed that she would be able to dreamwalk him using the tiny little snapshot that included his face, and that it sounded like a smart way to gather some more information safely.

Valenti's hushed news was more sobering. He had noticed a young man in the vicinity of that house who seemed to be doing guard duty - not noticeably so to anyone without Valenti's kind of training, but he was watching the people who came into that block and on guard for any that might cause a certain manner of trouble.

"Just one guy?" Michael asked.

"That was all I saw," Valenti agreed. "But we have no way to know if he has any backup or relief."

"We can try," Michael argued. "I can go into that area really early tomorrow morning and look for anyone like that. Kyle could try at another time of day. We can be careful not to arouse suspicion."

"Okay," Jim conceded. "I got Max to take a snapshot that should have this guy in it, though I couldn't tell him why." A look of dawning comprehension was coming over Max's face as he presumably remembered the incident.

"So, what else can we do?" Maria asked.

There was a pause. "Nothing I can think of, someone else may have notions,"

But no-one really did. Aside from Isabel dreamwalking the professor, Michael and maybe someones else who hadn't been in the Max/Liz/Jim team scouting out the professor's premises at different times of day, no-one had any better suggestions than enjoying the attractions of Puerto Penasco and doing everything to seem as much like normal american tourists as possible. Maria smiled and started planning her shopping trip.

The 'turn chess' games had a tendency to either be over fairly quickly or last a long time, including a drag-down rematch between Michael and the sheriff that went on for almost three hours. Jim had a lot of practice with conventional chess and an analytical mind that adapted quickly to this new variant, while Michael had a little experience with turn chess and a lot of practice coming up with innovative strategy on the fly. Finally Michael managed to pick off the sheriff's defences and pin his king to the wall.

* * * * *

(Friday, December 29th, 2000)

"...and what happened next?"

"Well... he went over to the picture on the wall, of the dog in the forest, right? He slid the whole painting aside and there was a wall safe behind it... this really high-tech looking wall safe with a number keypad and a fingerprint reader. He put his left index finger into the reader and punched in a series of numbers into the reader. I couldn't tell which numbers they were, and when they came up on the little LED screen above the keypad, they weren't numbers, but letters. I remember the sequence of letters.

Still more than half asleep, Maria felt the words flow past her, wondering vaguely who was talking and about what.

"Really!? What were they??"

"T... B, O, N, T, B, T, I, T, Q, W, T, N. That's it."

"Okay, and what after that??"

"The safe door opened inward, on a hinge at its bottom, so that it sank away into a hidden cavity. From inside the safe, some kind of smoke started to billow out. He was trying to find something inside the smoke, but that was the end. He woke up."

"Weird." Maria was a little bit more awake now, and she struggled to sit up.

"Isabel... what are you talking about and why are you in our room?"

Liz was sitting up in her own bed, the covers still spread over her legs and her lap. Isabel was sitting on the edge of Liz's bed, her hair pinned up and wearing a dressing gown that went down past her knees, so Maria could just get a glimps of the cuffs of her pajamas around her ankles.

"She dreamwalked the professor," Liz whispered, "and needed someone to listen to her talk about what she'd seen. Guess I'm the designated sounding board.

"Hmmm..." Maria thought about that. "Why didn't you pick Alex? Or Max, for that matter??"

"Both in Valenti's room," Isabel confessed cutely. "I don't think our august chaperone would take a bright view of me slipping into a boys' room first thing in the morning... especially not one that happened to contain my boyfriend."

"Good point," Maria agreed, sitting a little bit further up and blinking the sleep from her eyes. "So, catch me up. What did you get, aside from a freaky booby-trapped safe??"

"Not sure," Isabel sighed, turning herself slightly so as to better include both Maria and Liz in the conversation. "I'm not sure. There was some really weird stuff in there... with ugly little trolls and blue sun-umbrellas and mcdonald's fish sandwhiches. Plus, I think he's got a thing for... oh, what's her name? Sophia Loren."

"Man's got some taste, at least," Maria allowed. "Okay, well, there's got to be a lot going on inside this guy's head that's not really relevant to what we're doing here. Was there anything you saw in the dream that you know is relevant??"

"A few bits and hints," Isabel allowed, and picked up one of those small note pads from Liz's bedside table. "Let's see... something about being watched. That guy that Valenti talked about? I think that the professor knows about him, and also... maybe, that there's only the one guy. Or at least, only one guy at a time for a stretch that is at least weeks or months long. But don't hold me to that."

"Sounds promising," Maria agreed. "Anything else??"

"Something about a..." Isabel sighed. "I don't know how to describe it. Some kind of an alien... a vehicle, maybe? Somewhat sled-like... open-air, not very big. Definitely alien in origin. And if his dream is right... he's keeping it in his house, right here in Puerto Penasco."

"Wow," Maria muttered. "Think it came from your guys' ship??"

"Probably," Liz put in. Apparently she and Isabel had already been over some of this before Maria woke up. "We've been assuming that everything from the crash that Nasedo didn't rescue ended up with the special unit."

"But still... I can imagine walking off with office supplies when your company gets disbanded, but an alien vehicle?" Maria wise-cracked. "What about the rest of the special unit stuff you guys were hoping to find with this guy? 'Where the bodies are buried,' and so forth??"

"Ummm..." Isabel blushed. "I actually might know where some of the special unit bodies are buried... but they would be real bodies. As in decomposing people. Not..."

"...exactly what we're hoping for," Liz and Maria finished in unison with Isabel. "Well, maybe you should try a different dream," Liz continued. "It would be too much to expect to get everything you want out of one."

"Yeah... but I think we may need a better source of information than dreams, too." Isabel smiled briefly. "I've been working on learning a technique from the Book that might help. Memory transfer... basically taking a download from the guy's brain. I could do with a guinea pig or two, actually. Don't worry... it won't hurt or anything. I'm pretty sure."

"Does brain damage fall in the 'or anything' category?" Liz joked.

"How does it work?" Maria asked. "Are we talking like mind meld on star tre... Sorry. My bad."

"No, it's okay," Iz assured her. "Well, it's kinda like. I have to touch someone to trigger the connection... ideally firm contact on the head area. We'll probably have to figure out some way to sneak in while he's asleep. Trained practicioners can absorb the memory transfer as it comes in, but I'm sure I won't be able to learn that in time. I'd have to route it somewhere else... like into another person's brain. Then, later, I can decode that message."

"So, basically you'd just be the human network cable??" Maria joked. "Or hybrid network cable, something, I dunno."

"It's getting on for seven," Liz pointed out. "Why don't we get dressed and head out for breakfast or something??"

Isabel stood up. "Works for me. Meet you in the hallway in five."

* * * * *

(That afternoon)

Liz looked around at the small-town scenery, a market district on the edge of Puerto Penasco, and with a start realized that she recognized the young man sitting on a bench across the street, working weith a pencil and a medium-size sketch pad, frowning and erasing something.

"Wow, Kyle," she said as she walked up to him. "Sketching??"

Kyle looked up and smiled at her briefly. "Yeah, it's something I'm trying." He seemed to be well on his way to a quite passable rendition of a very pretty building down the way. "So, where's your siamese twin??"

"Max?" Liz sat down in the empty space on the other end of the bench from Kyle, not wanting to crowd him while he was working. "Oh, he's off looking for a little surprise for me, or something." There was a short uncomfortable silence. "So... you and Courtney, huh??"

"Yep... kinda."

"What's she like?" Liz blurted out. "I mean... our paths have crossed quite a few times, but I guess I've never really taken a chance to get to know her. What do you like about her?"

"Oh god, is this going to be *that* conversation?" Kyle joked.

"I'm not sure... can you answer the question, please?" Liz shot back. Kyle finished a wall, examined it critically, and then put the sketch book down.

"Courtney... let's see. She's really funny in this perfect, sarcastic way... and she thinks I'm funny too. She feels like she has to put up this tough cookie facade, especially since she found out about what happened to her brother, but every so often I can see this little glimpse of sweetness, or sensitivity, or tenderness, and it just makes me melt a little inside. And we're so in sync... last week I was just about to get on the phone and give her a call, I hear the doorbell, and it's her."

Liz was smiling. "When we get back to Roswell, we have to go on a double-date or something. Me and Max, you and Courtney. I mean... if that wouldn't be too weird or anything."

"Compared with some of the weird stuff you've put me through, Parker," Kyle whispered, "I think I'll be just fine." He chuckled.

"What are we laughing about?" a familiar voice asked. Liz looked up, startled that she had gotten so engrossed in her conversation with Kyle that she hadn't noticed Max arriving. She got up and stepped into his arms for a quick hug.

"Never mind, I'll tell you about it later," she whispered. "So... should we head back to the motel?"

"We've got a little time," Max assured her. "Here, open it." He passed her a small bundle made of soft cloth.

Liz unwrapped the makeshift package, and a sigh of approval escaped her lips when a hint of honey-colored metal peeked out.

"It's not real gold," Max quickly disclaimed as Liz uncovered the rest of the charm bracelet. "But it was beautiful, and I thought you'd like it."

"I do, very much." Liz brought Max's head down to meet hers for a quick kiss, then went back to examining her prize. The bracelet was almost empty, only a few 'starter' charms on it, but that was part of the fun, of filling it up. "Thank you."

As the three of them strolled quietly down the streets, Kyle sketching bits and pieces of things that caught his eye, Max whispered to them quietly, his voice so low that no-one could overhear them in the open, noisy spaces. Michael had gone to scout out the professor's home around 4:30 that morning and seen no sign of the guard. Alex had tried around quarter to ten and seen him, thus the assumption that he was on a reasonably normal sleep cycle.

Isabel had gotten into another dream, and decided she was as ready as she'd ever be.

"Tomorrow morning at 3:30 am," Max murmured to them almost silently. "We make our move.

TO BE CONTINUED!

[Chrisken]

Title: A Roswell Homecoming: the Mexican Tango. Part 4f 1/2
Author: Chris Kenworthy
E-mail: kelworth@chriskweb.net
Home archive: http://www.fantiction.net/~chriskenworthy
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own the Roswell characters, though if I did I'd treat them better than Jason Katims.
Category: Sci-fi drama. Canon couples romance leading to UC pairings in later part.
Spoilers: Up to 'ask not'

Part 4f: Mortal danger

(October 20 2001.)

"Alright, kids," Amy DeLuca laughed, walking back into the living room. "You've got friends to pick up, it isn't very long before the dance is supposed to start, is it??"

"Haven't you ever heard of being fashionably late, mom??" Maria shot back. Amy just shoo-ed them out of her house.

"I can't believe we just charged into Doctor Thompson's house like that," Max muttered as they strolled casually down the DeLuca's front walk back towards the limo. "We must have been *loons*."

"Well, it worked out for the best in the end," Michael replied defensively. "Not that it wasn't touch and go for a bit there."

"For the best for us," Alex qualified. "That's not saying everything."

* * * * *

(Wee hours of the morning, Saturday, December 30th, 2000)

"Okay," Michael mumbled. All nine of them were in the biggest of their motel rooms, (the one where Max, Alex, and the sheriff were staying,) tightly circling a small table where Michael had spread out a diagram he had made of the professor's house and its surroundings. "What's the situation? We need one team to actually enter the house... one team to stand guard outside. Am I missing anything?"

"It's a small area for all nine of us to be in play," Max pointed out. "Maybe it would be better for one or two to stay back as reserves. The cavalry to save us in case anything goes wrong... though I'm not quite sure where they'd make base camp. The motel is probably too far from the scene of the action, and I'm not sure where else they could stay in the middle of the night without attracting attention." His face grew even more thoughtful.

"There are twenty-four hour cafes scattered around," the senior Valenti, (well, or the middle one if you want to be technical,) pointed out. "I was keeping an eye out for them that first day. The nearest is..." Jim spread a map of Puerto Penasco out in his hands, and then laid the edge of it down upon the table -- there was only room for an edge. "Here... right next to these woods. Thompson's house is here." His finger marked another spot on the map.

"About four blocks away," Michael noticed, nodding. "Far enough away to be almost certainly off the security guard's beat, close enough to be of assistance. That's good." He nodded his thanks at the lawman.

"So... we need, what, two volunteers? To stay at that cafe and sit out the actual breaking and entering. Anyone?" There was a few seconds' pause, and then Maria and Kyle both waved simultaneously, each seeming surprised that the other had volunteered.

"Good, thanks," Max nodded at them. "Next... I'd say three to go in. Isabel has to be one, obviously, and Michael is probably indispensible. Who else would you like going with you, Iz?" It was a leading question.

"Alex," Isabel answered without hesitation. Max smiled sadly for a moment, knowing that once it would have been the three of them, but moved on. "That leaves me, Tess, Liz, and Mister Valenti on guard duty... Good enough. Anything else?"

"Weapons," Isabel suggested.

"Right." Michael went over to Max's dresser, removed a small carry-case, and quickly opened the combination locks on it. "One ray-gun. Who gets that."

"I think that Liz proved she could handle it last time," Maria pointed out.

"No way." Liz shook her head. "I don't want it. And I wasn't a great shot either - ask Max."

"Well, the tactical effect will probably be greater if it's a human," Michael pointed out. "Since we've already got our own powers..." He scanned the room, counting off hybrids and those already in the reserves, until he landed on someone who was in neither group.

"Sure, I'll take it," Alex agreed. "If I can make it work."

"Wait a second, how did *Liz* make it work?" Tess put in. "I took a look at that thing. It's power-triggered. Liz is human."

"Well, humans have the power, too, right?" Kyle countered. "The balance. Otherwise we couldn't use those healing stones or anything."

"We should make time to test it out in an isolated area before we move," Max suggested. "Knowing who can shoot this thing and who can't might be life and death."

"I'll take the heat shield, if no-one objects," Michael muttered, helping himself to the small box. "Power-drain pentagon?" They had gone back to retrieve that item belatedly, almost twelve hours after turning Steve Banks' trap against him. It had still been there, at the bottom of the tunnel where Max, Michael, and Isabel had been trapped.

"Don't expect that that'll be too much use," Tess pointed out. "Not likely to run into any other aliens down here, just special unit."

"But you can never tell," Liz counter-pointed. "I'll take it."

"You know how to work that thing?" Isabel asked as the pentagon was passed over. Liz nodded.

"I think that's it for the weapons," Michael said in a low voice.

"Not quite." Max turned around to see Valenti undoing his shoulder holster, his piece still inside it, and presenting it to Kyle. "You should take this, I think."

"No, no," Kyle shook his head. "You'll have more use for it than I will..."

"I'll be too close to the action," Jim corrected. "If the wrong person sees that I've got a firearm, it could get us all killed."

Kyle paused, and then tried again. "But you're..."

His father cut him off. "Kyle! You are our backup - you and Maria. You're going to need something to arm yourselves with. Take it."

Defeated, Kyle took the holster and tried it on, then started making adjustments. "What about Maria? What's she going to be armed with??"

"This," Maria said, brandishing her trusty cell phone.

* * * * *

Things were quiet inside the new Parker-mobile as they headed back into town. The tests on the ray gun had been interesting. Liz, Maria, and Alex had each been completely capable of making it perform, as well as the four 'pod squadders.' Kyle could generate an erratic and weak beam if he tried hard, and Jim could get no response at all. Isabel's theory was that it had something to do with how long a human had been exposed to alien powers regularly. They were starting to learn how to tap into their human energies on command.

Suddenly, Liz broke the silence. "Be careful, Max, okay?"

He smiled a little in the dark. "Always."

"More than always," Liz snapped, and then sighed. "Sorry. I just... earlier tonight I had another dream." They had all tried to get some sleep before meeting to make the final mission plans.

Max nodded. "What did you dream??"

"Well..." Liz sighed again. "It was really vague, like that dream I had the night of our candlelight dinner. But... there was a bunch of people, and everything had gone wrong, and a scary man was threatening us with a weapon. You might have been hurt. I'm really scared, Max."

"We'll be careful," he assured her, and then thought a bit more. "That last dream, it showed you how to save us all, by kicking out that platform lever. Did this dream show you anything to do??"

"Well, yeah," Liz said reluctantly. "But once again, I don't understand it. I grabbed whoever was to my left and ran out a door. I don't see how that can help."

"Maybe we'll have to wait and see," Max whispered. Liz looked at him with a bit of surprise on her face. "I've got the wild notion that this is part of your power, Liz."

"What p--"

"Kyle said it," he quietly continued, quieting her objection. "You guys have obviously gotten in touch with the human side of the Balance, and that can't only apply to ray-guns. The power affects every life it touches, it has to. I've learned that already. But human powers are unlikely to manifest the same way that ours do."

"But foretelling the future?" Liz sniffed uncertainly. "It's against every rule of physics. The uni-direction of time, causality, all of that."

"We've already got one message from the future," Max reminded her. "But think of it this way. The events of the future will follow from the situation of the present, right?? If you knew EVERYTHING that was going on right now, you'd have a good chance of predicting the future successfully, just because you could see the forces that were already in motion and figure out how they'd be likely to interact. Maybe this power draws from the present on a subconscious level and feeds you the results of an analysis of the probably future in your dreams." He sighed, and Liz smiled at him.

"Your last dream showed the way, and when the time was right you knew exactly what to do. I have a feeling that the same thing is going to happen this time."

"You have so much faith in me," Liz said, a little wonderingly. "Oooh, we're almost there."

