Roswell Fanatics

Title: Runaway with me
Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Roswell. Just trying to give my favorite characters a break.
Pairings/Couples/Category: Mostly Max/Liz - will probably be some Michael/Maria and Alex/Isabel content.
Rating: Mature
Summary: Frustrated with being grounded, and pushed to the limit by their mutual attraction, Max and Liz take desperate measures and leave Roswell, their friends and families.
Author's Note: Hope you like this... I've been wanting to give it a try for a while. It's probably going to be a departure from my usual ensemble fics, but I'm not entirely sure how that's going to work out.

The cordless phone rang, and Liz paused a second before answering it, lost in thought. She knew who she hoped would be on the other end of the line, and under the circumstances it was a slightly naughty wish, but that just made the sense of anticipation even sweeter. "Hello, Parker residence?"

There was a second before a response came... a soft, teasing whisper. "Liz! Are you alone in the house?"

A burst of joy hit her and left a wide smile on her face. "Max!! Yes - you?"

"Would I have been calling you in the first place if I weren't?" A familiar, soft chuckle rang over the line, and Liz's knees trembled - it really WAS him. "How much time do you have?"

"Probably almost half an hour, if not more," Max replied. It was now two weeks, less a day, since they had run off to spend a memorable night out in the desert... breaking parental restrictions in the process. The punishment for that had been, among other things, not seeing each other outside of their high school classes for three weeks, and even though the two of them, as typical teenagers in love, had managed to bend the rules a few times without getting caught, (like talking on the phone when nobody was around their houses,) the stolen moments weren't nearly enough for Liz. She longed to spend time with Max when she didn't need to worry about anything else... to feel the touch of his lips on hers and be able to just melt into the kiss forever... or long enough that it almost felt like forever at least.

"Yeah, I don't think my parents will be back here until seven at the earliest." Liz sighed. "It's so great being able just to hear your voice whispering to me, but it doesn't feel like enough. This is *so* not fair."

"No, it... it really isn't," Max admitted. "I... I wish I could confront my parents, threaten them with moving in with Michael or something crazy like that... but that wouldn't really help anything, because you can't do the same. There doesn't seem to be much of an alternative to serving out our sentence like nice little compliant prisoners."

Something about that twigged a memory in Liz. "Max... okay, first off, time to level with me. Valentine's day... the night of the blind date concert, when you got drunk and whisked me away into the night."

"Umm.... what about it?"

Liz laughed softly to herself. Somehow she had no doubt that Max knew exactly what about that night she wanted to ask... but he was going to make her say it. "Do... *do* you actually remember what we did, what you said to me that night? I know you said you didn't after you kissed me... but--"

"No, you're right," Max said softly. "I remembered it then, and I remember it now... every moment, or very nearly. Just... just didn't want to face up to it, and faking amnesia seemed like the easiest way out. I'm... I'm so sorry that I lied to you, about something like that, but..."

"It's okay," she assured him. "Just wanted to make sure." And Liz took a deep breath. "I know... know this sounds crazy, but you talked about running away from Roswell, going somewhere that nobody knows us. I... I think I want to."

There was a long pause, at the beginning of which Liz thought she could hear Max's mouth drop open. "Are... are you serious? I mean... I'm frustrated at the being grounded thing too, obviously, but running away from home seems a bit like overkill."

"It... it's not just that," Liz pressed. "Sure, at some point, my mom will decide that she can't keep me locked up in the room anymore, and I'll be off restriction. But... but I think it'll be a long time before she trusts either of us completely. She's scared, Max. And the simple fact that we're teenagers with two years yet to go before we finish high school... means that I won't really be able to be as close to you as... as I *need* to." Another deep breath. "But anywhere more than an hour's drive away from Roswell, and nobody knows us from Adam and Eve - as it were. We... we don't even have to be high school students, I mean, we look our age, more or less, but we could pretend that we don't. I've got waitressing skills and you're... well, you're clever, pretty strong, and not too proud. We could find jobs more or less anywhere... rent a place of our own and move in together - why not??"

"We'd probably need some kind of proof of majority to rent an apartment," Max put in.

"So... you don't think you could do a kick-ass fake ID, with your special talents?" Liz joked. "Obviously it wouldn't be a good idea to use it for drinking, but to establish that we're nineteen or twenty, for getting jobs and a place to stay..." She sighed. "But getting caught up in practical details is a little premature, maybe. Do you think you can really go through with this? Leave your parents, Isabel and Michael, everybody?? Because if you can't, then we don't need to argue about the driver's licenses."

"I was using the driver's license stuff to buy time while I tried to let my heart sort out how it felt about leaving," Max pointed out.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't realize. We can go back to it if you like, I guess."

Max laughed softly. "No, that's okay. Um... what my heart feels... is confused definitely, but strongly drawn to your madcap plan, Liz Parker." She sighed slightly in pleasure... there was something about the way he said her name like that that put a shiver down her spine. "What... what you feel about needing to be... to be *intimate* with me, I feel it all too... that is, I think that what I feel is the same thing. And... and the fact that we've hardly had a chance to even see each other or talk except in the middle of full classrooms, ever since we spent the night together, out there in the desert, just amplifies the feelings and urges to a ridiculous extent... to the point where I'm willing to consider something that I'm not sure I'd ever have soberly thought I would."

Liz smiled a private smile again as Max's rant came to a ragged halt. "Well... so you're considering it. That's fair. Anything I can do to help you make up your mind?"

Max gave her a very nervous laugh. "When... when you were talking about getting a place of our own together, umm... does that mean, or mean to imply..."

Liz laughed herself... she couldn't help it. "Oh, so it's sex that makes the difference? I have to admit, Max Evans, I thought you were *different.*" She ladled the affectionate teasing into her voice with a metaphorical shovel, hoping that he'd realize she was just having fun and not get offended. "That you were a *sensitive* guy..."

"C'mon, c'mon," Max muttered, sounding not offended but very embarassed. "You know that I'm not some horndog who's only interested in one thing... but I think expecting full disclosure here isn't too unfair."

"Alright, alright," Liz agreed. "But... but to be honest I'm not entirely sure. Everything that my mom tried to get me to promise because she's scared, and because she has a bit more experience, is fighting a war with what I feel inside when I think of you." She took a deep breath. "I think I want to push the limits - go beyond what we've done so far. Actually making... making love, I'm not so sure that I'm ready."

"That... that's fair," Max admitted, and then muttered "gut check" under his usual speaking voice. Liz could hear him taking a deep breath and then said. "Yes... I'm up for it if you are... and we probably won't get a better chance to split than right now. Are you... ready? Are you serious about going?"

Liz did a small 'gut check' herself. "Yes. Let's leave town tonight."

"Alright, then here's step one in the plan," Max said. "You head off to the Tilden corner grocery, pick up some snacks for the drive. I'll snatch a few things and pack them into the Jeep, and meet you in the store parking lot in half an hour."

Suddenly the whole thing seemed terribly real to Liz... the fact that to run away from home they'd have to break restriction and leave their houses when they weren't supposed to hadn't occured to her as such. "Okay... but Max, I'll need to pack some things from here too. Clothes and toiletries, if nothing else."

Max smiled. "Right, of course... I nearly forgot. We'll probably go shopping for some new threads along the way... the better to not be recognized easily if my dad puts our pictures on the milk cartons," Liz laughed slightly, but there wasn't much humor in the notion. "Can you get anything you need in a backpack or something else that won't seem too unusual for a girl to be carrying while out shopping?"

"Yeah, definitely." Liz was already, in her mind, emptying all the school stuff out of her bookbag - she wouldn't need chemistry and biology textbooks where they were going - and trying to figure out how many of her favorite clothes she could fit into there. It certainly wouldn't seem unusual for anyone to see her carrying it around town, she was rarely without it... though some people might know that she wasn't supposed to be around town at all this week. "I love you."

"I love you too," Max said. "Synchronize watches." There was a bit of a fuss as Liz got into a position where she could adjust the buttons on her digital watch, which involved holding the phone in hte crook of her neck. "I have four oh-seven in four, three, two, one, mark." Liz made the necessary adjustments. "I'll try to be there by twenty to five, sound good?"

"Yeah, definitely," Liz agreed. "I can't wait."

-----------

Liz had finished her shopping and was waiting at the edge of the parking lot when Max pulled the Jeep in. He jumped down from the driver's seat and the two of them hugged tightly. Liz would have kissed him, except that she was worried getting herself started like that at the moment would swiftly, unavoidably, lead to completely inappropriate 'public displays of affection' and attract more attention to them... which was something they really didn't want. So after embracing him for only a few seconds really, far TOO few, she maneuvered free, tossed her two bags into the back of the Jeep, (one backpack filled with clothes and other essentials, one grocery bag filled with snacks and other good food for eating on the road,) and at the same time evaluated the gear that Max already had packed. There wasn't as much as Liz had been expecting, and it was all well packed in about three large suitcases and travel bags. "Is that all you took?"

"We need to travel light," Max whispered close to her ear, playing with the hair in that vicinity. "We'll need to carry it all by ourselves at one point in the plan."

"Oh?" Clearly Max had been writing stages into the plan that hadn't occured to her... which was probably good, since this time she had the big picture but not as many of the details worked out. "I hope it's not anytime soon."

"No." And Max turned her around so that they were both facing the car, his arm draped around her shoulders, and Liz had one arm reaching around his waist - it had gone there more or less automatically. "Right now - we drive." Liz laughed softly, kissed him quickly on the cheek, and rushed around to the passenger side seat. Max quickly peeled out of the parking lot and started heading west along Tilden, which was really not a bad way of going, except for the occasional stop sign. (If he'd gone up to Second avenue, there'd have been both stoplights, and more chance of a friend of their parents spotting them.) Soon they were through that little stretch on Tilden, from South Kentucky Avenue to South Missouri, where it split up and had a wide island between the eastbound and westbound lanes, and then they had to wait for the red light at South Washington to turn.

"Where... where are we going?" Liz asked Max breathlessly. "I mean, once we get out of Roswell? Do you have any idea?"

"Yeah, the sketch of an idea at least," Max assured her. "To Socorro first, and then up to Albuquerque that way... we'll probably stop at a motel for the night somewhere on the I-25 before getting in to Albuquerque... that is, if we can sort out fake IDs or find a motel that won't give us a hard time for being so young." Liz smiled. "In Albuquerque, I want to sell the Jeep and buy new wheels... that's why we'll have to carry our own gear... and we can probably do some other shopping while we're there... get a little bit more luggage and some new clothes. After that... well, it was my notion to head for the northwest corner of the state, opposite from Roswell. I'd rather not cross state lines, or get particularly close to them, but staying well away from Roswell sounds like a good idea."

Liz shivered a bit... there was something about the matter-of-fact way that Max was talking about this that jarred against her expectations just slightly. "You... are you worried about our parents finding us?"

"I know my father will look," he said in a low voice. "And there's no point in going if he'll be able to find us easily." He looked over at Liz - already they were starting to get close to the west end of town, and he had left Tilden street for Alameda, which would let him get further without having to join the main road. "Are... are you freaked out by the idea of trying to hide, like this?"

"A... a little," she admitted. "Guess I hadn't realized how hard it would seem, emotionally." She sighed. "But... but I do want to go through with this, and if that means doing what we can to make sure that nobody can find us, then I'll do that." Liz jumped a little in her seat. "But our friends, Isabel, Maria, Michael and Alex... are we going to be able to let them know that we're okay, and that we don't want them looking for us?"

"Yeah, probably," Max agreed. "Drop them letters or postcards, as long as the postmarks won't lead them straight back to us." He sighed heavily. "I have to admit, I'm a little worried about Isabel trying to find me in my dreams."

"In your dreams??" Liz asked, shocked. "What does that even... ohhh. Maria mentioned that she had a creepy dream about Isabel, a few weeks after she found out about you guys... and that Isabel seemed to know about it the next day."

"Yeah," Max agreed. "I think it was probably a creepy dream to start with - she can't change what people are dreaming about... at least, she says she can't. But she walked into Maria's dream to observe her, to find out what was on her mind. I think she's probably done it to Alex too, though he might not remember. And... and if she wants to find me, she might try to dreamwalk me... or you. I'm not sure what the range of that little trick is, though... I don't think she's ever done it on someone who wasn't in town."

"Well.... what if she does?" Liz asked. "I mean... oh, right, our dreams might have images from our waking lives, or other clues to where we've gone." Max nodded. "Well, I guess we'll worry about that situation when it comes up... if we happen to remember the dreams that she goes walking in." She looked around a bit. "By the way, is there any particular reason we're going through Socorro?"

"Not... not really," Max admitted. "I didn't want to go the most obvious way to Albuquerque, the north way out of town... not entirely sure why." He sighed. "It'll take a bit longer, but not much."

"Hey, that's okay," she insisted. "I was just curious whether you knew there Socorro is the other major hotbed of UFO rumors in New Mexico, besides Roswell."

"Hmm... I think I'd heard some kind of rumors, yeah," Max agreed. "Someone was asking Milton about them once... he said it was just bored college students playing jokes on passers by."

"And one other question," Liz continued. "Just because we'll be buying a new car, or you will be anyway... why does that mean we'll have to carry our luggage any distance WITHOUT a car?"

She blinked in surprise when Max told her.

----------

"Okay," Max said. "You'll let me know if you see a place you want to stop for dinner?"

"Oh, let's not stop someplace that we can see from the interstate," Liz chided. "Go off the interchange and into Socorro. Come on - we need a bit of a change of pace after driving all this way."

Max stole a split second to take his eyes off the road and look at her... and nearly forgot that he had to look back to where they were going again. It was at times like these that he could hardly believe that Liz really loved him too... and that they'd made their way through all of the crazy angst and uncertainties of the past six months to be together. Even when he was staring down his lane, the image of Liz Parker, radiant in the evening twilight and the white overhead highway lamps, remained clearly visible in his mind. "Umm, okay. My dad always said that you needed to be careful in Socorro or you wouldn't be able to find your way back out, but I think we're up for the challenge, eh??"

It had been a long drive from Roswell already, more than three and a half hours... mostly west by northwest along US 380. About ten minutes ago he had turned onto the interstate that let up from El Paso and Las Cruces into Albuquerque, and from there it turned back east, passing through Santa Fe before heading back north towards Denver. Max kept his eye out for the last interchange that would let them escape the Socorro bypass and get onto local city streets. "Socorro means help or refuge in Spanish, right?" Liz asked out of the blue.

"Umm... yeah, I think so," Max agreed. "Comes from the same latin root as the english word 'succor.' Socorro in New Mexico was named by explorers... who were almost dying of hunger and thirst when they arrived and were helped by homesteaders who had settled in the area... or something like that."

"Well... we can do with a little help and refuge," Liz decided. "Would be nice and fitting if this could be our permanent refuge, the place that we settle down to be by ourselves... but it isn't far enough away, small enough, or unlikely enough." She sighed. "'Socorro in New Mexico' -- are there other places named after the same word, Max?" Her voice was teasing - an invite to show off his useless knowledge, if he had any that was relevant.

"Umm... yeah, one in Texas definitely. Maybe another in Central america or something, I dunno."

"Oooh... flame-grilled burgers!" Liz exclaimed, pointing out a distant restaurant sign. Max had been shocked for a second that she'd been able to read such a thing... no, she'd probably just guessed by the little neon animation, the licking flames and the flipping patty. He chuckled and drove the slightly two more blocks, to turn into the parking lot. The sign read 'WELL DONE GRILL - Home of the KaiserBurger.' Max jumped out of the driver's seat, spread a tarp over the luggage in the back seat so it would be a slightly less appealing target, and stared at Liz as she came around the back of the car to meet him. Neither of them were wearing jackets, though the spring desert night was kind of cool, and they were both wearing the same clothes that they had put on for school that morning... Liz in a simple red t-shirt and blue jeans, Max wearing a white buttoned shirt and black dockers. They probably wouldn't attract too much attention at a place like this, even ordering farily big dinners at nearly eight pm.

Liz stole a kiss from Max before they walked in - not that he minded, of course.

There were some other young people in the dining room, but they didn't pay either of the Roswell teens any attention - at least, not at first. The restaurant seemed to be set up on an odd kind of hybrid system between a regular full-service sitdown place and a fast food, get your grub at the counter joint -- the two of them lined up to place their order at a counter, paid for it, and also selected a table from a map of the restaurant where the arrivals and departures were being marked as they occured. Then their table number was matched up to their order, and they went off to wait for a server to deliver their food when it was ready. (Drinks they took with them.) Once they were settled -- sitting together on one side of the booth, because sitting side by side seemed better than staring into each other's eyes at a distance -- Max pulled out a map of New Mexico and spread it out on the table.

"Okay, once we're done in the big city, any idea where we should head?" he asked her, and Liz blinked. "If we're trying to head north and west... well, there's just no roads heading directly out of town in that direction. We could keep going north on the I-25, and turn left onto the 550 at, um, at... Bernalillo, or go west on the I-40 and head north on the, urm, probably the 371."

Liz perused the map for a moment. "Looks like the 550 probably gives us the best choices for where to stop." She sighed. "Probably shouldn't go terribly near Bloomfield - Alex's grandparents live there, and I spent a month and a half with him and them, two years ago in the summertime. My parents just might think of looking for me there."

"Hmm." Max thought about that. Bloomfield was pretty much slap bang in the area he had been thinking of. "Then maybe stop short of Bloomfield? Say, umm, around Nageezi?" Liz laughed at the town name of Nageezi, and then their food arrived, and Max folded up the map and they tried to distract themselves by talking about less serious stuff.

Once they had both started in on their burgers, a tall blond guy, about their age, stepped up to the table, completely ignoring Max. "Hey, beautiful," he said to Liz. "Are you new around here?"

"Umm... just passin' through, actually," Liz replied, putting a bit of a western twang into her voice for no particular reason. "Just grabbing a bite to eat, and then we will be hitting the highway again." She snickered softly. "Don't want no trouble."

The blond guy seemed a little off-put by her cliched dialog, but continued on. "Drivin' up the Interstate?"

"That's our business, and not yours," Max mummbled in irritation. He didn't like the idea of locals finding out what they were up to, even if it was a million to one against anybody from Roswell happening to find these particular locals. (And it probably was better than a million to one against, considering that his parents would only need to talk to two people in the State, outside Roswell to get up to that level.)

"You're awfully touchy, for somebody who doesn't want any trouble."

Max thought about that a second. "Yep. Have a nice evening."

And there wasn't much the blond guy could say to that, or maybe he just didn't think that trying to hit on a pretty girl was worth this much trouble. Liz and Max focused on their food, sitting even closer together to send a nonverbal message to anyone else watching them, and talked in hushed voices about their plans.

Soon the burgers and fixings were done, and a waitress had picked up their dirty dishes, and the two Roswellian lovers went back up to the counter to get ice cream cones and take them out into the parking lot. "Do... do you suppose that maybe we could just stay in Albuquerque?" Liz asked wistfully. "I've always had a bit of a yearning to try out life in the big city... or reasonably big compared to Roswell, anyway. We'd be two needles hidden in a pretty darned big haystack."

"Hmm." Max thought about that. "Maybe. But if there's a serious attempt to find us, then the big city means a lot more people who would see us, who might lead our parents to us, or at least into the right area. I think that a small town is probably a better bet... a really tiny place, much smaller than Roswell. Lost in the vast distances of the desert."

Liz paused a moment, then nodded, accepting what he said. "Yeah, plus I guess it's a bit of a cliche - teenage runaways heading off to the big city to try their luck." Max nodded.

They ate their cones in silence for a little while, and Max realized that he was starting to stare at the way Liz was using her tongue, darting it out of her mouth, licking and teasing the gooey white stuff... "Hey, what?" she mumbled, noticing Max's intent gaze on her face. He couldn't bring himself to reply, and Liz went to lick up a stray drop of melted vanilla that had started to escape down her sugar cone... and something about Max's expression when she did that must have given her the hint. "Ohhh..."

"Umm, yeah I guess so," Max mumbled awkwardly, not sure what else to say.

"Classic oral fixation," Liz whispered throatily, and made an even bigger show of licking something off the head of her mound of ice cream, and then sticking the entire 'head' of the cone into her mouth and sucking on it. Max heard a soft, slightly high-pitched moan escape from it, and Liz convulsed into giggles... which made her nearly choke for a second until she took the ice cream cock out of her mouth.

"I... I'm gonna have to remember that one," she said sexily, and then used her lips to pull off a chunk of mostly melted ice cream. "You'd better worry about your chocolate though, mister." Now that the metaphor had been established, Max was having a bit of trouble putting it out of his head... including the slightly disturbing implications of himself licking at something dark brown... or when Liz bit into the sunken remains of a sugar cone. Come on, boddy, he reminded himself suddenly. Sometimes ice cream is just ice cream.

"You... you remember those stupid oral history questionnaires we had to fill out for class last semester?" Liz asked, and Max nodded. "Isabel seemed to be personally affected that I could like anything as... as boring as vanilla ice cream."

"Yeah, that'd be Isabel," Max agreed. "When we started high school, I think that she was keeping a list of all the things she was convinced I just did or liked because I was on a quest to drag her down in the popularity rankings." He sighed. "Don't worry, baby... I like the vanilla too, some of the time."

Liz immediately broke out laughing again, and Max shot her a puzzled look. "Umm... um, I'm sorry - it's just that... well, vanilla's also a term, for, well, bedroom preferences, and I'm not quite sure exactly why my mind went there first."

Max considered that. "Were you more amused by the notion of me liking vanilla in bed," he probed, "or by the implication that a lot of the time I *wouldn't* prefer vanilla in bed?" Her eyebrows raised.

"Umm... a little of both, I guess, come to think of it." And there was something in her look for a moment that was subtly alluring.

They chatted more about the oral history assignment, which had happened right around the same time that Michael had taken off for Marathon to find Atherton's geodesic dome, so that all of them had had to rush to finish it at a time when they really had much bigger issues on their minds. Max, in particular, had had to go back to work with his partner, Kyle Valenti, after Kyle had caught the five of them (Liz, Maria, and Isabel, Michael and Max,) in a motel room miles from Roswell, and the young jock had peppered him with questions that weren't on the assigned list.

"Okay," Max muttered once the stories, and the ice cream cones, were all done with. "Head back to the interstate now?"

Liz considered a moment, looking around her. "Yeah I guess." She seemed regretful about not having a better chance to explore Socorro, but this really wan't the time. "Can I drive for a bit?"

Max smiled. Liz wasn't the best driver in their little group, but she actually wasn't bad on freeways, and his hands were a little tired of holding the wheel. "Sure." And he kissed her long and deep before giving up the keys.

----------

Isabel knew that something was wrong as soon as she pulled up to the house. It didn't take any exceptional intuition to come to that realization. It was the fact that the Jeep was nowhere around that started her off.

Max was supposed to come straight home after school on days when he wasn't working at the UFO center, (which weren't many days lately - Dad had gone down to talk to Milton and personally gotten Max switched to a lighter work schedule that was mostly weekends,) and he wasn't scheduled for work this afternoon. Her dad's car wasn't there either, and and her parents weren't expected back from a deposition marathon until... well, until half an hour from now.

A quick search of the house was enough to convince her that nobody was home. "Maybe... maybe mom and dad came home early," she whispered to herself. "And they decided to go out to dinner with Max or something... without calling my cell to see if I wanted to come along... and driving in seperate cars."

She couldn't really make herself believe it... and then she started to notice things missing. Max's favorite blue suitcase. The little box of houseware stuff that Grandma Chalmers had left to both Evans siblings, for when they wanted to live on their own the first time. A better-than-decent CD boom box.

Exactly the kind of stuff that Max might grab in a hurry if he were leaving Roswell, and not planning to come back.

It was actually twenty minutes before Isabel's parents pulled into the driveway, but somehow it felt more like twenty seconds. She hadn't had time to make up her mind what to say to them, but somehow her mouth opened and formed words without any hesitation.

"I... I think Max did something really stupid."

----------

"Oh-- okay, here we are," Liz said, as she pulled into the motel parking lot. "I think this'll probably be the last place to stop for the night that isn't actually on the Albuquerque outskirts, if you think that makes a difference."

"Maybe not," Max replied, "but it seems as good a place to stop as any... I have to admit I'm a little stressed out and tired, and going any further tonight probably isn't a good idea."

"Right, so... what now? Do we just walk into the office together and ask for a room?"

Max thought about that for a long moment. "Yeah, we go in together... that way it seems like we've got nothing - and nobody - to hide. Though it's probably best if we can keep from being all over each other while in there." He laughed cheerfully. "I know that'll be hard on you." Liz rolled her eyes slightly, but chuckled too. "One thing first." Max pulled out his wallet, prduced his driver's license, and concentrated hard on the tiny little molecules of pigment that represented the printing on it. (The picture he left alone, of course.) Once he was done, which took almost half a minute, he passed the little laminated card over to Liz, who peered at it critically. "So you're, umm... twenty years and eight months now. And your name is... Jacen. Jacen White." Liz seemed to consider that name, whispering it silently as if getting her lips used to it. "Not too bad I guess... has a bit of a ring to it. But why'd ya spell Jason in such a funny way?"

Max shrugged. "No particular reason... except that I thought it might seem less suspicious to be more conspicuous, if that makes any sense. You wouldn't think that Jacen with a c was a fake name to avoid attention, would you?"

"Umm... I guess not," Liz admitted softly. "What about me?" She already had her license card out and passed it into his hands.

"Any preferences for your new name? You're the one who's gonna have to be answering to it."

"Hmm... is Alisa okay, or does that seem too close to my old one?"

"Sounds great to me," Max admitted. "Alisa anything in particular?" Liz shook her head, and Max started to focus on her license. Soon it was ready and handed back.

"Alisa Miller," Liz said, and smiled. "Cool." She looked at the date figures and blinked. "You made me twenty-one?"

"Umm, yeah. I thought it might open up some new job opportunities for you. Why, don't think you can pass for 21?"

"Umm... I'm not sure," Liz admitted. "Never really thought about trying to. I'm short, after all, and, well..." She crossed her arms over her chest diffidently.

"Lots of women who are twenty-one, or even older, are short and... slender," Max pointed out. "If you're confident about it, then you'll be fine. We'll go shopping tomorrow for some clothes that are a bit less high-school - that should help." A pause. "And now the moment would seem to be upon us."

"Hmm?" Max nodded towards the motel office. "Oh, right. Yeah, better go in or they'll wonder what were're so scared of, sitting out here." And so they hopped out of the Jeep again and went into the office.

There wasn't anything particular to be worried of. The desk clerk seemed to be far too bored to be suspicious or pay much attention to them in any particular way. The only thing he said that wasn't absolutely essential to the basic transaction of getting a motel room was that there were no discounts or adjustment on the room rate just because the cable TV was out. Max had to stop himself from saying that that wouldn't be a problem. They got room number 107. Liz went over to park the Jeep in front of their door, while Max went to investigate the premises more directly and see just what they were in for for the night.

It didn't look too bad. A slightly stiff double bed, a little television across from it blaring static at high volume... who had turned that on? If it had been the last people in, wouldn't housekeeping have turned it off, considering that the cable was out? Or maybe they usually left it on, and this room had been cleaned before it cut out. Certainly the room seemed sufficiently clean, if not extravagantly so. There was a small bedroom with a stall shower, two armchairs, a coffee table, a bare desktop with a slightly wobbly chair pulled up next to it, and... well, and that was about it.

Liz showed up at the door before Max had done more than give the interior a once-over. "Ehhh."

"Were... were you expecting something nicer?" Max asked, his spirits suddenly crashing.

"Umm... no, er, well, I dunno. I probably was, even though I know that I shouldn't have been." Liz looked at him apologetically. "But it's alright, really it is. We're here together, and that's the most important thing of all." And she closed the door and melted into his embrace, in just exactly that way that they hadn't been able to be close all day... or for nearly two weeks, as far as that went. Max brought his lips to Liz's, and a sudden surge of heat flooded through his body, weakening his knees as it passed through them towards his feet.

Apparently the 'weak in the knees' effect had been a little too strong, and maybe it had affected Liz as well as Max himself, because all of a sudden they were falling - Max backwards, Liz forward on top of him. For a split second while he was in mid-fall, Max wondered if this might be fun. Then the impact hit, more than a little jarringly, and his bones seemed to rattle with it. "Ohhhhh," he moaned into Liz's face.

She backed off just a little. "Oh, are you... I'm sorry!"

Max looked up at her... not that he had much choice about that it seemed. "Did... did you push me on purpose?"

"N--no!!' Liz exclaimed. "Well, not, no, not really 'on purpose.' I... I felt myself going a bit weak, and I leaned harder into you, and then you were leaning away and pulling me with you." She reached out a hand to stroke the side of my face. "Is your delicate little head all goose-egged now?"

"I... I'm not sure," Max said. He shifted his head slightly and felt an irregularity that might become a bump. "Yeah, I'm pre-bump. And... and I think my wrist is wonky from how I landed on it."

Liz made a sad-puppy-dog face. "Can... can you heal yourself, or just other people?"

"Umm... I'm not sure about bigger things, but I can fix little scrapes and strains like this, yeah." He started to get up, and Liz hurried around to support as much of his weight as she could by draping an arm around her own shoulders. Her assistance seemed to help a lot, though Max couldn't tell if that was a physical effect or emotional, or some of both. They headed over to the bed, and Max relaxed and concentrated on trying to access his healing talent.

"Not... not a very auspicious way to start the night, was that?" Liz said forlornly.

"No, I guess not," Max admitted. "But it doesn't really matter much. Like you said... we're together, and that's the only thing that matters. I just need to remember not to kiss you that hard when we're standing up, and away from soft surfaces to fall onto." Liz laughed at that phrasing.

They chatted a bit, and Liz turned off the television, examined the bathroom, and brought in some luggage while Max relieved the inflamed tissue on top of his skull and fixed the strained tendons in his wrist. Then Max made Liz sit down in one of the armchairs and relax, while he went out and brought the rest of the luggage in - stuff that they didn't need to spend the night, but Max was worried that somebody might swipe stuff out of the car. When he had finished bringing the last load - the heavy box of dishes - in, Max only just had time to let it fall to the floor inside the door before Liz took his hand and led him back to the bed. She kissed him passionately and fell back onto the mattress, and Max was laughing inside his mind. He'd said that she shouldn't kiss him unless they'd fall onto a soft surface, and she was taking him very literally.

Very quickly, Max got a flash, a mental image of the two of them... sitting in the Jeep, parked somewhere dark, and Liz suddenly bent down and stuck her head in the vicinity of his lap, maneuvering away from the steering wheel. Was she about to... no, this was something that had already happened, the night that they went to spy on Topolsky spying on Michael. But Kyle had been spying on THEM, and had jumped to the conclusion that Liz had been giving him a blow job from the position... she actually dropped her ring near his feet and had been reaching down to look for it--

Max found himself looking into Liz's eyes, wide open and staring at him slightly. Max traced a line from her mouth to her right ear with his own lips. "Did you have a flash too?" Liz nodded. "What did you see??"

"Umm... you and me, together -- we looked a little different but I can't say exactly how," Liz gasped out as Max continued to nuzzle her ear. "You kissed me, and we closed a door, locked it, and went downstairs... it's like we were living in a little apartment on top of... of a general store, or a laundromat or something."

Max grinned at the thought. "Sounds good to me. Now all that we need to do is find that store, and we'll be set." Liz giggled. "Did you see any of where we went to when we got to the bottom of the stairs?"

"No, the flash wasn't that long," Liz said with a sigh, "but I think we might have been heading off for seperate jobs or something." She sighed. "I... I don't really care that much about our future at the moment. Tomorrow will come soon enough. Right now, I just want to live in the moment, to think only about tonight."

"That sounds good to me," Max said, and he bent down to kiss her cheek. "What do you think ABOUT tonight??"

"I think... I want to do this..." And Liz kissed him on the lips again, her tongue quickly moving into his mouth with the urgency of her passion, her hand stroking his shoulder and his arm. "And this..." She started to lave his jaw and neck with her tender tongue, washing it carefully and thoroughly like a sexy catbath, her arms both going under the hem of Max's shirt and starting to push the fabric up, exploring and teasing Max's abdomen and his lower chest.

"And maybe even just a little bit of this." Within a second Max's entire shirt was pulled off of him, and the sexy dark-haired nymph was pushing him back so that his head rested on the fluffy pillows, stradding his hips, and bending down to suck hard and nibble gently on Max's nipples. The combined sensation sent Max's libido nearly through the roof, and he struggled to keep it contained rather than letting loose something that the two of them still weren't ready for.