* * * * *

The seconds ticked by with aching slowness until Michael reappeared at the door and waved them in. Isabel's hand reached out to clasp Alex's, and it was as if he could sense the nervousness she was feeling. Well, he could contribute her strength to help butress hers, in this respect at least. He stepped forward towards Max, and Isabel matched him pace for pace.

It took a few seconds for Alex's eyes to adjust from the dim light of the street to the dimmer light inside the small house, and he looked around, trying to get a sense of the premises. The front door opened on what looked like a combination living room and dining room. Three small doors led away, two of them, he presumed, to a bathroom and kitchen. A set of wide sliding doors dominated the left wall, and it was by these that Michael waited.

"Why would you want a set of doors THAT BIG into your bedroom??" Alex couldn't help but ask in a whisper.

"He's living here alone - who knows," Isabel hissed back.

Alex let that one slide and addressed Michael. "You sure there's no security alarms or booby traps to worry about?"

"Not any more," Michael assured him. "I was very thorough. Everything's deactivated, though there wasn't as much as I'd expect." Michael must have been able to see the worried expression on Alex's face, (or possibly Isabel's,) deepen. "I triple-checked EVERYTHING. Don't worry - we're fine."

"Well then," Isabel sighed. "Might as well get this started." She moved towards the sliding doors, and Michael carefully slid one of them back into the slot just far enough that any one of them could pass through the gap - though Alex suspected that broad-shouldered Michael would have to turn his body at an angle to fit. The door hadn't made a sound at all in Michael's hands.

Isabel knelt next to the bed in the darkness, gesturing Alex into a chair near the bedside. Then she reached up and touched the person lying within on the side of the head. In the dimness, Alex couldn't make out any of that person's features, but surely it could be none other than the Professor that they had come to Mexico to find.

"I'm sending him into a deep sleep," Isabel whispered. "Considering what I'm going to be trying, it might be smart to go further - to sedate him with his own brain chemistry. But I'm not sure about taking a step like that."

"Do it," Michael advised gruffly.

Alex reacted more cautiously. "What are the risks?"

Isabel weighed that question. "Well, if I set off the wrong chemical sequence, it could give him brain damage or even kill him. Ten thousand to one shot against. And... and I guess even the right chemical sequence could cause a problem acessing the memories that we've come for. I hardly know how to acess that risk - maybe five to one against?" She sighed. "We can't risk it, can we?"

"Not yet," Alex agreed, and looked up to Michael for confirmation. He wasn't able to see the details of the young hybrid's facial features or even if his head was moving, but he wasn't saying anything, which was perhaps answer enough.

And Isabel wasn't waiting for Michael's opinion, either. "I've got him sleeping about as deeply as I dare," she murmured softly. "Ready to initiate the memory transfer link." He could hear her take a deep breath. "Touch me, Alex."

"Uhh... huh??"

"That's why I wanted you here," she explained in a low voice. "I can't spare a hand to touch yours, but I need to *know* that you're here with me to do this. Know it beyond a shadow of a doubt."

"Umm... okay." Alex hitched his chair closer to the bed, wincing in retrospect at the amount of noise the legs made scraping against the bare floor -- he should have done that more carefully. But Thompson was in the deep sleep, and neither of the pod squadders told him off. Alex put his right hand flat on Isabel's back, palm down, hoping that she would tell him if she had had something else in mind.

He heard Isabel's breath again, and this time it sounded much more relaxed and peaceful. "I'm in," she whispered. For many long, drawn-out seconds, each following the next with what seemed like tortuous slowness, there was nothing that could be heard in the room but the rhythmic breathing of Isabel and the sleeping professor, in perfect counterpoint to each other. The boys were each holding their breaths as long as they could and only releasing them with the utmost silence.

Finally, Isabel's voice broke the tableau once again. "It's not working." Three short words, stunning in their finality.

"What... what do you mean it's not working??" Michael stammered. "There's a plan B, right? What's not working about it?"

Iz looked up in Michael's direction. "It's the receptacle. Thanks for the thought, but I can't connect to a dead 'thing' well enough. You or Max probably could, you've been working so much with Nasedo's diary. But neither of you..."

"Can work with thoughts well enough..." Michael finished. "Even if we connected to you and you connected to the Professor, we wouldn't be able to relay accurately enough. If these memories get distorted in the process, we'd probably be better off not having them at all."

"Wait a second, I'm not quite up to speed here," Alex interjected quietly. "What's this receptacle??"

"Here." Isabel reached back and pushed something smooth and globular into his hand. Alex tried to hold it where it would catch the most of the moonlight coming through the window, and peered at it from about five inches away. Some sort of medallion, probably stainless steel plated to look like silver, but very pretty. Michael had given this to Isabel? And Alex hadn't even known about the need. For the first time in months he felt as if Isabel's hybrid status (or his own humanity,) was responsible for a distance between them.

"There's one other plan we can try," Isabel whispered, bring Alex back out of his momentary preoccupation. "Instead of using an inanimate receptacle, I can use someone else as the receptacle for the transfer - a living brain. I'm pretty sure that that will work better."

"Which one of us do you want?" Michael asked softly.

For the first time since entering the room, Isabel stood up, and surveyed the two of them in the dim light. "Neither of you." There was a short pause, "I'm sorry, I need both of you in other ways. Michael, you're watching out for me, making sure that nothing goes wrong. Alex, you're right beside me, giving me the strength I need to go through with this. Neither of you can do your jobs if you've got the professor's memories being copied into your head." She sighed. "And we can't take the risk that this might disrupt the connection you have with the washer, Alex. We still need you and that little thing too much."

"So... we bring in someone from the perimiter guard??" Michael suggested. "Which one?"

That way of phrasing the question obviously made the answer clear to Isabel. "Max. I've known him longest of anybody, really, and we have experience using our powers together. It's got to be him."

"Okay," Alex said softly, standing up himself. "I'll go get Max."

* * * * *

Alex maneuvered his way quickly out of the house, closing the front door behind him, and found Max at his post, half slumped down on a bench as if he were drunk and partly asleep. (They had come up with obvious excuses for the four perimeter guards to be loitering around as quickly as they could.) "Hey, come on buddy," Alex whispered, sitting down next to Max and giving him a shove.

"Hey, wh- is it?" Max moaned, still more than a little in character.

"Isabel needs your help with the transfer," Alex hissed, barely audible.

One of Max's eyes widened, fully alert. "Is she sure it's worth the risk of bringing me inside?"

"She says there's no other way."

"Okay, pretend like you need to give me a hand getting 'home.'" Alex boosted Max up off the bench. "We'll need to let the others know that plans have changed."

"Liz will be able to see us go in the front door, and she'll be able to connect the dots," Alex reminded him. "She can let Tess and Valenti know, and call Maria on her cell."

"None of them will know *why* you're bringing me in," Max complained. "Liz will worry."

Alex sighed. "It's up to you if you want us to go over and tell Liz. It might look suspicious, though, and draw attention to her. Is that what you want?"

Max groaned softly. "No, of course not. Let's go."

Side by side, Max acting clumsier than Alex thought was called for, they hurried into the house. After what he had said to Max, Alex had to squelch the impulse to wave in the direction of Liz's hiding place, though he did his best to make an arm flail seem reassuring when Max half stumbled.

Once they were inside and the door closed once again, Max scooted out from Alex's helping arm and rushed to Isabel's side. "What do you need me to do?"

"Umm..." Isabel looked up from the sleeping man. "Just, uh... sit *there* I guess, and relax. Leave your mind open to my touch. This might be an unusual sensation..." Max ended up cross-legged on the floor, next to the headboard of the bed, with Isabel touching the side of his head with one hand and the professor's with the other.

Alex took his position from before, sitting behind Iz, his hand resting as reassuringly as possible on her back.

"Mm..." There was a long pause. "Yeah, that's it. It's going," Isabel mumbled.

* * * * *

For no particularly good reason, Liz watched the front door of the small house for ten seconds more, and then she got up and slowly started wandering towards Tess' position, trying to get close enough to signal the hybrid girl without leaving her post entirely uncovered. **Max's is already vacant now.**

And there was Tess. Liz waved as vaguely as she could, and Tess came over, still watching over the north side of the house and the side door. "What is it," she whispered once they were within whisper range of each other.

"Alex came out and brought Max in. We need to compensate for it." Liz paused a moment. "I guess it makes the most sense for Valenti and I to adjust a little towards the south, and you can just stay where you are. Go and tell V--"

"Back up a second," Tess instructed. "What do you mean, 'Alex brought Max in?'"

"Very much what it sounds like," Liz hissed, hoping that Tess would get the hint and keep her own voice down. "Alex came out of the house, went to Max's post. I assume they talked briefly, though I can't be sure. Max and Alex both go inside."

"That's not in the plan," Tess whispered, frowning.

"Sometimes the plan needs to be changed on the fly," Liz commented. "Believe me, I know."

"Didn't they come and tell you why?"

"Nope," Liz shook her head, and dark hair flew all about her for a second. **Maybe I could do with a trim.** She pushed that almost-entirely-irrelevant thought aside and returned to the subject at hand. "They acted as if I wasn't there, but I'm not too worried about that. Max was probably just trying not to call attention to me. I think Alex waved as he went in - it was a kind of reassuring arm motion, at any rate."

"But why do they need Max?" A horrified expression crossed Tess' face. "Isabel could be hurt! Or Michael!! Or both of them!!!"

Liz weighed that hypothesis. "I suppose. But if they are, then Max can heal them." She could tell that Tess wasn't really listening to her, and she grabbed the other girl's wrist in a dramatic gesture. "Tess... TESS? If they needed either of us, Alex would have come for us to. Right now, all we can do is go back to guard duty, and that means you need to go tell Valenti. Okay, Tess??"

Tess shook herself slightly and nodded, pulling her hand back from Liz's grip. "All right, all right! You don't need to talk at me like I'm a toddler!! I'll go tell Valenti."

"Not without us I don't think you will, darling."

Tess gasped, and Liz swung around, backing up a little as she saw a tall figure stride confidently out of the shadows into the dim light of the midnight street. It was a man, probably in his early twenties, strongly built with a short shock of very dark hair. Carried in both of his hands with the ease of long practice was a weapon... Liz couldn't make it out entirely, but it looked like an M-16 or another of those automatic rifles from on TV. Very faintly she could make out that something else had been added underneath the main barrel, and from somewhere she vaguely remembered reading about an 'Over-under,' a deadly and vicious piece of portable artillery made by combining an M-16 with a grenade launcher. Her knees shook with fear.

Liz looked at Tess out of the corner of her eye just in time to notice the blonde girl's eyes narrowing, as she focused her alien powers against the intruder.

To what precise intent Liz couldn't tell, because after a split second the gunman growled "none of *that*," and aimed his weapon at Tess. From the bottom tube streamed something that seemed to Liz a bolt of pale light, streaking through the dim night and into Tess' body. She gave a faint cry and staggered, almost falling. Liz reacted instinctively. Her right hand found a loose brick that she hadn't even known was there and her body tensed to spring at their assailant. But the gun oriented just as quickly on her and she froze.

"Put down the brick, baby," the man whispered. "I'll use the other end of this on you if I have to, I swear I will." Liz weighed her chances a second and dropped her makeshift weapon. She had no burning desire to get shot again, especially not with Max more than a few feet away. "Good. Now give your girlfriend a hand up," he gestured with the gun towards Tess, who was crouching, whimpering her discomfort softly, "and we'll go find your friend."

Try as she might, Liz could think of nothing to do but just that, so she helped Tess to her feet, wrapping an arm around the other girl's shoulders to help support her. In more than one way, it turned out to her surprise.

* * * * *

"Oh, hey, check *this* out. SCORE!"

Alex felt the tension tremble through Isabel's body, and he turned his head to address Michael. "Shush."

"No, come on, man, check this out!"

"I can't..." Alex started, but he was interrupted by a soft growl from Isabel.

"Go. Just do everything you can to *keep him quiet.* There's no other way."

Alex had to admit that there was some truth to that - Michael Guerin would be unlikely to tone down his volume without anyone paying attention to him, and Alex was the only one who was dispensable in this operation. He stood up awkwardly.

"And come back to me as soon as you can," Isabel added softly. Alex smiled, rubbed her shoulder affectionately, and went out to see what Michael was shooting off about.

He was on the floor, legs spread out in front of him, balancing something on the floor next to him. "Boy, Isa--" Alex sshed him again, and Michael modulated his voice down three notches in volume. "Isabel wasn't kidding about an 'alien device.' Look at this thing!!"

Alex crept closer, squatting down to examine Michael's discovery. It was longer than a motorcycle, though not quite so long as a compact car Alex thought, fairly narrow and flat. There was one seat fairly close to the front that a person could climb into, though he wasn't quite sure where their legs would go... (would they dangle out the bottom? Get folded up in a cavity inside there? Or could there be enough room to stretch them out inside there??) In any event, there was an impressive collection of alien-looking controls in front of that seat. A little further back, Alex thought he could make out two spaces where passengers could sit on the edge of the device and grab onto a handhold. He looked over at Michael, and saw past him to the empty cupboard that was big enough to hold this thing.

"You know, we really should put it away for now, Michael," he whispered.

"What?" Michael sighed. "Alex, this is *our* rightful property. It was made for the four of us, I can feel it. The special unit ripped off our birthright and this was Professor-guy's cut of the booty..."

"Michael..." Alex interrupted what was shaping up to be a very long and righteously indignant speech. "Once Max and Isabel are done, we'll let them know that it's here. But for right now... I've just got a bad feeling about having it sitting out here."

"Okay, okay," Michael groaned, and hoisted himself up as far as a crouch. "Gimme a hand, it's a heavy little piece of our heritage."

Alex grinned and grabbed out end of the vehicle, and between the two of them they got it safely stowed back in its storage space.

Alex smiled awkwardly at Michael. "Umm... I'd better, er, get back to--" He waved vaguely in the direction of the bedroom.

Michael nodded. "Tell Iz I'm sorry for bugging her." Alex felt his eyes widen, and the other boy shrugged. "Y'know, if it comes up."

Alex laughed softly and turned to go.

But he never got the chance.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Title: A Roswell Homecoming: the Mexican Tango. Part 4f 2/2
Author: Chris Kenworthy
E-mail: kelworth@chriskweb.net
Home archive: http://www.fantiction.net/~chriskenworthy
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own the Roswell characters, though if I did I'd treat them better than Jason Katims.
Category: Sci-fi drama. Canon couples romance leading to UC pairings in later part.
Spoilers: Up to 'ask not'


Liz stepped slowly towards Jim Valenti's position. He was watching as she came, of course. "Liz? What on earth are you doing over here??"

"There... there's been a problem," she said out loud softly. "You have to..." She took a sudden gut check. Praying that she wasn't giving Tess her death sentence, (or worse, that some part of her didn't want it that way,) she dropped her voice. "Run. Special unit bodguard - he's got Tess. We need you free..."

"If I were you," that insufferable voice rang out clearly, "I wouldn't go along with whatever she's whispering. Not unless you're comfortable with the notion that these lovely young ladies will get *shot* if you pull anything I don't like the look of." As he was speaking, the mysterious bodyguard and Tess appeared from behind a low-hanging wall - that M-16 never wavering from Tess' heart.

"You wouldn't dare," Tess whispered softly.

"Who's going to stop me, girl?" he sneered. "You? Who's gonna make me pay?! Your friends inside?? I don't think so, so you might want to stop deluding youself that I won't follow through. It's not like a bullet to the heart isn't too good a death for your kind, alien *bitch*!!"

Valenti cleared his throat softly, trying to distract their captor from his rant at Tess. "So... what now?"

The bodyguard weighed that for a second. "We go back around the house and come in the front door. First you go in," and he prodded Tess with the point of the gun, "and step well clear to the left. You next, go right," that was aimed at Liz, then to Valenti, "and you left. Nobody warns your friends about what's going down. I'll be the last one in, and I'll do *whatever* I need, to establish firm control of the situation. If none of you try anything stupid, that shouldn't involve killing anyone."

* * * * *

Michael was watching Alex turn toward the bedroom when it happened. The front door opened again, smoothly and quietly, and he could just make out Tess' features as she entered. Next Liz, the two girls taking positions on the either side of the door. What was going on?? Then Valenti, taking up a position beside Tess, stomping his foot with a sharp rap as he came to a standstill. Was that a message? A warning??

Michael was still so taken off guard that it took him a second to process the fourth figure to appear at the doorway - a stranger, tall and dark, carrying a weapon. A precious second was lost to shock before Michael focused his powers, trying to throw the intruder back out of the doorway.

It was too late. The stranger was on his guard, and a faint pulse of light emerged from the implement in his hands, splattering against Michael's body like a shot from a water rifle. Instantly he felt a strong drain on his balance, the shock affecting his whole body, leaving him struggling to keep his feet. Counterattacking was impossible, at least for the moment.

The encounter had drawn Alex's attention by now, of course, and his hand immediately went to the raygun tucked into the waist of his pants. But by the time he had drawn and aimed, it was too late, just as Michael had been. Another pulse streamed into Alex's figure, but he didn't seem to be adversely affected. He grinned for a moment and touched the contact on the raygun, expecting this intruder to be blown to bits.

Nothing. The artifact was dead in Alex's hands. Of course, Michael thought. If that weapon disrupted the power, its effects on humans would be less obvious, since the power wasn't a large part of their life, but the raygun was power-triggered. That was the connection.

Alex had obviously came to the same conclusion. He looked at the perimeter guard, wondering whether to try tossing the gun to either of them. But Tess had obviously been dosed with the weapon already or she'd be fighting back with her own powers, and Valenti had been able to make the laser weapon respond at all. That left Liz... and the intruder stepped between Liz and Alex, ready to intercept the artifact if Alex tossed it.

Suddenly furious, Alex charged his assailant directly. Michael saw him shake his head slightly, and swing the tip of his weapon, (which looked like a rifle of some kind,) catching Alex on the side of the chin punishingly as his charge arrived, knocking him to one side. Alex crumpled into a heap.

The dark-haired man then stepped further into the living room, orienting on something. Suddenly he whirled his weapon and fired two careful shots through the door into the bedroom, and somehow Michael knew that Max and Isabel's powers had been nullified too. And in the middle of that procedure, who knew what would happen as Isabel, especially, lost her talents so suddenly.

The dark haired man turned around so that he was facing Liz. From where he crouched on the floor he could see the cruelty in the man's face as he spat out "Lights!!"

Liz seemed to be confused for a second, then realized that she was standing next to a light switch. She flipped it, and off-white incandescent light flooded the room, overwhelming Michael's night-adapted vision for a second, but he forced himself to keep watching the situation.

The bodyguard, (for Michael had belatedly realized this must be him,) turned next to Valenti. "Door!" There was no confusion there. Valenti swung the front door shut.

"Good. Now that we're all here, suppose you aliens start by explaining what the hell you think you're doing here??"

* * * * *

Isabel lay slumped on the floor. For a second she had to think hard, (which was a painful effort,) to remember anything of where she was and what she was doing there. Then it started to come back. The professor's house. The memory-link circuit with Max.

Well, what had happened? Obviously she had been thrown out of the link. Exploring in the shadows, (shadows? It had been completely dark. What was so much light doing filtering into the room? Had dawn come already??) she quickly found Max sprawled on the floor right in front of her. Whatever had hit them, he hadn't woken up yet - possibly because he had been fairy close to a sleeping or trance state for the transfer.

What about the professor?? Isabel scrambled to find the bed. There he was, sleeping but vitals strong yet. So what had happened?

"Stay away from him, slut!" Isabel turned to see who was speaking to her (and if whoever was actually addressing HER with that kind of language,) and found herself staring straight into the light, blinking back its brightness. Finally her eyes agreed to withstand the intensity and focus at the same time. (At least focus partway.) It was a tall darkhaired man she didn't recognize, and he was pointing something straight at her. Instantly Isabel pushed away from the bed and scrambled into the chair that Alex had been sitting in, and then her eyes reached their limit for abuse and closed themselves again.

"What makes you think we're aliens, anyway?" The voice was Jim Valenti's.

A low, deadly chuckle was the first response from the mystery man, who Isabel belatedly realized had to be the Special Unit bodyguard. "Very funny. Somehow I don't think you're an alien, sir. That's why I didn't worry about tagging you and that's why you haven't zapped me with alien powers yet. But you're either a collaborator or a pawn, and your friends here are aliens."

Isabel couldn't see if he made a gesture to clarify who he was including in 'your friends here' - she wasn't even sure who was in the room. Valenti had still been out on perimeter guard, last she knew. Had the bodyguard forced him in? Were Tess and Liz inside the room too, or free outside to attempt the rescue of the rest of the group? Iz tried to force her eyes to open so that she could follow the tactical situation a bit better.

"Let's see... who would have a fancy little ray-gun like that one??" The bodyguard turned and pointed his gun at Alex's weapon. Yes, Liz and Tess were here too, damnit. Not much chance of a rescue attempt from them, then. Both of those girls were staying up against the wall, trying to keep out of the way - or maybe out of the line of fire, Whichever way, Iz couldn't blame them.

Meanwhile, the guy had arranged his super-cannon so that it was balanced in one hand and stretched the other one out to Alex. "Give me that."

Alex hesitated a second, clearly not wanting to give up the advantage that the blaster offered. But why hadn't he used it on this creep?? For that matter, why weren't Michael or Tess using their powers to attack, to disarm the enemy figure? And why wasn't Isabel??

Alex deliberately threw the gun down to the floor between himself and the bodyguard, whose face snarled in rage for a second, and Iz took advantage of that moment of distraction to pull at the gun so it would go flying from said bodyguard's hand. No effect. Had this guy... (Iz needed something to call him in her mind, and quickly settled on Jethro...) had Jethro managed to nullify their powers somehow??

"That was truly moronic," Jethro spat at Alex, and did something to the cannon so it made a menacing clicking sound. "Pick it up again and hand it to me. No tricks."

Alex seemed about to resist passively for a second, but relented, possibly seeing something of the same cruel determination in Jethro as in Steve Banks. He squatted down, retrieved the red crystal pistol, and delivered it over to the bodyguard. Jethro examined the smooth lines of it for a second, pointed it and tried to fire, and then shrugged and tucked the tip of it into his back pants pocket.

"Yes," Michael grunted in a stifled exclamation of triumph. Jethro turned around to stare at him, as did Isabel and Tess. After looking into Micahel's eyes for a second, (Michael himself having assumed an inscrutable poker face,) then backed off into a corner, covering the gang as best he could with his cannon, set the blaster on a table, ans then returned. Isabel suddenly realized what Michael had just accomplished. By planting the suspicion that the blaster had been somehow booby-trapped to do away with Jethro, he'd made certain that the bodyguard wouldn't keep it on his person, which could be critical if they got a chance to actually use it against him.

Was there something that Isabel was missing?? Kyle and Maria were supposed to be their backup - but how could they contact them now?? If Isabel had her powers, she might be able to implant a subconscious suggestion into one or both of their minds, like she had with Michael when he was in the labyrinth. But that seemed to be out.

"Now, let's get down to it." All of a sudden Jethro had stepped into the bedroom. He pulled Isabel mercilessly up from her chair, checked Max momentarily, but he wasn't showing any signs of recovery yet. Then he dragged the chair out into the living room and gestured imperatively that she should sit again. "What planet are you from??" He asked once she had.

Isabel sighed. It always seemed to come back to this, didn't it? "I was born right here on Earth. We all were."

"You know what I mean. What planet do your people come from??"

Isabel thought about what to say, but suddenly a part of her screamed that it was tired of hiding and lying. "We're pretty sure it's called Azt."

"Okay, now we're getting somewhere. And why have you come here, to the Professor's house??"

"For the professor, of course," Isabel continued. "Our intel suggested that he was the most likely source of the information we needed." She waited and let Jethro ask her for it.

"And what information would that be, exactly??" he sneered.

"Abour the Roswell spaceship and the items that were confiscated from the crash site. They are our heritage. You have no claim to them, we do."

"Not so fast!!" At first Isabel thought Jethro was countering her claim, but his weapon and his gaze slowly and carefully oriented on Alex, who had been attempting to move unnoticed across the room. "What were you going after, the fireplace poker??"

"Yep," Alex agreed equably. It looked like a good weapon, Isabel had to agree. Heavy and pointed enough to do some damage. Too bad he hadn't been able to get at it.

"I think you PUNKS aren't taking this seriously enough!!" Jethro snarled, swinging the cannon around so that the point caught Isabel in the face. Pain exploded through her head. "The next person who MOVES in this room without orders from me is going to get SHOT IN THE HEAD!!" he yelled.

What happened next was a coincidence of tragic proportions, of course.

Presumably wakened by Jethro's shouting, someone in the bedroom jerked up to a sitting position. Jethro was already on edge, and had steeled himself to carry out his threat. He knew that he'd left an 'enemy,' Max, unconscious in the bedroom, but probably the only thing guiding his actions was instinct. Orienting on the motion, aiming, and firing the submachinegun aspect of his weapon.

But it was not Max who had awakened so suddenly, as we all realized after a few seconds. It was Professor Thompson.

* * * *

In a way it was weird. The bedroom was still dim, lit only by the incandescent bulbs from the living room filtering through the wide doorway. But Liz could still see so many little details - the way the older man slumped back painfully into his bed, the splatters of blood on his pajama shirt. The gaping ugliness of the bullet holes and the way a little bit of *something* was hanging out of one of them. The trace of red drool that was leaing out of the corner of his mouth.

For a long moment, Liz couldn't help but wonder if it would have been the same if it really had been Max who had woken and unwittingly drawn the bodyguard's attack. And if she had looked like that after the Crashdown shooting, before Max healed her.

Max...

He had woken up by now, whether the shots or the shouting or something else had roused him Liz couldn't know. But at least he was moving slowly and nonthreateningly. He got up and looked at the Professor, probably wishing that he could save the man, an agent of their enemies though he was. But certainly he couldn't. His powers had been taken away, just like those of the rest, and even if they hadn't there was no way of knowing how the bodyguard would react to alien powers being used on his charge, even to save his life.

"Get away from him," the bodyguard roared to Max, and hehurriedly backed away from the bed.

"Look what the fuck you made me do," the shooter continued, to Alex, and decked him with the gun. Alex went sprawling on the floor. And then he stalked off to the bedroom to investigate.

Instantly Liz realized that it was the moment she had been waiting for. The moment from her dream. She still didn't understand how the dreams worked, but Max had told her to trust them. And she'd have to act fast, while the bodyguard was distracted.

In the dream, she had taken someone who was ahead of her and to her left, unlocked a door, and run through it. What they would do then, she didn't have any clue.

The person who was in that position was Tess. Not Liz's first choice, but she didn't second guess. She broke into a dash, pushing the blonde hybrid girl ahead of her, twisted the lock control on the door, and then they were out into the Mexican night and running.

* * * *

Michael spun around just in time to miss Liz and Tess's break for freedom. **Good for them,** the thought ran through his mind, and then he turned to watch their captor with some considerable amount of alarm.

Tactically, the bodyguard had about three responses to this development that Michael could see. One, he could pursue the escapees, leaving the larger number of his prisoners unguarded. Two, he could fortify his position here against the rescue attempt that would surely come if he let Liz and Tess go, probably once Tess had recovered her powers and the two of them had called in the assistance of Maria and Kyle. Three, he could begin shooting hostages immediately. That last was the possibility that Michael had to protect against, if there was any conceivable way that he could.

However, in only a few seconds, the issue was moot. None too rational before this last unwelcome development, the bodyguard was apparently in no state of mind to weigh his options sensibly. He flew out the front door in hot pursuit of Liz and Tess.

This seemed to Michael the best outcome that they could hope for - two birds in the bush, even seven if you considered that the rest of them were still in some danger, were definitely worth less than five in the hand. Not that Michael intended to let this idiot go hunting Liz and Tess for long, of course, but there were a few other things to worry about first.

"Isabel!" He hurried over to her chair. "Are you okay??"

"I'm fine," she insisted quickly. "Check Alex."

"I'm alright," Alex assured his sweetie, picking himself up from the floor. "Just cleverly playing possum until my time came to str... where's the goon? And Li--"

"Liz and Tess made a break for it," Michael told him quickly. "He took off after them. She probably saved our butts again."

"I wouldn't doubt it," Max called out from the bedroom door. "She had another of her psychic dreams. It must have helped her pick the exact right moment to run for it."

"Well, now we'd better be ready to return the favor," Isabel suggested, getting up and stretching. "Save her butt before Jethro gets to her, and Tess' too." Seeing that more than one questioning look was aimed her way, Isabel elaborated. "Jethro - mental nickname I gave our bodyguard friend."

Michael nodded, trying to determine any loose ends they had to tie up before they left. "The professor?" he asked Max.

"Dead." The healer's voice sounded hollow as he pronounced it. "There was nothing I could do."

"I know, man," Michael agreed, and then turned to Alex. "Call Maria and Kyle in. Have Kyle give the gun back to Valenti, then he's to follow us in as backup. Take the sled back to the motel and wait for us there."

"Got it," Alex agreed, then had a thought. "What about the memory transfer? Did we get anything??"

Max and Isabel exchanged a look. "We'll have to figure that out later," Isabel decided. "Is there anything else?" They all knew that the bodyguard was getting further away by the moment.

Alex dashed over to the side table and picked up the blaster. Before he could even ask, Max said "Over here, man!" and brought his hands together in a catching gesture.

Alex tossed the alien weapon over. "Bring her back safe, Max."

Max Evans knew exactly who he meant. "I intend to, or die trying."

* * * *

To Liz, the dark streets of Puerto Penasco, still long yet before twilight would break, were like a deadly maze. Of course, knowing that the two of them had a killer agent on their tail didn't help much.

She had been trying to make for the cafe where Maria and Kyle were waiting, and she had a pretty good idea where that was, but there never seemed to be a good opportunity to head in that direction that wouldn't take them under the open glare of the streetlamps. Where the bodyguard could see them for sure. Where he could shoot them down, if he wished.

Better, Liz understood instinctually, to keep covering ground in the safety of the shadows, no matter in which direction those shadows took them. Better in the short term, at least, and Liz was past thinking beyond the short term. Evading the hunter that pursued them had become second nature to her when Tess pulled her back just as she was about to start another dash.

"We can't go that way. That path leads into the woods. We'll get lost for certain!!"

Liz looked around, evaluating their options. The hunter was coming up from behind them, from the east, as far as Liz could remember. If they stayed within the city, light hemmed them in to the south and the west. "It's the only way. And if he comes in, he'll be as lost as we are."

He wasn't, quite. As the agent left the city behind and stepped onto the forest floor in pursuit of them, he activated some sort of flashlight-like attachment on his weapon, but the light, faint and incriminating as it was, helped Liz and Tess find their way through the woods as well.

But Liz knew that it wasn't safe to be anywhere near that terrible light, and so she pushed herself and Tess further and faster - deeper into the forest, where only the moon lit the trees. The moon's our friend, or at least more so than any other light, Liz thought to herself.

And then it had happened. They had both narrowly missed their share of misadventures in those dark woods, but abruptly Liz felt her right foot crunch into a narrow crevice. A bad feeling sinking in her chest, Liz tried to pull that foot free. She couldn't budge it even a fraction of an inch.

Tess must have taken about four steps ahead of Liz before she noticed and doubled back. "What's the problem??"

"My foot's trapped," Liz hissed back.

"What, like a bear trap or something?"

"No - at least, I don't think so. Just a... heck, I don't know what it is I stepped in!"

Tess snickered slightly. "Okay, hang on." She bent down, her face out of sight, presumably to inspect Liz's predicament. She could feel the blonde girls' delicate fingertips brush against her calf. "Yeah, it's hard to see anything, but from the feel, you've got yourself wedged in pretty good, right in the gap between a stone outcropping and a fallen tree. I guess this would be the definitive 'rock and a hard place'??"

"Ha ha." She couldn't move, with a killer on their tail, and Tess chose this moment to start cracking jokes?? "Can you do anything to help get me out?"

Tess sighed visibly, then a fragment of the flashlight played over her face, still too far away for the gunman to see anything, but it still frightened both of them. "Lemme see." She bent down again. "Can't push either the rock or the log away. Hmmm..." She busied herself about something. "How's that??"

Liz tried again. "No good. What did you do?"

"I untied your shoe, thought you might be able to slip your foot out of it."

Now it was Liz's turn to stifle a sigh. "Well, I can't. Maybe you could try using something else to pry the bar away??"

Tess considered a moment, then dashed away. When she returned only a few seconds later, Liz could see that she was holding some sort of makeshift staff - the trunk of a smaller tree maybe, or a very stout and thick branch. She angled it into the crevice, pried as hard as she could. The tip of the staff broke off inside the cleft before the log had even quivered.

The bodyguard was getting closer now, and Liz could see a notion play over Tess's face in the moonlight. "Please, Tess, I'm scared," she blurted out. "Don't leave me behind!!"

* * * *

"Okay, do we have a plan??" Max muttered as they hurried through the dimly lit Mexican street, hoping that the sounds that they were following had something to do with the chase that the three of them were trying to tag along with.

"There's nothing that we can do as long as we don't have our powers," Michael muttered in reply. "But mine are on their way back, I can feel that somehow. Once they're here, we move in hard and fast. Don't let him use that weapon against us again - probably pull it away from him with kinesis. Then we're in charge."

"Sounds good, then what?? And what the heck IS that, Isabel??" She had been staring into a little handheld screen ever since they left the Professor's place.

"Just a little something Alex whipped up," she mentioned offhandedly. "Mobile tracker - keyed in to Liz's cell phone. Thought it couldn't hurt to make sure we were going in the right direction."

"God bless Alex," Max whispered under his breath.

"As far as the 'then what' question, there's something Michael, Tess and I have been practicing that may help out," Isabel continued as they puffed along. "A way to combine our powers and affect someone's memory."

"Wow." This was the first Max had heard of this, though that didn't really surprise him given how crazy things had been lately. "As in, erase his memories of everything that's happened tonight??"

"Maybe," Michael qualified. "We've been trying it out, with Maria and Alex's help as guinea pigs, but only small stuff, for obvious reasons. For larger memories, I'm not sure if we're quite certain what would happen."

"Well, it's a good option to keep in mind," Max agreed. "Oh." The sound that he had been following (and apparently Isabel's tracker,) both led abruptly out of the city and into a deep forest. Well, at this point there was nothing that they could do but follow.

"And into the dark woods we go," Michael muttered.

* * * *

Tess disappeared from view again, and for a second Liz was convinced that despite her plea, the hybrid girl had abandoned her there to die. And then she heard a low moaning. What was going on? The flashlight played over the area, a ways away yet but getting closer, and thing fell into place. Tess had grabbed ahold of the fallen log with both hands and was pulling at it with every ounce of bare strength she could muster.