"Oh, wow, that is absolutely amazing," Max cheered her, which elicited a sexy laugh from Liz, an even more intense sense of suction that concentrated more directly on the tips of his nubbins, and some deliciously teasing fingertip action as Liz let her hands explore the skin near Max's waist. "How... how far are your prepared to go tonight??" he asked in a low growl. "I kinda need to know now."

"Umm." Liz backed away slightly to consider the question, first taking her lips and hands away from Max's torso, and then, belatedly, she seemed to realize just how close their private parts had been in that position, and shuffled down nearly to his knees.

"I... I'm not s... well, I'm sure about some things, so let's start there. We... we're not going 'beyond the galaxy' -- err, do you know what I mean by that?"

"Umm... mostly by the process of elimination, but yes," Max said with a soft laugh. "There's only one thing that tends to deserve euphemisms that big. No actual sex."

"Riight," Liz agreed. "And, erm, nothing with the term 'sex' in it... I know that that's a little ambiguous, considering how many different names different physical activities have, but..."

"Yeah, I got it," Max said with a tolerant smile. "If even one well-known name is 'such-and-such sex' then it's off limits." A thought occured to him. "What about, erm, using our hands, below the belt? Hand job, fingering... I don't think that fits your previous rule, but..."

"No, again not tonight." Liz sighed. "I... I want to get there, or even further, but I'm not quite ready." She considered. "Actually, I think I'd like to, umm, to touch your thing, if that's okay. I can understand if you don't want me to until I'm really ready to, uhh, to take care of it, but..."

"No, no, come on," Max insisted. "What kind of a chauvanistic frat boy do you take me for? If you want to get used to the fact that I have guy parts gradually, then go RIGHT ahead, please, and I will do anything I can to assist. Better than you not getting comfortable with... with those parts of me."

"Guy parts?" Liz grinned, and pulled off her demure blouse in a single gesture to reveal a black cotton bra that, though similarly plain in cut, made Max's heart pound. "And I suppose that makes these girl parts?" She did something to the place where the bra seperated her girl parts, and pulled one cotton cup aside, giving Max just an instant's glimpse of pale curvy skin and a small pink stiff mountain peak, before teasingly covering herself up again.

Max's breath caught. Somehow he hadn't thought of Liz as the kind of girl who'd wear a 'front-clasp-bra,' but now that he'd seen it, he definitely approved. "Umm, er, yeah. Very nice girlie parts, I would have to say. Do I... do I get to, um, to learn more about them tonight?" A pause. "They're not 'below the belt...' not the way you're wearing your belt at the moment at least."

Liz hesitated, but she started to smile, and then to grin. "Oh... okay, but just one word of warning. I'm not sure how much veracity to assign to stories I've heard and read, but there are some who believe that fooling around with a girls' breasts can have a huge affect on her willpower with respect to going further. So... umm, watch it, and when I say no more, I mean seriously no."

"Of... of course," Max said, and he sat up and gently pushed Liz's bra away from her chest and helped her shrug out of the garmet altogether. "One other thought that I thought I'd mention... when we back off from the point of no return, umm... maybe one or both of us would want to take care of business him or herself? And possibly even letting the other person watch?"

Liz's face went through a number of changes of expression too fast for Max to really catch them, ending in a mixture between shock and intrigue. "You mean, ummm..."

Max cringed, deciding that he'd gone too far. "Um, have you ever, ehhh..."

"Only once or twice before," Liz whispered softly. "But... but it's a good idea. I could probably do with one once we're done tonight."

Max grinned and stated to let his fingers wander softly over Liz's supple and silky flesh. "How -- how's this?"

"Not... not bad. You could stroke a little bit more firmly, if you want to." Max followed the instruction instantly, and they moaned at almost exactly the same time. He let his fingertips drag over the rougher, rosy skin at the foot of one of her passionate peaks.

"How... how about trying to use my mouth?" he asked. "Any suggestions?"

"Umm... careful to start... lick softly with your tongue, brush lightly with your lips," she advised. "I think. Never done this before, obviously."

He shot her a stern glare. "No? Kyle said differently."

"Ohmigawd, he did not. Max Evans, you fibber."

"Honestly, he did." Max bent down to lick carefully. "Of course, he was drunk at the time."

"Oh... valentine's day? Before I, um, bumped into you??"

"Yep. He asked if the meaningful stuff got guys any further, and said that he'd gotten to second base with you - as a reference point."

Liz giggled. "Well, now *you've* slid into second I guess, and WOWWW you're good at sliding." She giggled nervously. "So - um, what did you tell him, about if you got further?"

"I... I said that I'd seen into your soul." Max made Liz cry out in pleasure again. "Didn't seem to impress him as much as this... and I have to say I can kinduv see his point."

"That's the hormones talking," Liz chided him goodnaturedly. "Plenty of kids have had this kind of purely physical experience, but I don't think any of them could match the rare emotional connection we've experienced. Though... ahhhh, I have to admit that the physical is nice."

"True enough," Max agreed. "And together, they should add up into something greater than the sum of the parts... once we're comfortable enough with the physical that we don't automatically put up emotional barriers." He tried sucking on one of Liz's nipples, and it seemed to go over well - for both of them. "But the question remains - did you let Kyle get to second base?"

"Umm... well, he stuck his hand up under my shirt once, while we were french kissing," Liz said. "Nothing... NOTHING AT ALL like this, I can assure you."

Max grinned and let his fingers wander over Liz's skin, wondering how long it would take until he knew how to 'play her like a musical instrument.'


TO BE CONTINUED...

Part Two

"What... what do you mean they just left?" Maria asked. "So they're gone, and the Jeep is gone. Maybe... meybe they just snuck out to, umm... to go make out in the woods or something."

"For six hours?" Alex countered. "This is Max and Liz we're talking about... they're not as huge horndogs as all that."

"It... it's more than just the fact of their being gone," Isabel said softly. The four of them had met up in Michael's apartment... none of them could stay and talk long, it being so late, but Isabel just had to see her friends... and surprisingly enough, even Maria counted as a friend by now. "When I got home, I could tell that Max had taken the sort of thing that he'd take if he was running away from home for a long time - or for good. Apparently, Liz did too, though she didn't take as much - which makes sense if she was going with Max in the jeep, because he wouldn't want to drive right up to the parking lot where anybody might recognize him."

"So you think she left on foot, and met up with him a few blocks away or something?" Michael asked.

"I dunno... I guess so. Couldn't really say how far."

"Well... if they wanted to ditch us, there's really no easy way for us to track them right off," Michael muttered. "We don't have the resources that, say, your dad can bring to bear. He's not taking it lying down, is he?"

"Umm... I don't think so - he said something about making an appointment tomorrow," Isabel whispered.

"Probably just about any law firm has a contact with some kind of private detective," Alex mused.

"They're not like Perry Mason, ya dope," Maria snapped at him.

"No, but still... whenever you're working with the law - a, you're working with facts, and sometimes you'd need someone with skills at finding facts that are hidden," Michael reasoned. "And - b, there'll come times when you'll want to find someone who's trying to hide from the law."

"In the meantime, I'll try my own avenue," Isabel whispered softly. "I only hope that the wings of dreams can carry me far enough."

"What was that?" Alex asked her.

"Oh, nothing." Isabel made a not-very-convincing show of yawning. "Come on, we'd better be getting back home. Goodnight, Michael."

----------

"Well, that... that was definitely different and interesting," Liz said, cinching the fluffy white robe tight around her waist and settling into the armchair, trying to get comfortable. After the makeout session, the two of them had attempted to settle their boiling hormones by masturbating, in turn, each before the other's eager and hungry eyes. Relief from arousal had been no more than partial, but taking cold showers - alone - had helped to make up the difference.

"Yeah," Max said, with a little smirk. "We'd probably better get to bed, so that we can start early in the morning."

Liz grinned back at him. "If we both get into the same bed, do you really thing we'll be able to get much sleep??"

Max thought about that. "Hmm... Maybe I should have asked if they had any doubles."

"That woulda cost more," Liz pointed out. "And we don't have that much in terms of money, do we?"

"Not for the moment, no," Max said softly. "And I'm not quite sure when or how we'll be able to get more." He sighed. "If I take some of the blankets, I can probably make myself a bed on the floor..."

"No," Liz said, getting up. "Come on, Max - I was joking. Normally, yes, it might be hard to concentrate on sleeping next to you, but as you point out, these aren't normal situations. We need to get rest, and the best way of doing that is for both of us to use the bed." She sighed slightly. "Under the circumstances..." and Liz took in a deep breath again. "I'd love to try sleeping in your arms again, but this might not be the best time. Maybe we should avoid touching too much?"

Max felt his face fall in disappointment, but he realized that Liz had a point... considering that the charge of energy he felt when he touched Liz seemed to take a long time to fade away, and made him feel completely awake and alert while it was running through his system...

Of course, they'd fallen asleep embracing after finding the Orb, but they'd both been nearly exhausted by passion and exercise then, and hadn't exactly gotten the best of rest. "Okay, umm... change into sleeping things?" Liz nodded, and they both hurried over to suitcases, looking away from each other by unspoken agreement. Max had seen enough of Liz naked tonight, but he didn't really need a refresher as he was getting ready for bed. He laughed softly when he realized that both of them had changed into old t-shirts and cotton shorts as pajamas.

"I wish I hadn't had to take that shower... or that I'd done a better job of keeping my hair from getting wet," Liz complained softly as she considered the bed. "I just hate trying to sleep with..."

She broke off suddenly, for Max had waved his hand in the vicinity of her head, and within a few seconds her long dark hair had dried out. It wasn't dry enough to feel unmanageable or unhealthy, nor was it even slightly warm... it felt just as if several hours had passed since her shower... and also as if it had been well combed and carefully brushed during that nonexistent span of time. "Wow, thanks," she told him wonderingly. "Having an alien around is gonna be handy in a bunch of little ways, I somehow suspect." Max grinned, suspecting that she was teasing him slightly... and deciding that he liked it.

And with that they lay down on the bed, keeping a narrow space between them, and tried to get to sleep.

----------

Max rolled over in confusion the next morning, not really remembering where he was... he could tell that the matress was slightly different from his usual bed and the pillow was a bit thicker. In the process of rolling over, he happened to bring his body fully up against Liz. "Oh, whoops," he mumbled, remembering their agreement then.

"Ehh, I'm not sure I'd agree with that response," Liz said, a trace of laughter in her voice. "I can think of worse things to bump into me first thing in the morning."

Max laughed, relieved that she wasn't upset about his accidental slip. "Any... any idea what time it is?" he asked, feeling a slight twitch in Liz's hips and trying not to react to the movement too obviously. She reached out slightly, shifting her whole body closer to the bedside table, and Max took the opportunity to adjust the 'little green guy.' (Not that it was actually green of course, call it a tasteless joke.)

"S... something like ten minutes to six," she reported. "Any idea how early we should hit the road?"

"Ehh, sometime soon, but we don't need to hurry." Max yawned. "We'll probably get caught in the rush hour traffic into the city, but that's alright with me. Getting ourselves lost in a crowd, et cetera."

"Alright." Liz stretched her arms out, and even in the dim light that filtered through the motel window Max couldn't keep his eyes away from her body in motion. "Then... we go car shopping, right??"

"Pretty much. Might try some other shopping first if there's an opportunity." That reminded Max that he didn't have much time to put off a job that he hadn't exactly been looking forward to. Sighing, he sat up in bed, shuffled over to the side, and reached out to snag his pants from last night, which were sitting on the dresser top. He only managed to hook one finger into the material of a pantleg, and dragged the garment back to the bed in a noticeable state of disarray.

"Hey," Liz exclaimed in teasing outrage... (at least, Max really thought and hoped it was teasing.) "I *carefully* folded those last night, mister."

"And who asked you to?" Max shot back, but he was smiling. "Sorry. I'll fold'em back up once I've got what I need."

"S'alright." Liz had sat up too by now, her legs folded lotus-style as she regarded him with a fairly wide-eyed gaze. "Whatcha up to??"

"Trying to get us a bit more spending money," Max said darkly. From the jeans, he took his wallet, and from the wallet, he extracted a fairly thick wad of paper money. He'd always wondered if he would have to do something like this one day, and had prepared for it. He had collected a few representative samples of high denomination bills - three hundreds and four fifties, in as wide a selection of ages as he could, and acquired smaller face-values in sheer quantities - mostly ones and fives, some twos. There were about a dozen mixed tens and twenties as well.

"So... what, you're going to try using alien powers to fake money?" Liz breathed. "Change the smaller bills into more valuable ones?" She drew in her breath. "Pretty hard-core for my morally upstanding, all-american sweetie."

Max shot her a look. "I wouldn't do it if I didn't think the need was great. If I do it right, then it'll be a victimless crime - nobody getting the raw end of the deal, just a little more cash in circulation, and the treasury releasing a few less hundreds here at the end of the summer, maybe." He sighed. "I... I know, 'what if everybody else could do it?' But..."

"No, I think I understand what you're saying, Max." Liz sighed. "I guess part of what's hard to work out here is... is there a 'greater purpose' for us going off on our own? Fundamentally speaking, does it matter? If this is just about you and me, then it seems a bit presumptuous to suggest that going off and playing house is worth it if it means we have to manipulate the national economic system to do it, even in such a small way as this. If... if we were running away from bad guys, or on a mission to help somebody, then that would obviously be different. But our parents don't qualify as 'bad guys,' no matter how much we don't want to get found by them."

Max smiled slightly. It didn't surprise him that Liz had found a completely inarguable moral framework to settle this question in. "Okay, then let's look at it on that basis. Is... is it possible that there might be some greater good that we don't really understand yet? I... I don't think that what we're doing is something immature or selfish, though it might look like it at first glance." He sighed. "Does that sound ridiculous? 'Yes, there's a very good reason that I should counterfeit money to make sure we can run away from our parents and our friends, I'm just not quite sure what it is yet.'"

"On... on one level, it does," Liz admitted. "On another... I guess I must be just as ridiculous, because I think I feel the same thing that you do, although I didn't realize it until just this moment." She sighed. "But... but we should probably be careful - not to fake more than we think we'll need, and not to use it unless there's absolutely no choice."

Max considered. "Okay, that's fair. Let's see." He pulled out a relatively new, but not perfectly crisp one, and a hundred that was in very similar condition. Among the other preparations that Max had made for this sort of thing, he'd studied a bit about counterfeiting... what were the basics that needed to be done, and some of the more advanced details that tended to trip beginners up. He'd even tried to memorize some of the rules for american bill serial numbers, and how each of the digits were marked, since that seemed like the area where he'd need to vary from his template most often. Of course, he didn't need to use the same techniques that human counterfeiters did, but a lot of the lessons seemed to carry over.

He made four more hundreds and two fifties that morning, and then Liz managed to completely distract him by asking if he wanted to shower together. (Like he'd turn an offer like that down.) Liz's attitude towards him ever since they'd arrived in Socorro had been... a mix of practical modesty and outrageous tease. Maybe, freed from the limitations of life in Roswell, Liz wasn't quite sure how sexual she was ready to be yet, which might account somewhat for the sudden swings and shifts. On the other hand... well, when it wasn't literally driving him crazy, Max supposed it was about as good a way as any of getting used to the situation. The two of them certainly had quite a lot of fun soaping each other down and scrubbing in the hot spray.

Then, they packed up again, checked out of the hotel, and stopped not quite a quarter-mile down the highway for breakfast - a sit-down grill place, fairly simple and none too clean, but homey. Liz had sausages and eggs on toast, and Max got bacon and waffles - and dribbled tabasco over both of them. Neither really wanted to talk about their plans yet until they were really on the road, so Max suggested playing a word game as they ate.

"I spy?" Liz countered.

Max almost giggled chewed waffle out of his mouth. "Ehh, why not? You pick something first."

"Alright... I spy, with my little eye... something that begins with a... k."

"Hmm..." Max muched on some bacon and considered this, turning around to get a better feel for what was in Liz's field of view behind his seat. "Is it a... kaiser??"

"Kaiser? Where??" Max pointed out the basket of rolls on the corner of a table near the kitchen door. "I'm not sure that there are actually any kaisers in there, Max."

"Still, it was a decent guess," Max protested.

"Sure - but that isn't it." She hesitated. "How do we handle this? Do you get some kind of clue for... no, that's not I spy. I can't remember what I was thinking of." She smiled and waited for the next guess.

Max got it on his fourth guess - koala (a metal toy koala for sale at a souvenir stand outside their window,) and neither of them felt like playing any more. Max offered to buy Liz the koala on their way out, but she said she really didn't like it that much.

Just as Max had predicted, they got caught up in a snarl of morning freeway traffic heading into Albuquerque from the south suburbs, which didn't seem to bother him unduly, and after shifting uncomfortably in her seat for the first few minutes Liz seemed to relax some. "So... we want to sell the Jeep in the big city, buy some kind of new wheels, and get new clothes. Anything else on the to-do list?"

Max looked over at Liz, since he didn't need to watch the road while they weren't going anywhere. She had gotten dressed for the day in a light blue sleeveless shirt that managed to tightly define her pert chest, and a matching skirt that left several inches of thigh uncovered. "Umm... nothing that I can think of at the moment, I have to admit. Grab something to eat while we're there... that's pretty obvious. Otherwise... I don't mind staying longer if there's any reason to, but I do want to keep heading north and west."

"Hmmm." Liz pondered that. "I - I keep having the feeling like there's something that we should remember to do while we're there, but can't remember what it is. Guess there'll be a few hours yet for it to come to me, huh??"

"Yeah," Max agreed. "Oh - hmmm."

"What is it?"

"Well... I think that I want to drop a letter to Isabel while we're still on the go, before we've got to wherever we're going, but not sure if Albuquerque is the best place to do it. Dad will probably figure out where the postmark is from, and if he starts looking in Albuquerque first, then that may help him to find out about the car we buy, and then maybe track us down using that."

"How much information do you think he'll be able to find out, Max?" Liz asked, curious. "Make and model isn't going to get him very far."

"No, but a VIN or something that'd tie into license info might," Max replied. "And I wouldn't put it past him to be able to work that sort of thing out."

"Errr..." Liz considered the implications of that a moment, and then tried to find a less upsetting topic. "So, what, probably one more night in a motel somewhere, and then by tomorrow afternoon we can probably arrive in... in wherever we're going." She thought about that. "Possibly find a permanent place to stay wherever it is on our first day, otherwise it'd be a third motel or inn, there in town. That won't be suspicious, a lot of new arrivals to really small places probably stay somewhere like that their first day or two."

Max just grinned a little. "Sounds like you've got it pretty much all worked out."

She blushed slightly. "Well, you did your share of planning, just thought I'd think about what I could."

Soon the traffic started to ease up slightly, and Max followed the crowd into town, taking an early exit to leave the main road at the edges of the city. He was looking for several things at once as they drove down a four-lane avenue, but what he'd found first was something that he had NOT thought to look for.

"Whah... why did you pull in here, Max??" Liz asked. "A bus station? We're not taking a bus out of town."

"No," Max whispered back. "But... but there'll be lockers in here, and remember that we'll be on foot for a while, travelling between car lots. Makes sense to dump some of our heavier things inside a locker, and then come back to pick it up once we've got the new wheels."

Liz smiled. "Yeah, alright. Good idea."

It didn't take them long to move Max's big box of dishes and a few other things into the station, feed a two-dollar bill into the machine for a locker token, then open a locker and cram as much as they could inside - which was quite a lot, really. They'd only have one bag each to carry themselves. The biggest worry on Max's mind was whether they looked inconspicuous or not.

"Not for overnight storage," Liz read off the locker door as she shut it. With a clunk, their token dropped into a collection bin hidden somewhere underneath metal, and she turned the key and removed it from its slot. "'All lockers emptied at 2 am.' Well, even if that happens to be true, shouldn't matter to us, right?" She tried the locker door, just to make sure it was secure, and then put her arm around Max.

"I should certainly hope so," Max agreed. By 2 am they should be in another motel room, far from Albuquerque. "Come on, let's go look for a used car lot."

-----------

"You could've got more for it," Liz muttered as they walked off the used car lot.

"Probably," Max agreed. "I dunno, I felt like I might have been more memorable if I'd struck a hard bargain."

"That's stupid," LIz said affectionately. "People in jobs like that forget the customers who drive hard bargains. It's the chumps who sell low and let them make big profits that stick in their minds, just like waitresses remember big tippers and generally forget the scrooges."

"Okay, I wasn't a chump," Max shot back with a trace of heat. "And you *do* remember the scrooges - you've complained about enough of them to me. Maria too. It's the people who are right in the middle of the bell curve who disappear, and I *think* that I was able to more or less hit that."

"Kay." Liz sighed, not pursuing the argument any more. "Hmm... bus stop." She pointed across the street and up a little ways, where a red and white sign was attached to a telephone poll, and three people were waiting around, one of them smoking a cigarette. "If we're trying to get to another car lot that's not too close, then bus-ing it will probably be better than walking, right?"

Max smiled. "Yeah... but I think we'll have better luck if we find a bus that's heading north instead of south."

Liz aimed a deadly pout at him. "Fine, mister smarty pants." But Max could tell that she was just having a little fun with him and understood his point - they were still pretty close to the south side of town, and near the south end of the auto district as far as Max could tell. "There should be a northbound stop on this side of the street, pretty much opposite the southbound, right?"

"Yeah, that makes sense," Max agreed. Soon enough they found another red and white sign - nobody else happened to be waiting at this one, but that suited him fine. The print on the sign read...

"Hey, baby, sweet legs!!" a voice called out from across the street. Max and Liz both looked over there, Liz blushing slightly. It was the smoker-boy at the other stop. "Who's the dweed??"

Max flushed with embarrassment and anger, but Liz just laughed. "A better man that you'll ever be, dimskull!" she called out. Smoker buddy seemed about to charge across the busy street to take offense, but then thought better of it and tried to pretend that he hadn't even heard.

Luckily, a bus came pretty soon, heading north. Liz took the lead, dropping enough quarters into the farebox to cover them both, (and more than enough to cover three adults on Roswell's bus system - guess that's the big city for you,) and asking a few questions about the route - enough to find out that this bus would be heading north along this avenue until it hit the main east-west street that cut Albuquerque into the south side and north side, then looping west and back south. That sounded pretty good for what Max had in mind... if they could get off just before or just after it turned for the second time, that would let them cover about the maximum possible distance - but would there be any places to buy a car near there??

Liz settled into a seat on the long benches that ran down the sides of the bus towards the back, and Max took his place right next to her. "Ohh - I think I've remembered something else that we should do while we're in the big city," Liz said softly to him after a moment.

"Umm... yeah? What's that??"

"Stop by a hair-styling place - or maybe two??" She paused while Max thought about that. "I mean, if we're getting different clothes so that we don't look quite like the same people that we were back in Roswell, completely different haircuts would do even better!"

"Hmm...." Max sighed as he pondered the proposal. "To a certain extent that makes sense, yeah. But..." He ran his fingers through the dark cascade of straight hair at the bottom of Liz's neck, delighting in how soft and sumptuous it felt on his fingertips. "I - I can't help it, I love this hair, and I'd miss it."

"Well, I don't need to cut it ALL off, you dweed." She giggled. "How about if I don't cut it at all, or no more than a split end trim, and get it all curly instead?? You could probably use your... talents to help the curls last, once we're out in the boonies."

Max pictured Liz with her dark hair in softly curled cascades. "Could... could work, yeah." Liz giggled. "And - and what would you have in mind for me?"

"Hmm..." Liz considered. "Well, you don't have that much to work with... not a dig, because I like your hair short like this, but... hmm. I admit, I hadn't really put that much thought into you." Max laughed softly. "You know what I mean. Umm... no, probably not any SHORTER, or some freaky style like punk." Liz thought silently for another few seconds. "How would you feel about a dye job? A few shades lighter, not a really intense blonde, but kind of a mid blond-brown. It would certainly make you look a lot different than I've ever seen you, and I think your skin tone would hardly scream at all if we can get the base tint right."

Max turned around and tried to look at his reflection in the bus window, to get an idea, but all he could see was the big city going by past them. "Like Kyle's hair??"

"No... no, lighter than that - Kyle's nearly as dark as you, isn't he??" Max was starting to chuckle to himself. "What's so funny?"

"Oh, never mind - I was just thinking of the blind date contest," Max told her. "Isn't your dream guy mysterious, from an exotic place, and DARK haired??"

Liz chuckled a bit, and then sighed. "If... if you must know, I don't think I really have a preference in the abstract. I said dark hair because *you* have dark hair, Max Evans, and because you'd just walked into the diner. When that DJ asked me the question, I mean. I'd love you just as much if you were a natural blonde, Max."

Max grinned. "And I'd love you as deeply if you were a... ohh, I dunno, I can't really think of anything." Liz snickered. "A japanese girl or something, whatever."

"Alright... sorry, japanese?"

"Not that I have any problem with, erm, with people who happen to be from the asian area," Max quickly told her. "Just was stretching for something that seemed unlikely and not really like... like your surface appearance, you know?"

"Okay, I guess." Liz nodded. "So, what do you think about the blond thing?"

"Umm... I put my hair into your hands," Max replied. "Care for it well, but I trust you to do that." Liz giggled.

"Alright. Your turn to think of something else that it makes sense to do while we're here in the city."

"Umm... why?" Max asked, curious. "Maybe these things are all... they'll certainly take enough time."

"Well, it doesn't hurt to try thinking of more."

"Hmm... I guess not, as long as we're still weighing whether each new thing is still worth the time it's taking. Otherwise we could be staying here for nearly a week." Liz admitted the truth of that with a nod. "Well, we could probably hit a department store, come up with another few household necessities that a place we rent might not have stocked... and that would be harder to find in a small town. Maybe a few little personal trinkets - not that they'll mean much to US personally... but, umm, just to blend in and such." He sighed, something new occuring to him. "What... what are we going to tell people when we settle down? I mean... at some point we're gonna need to come up with a full backstory for Jacen and Alisa - where we came from, why we're on the road."

"Hmmm... yeah, we will," Liz agreed. "But probably not here." Max agreed silently - the conversation was probably already getting a little too weird, in case anyone else was listening. But immediately Liz whispered something else suspicious - though she was careful enough to speak very close to his ear so that no-one else could hear. Anyone watching would probably suspect nothing more than a whispered endearment. "Did... did you do anything to change where our IDs were issued??"

"Ohh..." Max blinked. He hadn't thought of that... and wasn't sure if he should pull his drivers' license out or if that would look weird. How was that information presented? Surely Liz was right that there would be some way of telling - was it printed in perfectly ordinary words, or in an abbreviation, or a meaningless pattern of dots? Max couldn't remember. Probably not that many people would be looking at their identification, but leaving any link so clearly to Roswell in their lives was something that he wanted to avoid if he possibly could. "We'll talk about it later."

Right about that time, the bus turned the first time, and Max started belatedly paying close attention to the busy streets and crowded city about them. He spotted one small car lot and debated whether or not to ring the bell.

"Probably better," Liz advised. "I think he'll be turning in another three or four blocks." Max signalled, and the bus driver let them out onto the sidewalk shortly. It was just a little past 10 am now, the streets here still busy with shoppers, and maybe working folk who hadn't gotten to work yet or didn't need to quite yet. Carefully they made their way back east and across the street. "Hello there, kids," a greasy-looking salesman said as they stepped out onto the lot. "What can I do for you today??"

Max stifled a sigh... he'd have felt better if the guy hadn't immediately addressed them as 'kids', though he was probably in his mid-forties - hair greying a bit, short, skinny, and energetic. Did they really still look like high school sophomores? Would everybody immediately be able to tell?? "Hi there," he said forthrightly. "We're looking to buy this morning, but I think I want a little while to just browse around and see what you've got? Sound cool?"

"Hey, sure... no pressure, bub." Yeah right, Max would believe that when he saw it - but the salesman backed away a little, at least. "What do you think Alisa??" Max asked Liz. It made sense to practice using her fake name.

-----------

"Well, I like the jacket a lot, but I'm not sure about the hat."

Max looked up from the chair he was sitting in and could barely keep a snort from escaping. He had to agree with what Liz was saying - in fact, he would probably have said it more forcefully himself. Liz was wearing a very stylish (and rather sexy) leather jacket over her own shirt and skirt, zipped up halfway, and on top of her head, tilted at a rakish angle, was some kind of hideous french vinyl beret. The hat looked almost ridiculous on her, and Max couldn't stop himself from standing up and gently plucking it off of Liz's head. Now he could concentrate on the lines of the jacket. "Much better."

They'd bought the new car, covered some more distance through the city in it, and stopped at what Liz thought was a reasonably likely place for clothes shopping for her. After a moment, Liz decided that she agreed with Max - buy the jacket, lose the hat, and look for more street clothes to try on. Once she had amassed an armful of new candidates, Max sat back down, holding the jacket in his lap, and wondered about how long Liz would be here, and what they should do next. Lunch? It was a bit early for that, but Max was already feeling hungry - they'd got up early and had quite a busy day of it so far. Or maybe hitting a department store, or going back to the bus station to pick up the rest of their stuff. Oooh - where was Liz keeping the locker key, he wondered? In the clothes that she was taking off now?? (Max had to force himself not to think too hard of Liz stripping off clothes, considering that he was in a public place, and a women's boutique at that.) He hadn't noticed any pockets in either the blue top or the skirt. Maybe she'd just put it into her carry-along bag.

"Hey there, baby!" Max looked up and gulped. Liz was wearing a brownish-red shirt with a scoop neckline, (not a tremendously daring scoop, but just enough so to be interesting,) which just managed to clutch the very edges of her shoulders to hold itself up by, and was tightly fitting around her trim waist without seeming out of taste. The sleeves were very loose and drapey somehow. Along with this Liz had put on some sort of dark blue pants that were just slightly stretchy and tight. Altogether she looked quite sexy, (though still presentable in public,) and definitely more mature than Max had ever seen her.

"I love it," he said, getting up and immediately wrapping his arms around her.

"I'll just bet you do," she shot back with a wide smile. "Okay, there's more coming."

Liz tried on plenty more stuff, and though Max's libidinous side didn't like it all equally well, he had to agree with most of her choices as far as what would be best for starting her new life. The tab was high, and Liz caught Max's eye as he handed over several large bills to pay for it... the clerk blinked a little and ran them through a little machine that shone black light on them and examined one of them with a small magnifying glass. But there didn't seem to be any problem in the end, and Max hoped that whoever she ended up giving the fakes to would also recognize nothing strange about them, and so on at least until the chain couldn't be traced back as far as the boutique owner.

"Alright, what now?" Max asked, heading back to the car... a fairly sedate early-90s four door sedan with a light grey exterior. "Lemme know when you're feeling hungry, by the way."

"Hungry?" Liz jumped a little. "I'm not... and you?"

"Ehh, getting there. Don't worry about it."

"Alright, then... do you want to try some things on yourself?"

Max wasn't feeling tremendously excited about that, but... "Okay." They went to a nearby store and Max picked up several new outfits of his own, and then Liz suggested trying to find a hair salon. "This early??"

"Well, it'll be less crowded the sooner we get there," Liz pointed out.

"Alright," Max said. "Lead on, Miss Miller."

"Well, I have no idea where to find one," Liz admitted. "Let's try driving in an expanding spiral search pattern. Who knows - we might find something else that we weren't looking for."

----------

"Hey," Michael said, approaching the table at which Maria was eating her lunch in the quad. "How much has today sucked??"

"Umm... that's a pretty unusual conversation opener."

"If you've gotten this far without clueing in that I'm a relatively unusual guy," Michael quipped back, "then I guess I'm gonna have to be the one to break the news. C'mon, can I sit down??"

"Sure I guess." Michael sat. "And, in answer to your question... sucky isn't quite the word I'd have picked, but 'weird', certainly yes. Everybody seems to know that Liz is gone. Ten percent of the girls actually come up to me and ask me if I know where she went, and if it's true she left with Max. The other ninety percent are just whispering about it among themselves, and stop talking every time I come too close. It's definitely creepy."

"Well, at least you haven't been interrogated by the vice principal, some private eye from Mister Evans' law firm, and... and Sheriff Valenti." Michael shook himself a little. "All of them seem to think that I *had* to be in the loop with what Maxwell was planning - and the fact that he just left us all here holding the bag for the fallout of his romantic getaway is starting to piss me off."

"Why would you hold out a bag for fallout?" Maria asked. Michael shot her a look so dirty it was almost radioactive. "Okay, moving on... well, what did you tell them?"