Gunfire whizzed over their heads. A stream of pale blue light rocketed into a nearby tree, nullifying whatever sinister alien powers it might have been preparing to let loose any moment. (Liz couldn't entirely stifle a giggle at that unfunny mental joke.) Liz tried to duck down, but it wasn't much good since her leg was forced straight up by her pinioned foot.

More weapons fire, of both types, followed as the bodyguard got closer. A power-drain ray tagged Liz, without much clear effect except for sapping away a faint hope that she'd be able to use what Max had called 'her human side of the power' to get them out of this.

Well, her dream had saved Max, and Michael and Isabel and Alex, or at least bought them the time they'd need...

And suddenly her foot popped out of the ground, sending Liz sprawling butt-first on the rocky ground. But she'd never been so glad to take a tumble in her life. She looked in Tess' direction and whispered a loud 'Thanks!'

"My pleasure, but now how do we get out of here without being shot to death?" Tess called back quietly. It was true, the shooter was almost upon them.

Liz smiled grimly in the darkness. "Leave that one to me." Picking up a large rock, she tossed it vehemently into a bank of brush off to one side. Sure enough, the bodyguard went for the diversion, and Liz and Tess took off in the other direction.

After that scare, Tess was running like the dogs of planet X were at her heels, but it seemed to Liz that something had changed. Where were the footsteps of the bodyguard behind them? She risked a look behind her and saw distant trees lit up by the blue of the flash light. Why was the light shining that way? She heard shouting from that direction.

"Hey Tess," Liz called, turning around again. "Wait up. I think..." But Tess was nowhere in sight, and Liz hurried to catch up, scrambling up a steep hill covered with moss or something.

As Liz reached the top of the hill, she saw Tess, still scootin' at a good clip though she was obviously exhausted. "Hey Tess!" Liz called, and she turned around without stopping. "I think the guys are..."

Liz broke off at that point, because Tess had tripped on something she hadn't seen, or slipped or whatever, and disappeared from view. As Liz hurried over to make sure she was okay, what she saw stunned her motionless.

What Tess had run afoul of was a cliff precipice that came upon this stretch of woods without warning. The ground that Liz could see at the bottom had to be at least thirty feet down.

And Tess Harding was nowhere in sight.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Title: A Roswell Homecoming: the Mexican Tango. Part 4g 1/2
Author: Chris Kenworthy
E-mail: kelworth@chriskweb.net
Home archive: http://www.fanficarchive.net/~chriskenworthy
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own the Roswell characters, though if I did I'd treat them better than Jason Katims.
Category: Sci-fi drama. Canon couples romance leading to UC pairings in later part.
Spoilers: Up to 'ask not'

Part 4g: The hell outta Dodge.

(Somewhere around 3:30 am, December 30th 2000)

"Okay, so let me get this straight," Maria asked as Jim Valenti's footsteps echoed down the street outside the front door. "This bodyguard rounded up the perimeter guard handily, brought everybody in here, tried to interrogate you, and accidentally shot the guy he was supposed to protect?"

"His nerves were pretty frayed by that point," Alex mentioned, nodding. "He thought it was Max, making a threatening move or something."

"And then Tess and Liz made a break for it, the bodyguard chased after him, and now Max, Isabel, and Michael are chasing after HIM? Without their powers??"

"You heard what Alex said," Kyle put in. "They're not gonna go up against this guy until their abilities return. But they have to be nearby when that happens to save Liz. And Tess."

"And your dad is trying to catch up with all of them, Kyle," Maria finished. "With his gun."

"Come on, guys." Alex sighed. "We've got our own job to do. Michael told me to make sure we get this air-sled thingee or whatever back to the hotel without anyone noticing."

"And what about him?" Maria asked, pointing into the bedroom."

Alex spared a glance at the professor's body. It killed him to say this, but "He's not our responsibility."

"Isn't he?" Kyle queried. "If you hadn't come here tonight, he might be waking up about now."

Alex stifled a groan. He didn't want to get into philosophies of accountability with Kyle. All he knew was that it was the other guy who pulled the trigger. "C'mon, give me a hand, it's in the cupboard here," he indicated to the other teenaged boy.

Kyle didn't push it - he opened the cupboard door and helped heft the impressive-looking airsled out.

* * * *

Max hurried through the dark as fast as he could, straining hard just to see what was around him in the moonlight. Straining just as hard, inside, to feel that sensation of his powers coming back to life inside of him. Nothing unmistakeable yet.

"Hey," Michael gasped, coming to a stop and pointing ahead of him. "Hey, KILLER!!"

A flash swung out of nowhere to shine around all three of them, and more gunshots rang out. Michael and Isabel quickly jumped for cover, and Max scrambled to join them. This is good, as long as none of us get shot, he thought. Keep the heat off Liz and Tess, make him realize that he's caught between us now.

Soon the flash spun away again, and Max crept closer, not stepping into the inviting emptiness of the path immediately, but making his way through the thin brush around it. Michael and Iz were doing the same.

How long could they keep this up? How long would they have to?? And if disaster struck suddenly, would there be any way to keep that gun from claiming another life tonight??

* * * *

"TESS!!" Liz called out, then kicked herself mentally. All you need is to draw the bodyguard right to you now. But where had she gone?? Was she lying down at the foot of that cliff, dead or dying?

Liz's first reaction to that thought was immediately censored. She had started a clean slate with Therese Harding, and to take pleasure in the thought of her death for things that had happened months ago was beneath her anyway. Also, if Tess was killed, then Max and the others had no chance to complete their challenge successfully, and she knew how important that was to all of them.

"Liz!!" The voice was hoarse, filled with fear and tension and also trying not to be loud enough to draw unwelcome attention. Liz crept closer to the edge and saw a lock of curly pale hair gleaming faintly in the moonlight, a foot kicking vainly in mid-air.

She crawled yet closer, on her hands and knees now to get nearer to the cliff edge - and for the sake of stability. Tess was holding onto an exposed tree root, her other hand and one foot scrabbling for additional support on the rough cliff face, and not finding it. She wouldn't be able to hang on long.

There was no way that Liz could reach that far down by herself. But maybe... she quickly shucked off the jean jacket that she had been wearing on watch against the brisk Mexican night, knotted the arms together and tossed it down, waist first, bracing herself as best she could. "Grab hold!!"

She couldn't see Tess from this position, but there was no mistaking the heavy jolt as something a hundred-ten odd pounds or so started pulling on the fabric. It took all of Liz's wearied strength not to go flying from the first sudden strain, but she held firm, and could hear the faint sounds of progress from over the cliff.

And then it happened. The effort to keep the material between her fingers was challenging, but Liz didn't let herself even think about losing her grip. Until it happened. The jacket flew away and over the edge. with Tess screaming in surprise.

There wasn't a fraction of a second to spare on rational thought. Liz catapulted herself over the edge, arms first. And then smooth hands were grabbing her arms, seeking a firm grip on the top of the cliff. As logical evaluation returned to Liz's brain, she realized that Tess had managed to make some progress upward with the jacket, and found another handhold when it slipped away.

Liz's own position was starting to become precarious, but Tess was crawling up onto the solid ground at the top of the cliff and pulling Liz back away from the edge. For an instant the only thing Liz could think about was how Max had given her that jacket, and both she and Tess had let it go, now almost certainly fallen to the bottom of the cliff. Well, better it than either of them, she supposed.

"Liz... you saved my life." Tess' voice seemed overcome with amazement at that fact.

Liz cocked her ear, listening for any sound of the bodyguard. There were footsteps through the woods surrounding them from two corners, and she knew she couldn't assume that anyone else had taken care of the enemy. "Not yet I haven't." And she helped Tess to her feet and they were running again, carefully following the edge of the cliff, but not too closely.

* * * *

"What the..." Max could just make out Isabel frowning at the little tracking device that she had been following, and then smacked it lightly.

"What's wrong??" Max asked.

"Signal's gone," Isabel muttered, folding the device up and putting it away. "Maybe the battery on Liz's phone is low, or maybe something dropped onto it. But..."

"Ssh." Michael put a finger to his lips, and as Max and Isabel froze motionless and completely silent, he listened in the dark woods for a moment. As he pointed out a bearing somewhat to the left of the way that they had been heading, he couldn't escape the thought that he was acting like a stereotypical native american guide in an old movie or something.

They moved on without speaking for a few minutes, the only sounds the inevitable quiet crunches and thumps of their own movement, and louder footfalls ahead of them - someone who was not taking as much care about staying quiet, but too far ahead. Michael was weighing the pros and cons of putting on more speed at the expense of stealth when it happened.

As the three of them stepped into a clearing that none of them had quite realized was there, the dreaded flashlight sprung to life all around them. Too late Michael realized that their enemy had been lying in wait for them.

"Did you think I wouldn't realize that you were following me??" he snarled, practically a disembodied voice from behind the light. "You thought I would be so focused on your little friends that I wouldn't take you on, huh?? Well, they'll still be here once you're done for. Ain't nobody leaving these woods tonight but me." He chuckled awefully.

"Somehow I beg to differ," Max called out loudly, to Michael's surprise. What kind of bluff was Maxwell Evans playing at?

But it was no bluff. Suddenly, a wall of rippling green energy materialized out of the night between the three of them and the shooter. Somehow it blocked the flashlight, or diffracted it, but cast its own soft light all over the forest clearing.

Max reached out and grabbed Michael's hand, and something sparked between them. Max's balance, somehow having recovered from the weapon's disruptive effects slightly more quickly, was putting Michael's powers back in order too. Michael reached out with his other hand to catch Isabel's. He could tell that the effect was carrying on to her as well, and he smiled.

"Rock and roll."

* * * *

"Wait." Tess' hand grabbed Liz, and when Liz turned back, she saw that the hybrid girl was staring the way that they had come.

"What is it??" Liz whispered. She could hear some sort of sound from behind them - not footsteps or talking, and a faint light that was NOT the shooter's flashlight.

"I felt a nudge of power," Tess breathed back almost silently. "At least one of them has their powers back already. Maybe..." She waved a hand, and a tree branch visibly bent down towards her.

Liz couldn't help but smile. "'Bout damn time."

Tess grinned back. "Come on. They may need our help."

* * * *

Max smiled over at Michael and Isabel, and then realized he wasn't sure what to do next. Through the distorting translucence of the barrier, he could tell that the shooter still had his weapon at the ready, as irresolute as Max was himself.

Apparently a decision, since three bullets suddenly rocketed into the shield - each one obviously targeted at one of the three of them. The one that had been meant for Michael must have bounced back perilously close to the shooter, because he adjusted his position, but didn't fire the rifle again immediately. He was pondering his next move.

The bodyguard fired again, but this time it was apparently the power-draining beam, and Max staggered as it made contact with the shield. "You okay, man??" Michael asked.

"Yeah, but I won't be if too many more of those connect," Max explained hurriedly. "I guess that beam affects our powers, and the shield is an extension of my powers. I'm not sure if it would bring down the shield itself first, or crash my balance totally again, but it'd do one or the other soon enough." Another impact rocketed in.

"Lemme try something." Michael brought something out of his pocket and fiddled with it, Something happaned beyond the shield that Max couldn't immediately identify. "You can let it down now."

Max let his force field collapse, and realized that Michael had set the heat shield to a protective arc around the shooter. He fired the energy sucking ray again, but this time it had no effect on the new shield or on Michael's abilities.

And then a bullet rocketed easily through the heat field, and Isabel dropped to the ground reflexively. "Didn't think of that," Michael muttered, taking cover himself.

Once again, something happened beyond the protective wall - something to do with the bodyguard's weapon. "Michael, take it out," Max ordered. He had to see what was going on.

It made quite a tableau once his eyes adjusted to the sudden decrease of light - the bodyguard turned and staring off to the side, where Liz and Tess had suddenly appeared from another path into the clearing, near the shooter's position. Tess still holding a dramatic and impressive gesture at him. Liz holding the weapon in both arms, and obviously not at all sure what to do with it beyond keep it out of the bodyguard's hands at all costs.

Obviously they had come in, and Tess had used kinesis to throw the gun to Liz. That was the final break they needed. Tess had her powers now too, which made sense, since hers had been taken away before anybody else's.

"Tess, come here," he called out. They needed to capitalize on this break as quickly as they could, and Max thought he knew how.

* * * *

Liz almost fainted with relief when the heat shield dropped and she saw for sure that Max was there - even though she'd guessed he would be one of the ones to come after them. And her knees felt weak for an entirely different reason again when the first thing out of his mouth was to call for Tess.

**This isn't personal, it's tactics. You know that Max is even happier to see you alive than you are him, but his first priority is making sure we all STAY alive and healthy. Whatever his plan is, Tess plays a part in it. It's that simple.**

As Tess ran over to join the other three hybrids, Liz followed carefully, catching a snatch or two of their conversation, though they were obviously trying to keep their voices low.

"...to see you okay. Do you guys think you can pull off the..." -- Max

"Well, it's not something we..." -- Tess

"He knows that." -- Isabel

"We gotta give it... ---- ... isn't even worth thinking about." -- Michael

"Need anything else from..." -- Max

During all of this, Max was using kinesis to keep the bodyguard from making a break from it, without even seeming to pay too much attention to him. Michael whispered something to Max that Liz couldn't make out, and Max stopped it. Suspecting something, the bad guy stopped trying to run away, standing his ground stoically.

Isabel groaned. "Get rid of him, Tess."

Tess concentrated, and although Liz couldn't see the mindwarp she was weaving directly -- (she suspected none of them could, since it would be crafted for the special unit agent alone,) the results were instant and dramatic. Shooter-boy turned and ran off like a shot.

Isabel, Michael, and Tess gathered where they could see the bodyguard booting it down a forest trail, and just as he was about to move out of a line of sight they all seemed to be making an incredible metaphysical effort and each of the three pointed at him. (Michael and Isabel had joined their free hands and Tess had hers on Isabel's opposite shoulder.)

Then the bodyguard was gone, and the three of them were in various stages of keeling over. Max and Liz hurried over to assist. "What was all that about," Liz couldn't help but ask.

"How did you do?" Max asked at almost the same time.

"Well, we learned a lot, I think," Tess croaked. "First, not to do it exactly that way next time." Max's face looked concerned in the moonlight.

"You can't erase someone's memories long-term with this trick, and that's what we were trying to do at first," Isabel explained. "I think the trick is to REWRITE the memories, replace them with something else, not remove them entirely."

"Don't worry, Maxwell," Michael put in. "We were able to cover the worst of our tracks."

"How much??" Max asked again.

"He'll remember pretty much what went down," Tess said, "but nothing correct about any of our identities, or that could be used to track us down, like the Roswell connection."

"I think he'll actually recall that one of the guys who broke into the professor's house was Chandler Bing," Isabel added. "I didn't mean to do that, it just kinda slipped from my subconscious into his brain."

"It's good enough," Max told her warmly. "Come on, we've got to go meet everybody else back at the motel. Oh, hi Jim. Sorry, you showed up too late for the fun." Sure enough, the sheriff had just puffed up to them in the darkness.

"Glad to hear it," the older man muttered wryly. "You all okay."

"Yeah," Tess said, slipping her arms around her de-facto foster father in a comfort hug. Somewhat belatedly Max dropped an arm around Liz's shoulders and Liz wrapped an arm around his waist.

As they headed back towards the town streets, Liz thought of something else. "What about the memory transfer, anyway?? Did you get anything??"

Isabel and Max stared at each other. "We'll have to worry about that later," Isabel decided. "Once we've had a chance to relax. I know I got a lot into Max's brain, but whether it's still there and whether anyone can get it back out, those may be tougher questions."

"Like we really *need* any more of those," Tess complained softly as she brought up the rear.

* * * *

"The question is, how do you work it??" Michael wondered. There had been an emotional reunion scene back at the hotel, especially for Michael and Maria, to a slightly lesser extent Isabel and Alex with much hugging and some smoochage. Since pretty much everyone was still wired from the events of the night, it was quickly decided to sneak the airsled up to the roof of the motel and experiment with it.

"Maybe just by willing what you want it to do, and through your powers, like the gun," Max suggested. He climbed into the seat, mumbling about the lack of legroom, and closed his eyes. His right hand waved once across the strange controls. Almost immediately the device started to levitate slowly up until it was floating perhaps two feet above the roof.

"Alright, way to go Max!" Isabel cheered. He opened his eyes, and they immediately focused on a glass square that hadn't been there in front of him before. It must have somehow extended out of the airsled when he gave the activation command. He stared at it in confusion for a moment, trying to understand what the heck it was for. And then -- something started to happen.

"Are you okay, Max??" Liz asked. He waved her silent with a tender gesture, still focusing on the square. Colors and shapes were starting to appear in it, though they didn't make any sense. And then...

To anyone looking with the unaided eye, Max knew that the picture would still be scrambled. But somehow, a second component was being transmitted directly to his mind. The two components, mental and visual, complimented each other and resolved the picture. He could see the pool in the motel courtyard below, where he and Liz had shared that magical night. He could see it perfectly clearly, in incredible detail.

"This thing has a surveillance device," he managed to say out loud. "I wonder how far it can go..."

And as soon as he thought it, the image was across town - at the professor's house. The bodyguard was there, he was just leaving it, again. Max explained this as he followed the man through the dark town streets, to another house, which he entered. Presumably the bodyguard's own residence.

"I can't get inside - it must not work on enclosed spaces. But still..."

"This is amazing," Tess said. "Any idea what else it can do??"