"Pretty much the truth, minus usual secrets," Michael replied. "They got back together two weeks ago, big passion, staying out all night, got grounded. That Max had been starting to get really frustrated that he was being kept away from her. That I was supposed to meet Max for a game of one-on-one at his house last night, and he wasn't there. That's pretty much the it."

"Alright, okay, I guess that fits," Maria muttered. "I guess I'd better get ready in case they question me too, just to make sure that I don't get too nervous and blurt out entirely the wrong thing."

"Wouldn't suck," Michael replied softly. "Oh, I think Isabel's in a sour mood today - you might want to steer well clear of her unless you've got good news."

"Oh, really?" Maria's heart sank. "Any particular reason for the sourness that you know of?"

"Not sure, but I can guess - that she spent all night trying to dreamwalk Max and it didn't really work." Maria groaned at the mention of Isabel's powers in that direction. "Haven't quite got up the nerve to ask her about it directly... but if maybe Max was just close enough that she could tell that he was dreaming, and get in a little way, without being able to communicate with him or see much of the dream..."

"Isabel being Isabel, she wouldn't give up," Maria finished. "She'd just keep at it, each dream that Max had through the night, maybe doing Liz too as a way of getting to him. Hoping that one dream would be stronger or clearer than the rest." She let out a long breath. "Well, umm, thanks for the tip."

"Hey, it's the least that I could do." Somewhat tentatively, yet with a bold look in his eyes, Michael moved around the table so that he was sitting right next to Maria. "I... I've thought about what you were saying... um, when, well, when the whole Flashgate thing hit." He took a deep breath. "About being cold and mean."

Maria's eyes widened a bit. "Hey, that's... um, that's water under the bridge, isn't it?"

"Umm... I'm not sure that it is." Maria started to get a nervous look on her face. "Not... not in a bad way, or at least I hope not." He smiled weakly, and Maria copied the gesture. "The thing is... well, we've been hanging out over the past, erm, week and a half or so, fairly often." Maria nodded. "Keeping things casual, messing around with kissing and a little bit of other stuff now and then."

"I, I know this Michael... I was there."

"Sorry... let me ramble up to it in my own way?" Maria nodded with a mumbled 'okay' that he could hardly even hear. "The thing is... I sometimes feel like 'mean Michael' is my way of putting up a defensive shield when things are going wrong... or when somebody's getting too close, right?"

"Ahh." Maria nodded.

"Yep. And, well... something is in the process of going wrong, and... no matter how casual things have been, I can feel the two of us starting to drift closer, in a way. And... and the thing is, that I don't *want* to be cold to you, Maria. I really don't - and I'm a little scared that it's going to happen no matter what I want."

"Well..." Maria thought about that. "Just the fact that you've told me about it seems like a fairly good first start, when it comes to that. I'll... I'll try to bear in mind that you don't want to... or at the very least, that you didn't want to at this moment in time." Michael raised his eyebrows. "Well, whom among us can say for sure what we'll want in the future, you know? And.. well, the thing is, for all the fuss I raise, I'm not that much better than you are about knowing how to maintain an emotionally healthy, open and honest relationship." Deep breath. "Maybe... just maybe that's why I get so obsessive about it sometimes. We'll have to pull each other through as best we can, and perhaps ask for help when we need some."

Michael thought about that, about what he should say, and then realized, somewhat to his surprise, that he didn't need to say anything. He reached an arm around Maria's shoulders and held her next to him.

----------

"I need a favor," Isabel said, nearly jumping out in front of Alex as he passed the open door of an English classroom on the second floor of the school.

"Hoo boy," Alex mumbled. "The last time you asked me for help, well..." Alex trailed off, not quite sure exactly what he could possibly say about that moment. Isabel blushed, remembering what it felt like to stand with Alex's body just gently pressing against hers, as their lips pressed together with a naive passion that...

"Ermph." Isabel shook herself all over and tried to dismiss that particular flashback. "This is different. This time it actually is about driving." She took a deep breath. "I should give you some full disclosure first, though. I want to go to Albuquerque to try and find Max and Liz there. We may need to stay over the night. And I need a car, since I don't think I can borrow my mom's, today of all days." She sighed. "And since I didn't get much sleep LAST night either, someone else driving so I can sleep on the way up would be a good idea."

Alex had been blinking frequently through most of that speech. "Umm... okay, yeah, I've got wheels today... can I call my parents and tell them at least some of what's happening? I don't think they'd be terribly upset if they knew I was trying to get Liz back home."

Isabel smiled slightly. "Sure, that sounds alright. When can we leave??"

"Umm... do you want to blow off the afternoon?"

"Yes," Isabel insisted. "It... it might be foolish considering the rest of my plan, but... they've got a huge lead on us already, and I want to start catching up as soon as possible."

"Alright." Alex stopped to think of what he absolutely had to do before they left. "Books back in my locker. Hit the washroom. Umm... try quickly to find Maria and let her know to cover for me as much as she can?" Isabel thought about that last one a second, then nodded. "Should be less than five minutes."

"Great." Isabel leaned in and kissed Alex on the cheek, so quickly he hardly realized that was what she was doing until she wasn't doing it any more. "Meet you in the parking lot." And she headed off towards the girl's room herself.

----------

"So, just why did we come here again??" Liz asked.

The clothes shopping was all done, the department stores had been hit, and a good and filling lunch had been had by both of them. Also the hair salon visit was now a thing of the past, and both of them were slowly getting used to Liz-Alisa's curly locks, and Max-Jacen's dark blond crown. Max had led her to one more store in the mall.

"Isn't it obvious?" Max replied with a smile as they stepped through the doorway into the big two-level Barnes and Noble. "Pick up some music for the drive, maybe a few books for entertainment." His smile was slightly sad. "I know that you love to read, and had to leave most of your collection behind, but we can pick up a few new things to make up for it."

"Ohh..." Liz sighed deeply, truly touched by the gesture. "Thanks. Okay, let's see... let's do the music thing first, though." Max grinned. "I've been wanting to pick up the old Gomez album, the one from a few years ago." Both of them laughed at the same moment. 'Their song' was by Gomez, the one that they had first kissed to, back after the heatwave. "And maybe look at some Sheryl Crow."

They found both, as well as several others. "I'm starting to think that the thing I'll miss most about home and Roswell might be my computer," Max whispered to her. "No more downloading music off the 'net."

"Even more than you'll miss your sister and Michael?" Liz giggled.

Max shot her a look. "If Isabel ever finds out that you implied she was a 'thing...'" He let the threat hang menacingly in the air.

Then they browsed through the non-fiction science section a bit, and headed upstairs towards the fiction categories Liz most wanted to hit. "Got anything particular in mind??" Max asked.

"Well, I absolutely have to pick up the new Harry Potter," she admitted. "And maybe some Terry Pratchett."


TO BE CONTINUED...

Part Three

"Mmm.... this really is delicious," Liz admitted, cutting a tiny bit of meat off her boneless chicken breast, and bringing it to her mouth along with several miniature pasta bow ties drenched in spicy catch-a-tora sauce. "But shouldn't we have left the big city, like, an hour ago or more?" she continued after chewing several times and swallowing.

"Well, that was the original plan," Max admitted, "but I'm not really too worried." He ate a little bit of his oven-baked mini pizza. "Doing the library research about possible places that we could go was a good idea, but it did delay us. And it's not smart to hit the road with empty stomachs and low blood sugar."

"Suure..." Liz teased him. None of that explained why they had to have dinner in a fancy restaurant, where they'd had to wait nearly half an hour just to get a table... but Liz wasn't complaining either. After all... this was probably the only chance they'd have to enjoy a culinary date this good for a long time, if they were going to settle down in some small hick town. "So, do we take the north by northwest route, or the western road??"

"Probably the western, though it doesn't seem to make a huge amount of difference," Max said. "You know, until I saw the map in the library, I'd never really appreciated how much of the area north and west of Albuquerque was indian reservations. Hope that we'll be able to find a roadside motel without much trouble."

"I don't think that'll be a problem," Liz admitted. "Where there's money to be made, people will find a way." She thought about that. "As far as that goes, don't you think that native american indians are just about as likely to set up a motel on their land as anybody else, these days??"

"I guess I hadn't thought about it that way," Max admitted. "Ohh - you've just got to try a bite of this pizza."

Liz smiled. "Only if you accept some of my dinner in exchange." They fed each other, and both had to try to keep their pleased groans down to a low volume to avoid disturbing some of the other patrons.

"So, any idea what you want for dessert?" Max asked her with a grin.

"Umm... ohh." Liz thought about that. "Just about anything - except not ice cream again. Maybe some kind of pie. You??"

"I think I happened to notice a strawberry glazed sponge cake while I was looking at the menu," Max said with a smile. "That sounds great to me. And a nice variety of pies - apple, pecan, custard, and cherry, at least."

Liz pondered the selection for several seconds. "I think I feel as american as apple pie tonight, actually."

"Couldn't argue with that... and I have to say, you look sweet as pie too," Max told her. Liz groaned. "Sorry, I couldn't resist that line."

"Maybe you should have," Liz told him. "Okay, well, since you've finished your pizza, and if I'm having pie, I probably shouldn't finish this." She pushed her plate away slightly. "If we can get a little takeout package, then I can have it for breakfast tomorrow morning or something."

"Umm, alright, if you're sure you can't finish it now," Max admitted. "Normally I'd say that we'd have a hard time keeping it cool before we get to the motel, but I think I might be able to take care of that."

"Yeah, I guess I just figured you would." Liz smiled again. "Okay, now where did that snooty waiter go?" She poked her head out of the booth, looking around as far as she could.

----------

Alex sighed slightly as he passed the sign that marked forty miles to Albuquerque city center. For the past two hours he had been driving in silence except for the quiet music coming from the car stereo, as Isabel lay in the passenger seat, her head tilted to rest lightly against the window, and her eyes lightly shut. Isabel slept soundly without a single snore... of course. What else had he expected, from Miss Perfect.

There was a vague sense of disquiet hovering around Alex's middle chest, which he felt annoyed at because it didn't really make any sense. Isabel hadn't claimed that she would be good company, or any kind of company at all on this trip, and he hadn't been invited along to keep her company either. He was here so that Isabel could get some sleep while travelling, because that gave her the best chance, maybe the only chance, of finding Max and Liz before they disappeared into the distance. The fact that he'd have to stay in a hotel room with Isabel overnight and come back with her tommorow was immaterial - just a logistical side effect of the situation.

And the fact that spending so much time in close quarters with Isabel made his heart beat so fast... well, Alex wasn't sure what category to file that under yet. Ever since the kiss, she'd been alternating between avoiding him completely and hanging around in a completely innocent way as if nothing could ever happen between them. That was starting to drive Alex crazy.

Just at the point that thought ran through his mind, Isabel stirred and opened her eyes. She looked around at the highway lights in the last hint of twilight. "Hey, we nearly in to the city?"

Alex couldn't help but smile in the darkness. "Should be there in about half an hour... depending on where 'there' should be."

"Umm... hotel as close to the center of town as possible I guess, but not (yawn) really fancy," Isabel replied. "I raided my grandparent birthday present fund, but still that only goes so far." Alex nodded. He wasn't sure what specific place would best fit those criteria, but once they were in the city center they'd find it somehow.

"Umm, so... how do you know that Max and Liz were in Albuquerque today? You mentioned something about your father, but nothing else."

"Oh, didn't I??" she replied, still sounding a bit like she hadn't quite woken up yet. "Apparently it was a freak chance, some acquaintance of my fathers' who met Max once at a partnership dinner spotted him, and asked my Dad what he was doing so far from home. I don't really know all the details."

"Alright." Alex considered. "Do you know that Max suggested to Liz that they should run away from town back on Valentine's?"

"WHAT?" she exclaimed. And then something occured to her. "Valentine's... that was when he got all drunk and crazy and stole Liz away from her blind date, yep?"

"Of course."

"Well, he never really mentioned anything about that night to me... or to Michael, as far as I know," Isabel replied. "And, well, it certainly hasn't come up with Liz... I'm starting to become more comfortable with her, or maybe I should say I was, but still we haven't gotten to the point where we talk a lot. I assume that she was the one who told you?"

"Yeah, me and Maria and Liz, the three amigas," Alex agreed. "I know that Max acted as if he didn't remember any of what happened when he was drunk... you don't suppose that it was a real blackout?"

"No, I don't think so," Isabel told him. "He was just being private. There's a bunch of stuff that he doesn't share with us lately... most of it having to do with Liz, as you might imagine. Michael's sometimes the same way about Maria." Alex nodded.

They drove on in silence for about a minute. Then Isabel's spoke up. "Alex, just one question?"

"Umm, sure."

"Why do you qualify as an 'amiga'?? That's the feminine of friend in Spanish, right? Not quite 'girlfriend', but maybe close to the platonic sense."

"Yeah, that's kinduv a sardonic joke," Alex admitted. "Because with Liz and Maria, I'm just like one of the girls, you know?"

Isabel seemed to mull that over briefly. "Alex, you're an incredibly good friend to Liz and Maria, and I guess you're not either of their type. And you don't act like a stereotypical macho man, which in my books is a good thing - there are too many of them around. As much as I love Michael, he has a real gift for making 'guy' seem like a synonym for 'idiot', you know?" Alex chuckled slightly. "But you aren't and never could be a girl, Alex."

Alex thought about that for a bit and decided that he really liked that Isabel put it that way.

----------

Maria's bedside telephone rang, and before she even put it to her ear, Michael was ranting on the other end. "...can't flippin' believe it... are foolish decisions contagious? I mean, she acted just as upset as anyone when the dreamy eyes took off, but give her twenty-four hours and what happens?"

"Umm, hi Michael - is this about Alex and Isabel's road trip?"

There was a dangerous silence on the other end of the line for an instant. "You mean Alex has disappeared too?" Pause. "Wait a second - did they tell you where they were going?"

"Umm, actually not directly," Maria said, pouting slightly. "But I asked Alex's parents... he told them that Isabel had a lead on where Max and Liz were and that they were going to try to bring them back. Promised to be home tomorrow morning in any event." Maria sighed. "I think that they told Max and Isabel's parents too... you didn't think to ask them?"

"Umm... no, I guess not, not really," Michael admitted. "Called and asked if Isabel was there, and Mrs Evans said no, she'd left town too. I was so shocked I didn't ask more questions."

"I guess she's probably feeling a little anxious and abandoned," Maria said. "And she's not the only one, as far as that goes."

Michael sighed. "I kinduv get the feeling where I'm supposed to say something reassuring. Um, unfortunately I can't really think of anything."

Maria giggled softly. "No? Being reassuring is only saying what the other person wants to hear. You don't have any notion what I want to hear??"

Michael pondered that for only a second. "Isabel is gonna bring Liz back tomorrow morning, or tonight, and everybody will live happily ever after."

Maria laughed. "Well, thanks for trying, though if you're ever going to succesfully reassure anyone you need to work on your sincerity." She sighed. "But just talking to you is helping a little... which is kinduv weird really, since you just called me to rant and rave, huh?"

"Well yes," Michael admitted. "Or at least... I thought I did. Not quite so certain anymore."

Maria smiled to herself, finding that thought quite sweet somehow. "Want me to come by first thing tomorrow? I can give you a ride to school."

"Sure, yeah, that'd be cool," Michael agreed. "Sweet and spicy dreams."

Maria's eyes widened... this wasn't something she'd heard him say before. "Hmm... thanks. If they come, I think I can guess who'll be the male lead." Michael chuckled. "Wish the same to you too."

"Ooooh." And with that non-word exclamation, the line cut off.

-----------

"Okay, umm, well I guess we're here," Alex mumbled, feeling like he couldn't stop from saying foolish and obvious things in front of Isabel no matter how hard he tried. He put his bag, which he had hastily crammed a few clothes into before leaving Roswell, into the armchair in front of the fireplace. Isabel was wandering around the bed, giving it her best 'Ice queen' glare.

Just one bed, though it was a king size. The hotel had been out of doubles, and from the look on Isabel's face when the front desk clerk had mentioned the one-night rate for a suite, it was much more than her birthday fund could cover.

"It... it's okay," Alex volunteered. "I can sleep on the sofa. I've done fine with worse."

Izzy looked up. "Uh... why would you sleep on the sofa?" she asked absently... and started to giggle softly at whatever face Alex made, at a loss for how to answer the question. "I... I wasn't thinking that there wasn't enough room for both of us, if that's what you assumed. Just been trying to relax and get ready, wondering how long it'll be before Max and Liz are dreaming, and that sort of thing."

"Oh, okay," Alex said, still feeling a bit at a loss for how to react in this situation."

"There's also the logistical question of changing into sleepwear," Isabel continued, smiling a wide smile that was aimed directly at him. "Probably best for at least one of us to change inside the bathroom, yeah? And the other can get dressed out here at the same time, as long as the person in the bath doesn't come out until they get the all clear."

Alex gulped. Something in Isabel's face held a hint of a teasing, ironic offer. (Ironic in the sense that it was opposite to the meaning that her literal words were conveying.) Alex took a few seconds to enjoy the idea of he and Isabel changing clothes in front of each other, but in general he found that he reluctantly had to agree with Wordy Isabel instead of Face Isabel. (Or something like that.) They weren't there yet, and pushing ahead in spite of that could end up just further derailing whatever was going on between the two of them... like the way the first kiss had made them more awkward around each other, except more so. "Okay, umm... I'll take the bathroom, unless you want it."

Isabel considered this. "Nah, I think I get priority, and I'm taking it."

"What... do you really think that I'd throw on my sweats really quickly just so I could try to peek out and catch a glimpse of the stunning beauty that is you?" Isabel arched an eyebrow. "Umm... actually, don't answer that. Just take the bathroom."

She smiled affectionately at him, grabbed something that Alex couldn't see too well out of her suitcase, and disappeared behind the bathroom door. Alex looked around, opened up his bag and pulled a baggy grey t-shirt and comfy blue sweat pants out of it. After he had taken his jeans and the shirt he'd worn to school off, he heard a giggle from the direction of the bathroom. Whirled around, and the door was very definitely open a crack, with a blonde-topped face and a single brown eye pressed up against it to peek. Alex groaned. Here he was, standing in full view from the bathroom door, in only his boxer shorts. Isabel had probably only spied on him because he'd talked about doing it to her. He hurried over to a part of the hotel room that she couldn't see from the bathroom to finish dressing.

"Okay, okay," Isabel called through the now-closed bathroom door as he walked back towards the bed, all changed. "Do I have the all clear now?"

"Uh - yeah, you do," Alex replied, somewhat surprised at the question, for no reason that he could think of. This was what they'd agreed to, after all. Maybe he was just startled that she was ready so quickly? The door opened, and Isabel strutted out, wearing a slinky, silky black pajama set.

"Umm, sorry," she muttered when she realized he was staring. "This was the first thing I could find to take."

"Welll... I'm not complaining," Alex commented for the record. "Though it may be hard to get to sleep, ummm..." He decided to abandon that sentence. "So, what's the next step? Is... is this too early to actually try the dreamwalking thing?"

Isabel looked at the little LED clock on the bedside table. It read 10:24, with the little red dot that marked off PM. "No, I guess not. It's hard to say what kind of schedule they might be on for travelling." She pulled a few things out of her bag again and sat down on the bed, crawling crab-style back towards the pillows.

Alex came closer, trying to see what she still held in her hands. One item was a framed portrait of Max... the photograph not taken too long ago. He was wearing a dark suit jacket that seemed a bit too big for him, but was smiling pleasantly. Alex somehow instantly recognized it as a picture that Max had had taken for his mother's sake, and at her request. There was just something about the pose, about the smile that told him that, even though he didn't think he'd ever met Max and Isabel's mother.

The other, as Alex could have guessed by now, was a picture of Liz. For a moment he couldn't identify the occasion of it - Liz looked lovely and formal, her hair pinned all the way up, wearing a long red gown. Kyle was partly in the background of the frame, as well as a tall and slightly older guy in a dinner jacket that Alex didn't immediately recognize. And then all of it snapped into mental focus. "Was that one of the pictures that the Roswell Gazette photographer took at the Blind date concert?"

Isabel looked up at him and smiled. "Yeah... I was disappointed afterwards that I didn't go, so, well, I managed to find the guy and charm him out of copies of all of the pictures I liked. I think this one is when Liz and her entourage were making their entrance. Not sure where Max was."

Alex smiled. He'd been disappointed that Isabel hadn't come to the concert, even after he went to a little trouble to get her two tickets. But finding out that she had gone to such trouble to find out what she had missed made him feel better about that. And there was something else... Alex knew that there had been some pictures of him playing, though they hadn't made it into the paper, and of the entire group with Maria singing. Had Isabel kept any of those? "So dinner jacket guy is Liz's original date? Doug Shellow?"

"Umm... your guess is better than mine," Isabel pointed out. "I never met him. But yeah, I think so too."

Alex nodded. "So... you lay down, touch the faces in the pictures... and suddenly you're walking through a dream? If the person whose face you touch is dreaming??"

"Yeah, that's pretty much how it works," Isabel agreed. "Here goes." She reached out to tap Max's face first, waited a long moment, then frowned in frustration. She tried Liz, with no better results. "Okay, this might take a while."

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

At another motel, thirty-five miles west, Max sighed, pulled Liz closer to himelf as they lay on the soft mattress, and slipped almost immediately from drowsly consciousness into a dream. He was walking along the side of the road, with a bright sun poking through incredibly white and puffy clouds. There were a few patches of trees in the otherwise wide open plains that the highway cut through, and a river flowing by in the distance, but he couldn't see his own car, or any other cars going down the road, or any people? For a seconds he was worried about Liz, but then a dim sense penetrated that she would be all right.

He was carrying something. The handle that he carried it by was like that of the spare gas container he always had with him in the jeep, a molded plastic thing, but the shape was different beneath the handle - it was a kind basket, in which a thick, syrupy, golden liquid pooled. He had to be more careful with it, he realized - some of the gold stuff would spill if he swung the basket - no, the bucket - too far, and whatever it was, it had to be incredibly precious. As Max walked, he realized that he had forgotten to take the gas container out of the Jeep before selling it - it was lost. They'd need to get something similar for the new car... just in case. Was always good to be prepared.

Suddenly Isabel popped into exitence, a little ways ahead of him and actually within the lane of the highway. She was wearing a set of black pajamas, and dimly Max realized what that meant. "Max!!" she exclaimed. "Where... where are you?"

Secretly, Max decided to play dumb. "Umm... actually, I'm not sure. Walking down the side of some road somewhere... not far from you. Wondering where I left my car."

"Don't try that with me," Isabel snapped, following him. "You're lucid - I saw it in your eyes. You're sleeping - you probably checked into a roadside place with Liz. Where is that? Which way did you leave Albuquerque??"

Max almost asked Isabel where she was herself... but he wasn't sure if she'd be any more responsive than he was being, and anyway, he could guess. Albuquerque. Somehow, she had managed to trace him that far already, and thus get within dreamwalking range of him. He... he didn't want her to find him. As much as it killed him to admit it, he didn't really want to talk to her right now, because he could already see in her eyes that she didn't understand why he and Liz were doing what they were doing, (like either of them really understood their own reasons,) and would try every sisterly trick that she could to guilt him into coming home. On the other hand, Max wasn't lucid enough to wake up just by deciding to. And... he might as well make some very small use of the contact.

"Isabel... I don't want you to follow me. What Liz and I are doing... I know that it seems unbelievably stupid and selfish, but it's not. There's something going on between us, something out of the ordinary, and we need a little time away from our parents to figure it out. Away from everything in Roswell. We won't stay away forever, and I'll send you a letter as soon as I can to explain a bit more. But right now... you need to concentrate on yourself. and on Mom and Dad, instead of going chasing after me. Do you understand?"

"No! No, I don't understand," Isabel insisted. "What is there that you can't 'figure out' back home in Roswell??"

"Where we can't even see or talk to each other without breaking the rules??"

"The rules don't go away just because you tried to run away from them," Isabel said softly, and Max winced. "I'm not going to give up this easily, Max."

"I... I don't think that there was any way that I could explain it to you well enough," Max admitted. "Alex... what if you realized that Alex was... was as important to you as Michael and I are, but also that the connection you had to him was... was something fragile, that could so easily be destroyed, or bent so badly that nothing either of you did could fix it." Isabel stiffened a little at that, just as Max had a moment ago. "Wouldn't you do whatever you had to do and make Alex your first priority, knowing that I would be there for you once that was done??"

There was no chance for Isabel to answer. She was still in the road, and suddenly both Evanses looked up to see a minivan bearing down on her. Isabel only just managed to blink herself out of the dream before being hit. A few seconds later, the fright gave Max a chance to wake up himself. He shook Liz slightly.

"Uhh, not right now honey, I'm not in the mood," she mumbled. Max blinked, and then bent over to whisper in her ear.

"It's not that. We need to leave right now - unless you want my sister haunting our dreams all night. She's back in Albuquerque."

That woke Liz up, in fact she almost jumped out of bed, except that Max's head was in her way. "What?? She came there to find us? How did she even know that much??"

"I... I'm not sure - maybe she was able to guess what I'd do," Max muttered. "But we're within range of her dream walking right now. Hopefully we can get back out. I want to check out and drive as far as we can before stopping. It's a bit of a waste of money for the motel room, but..."

"Yeah, the lesser of two problems," Liz muttered, getting up. "I'll pack your stuff. You get changed and go down to the office just to make sure we're all good."

Max nodded and pulled his jeans on over his sleepwear pants.

-----------

"Dammit, I don't think they're going to go back to sleep," Isabel growled. It was well after 2 pm now. "Maybe Max went back on the road. Dammit, why is he so scared of me?"

"I... I don't know," Alex admitted softly, though if Max knew that Isabel was in this sort of mood he did have a sort of idea. "Maybe we should just try to get some rest ourselves."

Isabel looked up and caught his eyes. "I... I'm being a totally psycho witch and making you miserable, aren't I?"

"Umm... that might be stretching the case a little," Alex said, moving closer and boldly stretching an arm around her shoulders. "You miss your brother, you're worried about him, and you've gotten a little bit obsessive about the idea of bringing him home. But that might not be something that any of us can do right now. You gave it your best shot... the old high school try or whatever. Now you need to get some more sleep."

She smiled faintly at him. "Then... then it might be a good thing that you're here. I'm not sure that I'd be able to sleep if I was by myself. I... I just lay in the darkness and see Max over and over. In trouble. Confused. Or... well, there's the times when he's perfectly happy, in a way that makes me incredibly uncomfortable watching." Alex raised an eyebrow. "Yeah. THAT kind of happy."

Alex chuckled slightly. "Well, if me being here will help keep your mind of stuff like that, then I'm glad that I'm here too."

She looked at him. "It might take more than just being here... but what you're doing now is a good start."

"What, talking to you??"

"Umm... no." Isabel's cheeks started to flush slightly. "Though that's nice too. The *other* thing that you're doing right now. With your arm."

"Ohhh..." Alex blinked. "You... do you want me to hold you as you try to sleep?"

"Umm... yeah, assuming that you wouldn't mind."

Alex took a long moment to figure out how to react to that. "I... I don't in the abstract sense. But being that close to you, in that sort of situation... well, it would give parts of my body ideas." He looked down significantly. "And... even though I'm clear that that's not the sort of thing that's going to be going on tonight... it can be uncomfortable and hard to get to sleep when my body has that kind of ideas."

"Oh, right. I... I didn't think of that, I guess." Isabel's face fell. "Umm... well, I might have a way to fix that, if the method isn't too weird."

Alex blinked. "Say on."

"We can connect to other people... like Max did to heal Liz. Maybe I can... um, put your guy into a light snooze, so that you can sleep more easily."

Alex boggled, then decided that he liked the idea of trying, if only out of curiosity. "Um, okay, let's get settled first, and then you can try it." They lay down side by side, spooning, with Alex behind. Isabel pulled one of his arms closely about her side and across her stomach. Just as he'd expected, the closeness of Isabel's lush body, the smell of her hair right up against his nose, and the situation had an effect quickly, creating a swelling and a stiffening down in his crotch. Isabel touched her fingers to his, chuckled slightly, and Alex felt a vaguely unsettling sensation sweep from his head to his toes. And surely enough, a few seconds later, his male member shrank again, almost reaching its usual passive size. A useful trick, in the situation, but he couldn't help wondering what the experience had been like for Isabel. Had she 'seen' his thing, or felt what it was like for him to have it as part of his body? Had she gotten flashes from his childhood, the way Max had from Liz when he healed her?

"Wait a second," he suddenly blurted out. "If you can affect my body, couldn't you have just put me to sleep without bothering with my... my johnson?"

"Probably," Isabel admitted, a playful lilt in her voice. "But I have to admit, I couldn't resist seeeing what it was like to 'affect' one. And even if you were asleep, I wasn't really looking forward to it poking me in the butt all night... *this* time." Alex shook his head, and then she stroked the edge of his hand with her thumb. Alex fell instantly asleep.

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

"Hey there, what can I get for you?" the waitress asked. She was a friendly woman getting near to fifty years old maybe, with a few gray hairs starting to boldy show through her shoulder-length chestnut mane.

Max smiled at Liz, wondering if she would actually say it. "Umm, the chicken burrito with a small side salad, and cherry coke if you've got any."

"Sorry, hon. Pepsi, ginger ale, or seven up, if you want something soft and fizzy. Most people ask for something with a bit more kick to it."

"Pepsi is fine," Liz put in, smiling at him. "I'd like the grilled chicken king sandwhich, hold the pickle, home fries, a grape juice... and a job if there are any available."

Yeah, she said it. The waitress blinked. "Umm... well, I'll put the order for the food in first."

"Sounds good," Liz agreed. She headed off, leaving Max and Liz to look around the little bar's front room. It was a little early for lunch perhaps, only a little after eleven in the morning, and only two other tables were occupied with a total of four people. "Nice joint," she whispered to Max. "I'd definitely like to work here every day."

"Cool, I hope you get it," Max agreed, keeping his own voice low. It was now the fourth day of their flight from Roswell... a fairly long time to cover the distance that they had, but they hadn't been on the road and driving for all of that time of course. He liked this little village in the middle of nowhere, though, and hoped that they would be able to stay. Liz getting a job offer would be a good first step.

Soon the waitress was back, putting the two drinks down on the table, and pulled up a third chair to the table, sitting straight across from Liz and looking her in the face. (Max and Liz had taken adjoining sides of the square table instead of sitting facing each other.) "Nice to meet you - my name is Linda," she said.

"Alisa," Liz replied almost automatically. "This is Jacen, by the way."

"Hello, Jacen. Hello, Alisa. Do you have any experience working in a place like this, hon?"

"I waited tables for two years at Jonny Bluehorn's in Hondo, and six months at a bar called Willisin's in Thoreau," Liz said.

"Hmm..." Linda considered that. "Now, Jonny Bluehorn's is out of business, and I don't really have time to track down anyone else who worked there to check that part of your story. And I've never heard of Willisin's, though I have a friend near Thoreau who I could just maybe call to ask about it." She stared at Liz even more intently. "Now, I don't really care if you've got those exact credentials, as long as you can do the job, dear. Something about the way you ordered, the way you said those references... makes me think that you do have some waitressing experience, and you're pretty good at it. If you haven't worked in a place just like this before, that's fine, and I can show you the ropes, because I really do need someone who knows most of what she's doing."

Liz laughed. "Yeah, I think I can help you out." After pausing just a moment, she added. "We're new in town - you might have guessed."

"Wasn't hard to figure, yeah."

"Any idea where the fella might be able to find some work of his own??" Liz nodded her head in Max's direction, and he chuckled.

"Hmm... any useful experience, Jacen??" Linda turned to consider him.

"Not especially... I've worked some in a tourist attraction."

"Ehh... well, there aren't any of those around here."

"I know," Max said darkly. They probably wouldn't have been able to stop anywhere that got strangers so often.

"Well... I have a few ideas, but none I'd prefer to speak of at the moment, until I can make some calls." She grinned. "Found yourselves a place to stay yet? And... any idea how long you're planning on sticking around, waitress Alisa?"

Liz smiled and even giggled softly. "We're not sure, but probably two months at least." That just kind of came out, but she felt good about it, and Max smiled too. "And no, we haven't found anything as far as residence."

"There, I might be able to help you." She pointed out the window, across the main drag and a few storefronts down. "The laundrogym is run by a friend of mine, and there are a few apartments for rent up above it. He's been looking for tenants for one of them for a few weeks now."

Liz smiled. "Sounds great... but what's a laundrogym?"

"Just what it sounds like," Max guessed. "Clean your clothes and get a few sweaty running on the treadmill or pumping weights, all at once."

"Yep. If you'll excuse me, I'd better go check on those guys' steaks." Linda got up and left them.

"Okay." Max said to Liz, smiling. "Should we ask if she can introduce us to her friend, or just go over to the laundrogym after lunch and try to find him?"

"Probably worth asking," Liz said, taking a sip of her drink. She made a bit of a face.

"What is it?"

"Ehh... it's not bad, but that's not pure grape juice." Liz sighed. "Ah well."

Their lunches arrived about fifteen minutes later, and Linda explained that they should probably just wait around the bar after they were done, because their prospective landlord would probably be showing up around one o'clock for his roast beef and tomato sub.

----------

Michael brought his lunch outside into the courtyard and saw Isabel sitting at her usual table alone. "Hey, no hangers on today?" he asked, dropping casually into the seat opposite her.

"Hmm?" She took a long time about looking up. "No, heh, just me. Did you do something particularly heinous to Maria that she's not following you today?"

Michael smiled slightly, even though Isabel's joke wasn't really funny. "Nope - she just had to go run an errand for her mom." That reminded him, of course, of how another errand for Maria's mom had started him on a Marathon journey... and begun an even longer metaphorical trip. "What about Alex?"

"Umm... I don't know," Isabel replied with an affected nonchalance. "May be hanging out in the music room trying to write a song or something."

"Okay, now that we've got the pleasantries out of the way," Michael said, pulling a tuna fish and tabasco sandwich out of his brown paper bag and starting to open up the cling wrap. "How're you doing??"

"I... I'm not even sure how to answer that," Isabel said. "I'm not great. I still miss him a lot... both of them, but more him, you know?" Michael nodded. "But I've been remembering more and more the look on his face, in that dream - when he was trying to explain to me what was going on. I don't think he really understood everything, but...." Isabel was silent, and then fixed her brown eyes directly at Michael's own gaze, which startled him enough that he dropped his sandwich down onto the bag. "Maria."

"Umm... what about her?" Michael asked, fighting to keep himself from blushing too strongly, which never worked that well. "We're not about to ditch town ourselves, if that's what you're asking about."

"No," Isabel replied. "I... I'm not quite sure how to phrase this. Is Maria... is she someone who's as important in your life as Max is?" She was about to tack herself on to the end of that sentence - both of them knew it, but she changed her mind at the last second. "And if not... do you think she could be, in time?"

"Umm... I'm not sure if I've ever thought about her in those terms," Michael admitted, picking up his sandwich and taking a very careful bite, as if he was worried that she might make him drop it again. "I'd say... not now, no. Important, yes, but considering how close I feel to Max, how long I've known him and how much we share, Maria still rates only a six. But she's coming up, not that fast, but relentlessly." Isabel laughed. "Not sure just how fast she might make her way into contention." Michael swallowed and then considered. "Is that what Max said... about Liz? That she was more important to him than we were?"

"Not *more* important," Isabel disclaimed. "He definitely didn't go that far. But as important. Well, it was an analogy, but the meaning was clear. And he suggested that... that he could always count on us to be there, but that something important might happen to Liz if he wasn't with her, so that she was his priority for the meantime." Pause. "Or maybe it was that the link between him and Liz might get iced if they couldn't be together... I didn't really follow that part I admit."

"Hmm..." Michael mulled over that. "So, what about Alex? Compared to how important Maxwell and I are in your life, how does he rate?"

"Umm... six point five at least, maybe seven," Isabel admitted, and Michael's eyes widened slightly to hear her admit that much. "And coming up *very* fast, when I don't actively push him back down."

"Wow." Michael considered that for a while, and pulled out a bottle of powdered iced tea that he'd mixed up back at home. "I guess that explains some of what goes on between you and Alex." Took a sip. "And really, I think that I might do the same kind of thing with Maria too. I'm scared of needing someone else as much as I need you guys... scared of her becoming indispensible in her life. And that's why I sometimes clam up or do stupid things to make her upset with me."

"Yeah." Isabel nodded. "Kind of a messed up deal when you really think about it, isn't it?" Michael shrugged.

They managed to find smaller things to talk about for the rest of the lunch hour, and then Maria came walking up to their table from the parking lot. Isabel saw her coming, but didn't say anything because Michael's back was to her, so Maria snuck up behind him and did the hands over eyes 'guess who' thing, which pissed Michael off a little even though he smiled when he finally saw her. And Isabel was so involved in this that she was quite surprised to realize that Alex had quietly seated himself on her side of the table.

"Okay, what's my next class?" Maria asked as the four of them got ready to go inside again. "I'd forget my head one of these days if my spine were detachable."

"Oooh, lovely imagery there, Mare," Alex replied.

"Umm... you and I have art appreciation," Michael said, rolling his eyes.

"We do?" Maria looked at him. "How come I don't remember you being in my art appreciation class?"

"Well, because it sucks and I don't usually show up," Michael explained as if this should be completely obvious. "But what the heck - today I've got nothing better to do anyway."

"And we have trig, right?" Isabel said to Alex. "I know that I remember seeing you there." Alex nodded. "Umm, okay. I guess that we can walk together up to the atrium, and then split up."

After that split up, when Isabel and Alex were climbing the stairs to the second floor of the school, Isabel took a deep breath. "Alex... do you want to do something together this evening? Nothing fancy like driving to a hotel in a big city, but... well, I'm not sure what."

Alex grinned. "We could get something to eat."

"Always good. Everybody needs food." Isabel nearly smacked her head at how inane those words sounded coming out of her head.

"And... well, you don't happen to like blues fluting, do you?? Because I think there's this guy who's going to be playing at Red Peppers... Markos said he was really good."

"Umm... that sounds great, but will we be able to get in?"

"Oh, yeah, I think so." Alex told her with a smile. "If it's the underage thing... they don't card to get in when they've got a musical act or anything. We just won't be able to order shots or anything like that."

Isabel grinned. "Okay, ummm..." She was about to ask more questions... who was going to pick up whom or if they should meet wherever they'd be eating. However, by this time they were out of the stairwell and nearly to the math classroom, and the bell was about to ring. "We'll work out the details after class?"

"Great," Alex told her. He was smiling pretty big himself.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Part Four

(Lyrics at the end of the chapter are from the Corrs. One of my major inspirations for this fic. )

"It isn't much," Mister Kendrick said, climbing the stairs at the back of the building, with Alisa (Liz,) and Jacen (Max) following. "But you look like good people, so if you want either apartment, you can move in today."

"Thank you sir," Max said a little nervously. "Assuming that enough money changes hands, I take it."

Kendrick laughed. "Well, yes, there *is* always that. But the rent isn't high - five hundred seventy a month, for the slightly bigger apartment, and five fifty for the other." They had gotten to the top of the stairs, and a hallway led 'forwards' through the building and turned to run in the opposite direction to the stairs."

"I thought that Linda said you only had one apartment vacant," Liz mentioned as they continued on.

"Not surprised she only remembers one," Kendrick replied. "It's been vacant for nearly two months now, and I've been griping about it for weeks now. But four days ago, the girls in number three just up and drove off for Vegas or LA, whichever one they got to first." Max chuckled slightly. "Wanted to be stars. It'll probably end in tears a month from now, but oh well." The landlord opened a door on a furnished, slightly run-down living room. There was a single couch, a set of shelves with a lamp, an old stereo, and some unidentifiable knicknacks sitting on it, and a coffee table. The room was small, but big enough to be comfortable, and there were three doors leading off from it, which turned out to lead to bathroom, bedroom, and kitchen. (The bathroom and the bedroom were also more directly connected, although Max felt somehow odd about the way that the door from the bedroom was right beside the toilet - and the fact that it swung out into the bedroom, not into the bathroom, where there wouldn't have been room for it to move.)

But overall the place was a lot better than it looked. The bed was a double-size, but it was more comfortable than some of the motel beds they'd had since leaving Roswell, and the kitchen had all the essentials that they'd need for storing food, cooking it, and cleaning dishes. Max guessed that he'd miss having a microwave, but heck - it would just be him and Liz inside, and he could use his own powers to do pretty much the same thing.

"I think I like it," Liz said. "Should we look at the other one too? Is this the bigger place or the smaller one?"

"The bigger." Kendrick quickly showed them down the hall to the other vacant apartment, which was indeed tighter quarters - only three rooms - the bathroom, a kitchen/dining room and bedroom/lounge. It didn't seem too bad either, but Max knew what his preference would be. The two young lovers went out into the hall to huddle privately.

"The first place?" Liz asked, and Max grinned. "It feels like it's the right door - and definitely the right stairs."

Max's eyes went wide at that, and he whispered into her ear. "You mean your flash - from that motel room south of Albuquerque?" Liz nodded. "Okay, that settles it."

They went back and told Kendrick what they'd decided, and he smiled and they walked over to the first apartment. "So... only the first month's rent?" Max asked. "No last month, no security deposit or anything?" His face showed a trace of nervousness.

"No, I don't think that's necessary," he said softly. "We're a little over a week into this month, so we'll call it a wash with that, and your next rent is due on the first."

"Okay, that sounds more than fair." Max smiled. "Can we stat moving stuff in this afternoon?" He opened up a billfold and counted out the money, making sure to only give him genuine bills from the savings he'd earned back in Roswell.

"Sounds great." Kendrick smiled slightly.

"Oh, by the way," Liz blurted out. "Jacen is looking for work... any notion where he might do well to start?"

"Umm... not immediately. They might need somebody down at the car wash, or... well, lemme think about that one." Right then, as if on cue, Kendrick's cell phone went off. "Oooh, excuse me." And he headed up the hallway again to take the call.

"Okay, umm... do you want to bring the car over?" Max asked, and Liz grinned and put her hands together. Max tossed her the keys. "I'll take a few minutes to get a feel for the space, what we can put into what cupboards and drawers and so forth, and then I'll be down in the back parking lot ready to start unloading and carrying."

"Alright." Liz turned to go, and then remembered something. "For cripes' sake, get some keys from Kendrick before he leaves, yeah?" Max nodded, surprised that that detail had slipped his mind. And Liz hurried away.

----------

"Sure, I wanna do something if you wanna do something," Michael told Maria as she came up to the kitchen window and grabbed a tray full of food.

"Huh?" It took her a second to remember their last conversation on the subject. The diner was still running a bit short-handed for wait staff without Liz, since she had been a very hard worker and been taking a particularly demanding shift just before she left - as a way of distracting herself from not being able to see Max. In fact, when they'd first been grounded, Max and Liz had tried to use the cafe as a way of interacting, until Jeff Parker had made it clear that 'no spending time together outside of class' meant that Max was persona non grata at his establishment at the times that Liz was working. "Oh, right. Any idea what??"

"Not really," Michael admitted. 'We could just go back to my place and make out' ran through his head, but somehow he wasn't sure that it was a sentence that would get him very far... at least, not unless they were both a little more desperate and he could think of a better way to work it into conversation. "Umm... how about you?"

"Ehh... not up for anything really energetic," she said, and then disappeared with the orders. A few minutes later, while Michael was getting a new patch of BEM eggs (little breaded chicken nuggets,) into the deep fat fryer, it was Maria's turn to continue the conversation after a time lapse. "We could go back to your new digs and go channel surfing."

Michael grinned at that. Channel surfing could definitely lead to kissing if there wasn't anything terribly good on. "Love to."

"Cool. Pick me up here at nine." That was the only fly in the ointment, or whatever. Michael was only working until eight, but Maria had to do a longer shift because she was helping to cover for Liz's absence. Still, he could come around to the front and be a customer for a little while... though he didn't really have the cash to get anything big and still swing all of his bills. Or maybe he'd just walk around. Something struck him as Maria headed off again, leaving him with new orders that had to be cooked. "Does it count as picking you up if we're riding in your car??"

No reply was immediately forthcoming, eight o'clock arrived in time, and Jose took over the kitchen from Michael. Faced with the decision, Michael decided not to go into the dining room, but strolled out through the side door from the Crashdown back room into the parking lot, out to main street, and across it. He didn't really realize where he was when a door opened and a twitchy main with mid-brown hair and a lighter brown suit nearly collided into him. "You!"

Oh, right. This was the UFO Museum, or the sidewalk right out in front of it in any event, and the man was Milton Ross, Max's ex-boss. Michael had encountered him a few times under less than ideal circumstances, including breaking into the building looking for information on James Atherton and geodesic dome houses, (and getting harangued by the man later after the sheriff's deputies had caught him,) and also collapsing in the middle of the museum on a busy day, when he was getting sick after having been in the Indian sweat lodge. So he wasn't too surprised at the ferocity Milton had managed to cram into a simple pronoun. "Hello there Mister Ross."

"You know where Max went, don't you?" the eccentric proprietor insisted, pushing back into Michael's personal space.

"Umm... actually, no! I don't," Michael insisted. "I realize that you've got every right to be steamed with him for going away and leaving you short handed or whatever, but he was my best friend, and he left town without even saying goodbye, so I'm damn well steamed too. And please get your face out of my way."

Milton hesitated for a moment as if he was really about to take further offense, but backed away a bit. "Sorry. It's just... things really have been crazy without Evans." He looked closely at Michael. "You, um, you wouldn't happen to be looking fo--"

"Um, sorry man, I got a gig. Flipping burgers." Michael pointed back at the cafe, and Milton nodded. "But, actually... I know a few people who just might be interested."

"Oh? If they are, just send 'em right over." Milton sighed. "I hope that there are a few machines free at the laundromat."

"Yeah, good luck with that." Michael clapped the other guy on the shoulder, not quite sure why he did it, and they went opposite ways down the street.

----------

Alex took several deep breaths with his hand over his stomach, did his best to smile naturally, and walked up the Evans front walk. When he rang the doorbell, it was only a few seconds before it opened, and a handsome blond woman in her late forties looked him. "Umm... Alex! Is... do you have any news?"

"Uh, about Max and Liz?" Alex sighed. He couldn't really blame Missus Evans for jumping to that conclusion, but he could have done without being reminded of the runaways himself right now. "No, actually, that's not why I'm here. Isabel and I are..." are stepping out? Are going on a date? Probably best to downplay it in front of her parents... she probably didn't want them grilling her for details about a new suitor. (Then again, it could be a good diversion for them. "Umm, we're doing something together tonight." Yeah, that was ambiguous enough he hoped.

But Diane Evans was no fool, and as she looked at him up and down, wearing his dark blue pants and a white shirt with blue trim and the top button unfastened, he thought that she was evaluating his clothes, his hair, his face, his nervous reactions, and the fact that he'd come to the house to pick her up instead of just meeting her somewhere. "Okay, well, I'm not sure but I suspect that she's not quite ready yet - she's not around in the living room or the dining room anyway. Why don't you take a seat, and I'll go see if I can find her and tell her that you've arrived."

"Thanks ma'am," Alex maanged to get out, and he walked into the house and got himself over to the couch before his legs became too weak to carry him. As Isabel's mother disappeared, a tall broad man with dark hair that was especially graying around his ears walked from the kitchen into the living room. Alex recognized Isabel's father from the camping trip, and something on the man's face told him that he had heard everything that had been said at the door, and possibly some of the stuff that hadn't even been said. This was it. This was going to be the 'so you're the young man who wants to date my beautiful, innocent daughter' conversation. How would he handle it? Would Mister Evans make long, ranting speeches at Alex, hardly giving him a chance to reply? Would he interrogate him like a hostile witness in a court case? (Did Isabel's father actually cross-examine witnesses in court? Alex had heard that he was a lawyer, and a good one, but wasn't sure about exactly what kind of legal work he did.)

What he did right at the moment, though, was to sit easily down in the rocking armchair on the other side of the living room and smile easily at Alex. "So, what kind of plans have you two got?"

"Umm... dinner at the Armadillo and then some g-- good music," Alex blurted out. "At least, I hope it'll be good... this flute player is doing Red Peppers, and one of my friends said that he was great."

"Sounds nice," Mister Evans said. "I... I'm glad that Isabel is getting out of the house and having some fun. This has been a hard time for all of us, and we all need to do our best occasionally to forget about Max and relax."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"How late does the flauting go?"

"Umm... I'm not sure sir... but we're not going to stay out too late on a school night in any event." Mister Evans just kept looking at him intently. "Uhh... leave the bar at ten thirty if things aren't wrapping up by then?"

"I... I think that maybe you should make it just a bit earlier," Mister Evans said casually. "Get her back *here* for ten thirty pm. Sound good?"

"Yes, of course!" Alex paused a moment. "And it's pronounced 'fluting' I believe. 'Flautist' is the term for a person for a person who plays one, but the same spelling or proununciation isn't used for what they play."

"Ahh, interesting." Alex was at that point saved by Isabel making her appearance. She looked relatively casual, and yet incredibly sexy all at the same time... wearing very tight designer jeans, slightly cowboyish boots, and a red top of the kind that left her shoulders bare and had fairly thin loops of fabric that went around her upper arms.

"Alex!" She waved at him as she strolled into the room. "Hi Daddy. We shouldn't be out too late."

"No, you shouldn't," Philip Evans said with a small smile. "We've already discussed that."

Isabel's eyes narrowed slightly as she looked down at her father. Alex stood up next to her. "Quarter to eleven."

"I'm sorry... but Alex has already agreed to have you back by ten thirty, and I expect him to honor that."

Isabel shot a slightly exasperated look sidelong at Alex... but there was an undercurrent of amusement to it as well. "Alright, ten thirty... this time. Say bye to mom for me!" And she took Alex's arm and began to make her way towards the front door with him.

"Just one thing, kids," her father said in a voice that stopped Alex in his tracks, and Isabel nearly tripped at the sudden drag and shot a frustrated look over her shoulder at the paternal figure sitting in the rocking chair. "This place you're going to for listening to the music... you said it was a bar?"

"Umm... yes sir!" Alex replied. "We won't be drinking though, don't worry. I mean, not drinking actual drinks. Just having sodas and listening to the music." He saw Isabel rolling her eyes - maybe she thought that he was being a suckup or something.

"Good, just wanted to make sure," Mister Evans said mildly. This time, Isabel was able to get him all the way out the door. Once they were outside and the little 'click' from the closing mechanism was heard, she let out a longsuffering sigh.

"Umm... I just wanted him to like me?" Alex said in a small voice as they headed for his car.

"Don't you know anything about girls, Alex?" Isabel joked. "If my parents liked you... well, I guess it probably woudn't mean that I'd never talk to you again, because we'd mostly stay friends, but... I think it would mean an end to one-on-one evening excursions like this."

"Hmm." Alex considered this. "I dunno... maybe that's what the girl rule book says. But you and I, Isabel, we have something going on between us that breaks all the rules." As he got behind the wheel, he saw Isabel roll her eyes again. "Maybe we shouldn't have said that I'd come pick you up in the first place." Though, if they hadn't, it wouldn't have been quite so nearly a date, and Alex realized that he liked the fact that it was an almost-date.

"No, I - I think I'm glad that you did." She took a deep breath. "I... I'm glad that we're going out, but I probably shouldn't have been trying to drive myself."

That got Alex's attention. "Wh- why not?"

"There was a letter from Max waiting when I got home from school," Isabel said softly. "My mom and dad... they recognized his printing on the envelope, and it must have been really tempting for them to open it before I got home, but I'm pretty sure that they didn't."

"Oh, man," Max breathed. "What... what did it say?"

"Pretty much what he told me when I was in the hotel room with you," she replied softly, as Alex pulled out into the street. "That he loved me, was sorry he had to go, and hoped that I wouldn't try to find him... that they sort of had a plan and needed a little time by themselves to sort their relationship out before coming back to Roswell."

"Well... how are you feeling?" Alex asked softly. "Upset about things, or pleased that at least he took the time to drop something into the mail, or..."

"I... I don't know how I feel, or how I should feel," Isabel whispered. "That's the truth. And I'd rather not talk about Max any more right now, if that's okay."

"Sure, of course," Alex said. "You... you look really beautiful, by the way." That was true enough. Izzie's long golden hair had been pulled back into a ponytail, and Alex always loved girls in ponytails. She wasn't wearing much makeup, but somehow all of her features were perfectly accented - elegant cheekbones, soft, supple lips, deep and inviting brown eyes. "I'm glad that you said you wanted to do something tonight."

"I'm glad too," she answered honestly. "So... tell me something about yourself. Something that not many people know." Alex shot her a brief look. "Come on - you can't say that you don't know anything about me already."

"I know something about what you are," he said softly. "Still feel like I'm in the dark a lot of the time about *who* you are, Isabel."

"Alright, then I'll take a turn when you're done," Isabel said, her eyes glinting. "But you have to spill first."

"Umm, okay..." Alex thought, and said the first thing that came into his head. "When, when I first really met you, when Liz called me up to the hospital... I had a huge crush on her. I was upset because it was clear that she liked Max and wasn't paying attention to much else."

"Wow, okay, I admit that's a surprise," Isabel said. "Was that the reason that you actually went through with it?"

"Umm... little bit hard to say."

"Do - do you still have any feelings for her, that way?" Isabel asked. Alex paused a moment, then shook his head.

"No, it's pretty well behind me. Umm... does that count?"

"Yeah, I think so, though it wasn't what I was expecting to hear," Isabel admitted. "Umm... just give me a moment to think of something."

"Sure, take your time."

----------

"Well... I think this was a good day," Liz said as she sat down on the bed and cuddled up close to Max, putting her head in front of his chest, so close that she could hear his heart beating. "I... I'm sorry that we didn't do so good with you specifically."

"Oh, that's okay," Max replied halfheartedly. Though they had spent most of the afternoon, after moving in, looking for a job for him, they hadn't found anything definite yet - just a few maybes. "When you think about it, we've accomplished for our first day in this place - an apartment to stay in, and a job for you? That's pretty astounding."

"Yeah," Liz agreed. "And... and since this *is* our apartment, a place that's our very own in a way that the motel rooms weren't... I'd kinduv like to, umm, to christen it officially, or something like that. Claim it as our own."

Max's eyes widened. "You mean like that old tradition that newlyweds are supposed to, umm, to make love in every room of the house? I, uhh, we're not married yet, but..."

"Well, we don't have to do it quite like that," Liz said, lifting her head and staring at him. "How about making love in just one room, to start?"

"Umm... well, it's fine by me, if you're... if you're sure that you're r-ready," Max stammered.

"I - I feel ready," Liz replied, after considering the question for a second. "I'm... I'm not completely sure, maybe, but... well, if I chicken out while we're leading up to it, we can do something else, right?" Max nodded. "Do you think that *you're* ready?"

"Umm..." Max had to think about that. "To be honest I'm not sure. I... I though I was, if it came to that, the night of the big flashes -- but maybe that was not wanting Michael to tease me for being a limper, or whatever." Liz was about to ask what limping had to do with it, for a second, and then her eyes widened in surprise. It wasn't that kind of 'limp'.

"I... well, I don't think it makes you less of a man that... that you think there's a time and place that going after a 'sure thing' isn't right," Liz quickly assured him. "I guess this is usually the guy's line, but if you don't think this is the time, then we wait, obviously."

Max chuckled. "Maybe... maybe it's the right time, but the circumstances don't feel quite right." He thought about that. "The look that my Dad would get if he really thought that we'd gone through all of this just to have wild and crazy sex without getting caught at it isn't helping."

"Yeah, I know what you mean by that," Liz admitted. "Hmm... okay, this might sound like a completely crazy notion, and we don't have to do anything about it... but all of a sudden I'm reminded out of a scene from some old historical drama novel. A guy and a girl, completely in love, and they know that their families won't let them be together. I think that he was in training to be a priest, though he hadn't taken a vow of celibacy yet, and she was betrothed to some other guy who she didn't like. And they decided to get married in secret."

"Like Romeo and Juliet?" Max asked. He'd gone through the play last winter... in an odd way it had seemed to relevant to his life NOT to become familiar with the text.

"Yes, but with a difference. Romeo and Juliet had the friar, they trusted him enough to come to him and explain how they felt, and he took their side and married them. The forbidden lovers in this book didn't have anyone like that. If they went to a priest nearby, he'd probably have told the parents what they were planning. Even if they'd said it under seal of the confessional... I think there was seal of confessional stuff in the story, like Catholics, the priest still wouldn't help them."

"I guess they probably couldn't say it under seal of the confessional without admitting that what they felt was sinful."

"Yeah. Hadn't really thought about that part." Liz sighed. "But the point was, because the guy had studied with the church, he knew about this obscure wedding sacrament that could be self-performed, without even any living witnesses. They swore in front of the Eucharist... the communion bread and wine. It was really very romantic, the way the scene played out."

Max felt his face quirking slightly. "So... do you actually want to do something similar?"

"Not too close," Liz disclaimed. "I'm not that religious, myself, and I don't know if we could get the ceremony right, if it's even authentic in the first place. And of course, it wouldn't be a legally valid wedding license in the eyes of New Mexico. But... but I kind of like the idea of going through an affirmation, to show that we're sincerely commiting to each other, now and henceforth... at least, as sincerely as we're capable of, which I think is pretty decent." She paused. "Did I scare you, using the C word and all?"

"No, no!" Max laughed. "I'd like to think that I'm about the least commitment-shy seventeen year old guy you'll find for several states... at least when the person I'm commiting to is you, Liz." They both smiled, and Max stood up. "So how do we do it? Just look at, and speak to, each other?"

"Well, we don't have Holy communion here obviously, and swearing to a half loat of bread and cups of grape juice sounds too silly for words, but I'd like to have some inanimate object standing in as witness maybe," Liz admitted. "Maybe something... something alien?"

"Oh, my my," Max muttered, and hurried over to the windowsill to pick something up. "I found this while we were unpacking - didn't even realize that I'd taken it when we left Roswell until then." He tossed it to her - it was the metal orb that they'd dug up from the desert near the radio tower.

Liz grinned. "Perfect. Umm... okay - maybe we should take twenty minutes apart, try to write some words, you know?"

"Something sweet from the heart?" Max confirmed.

"Yep."

He hurried in to kiss her, before heading out into the living room.

-----------

"Are you sure?" Alex said, before starting to count money out onto the check plate.

"Umm... I'm quite sure that I don't have room for dessert, yeah," Isabel said slowly. "Much less certain that you're paying for both of us."

Alex paused for a moment, and then smiled. "Well, exactly how do you plan to stop me?"

Isabel grinned, accepting the challenge in the spirit it was issued. Neither of them could miss the subtext... if Alex paid for the relatively fancy dinner, that to a certain extent legitimized it as a date in his mind. On the other hand... Isabel actually didn't have a problem with it being a date, but she didn't think that Alex needed to spend that much money on her. She pulled her purse out and at the same time, narrowed her eyes. A twenty dollar bill hopped back off of the cheque plate and tucked itself into Alex's shirt pocket. "Oh-kay..." he muttered. "You can't keep that up, and pull out your own money at the same time," he guessed. "And what if someone happens to be looking our way?"

"Come on, Alex," she countered, her eyes wide and beseeching. "Let me pay for half... it just feels like too much. You can pick up the tab at Red Peppers for our drinks all by yourself if that makes you feel better."

Alex's resolve was never going to make it versus those soft brown eyes. "Okay, but we're not just going out as friends," he countered, wondering if he could make Isabel actually say it out loud."

"No, we're not just friends," she agreed softly. "Come on, you said that the flute guy will start playing soon, and I want us to have time to get a good pick of seats or whatever."

"Sure." Smiling, Alex started to work out what half of the total came too. They didn't end up paying it quite evenly, mostly because Isabel didn't want to spend time waiting for the waitress to pick up the bill and give them back change, but she put down enough money to make her point. The two teenagers hurried out to Alex's car, and he set off east along the street, trying to remember exactly which turning he had to get to the bar.

"It's quick questions time," Isabel announced once they were further underway, distracting him from the directions. "Umm... Beatles or Elvis."

"The Beatles definitely. Umm... coke or Pepsi?"

"Definitely a Pepsi girl. Cat or dog?"

"I think I like cats better, though I've never really taken care of either. Color movies or black and white?"

"Black and white has an odd appeal to it. Hot weather or cold??"

"You have to ask that about a desert dweller? I love the heat." Alex laughed, remembering the heatwave and the first few times that they had really... well, flirting wasn't quite the right term - or was it? "Beach or ski slopes?"

"Oooh, tough choice actually. Beach wins, though, as I think you'd agree if you could see me in a swimsuit versus a parka." Alex laughed. "Hamburger or hot dog?"

"Gotta go with the burger. Umm... tabasco or chocolate?"

"What, you seriously couldn't let me have both??"

"Umm... no, and I need to concentrate on driving for a bit, so you can think about it." Alex laughed, and he could see Isabel shake her head out of the corner of his eye. Soon the turn was made, and he knew the rest of the drive pretty well from that point. "So?"

"Well, do you let me have something else with the tabasco, or does it have to be straight?"

"Umm... okay, yeah, anything but chocolate."

"Then tabasco," she laughed. "Football or baseball?"

"Not really a big sports guy," Alex pointed out. "But, yeah, I do like baseball. Watch it with my dad sometimes... he loves coming up with statistics for it and all of that sort of thing. Umm... let me see... pink or black??"

"Definitely black," Isabel asserted. "Umm... Buffy or Britney?"

"Ehh?" Alex shook his head. "Buffy... by disqualification if nothing else."

"Not a Britney Spears fan?"

"Her voice just bugs the crap out of me," Alex complained. "Butterfly or lady bug?"

"Hmm... I'm not sure," Isabel considered. "Butterflies are prettier... but lady bugs are actually useful. So it kinduv depends on my mood I guess. I'll say ladybugs for now."

"Alright," Alex replied. "Umm... you gonna give me another one?"

"Ehh, not right now." She yawned. "Can't think of one. How close are we to the bar."

"It's a few blocks... so we wouldn't have had time for anything more than three or four more questions I guess," Alex admitted. "Do you worry that people see you as a butterfly? Someone who's all appearances and no substance?"

"Wow," Isabel muttered. "Heck of a question to just blurt out like that."

"Umm... sorry. It's just... something about the way you answered had me wondering if you were taking it personally."

"Probably I was, yeah," she agreed. "And yeah, I think about that sometimes... but then again, considering that I need to keep people from figuring out what I'm really up to, or really thinking about a lot of the time, playing the airhead card is about as good a way of doing that as any. Or doing community service, or whatever." She shrugged.

Alex thought about that, but didn't say anything. His car pulled into the Red Pepper's parking lot, and they went in and found an empty booth with a reasonably good view of the stage. The view, though, only worked on one side of the booth, so Alex went in first, and they sat next to each other, very close, which was fun in and of itself. The lighting in the bar was dark, but Alex found that his senses of touch and smell were flaring into greater life as if to compensate. A man in his late thirties came by to take their order.

"Umm... err - I'm not sure," Isabel said, sounding surprised. "Alex??"

"Cream soda, good stuff," he rattled off, hoping that it sounded at least somewhat suave. "Boylan works if you have any."

"Sure do. And for the lady?"

"Umm... a virgin daiquiri, umm..."

"Banana?" the waiter prompted, in a bored voice.

"Raspberry."

"No raspberry, sorry. We've got strawberry and cherry."

"Strawberry will be fine." As the waiter bustled off, Isabel turned her attention back to Alex. "So... you said that one of your friends from the band reccomended this flautist?"

"Yep, Markos." Alex smiled. "Rhythm guitar. He's got a bit of an attitude sometimes, but he's probably more committed to music than any of the rest of us. And he's got a real gift for doing harmony by ear, which is a lot harder than it looks."

"Alright." Isabel looked around for their waiter, and then returned her attention to her date. "So who else is in the band, aside from you, Markos, and sometimes Maria? How about a drummer? Is the drummer always a troublemaker?"

Alex laughed so hard that for a long while he couldn't even explain why to her.

----------

"Okay, I think we're all ready in here," Liz said through the door. "Enter when you will."

Max smiled, checked to make sure that he had what he needed, and stepped up to the door, then turned the knob and pushed it open.

What he saw confused him for a moment and then took his breath away. Liz had opened the windows and turned off the room celing lamp, so that the main light source was moonlight streaming in... or it had been before Max had opened the door and let in electric light from the living room. Automatically he waved a hand behind him - light switch turned itself off, electric light vanished. He stepped fully into the living room, closing the door behind him.

It took a fraction of a second for his eyes to adjust to the lighting level. There was a figure of about Liz's height next to the far window, on the other side of the bed... obviously it had to be her. Gradually Max could make out her face, the fact that her hair had been pinned up, and that she was wearing a pale pink dress that was virginally innocent and very sexy at the same time.