Max explored the connection he had with the sled, and when everything around him became dim and his friends gasped in astonishment, he knew what had happened and reversed it. "Cloaking device." He set the sled down. "I'm pretty sure that there's some kind of energy cannon weapon too, but I'm not gonna experiment with that tonight." He climbed awkwardly out of the seat and wrapped Liz up in his arms. "Got better things to do."

Michael clearly wanted to try the sled out too, but decided that it was probably a little too risky at the moment. They found an old storage cubbyhole up on the roof that was big enough to hold it and clearly hadn't been used in years, and Michael used his powers to seal it up tightly before they headed back down the stairs.

"By the way," Max breathed into Liz's ear, "Did I thank you for saving all of our butts - again??"

Liz grinned. "No -- did I thank you for bringing me back out of the woods safely??"

"No. Looks like we've got a lot of gratitude to pass back and forth. Any idea how we might work that out??"

Liz's passionate kiss, right there in the motel hallway, answered the question nicely.

* * * *

Isabel rushed in to bar Valenti's way before he could open his room door.

"I'm sorry to have to do this, Chaperone Valenti," she intoned slowly. "But this is a mutiny."

Valenti considered her words slowly. In the hallway behind him Alex, Liz, Max, Michael, and Maria were arrayed in a loose circle. Kyle was just behind and to the side of Valenti, also encircled within the loop and looking as confused as Valenti felt. Ditto for Tess, who was standing outside.

"A mutiny," the Sheriff repeated slowly. He was still wearing his gun, and fingered it slowly for effect, though everybody knew that THAT was a bluff. "Are you sure that you want to do this? Miss DeLuca??"

Maria gulped, but nodded. "After all that's happened tonight we want to be with-- with the people that we love, Mister Valenti. Not locked up in parentally approved same-sex couples. You can understand that, can't you??"

"It's nothing prurient we have planned," Liz put in, then looked sidelong at Max and had to qualify, "Well, not particularly. It's just..."

"Enough," Jim groaned. "You want to rearrange the rooming assignments for today? How, specifically??"

"Alex in with me," Isabel announced. "Max with Liz. Maria in Michael's room. And Tess and Kyle in with you in the big room." She held his stare for a long moment.

Jim shook his head slightly, opened his mouth -- and was immediately cut off by Kyle. "Dad!! I mean, Michael's not my ideal roommate, but I get enough of the two of you at home!!"

"I'm sorry, Kyle." Jim smirked slightly. "We can't stand up against alien abilities, after all. This is a straight power play, and we don't have any cards to play." He turned to Tess expectantly, to see what her reaction should be.

Tess looked at the tableau for what seemed a long time, then groaned. "Okay, whatever. Just let me get changed for bed in Isabel's room, and I'll be right in."

* * * *

"I have to admit, this was a really good idea," Alex whispered, loving the feeling of Isabel Evans lying in his arms. "We should mutiny more often."

Iz laughed softly. "Yeah, I guess we should at that."

Alex picked up something in her voice. "Is something wrong??"

"I, uh, I dunno." Isabel breathed deeply, in and out, as she organized her thoughts. "It's just, what is this, the fifth, sixth really close shave, in not as many months?? Forget winning the challenge for a moment - are we even going to survive the year??"

"Of course we are," Alex assured her. "Things have been... crazy, I'll admit. But look for a moment what we've accomplished, what we've survived so far. Neither Kivar's aliens nor the special unit have been able to press an attack home yet. Liz seems to be developing an uncanny knack for getting us out of even the stickiest situations. Your control of your powers seems to be getting more amazing day by day - and I mean all for of you, though especially *you*, Isabel Evans."

Isabel giggled. "And you have the key to what we're up against and what we have to do - right there." She poked the washer playfully where it lay beneath his undershirt.

"I do what I can."

Iz craned her neck and kissed him, softly and firmly on the lips. "Alex Charles Whitman, what would I ever do without you??"

They lay in each other's arms without speaking, and by the time the sunbeam started streaming through the window, they were both soundly asleep.

* * * *

By the time Liz woke up, the afternoon was starting to turn towards evening. The window was open, and a slightly fresh, slightly spicy smell was drifting in.

And Max had gone.

She rembered every part of that morning, after they had come into her room... the talking, the kissing, the experimenting with slightly heavier petting and foreplay than ever since the night they'd found the pod, and then falling asleep together in her bed. But now Liz was here alone.

She got up somewhat listlessly, feeling his absence like it was weighing down on her, cleaned up quickly in the empty shared bathroom, and pulled some clothes out of her suitcase to wear. She had dressed and was staring at a fresh journal page, wondering what on earth to say, when a knock sounded on the door.

"Mutineer wanting to come back and visit my old digs. Is there a lovebird warning??"

"Maria?" Liz called out, running to the door. Sure enough, it was Maria on the other side, dressed in a saucy latin-themed dress that she must have bought somewhere in Puerto Penasco, probably yesterday, and carrying a large paper bag and a cup-holder with two beverages in it. "Sure, sure, come on in. Max isn't here."

"Huh. I wonder if he's off with Michael somewhere." Maria handed Liz a large coffee, sat cross-legged on her bed, brought a large pastry for herself out of the coffee shop takeout bag, and tossed the rest across the room to her best friend. "Isabel and Alex are playing 'Mastermind', Tess and Kyle are down at the coffee shop, and Mister Valenti's listening to the local news."

"I didn't know mister Valenti knew Spanish," Liz commented, though it made sense now that she thought about it. "So... how was your morning with Michael??"

"Oooh!!" Maria grinned and blushed. "No complaints."

Liz was intrigued. "Maria, do we have something to share??"

"I, uh... we..." Maria sighed. "I, I, I'll tell you later, okay??"

"C'mon - no one's here but us chickens, girlfriend." No response. "Do I at least get a hint??"

"Maybe you have to go first," Maria countered. "Nice room alone, no chaperone -- how far did you and Max go last night??"

"Um..." Liz felt herself blushing too. "Well, not *too* far. There... there was licking involved, that's all I'll say." It made her feel a little gooey inside just thinking about it.

"Oooh, us too!!"

Somehow Liz now felt compelled to add a qualification. "*Above* the waist."

"Well, then, that would be the difference, I guess." Maria giggled.

"Ohh... oh, oh my gawd!! You're telling me you..."

"No, no, come on now Liz," Maria insisted. "I keep expecting Max to burst through that door and I'd really rather not talk about it until later, okay?? Breakfast now."

"Okay." Liz looked at the half-eaten croissant that she didn't even remember getting out of the bag, let alone biting out of, and had to fight back the urge to sniff at it suspiciously. Laughing inside at her own sillyness, she helped herself to another bite. Quite tasty.

"So -- any clue what we'll be doing tonight??" Maria asked after a moment had passed.

"Not sure - probably stick in town, try to pretend we're normal tou--" she broke off when suddenly, sure enough, Max Evans opened the door to the room and stepped inside without warning or preamble.

"Big room - now. We gotta problem."

They all crowded into Valenti's motel room. In a clipped hush, Max told them how Michael had woken him up earlier this afternoon to come with him while Michael learned how to use the airsled. Michael had used the surveillance screen to monitor the bodyguard's house, according to Max's directions, and had seen him receive an unexpected visitor.

"Congresswoman Vanessa Whittaker." The surprise at the dropping of this name was considerable, but Jim Valenti quickly motioned for quiet.

"It does make sense. When she got Michael arrested, Whittaker said that she had friends in the FBI. She knew exactly who to take the bones to so they could be scanned for Cadmium-X. And we all know that she was a close associate of Daniel Pierce."

"The bodyguard's presence here in Puerto Penasco - with a weapon that could supress alien powers no less - is clear evidence that at least some former members of the Special Unit have banded together in a conspiracy after the Unit was formally disbanded by congress and the FBI. Whittaker might play a role in that coalition - a liason, maybe, or even a leader."

"So what do we do now??" Kyle asked.

"We get the hell outta town before Whittaker has any chance to find out that we were here and start putting two and two together," Tess suggested.

"And where would we go?" Isabel asked. "We aren't supposed to be back in Roswell until the day after New Year's. Arriving home earlier would seem suspicious."

"Then we find some other place in Mexico to lie low in until then," Max suggested. "Somewhere closer to the American border."

A few looks were exchanged, but nobody disagreed. "Start packing," Jim advised. "I'll check us out at the front desk."

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Title: A Roswell Homecoming: the Mexican Tango. Part 4g 2/2
Author: Chris Kenworthy
E-mail: kelworth@chriskweb.net
Home archive: http://www.fanficarchive.net/~chriskenworthy
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own the Roswell characters, though if I did I'd treat them better than Jason Katims.
Category: Sci-fi drama. Canon couples romance leading to UC pairings in later part.
Spoilers: Up to 'ask not'


(A little after 7:30 pm, December 30th 2000)

"So, um..." Kyle muttered, trying to break the awkward silence that filled the Jeep. It didn't work.

Max was finally back and driving his own wheels, mostly because Liz had asked for some 'alone time' with Maria, so they were riding in Liz's new car. And Valenti had commanded the presence of Michael and Alex, so that left Max, Kyle, Isabel, and Tess riding in the Jeep.

"So, do we have any idea where we're actually going, or just getting as far away from Puerto Penasco as we can?" Tess asked.

"More the latter," Isabel opined. "It shouldn't be too hard to find some place to stop once we're far enough."

"Well, there's one question I want to ask before we get to that point," Kyle said. "Should we stay in Mexico until the time arrives to go back to Roswell, or get back into the US as soon as we can?"

There was a short pause. "That's a good point to raise," Max allowed. "I was thinking that crossing the border too soon would just call attention to ourselves, but it might be better to do it sooner, before Whittaker has a chance to get any more organized."

"We can bring it up when Sheriff Valenti leads the way to a rest stop," Isabel suggested.

"Okay," Tess agreed after a moment when nobody else did.

There was another long silence. "Umm... gravy," Kyle suddenly blurted out.

"What the hell?" Isabel snapped.

"License plate game - that blue compact up there?" Kyle pointed out the car in question, and sure enough, the letters on the license plate read out G-R-V. "Hell, it's not like we have anything better to do."

"Okay, er, um..." Tess scanned her side of the road, trying to pick out a plate. "Slave." The rusty station wagon was SLA 493

"Umm... FSJ," Isabel announced from the front seat. "Can anyone think of something for that??"

* * * *

(Ten minutes after nine...)

"Okay, so we got back to his room," Maria said, already starting to blush a little. "And there's the usual sappy small talk - I was so scared for you, I love you so much and I was scared for you too, I thought I'd never see you again -- you know how it goes, right??"

"Pretty much," Liz agreed with a small smile. "Then what??" She was carefully keeping her eyes on the highway.

"Well, things started to get pretty hot and heavy right away. We've... well, Michael and I have been getting the frequent visitor discount at second base ever since the tunnel of love ride at the Dexter Carnival, if you know what I mean."

"I do now!!" Liz took a few deep breaths. "I, I didn't realize that you and Michael were... well, were doing *that* so often."

"You and my mom both - hopefully," Maria giggled.

"Yeah. So, erm... back in our room, you'd mentioned something about... ehh--"

"Oh, right. THAT. So, yeah, we'd been making out for a bit - not sure how long exactly."

"Of course."

"Full open mouth kissing, hands everywhere, the usual. All of a sudden, he stops, and he like - he picks me up and lays me down flat on the bed..." Liz realized her mouth was hanging open, and she closed it most of the way. "And he goes to undo the snap to my skirt, and I mumble something about I really do love him, but I'm not ready to go all the way, yet. But that wasn't what he had in mind. Quite."

Liz just made a 'go-on' gesture with one hand, hanging on every word by this point, and practically having to kick herself to keep both eyes on the road.

"He gets the skirt unfastened and takes it away, and pulls my thong down and off, and I'm *dying* by this point, and then Michael dives in. Face-first, as it were." Liz made a sound that could not possibly have been mistaken for talking by anyone that was familiar with the english language, though it was also somehow more complex than a mere groan. "Yeah. Michael Guerin going downtown - who'd have thunk it. Though he really isn't as selfish as he likes to pretend, I'll give him that much."

Liz shook her head slightly and tried to organize her churning thoughts into some kind of words. "How did -- what was it like??"

"No complaints," Maria chirped vehemently. "Well - I didn't exactly make a landing on planet X, if you catch my drift - I was nervous, he was nervous, we were both tired. He -- didn't really know what he was doing down there and I could tell it was *not* the right occasion for instruction. But it was cool, and really sweet, and in the end I faked it just to satisfy his pride, you know??"

"I guess," Liz mumbled. "And did you... uhh..." she grinned slyly at her friend. "Didja return the favor??"

"Uh, no," Maria replied. "Might have been the considerate thing to do, but I didn't think I was quite ready for delivering my first BJ, and I don't think Michael was looking for one anyway. We messed around a little more - I stuck my hand down his pants and rubbed his thang through his boxers, but everything after IT was definitely an 'anticlimax.'" She turned to look at Liz. "Well, I've shared - what happened between you and Maxxie in our room?"

"Oh, nothing as dramatic as that, definitely."

"C'mon, girlfriend, you gotta give me at least the cliff notes version!!"

"Okay, let's see..." Liz paused just a second. "Started off pretty much like yours. Max and I aren't regulars at second base, exactly, but we DEFINITELY made ourselves at home there last night."

"Oooh," Maria made a show of fanning herself with a hand.

"Shirts - and one bra - tossed away with all due ceremony. A lot of tongue work to the upper torso, both ways. Some inventive use of the cool-whip you'd stuck in the minifridge - I'll pay you back for that, of course."

"Naw, that would just feel weird," Maria said, laughing. "Consider it a gift."

"Anyway, that was about it. Shorts stayed on, both of us - much fun was had. Later, cuddling and talking until I fell asleep in his arms."

"Awwww..." Maria sighed, and a mile slipped by without either of them speaking.

"It goes without saying that this was just between the two of us, right??" Maria said suddenly. "You tell no-one, not Alex, not Max, not a soul. Right??"

"Of course," Liz agreed. "And vice versa." She looked around them on the highway a bit. "I wonder how Michael and Alex are doing with the Sheriff."

"What d'you mean??"

"Well, it's conceivable that I'm mistaken, but I got the definite impression that he wanted to have 'a talk' with the boys about their role in instigating the mutiny last night," Liz explained. "Max probably only got off because the Jeep is his, and the back seat of the cruiser is a little crowded for two people anyway. I'm not sure that excuse is going to save him for long, though."

"Oh, my god," Maria mumbled. "I didn't even think of that." She stared ahead of them, where the car that held her Spaceboy captive could just barely be seen.

"Don't worry," Liz assured her. "Valenti's bark is worse than his bite. He'll try to put the fear of god into them, but they know there isn't anything he can really do."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Maria mumbled. She stared disconsolately out the window for about a minute, then brightened.

"Wanna put on some tunes??"

* * * *

It was about eleven thirty at night when they finally stopped - and in the U.S.A. after all, a not-too small town in Arizona called Sierra Vista. It wasn't too far out of the way, far enough from both Puerto Penasco and Roswell to be inconspicuous, and nobody really wanted to stay on the road any longer.

They ended up staying at a small hotel where the owner was willing to give them a bit of a break on the bill - he didn't have much business this close to New Year's, and Valenti quickly brokered 'an arrangement.' They got two rooms for the guys and a suite for the girls (possibly so that a recurrence of the mutiny would be a little harder to arrange logistically - Valenti certainly didn't want to lose control of his charges again, and nobody would put changing the rooming accomodations to stack the deck in his favor past the Roswell sheriff.)

What exactly to do with the air-sled caused some furtive debate. Keeping it safe was one of their highest priorities now, but no-one was quite certain of the best way to do that until they got back to Roswell and could lock the thing up within the pod chamber. Leaving it in one of the cars was quickly ruled out (it had made the trip to Arizona in the back seat of the sedan, with Liz and Maria,) as was checking it into any kind of insured storage.

In the end, they had carried it through the hotel lobby covered up, so that it might conceivably resemble some kind of watercraft, put it in the living room of the suite, and agreed that one of the hybrids was to remain on the premises at all times to guard it. Nobody was completely satisfied with that, but it was the best that could be come up with.

Speaking of the 'spoils of battle' from their latest dangerous escapade, there had been a flurry of panic over what to do with the bodyguard's weapon at the customs checkin. The automatic rifle and power-draining device were easily seperated.

The firearm they were about to just throw away, when Max suggested melting it down with molecular manipulation so no-one could recognize, get anybody's fingerprints off it, or match it to the bullet that had killed the Professor. Then Isabel had a better idea - she rearranged the rifle into an Aztec-looking metal sculpture, a striking but harmless-looking souvenir. She wasn't sure that she would be able to restore it as a working weapon, but nothing really was lost if not, compared to throwing it away as a puddle of molten metal.

They couldn't try any such tricks with the power-draining attachment, though - not at least until they had a much better notion of how it did what it did. Liz and Maria managed to dress it up so that it looked like simply a toy gun, including most importantly a second trigger that would not actually activate the mechanism when pushed. It was then put inside one of the suitcases, just to leverage the odds a bit further.

There was some discussion about doing something fun once everyone was settled into the hotel, but nobody could come to any agreement, and everybody got tired, so they just went to bed.

* * * *

(8:30 am, Dec 31 2000.)

Michael rose and walked softly across the hall. He didn't have a key card for the suite, but he always enjoyed a challenge.