Max grinned as he walked through the dimness towards her. (Good thing that they hadn't had time to leave anything on the floor that he could trip over.) Max had tried to dress up as nice as he could without resorting to reuse his powers to alter existing clothes - he was an alien not a tailor, and the few times he'd tried that trick it never seemed to work right. (Isabel could do just about anything that occured to her with her clothes, of course.) So he was wearing a nice set of dark suit pants and a long sleeved white dress shirt... clothes that he'd bought in Albuquerque because he thought that they might be useful for a job interview. Though now it looked like any jobs he'd be getting would be more on the blue collar end.

"Hi," Liz breathed softly as he stepped close. "I... I'm not quite sure how to start this, actually."

"Well, 'dearly beloved, we are gathered here today...' doesn't sound right for several reasons, yeah." Max agreed. One, it was night not day, and two - no friends and family were gathered here at all. "Go right into our affirmations, maybe??"

"Okay, I guess." Liz took a deep breath. "You first?"

"Okay, umm..." Max had brought papers in with him, but there wasn't really enough light to read by. He reached out to take Liz's hands in his, and had no trouble at all in seeing her eyes shine with reflected moonlight. "I... I've seen you for nearly all of my life... liked you -- been attracted to you as soon as I hit puberty and started to like girls." Liz chuckled. "But... but when I think of when and why I fell in love with you, all I can keep coming back to is that horrible accident that brought us together... how I had to take your life in my hands that day in the cafe, and caught a glimpse of your soul." Both of them let out a long breath. "We've been through so much since then... we had to get to know each other the old-fashioned way, and figure out how we fit in each other's lives... learn to believe that we could truly trust each other with every secret. I was scared and I backed away from you, and I mourn all the time we lost for those long months, but the road that we've taken together led us here now, and so I don't think I really regret a step of it."

"People may say that we're too young to understand what we're getting into here. But... but I know what love is..." he brushed a bit of hair away from Liz's forehead... "-- how difficult it can be to keep love growing when life isn't all sunshine, and how precious it truly is. And I think I understand what forever means. So I swear here and now to keep loving you for each of the days I have in my future... to stand beside you and support you... to show you all my affection and to never start thinking that something else is more important than the bond that you and I share. I want to take care of you if you get sick, to hold you in my arms if you have to cry, to share in your joy if something makes you happy, and to help carry the load if burdens are weighing you down. The two of us are different people, and the differences between us will make things interesting, but we can take our seperate existences and join them together to make one life. Because when I'm without you, I feel like all I have is a half-life, like a stick of radioactive metal sitting in a laboratory somewhere." Liz couldn't entirely stifle a groan at the truly horrible pun. "We can't marry each other tonight, legally, but I pledge my love and commitment to you, and hope that you'll accept it."

"Of course..." Liz's mood had changed in an instant, from frustration to being overwhelmed with sentiment. "Of courrse I accept it, Max. Umm... sorry, just a second, I'm having trouble keeping everything that I was going to say straight because your speech is mixing up with it."

Max smiled back. "Did you make crib sheets? I can give you a reading light." He cupped his hand and generated a soft glow from it... now, how had he not thought of that for his own? Maybe seeing Liz having a problem made him get inventive.

"Umm... okay, yeah." Liz turned away for just a moment to snatch some papers from the corner of the bed, and Max used his hand-light to illuminate them. But Liz didn't read off the page, she took a quick look at it, to refresh her memory, and then locked eyes with Max. "I... I've heard stories about crabs walking around claw in claw, and birds flying together year after year and coming back to the same place every time to build a nest and raise little birdlings together. But until recently, I never really stopped to think about whether an alien could be with just one person for all of their life. Now I'm really hoping that it's true... and that I can be that person.

"I'm not sure when I was sure that you were the one, that we had to be together. Maybe... maybe it was when you snuck into the girl's locker room, just to try and figure out if the flash you got was a real fantasy of mine." She smiled. "But I'm sure now, in a way that seems so inassailable to doubt. But doubt is sneakier and tougher than it looks, and we need to take a lot of care with our relationship, because difficult times are going to come, and if we don't make sure to stick together above all else, they might tear us apart. So I vow to lend all of my strength to you, and to ask for your help when I need it, to stick by you whether we get richer or poorer, to feed the flames of love and passion so that they will always keep burning as hot as they do now or hotter, and to be with you until the day that I die. Hopefully a long time from now. Where the future might lead us I'm not sure, but we can make it if we always think of each other first."

Max smiled. "Can I kiss the not-quite-bride?"

Liz laughed. "After all that, you'd better! And then take down my hair." Curious, Max brought his lips down to hers, kissing her slowly and softly, his arms wrapping around her. His hand went up to her dark tresses and, after a little exploration, found that there were a few critical ties that, when pulled away, loosened the entire arrangement. Liz's straight dark hair cascaded down in a loose curtain behind her, and it was somehow the perfect image for the moment... a transition from virginal girl to exquisitely desirable young woman. (Not that there wasn't some overlap there.)

Max smiled, running one hand through her hair and caressing her shoulder with the other. "I like the dress... did you bring it from Roswell??"

"Yeah... was hoping that I'd get a chance to wear it for you, though I wasn't expecting this situation." She blushed slightly, though it was hard to see actual reds and pinks in the dim light. "Maria and I went shopping together for Spring Fling outfits a week and a half ago."

Ooooh, interesting, Max decided silently. By the time of the spring fling, if they'd stayed in Roswell, they'd have been ungrounded. Would have been an interesting night... but then again, he'd said no regrets. "Do... do you mind if I take your dress off?"

Liz giggled. "In time, no, but we should fool around a bit first. Patience, my not-quite-husband."

Max didn't feel much patience at that moment, so he playfully pushed her down onto the bed and started to cover her neck and jawline with kisses. Their hands wandered over each other, and soon the fires of passion were stoked high enough that Liz didn't object as Max scrambled out of his own clothes, and then carefully pulled her dress away, bit by bit. She was wearing cute pink silky underthings beneath, and Max took his time with the foreplay before removing those.

Soon, nervously, the two young dreamers moved beyond all of the barriers of their previous amorous encounters, and Max carefully started the act of love, watching Liz's eyes for any sign that he was hurting her. There was some discomfort as her maidenhood was broken, but she wordlessly urged him on, wishing for love and ecstasy to wipe the blood away.

Love and ecstasy did their best, and Liz had absolutely no complaints of them.


"Say it's true. There's nothing like me and you
I'm not alone - tell me you feel it too.

And I would run away... I would run away, yeah.
I would run away... I would run away with you.

Cause I... have fallen in love... with you,
No, never - I'm never going to - stop falling in love.
With you...

Close the door. Lay down upon the floor.
And by candlelight, make love to me through the night.

'Cause I have run away... I have run away, yeah.
I have run away, run away. I have run away with you.

Cause I... have fallen in love... (fallen in love) with you,
No, never - I'm never going to - stop falling in love.
With you."


TO BE CONTINUED...

Part Five

"You have to come to New York with me, Joey!!"

Michael groaned softly to himself. The evening had not really gone anything like he had planned. After wandering around downtown Roswell... (and managing to trip on a thick clump of grass and tearing open a hole in both the kneepads of a good pair of jeans, and in the skin of his actual knee,) he returned to the diner at nine o'clock, waited around in the parking lot for ten minutes, then went in and found Maria sitting in a booth and chatting with Elaine Peterson about... about something to do with clay sculpting, which was strange because he never thought of Maria as having the faintest interest in sculpting. (Though now that he thought about it, the mental picture of Maria as a sensual earthy artist type, getting her hands and arms all muddy as she worked on a big clay jug using one of those slowly spinning wheels, wearing nothing put a pair of overalls and shoes without socks... yeah, that was a pretty sexy image for her, he had to admit. Hmm.) Well, it had been nearly another ten minutes before she'd actually been ready to leave, and no sooner had they got settled on his couch than Maria found an episode of 'Dawson's creek' playing and was instantly sucked into the teenage melodrama.

All of which meant that Michael's hopes to ignite a little heat wave with Maria tonight were being stifled so far. He groaned to himself a little as the infamous fab six of Capeside prattled on to each other about college plans and psychiatrist vists and who was dating who this week... and of course movie dreams. Rather strangely, a couple of CDs that he'd left sitting on the floor, next to the wall, started to bother him. He stared at the jewel cases, bothered that he was bothered... he'd never been particularly worried about having everything put away in its place, and if he actually started tidying up while Maria was there... she'd either think that he was putting an act on to impress her or wonder if he was going crazy. Still, he couldn't just sit her staring at them, and if he didn't stare at them, they seemed to occupy his mind just as much. So he got up and picked them up, and once they were in his hands, what else was there to do but put them up on the shelf.

Maria looked away from the scene that was playing out between Dawson and his angst-ridden exsoulmate and smiled apologetically at him. "I'm... I'm being a horribly inconsiderate guest, aren't I?" she said sheepishly. "You... you have absolutely no interest in this, and I've hardly even talked to you on the commercials." She sighed. "I... I'm really sorry, it's just that I realized I forgot to set up the VCR or anything before I left for work, and -- and I didn't want to be completely lost as they lead up to the season finale. But... but I'll turn it off right now if you want me too." Maria bit her bottom lip cutely as she waited for his answer.

Michael sighed... realizing that he wouldn't be able to bring himself disappoint her, even if she'd just invited him to. Better men than he had crumbled before cute looks like this one. "How... how much longer does it run?" he asked in a low mumble, hoping that this would give him a reasonable way to save face.

"Umm... eleven minutes."

"Well, it seems like a shame to make you miss the ending." Michael threw caution to the window and spoke boldly. "And after it's done, maybe we can do something *I* like." He did his best to say those last three words as flirtaciously as he could and give her a smoky seductive look.

Maria giggled slightly, but at least she got the point. "Umm... yeah, I think that could be arranged."

Michael smiled, not worrying about pretending to pay attention to the show any more, and headed into the kitchen. "Umm, can I get you something to drink?"

"Yeah - umm, just cold water if you have any." Michael happily poured some water into a reasonably clean glass from the pitcher that Isabel had put into the fridge a few days ago... (thank you, Izzie!) and took a long swallow from a can of pepsi before putting it back in the door of the refrigerator.

Soon enough, Maria had drunk about half of her glass and didn't seem interested in the rest, as the credits rolled up on the Creek. "Okay, so, umm... you wanna have a seat again?" Maria asked, a little nervously, and patting the space next to her on the sofa.

"Just a moment." Michael hurried to turn out most of the lights and put something good for making out onto the stereo. (It would probably have been quicker if he'd reversed the order.) Maria took the hint and turned the television off, and she nearly jumped on him as he sat down, knowing that he loved it when she made the move on him. Michael smiled, running his fingers through her hair as they kissed, reflecting on how much it had grown since the first hooked up in December.

Something about that realization, even as Maria began to stroke one hand over the front of Michael's shirt, made him think of their association in an unexpected way. How long would the two of them be bickering with each other, kissing, just hanging out together, or doing other things together? Would Maria go through other hairstyle phases while she was with him? Would he??

When he thought about it that way, the notion of being 'tied down' didn't seem nearly as... uncomfortable. Michael moved his lips from Maria's own, to run them up her face between her cheek and her jaw, and then whispered huskily in her ear, asking if she liked that. He knew what the answer would be, but it was still fun to ask.

----------

Isabel hadn't expected the flute music to be like this. Then again, she hadn't been quite sure what to expect from 'blues fluting' in the first place. When Isabel thought of the blues, which was pretty seldom since her musical diet generally stayed pretty much put in recent popular rock, she thought about vocalists who encouraged the audience to join in, and stringed instruments, and possibly simple two and three-part harmonies. But this... occasionally there had been a soft drum or fiddle joining in, but otherwise the flautist had been alone, and there had definitely been no words sung. Thus, except when the fiddle was in use, there was really no harmony at all, and yet the music had had a melancholy beauty that Isabel had been completely unable to explain to herself, simply to accept.

She purposefully pressed herself a little bit closer against Alex, delighting in this moment, in the bittersweet beauty of the pure and haunting tones, in being her with him and appreciating the music somehow better for his company than she would have alone, though they hadn't discussed it at all. Maybe it was just that Alex had paid so much attention to the musician and the music... he had glanced over at Isabel herself occasionally, to reassure himself that she wasn't looking bored out of her skull perhaps, but otherwise he had paid attention to nothing at all in the entire bar - his cream soda was still three quarters full and had been touched only once since the music had begun, during a two-minute intermission. The intensity of his concentrated attention had inspired Isabel to pay as close attention, and she had found subtle details in the sound that she would never have even thought to listen for before.

All of a sudden Alex shook himself silently, looked at his watch - and gasped in surprise. "Darnit, it's after ten fifteen!" he whispered at her in disbelief. "We've got to go straight home."

"No, we don't," she said softly. "Umm... but yeah, maybe we should get out of here now." Isabel would dearly have loved to stay and listen much longer, but it WAS a school night after all, and the marginal pleasure she'd get from staying longer probably wasn't worth the grief that she'd get from her parents for being out too late. (She'd been taking economics since the christmas break, and it was insidious how ideas like marginal value - the notion that the pleasure you got from something decreasing as you had more of it - started to creep into your mind.)

However, that still didn't mean that she wanted to go directly home. There were other possible activities, for which her marginal pleasure would be much greater and worth the risk of being caught sneaking in late. Marginal value of kissing, for instance... such were Isabel's thoughts as she held Alex's hand and they left the bar together. He'd been paying for their drinks as they came, which saved some time at this point, though it also meant that he didn't get full value of what he'd paid for the cream soda. (Then again, maybe by the marginal value concept, he'd gotten over half of its price just from the first two inches' worth of soda. Hmm.) As he neared the car in the parking lot, Isabel was running right behind him, and before Alex quite knew what had happened, he was pressed up against the rear passenger window, his lips locked against Isabel's soft and brightly painted ones. Delighting in the somewhat naughty kiss, stolen when they 'should' have been heading straight for her house, Isabel leaned her body tightly against Alex, something that she had never really done when out with any other guy. But then, Alex Charles Whitman clearly wasn't like other guys.

...As was evidenced by the fact that he broke away from her quickly, though on one level, he was clearly enjoying the experience, and made a relatively sincere attempt to protest. "But... but I promised your Dad..."

"Forget my father, Alex," Isabel whispered to him softly. "You... you wanted this to be a real date, right? Well, what makes it more official than a little fooling around?"

"Well, a goodnight kiss is traditional, I suppose," Alex allowed. "Anything much further, on the first date?"

"Ehh, so stuff a sock into tradition," Isabel argued. running her hand across his face, (feeling a nearly electric thrill run through her skin as she did so,) and brushing a bit of hair away from his forehead. "I'm not a very traditional sort of girl in some ways... as you well know." She brought her lips towards his face again, kissing him on the cheek, and Alex didn't protest again... but he didn't respond with any particular eagerness. He stood there irresolute, still slightly pinned against the car. Isabel's left foot was planted ahead of her, in between his, and it would have been awkward at least for him to maneuver away around it. "We don't have to do much more tonight," Isabel said on, in a voice that, to her surprise, sounded more honest and less contrived than the seductive whispers, though she was still quiet. "I... I just want to experience a little bit more with you, before I have to go home."

That seemed to persuade him. Tilting his head slightly, Alex took one side of Isabel's face in his hand, resting the other on her upper arm. And he kissed her back, a kiss that was less hurried and heated than Isabel's, but comfortable and oddly intimate, like their first kiss in his front doorway had been. Isabel wondered if he had kissed other girls before she came into his life, and then pushed that thought away - it certainly wasn't anything that she wanted to think about tonight. Instead, she let herself melt into the moment, wrapping her arms around Alex's midsection, moving her feet so that their knees and lower thighs touched.

They must have spent a few minutes in that kiss, not aware of anything else in the world but each other. Finally, without her being aware of the end of it, their faces were seperate again, unless she counted the eye contact that still connected them, as Isabel looked into her happy expression. "Was that enough?"

"Almost," Isabel replied dreamily, and Alex got a thoughtful look on his face, wondering what else he could do to satisfy her without taking too long or otherwise appearing guilty in the eyes of Isabel's formidable father - or whether Isabel would insist on her own terms. She did, in a manner of speaking - she reached down slightly and pinched Alex's bottom firmly for a fraction of a second, grinning at the feel of this quite intimate flesh between her fingers. "Okay," she replied as a look of discomfort, shock, and poetic chagrin filled his face. "You can take me home now." She stepped back slightly.

"Umm... okay." Alex sighed and hurried around to the driver's side door before she could change her mind. But he couldn't, or didn't want to, wipe the goofy smile off his face.

----------

"Wow," Max muttered weakly, as he and Liz lay on their new bed, having initiated it quite thoroughly. "That... that was...."

"Yeah." Liz giggled. "I know - wasn't it??"

He looked over at her. "I... I didn't think that sex would be anything like *that*."

"Maybe it isn't usually - for us lowly humans, I mean." She sighed. "I... I felt like... like the energy inside each of us was touching, was starting to mix around the edges. Like I have a little part of you inside me forever now. Did you get anything like that??"

"Yeah, umm, yeah I think so," Max agreed. "That and more... like floating through a sea of warm, calm, pleasure for a really long time - maybe around half an hour."

"Yep, that too." Liz laughed again.

Max propped himself up on one elbow and waved his hand, to turn the lamp up a notch. "By the way, Liz my love, you look gorgeous tonight." A pause. "Maybe I should have mentioned that before the, umm..."

"Before we made love?" She smiled. "It would have been appreciated... but not required I think. And thank you for saying it now." She smiled. "You look... well, handsome isn't quite the word for it at the moment. Manly and virile?"

"Good," Max laughed. "So... do you want something to eat? I can try my hand at cooking, though I won't make guarantees about the results." Thought about that. "At least I know that I can put out a grease fire if I have to."

"No," Liz shook her head, and pressed herself close to her sworn love, kissing Max hard and running her fingers over all of her favorite parts of his body, including a few that had been discovered fairly recently, as it were. "I want to... well, not really do what we just did again, because what I had in mind was more like trying out a different variation."

"Ohhh." Max's eyes grew wide. "Be careful, sweetheart. You have to show up for work training tomorrow at ten, right?"

Liz just smiled, made sure that Max was flat on his back, and crawled up, starting by sitting on top of his thighs.

-----------

"Honey," Liz called from the bedroom out to the kitchen, a morning about a week later, "Did you see where I left my foundation compact?" There was no immediate response from Max, which she didn't take as a good sign. "It's black, flat, mostly round with one straight side..."

"Umm, no, don't remember spotting it," Max said, crossing the living room with a slice of toast in his hand. "But come on - you can go one day without makeup, can't you? You look gorgeous anyway."

"That's very sweet - and maybe true to a limited extent sometimes." Liz sighed. "But I don't want to go a whole day without some kind of base on - you know that I don't use much, but it..." She broke off, despairing of explaining the realities of makeup to a man, even her dearly beloved. "I've got a long one today, so I might not be here when you get home."

"You work yourself too hard," Max said to her, pulling her close. "We don't need the money that bad..."

"It's not about the money," she whispered back. "There's... there's an image that we need to keep up, now that people think that they know a bit about us, so that we don't attract any suspicion. We're a very young couple who's settled in a small town and gotten jobs quickly. Pretty much expected that we'd be strapped for cash, and that we'd take any opportunity to earn a little extra money, within reason. Especially when Linda's offering overtime pay" She kissed him. "Besides, I like working in the bar, especially mornings. Never know what's going to happen down there, or what you're going to overhear."

Max smiled. Liz was already in her usual work clothes... nothing quite as fancy as the green uniform that she wore back in Roswell... mostly black clothes, a short black skirt, dark pantyhose, black shoes, a dark grey shirt with white trim, and a white scrunchy holding her dark hair back. Max didn't really like the idea of her wearing a mini that mini down to the bar, but he had decided that it wasn't worth making an issue out of. "Sure - you got the great job. I'm the one out mucking the pig and chicken shit and baling hay."

Liz shook her head slightly. Max had been taken on as a farm hand a few days ago, and as much as he complained she could tell that he didn't really mind the hard work and the somewhat dirty and undignified conditions. It was good honest work in his mind, close to the ground... even if the farm was a fairly modern one owned by a big out-of-state corporation. "So... tell me you love me."

"Of course I love you - what the heck would I be doing out here if I didn't?" Max shot back with a grin. "And if you're opening up for breakfast, you're going to be late."

"Oooh - just a few seconds!" Liz spotted her foundation compact, reached out and snatched it from the edge of the small motorized humidifier that sat against the wall between the living room and bedroom, and disappeared into the bath to fix her makeup. Max kept a hold of her and stole one last kiss before she managed that, knowing that he'd have less chance of scoring a smooch afterwards.

Once Liz had gone, Max sighed to himself, and started tidying up without paying much attention to what he was doing. Most days he would probably be leaving after Liz did... there wasn't much call for breakfast wait staff, so the four of them took turns. The idea that he would leave an apartment without Liz Parker - or Alisa Miller for that matter, in it, and come back home to find her still gone depressed Max, though he knew that she had a point that declining on a chance to earn overtime pay would seem strange. Suddenly determined, he went and pulled out a max, spreading it out on the kitchen table, and retrieving his cold and forgotten piece of toast, forcing himself to munch on it.

In a couple of days - Sunday, they would both have a day off, and had already made their plans for spending it together. They'd drive to a town several hours away, probably Shiprock, and mail a letter back home to Roswell. Liz was in the middle of composing the letter itself - addressed to Maria this time, although Max was considering writing a quick note to his parents or to Michael, to send at the same time. That had been Max's idea... to postmark their letters home somewhere relatively far away, and probably all in one direction, so that his father couldn't zero in on them by trying to find the geographic mean of all of the postal locations.

Yes, Max decided. He'd start jotting down some stuff that he wanted to say when he wrote Michael, whether that was this week or next. That would make him feel better. He went off to find some paper and a pen.

----------

"Are... are you sure about this, Isabel?" Alex asked, as Isabel turned the motor of her mother's car off, parked near the top of Jonson's hill. That said it all, really, didn't it? Ever since Alex had been a little boy, getting told 'mature situations' stories by the teenager neighbor kid, (who Alex now suspected was largely blowing hot air when it came to his more impressive escapade tales,) Jonson's hill had been synonymous with hot, illicit makeout sessions. Alex fingered his seatbelt button but didn't press it.

"Umm, I'm very sure, if you're just talking about my own feelings," Isabel insisted, matching action to word - sending her own seatbelt nearly flying away from her, and turning fifty-five degrees toward him. "The question seems to be, 'are *you* sure about this, Alex?'" She sighed. "I... I like you, and I guess I just feel like I don't want to wait now... now that I'm sure I've found someone worth exploring the many little rituals of teenage courtship with. But if you've got your own notions about the timing that I'm straying foul of, then... then just let me know, Alex. I don't like to wait, but you're worth waiting for."

Alex had felt a smile growing on his face as Isabel explained herself. "No, no, it's not anything nearly so... so sensible and reasoned," he assured her. "I... I'm nervous and hesitant because I don't know if I'm going to be able to do things right, not because I don't... don't want to do things or think that they're not the right things to do. Does that make any sense?"

"Alex," Isabel shook her head. "For someone who hadn't already done the first thing very well, it might make *more* sense than it does for you. Based on our kisses so far, you don't have anything to worry about on that score."

"What about..." Alex had to clear his throat. "If the moment takes us beyond kissing?" Isabel widened her eyes slightly. "I... I mean, it's a very dark and isolated area, there's plenty of time before either of us have to be back home since you talked me into ditching the movie." She grinned in response to that. "I... well, kissing is something that I've had a very little bit of practice before I met you, but... okay, I don't know how to finish that without sounding even more stupid than I currently feel..."

"Alex, the one thing that you could never be or sound is stupid," Isabel assured him. "We... we can just stick to kissing if you'd like... or since you WANT to try something a little bit more ambitious... we can learn together, and not feel embarassed about that - or at least I hope we can." She took a deep breath. "I've never done anything beyond kissing either."

"No?" Alex blinked. "I... I'm not even talking second base or anything, just... just kissing each other's necks, or touching each other - nowhere special, just umm..."

"No, I've never necked," Isabel insisted. "Either on the giving end or the receiving. Touched and been touched a bit more than we've done so far while kissing, but... but not noticeably more, and mostly on the 'been touched' end." She sighed. "Anyone I've ever dated before... I guess I always had my walls up, and that included goodbye kisses and so on. I... I tried not to be any stingier with affection than I had to be - didn't really want even more people calling me the Ice Queen in the halls, or coming with new names. Like, umm... like princess blue tease or something like that." Alex nodded. "But... but I guess on some level I knew that none of them were the right guy to move forward with."

Alex smiled. "Okay." And he undid his own seat belt, though he managed to get his arm caught in it before it retracted all the way - Isabel leaned over and helped him untangle himself. "We should probably stick with the kissing for a while then - we're good at it, and that'll help calm some nerves maybe. And then... try the necking thing maybe."

"Alex," Isabel just managed to say before their lips met. "If kissing me calms your nerves - then I'm not doing it right." He laughed into her mouth.

As it happened, they didn't manage to get to the 'necking thing.' In mid-kiss, someone tapped on the driver's window of the car, and before she'd even let go of Alex Isabel flung her door open, bumping it into the figure visible outside the fogged-up windows and nearly sending him or her flying. "What the hell is your prob--" she started to say, and then broke off as she caught sight of a fringe of straight, light hair under a heavy cap that wasn't at all appropriate to the weather that night... and something familiar about the face. "Agent Topolsky??"

"You're - you're in danger," Kathleen Topolsky stuttered. "I - I couldn't find Max and Liz. He might have already got them, just whisked them out of Roswell..."

Isabel snarled slightly and with a fierce motion, turned the key in the ignition again. "For the record, nobody whisked my brother away. He left Roswell of his own decision, and thank you *VERY* much for bringing up such an unpleasant situation." Without waiting to close her door, Isabel put the car in reverse and pulled away, As she slammed it closed, they could faintly hear the ex-guidance counselor calling out 'Act like normal kids!!'

"What the heck did she think we WERE doing?" Alex asked, which got a round of giggles out of Isabel. But the mood of levity didn't last her very long. Seeing Topolsky again brough back too many unpleasant memories... and other nasty thoughts - vague and shapeless worries about the future. The last time that any of them had seen Kathleen Topolsky, Alex had snuck into her computer and found official email from the Federeal Bureau of Investigation. As soon as Topolsky had realized that they knew that much about her, she had left the school, and as far as they could tell, left the state as quickly as possible... certainly left Roswell. That sounded very much like some sort of official protocol - once your cover has been exposed, extricate yourself from the situation as cleanly and simply as possible and report for debriefing.

Isabel wasted no time driving back into the center of town, stopping out on the curb in front of the Crashdown. Even though Michael and Maria were supposed to be on shift, the dining room was dark and very few cars were in the parking lot. Alex jumped out just long enough to confirm that there was a 'Sorry, closed early' sign in the window. "Okay, so where would they go?" he asked. It was an easy question to answer.

When they got up to Michael's apartment, nobody came when Isabel knocked, (big surprise,) and the door wasn't locked. Isabel could have sworn that she saw Michael rubbing Maria's chest through her sweater when she first peeked into the living room, and Maria didn't complain. Maria spotted Alex and said his name, and Michael was just starting to get upset about her calling somebody else's name while making out with him, when he realized that she was trying to let him know that they had company.

It felt a little weird for the four of them to be talking about FBI stuff without Max and Liz around. "Is there... is there any chance that if the FBI is interested in us again, that they DO already have Max and Liz?" Maria asked, worried.

"Maybe a very slim possibility, but I wouldn't be too worried about it," Alex replied. "If nobody else could find them, I doubt that the FBI would either. We're the ones who are vulnerable here."

"What were you guys doing up on Jonson's hill anyway?" Michael asked, a slightly sly look on his face. "Thought you were going to see a movie."

"Umm... plans change," Isabel replied vaguely. "Well, I don't trust Topolsky, but it does make sense to be careful and act like nothing's wrong. And remember to think before you go anywhere. Can never tell what Topolsky or someone else might be planning."

"Yeah, not bad advice," Michael comented grudgingly.

There was an awkward moment. "Umm... should we just leave you guys to get back to it?" Alex asked, gesturing at the loveseat that Michael and Maria were still sitting very close to each other on.

"Neh, the mood's kinduv broken," Maria sighed. "How about..."

"It is?" Michael interrupted. "Umm... if it might help to put the mood back together, I've got the new album from..."

"Give it a rest, sweetie," Maria said, running a hand through his hair in a quick and intimate gesture. "Not gonna happen tonight. We could all watch a movie right here."

"Okay." Isabel went over to look at Michael's collection of videotapes. "The empire strikes back, Pulp fiction, or Groundhog day?"

"Groundhog," Alex and Maria said at once. Maria giggled slightly. "Yeah, I could do with a dose of Bill Murray right now. Oh, do you have 'what about bob'?? That one is just a riot."

"Umm, I don't see it," Isabel said, peering at the titles.

"Actually, I think it's on the shelves beneath the stereo," Michael pointed out. Alex went over and rifled through a few tape cases that had gotten mixed up with Michael's CDs and old schoolbooks.

"Oh, okay, here it is. How did it get down there anyway, Michael??"

"Some mysteries I have yet to figure out myself," Michael shot back sarcastically. Isabel was pulling over a chair from the kitchen area so that she could sit next to Alex and they could all see the television screen, as Alex popped the tape in.

-----------

Liz noticed something that seemed a little odd when she opened the apartment door and came in. Well, maybe more than one thing that seemed a little odd. For one thing, the entire place was very dark - no light sources except for the faintly glowing hands of the kitchen clock, and a little bit of streetlight and starlight coming in from the blinded windows. But there was something more than that. "Close the door," a warm voice invited. Max's voice, a little bit throaty and somehow very inviting. So Liz did, and the darkness enveloped her, until her eyes began to adjust and very dimly make out some of her surroundings with what little illumination was available.

"Are... are you wiped out?" Max asked. From his voice, he had to be sitting on the far edge of the couch. "Do you need to eat or have a beverage??"

Liz's mind raced. "Umm... I'm a little tired, but not totally bushed, no. Had some grub down at work, and plenty to drink."

She could almost hear Max's eyebrow raise. "Plenty? Then do you need to use the bathroom??"

"Umm... not just yet. Max - what's going on? Why are all of the lights out?"

He didn't answer her question correctly. "Are you okay with the idea of putting yourself completely in my hands and going along with whatever I suggest? I promise that I won't let anything hurt you, and if you need something that I'm not attending to, all you need to do is tell me."

In the darkness, a wide smile crossed over Liz's face, and probably a blush followed it. This sounded... very interesting, not to mention exciting. "Yes, Max. Tonight is your turn."

A definite chuckle sounded from the couch, as it creaked slightly with the change in weight patterns of a young man rising from the seat. His laugh hadn't been loud, but Liz hadn't had any problems hearing it. Apparently he had caught the hint from her response - that if Max wanted to play dominance and submission games, she'd expect to turn the tables around on him sometime soon. "Take two steps forward," he suggested as he came near. Liz did, knowing that this would bring her near to the couch and the coffee table, but not risk bumping into either of them. Max met her, kissed her hot and eagerly, penetrating the space between her red and supple lips with a fierce hunger that took her breath away. One of his hands was immediately up in her hair, Max's fingers closing around the white scrunchie that still bound her ponytail and slowly, inistently pulling it down and away, so that her dark tresses burst free and cascaded around her face and her shoulders. Max's other palm had gone down low, stroking the outside of her thigh through thin and tantalizing hose, running over the curve of her hip, and then cupping one of the cheeks of her bottom ever so gently and pressing it slightly forward, towards Max's own pelvis. Liz felt a wave of anticipation pass through all of her skin and her muscles, chilling her blood just slightly.

But the sense of cold didn't last long. Liz brought her own hands up to Max's midsection, and while one hand came up against the loose fabric of an untucked shirt, the other mostly met bare flesh. Strong and taut, his skin was covered with small hairs that Liz knew would have been very hard to see even with the light on, but she loved the feel of him, and quickly dived both hands underneath the shirt, caressing and rubbing him. A wave of warm energy flooded up through her hands, and the two loveres moaned at the same time, but after a few seconds Max broke off the kiss, leaving Liz whimpering and trying to catch his lips again with hers, and laughed ruefully to himself. "I... I can see that I'm going to need to be a little bit more specific. Liz, will you yield the initiative to me, not taking action on your own like that unless I specifically suggest it to you?"

Liz let out as erotic a groan as she could and held onto Max's shoulder with one hand. "What's the problem, big boy? Don't tell me that you didn't like what I was doing - we both know better than that."

"True, that," Max admitted. "But I have my own plans for tonight, and as much fun as it might be for both of us when you jump in on your own notions, they might distract me, and make us both miss out on other things." Max caressed her soft rear end, a little more firmly this time, and leaned down to blow softly against the skin of her neck and the lobe of her ear. Liz's knees buckled.

"Okay, sir," she joked. "I'll be a good little girl and not grope until I'm spoken to." But she rocked her hips a little so that her butt pressed back rhytmically against Max's questing hand, and she could feel his fingers twitch slightly at that sensation.

Max withdrew and began to circle around her. How much he could see in the dim light Liz wasn't sure, but he certainly seemed to have no doubts at all about where she was - and where every part of her was, when it came to that, and he moved around without ever bumping into the furniture, which she knew couldn't be that far away. As Max moved he would touch her, nowhere particularly naughty, but every contact took her breath away - the more so because with the lack of light, every sensation coming from her skin, and every sound of breath that either of them made, seemed to loom larger in her mind. At one point, Max would bend down to wrap his hand around most of her knee, or let his fingers linger on the side of her torso, through her work shirt. At one point, he gently gathered up her hair and poured it down in front of her shoulder, then spent almost a minute rubbing a spot at the top of her back with two fingers, which aroused Liz more than she would ever have expected, almost as if it was a touch sensitivity control for all of the rest of her body... except that he wasn't touching any of the rest of her, though her skin was starting to cry out for him.

"You... you have a choice now," Max breathed in her ear, the ear away from the side where her hair lay. "Do you want to continue standing up, or laying down on the bed??"

Liz thought about that. Standing up had worked okay so far, but she had been on her feet all day, and lying down sounded nice. "On the bed."

"Okay, take my hand." Liz did, and Max led her across the room - and there was a 'thump' as he walked into the wall. Liz couldn't help but snicker. Obviously Max was still having some problems in the darkness, if not quite as many as she was. But they got into the bedroom. "Take off your shirt," Max suggested, and Liz did so, undoing the buttons at her neck, and then popping it up and off her head, grabbing the cuffs one by one and pulling the white fabric away from her arms that way. She tossed the shirt in the direction of the dresser, and it seemed to disappear into the darkness halfway there. "Come forward to the bed, and lay down on your stomach."

"On my stomach?" Liz repeated. "Like, face down??"

"Well, no, you can turn your face to one side so that you can breathe," Max pointed out. "But, umm, front down, yeah." Liz did this, though she seemed confused by it. That seemed to put a lot of interesting stuff in a position where he couldn't get easy access to it, but Max was in charge for tonight, and she wasn't going to object to something unless she was really afraid of getting hurt by it. She moved until her shins were touching the edge of the bed, bent down at the waist, reached down with her arms until they found the smooth fitted sheet, (had Max pulled all the blankets away before she arrived?) In an instinctive motion that she had learned when very young, Liz hitched her knees up onto the mattress, so that she was crouched on all fours, and then stretched her arms out so that her stomach and chest fell down onto the smooth fabric. Wondering where Max was and what he was getting ready for, she hitched her body forward a little on the mattress so that less of her legs were hanging over the edge.

"Just a moment," Max said, and she stopped in mid motion. Then Max's hands were touching her feet, unbuckling her shoes and pulling them off. Even this contact seemed to send trembles and quakes up to the rest of Liz, and she waited once the shoes were long gone, wondering if he'd do anything else, or if he'd give her permission to continue sliding herself the rest of the way onto the bed. When he didn't seem to do either, she decided that it was okay to finish getting herself in the position that he had originally asked for.

"Thank you," Max whispered tantalizingly out of the darkness. Straining at the sounds of movement in the dark room, Liz realized that he was kneeling down at the end of the bed next to her. Liz had turned her head the other way when she lay, facing the other side of the bed instead of the edge, and decided not to try changing her position now - especially since if she tried to turn her head without moving her hands, she'd probably get hair falling all over her face. There was the sound of soft breathing, and limber, calming fingers stroking themselves through her dark locks, and Max humming softly, though Liz couldn't quite make out the tune or even any particular notes. The side of his arm brushed against the top of her face, and two fingers silently glided over her lips, running over the lipstick she wore, luckily none of it seemed to be coming off on Max's hand. Then he moved in the direction of her feet, stroking the small of Liz's back in a kinduv tickly way, and then brought her hands back to her butt, gently massaging and kneading in a way that had Liz hot and bothered in a mere moment. "Max," she blurted out. "I'm sorry, Max, but you told me to speak if I needed something. I need... I need more than this."

He laughed tenderly. "How much more? How soon??"

"Umm... I'm not really sure," Liz admitted. "Just - you're driving me crazy like this."

"That... that was kinduv the point," he breathed, so softly that she almost couldn't hear. "The slower and more frustrating the build-up, the better the peak, I'm starting to realize." Liz sighed, admitting the point of that but not willing to let go of her impatience either. "I'll move a little faster, and we'll see how that goes, alright?"

"Yes," Liz breathed in reply. Max's notion of 'a little faster' surprised her slightly, but she couldn't argue that things were now moving at a different vector - perhaps not a higher speed, but maybe in a better direction. With some co-operation from her, Max pulled her pantyhose down off her legs and away, and then unfastened her bra, (including the shoulder straps, which didn't normally unfasten that way, but Max was insistent and must have used his powers,) and slipped the undergarment out from underneath her like a magician pulling a tablecloth away without disturbing the centerpiece, the plates, or the glassware. Liz expected him to work on her miniskirt next, or maybe to pull away the underwear from beneath it, but Max didn't bother with either of those last two pieces of clothes, instead trying to stimulate her as much as he could with them remaining on, and her in this position. That meant that her legs were focused on to a considerable extent - fondling and feeling the very soft and sensitive skin on her exposed inner thighs, though he also returned to her clothed ass, and reached underneath her to caress and tweak her bullet-hard nipples. Liz was moaning with excitement and impatience, though she didn't want to ask him yet again to hurry up. Surely Max would get the point soon enough.

He did, after nearly driving Liz crazy with his subtle approach at foreplay. Liz couldn't quite remember when or how Max removed the remaining clothes, but she definitely noticed when he climbed up onto the bed, drawing her up so that she was on all fours, with Max in a similar position just behind her. Something about completing the act of love in this way seemed especially naughty and delicious to Liz... maybe that was the point - it wasn't how she'd ever imagined 'making love' - it was something more raw, more primal, which gave the idea more energy and passion. Yet, for all that, she was doing it with the man that she loved more than she loved anything or anyone else in the world - she trusted him completely, and knew that nothing that they both wanted and did together out of their lust or passion was wrong. Their bodies seemed to be adapting to each other more and more with each coupling, and Liz felt herself struggle to keep from letting out a piercing yell with the intensity of the pleasure that suffused her blood and her nerves. She... she didn't quite fall asleep, but later on Liz remembered the sort of sensation that she associated with having forgotten what she'd been dreaming about the night before.

Max brought her dinner in bed, and Liz laughed as she munched on the grilled cheese and tomato sandwich, trying to keep it far enough away not to drop crumbs or melted cheese on the bedsheets - or on her naked self for that matter. "How long did it take you to arrange all of that, while you were waiting for me to come home?" she asked with a laugh.

"Not... not that long," Max said. "Maybe a little more than an hour and a half." He grinned, and Liz blinked, still getting used to the notion of seeing him clearly after their intense session in near-complete darkness. "I have to admit, I was really worried that you wouldn't be up for it, first thing when you came in. Would have spoiled the effect."

"Yeah, I believe that," Liz admitted. "I'm glad that I was up." She sighed. "Anything interesting at work today??"

"No, not really with me." Max sighed. "You??"

"Hmm... there was another stranger passing through." Liz frowned at her sandwich, lost in thought. "I... I was worried about him at first, but... well, I don't think he was any connection to us." She sighed. "And working in the bar, I can't exactly hide out every time someone new shows up, can I?"

"No, I suppose that would annoy Linda a lot," Max agreed, but he seemed a little upset at the prospect of possible snoops intruding on this new life that they had so briefly built.

"Relax, sweetie," Liz told him, stretching out on the bed a little. "I wonder what's happening back in Roswell."

----------

At lunch the next day at school, Alex smiled as Isabel headed across the courtyard and sat down next to him. "Hey, how was history?" he asked, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek... put planting one on her lips, because Isabel deliberately turned her head at the last moment.

"Umm... not too bad." Isabel sighed as she unpacked her lunch - two see-through covered plastic bowls, one a garden salad and the other a fruit cocktail. Alex blinked in surprise a little at the fruveggie overload... not something that he'd have picked, but maybe Isabel just felt like it. He certainly wasn't about to get on her case for not eating meat or starch this one time, or anything like that. It wasn't like she had that kind of stuff every time... Alex remembered the conversation that they had had a few weeks ago, started when Isabel burned her mouth on a fairly greasy-looking pepperoni pizza jumbo-slice.

"Uhh... are you doing alright?" Alex asked in a lower voice, realizing that her reply to his conversational opener had been somewhat lackluster. Isabel shot him a spiritless look as she opened up her little carton of milk.

"Ehh, I'm fine I guess. Just... well --" And Alex nearly kicked himself. Isabel had... well, he hadn't really known about her secret, or even known her that well, the last time that Topolsky was around, but he'd learned enough to find that she was easily disturbed by the idea of some nebulous authority figure trying to expose them. (Or even a not-so-nebulous authority figure, like Jim Valenti.) Of course that had to be what was upsetting her. "Just kinda missing Max more than usual today."

Ohh. This time the mental kick was much more forceful. His heart had been in the right place, looking at the new development to explain Isabel's depression, but of course the Max/Liz thing, (primarily Max,) could be weighing on her heavily too. "An- anything I can do to help make you feel any better?"

"Umm... tell me a joke?" Isabel asked. Alex thought about that, cocking his head, but when he opened his mouth, Isabel cut him off. "Not right now - sometime soon when maybe I won't be expected. That's when you're funniest anyway." Alex considered the judgement for a moment, and smiled. "And... and maybe we could blow off sixth period, try out the eraser room or something?"

"Hmm..." Alex considered that. "Maybe we could get caught making out, get detention, stay out in the desert all night, be grounded by our parents... and then we can run away from town and join Max and Liz, wherever they are."

Isabel's eyes widened... and then she realized that Alex was making a joke - either that or teasing her, or both. "Max and Liz got sloppy and careless. Trust me, if I drag you into the eraser room... NOBODY is going to barge in on us unexpectedly."

"Well... that's reassuring," Alex said, smiling. "Because... risk of embarassing consequences notwithstanding... I could never resist you." He reached out to grab her hand. "The eraser room it is. Um, so..."

"Can I join you?" Both Alex and Isabel looked up, to see an unfamiliar teenage girl stepping up towards the same table that they were sitting at. She was quite pretty - petite, with an eye-catching mane of curly pale blonde hair, and wearing a bright red outfit with a flattering v-neck. But something about her expression that Alex couldn't put his finger on made a small shiver run up his spine.

"Umm..." Isabel seemed undecided for the space of a few seconds. "You're new here, right?" Curly hair bobbed as the girl in red nodded. "How... how about another time? Umm... my boyfriend and I were kinduv having a private moment."

"Oh, sure, say no more. Nice to meet you, kinduv." And with that, she turned and headed away... and was immediately hailed over to a table full of jocks and cheerleaders. Alex looked to see if Kyle Valenti was among their number, but couldn't spot him.

"Poor girl," Isabel remarked under her breath, spearing her white plastic fork through a few pieces of salad - mostly lettuce.

"What?" Alex blinked. "Umm... I mean, sure *I* wouldn't want to spend much time with those guys, but maybe she wanted to hang in with the popular kids."

"Maybe, but if she doesn't know the price, she's about to find out," Isabel remarked absently. "Pretty girl, obviously not afraid to dress to show off her figure, though she managed to avoid tipping over into 'slutty' territory I think. The guys are all scoping her out as a potential conquest. The pretty and popular girls want to learn more about her as a way of scoping out the competiton... to see if she wants to conquer THEIR guys -- or just let herself get conquered maybe."

Alex sighed. Isabel seemed to be moving in those circles more rarely by choice lately, so much so that he forgot she was beautiful and 'cool' enough to be accepted by them without question. What she couldn't do, he suspected, was bring some computer band geek into the inner sanctums without getting challenged on her taste in guys.

"Okay," he said. "A cheerleader and a yearbook editor both jump off the Empire state building. It takes the cheerleader a full minute longer to hit the ground. Why?"

Isabel blinked, cocked her head, and then shrugged. "Umm, I dunno. Why?"

"Well, she had to stop half-way and ask for directions."

Isabel laughed and shook her head, smiling.


TO BE CONTINUED...

Part Six

"Hey," Michael said, coming up behind Maria in the hallway. "Wanna go to the janitor's closet and study some *french*?" he whispered in Maria's ear as he put an arm around her shoulders.

Maria looked up at him. "Is that all that you know how to do?" she asked in a chilling voice.

"Umm... what?" Michael kept his own tone low and a bit flirty. "Make out."

"Well, that too," Maria allowed. "And ask me, in a bunch of cute and clever ways, to make out with you." She shook her head. "We threw people *out* of the cafe last night!!" Sensing that she was on the verge of losing her temper in public, Maria steered Michael into an empty closet, but obvioulsy she wasn't feeling amorous.

"We didn't force anybody to go anywhere," Michael said, a little weakly. "We even gave that guy five minutes to finish his burger."

"We announced that the dining room was closing early, and refused to take any more orders," Maria reminded him. "No, we didn't physically pick them up and pitch them out of the room, but that's not much comfort." She sighed. "Mister Parker was really mad, and I can't blame him. They expected me to be responsible, and I completely blew them off, in effect. With Liz being gone for so long, that's the last thing that they should have to deal with."

"Okay, so we won't run away from our shifts to kiss," Michael said about as soothingly as he knew how. "I'm sorry - that was all my fault. I just got thinking about Isabel and Alex, off on their date, and..."

"And that's the other thing," Maria continued, seeming even more upset. "Alex and Isabel have been together, what, a week, and they're going to movies and listening to musical performers..."

"They didn't actually make it to the movies last night..."

"...And he sent flowers to her in class a few days ago!!" Maria continued just exactly as if Michael hadn't even interrupted her. "All that we ever seem to do together is hang out at your place, or around the diner or at my place if my mom isn't anywhere around... and kiss. Of course I love kissing you, but I'm not content with that. I want the flowers and the little thoughtful presents and the music and all the rest of that storybook crap!! I... I've been trying to be patient with you about this, spaceboy, but that's hard when you don't seem to be budging out of your comfy place, so... well, I figured I'd tell you. I guess that's it."

"Umm... okay, yeah," Michael mumbled. He thought about protesting that he 'just didn't do' the storybook crap, but managed to choke down the sarcastic comment before it got out - Maria seemed pissed enough that she might leave him completely if he aggravated her any more, and under the circumstances that was the last thing he really wanted her to do. "Umm, okay, I'll try. In the meantime... uh, you wanna go across main street and grab something at the convenience store?"

Maria's eyes narrowed dangerously. He thought he was doing good by not pressing for the makeout session here and now, but apparently what he'd said was yet another wrong choice. "No. I... I think I'll go somewhere that I can actually study some french."

"What?" Michael asked, but Maria just huffed past him, opened the door, and hurried back out into the hallway. "Where's that??" Michael called after her, not really expecting to get a response. He didn't.

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

"Okay," Alex said, as he got out of the car in front of his house. "Was... was there something you wanted to talk about?" He hadn't asked many questions when Michael had come up to him on his way to the parking lot after school, and asked if he could come over to Alex's place, but now that they were there his curiosity was getting hard to stifle.

"Umm... it's a little embarassing," Michael muttered, heading off in the direction of the Whitman back yard, which he could just see from the street. Alex shrugged and followed the other guy. "About Maria. She's kinduv been getting on my case a little recently. Actually, she's been on my case since we met, but... well, it's a bit different now." Michael turned the corner of the house and ran his hand musingly over the wooden support post that held on the tacky transparent green back porch roof - an angled, curved sheet of hard plastic designed to channel the rain into seperate streams - not that it ever rained much here in Roswell.

"Okay... yeah, I guess that doesn't surprise me," Alex said, and Michael turned around to look at him with a slightly surprised expression. "Of course, Maria is one of my best friends and favorite people in the entire world. But... she's not terribly easy-going, or low maintenance - either as a friend or, I'd guess, as a girlfriend or makeout partner or whatever it is that the two of you are to each other." Michael considered that for a moment, and nodded an agreement. "And the two of you... there are a few ways in which you're not an obvious fit, and that probably adds up to extra friction."

"Yeah, I guess that's pretty much it." Michael sighed. "Today she said that being makeout partners wasn't good enough. She wanted more."

Even though the interpretation flashed through Alex's head that what Michael had said might mean that Maria wanted more in physical terms than just making out, he knew Maria well enough that he doubted that was it. "More... more commitment, more of the usual trappings of high school courtship? More glamour??"

"Something like, umm, more the last two," Michael said. "She hasn't said anything to me about wanting to be exclusive - probably she'd want me to clean up my act on the other stuff before tieing herself down to the 'spaceboy' in principle, though I don't think she's been seeing anybody else lately." Michael thought about that, and suddenly got nervous. "HAS she been seeing anybody else? I mean, as far as you know??"

Alex laughed. "Umm, no -- not since... since before you moved out on your own, and started working at the cafe," Alex said. Michael smiled in relief at the oblique references to Michael's emancipation, and the events surrounding it - like how he had come to Maria's room in the middle of the night and slept in her bed, without even kissing her at the time. That had been when they'd started to reconcile, as nearly as Michael could work it out - before then, they'd both been very stubbornly staying away from each other. "Had a couple lunch dates and one night out dancing, around the time of the father's camping weekend, and the blind date contest - but nothing that worked out very well. One of the lunch dates was with Neil Wilson - I don't know any other names."

"That's okay, I'd really rather not know," Michael told him. It didn't surprise him that Maria would have attracted some attention - singing with Alex's band at that concert when they had to cover because the headliners had been detained at the airport... lead singers always got mojo. And... "The camping weekend - that was around the same time that Maria was wearing that, umm... the gell-lift bra, or whatever?" He tried to be nonchalant when he said it, but Alex caught his eyes and winked.

"Aqua bra," he corrected, flushing slightly. "And yeah. Don't really see the point of artificial aids, but... she looked impressive like that, huh?"

"Well, if the guys know it's an artificial aid, there's no point," Michael pointed out. "And you're lucky, anyway. You've got someone who doesn't need any 'Aqua help.'"

Alex laughed nervously. "Isabel? Umm... yeah, I guess I'd have to agree with that." He sighed. "So, umm, let's see, where were we. Maria - and you. High school romance and glamour." He paused and looked Michael up and down. "No - um, no offense meant, but I think we'd probably better take this with baby steps. I, just... you never struck me as the type with a big buried romantic streak, and it's better to move slowly and carefully than try to go too far too fast and mess it up." He smiled weakly at Alex.

"Hey, man, that sounds pretty good to me, actually. I'm not good with this kind of thing when I tried in the past... either I'm a born romantic dumbolt, or it has something to do with not learning the basics when I was growing up." He sighed. "I've picked up some of the basics from keen observation, though... ask her out on a date? Maybe watch a movie, and have dinner somewhere slightly less familiar than the diner?"

"Yes, good place to start," Alex agreed. "Oh, and a specific point for the two of you... Maria's pretty understanding about your financial situation, especially since she helped you get the gig in the Crashdown... but she also has some specific notions about who pays for what on a date. I think that overall, that means, that if you need her to chip in, you should always *tell her as early as possible.* If nothing else, this'll mean that the mood gets ruined before the date begins, and has a chance to recover itself, rather than suddenly pissing her off right at the end of the dinner, which is probably a point when you definitely don't want her to be pissed off. Do I make myself clear?"

Michael shook his head slightly, and looked up at Alex with dawning respect. "Yeah, man, that... that not only makes sense, it seems nearly like it's genius!!"

"Ahh, it's nothing special, really." Alex sighed. "Anything in particular you're wondering about?"

"Umm... the gift thing," Michael admitted, flushing.

"Right. Again, budget is negotiable, but mood and context are everything. A single long-stem rose, for instance, isn't that expensive, but is possibly one of the most romantic gifts possible despite its low price tag." Alex smiled. "When you're talking about gifts for a girl, no matter what the occasion, there are yes categories, maybe categories, and no-way-in-hell categories. Flowers, perfume, and jewelry are generally safe 'yes' categories, though you need to be more or less worried about the girl's personal taste, depending on which one. For instance, never get Maria anything with a musk scent for herself to wear... she'll never wear it and you'll get zero points for it... though I suspect that a musk cologne might work for *you.*" He smiled. "Clothing and electronics are more of a 'maybe' category... things that some or most girls like, but they're harder to give a romantic context to, so you have to be very careful about which item you're picking. Things that family, platonics or girlfriends can get away with, a 'special guy' gets graded more harshly on... that's just the way things go. Following me?"

"Umm, yeah, pretty much." Michael smiled. "What about... not perfume, but other bathroom stuff? Soaps, lotions, cremes and that sort of thing. I..." he blushed. "Max had me slip a bottle of some sort of fancy perfume into Liz's locker at school, just after he got grounded, because he didn't want to risk getting caught going in there himself - figured that both of their parents would flip if they found out. And - well, that doesn't seem to have done him any harm."

"Yeah, that's possible, but it's a fairly dangerous 'maybe category'," Alex replied. "Fancy, exotic, sensual or sexy... those would probably be your best cues when shopping for that kind of stuff. NOT something that seems in any way plain or ordinary. Also, keep in mind anything you can find out about fragrance preferences, as above under perfume. And, umm... for a good example of a 'no way in hell category' - let's see - hardware or sports equipment? Unless the girl has very specific exceptions, that don't apply to Maria." He smiled. "I can probably make up some sort of a cheat sheet for you, if you want it - I mean, I know quite a lot about her, and that knowledge might as well do somebody some good."

"Hmm." Michael considered that. "Yeah, I think I'd appreciate. Just need to figure out where to put it so that Maria won't find it." Alex laughed. "I can tell that she probably wouldn't be happy to find out that you're coaching me in such specific details."

"Ehh... actually, if she - umm, well, what I mean to say, is that I'm not sure she'd mind that so much... as long as it was working. What's important to Maria when she gets anal about this kind of thing is mostly how things look, how they seem on the surface. The reasons why aren't so important." Alex shrugged. "And at least it shows that you're trying. But I'll be happy to keep quiet if you want me to - you're probably right that that's the best way."

"Okay, Enough class for today," Michael said with a smile. "So, how did you meet Maria in the first place, anyway?"

"Ehh." Alex walked out to the small juniper tree in the middle of the back yard. "We met through Liz, actually. Maria and Liz were already bestest friends forever since grade one, and I ran into Liz out in the ravine near Frazier woods... she was trying to capture a lizard for a science project, and I was playing make-believe as a knight of the round table out looking for dragons to slay." He shrugged a little nervously, turning back to Michael.

"Cool I guess. I met Max through Isabel, come to think of it... or at least I re-found him that way, after we got seperated out in the desert." Alex nodded. "You heard that part?"

"Yeah, about Max reaching out his hand to you and you didn't take it," Alex agreed.

"I still remember the first day she, Isabel, brought me home," Michael said, in a farway voice. However, he didn't get any further, because another, familiar voice, called out from the passageway next to the house.

"Hey, Alex, are you back here?"

"Umm, oh, yeah!" Alex replied, jumping slightly. "Sorry, Michael, I forgot that she'd be coming over." Both guys had turned around to the corner of the house by the time Isabel appeared from behind it. "Hi, sweetie." Alex rushed over to join Isabel, and they nervously took turns kissing each other on one cheek.

"Hi. And hello, um, Michael. I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

"Just... well, we were having a friendly conversation, but I think all the important stuff is done, right?" Alex asked, and Michael nodded. "I kinda forgot that Isabel and I had said we were going to see this little melodramatic play."

"It's okay," Michael assured him. "Thanks for all of your help." Isabel raised an eyebrow when she heard that, but didn't comment.

"Can... can we give you a lift anywhere?" Alex asked.

Michael considered that. "Naw, I'll walk back, at least to start. It's okay."

"Alright. Umm..." Isabel checked her watch. "Yeah, we gotta go." They waved and hurried out of the yard, hand in hand.

Michael looked around the yard, went over to look idly at the wooden fence that seperated it from a similar yard next door, and was about to go when his cell phone rang. Frustrated, he got out the device, a hand-me-down that had seen better days. "What is it?" he snapped, answering it. "I've got like seven minutes left."

"Um, hey," Maria's voice came through the ear speaker. "I... I wasn't sure of if I should call and check on this, but with whats-her-name back in town better safe than sorry. Did you have a bunch of yellow lilies sent to me here at the cafe? Along with a dinner invite??"

Michael froze. He definitely hadn't done that... and yet somehow he could tell that Maria was really hoping the whole deal was on the level, and he didn't want to disappoint her. "Is the invite signed?"

"Um, yeah, your name is here on the card, but it doesn't really look like your usual scrawl, and..."

Michael was thinking quickly. Who else but Topolsky would have put his name on the card? Pehaps an unusually insecure and devious secret admirer. In any event, the answer seemed clear. Flowers and a dinner invite. Take credit for one and reroute the other.

"Yeah, I asked the guy at the flower shop to rewrite the card," Michael mumbled. "And I think I have to switch restaurants on you. Umm... Willie's grill at seven?"

"But the card said Willie's at five thirty," Maria continued, a little confused. "Which meant that I'd have to leave my shift early, as you know, especially to get changed."

Oops. "Um, how about Senor Chao's at seven, I mean." Michael was hoping that Maria wouldn't realize he had no idea, beyond what she told him, of what *he'd* supposedly dictated onto the card.

"Sounds great. I'll pick you up, your place, ten minutes to. Gotta go!" And before Michael could reply, she had hung up. Michael shook his head, wondering how quickly he could walk back to his apartment from here.

As Michael crossed the yard, the back door of Michael's house opened, and a tall, somewhat geeky man in a browny-gray suit poked his head and shoulders out. "Um, who are you, and what are you doind back here?"

"Mister Whitman?" Michael said, and the man nodded doubtfully. "Um, I'm Michael, one of Alex's friends. We were talking here, and then Isabel showed up and Alex took her to a play, and I'd have been out of your hair by now except that I was distracted by a phone call." He waved his cell lamely, stuck it back in his pocket, and made an exit around the side of the building as quickly as he could.

Mister Whitman's face pursed in thought. "Who's Isabel, again?" he muttered to himself. "Why does the name sound familiar?"

----------

In their small-town apartment, Max and Liz were spending this evening much more quietly than the last. In fact, just about the time that Michael was approaching his own place in Roswell, Max was on his hands and knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor. Liz had already finished her own chores of tidying and dusting in the living room, but Max was actually glad of that. Her light and delicate frame was sitting perched up on a clean countertop, and she was reading out loud to him. Just listening to her voice made Max nearly forget the slightly unpleasant task at hand, (to the extent that he sometimes had to scrub a section twice to actually get it clean because he hadn't been paying attention. Liz had insisted that they take good care of the apartment and attend to all the cleaning chores fastidiously, sharing the labour fifty fifty. 'If we've run away from home to play house, we should at least play it right," she had said, prompting a laugh from Max at the notion that 'playing house' had rules that must be followed. Next time, it would be Liz who had to get down on her knees and scrub in the kitchen.

As he worked, he split most of his attention this time between Liz's voice itself, and the story, a kind of corny, pun-ridden fantasy novel, but one that seemed oddly appropriate to their situation. A pretty, spirited princess from an isolated, obscurely magical land had taken on an enchanted quest to find a lost Wise Magician... and had unexpectedly found herself in a drab apartment in 'Mundania' (which was their name for the normal world, America in this case,) not knowing the language, and fell in love with the sweet but boring guy next door to her apartment. They had found their way to a strange portal that would lead her back into her magical place, (learning sign language to communicate with each other,) and the boy followed her, even though he didn't believe in her magic. In an odd way, Max was reminded of how he had first met Liz. She finished the chapter and he finished the floor at around the same time.

"You're my beautiful princess, Liz," Max said to her, leaning up against the counter, but even like that he couldn't reach far enough to kiss her until Liz bent down into a hunch, which she did.

"No, no, come on, the symbolism is clear," she said, carefully getting down onto the clean floor and scooting out into the living room as quickly as possible to wait until it finished drying. Max followed "If anybody here is from the land of fantasy, it's you mister, with your powers and your home far faraway." She giggled. "Who knows, maybe you really *are* a prince of your planet... sent out here to protect you from a faction of evil dissidents who were plotting against the true royal family or something like that. Me - well, obviously I'm the plain and ordinary girl next door, who loves you very much."

"You're not plain at all," Max replied, predictably. "Or even ordinary."

"Well, no. We never are, are we?" Liz giggled, with a secretive smile on her face. Before Max could ask her what she meant by that line, Liz took a deep breath and put her arms around him, snuggling up close. "Well... the cleaning's all done for today," she said against the top of his chest in a breathy whisper. "Whatcha wanna do now?"

Max chuckled. "Well, possibly the fact that I'm about to say this is evidence against my sanity... but I don't just feel like hanging around you here at home and having lots and lots of fun in bed." Liz drew away from him, a little surprised, but the smile that slowly developed on her face was cute and pleased. "Kuss was talking about this place about ten minute's drive north out of town, a kind of desert peak you can drive all the way up - great view of the sunset over the desert from there, and we probably have just about enough time to catch it."

"Excuse me, wait a second," Liz said. "First of all, what was that name? The person who told you? Gus?"

"Kuss, with a hard K sound," Max said. "I know, it's a weird name, but what the heck. He's one of the other hands. Is there a 'second of all'?"

"Yeah," Liz replied. "Second of all... is this like a popular spot? Will we be crowded up there with several other cars?"

"Umm... I don't know," Max admitted. "Though there probably aren't that many couples in the area who still make the effort to drive out somewhere special to, umm, to enjoy an intimate moment together." Liz rolled her eyes at the euphemistic language. "Worst comes to worst, if there are other people, we can decide to leave then... or just enjoy the sunset for its own sake and not get into anything else." He sighed. "Bottom line, it seems like an opporunity worth not giving up, and we'll need to get ready to go quick - sunset isn't that long from now."

"Yeah," Liz agreed, and quickly checked her reflection in the mirror next to the front door. "I should probably put on a different top. Okay?"

"Yeah, sure," Max agreed, and quickly went into the bathroom to use the facilities while she was changing.

----------

"This... this has been really nice," Maria said, as Michael pushed his plate away. "Um, I mean, well, your table manners could still use a little work... but it means a lot to me, just that you're trying." Michael unrolled his eyes, (they had rolled on their own at 'table manners',) and smiled casually. Yeah, this good boyfriend stuff wasn't so hard, now that he knew what some of the rules were. Who'd have guessed that Whitman was the go-to guy for his Maria issues?? Obviously, getting to know Alex better was paying off in ways that Michael wouldn't have expected before... though that realization also reminded him of Max's sudden departure.

"So, umm... how was your shift?" he asked softly. (Ask the girl about herself, don't just talk about you, he repeated to himself under his breath - that was one tidbit that Alex hadn't mentioned, but just about any sitcom he'd ever seen had made that particular point about good dating manners.) "Aside from the special delivery."

"Oh, nothing special," Maria sighed. "One lady accused me of short-changing her, but that was just about the only excitement I had... and what do you have in your pockt?"

"Umm." Michael shook his head in surprise. "An old wallet, house keys, some kleenex, a little six-edged bit of plastic that I picked up in school the other day..."

"No, not all that," Maria insisted. "Your back pocket."

"Okay, what the heck makes you think I have anything at all in my back pocket?" Michael asked.

"Well, I kinduv noticed something pointing out when we were coming to the table," she said. At first Michael was upset at the slightly fiery tone in his voice, and then thought about it more. Maria was checking out his butt. That could really only be a good thing, in the long run. "And you were practically reaching into it just now."

"I was not."

"Well, maybe I was going too far with practically," Maria admitted. "But you were stretching your arm in that direction.

That charge, Michael couldn't confidently refute. "Okay, well, I was waiting for a slightly sweeter moment, but if you're going to be like this..." he pulled the small object out of his pocket and put it in front of her. It was a tiny little bottle of apricot scented hand lotion that he'd spotted in a store window on the way home, and just been able to afford without paying so much that he'd have trouble with the dinner cheque. He hoped. "I hope you like it."