It was indeed tricky to rearrange the various electrons in the door circuitry into the proper pattern to allow him entry - and without setting off the alarm, yet. But the little light flashed green after about ten seconds of effort and he slipped into the living room. As Michael closed the door behind him he saw a familiar tangle of light curly hair, almost hidden by the blanket that the girl lying on the couch had wrapped herself in.

As he crept closer, she stirred and looked up at him. "Wrong room, Michael," Tess mumbled softly. "Maria gets to sleep on an actual bed, remember??"

"I know," Michael said softly, squatting down beside her. "I'm offering to relieve you as guardian of this thing." He tapped the air-sled, shoved underneath the couch, meaningfully. "You can take my bed if you want."

"I'm sure Jim would just love..."

"Alex is up already, he's taking a walk around town, seeing the sights. Under those circumstances, I don't think the Fuhrer could object. Whatdya say??"

"Nah." But Tess sat up anyway. "I don't think I could get back to sleep now anyway. But I won't say no to a little company."

"Sure." Michael pulled up a chair to face the couch and waited as Tess got herself untangled from the blanket. He didn't really feel any awkwardness at the sight of her long smooth legs in the shorts she had been wearing as pajama bottoms. Michael had never really had much of a problem with Tess, and now that the tension was largely resolved between her and his friends, he was starting to feel as if Miss Harding were his long-lost sister. A hot little sister.

"So, heck of a plan I came up with, bringing everybody down to Mehico, huh??" he laughed softly.

"Didn't turn out too badly," Tess reminded him, "except for the Professor's sad fate, and that really wasn't our fault. We've got the air-sled and the drain gun -- and the second one is gonna be really handy the next time Steve Banks and the skins try to mess with us."

"If it works on them, and if Steve doesn't find some way to steal it and use it on us," Michael muttered. Something hit him then. The drain gun supressed their powers. So did those Skin devices - the trithium amplifiers or whatever. Did they work on the same principle? Had the special unit been able to get their hands on a trithium unit, discover its active principle and figured out a way to refine and direct it?? But the trithium units were proximity charged - they didn't actually go off unless an Antarian life form was nearby. The unit wouldn't have been able to get one to perform - unless they had a captive alien stowed away somewhere. Or would they have been able to figure out how to bypass the proximity activator?

"...know that some Special Unit personnel are still banded together, looking for us," Tess continued, startling Michael out of his own thoughts. "Oh, and as far as our original mission objective goes, Isabel was able to steal a few quiet moments last night to scan Max's brain."

"Oh?" Michael asked, interested. "What's the word?"

"The info is in there - almost all of what she wanted, ayway. The shock of both of them getting zapped during the process has driven it deeper into Max's subconscious than she expected, but she says she'll be able to retrieve it. Will just take longer."

"Hmm..." Michael mulled over that update. While he didn't like to hear the words 'just take longer' on general principle, it seemed that time was something that they had in reasonable measure. "Good."

There was a short pause. "So, whatcha wanna do today?"

Tess laughed. "You mean I'm not gonna be stuck in here babysitting the Czechoslovakian boogie board all day?"

"Nah, not more than a few hours or so," Michael shot back. "We should find something to do. I saw some kind of amusement park as we were driving in."

"Is there any chance you guys will shut up and let a girl get back to sleep??" The voice was a tired groan from the cot that had been set up across the room.

"Whoops, sorry Liz," Michael muttered, chastened. "I forgot you were here too."

There was no answer from the cot but a kind of weary thump.

"Actually, I think I'll take you up on your offer, Michael," Tess whispered, rising to her feet and wrapping the blanket around herself as a cloak. "Enjoy your shift on walk, spaceboy."

Michael jumped a little as Tess called him by Maria's pet name, and then she was gone. Looking around for something to do, he reached out and picked up a book from the small end table. It was unmarked. Carefully, looking one way and the other instinctively to make sure that he wasn't observed, he opened the small volume and began to read.

* * * *

(A little after two in the afternoon.)

"I mean, it's cool. I'm excited about it. But on the other hand, it's a lot of pressure," Isabel said.

"Oh, of course," Liz agreed.

"I mean, there's all this stuff that *nobody* else can do, that the whole gang is counting on me for. And I'm just... well, for one thing, I'm stunned that I've made it this far. There's nobody to teach me, there's no instruction manual except for that freaky old book that we can only translate a little bit at a time. And bit by bit the stakes are getting higher. Do you have any idea what that's like??"

"I'd have to say that yes I do."

"Really?" For a second, there was silence behind the door that seperated the two girls. "Mind if I ask how??"

"Well, er, um..." Liz tried to figure out how to put this. "I'm not sure if you put together, how I seemed to be making bold moves at dangerous moments lately..."

"Yeah, I have, and by the way you can speak freely," Isabel interrupted softly. "There's nobody in the whole building but the saleslady, and she's listening to headphones up by the cash register. No-one will overhear us, and if they do, I'll sense them first and give you the word of warning."

"Okay," Liz shook her head, absorbing this new development. "First off, that's pretty cool." If Isabel could sense the minds around her that well, had she also telepathically read Liz's nervousness about someone eavesdropping on their conversation?? "So yeah, tripping the platform out in the New Mexico desert when you guys were being held prisoner in the tunnel, getting myself and Tess out of the cottage in Mexico."

"What about them??" Isabel prompted.

"I had dreams, before, each time. Really spooky dreams, where I touched what I had to do more than anything. Felt how my body would move as I went through the actions, you know, that kind of thing. The dreams didn't warn me about the danger, really, they just showed me the way out. Each time, by luck as much as anything else, I recognized the right moment to make my move."

"Wow," Isabel breathed. "Good thing, too - or I'd probably be dead twice by now. Any idea what's causing these dreams??"

"Not really. Max said he thinks it's my human power starting to manifest itself. But in a way it's like what you said. If Max is counting on this little trick to get him out of trouble - well, I don't know how to do it. I can't make the dreams happen on cue, and I wouldn't know when to have them even if I could. All I can do is sit here and hope that when he really needs me, I'll be able to come through for him. It's the scariest thing I've ever felt."

"Wow." The dressing room door opened and Isabel stepped out.

"Wow," Liz repeated absently. Iz Evans had a knack for making the most unattractive clothes look beautiful, and the most conservative outfits a bit sexy. But this effect was impressive even given her track record.

Isabel was modeling a green short-sleeved sweater -- possibly chartreuse or something, Liz wasn't sure. Trace of yellow in it, anyway. A touch of skin was revealed by the teasingly demure v-neck and the fact that the top was cut a little too short to reach the hem of her skirt. Said skirt was a contrast to the sweater; its color was a deep violet, and long enough to reach two thirds of the way from knee to ankle, but the material was thin and silky, hinting at the contours of Isabel's legs.

"Shall I take that as a good sign," Isabel quipped, twirling around playfully. The sweater had a widely scooped back as well, showing soft skin and part of her elegant shoulder blades.

"Depends on the kind of effect you're going for," Liz relied with a trace of a smile.

"To stun Alex speechless."

"That'll do it," Liz agreed. "Any particular reason why??"

Isabel thought about that a moment. "I dunno - it's our first new year's together, our first romantic holiday as a couple, really. I just really want it to be special."

"Hmm." Liz considered. "Exactly which are the 'romantic holidays'??"

"Uh, well..." Isabel thought. "New year's eve - Valentine's day." A long moment's more furious consideration. "That might be it, come to think of it. Birthdays kinda, I guess. Oh, and Columbus Day."

"Columbus day??" Liz repeated wonderingly.

But Isabel didn't clarify. "What was new year's like for you and Max last year, anyway?? You were... oh, you were on a break during the winter holidays, weren't you??"

"Ohh." Liz sighed in despair. It was an uncomfortable memory. "Actually, I, uh... I got into a very melodramatic mood on New Year's Eve and went over to your place to see Max, and pleaded with him to take me back."

"Oh my god, I remember that," Isabel agreed. "We were stuck there for the New Year's party for my dad's practice, and he was missing for about fifteen minutes after eleven." She sighed and looked at Liz. "Didn't go well, I take it??"

"No, actually, he shot me down pretty hard," Liz sighed. "That one night was most of why I was so upset with him that spring."

"Aww." Isabel looked at herself in the mirror, and hmmed softly. "Do you think I should pin my hair up??" She attempted to gather the flowing blond locks in her hands and stuff them on top of her head, and stared, trying to figure how well that look worked with the outfit. Then she let her hair fall back down and turned to Liz. "You should get something special to wear for Max, too."

Liz blinked. "Umm... any particular reason why??"

"Because it's a special new year's for you guys too - and just because it's fun." Isabel giggled.

"Um, okay..." Liz looked through the items that she had felt some faint interest in while browsing through the store's displays, picked up the two most daring, and went into the dressing room.

"Should we form a support group??" Isabel asked idly while Liz pulled her top off. "The indispensable women??"

"I dunno, somehow I suspect it isn't only girls that are feeling that particular pressure," Liz mentioned. "I know Alex does, probably more than I do. That washer of his, you know -- that's critical. And Max too, maybe even Michael."

"That's a good point," Isabel added. "But what the hell, let 'em form their own support group."

Liz laughed. "Works for me." She unsnapped her jeans and let them fall around her feet. "So, where should our group meet??"

"Aww, we can worry about that once we get back to Roswell or something," Isabel laughed. "By the way -- I wanted to remember to say thanks. For saving all of our butts back in Mexico."

"Hey, you saved my ass too," Liz replied. "So did Tess, come to think of it."

"Really??" Isabel's voice showed her surprise. "She didn't mention anything about it - then again, she hasn't really talked about what happened to you guys in the woods."

"I got my foot caught in a crevice next to a fallen tree," Liz explained. "I couldn't get out by myself, and the bodyguard was catching up. Tess managed to shove the log aside just far enough for me to slip out." She decided not to mention the cliff incident - it would be too much like blowing her own horn. She pulled a zipper up and opened up the door.

"What do you think - will Max like it??"

Isabel's jaw dropped open, and then she worked it back up. "Yeah, yeah, I have to say he will."

* * * *

(Twenty to five in the afternoon.)

"Whoooo!!" Maria yelled as the roller coaster car started turn upside down. At the crest of the loop it levelled out, completely inverted, and shot across the track at full speed. As the apparent centrifugal force eased away to nothing, gravity reasserted itself, but she was strapped into her seat tightly enough that practically no part of her could fall, except for her hair, which slipped out bit by bit to trail below and behind her. And the blood started settling down to her head, increasing the dizzy feeling she was experiencing.

"Michael..." she muttered under her breath. But Michael wasn't next to her -- he had sat down next to Tess, leaving Maria with Alex. Kyle, of course, was sitting by himself and loving it.

"Hang on, it's only a little longer," Alex muttered reassuringly. Sure enough, after a few seconds they flew into two and a half dizzying corkscrews, after which, of course, Maria and everyone else were right-side up again. (Because of the last half-turn.) And then came the drop-off.

Once the ride had come to a full and complete stop and all patrons had disembarked, Michael jogged ahead of them, absolutely on an adrenalin high. "Okay, what do we do next??"

"I wanna keep my feet flat on the ground for a little," Tess decided, and Maria made an agreeing noise. "Maybe we head over to..." she considered the map of the park, and Maria somehow could tell that the other girl was looking for a spot as far away from their current area. "...Outlaw junction, and see if we wanna grab a smoothy or something?"

Maria could tell that Michael was a little disappointed, but he nodded agreement without a pause. "Sure." Then, belatedly, he looked around to the rest of them. "Any objections??"

Maria had none, and apparently neither did the other boys, though Maria couldn't help but wonder if there was some reason that Michael seemed so attentive to Tess today. She wasn't jealous - at least, she didn't think she had any reason to be. Whatever was going on then, there was nothing romantic about it - or physical, or anything like that. Was he just trying to make Tess feel more like one of the gang?? And did it have anything to do with the fact that Michael had been in Liz and Tess' room, guarding the air-sled, when Maria got up this morning?? (He'd relieved Tess and offered her his bed, instead of the awkward living room sofa.)

The fruit smoothies at Outlaw Junction were unarguably great, and the five of them sat on a picnic table in the sun to enjoy. Not many people had come out to this amusement park either, though they saw families with little kids or yuppie couples here and there.

"I wonder if this place will be open again tomorrow," Maria said absently.

"I doubt it, on new year's day," Kyle replied.

"I wonder what we *are* going to do tomorrow," Alex said in turn.

There was a moment of silence, and Michael took a drink from his cranberry orange refreshment. "I feel sorry for Max and Mister Valenti, cooped up in the suite on guard."

* * * *

(Meanwhile...)

"Ha-ha!!" Max jumped a red counter over a hapless black one, diagonally, and so arrived at the final rank. "King me."

Jim Valenti looked up at Max for a moment without expression, added one of his captured red pieces on top of the one that Max had just moved, and then slid one of his own kings so that it pinned Max's newly formed one against the side of the board. "Your turn, Max," he drawled with self-satisfaction.

Max jumped a little in surprise, and then rallied in another part of the board. The series was tied at three games all, so far.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Title: A Roswell Homecoming: the Mexican Tango. Part 4h 1/2
Author: Chris Kenworthy
E-mail: kelworth@chriskweb.net
Home archive: http://www.fanfiction.net/~chriskenworthy
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own the Roswell characters, though if I did I'd treat them better than Jason Katims.
Category: Sci-fi drama. Canon couples romance leading to UC pairings in later part.
Spoilers: Up to 'ask not'

Part 4h: New Lang Syne

(October 20 2001.)

Alex looked out the window of the limo for a second, then smiled back at his friends. "Here's to the new year, 2001," he said, toasting the air with an imaginary glass.

"Hear, hear," Max agreed.

"Yep." Maria mimicked Alex's gesture, shooting a glance over at Michael.

Michael reluctantly produced an imaginary glass and 'clinked' it to Maria's. "Hell of a bash."

* * * *

(December 31 2000. About seven thirty PM.)

"Tunes??"

"Check," Alex called out.

"Food??" Maria asked next.

"Most of it's all ready," Isabel replied. "Liz should be on her way back with the last of it right now."

"Ummm..." Maria frowned, and spun about, obviously trying to recognize anything that she might be forgetting. "Uh - entertainment??"

"That would be the whole point of the party, Maria," Michael put in sarcastically, but he was grinning fondly at her.

"You know what I mean..." she muttered, but a few people shook their heads. "Movies: we've got the big-screen and vcr in here, we could get some tapes in case anybody wants to watch something."

"I'm not sure I'd call that a big screen," Kyle pointed out.

"It's bigger than what I've got at home," Maria shot back. The entertainment center in the lounge had a television that was probably thirty-two inches.

"I can go and find a video store," Max offered.

"Thanks, Max," Maria said with a grateful nod. "Umm... games or something??"

"Baby." Michael swept Maria into his arms quickly, then let her go and looked deeply into her eyes. "You're over-structuring. Everything's going to be great, we'll have an amazing time."

Maria smiled. "Okay, so... what's left??"

"Just to get into our fancy duds and get started," Alex said with a smile.

"Oh -- do you think..." Maria checked quickly, and it was clear in a moment that Max had already left. "D'you think Liz and Max will mind if we start without them?"

"Nope," Isabel answered. "I've got Liz's outfit in our place, she can get changed there. How long do we need to leave you to get ready, Tess??" Tess and Liz's luggage was still in the lounge, now A.K.A party central.

Tess smiled a bit. "Oh, not long. Ten minutes??"

Alex waved at the others and quickly headed back to his room, with Michael right behind him as he, and everybody else, was doing the same thing. Alex's outfit (china blue long sleeved shirt, dark navy pants,) had been picked out by Isabel before they left. From Michael's outfit (lavender shirt with a slate gray suit jacket and pants,) he couldn't tell if Maria had had any input on it.

"Hey," Alex said as they waited for the last of the ten minutes to run out. "Here's to the millennium, huh??"

Michael nodded. "Hope I live to see another one."

Alex couldn't help but laugh.

* * * *

(Ten minutes to eight.)

The party was in full swing by now - a pretty cool jazz cd was on, and Liz had just poked her head in, delivered a tray full of miniature sandwiches, and said she'd be back in a few minutes.

Despite what Michael had said to Maria about over-structuring, (or possibly in line with what he had said, depending on how you looked at it,) somebody had found a box set of Trivial Pursuit, and Alex, Isabel, Tess, and Kyle were starting a game. Michael and Maria were dancing, and Jim Valenti was watching something on the television quietly.

Alex knew that Isabel and Liz had gone out shopping for special outfits for the party that afternoon - it was the only reason Iz hadn't gone to the amusement park with them, after all - or at least, it was the only reason that Alex knew of. Why exactly they had decided they needed new clothes Alex wasn't exactly clear on - they had always been planning to have a fancy dress-up party for new year's eve, in Mexico. They'd all come prepared.

But he couldn't exactly argue with the results. Iz looked *incredible*. Impulsively, he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek while Kyle was considering his answer.

"Trying to butter me up will get you nowhere," she mumbled softly. "You're gonna lose, Whitman. I'm the trivia queen."

As the game continued, Alex idly took inventory of the outfits of the rest of the group. Kyle, having no sweetie to take him to task for clashing, (or none here in Arizona, at least,) was wearing a white short-sleeved dress shirt, olive pants, and a big technicolor necktie. Tess was decked out demure and pretty in a simple aqua dress with a modest scoop neck and a hem that reached almost to her knees. And Maria was looking hot to trot in a silky red blouse and a matching short skirt, with her hair pinned up all sexy.

Mister Valenti was wearing a fairly simple and severe suit, of course.

"Umm... Whitman? Your turn??" Kyle prompted, and Alex turned back to the Pursuit a little sheepishly and rolled the die. Hmm... no Science, no entertainment... that just figured. He had a choice between sports, sports, and art. Somewhat reluctantly, he moved counter-clockwise to Art.

Tess removed a card with his question on it. "Which British artist is known most for his quote 'problem pictures', like 'Death sentence' and 'The fallen idol'??"

"Ohh, yeesh," Isabel muttered.

"Umm..." It seemed somewhat familiar to Alex. "Was it... oh, my god. Liz!?"

"Uh, incorrect," Tess quipped.

"What??" Kyle turned to look in the direction that Alex was staring, and promptly went a little glassy-eyed himself.

Liz had just come back into the party room, dressed in the outfit she had bought while shopping with Isabel earlier that day - a white spandex pantsuit that clung in all the right places and yet seemed... flowing, somehow. It was the extra fabric that hung loose around her forearms and calves, Alex decided after a moment -- like a double bell-bottom effect but somehow not nearly so corny.

Liz Parker had never seemed quite so radiantly beautiful, and that was a pretty hard bar to leap over.

It wasn't just the clothes, either - she seemed to shine, somehow, with some soft and unearthly radiance, and her long dark hair sparkled like the stars of the night sky were hidden deep within. She seemed taller than usual -- though that could be the black high-heeled shoes, which she walked in with surprising grace.

Alex shook himself back to some semblance of poise as Liz approached. "Hey, guys," she said with a wide smile. "Can I kibitz until Max gets here??"

"Shuvavvah," Kyle mumbled. Tess elbowed him in the ribs in a sisterly gesture.

"Sure, Liz," Isabel said with a mysterious smile. She didn't even seem upset about Alex's momentary reaction to Liz's entrance - though he never really gave her any serious reason to be jealous, Alex supposed. Plus, maybe she had suggested Liz's outfit and was just pleased with herself that it was a hit.

"So... I guess the question is still to you, Alex," Tess said with a joking sigh. "Do you need me to repeat it??"

"Uhh, no," Alex let out a soft moan himself. Whatever flash of intuition had almost connected, it was lost now, he knew that. "Vincent Van Gogh," he guessed off the top of his head.

"No, John Collier," Tess reported, and Alex groaned - he *had* known that one, very vaguely.

"Well, your turn baby," he said, passing the die to his lovely girlfriend and taking the question box from Tess in turn. Isabel rolled only a two, and scowled - she hadn't had much luck getting to a headquarters space either.

Max showed up about one and a half times around the circle of players later - carrying a bag of video rentals and dressed in an actual tuxedo, definitely making him the spiffiest out of all the guys. Liz ran up to him for a passionate kiss... (which young Mister Evans certainly returned eagerly after he got a look at his sweetheart,) dimmed the lights, and led him out onto the dance floor.

* * * *

(Around nine.)

"Hmmm..." Michael considered the card he had just drawn from the stock, and then pulled the jack of spades out of the collection he held in his hands and laid it down on the discard pile.

Alex paused, trying not to seem too eager, and picked that jack up, replacing it with a seven of hearts. Michael scowled, ignored the seven, and drew from the stock again.

The party was still going on strong across the hall, but Michael had asked Alex if he was up for a game of Gin Rummy, which Alex no longer even questioned as a request for a private conference on alien-related affairs.

"I'm worried about the notion that former special unit operatives are obviously still working together," MIchael muttered as he made his next discard. "I went over Nasedo's diary again last night."

"I figured," Alex said softly. He had noticed Michael holding the watch silently while Alex had been preparing for bed. "What did you find out?"

"Well, that he went to a lot of trouble to try to stop that from happening; even sent an anonymous tip to FBI internal affairs and the USA Attorney's office. That the special unit personnel were accustomed to working well outside the book and might try to work together to continue the mission, even after Congress suspended funding and officially disbanded the unit."

"Hmm." Alex considered that. "I agree that it's not ideal, but what can we do?"

"What can we ever do??" Michael groaned. "Be careful. Especially since if there's anyone else who might be investigating the former Special Unit personnel, they might find *us* if the Special Unit is still looking for us."

Alex knocked on the table, and MIchael shot him an uncertain look. "In the game, I'm knocking," Alex cued. He spread his cards out onto the table - two runs, a group of fives, and one lone two as deadwood.

Michael sighed. He had a run too, as well as four queens, and could lay off a six against one of Alex's runs, but was left with fourteen. "Okay, that's the first deal to you," he reiterated. "Game to one hundred."

But as it happened, well before they made it to the end of the game, the phone in the hotel room rang. "Hello??" Michael said, answering it. "No, Kyle Valenti isn't here... yeah, you wouldn't have gotten an answer in his room either -- Can you tell me who's there??" Judging by the growl deep in Michael's throat, whoever was at the other end, probably the attendant at the hotel front desk, could not do that. "Okay, put it through across the hall, in the suite lounge." He hung up the phone and stood, leaving his cards on the table. "Come on."

By the time Michael and Alex got back to the lounge, Kyle was already on the phone. "Who is it??" Michael called out.

"Just a sec," Kyle said into the phone, and then took the receiver away from his mouth, covering it. "It's Courtney!! She's here - she's right downstairs."

"How... how did she know you'd be here??" Tess asked.

"Well..." Kyle blushed a little. "I sent her an email last night, from that little internet kiosk in the lobby -- I had no idea if she'd even check her inbox, but I really didn't expect her to come out here." He turned to look at Max and his father. "I know that this wasn't in the plan, but can she come up?? She drove all this way..."

"Looks like she really does have a thang for you," Maria stage whispered.

Jim shrugged. "Umm... yeah, she can join the party, as far as I'm concerned," Max said. "All necessary precautions should be observed, of course." That was clearly a reference to talking about things that an outsider shouldn't hear.

"Well, where's she going to sleep??" Isabel asked. "No way we can get another female crashing anywhere here."

"We'll work it out," Jim assured her. "Kyle, you wanna maybe go down and escort her up??" Kyle was off like a shot.

Liz and Max started playing some sort of video game on the entertainment center against Michael and Kyle, and Isabel and Jim were just sitting and listening to some music over by the stereo, so Maria and Alex were the only ones to greet Courtney and Kyle when they arrived. "Hey. Amooz boosh?" Maria said, offering a tray of tiny little pieces of finger food for them to help themselves.

"Ummm... thanks," Courtney said with an awkward smile. "And thanks for letting me crash the private party."

"Not at all, actually I really respect you for driving all this way without so much as calling to tell us you were coming," Maria replied with a straight face.

"Well, um, Kyle mentioned which hotel you guys were staying at, but I couldn't find a phone number." Courtney shrugged cutely. "I asked for directions once I made it into town."

"Well, that's okay," Alex said with a smile. "So... man, these things are tasty!! Anyone know what's in them??"

* * * *

(Quarter to eleven PM.)

"Ohhh!!" Michael called out as the shadowy figure wearing dark clothes shot out foot-long claws from his knuckles and assumed a fighting posture. "It's go time!!"

And sure enough, Wolverine leapt after Mystique, who countered with a duck and some kind of surprisingly skilled martial arts move. Max and Alex joined in with the cheer. 'X-men' was definitely the movie hit of the evening - at least for the guys, although Isabel was grooving on the, well, the 'alienation' theme, as it were.

Tess was starting to look a little bored, so Liz quietly took her aside and led her to the girls' bedroom. Tess sat down on one of the beds, an unreadable expression on her face. Liz smiled a little uncomfortably.

"So... are we ever going to talk about this??" Liz asked.

"Umm... talk about what??"

"You know what I'm talking about," Liz answered. "We... in the forest, down there in Puerto Penasco. We saved each other's lives." She dropped down into a chair."

"Yeah." Tess lowered her eyes.

"So, I guess the question is... what do we do about that??"

"I don't know," Tess admitted. "In the 'Cluster' books, among the Polarians, when two people save each other's lives, they have exchanged debt and are almost like brothers or sisters."

"Uhh... huh??" Liz blinked, and picked a question to ask first. "The what books??"

"Cluster," Tess said. "Far-out science fiction, Piers Anthony. All kinds of strange alien races, and people's auras, their identities, jumping from planet to planet." Liz couldn't think of anything to say for a moment, and Tess added, "I know it's corny, but I like them, okay?? For one thing, it's a good feeling to read and say 'no matter what, I'm 99.9% sure my home planet isn't as weird as *this!*"

Liz laughed at that. "So... what happens after the debt exchange??"

"It kind of depends on the situation. Traditionally, the participants... well, they mate, and breed, and have a child, and that completes the exchange. The polarian species doesn't have the concept of romantic love, so a child of debt-exchange is considered the most special or unique kind of mating."

Liz was frowning by this point... "So, what about us, I mean, two girls, would we have to..."

"I don't think so," Tess said quickly. "There's a reference in the Hyades conference chapter that if two male Polarians, say, exchanged debt, they would find two females who had also exchanged a debt and switch partners. But I know a lot of fans of the books don't like that - it sidesteps around the circular intuitiveness that's the appeal of the Polarian philosophy... and that isn't really the point, is it?" she finished trailingly.

Liz laughed a little. "No, I don't think so. Well, what I'm hearing is that unless we want to find two guys who've also saved each other's lives and have their children, this Piers guy doesn't have much guidance to offer??"

"No, I guess not." Tess smiled wanly back. "Seriously... thank you. Somehow I never really believed that you would be there -- for me, you know."

"Well, hey, you stepped up first," Liz reminded her. "And if you hadn't... well, then, assuming you'd have still fallen off that cliff, there would have been no-one there to rescue you and you'd have died too, so would've served you right!" Tess chuckled softly at that perspective. "Seriously, I had a better reason than you did. I know how important you are to Max, and to Michael, and Isabel. Even if you do drive them up the wall sometimes."

"Oh, yeah, and they wouldn't have cared if you'd died," Tess said softly. "And I'd only care because they cared."

Liz blinked in surprise. Had Tess been saying, indirectly, what it seemed as if she'd said??

"Maybe... what this all means, is that we'll actually become friends," Liz whispered after a moment, hardly believing that her own voice was saying the words.

Tess looked up in surprise. "Well... stranger things have happened," she joked.

"Yeah. I think you're one of them," Liz shot back.

"I think... I'd like that," Tess returned to the subject. "I could use a friend - a human friend, a girl human friend. I-- I still have problems with this 'being human' thing, and from what I can tell, you rock at it." Liz could feel a flush stinging her cheeks. "But I wouldn't blame you if you didn't want to subject yourself to that."

Liz grinned as she got up from the chair, sat down onto the bed next to the blonde girl and threw an arm around her shoulders. "Let's take it one baby step at a time."

* * * *

(11:30)

The lights were turned down low. Max and Liz were out on the dance floor, as were Kyle and Courtney. Alex and Isabel were talking on the couch, and Michael and Maria were quietly watching some of her favorite scenes from 'The truman show.'

A song ended on the stereo, and there was a silence, stretching just long enough out to be spooky. In the dimness, Liz shot a look at Max, (who had mixed the CD that was playing,) but he just smiled enigmatically.

A pretty melody on string instruments sprang forth, meandering its way quickly down through deeper and deeper octaves until making a landing on what would have to be cellos if not a double bass or two, before starting to rise again accompanied by other orchestral instruments. Isabel looked at Alex, and he offered his hand to her; they rose, as one, and began to move slowly to the music. The persistent beat of a snare drum began to make its presence known, somehow definitely not a part of the orchestra but something else. It seemed to have fun fading in and out, (the drum that is.) Finally the orchestra faded away, to be replaced by the irrepressible sounds of a music synthesizer, still vaguely carrying on the ever-changing melody though.

One lone string instrument returned - a viola, carrying a haunting harmony tune, with perhaps a bass guitar supporting it. Michael and Maria had gotten up and joined the other couples by the point a woman's voice finally sang out.

"I didn't hear you leave...
I wonder how am I still here."

The drum beat seemed to match its rhythm to Alex's pulse, (or was that the other way around,) as he playfully dipped Isabel back.

"And I don't wanna move a thing.
It might change my memory.

Oh I am what I am.
I'll do what I want
But I... can't hide..."

Max let Liz go for a second, and she spun around incredibly, and then returned to his arms.

"I won't go. I won't sleep.
I can't breathe, until you're
Resting here with me.
And I won't leave; I can't hide...
I cannot be,
Until you're resting here with me."

Courtney and Kyle were dancing arm in arm and arm in arm, staring into each other's eyes like there wasn't anybody else in the entire world.

"Don't wanna call my friends:
They might wake me from this dream.
And I can't leave this bed,
Risk forgetting all that's been."

Michael and Maria were off in their own little world too, their bodies moving so sensually to the music that you could almost see their passion.

"Oh I am what I am.
I'll do what I want, but
I-I can't hide--

And I won't go.
I won't sleep.
I can't breathe - until you're resting here with me.

I won't leave, I cannot hide.
I can't be, until you're resting here,

And I won't go.
I won't sleep!
I can't breathe - until you're resting here with me."

Liz and Max seemed to be glowing softly as they spun about, her head resting on his shoulder.

"I won't leave, n' I can't hide.
I cannot be, until you're resting here,
With me..."

And Jim and Tess watched the dance silently.

* * * *

(Almost midnight.)

"Watch the clock, people," Isabel called out, gesturing to the large wall timepiece above the doorway from the lounge into the hall, which read five or six minutes until the arrival of the new millennium.

"Hey, Maria," Kyle said, quickly coming up to her. "Sorry, Court wanted me to ask you something, as far as rooms..."

"Um, yeah??" Maria said as she turned around, a little surprised. Michael backed away subtly.

"Yeah, uh... she's got a credit card to pay for her own rooms, and since all the rooms here have two beds, she was thinking she could take a roommate and that means only one girl has to sleep in the lounge tonight. Do you mind rooming with her??"

Maria blinked. "No, I guess not. Why me??"

"Well, I guess she knows you best, from all the time you've spent working together at the cafe." Kyle shrugged.

"The house is in her name, money to throw away on hotel rooms... Kyle, is your girlfriend loaded??" Maria teased.

Kyle paused for a second. "I haven't really thought about it. She doesn't seem to be struggling for anything. Could be all the ill-gotten gains of her fake brother, I suppose."

Maria nodded idly and let that one pass. "So, me with Courtney... any idea who should be in here??"

"Umm..." Kyle lowered his voice and moved closer. "Probably Isabel, since Tess was on guard duty last night, you know..." His eyes flicked only once, meaningfully, to the large object wrapped in white sheets, underneath the couch.

"Ohhh." Maria had forgotten about the air-sled entirely, but apparently Courtney hadn't noticed it, which was all for the good.

"So..." Michael was muttering in a low voice to Isabel, meanwhile. "Tess said you'd be ready to start poking into Max's marbles once we got back to Roswell??"

"I dunno," Isabel groaned, also in a low voice. "I'll let you know when I've got any information, okay?"

"Sorry, sorry," Michael disclaimed. "Didn't mean to upset you."

"Hey," Alex said as he drifted by Liz. "Best wishes and all that."

"You too," Liz told him with a smile. "You've been such a good friend this past year, don't ever change."

"Ummm..." I saw Liz dragging you off while the movie was wrapping up," Max said, carefully edging closer to where Tess was sitting on a chair beside a telephone table. "Was it more screaming or just repressed hostility?"

"Max..."

"No, come on," he said, overriding Tess' attempts to interrupt. "Liz agreed that she would stop getting on your case, and if she isn't living up to that, I do want to know about..."

"It wasn't like that at all," Tess finally managed to put in. "It was good stuff - trust me."

Max's face screwed up in confusion. "Good stuff??"

"Yeah." Tess laughed softly. "We're debt sisters now, and we're going to try to become friends - real friends."

Max blinked in surprise. "Well... I'm really glad to h--"

At that moment a huge cheer seemed to break out from everywhere around them, and Liz looked at the clock instinctively. Still three minutes to midnight. "What the..."

"It's wrong, the clock is wrong!!" Michael exclaimed, looking at a watch he had pulled out of a pocket somewhere. "It's after midnight!!"

Everyone looked at each other in shock. "We never checked the clock??" Maria mumbled to herself. But it was pretty obvious that no-one had really had reason to.

"Okay, come on," Liz called out. "It still counts if we kiss within a minute. Max!!" She practically ran into him, french kissing her special guy with wild abandon.

Michael and Alex practically ran into each other too, trying to hook up with their respective sweeties. "Courtney!!" Kyle called out, looking back and forth as if expecting her to pop up from behind the footrest.

"I'm here!!" she sang out, coming in from the girls' bedroom. "Sorry, I just had to... what's..." That's as far as she got before Kyle wrapped her up in his strong arms and kissed her soundly.

"Uhh... huh??"

"Happy new year," Kyle whispered, brushing a stray lock of blonde hair out of her face.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Title: A Roswell Homecoming: the Mexican Tango. Part 4h 2/2
Author: Chris Kenworthy
E-mail: kelworth@chriskweb.net
Home archive: http://www.fanfiction.net/~chriskenworthy
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own the Roswell characters, though if I did I'd treat them better than Jason Katims.
Category: Sci-fi drama. Canon couples romance leading to UC pairings in later part.
Spoilers: Up to 'ask not'


(January 1st 2001... a little past one in the afternoon.)

"Okay," Max called out from behind the wheel of the Jeep... "what do you think, right or left here??"