"Ohhh..." Maria said, picking up the small vial and examining the miniscule writing on the label. "Well, that was a very sweet thought... and I definitely look forward to trying it." Right, Michael thought resignedly. I lay down more than twenty, and if she doesn't like it it'll just sit in her medicine cabinet forever, earning me just about no points. Well, apparently that was the way the dating game was played... you paid your money and you took your shot. "Oooh, fortune cookies!"

Sure enough, the waiter had slipped a small wooden plate with two familiar crescent shapes and a billfold onto the edge of the table. Maria, delighted, reached out and took one cookie. Michael reluctantly picked up the billpad and considered it. Little over thirty-five, including the taxes... more for a quarter-decent tip. With a sinking feeling in his chest, Michael removed the aforementioned wallet out of his front pants pocket and considered it. No, definitely not quite enough. How would Maria react if he asked?

Michael opened his mouth, hesitated, and was interrupted by Maria reading her fortune out loud. "'Silver coins may make a pretty necklace, but who will help you put it on?'" She shook her head slightly. "What the heck is that supposed to mean?"

"I... I'm not sure," Michael admitted. "I... I hate to say this, but I thought I'd have enough to cover dinner, and I guess I'm a little short until my next paycheque comes in. Can I..." He tried to add up mentally, not wanting to either come up short or ask for too much. "Can I borrow, like four bucks?"

"Hmm." Maria's attention focused on him like some kind of invisible energy beam. "I'll tell you in a minute - AFTER you read your fortune."

"What??" The distraction just seemed annoying at that moment. "Come on, Maria, I... I'll pay you--"

"No." The look on her face was somehow very insistent. "You shouldn't have even looked at the bill before taking your cookie, Michael. Do it now." So Michael sighed, found the little folded enclosure of stiff pastry, and cracked it open using five of his fingers. He snapped the cookie itself into his mouth before straightening out the fortune message.

"Umm... 'a small windfall will come your way soon,'" he read. "See? There you go. Maybe I won't even need to wait until I get paid to..."

"Well, I'm not sure if this counts as the windfall," Maria said, decisively taking the bill away and fumbling her own purse open, "but you won't need to pay me back at all, and no arguments. I'm exercising a girlfriend's perogative. This one's on me."

Michael blinked again, not quite sure what to make of this new development. Only one thought came into his head right away. "Maria, if you're worried about me being able to cover the apartment rent, or the power bill, it's not that bad..."

"I'm not worried... well, not in so many words," Maria insisted. "But... I dunno, I just felt like I wanted to do this for you. You're working so hard just to take care of yourself because you don't really have a family who you're able to count on.... and I've got spare cash because my mom's still basically paying for my staple needs. So... I have the money, and I want to spend it on you, and if we're dating, I think that's my right, and you shouldn't get all huffy about it because it's not charity or a handout, it's just me contributing to this relationship instead of expecting you to do all the pushing." As so often happened when Maria finally came to the end of a rant, she seemed deflated by all the breath that she had put into it.

"Okay, you got it," Michael said, grinning big and dusting his hands together over the plate, as if symbolizing how he wasn't getting involved any more by that gesture. "But next time is DEFINITELY on me... and you have to let me figure out some way to show my gratitude."

Maria raised an eyebrow, frozen in the gesture of slipping two twenty dollar bills onto the pad. "Now that last condition is interesting... and I think something along those lines could be arranged."

"Hey!" Michael called out into the restaurant around them. "Can someone pick this bill up, quick? We're in a hurry."

Maria laughed.

-----------

"Hey, how's it going?" Michael asked, falling into step next to Isabel as she and Alex walked in towards school from a parking spot about a block away.

"Umm... not badly," Isabel said, shooting him an odd look. "And you?"

"How was your evening last night?" Alex said. "Somebody at the Crashdown mentioned that you and Maria went out to dinner."

"Yeah, that was great," Michael said. "I hope you guys enjoyed the play and everything. Listen. Umm, do either of you want to work at the UFO center??"

Isabel turned her head, (and her shoulders,) to stare at Michael, and her withering look reminded Michael of seeing her watch as Michael took his big, balloon-like fake alien head off on the opening day of the Roswell UFO convention. "Not the smallest chance," she said succintly. "Why?"

"Oh, umm." Michael smiled halfway. "I, umm, I ran into Milton about a week ago - he was having problems dealing without Max, and I promised to ask the people I know who didn't already have a job. Kinda forgot about it until now." He sighed, not particularly worried by his lapse. "Alex?"

"Hmm." Alex considered. "Might be interesting, but I still feel a little nervous around that guy ever since that time I slipped up in the UFO center." He sighed, looking at Isabel as if expecting that she'd be upset at the reference... he'd said something out loud in public to her, rather heatedly, about helping her find her home planet, and Mister Ross had been around and laid into him for joking about serious alien business.

"Yeah, well, I can understand if you just want to stay well away for your own reasons," Michael replied, "but I broke into the Museum, among other shenanigans, and he nearly offered me a job on the spot before I said I was already committed, so I don't think it'll bother him any." He shrugged. "Think about it. Hi sweetie."

That last was said to Maria as she approached on an intercept course and joined the group - which was now a little too big to walk abreast, so Isabel and Alex pulled a bit forward to make room. Isabel seemed to be startled by Michael using such a conventional endearment, but Alex caught her eye and half-nodded with a bit of a shrug at the end... which probably didn't convey the desired message of 'I'll tell you later,' but he didn't seem to mind. Isabel started talking to Maria about some sort of new makeup thing.

Soon they arrived at the school doors, and the couples split up again - Michael and Maria heading over towards Maria's locker, (which was conveniently just across the hall from the janitor's closet. "So, it's Friday night," Isabel said with a small smile. "Got any ideas??"

"Ideas as in stray thoughts running around my head - always," Alex joked. "Ideas as in anything suitable for making a plan out of... don't think so yet. You??"

"Hmm." Isabel thought about that. "Well, we've gone out a few times now. Maybe tonight we could stay in... but probably not at my place. Both of my parents will probably be home, not doing much of anything, and ready to pry at a moment's notice." She sighed softly. "How about your house??"

Alex's mind was racing at the notion of 'staying in' with Isabel and just what that might entail... though that would depend on the circumstances. Still, it was at the very least, a precedent that he was eager to set sooner than later. "Umm... I think my mom has a class at the adult education place, so that should work out well. My dad'll be home, but he's not really the butt-insky type - he'll probably want to say hi and chat for a few minutes, and then go off to something he's working on his computer, or losing himself in a good book or one of his comedy tapes." He sighed. "You... do you remember my Dad from the camping weekend."

"Yeah," Isabel agreed, smiling slightly. "I think he said hi to me once - coming over to talk to my Dad. They know each other, though probably not terribly well." She sighed, and started walking towards their first class. "But I admit, I was too preoccupied that weekend to notice very much."

"Yeah," Alex agreed, sighing. He hadn't known about the 'sighting' stuff until it was all over, but Maria had filled him in in some detail afterwards. "I think that they ended up in a square dancing club or something dorky like that a few years ago. Not that I'm really one to point fingers at the parentals for dorkiness..."

"Point away," Isabel told Alex, giggling, and kissed him on the cheek.

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

Maria wasn't paying much attention when she opened the door of her car in the Crashdown parking lot. In fact, she was mostly just worried with getting inside the building and starting her shift, because she was late. However, when she closed the car door and turned around, the sight of another person walking toward her startled all thoughts of lateness out of her head. It was a woman, only slightly taller than Maria counting her three-inch heels... and with bright red curly hair that Maria could somehow tell didn't fit. After a second, she realized why. "Topolsky!"

"I'm sorry that you didn't make it to the restaurant last night, but I'm not surprised," Topolsky blurted out. What the heck? The restaurant? Maria *had* gone to the restaurant last night... this didn't make sense. But Kathleen Topolsky wasn't waiting for her response. "I... I've been through a hell since I left here last, Maria. And I *really* don't want you or your friends to go there and never come back."

"Well, no, I'm not big on going to hell myself," Maria flared back, anger overcoming even her fear. "But somehow I *really* find it hard to believe that you have genuine sympathy for us... that you want to protect us. You tried that line on Alex last time - more than once, and it was just a way of turning him against Liz and Max. Who are you trying to turn ME against, Miz Topolsky?"

"I'm the girl who cried friend, I guess," Topolsky said bitterly. "But if you don't believe me that I'm on your side... then believe me when I say there's danger." She made a kind of scratchy growl deep in her throat. "The Men in Black are real, and worse than all the stories told about them. I've met their leader - the government's top alien hunter, and you do NOT want him to..."

"Hey, get lost!!" a new voice called out. Topolsky looked around, had probably just enough time for a single glimpse of an angry Michael Guerin rushing towards her, and turned to flee. Maria almost called out a question to her tormentor, an impulse deep within her wanting to hear more, and then she broke down into dry sobs, leaning against the rear corner of her car. Michael quickly swept her up into his arms and kissed her forehead. "It... it was Topolsky, right??"

"Yeah," Maria choked out. "She... she told me things that I didn't understand."

"Maybe I should have admitted this sooner," Michael muttered. "She's the one who..."

"Who sent me the bouquet and the dinner invite!" Maria finished, working it out in her head. Michael shrugged, (except that he couldn't really follow through the motion with his arms still around Maria's back,) and hung his head. "And you wanted to get the bonus points, so that's why you had to change the location and the time."

"I'm... I'm really sorry," Michael started, but Maria cut him off.

"Yeah, well, you shouldn't have hid the truth from me, especially if you figured that Topolsky was behind things, no," she admitted. "But... but you wanted me to be happy and have a nice time. That counts for a lot." She sighed. "I don't think she's going to come back in, but let's go inside anyway."

"Right." Michael didn't let go of her entirely, just modified his grip enough that they could walk.

-----------

"Yeah, it's fine with me if you guys want to come over to Alex's after work," Isabel insisted to Michael a little while later. "Maybe we should be hanging out together as much as possible, actually. It wouldn't really look that suspicious - everybody knows that we're friends, and that way 'Kathleen' won't have as many opportunities to catch anybody alone."

"Sure, makes sense," Michael agreed.

"Umm... it's okay with you, right babe?" Isabel asked Alex, who hesitated a bit for replying, seeing his first night of 'staying in' alone with his new girlfriend slip down a previously-unnoticed drain.

"Yeah, yeah, of course it's cool," he said. "The four musketeers, are we." He took a breath. "Umm, how about we leave now, hit the video store, maybe pick up some chicken takeout or something as well. Then you guys can come over once Maria's shift is over."

"Alright, I'll tell her," Michael said. Alex and Isabel got up and made ready to go - when Tess harding popped up out of nowhere again.

"I... I know that this might be asking too much," she blurted out quickly, "but is there *any* chance I can cash in that raincheck tonight, Isabel? I mean, I didn't mean to overhear, and you've obviously planned this thing out without needing a fifth wheel... but videos and takeout with some new friends sounds SOO great, and I've been really really wanting to say hi to Maria, but haven't quite gotten up the nerve." She paused for a moment. "Please?"

Isabel hesitated. "Oh... you're killing me here, Tess. I *really* do want to spend some time getting to know you, and soon - but no, tonight isn't the time. I'm really sorry."

Tess smiled slightly and moved away. Just as they were about to get into his car, Alex whispered in Isabel's ear. "If she overheard about the videos, what ELSE did she hear?" Isabel nodded slightly - she'd been worried about that too. At least the name 'Topolsky' shouldn't mean much to a new transfer student, would it?

-----------

"I admit, I'm glad that Michael and Maria gave us some time alone," Isabel said to Alex between kisses. "Not terribly surprised I admit - after all, they're probably at least as hormonal as we are - but very..." she paused here, using her tongue in other, more creative ways that involved Alex's earlobe and the skin along the side of his jaw, "...VERY glad."

"Yeah, can't argue with that," Alex managed to gasp out. He wasn't sure exactly where his other friends had gone, and only vaguely cared about the possibility that his father just might happen upon them, almost certainly in the midst of a private display of affection. As far as that went, he only very vaguely cared about the slim possibility that the presence of a beautiful girl in his home life might actually incline his father to do a bedroom check. All the rest of his mind, of his entire world, belonged to Isabel Evans.

Isabel moaned, kissing him lip on lip (and tongue touching slightly to tongue) again, and shifted herself on Alex's bed in a way that caught him by surprise. Alex moved automatically, helplessly, to compensate, and all of a sudden his left hand landed very firmly on the right side of her chest. For a second, mortification flooded through his mind and heart, followed by a kind of taboo excitement. Isabel just kind of hummed eagerly at him in response to the contact, and it occured to him for an instant to wonder if she had planned her original action to lead to exactly this reaction.

Alex took a second to adjust to the notion that he was copping a feel, (admittedly it had been accidental, but he wasn't pulling his hand back away, after all, which meant that it was kind of becoming deliberate.) Isabel still didn't mind, and gave him a little smile as if to say something along the lines of 'what are you waiting for, big boy?' That part of Isabel's shirt was definitely a nice thing to have his hand against - subtly rounded, warm and soft. Of course he'd noticed Isabel's... shirts before, and even been strangely drawn to them, but... well, as little as he knew about girls in general, he knew even less about when and how it was appropriate to make a move on her shirt.

Okay, he thought. Enough of this startled near-panic stuff, and enough ridiculous mental euphemisms. He moved his hand, brushing his palm against Isabel's breast, then making a tentative cupping gesture with his fingers and thumb. Isabel smiled, and bent forward to kiss him again, which had the effect of pushing their chests together, with Alex's hand squeezed in between. He resisted an urge to squeeze back hard, trying to go for gentle and sensitive movements, exploring the new territory as carefully as he could under the circumstances. Things were a little fuzzy - in the literal sense; Isabel was wearing an equisitely soft wooly sweater - probably expensive cashmere, and Alex could tell that he was feeling the sweater more than the flesh that was underneath it, in his tentative way. (Also there was the silkier thin fabric underneath to reckon with, right in between the two as it were. But Alex was in no hurry, and enjoyed himself quietly, especially when he was able to pull back slightly and restore blood circulation to his fingers. He found what seemed like the merest suggestion of a protrusion, struggling to push out against the silk and the wool, and not getting very far. But it was just different enough to be distinguished under his fingertips, and Isabel sighed softly into his mouth at that very moment. Daringly, he used his fingers to scratch ever so gently, and the reaction once again surprised him. Isabel growled with a hungry passion that was just about impossible to mistake, and swept her legs up onto the bed. This had the effect of disturbing Alex's balance once again, and Isabel's own arms reached out to pull him close.

Somewhat to his own surprise, Alex found himself straddling his girlfriend's waist as she lay on her back, bouncing back and forth slightly, which sent all kinds of interesting movements and sensations into Alex's pants from underneath. She had an deviously impish grin on her face. "Ohh... so this is your idea of fun, is it?" he asked.

"Maayyybee," Isabel dragged out. "Don't yoouuu think it's fun??"

"There are definitely points to it," he admitted, reaching down. Isabel watched, a calm expression on her face, as Alex tugged the sweater out of her jeans, brought his hand against her bare skin... and immediately jumped to the vicinity of her belly button with a ticking gesture.

"Alex!" she exclaimed. "St-stop it. I'm naww- I'm NOT ticklish!!"

"Ohh... that sounds like a bit of a puzzle," Alex said, concentrating on making his touches even lighter and more teasing. "I mean, *why* would somebody who actually wasn't ticklish..." Isabel almost let out a wild burst of laughter, but managed to stifle it into a gasp. Alex kept tickling. "Why would somebody like that ask me to stop it so urgently? Wouldn't they not really care mu--" The end of the question was drowned out as Isabel exploded into a cloud of helpless giggles... and then she reached her hands up after Alex's ears. He recoiled, and there was an impromptu tickle-wrestling match on the bed for about eighty seconds, the details of which would be quite difficult to chronicle in detail.

Just as Isabel had grabbed a pillow in self-defense and swung it into a blow on Alex's shoulder that would have sent feathers flying if it had actually BEEN a feather pillow, the door burst open... and Michael stood there, beginning to look foolish. "Umm... sorry," he muttered. "We thought... we thought that there might actually have been some sort of real trouble going down.

"Guess... guess not," Maria muttered. Alex and Isabel had frozen in mid-scramble, and he looked at them both - Isabel's sweater was still untucked, her hair half escaping from the scrunchy braid that she had put it into earlier in wild tufts, and Alex's own shirt had half of its buttons undone or in one case, pulled entirely off. Mostly the buttons that were still fastened were at the top and the bottom, leaving a gaping hole in the middle. He wondered what the other couple thought... and how much noise they'd been making to rouse Michael and Maria from their own endeavours.

"No, no alert of any color," Alex admitted. "Just... um, a tickle-pillow fight that, umm, that I don't think we need to follow up on." He waved inanely. "Give us two minutes to straighten each other up, and then meet in the dining room for cake?"

"Sounds okay," Michael admitted, Alex turned to Isabel as they closed the door. She was already tucking her sweater back in, and a wave of her hair turned her hair into an oddly amorphous mass, and then into a straight and simple 'down do,' her now-uneeded scrunchies hanging on her fingers.

As he sighed and started rebuttoning shirt buttons, Alex caught a faint exclamation in Maria's voice. "Why can't *we* have fights like that? Looks like a lot more fun than ours."

Isabel started giggling first, which set Alex off. It was nearly four minutes before they came out for cake.


TO BE CONTINUED...

Part Seven

"Umm, thanks but no thanks," Max said to Brian Wiltins and his wife, who... well, they were about the same age as he and Liz were pretending to be, so it was nice that they were apparently being accepted as equals. But... "It's, umm... that's something we'll definitely have to try - the line dancing and karaoke deal. But..." He looked over at Liz. "I, umm, I think that we'll be having a quiet evening in, since neither of us have to work tonight."

"Okay," Mrs Wiltins, who had been introduced as Joani, said a little uncertainly. "But... but remember - you guys can have quiet time in whenever you're both off work, whether it's an evening or not. Dancing and this kind of fun time out is only an evening thing."

"Yeah, umm, that's a good point," Liz agreed. For a long moment Max wondered if she was going to try to change his mind. "Umm... I'll, I'll make sure to ask Linda about getting Friday off again next week."

"Ooooh, somehow I don't think so," Brian said with a laugh. "That's when they've got the monthly poker deal in here. You're going to be bizzz-ee." Liz's face fell slightly. "But, on account of that, the line dancing gets moved to Thursday night." He turned to Max. "What about you, think you'll play a few cards with the rest of us poor blokes, try your luck?"

"I'm... I'm already a very lucky guy," Max said, patting Liz. "Lady Fortune doesn't generally give me any extra for the shuffles. But yeah, sounds like it'll be a fun way to spend the time. Get to see Liz a little, if she's going to have to be here, after all."

"And keep half an eye out just in case somebody tries to put a move on the new girl?" Joani said. "I guess I couldn't blame you."

"Do you play cards too?" Liz asked Joani.

"Oh, she's a mean bluffer," Brian boasted. "Probably better at figuring her odds than I am, too. I tend to get overoptimistic and bet when I should fold."

"Well, yeah, that's slightly true," she admitted. "But you're better at reading other players than I am, so that works in your favor." She sighed. "What about you, Alisa? We can always use another girl poker player around here, to teach the menfolk that it's not their exclusive purview. Of course, you wouldn't be able to play much on the big tourney here, but there are a few quieter games that I could invite you in on."

"Umm... no, I've never really tried," Liz admitted, glad that she didn't think she'd jumped when Joani gave her fake name. "Familiar with some of the basics, my - umm, my dad used to play with his friends. But the mysteries of poker strategy, what makes someone actually win beyond just getting good cards - that's well beyond me."

"Probably not for long, if you set your mind to it, babe," Max said, smiling at her. "You're brilliant, and I can teach you enough to get you started. There's money management, they're working out odds on the fly, and then there's the psychology-and-bluff aspect - reading other players and trying to project an impression that they'll read and accept. None of those are skills you don't have, I think - you just don't realize how you can apply them to cards."

"Uh-oh, looks like we've maybe created a monster honey," Brian joked. "Well, umm, here we go." Linda had showed up with their change, and cleared a few tables away, rolling her eyes slightly at having one of her staff as customers, even though it happened relatively often in a small-town place like this. Everybody got up out of their chairs, Joani hugged Liz impulsively, and then they walked out, the other couple heading across the way to the 'old-time saloon' where the dancing would be held. "Have a great night in."

"Oh, we definitely will," Liz said with a wink, and then she and Max headed off towards the Wash'n'work. "That... that went well I think. I... I was worried, that we wouldn't be able to have fun, that they'd ask all kinds of probing questions and we'd end up ducking from our secrets all through dinner, but..."

"Yeah, it worked out well," Max admitted. Brian was one of the other low-paid menial hands on the farm just outside of town where Max had found his employment. "Joani's nice... though I just realized that I meant to ask what she did for a job, if anything, and it didn't come up. I really don't think Brian can be making enough to support them both, doing the same sort of thing that I do."

"I think that she might be a clerk over at the post office," Liz replied, "but I'm not exactly sure about that. Doesn't particularly matter, does it?" Max thought about it, and shook his head. "And after all... if they had the good sense to keep from prying into our past, we don't have to ask them that many questions about their present, do we??"

"Yeah, I suppose... though I didn't mean to pry..." Max trailed off. Having the big secret, (well, two big secrets really, one the alien thing, and one being that they were runaways and by all rights should be back in high school...) he realized that even questions that were not meant in prying fashion could be very awkward, if they happened to hit on the right subject. Still, you couldn't really avoid entire topics just on the possibility that they MIGHT relate to something that the other person might not want to tell you about, right??

Since Max was more than a little lost in thought, things were quiet as they headed up to their little apartment - Liz didn't really volunteer any more conversation of her own, sensitive to Max's mood. But once they were inside, she turned to him brightly. "And what now?"

Max smiled. "Music. Couch. We don't need anything else, do we?"

She giggled and went over to the stereo to put something romantic and a bit passionate on, while Max turned the little lamp across the room onto its lowest setting to provide what had proved to be a pretty good level of soft lighting. And the two of them met back on the couch, immediately kissing like they hadn't even seen each other for weeks.

Things proceeded more quickly than expected, to the point where Max wondered if they'd have been better off just to start on the bed. Clothes were opened up and removed where that was absolutely necessary. "M-max," Liz gasped as he was running his lips gently over the gentle curve of her bosom, while at the same time squeezing and caressing more energetically with his hands on Liz's thights and derriere. "Ohhh... this feels so good," she muttered, and Max couldn't help but agree. "But... but I - umm, I have an idea for something a little bit different tonight?"

"Oh, really?" Max whispered against a nipple, which probably felt very stimulating to her. "And... and so?" He refused to ask exactly what the something was, guessing that Liz wanted to keep it a secret for a little bit longer, though his mind was racing. Considering how much inventive coupling they had already tried...

"So bring me into the bedroom, and you'll see," Liz giggled. Max smiled and complied, though he needed her to adjust his pants slightly so that he could actually walk effectively. He'd started to realize that even though Liz had the good little girl exterior perfected to an art form, there was a deeply mischievous and erotically inventive mind there inside her pretty head, equally desperate to give and receive sexual pleasure with her chosen man... and Max felt incredibly grateful that she had chosen him, or that the cosmos had chosen them for each other.

"Okay, so what now?"

For a long moment, Liz just smiled teasingly.

-----------

"Missus Topolsky sent me."

Isabel turned around and stared out into the dark shadow past the driveway. There was a car parked at the sidewalk in front of her parent's house, and a man was standing near the driver's door, just far enough away that she couldn't make out much about him.

"Well, then, I'll tell you more or less what I told her. Leave me and all my friends the hell alone, or I'll find some way to make you sorry for stalking us, you pathetic reject from a two-cent made-for-cable thriller. I don't want anything to do with Topolsky - she's a head case, babbling about things that could never be true. And I definitely don't want to have anything to do with any stranger whose best recommendation is that he knows her. Get back into that car and drive away, or I'll start screaming my head off about a sexual predator being after me. I can make an awful lot of ruckus in a very short amount of time, if I feel like it."

There was a short pause. "I... I'm sorry to hear that, Miss Evans. You... you seem to be very worked up right now. Is there something that's frightening you?"

Isabel stared at him in disbelief. "One, two..."

"Alright, I will go. But...." The man let that one word hang in the air, and then allowed it to fall away without completing the clause, which somehow made it seem especially ominous to Isabel. He moved over, not to the driver's door, but the one behind, and at the same time the car's motor revved, so presumably someone else was behind the wheel. As soon as the back door was swinging closed, the car pulled itself into motion, and within a few seconds it was gone from Isabel's view. Shaking slightly and trying to fight back tears, she rushed inside the house and off to her room.

-----------

Michael unlocked the door, came into his apartment, and looked around in surprise as the light bulb flared to life. Something... something wasn't quite right, but he wasn't quite sure how to explain it for a second. Then it began to come clear... the furniture was slightly askew. Nothing too obvious - the tv table a few inches to the side, the raggedly stacked piles of CDs assembled at entirely the wrong hights. The remote control was defintely NOT where he had left it. Innocent things in themselves, but taken as a whole - they were just the sort of things that Michael might expect to have happened...

...If someone had searched the place. Someone who'd been just careful enough to try to put everything back the way that it had been, but not methodical enough to get the restoration exactly right. Panicked by this thought, Michael hurried to his room... and was surprised by what he found even before he started looking. A hole had been punched into the plaster behind his bed, and on the bed, right in front of his pillow, there was a note. Michael turned the bedroom light on and examined the message. There was a very good sketch of an alien orb, and Michael's heart sank. Underneath, in straight but slightly unclear printing:

"Michael. It's a communicator, not a paperweight. I brought one with me, but there need to be two together to work. Do you kids have the other? Either way, meet me tomorrow night after sunset, Buckley Point. Last chance." Below this, was Topolsky's name, signed in script. Michael next went to examine the hole - there were two amber healing stones, Atherton's whirlpool pendant, and a few of the scribbles that he'd made blind date night about the cave map and the stars. No orb.

Had Topolsky found it already, maybe after she made that note? No... as Michael thought about it, he realized that the mysterious alien treasure shouldn't have been in his hidey-hole at all. He... he had lent it to Max two or three days before the dreamers had run away. Max had asked if he could have 'custody' for a bit on account of not having much else to do while he'd been grounded, and Michael had reluctantly agreed. He'd entirely forgotten about the incident in light of more pressing events. So... was the orb still over at Evans'? Or had Max... no, Michael didn't even want to think about the consequences of the other possibility. Frustrated, he picked up the phone and called his speed dial one.

Isabel picked up, and after a little time was spent explaining what Michael wanted, she thought a moment and said that after she'd found out that Max had vanished, she'd quickly mamde a round of all of Max's likely hiding places, wanting to make sure that her parents wouldn't accidentally stumble across anything related to the alien secret while trying to find out why he'd left town or where he might be going. There had been no sign of the orb anywhere. She wuold try looking for any UNlikely hiding places, just in case, but...

"Well, give it a try, yeah," Michael said. "I... I don't really expect much to come of it myself." A pause. "Are... are you okay Iz? You sound a little bit - umm..."

"I... I had a kind of run-in of my own," she said, and then told him about her encounter with the threatening man and his black car. "Do... do you think he was really a friend of Topolsky's?"

"I don't think Topolsky has a friend in the world, right now," Michael said honestly. "Which leaves open the possibility that he's one of her enemies." Michael's thoughts were running around on another level that he didn't speak of. He hadn't told Isabel about the note or the Buckley point meeting, just that his place had been searched and his hiding hole broken into. Firmly he decided not to tell her yet and keep his options open. "We... we should meet up, I think. All four of us, somewhere that we'll be able to talk fairly safely. Frazier woods?"

"Alright, I'll call Alex - and Maria, unless you want to," Isabel said, breathing a small sigh of relief over the line.

"Nah, that won't be needed - to each our own," Michael replied, and chuckled. "See you, umm, nine thirty at the south campsite?"

"Uhh... sure," Isabel decided. "We probably won't be able to talk there, with all of the weekend campers, but it'll do for rendezvous, and then we can hike a way up the trail." Michael agreed with a noise that wasn't a word. "Goodnight, Michael. Thank you."

He was about to ask what he'd done to deserve thanks, but Isabel had already hung up the phone. Sighing, he got a new dial tone and hit the next speed dial. "Hey, Maria?? Ohh, Mrs DeLuca... yeah, I know she just got home from spending all evening with me." He sighed. "It won't take long, just a quick message..."

----------

"My my my," Max muttered sleepily. "Miss Miller, you definitely have a wild imagination."

"Now don't say that like it's a bad thing, JACEN," she shot back, giggling. "Come on, it's not like I've suggested anything really freaky, umm, have I?" Max shrugged a little as he wrapped his arms around her. "If and when I give you the greeen light up my back door, then you can call me kinky I guess."

"Ohh," Max muttered, not sure if he was shocked or intrigued - or if both, in what proportions. "Umm... on another note, we'd better get our sleep I think. Big day tomorrow."

"Yeah, *I* remember," Liz said, her voice going faintly sing-song. Tomorrow was the first time that they'd get an opportunity to drive to another town together and post a letter to Maria reassuring her that they were doing okay. "I... I just wish that there was some way for our friends to send us news without them knowing where we are... without anyone being able to track us..."

"Oh, oh my gosh!" Max said. Liz nudged him slightly, smiling at his choice of exclamation. "I just realized that there's a conventional way for us to do just that." Grinning, Max decided to draw it out. "If there was just one copy of the message, then somebody could follow the trail it goes by. But... but if Isabel was able to duplicate her message... say thousands, tens of thousands of times, most of them going to people who would never pay attention to it... then we're great."

Liz humphed. "I... I must be missing. How - how could she possibly... OHH!"

"Yeah," Max said. "Placing a personal ad... maybe in the big Albuquerque daily newspaper. I can pick one up at the general store every day, just in case." He sighed. "Of course, if we give them the idea, they *might* keep sending ad after ad pleading for us to come home."

"Yeah... yeah, I know," Liz agreed. "Still... I think I'd rather know if that's how they feel... rather than willfully ignoring the truth." And she sighed. "Not... not that I'm ready to come straight home just because Maria and Alex and my parents miss me. On the other hand... well, if there really is a crisis - I guess they might not be able to place the news very quickly if at all, but you never know."

"Alright. Well, see your beautiful face in the morning." Max reached out a hand, the bedside lamp turned off by itself... and then he felt Liz getting out of his arms and standing up, turning on the overhead lights from the switch near the door. Appreciating her unclothed beauty in the light like that was very nice, Max had to admit, but... "Hey, come on, what gives??"

Liz giggled. "Oh, nothing much. Just felt like I needed a glass of cold water before I drifted off." She looked back at him thoughtfully. "No, you're not getting it for me - I'm already up, and while I am... anything I can get for YOU?" Max shook his head. "Little bit of juice, one of those vitamin pills you take every day? Sure?? Okay." And with that, she disappeared into the bathroom.

Liz wasn't away long, and she must have drunk her water before she got back, because she wasn't carrying a glass or anything. Max held her tight as he drifted off, wondering if he would have dreams about Michael or his parents.

---------

"Okay, umm... Michael?" Isabel said once she had finished retelling her spooky encounter of the night before - mostly for Maria's benefit, since Michael had already heard all of it, and Alex had been told about half earlier that morning, when Isabel called to let him know about the meeting. The four kids were standing or sitting in an isolated forest clearing, far from the gentle stream beaches, prett waterfalls, and the roads that led into town. A bonfire pit was still evident in the center of the open space, with a few logs dragged around it in a very ragged triangle, and a visually impressive canyon overlook was near, through the trees a little way - Alex had discovered that while they were briefly scouting around to make sure that nobody else was near, and each of them had taken in the view for a moment or so.

"You... you said that someone had broken into your apartment, found your stash, but not taken anything," Isabel prodded when Michael was slow to reply to her first mention of his name. "Did... did you find out anything more about who or why? Was there any particular reason you had be check for the, umm, the orb, except that you were worried about it?"

"Umm... no, not really," Michael replied. "No clues at all."

Both girls turned to stare immediately at him. "Something's really upsetting you," Maria guessed. "You're normally a significantly better liar than that. So whatever it is, we probably need to know about it. GIVE." Isabel smirked slightly, amused at Maria having taken some of her lines before she even got them organized.