Courtney and Maria called out "Right" at the same time as Kyle said "Straight ahead." A few second later, Tess chimed in "Left" and Liz called "Right."

"Right it is." The five of them had headed out to explore Sierra Vista after lunch at the hotel's restaurant... looking for something to see, something to do, or someplace to shop... none of which was particularly easy on the new year's day holiday. But Max, for one, was content just to explore and sightsee... and there was a largely unspoken agreement to keep Courtney, the outsider, away from their rooms at the hotel for the afternoon while the rest of the group 'hung out' at their home away from home.

"So... stop me if I'm getting too close to a sensitive area or anything..." Maria continued. "But I feel like I've known you for months and still I hardly know you at all." Maria had been subtly grilling the girl for the past twenty minutes... where she'd grown up, what her parents had been like, why she thought her brother had moved to Roswell (before finding out that her brother had been replaced by an alien impostor, that was.)

"Hey, I don't mind," Courtney insisted. "I kinda like talking about myself, in case you hadn't noticed. So... what's next??"

"Umm... did you ever go to summer camp??" Tess pitched in.

"Yeah, yeah... when we were living in Indiana, for three weeks every summer we went up to this place called... um, oh -- what was it." Courtney's face scrunched up a little in thought. "Yeah, 'Camp Bosley.'"

"Like the guy in Charlie's Angels??" Liz asked.

"Yeah... nobody knew why it was called that, but it was a pretty cool place. Up in the hills a little... there was a river but no lake - Steve always disapproved of that. He said that a summer camp should be next to a lake... he'd gone to another camp before we got there, that I'd been too young for. But there was hiking and campfires and weird things like candle-making and clay sculpture... and staying up all night telling ghost stories. I always lived it there." She sighed a little. "What about you, Kyle, did you ever go to summer camp??"

"Umm... yeah, just, er, just once," Kyle muttered. "Don't exactly have good memories."

"What, it wasn't any fun??"

"Actually, it was a lot of fun, that wasn't the problem. You see..." Kyle trailed off again. Tess shot Max a wondering glance in the rear-view mirror.

"This was camp Lidibeekah, right??" Maria asked. Kyle nodded. "Do you want me to tell them??" Kyle looked surprised, but signalled his agreement again.

"He went there for about a month and a half," Maria explained softly. "When his dad came up to take him back, he got home and found out that his mom had moved out of the house."

"Oh, man!" Courtney exclaimed in surprise. "That stinks!"

"And of course, later on there was football camp," Kyle mumbled, clearly wanting to change the subject. "But that was really less like a summer camp and more like a big long... football practice. Not to say that it wasn't fun... football practice can be fun. But not..."

"What's your favorite color and why??" Courtney called out, obviously trying to give Kyle a better subject for conversation. "Uhh, start with you, Tess."

"Ummm... uh." Tess stalled out for a bit, and then blurted out. "Uhhh... brown, because it looks warm and safe. That sounded corny, right??"

"No, it's good," Maria assured her. "Max?"

"Hey, why do you get to say that we go counter-clockwise," Kyle interrupted. "You just don't want to have to go next."

"Still, she called it first," Courtney put in.

"Um, I don't mind," Max said. "Umm... I'll go with brown too, because it's got a little bit of every color in it, it's inclusive."

"Green," Kyle put in. "Because things that are green grow, and we all need to grow."

"Purple," Liz put in. "'Cause... well, I guess I don't really have a good reason - I just think that it's cool."

"That's fair," Courtney decided. "Okay, now me. I'll go with yellow, because the sun's yellow and I have to admit I have a soft spot for the sun."

"Umm... blue," Maria finished up. "Because it's peaceful and cool, and... I just like it, that's all."

"Hey, check it out, looks like something's open!!" Tess said, pointing a finger at a sign ahead of them.

Max continued on a bit further and came to a complete stop nearly underneath the large marquee. "The dearest gift of winter, presented by the Cochise County amateur players club," Kyle read out. "Last day. 2 pm and 7:30 pm. We're in time for the matinee."

"Amateur acting??" Maria asked.

"Come on, it'll be fun," Max urged her. "A new experience."

"Okay," Maria sighed.

"Come on," Courtney urged. "If they charge for the tickets, it's on me. Snacks too, if they have anything."

* * * *

(Two thirty in the pm...)

"Okay, so what are we doing here??" Isabel said, looking at the airsled, now uncovered and sitting in the middle of the lounge, where a large space had been cleared out.

"I dunno." Michael shrugged. "Why don't we start with you getting in and seeing if you can hover all right??"

Isabel turned to look at Valenti and Alex, who both nodded encouragingly. Frowning just a little, she walked over to the alien device, squatted down next to it, and made a big grumble of climbing in, folding her long jean-clad legs awkwardly into the small seat. Finally she stopped fidgeting and looked up at Michael. "Okay... now how did you do this?"

"Umm... I think that big red thing is the main ignition," Michael, said, pointing out a particular piece of crystal on the sled's 'control panel,' a large octagon. "Try touching it and making a connection."

"Okay." Isabel reached out a few fingers and tried to force something to happen. For a few long moments there was nothing, but as she relaxed the sensation came through her of incredible power, hers to command. Mental note: don't try too hard with this thing! "Okay, so where's the vertical lift..." All of a sudden Isabel KNEW what the appropriate feature was, and she didn't even have to touch it, just look at the diamond-blue oblong about as long as her finger and as thick as two of them. Just look at it and think about what she wanted. The sled lifted smoothly into the air, carrying Isabel with it, and hovered about four feet off the ground.

"Cool," Michael said. "Come on, Mister V, let's try the back seats." Michael waved to the spots behind the drivers' seat on the sled where it looked like two people could perch and ride on the back of the sled.

Isabel dipped a bit lower so that they could get on easily, and she felt the sled generating extra lift to support their weight, but it seemed well capable of handling the load. "How's the fit?"

"Not the comfiest of seats, but I can handle it fine," Michael decided. "Especially if I'm in a hurry -- I know we really haven't had a chance to put this baby through time trials or anything, but I'm betting it can MOVE."

"I dunno," Isabel frowned. "Not sure I'd want to break any speed limits with people perching on the back like that. What if you couldn't hang on?"

"I'm not sure that's possible," Valenti said softly. "This looks precarious, but I'm sure that there's something holding me in securely. Mister Whitman, care to try knocking me off?" He sat back, obviously not wanting to do anything that might signal to the sled that he actually WANTED to get up, which might in turn deactivate the alien seat belt or whatever he was talking about. Try as he might, Alex couldn't dislodge him or Michael, though pushing and shoving them this way and that was clearly uncomfortable for them.

"Okay." Michael stepped back off the sled in one smooth motion, and Alex had to supress a slight groan at seeing how well the auto deactivate could do what he couldn't. "By the way, Alex, anything in the washer about this little baby?"

"Thought you'd never ask," Alex replied with a smile. "I couldn't get anything until I'd actually seen the sled, but a lot of good stuff has been coming in since. Definitely this was one of the most important tools they prepared for you guys to use, at the same time as they were preparing to send the four of you here to Earth. I'm not sure of its full powers, but I'm pretty sure that we haven't seen or guessed at its full capabilities yet."

"Hmmm." Michael thought about that. "Okay, well, we've seen transportation, surveillance, concealment... we're pretty sure that it has an energy weapon even though we haven't had a chance to test that yet. Umm... communication system??"

"Seems likely," Alex agreed, turning to Isabel. "Any notion..."

"Communications channel," Isabel agreed, touching a tiny purple glitter on the control board. "Open and standing by... but I'm not quite sure how it works."

"I'll go across the hall into... umm, Max and Kyle's room," Michael suggested, "and you try to communicate with me." Isabel nodded, and he disappeared out the door. Isabel wondered briefly why he hadn't tried his own room, and then realized that the other was further - Michael and Alex's room was right across the hall from the lounge. "Hello, Michael, can you hear me??" She repeated the attempted communique mentally, but didn't get any response or even any certainty that Michael was getting her message. A few minutes later, when he returned, frustrated, it became clear that he hadn't.

"I'm not sure that it's that easy," Isabel said. "I think there has to be some kind of receiver... tranceiver, activated at the other end, before it can work."

"Any idea what kind of tranceiver??" Alex asked, and Isabel paused, then shook her head. "Well, going over what we've got..." he thought for a second. "The orbs? Maybe they do double duty for this, all by themselves."

"Maybe," Jim allowed. "But it's just as likely that the Special Unit took the tranceivers and still has them, or that Harding buried them in one of the caches around Roswell."

"Yet another reason that we need to find those caches and see what's there," Michael muttered.

"If it's that easy," Isabel said. "If they're secured, we may have a had time figuring how to get them open safely."

"We'll find a way," Alex assured her. "Now... back to the sled. What can we check for next?"

"Defensive system," Valenti suggested. Michael looked at him with his 'smart remark' face, but Valenti continued before he spoke. "Not the energy weapon. More like... protection."

Isabel liked the idea, and almost instantly it seemed that the sled, (and herself and Valenti, who was still riding on the back,) were surrounded by an enclosure of swirling power, vaguely white.

"Wow," Alex said, and his voice was a little distorted, like echo-ey. "We can't even see your faces in there -- which will be handy for the whole secrecy thing."

"We can see you almost perfectly," Valenti reported.

"Wow, even your voice is camoflaged, Isabel," Michael said. "All rumbly and booming." Isabel stifled a rude snicker. Michael picked up a heavy brass bookend from the mantel, (though there were no books to 'end' there,) and tossed it lightly at the force field, and it bounced softly off. Valenti dug in a pocket, came up with his gun, made sure that the safety was on and tossed it out - it passed through the field like it was nothing -- which in a way it was, Isabel supposed.

"Okay, that's enough testing the force field," Alex said warningly. "We could hurt something - though probably not the ship."

Iz let the field drop. "Mister Valenti, get off," she advised.

"What?? Oh..." without a word he stepped off and a few steps away, and Isabel settled the sled back down to ground level and let the power in its systems die away, climbing back out. "I think that's enough for today. My legs are killing me."

"Maybe Tess should be the driver," Michael commented absently. "She's a little bitty person compared to the two of us."

"Or Liz," Alex volunteered. "You guys seem to be assuming that only aliens can make the sled go, but Liz proved that we can shoot the alien raygun, right?? This seems to be the same thing -- power triggered, but not necessarily excluding the latent HUMAN power..."

"Do you want to give it a try, Man??" Michael asked, waving at the sled.

Alex looked down momentarily at his long gangly legs, remembering the complaints of everyone to drive the sled so far, all long-legged like himself. But he was defending the honor of the human race here, or something stupid like that. "Let's go." He climbed in and touched the red crystal, concentrating on making it work the same way that he fired the ruby laser weapon.

But there was no response. After a long awkward moment, he turned to Isabel. "There some trick to this?" he asked hopefully.

"Not really... just relax and let it come."

Alex tried again, with no better result.

"I hate to say it, but this might be very different from the blaster gun, Alex," Michael pointed out. "Sure, it's power-activated, but it's also as if it dials directly into my brain. So maybe it needs an Aztan brain, or a hybrid one. And maybe the power family has to be more specific..."

"I get it," Alex interrupted, trying to keep the hurt if not the frustration out of his voice. "No humans allowed."

"Or maybe humans just have to do something a little different, to make up for the mental link not working the sae way," Isabel said, walking over and holding his shoulder comfortingly. "We can keep trying if you want."

"Maybe later," Alex grumbled, getting out. "So... any other business for today?"

"Nothing I can think of right now," Valenti said. Michael shook his head uncertainly.

"Actually, I have something else," Isabel mentioned. "Been racking my brain to see if there was something we could have done to keep that guy from getting the jump on us down in Mexico, and I've hit on an idea. A perimeter detection field. Wanna help us try it out?"

"Sure," Alex agreed, all of his resentment about the sled forgotten in the appearance of a new caper. "How does it work?"

"Well, I'm not quite sure yet," Isabel said. "Why don't we go out and try to find someplace to try a few experiments??"

* * * *

(six in the evening...)

Liz sighed contendly and leaned against the railing a bit, and admired the view in front of her, the sun beginning to set amidst the various buildings of the small Arizona town. It had been an incredible trip... a scary and tragic journey in parts, but definitely worthwhile overall, for a couple of reasons that she would never have guessed at or expected beforehand, as well as the ones that they had all been expecting. And one of the most UNEXPECTED developments had been...

In an incredible example of pure synchronicity, there was a tap on the patio doors at that moment, and when she turned to look, it was Tess Harding waving shyly from the other side. Liz hadn't locked the patio door, (it seemed a little weird that the door went that way, but made sense - this way the balcony could be a convenient location to get some privacy, whereas if the lock had gone only the other way it would have only served to keep someone locked out on the balcony. Of course, a lock on the apartment side was critical to keep cat burglars out, she supposed... and she was mentally babbling to herself.) Quickly Liz nodded to Tess, who opened the door, stepped out, and locked it behind her. Liz smiled a little to herself at the notion that Tess had checked to see if it was okay to intrude on her.

"So... didja come out for the view or for me?" she asked the blonde girl with a smile.

"Umm... err, a little of both," Tess said, sweeping her gaze across the western horizon. "Mostly you, I suppose."

"Okay, what did you want to say to me?"

Tess didn't answer for more han a minute... maybe two. "I guess first off, I wanted to thank you."

"Thank me?" Liz repeated, susrprised. Again, there was a pretty long pause from Tess, who was looking off the side of the railing, to where other balconies were poking from the hotel wall here and there.

"You included me... you made sure that everyone else included me. You made me feel like I *belonged.*" She sighed, but it was a mostly happy smile, and when she turned around Liz was not at all surprised to see a smile on her face. "Michael's been doing that too, ever since that night in Mexico... you didn't say anything to him about me, did you??"

"Michael? About you?? No," Liz admitted. "When has he been making a particular effort to include you?"

Tess thought about that. "Well, first was the amusement park yesterday, and the party last night. He just told me that I have to try out the air sled as soon as possible. Courtney's otherwise occupied, by the way."

"I know," Liz mentioned, her gaze sweeping across the concealing trees she had seen Courtney and Kyle walking amongst and into about fifteen minute ago. "Well... wait a minute. Yesterday morning -- when Michael took over your guard shift in the lounge."

"Yeah?" Tess replied.

"I saw something out of the corner of my eye as I was waking up, wouldn't swear to it, but... your journal was on the table there, right? Do you suppose that might have anything to do with Michael's change of heart??"

Tess thought about it for a moment, with a gathering sense of shock. "You mean... you think he read it?" Liz nodded slightly. "I'll kill him!!" She turned back towards the patio doors. Liz reached out and touched her hand to Tess' forearm.

"I wouldn't. You said he's been treating you nicer, right? Well, for invasion of privacy, we can pay him back, friendly-like." Liz grinned and rubbed her hands together. "Trust me."

"It... it's just--" Tess sighed. "I want to build a relationship right with Michael and the others - I don't want them to treat me nice because they pity me."

"I don't think it's pity," Liz told her. "We've all become so used to thinking of you as a little firecracker who doesn't need anything from anybody... I'm sure it just never occured to Michael to think that you were upset at being left out. I know it didn't really sink in for me until recently."

"Really?" Tess asked, though Liz wasn't quite sure what part of her ramble she was asking for confirmation on, or it it was all of the above.

"Yup. And I'll tell you another thing... I almost didn't recognize you this afternoon. You were all... so sweet and friendly and everything!!"

Tess swatted at her lightly with a few fingers.

"No, really," Liz continued. "I have to admit... or, at least I'd like to admit... do you think we have enough friendship for a little honesty here??"

"Only one way to find out," Tess replied. "Nothing TOO brutal yet, though... okay??" she added with a nervous laugh.

"I caught myself thinking today... 'See, Tess can be nice. She just never used to be nice to me.'" Liz looked like she was about to say something else, but couldn't figure out what, and ended up letting that thought speak for itself.

Tess scrunched up her face in a way that Liz surprisingly found cute... (in a platonic way, of course.) "I guess I deserve that." Liz shrugged apolagetically, not arguing.

"But, the way I see it, the point is how you're learning to act NOW," she pointed out helpfully.

"Thanks," Tess told Liz. "Well, I'd better go and..."

"Don't," Liz blurted out suddenly. "Just -- stay and watch the sunset, huh??" The desert sun had just dipped beneath the horizon, and a deep red was starting to come out, silhouetting the downtown of Sierra Vista gorgeously.

Tess smiled at Liz and leaned onto the railing beside her, watching.

* * * *

(Back to Oct 20th 2001)

"Yeah, it was quite a trip," Max agreed. "Probably good that there wasn't anything more that happened... the drive home the next day was pretty dull, right??"

"Yeah, just time to decompress I think," Maria agreed.

"I remember my mom asking me about the trip..." Max started, but he got interrupted.

"Hey, we aren't moving," Alex pointed out. He peered out the window "Not at Kyle's place... what the heck??" Ahead and to the right brake lights were visible. "What's happening??"

Michael pushed the button to lower the partition to the driver's area. "What's the hold-up??"

"Not quite sure as of yet, sir," the driver said, indicating the backup of vehicles ahead of them. "Was just about to inform you of the wait. Someone's pulled up behind us, but I can see if they'll be willing to let us out."

"Naw, we're in no hurry," Maria put in. "Probably just a train coming through... and if that's it there isn't any easy other way to get through."

"Alright," the driver said, and nodded. Michael put the barrier back up and looked at them.

"Okay, what next???"

END OF SECTION FOUR.