Michael looked around for a supportive face, but even Alex was shaking his head slightly with a stern expression. "Okay, okay, there was a note from Topolsky. She sketched the orb, or something very like it. Said that she had another like it, they're a pair that work as communicators when they're together, and she wants to meet us at Buckley poiny tonight - whether or not we have ours. That's our last chance to make contact with her."

"Oh, brother," Isabel said, rolling her eyes. "And you didn't want to say anything because you wanted to be in sole control of whether that meeting happens or not. Either you go alone or nobody does... is that it?" Michael shrugged awkwardly.

"It was supposed to be, yeah, but I guess I gave away too much when I asked you to check for the Orb." Michael shrugged calmly, not too worried about the failure of his little scheme.

"We can't go anywhere near her," Isabel snapped indignantly. "I just hope that she's as good as her word and doesn't bother us ever again after this."

Maria looked over at Michael, and he was reluctantly nodding a silent agreement to Isabel's declaration. Alex, however, picked up his courage and cleared his throat. "I... I dunno, maybe we should re-examine our assumptions, just a bit, at this juncture. Either... either Topolsky is shilling for the FBI herself, or... or she really has escaped from them and wants to help us. And wants our help to get out of the trouble that she's in too."

"If she really escaped from them, then she was probably let out as bait," Michael muttered. "Every time we interact with her, if other agents are watching, they might find out something useful about us. And this whole Buckley point thing might be a way for them to actually grab some of us, either way."

"Then you see how stupid an idea it'd be to go alone?" Isabel asked, and Michael reluctantly nodded. Alex's train of thought, whatever it had been, seemed to have been sidelined by Michael's interruption and wasn't about to go anywhere.

"Okay, so we don't go," Maria said, and the other three nodded. "Spaceboy, you're with me tonight, then. My mom's out on a date, so I'm going to pay you back for dinner out the other night with something home-cooked. Sound good?" She laughed as he nodded enthusiastically. "And then we can appreciate a little music together, and maybe work on my French club stuff." Alex couldn't resist a laugh at that combination of euphemisms.

"Well, I've got this thing with my parents," Isabel said, sighing despondently. "Dinner with friends of theirs and some kind of church concert for a religious holiday." She sighed. "Sorry, sweetie - I'm probably not going to be up for anything fun once all of that's over."

"Ah well, what can you do about family and friends of the family?" Alex commiserated, and Izzie nodded glumly. They both knew that having her go along with little things like this was probably even more important to her parents now, after Max's disappearance, but neither said so out loud. "We can chat on the phone a bit, when you get back, I suppose."

"Yeah, I'll call you, definitely," Isabel insisted. "And the rest of today doesn't have to be a writeoff - I only need to show up around, umm... maybe five or so." She looked over at Alex. "I know that we didn't really prepare much for spending a lot of time in the woods, but maybe we can find something to do out here."

"Well, I'll have to leave the woods to the rest of you, and I'll do it gladly," Maria said. "Got shift in three-quarters of an hour."

"Oh, I'd better get a ride into town with you," Michael said, smiling.

"Do you have to work too, or are you just afraid of the wild beasts?" Alex teased him.

"Yeah, not right away, but I'm on the grill for the lunch shift," Michael replied. So they headed back along the path to where Maria and Isabel had both parked, and Isabel turned to face Alex.

"So... have anything in mind, Mister camp-out-under-the-stars?" she said with a bright smile.

"Hmm... not really. Maybe a bit of hiking." He sighed. "There seems to be a rough but passable trail heading off that way... I'm not sure, but it might meet up with the river at the head of the canyon." Isabel shrugged and they headed in among the trees, which seemed to have overgrown the path more than a little, in that it was hard to walk between them without brushing branches. "It'd probably be a great, really private place to take a dip."

"Alex Charles Whitman!!" Isabel exclaimed with a mixture of pretend-outrage and concealed pleasure. "You... you didn't bring a suit, I'm pretty sure, and you know that I didn't either."

"No," Alex admitted. "But I can swim in my underwear. Can you??"

"I... I probably could," she admitted. "And exactly what did you plan on doing AFTER swimming in cold water in your underwear??"

"Umm... talking you into drying me off and maybe warming both of us up a bit, with your powers," he shot back. Isabel shook her head, but she was grinning at him.

"Okay... skivvy dipping is a maybe," she admitted. "So, umm..."

"Skivvy dipping?" Alex repeated. "As an alternative to skinny dipping, you mean, since skivvies is a word for underwear?" Isabel made an uh-huh sound and nodded slightly while threading her way through a narrow gap. "Well, I think that maybe only guys can skivvy-dip then. Not sure where that leaves you."

"Oh, a girl can wear skivvies, even if you're right that it's a term for men's underwear," Isabel shot back. "I have to admit that I'm not, at the moment, so you're right that far." Alex was stumped for a moment before he made the connection to what Isabel was talking about... that men's underwear was, in her mind, a reference to a particular style, not to any particular undergarments that a male of the human species happened to be wearing. Thus, a guy could wear girls' underwear, or a girl could wear guy's underwear... and he had to admit that she had a point there. Alex's cousin Jeff, who was a good eleven years older than him and who had given him a good number of talks about girls when he was just getting into his teens, none of which ever seemed to help him in interacting with Isabel... well, Alex remembered that he had spoken fondly of a girl who repeatedly stole his underwear and wore it herself... "I think that british people also use the word 'Skivvy' for a maid, but I'm not one of those either, so maybe we'd better just drop the whole thing for now," Isabel continued.

"Dropped... except that if that's true, I'm very impressed with your command of obscure vocabulary," Alex teased. "Okay, umm... another topic of conversation, let's see." He sighed, lost in thought for a long moment. "Tell me about... Florida in the summer."

"How - how did you even know that we..."

"I have my sources, but I'm not going to let you change the subject just now," Alex replied. "Why don't you do the talking??"

"Okay, that's fair I guess," she admitted. "Um, well... it was probably two years after... after we'd been with Mom and Dad, that they got the idea of taking us away for five weeks. Mom has... has an aunt who lives in one of the retirement communities down there - why she thought that it'd be particularly fun I don't know, though I think Max had heard a few things about Florida from the boys in his third grade class and got the idea that it's all Disney world and amusement parks and..."

"Yeah, I get the picture," Alex said, smiling. "Wasn't so exciting when you got there??"

"Well, the beach was fun... until I got burned to a crisp and got a case of sun oisoning, or whatever you call it," she said, with a sigh. "Max ended up playing a lot of games with the old retired men... shuffleboard, bridge, dominos and what have you." Isabel sighed. "I just kind of stayed inside my great-aunt's house for nearly a month, watching TV and reading... which I could have done staying at home in Roswell."

"Yeah, I guess so," Alex admitted. "Well, maybe you'll get back there sometime, and make better memories to wipe those less-than-good ones all away."

"Yeah, maybe," Isabel sighed. "Or California, or the tropical islands somewhere." Alex laughed. "Okay, your turn now I think. What was your worst vacation ever?"

"Umm, well.. the christmas when I was twelve we went to Chicago for Christmas... I got sick and then we were trapped in our hotel by a power blackout."

"Ohmigod, seriously??" Isabel asked. "Man, that does sound bad. Were you, like - getting sick all over the place??"

"Eww, no, nothing like that. In fact, I was mostly feeling better by the time the lights went out... which is definitely for the best. It was just a serious sinus head cold, though I felt like I was really suffering, and... well, the morning of that day there'd been the tour bus around town, which my mom and I stayed behind from and my dad went on alone."

"When he got back, I was feeling well enough that we went out for lunch and a bit of shopping, and then took everything back to the room. We were supposed to go over to see Santa Claus at the big department store, though I was really feeling like I was too old for that and... well, maybe I'd better go back and start at the beginning."

"Sure, why don't you," Isabel said, grinning, and Alex began to tell her how the ill-fated trip had first been thought of. He told about getting to Chi-town, including how all of his father's luggage had been accidentally sent to Toronto, and how they'd rushed back to the airport after checking into the hotel when the call had come in that it had found its way over safely. He told quite a lot about being stuck with his parents in a small hotel room with few diversions, not much food, and no lights for nearly a day.

"We probably could have gotten out, but my Dad was so worried about somebody getting locked out and not being able to get back to the room," he said. "In the evening there was someone from the hotel who came by and was handing out little packets of makeshift rations. I still didn't have too much appetite at that point." Alex sighed. "I remember that it was 11:34 in the morning when everything came back on. My dad took us to a bank first thing to pull out a cash advance on his credit card - he was worried that if the power went out again, the card itself would be useless, so he wanted to have plenty of cash. The lines were pretty long - I guess a lot of people had the same idea."

"Not a bad story," Isabel decided. "Wouldn't have particularly wanted to live through it myself, mind you." Alex laughed. "And hey - there's the river!"

"Really, already?" Alex asked. Then he realized that his legs thought that he'd been walking for a pretty long time. Sure enough, there was the sound of flowing water ahead of them, and he saw the broad stream fairly soon. The canyon itself wasn't in view from here. "Hmm, I wonder how fast it's running here." But when he dipped his hand in, the current didn't seem especially strong. And there was no sound of other people anywhere around at all.

"Okay, so swimming," Isabel said. "I... I'm up for it if you are."

"Oh, I'm up," Alex shot back. "Not exactly in the double entender sense, though that probably won't take me long." He looked into Isabel's face, wondering what her reaction would be. He had intentionally joked about involuntary excitement as a way of defusing the possible embarassment of its reality, but if she got offended now, then the whole mood would be ruined. The look on her face, though, was calm, and just a bit plasantly teasing.

"Okay, then, the last one in is an evil alien," Isabel joked, and immediately charged forward, pulling her thin sweater off as she did so. Alex joined in on the race, even though he realized that Isabel, too, had been manipulating the circumstances slightly, arranging this 'race' as an alternative to the other possible scene, in which they'd each have to strip down to underclothes with the other person watching and possibly staring. As much as Alex might like to stare at Isabel wearing as little as possible, (and even getting stared at had an odd appeal, as long as she liked what she saw,) the last response he'd ever want to inspire in Isabel would be discomfort... or, well, it was pretty close to the tail of the line, at least. (Hatred, disgust, and heartbreak at least slipped in further behind.)

So he kept shucking his own clothes off quickly and hurrying towards the water instead of relaxing and enjoying the view, even when it had become apparent that he was going to be the evil alien after all. Even at that, though, Alex couldn't seem to help getting glimpses of Isabel Evans' form, lovely in motion and in dishabille, that burned themselves into the visual center of his memory. After scrambling into the mid-shallow water, Isabel turned around, and grinned a bit at Alex as he covered the last few feet to splash into the water. He was definitely 'up' in the second sense of the word now, but neither of them commented on it out loud, and the chill water hitting his shorts relieved the situation even as it sent the breath shooting out of his lungs in a hoarse cry.

"Yeah, I know," Isabel said. "It's pretty damn cold, isn't it?"

"Hmm..." Alex muttered. "Yeah, it is, but that made me think of something. Temperature. Do... do you guys generally find it easy or hard to deal with hot and cold weather? And... and forgive me if this is prying, but have you ever tried to take your own body temperature??"

"Always full of questions, aren't you?" Isabel grinned. "Well, at least you've picked a pretty good place and time to ask, I suppose." Alex sighed at the reference... Isabel would probably never stop needling about the time that he'd raised his voice in the UFO center and said something unfortunate to her. "Well... yeah, we've tried the thermometer thing, but the results were never anything too exciting. All three of us tend to run a few tenths of a degree higher than the human average, but that's well within the bell curve. I had a fever while I had sunstroke in Florida... so did Max after he was in that car accident with Liz, before he woke up. I saw that on his chart, when I was checking to make sure that they hadn't found anything more unusual."

She took a deep breath. "And Michael... after he'd gone into the sweatlodge... Maria started taking his temperature. He got to nearly forty-two, which is the point of fever death, and..." Even more ragged breathing, and Alex drifted close to her, reaching out with his hand, and Isabel grabbed onto it firmly. "That... that was right before he started to get the webbing, and then he got really hypothermia-cold no matter what we were trying to keep him warm. Like..."

"Like all of the internal temperatur controls inside of him were going haywire," Alex filled in, and she nodded. "I... I'm sorry, I didn't really mean to bring up such traumatic experiences, but..."

"No, it's okay, I understand," Isabel insisted. "You... you want to know all about me, and that kind of includes the bad as well as the good. That's kind of flattering, really." She sighed. "Um, as far as the rest, I kinduv always felt that I was a desert child at heart, doing alright with the hot weather, especially hot and dry, but not so good with cold... not that I've ever really experinced extreme cold weather I guess." She sighed. "Maybe we should just hang out here for a while without talking much, okay?"

"Umm, alright," Alex muttered. For a second, he wondered if that was an invitation for a kiss, but Isabel didn't seem to be putting out any other particularly amorous signals. So they both just stayed there, mostly submerged in the stream, and watched and listened to the forest all around them.

-----------

"Okay, next stop Shiprock!" Liz exclaimed as they drove back out of the little town that had been their home for the past nine days or so. "Ahh, it's a little bit nice to be out on the road again, huh??"

"Yeah," Max admitted. They hadn't been using the car for much other than his trips out to the farm lately... he could walk it, but more often than not stolen kisses with Liz made him too late to go on foot and arrive in time for his shift. "So, umm... we've got a long trip ahead of us, though. Umm... want to play a word game or something?"

Liz giggled. "Yeah, sure, that sounds fun. Umm... twenty questions, I spy, or mystery game?"

"Hmm... not I spy, and I'm not sure that you can give me a mystery puzzle that I haven't heard before," Max said with a sigh. "Twenty questions sounds okay, I..."

At this point, Liz interrupted him. "If it wasn't for the fifty-third..."

"Bicycles are playing cards - he tried to slip in one of his own in a poker game."

"Hmm." Liz considere. "Bob and Mary were found dead..."

"They're fish!" Max exclaimed. "The fishbowl or aquarium broke. Come on, give me credit for having heard these old chestnuts at least."

"You realize that this is just a challenge," Liz warned him. "Umm... when the elevator stopped, she knew that..."

"Power failure in a hospital," Max said. "The dead guy was on life support. We're getting a bit more obscure though."

"When the music stopped...."

"Blindfolded tightrope walker!" Max exclaimed with evident pleasure.

"Okay, let's see now," Liz muttered. "I'm *sure* that I've heard one that you haven't - and this is as good a way as any to pass the time, huh?" Max made a noncommital sound. "Okay, umm... a dead guy is found in a field, with no weapons or tracks anywhere around. He has, strapped to his back...."

"A bag. He's the unluckiest parachutist in the world," Max quipped again.

Liz growled softly, starting to get a little bit frustrated. "Okay. One survivor is shipwrecked on a small island in the middle of a large lake. He couldn't swim, had no boat or raft, and no means of making one. He waited months for help, just managing to survive, but no rescue came. Then, finally, he was able to make his own way back to civilization on his own. How, and why didn't he do it sooner?"

"Hmm..." Max wondered. "I'm not a hundred percent certain of this one, but did the lake freeze in the winter so he could walk across?" Liz sighed and nodded. "Give up yet?"

"No, got just one more," Liz admitted. "If this one doesn't stump you at least temporarily, then I'm giving up." She sighed. "When Gertrude entered the plane, she caused her own death, and the deaths of two hundred people. Yet she was never blamed or criticized for her actions. What happened?"

"Umm... oh, wow," Max muttered. "That... that's a good one I admit." He sighed. "Took you long enough to come up with such an interesting one." Liz punched him playfully on his upper arm. "Okay, let's see. Yes-no questions allowed, huh?" Liz nodded. "Did... did an explosive bomb have anything to do with the deaths?"

"Umm... no," Liz replied. "Good question."

"Hmmm." Max muttered. "Did she interfere with the cockpit controls in some way?"

"No." Liz reflected to herself that this was a very good way of attacking the problem... Max was going through all of the likely situations that might explain deaths on an airplane, without paying much attention yet to Gertrude's involvement or the lack of criticism.

"Okay. Umm... are the circumstances of how Gertrude came aboard unusual?"

"Well... definitely yes." Liz giggled to herself.

"Hmm... Did she enter the plane of her own volition?"

"Definitely no."

"Alright, that's a lead," Max observed. "Was... was she forced or blackmailed by other people?"

"Umm... no," Liz replied. "Definitely not by people."

"Hmm..." Max considered that. "Well, I think I'm going to take a short break and try to figure all of that out." He sighed. "Are you satisfied by your final draft of the letter for Maria?"

"Ehh... not one hundred percent, but reasonably so, I guess," Liz said. shifting in her seat uncomfortably with the sudden switch of topics. "I... I still feel like I can never really explain it well enough why we left... like you told me, about the dream with Isabel, and the letter you sent her from before we got too far from Albuquerque." Max nodded. "But... but she'll be less worried for what I've said, and that's something I guess." She grinned. "I have to admit, it'll be fun looking through the personals every day for a message to Checker dreaming."

"Yeah," Max agreed. "I hope that nobody gets too upset at our choice of conduit. Personals in the paper aren't exceptionally cheap, you know."

"Umm... I guess so, but they're not too bad either, I guess." She smiled slightly. "I have to admit, the whole idea makes me think of 'Desperately seeking Susan.'" Max nodded. "Did you make up your mind about if you're going to send Michael a postcard?"

"Yeah, I think not this time," he admitted. "I know that I shouldn't be too worried about putting something with my real name on it in plain view into the mailbox... but I am anyway. Michael can wait a few days more anyway. It'll be good to teach him patience."

"Yeah," Liz agreed. "Do you want to go for Shiprock again next time?"

"Well... maybe one more time, and then look for another town nearby," Max decided. "We can't be too predictable, or my dad might start staking out the place for several days at a time... or hiring somebody to do that, I mean." He sighed. "On the other hand, we can't make too much of an arc..."

"...Or they'll be able to narrow down where we are just from finding the center of the postal zone," Liz finished. "Yeah, I remember."

"Okay, so I guess I've mentioned that before," Max laughed. "Okay, I've got another Gertrude question."

Liz took a breath. "Yeah?"

"Is Gertrude a person?"

Liz had to force herself to stop laughing enough to answer. "No, she is not."

"Is she in the animal kingdom?"

"Yes."

"Hmmm."

"What - you don't know where to go next from there?"

"No, I don't guess I do." Max sighed. "I do wonder what Maria and the others are up to without us. I'd like to get some actual news in a personal message, though I guess they're probably not likely to say too much to the entire state."

"Yeah, that's the liability," Liz agreed.

"Umm... was Gertrude a bird?" Max asked. Liz had to make a mental gear change quickly to process it in terms of her riddle.

"Actually, yes."

"And she hit the bird or... no, she got sucked IN," Max said, a confident and pleased smile now on his face. "Thus entering the plane involuntarily, killing herself and most or all of the passengers and crew... but nobody blamed her for it, because it was sheer accident."

"Not bad," Liz said. "Took you a little while, but I don't think I did any better the first time I had that one."

"Okay, now it's my turn to see if I can stump you," Max said. "What was so special about February 1866, that will not take place again for another two and a half million years??"

"Umm... Canadian confederation talks start?" Liz guessed with a giggle. "Though I admit I'm not sure what would make them start all over again, but take so long about it."

"No," Max said. "Guess again... or try to think of intelligent questions."

Liz reached out to touch Max's arm with her hand... and tried to think clearly.


TO BE CONTINUED...

Part Eight

"Hey, Michael," Mister Parker said, as he poked his head out of the kitchen into the Crashdown back room again. "It's about two minutes since you last checked the clock."

"Oh, umm, right. Sorry sir." Michael felt the heat of the grill on his skin as he hurried back to check on the few burgers that were sizzling (or in one case, just starting to heat up) there. After about thirty more seconds he realized that Liz's father had stepped into the kitchen doorway and was watching him. "I... I didn't mean to be watching the clock, Mister Parker. Just..." He didn't finish the sentence.

"Hey, I know how it is sometimes," Jeff Parker said casually. "Just can't wait for the little whistle to blow, as it were. Do you have plans for this evening?"

"Umm, yeah, actually," Michael agreed. "Going over to Maria's place. She said that she wanted to cook me dinner."

"Wow, that's something," the older man said. "Well, if you want to take off early, I could cover you."

"No, umm... really, sir. I... by the way, Maria and I both feel horrible, umm, about how we let you down and..."

"It's okay, as long as you don't do that again. Seriously, it's like three minutes anyway. I certainly don't mind."

Michael spared a moment to look up into Jeff's eyes. He didn't seem that old for having a teenaged daughter, probably younger than Max and Izzie's dad, and if he was suffering from loneliness and worry at Liz's extended absence, that seemed to be covered pretty well under a mask of cheerfulness. "Well, thank you very much for the offer," he allowed. "But... but Maria told me not to show up until seven twenty anyway, so that she had a chance to make sure everything was just so. I... I'm excited and a bit impatient, but you letting me out early won't help with that."

"Okay, fair enough," Jeff said, and reached out to take a plate that Michael had just flipped a burger onto and pass it over to the tray sitting on the dining room window ledge before Michael had a chance to do that himself. "So, you and Maria - sounds like things are getting fairly serious?"

"Umm... I'm probably not the best guy to ask about our relationship... err, or the best person, anyway." Michael mentally kicked himself for how strangely that sentence had come out. "I... I do care for her a lot, and I can tell that she does too - about me, I mean." Even if sometimes Michael couldn't really bring himself to see why she cared at all. "We... we still have problems sometimes figuring out exactly what to do about it, how the two of us are supposed to start becoming something more together than we are seperately... but maybe that will come with time, and with learning more about each other."

"Those do help," Jeff admitted.

"What was it like with, umm, with you and Liz's mom??" Michael suddenly blurted out.

Jeff looked at Michael for a long moment, and then one of his eyes twinkled in a way that Michael found a little surprising, if not completely weird. "Well, *that* would be a story that would take much longer than just til seven twenty to tell, so it will have to wait for another occasion. Don't let me forget about it, though."

"Umm, alright."

"And speaking of the time o clock, you're ten seconds over now."

"Umm, alright." Michael looked around the kitchen awkwardly. "Are... are you on the evening shift in here, then??"

"Well, yeah. You didn't think that I was offering to step in for just a few minutes until another cook showed up, did you?"

"Guess... guess I hadn't thought of it that way," Michael admitted, and stepped away, taking off his apron, and Mister Parker took it almost as if that was a transfer that they had done hundreds of times before. Michael thought about saying something about the orders that were on cooking, but it felt weird to spoon-feed information to the Crashdown's proprietor and general manager like that... if he needed details, he could ask for them, right? And he always seemed to know what was going on without having to be told - like how he'd known to help out with that burger plate, and which tray it should go on. (Yeah, there were only two trays that had been there, but Jeff had done what he'd done with complete confidence.)

So he settled for asking, "There anything else you need?" and when Mister Parker said no, gathering his things from the locker in the back room and heading out. It would take him a while to walk over to the DeLuca's house, and he could think along the way.

He was about halfway there when he first thought that he didn't have a watch or any other way to easily tell the time. Uh-oh. Maria didn't want him showing up early, or late either, and somehow he could tell that the excuse 'I wasn't wearing a watch' wouldn't cut much ice. What was he going to do about that?? Well, he could try to think of a way to... to maybe look into people's windows and see if he could spot a clock or something. In the meantime he sped up his stride.

Nearly at Maria's place, Michael hurriedly crossed the street away from the house, and went up to a guy in a long dark coat. "Excuse me, sir - do you have a watch or something??"

The guy turned around and blinked in a momentary surprise. "Umm, why sure." He brought up his left arm, on which a very fancy-looking silver dial watch could be seen when he pushed back the coat sleeve a bit. "I have... Seven fifteen and a half, more or less."

"Umm, thank you sir." Michael tried to count seconds in his head while he crossed back again, and nearly got himself hit by a blue ultra-compact car. Tried to work out how many seconds were in seven-twenty minus seven-fifteen and a half. Umm, four and a half minutes, that would be - two hundred and...

Michael turned around, and realized that the guy in the long coat was leaning against a fence and watching him.

Somehow that completely wigged him out. *FBI alien hunters!* Could... could this guy be with something like that, the people that Topolsky said that she was running from - and Michael had gone up and SPOKEN to him because he was worried about not getting the time right. For a long moment (that he was forgetting to count seconds during,) Michael was tempted to just forget about the time and rush inside, both to get away from the man's cool stare, and to have Maria within his sight, to make sure that she was protected.

But when he cleared his head and started counting, then other thoughts manifested. Yes, in the light of the FBI angle the bit about showing up right on the button didn't make much sense to Michael any more, but there were other reasons to not rush off instantly. He didn't want to show fear in front of any alien hunters, and if he was being watched - well, why not send a confusing message? Waiting outside Maria's house for a few minutes before going in was something that would probably be confusing unless they'd happened to overhear the reason why. So Michael smiled slightly and mouthed 'thanks' at the guy in the long coat, just as if he didn't suspect him of any further agenda, and waited around until he thought the chances that more than two hundred and seventy seconds had passed by were slightly greater than the chances that they had not all elapsed yet.

He almost knocked on the door, but decided to try the knob instead. Shut the door behind him. Called out softly, "Hi, honey, am I late??"

"Umm... well, maybe by most of a minute, but that doesn't matter," Maria replied from the kitchen, and Michael convinced himself that he could hear carefree happiness in her voice. "Do... do you mind having just candlelight?? I can turn on the lights for us to eat by if you want, but..."

"Umm... let's give the candles a try," Michael said, hanging up his jacket and heading into the living room. "If I can't hack dinner that way, then the lights go on. Make sense?"

"Sounds great to me." He looked over and saw Maria in the doorway between the dining room and the kitchen, wearing a long and pretty dress in some light color - maybe white, yellow, or... well, it was kind of hard to tell with the soft lighting - it could have been pink or baby blue as far as Michael could tell. But she looked just absolutely beautiful, with her dark blonde hair that was just starting to grow out a little, mostly at the back, and the way that she liked to wear it for the past week or so with the obvious part line just a bit to the left side of her head, and brushed back behind her ears on both sides. Michael felt a little bad that he hadn't been able to change from his work clothes before showing up, but... well, Maria had suggested the time, and she knew his shift very well. She could have made dinner for a little later if she'd wanted him to do that stuff... right?

"You look great," he said, and that little detail reminded him of something... that he hoped was in his jacket pocket. "Just a moment." He hurried back into the vestibule to check on the coat hooks, and found the little bag just where he'd tucked it a few minutes before starting at his job. "Hey," Michael said, feeling a bit awkward as he headed into the dining room, opening his arms to Maria for a hug, and she threw herself gently against him. "I... I got you a little surprise. Nothing too fancy, but - but I saw it today and thought that you might like it."

"If... if it came from you, I'm sure I'll love it." Maria said. "Well - actually, no, not *completely* sure." Michael laughed. "But... but I don't need anything other than you to make me happy."

Michael decided to take that one at face value. "But it makes *me* happy to do something like this for you," he said, and realized with a bit of a start that it actually was true. He... he had bought the present because he thought that she'd want one, but... but now that he'd paid for it and actually gotten it here without misplacing it or anything, his heart warmed at the thought of handing it over and Maria liking it. "Umm, here." Giving her the bag required disengaging from their hug, but this way he could look into Maria's deep eyes as she dug into the little container and pulled it out. "Umm... it's jewelry... kind of," she said, after a moment.

"It... it's a mood necklace!" Michael said. "I... I thought that you'd like it. It... it's a mood choker, actually." He spread out the little bundle of chain on Maria's hand. "You, you put it around your neck, and it - it changes color like a mood ring."

"Okay, well, umm - that's very novel and everything, but... but I think this chain is copper. If I wear it, it's going to turn my skin green or something."

"Oh, have you got something against green?" Michael groaned. This was not working out the way he'd hoped it would. "Alex... he said that jewelry was a safe yes category."

"You... you asked Alex about what kind of presents to give me?" Maria asked. Michael groaned - he hadn't expected or intended for her to hear that mumbled comment, and for a second he was worried... but then Maria broke up into laughter, and he chuckled a few times nervously himself, then started to laugh more enthusiastically. It was a little funny that they were getting so worked up about something small. And then a beeper started to go off in the kitchen and Maria hurried away to deal with whatever it was that the stove timer had been going on.

"Thank... thank you for the thought at least," Maria said when she returned, carrying in a big dish with padded oven mitts going up past her wrists. "I... I'm still not wild about the copper chain, but maybe I can find something else to wear the mood stone on - or you could maybe plate something else onto the metal with your powers?" Michael shrugged awkwardly. "Well, come on - sit down." Michael belatedly slipped into one of the chairs that had a place setting in front of it, opposite to where Maria was settling herself. "Now, I wasn't quite sure what you'd like, aside from spicy stuff, but - well, you kinduv strike me sometimes as an old-fashioned beef & potatoes kind of guy, and that's something that I'm alright with cooking, so. Plate?" Michael handed over a plate, and Maria reached into the pot and put a big lump of brownish-red something on it, then spooned out a half-dozen odd shapes from the shallow white dish that she'd just brought out with the oven mitts. "The pot roast kind of fell apart, but that means that it won't be tough, at least, and there's plenty of gravy. Umm, if you find a slightly crunchy leaf in your gravy then DON'T swallow it - it's a bay and it's just in there to leach out a little flavour."

"Pot roast?" Michael asked when she handed the plate back. Sure enough, when he poked at the first lump, it did seem to be meaty, and something was certainly beginning to smell nice. "And... and potatoes?" The other shapes there were a little crunchier on the outside than most potatoes he was familiar with, but...

"Oven-roasted potatoes, from my old manana's recipe," Maria assured him. "Umm - do you want gravy now, or..." Michael quickly passed the plate back. "No, actually, if I can find a gravy boat I'll ladle plenty of it out into that, and then we can just pass that back and forth instead of having to pass plates."

"Sounds good," Michael decided. "And, um, what's in here?" He reached out for a white serving bowl. "Long string beans?" Maria made a distracted um-huh sound - she was bending over and going through some kind of cabinet behind the table. Michael spooned some beans onto his plate - what the heck - and tried cutting open his hunk of pot roast and some of the potatoes. Appetizing smells in his area increased in potency.

"Umm, should we, like, say grace or something?" he mumbled a bit awkwardly. Michael was feeling really very hungry, but considering the offhand comments about table manners he didn't really want to make a misstep. Maria sat back down with the gravy boat and shot him an odd look. "I mean, since this is all so fancy and everything, umm..."

"Well, we can have a moment of silent thanks, that seems to fit I guess," Maria said, and closed her eyes, inclining her head slightly. After maybe seven seconds she went back to filling up the gravy boat. Michael tried a bit of meat and potato, and groaned at the combination of tastes, mostly familiar but still not quite like anything he'd ever eaten before. "Man, that's a great, umm, roast. What gives it, umm, there's kind of a quality..."

"Probably mostly the fresh tomato puree in the gravy," Maria said, passing the boat across the table to him. "You, you brown the edges of the roast in canola oil, and then simmer it in the gravy for like three hours." Michael whistled - he hadn't expected that Maria's 'home cooked meal' for him would have taken anything like that much effort. And the potatoes seemed to have taken some effort, too - he knew a little about roasting taters, though he'd never really tried it himself, and they needed to be regularly basted with hot oil.

"I... I can't believe that you put all of this together, just for me," he admitted, spooning some tomato-gravy over everything on his plate. "Was... was your mom still here when you started?"

"Yeah, but... well, I didn't tell her that it was just for US," Maria said. "After all, I'm eating too."

"Yes, yeah you are," Michael admitted, smiling. "Well, thanks a lot." He munched on some more potatoes and gravy, and then, unfortunately, couldn't stifle a burp fast enough. "Whoops - really sorry..."

Maria giggled. "That's okay."

-----------

"What are you thinking about, honey?" Max asked.

"Umm..." Liz looked around the unfamiliar small-town diner. The two of them were most of their way back from the mail drop, and had stopped in for dinner at a place about three-quarters of an hour's drive from their new hometown. "Actually, uhhh..." She dropped her voice into a whisper. "Mostly that I'm still having problems getting used to your hair color like that."

"Really?" Max reached up to brush a bit of his very dark blonde hair away from his forehead. "I... I have to admit that I forget all about it... though probably at some point we're going to need to decide if I should retouch it, since... well, I don't think the roots are growing out this color, are they?"

"Umm - no," Liz admitted. "But they don't clash much, and - well, it'll be a long time before you can really tell." She sighed. "I... I guess I assumed that we wouldn't be staying away from Roswell and our friends for months and months."

"Hmm... probably not - or maybe not." Max cocked his head, considering the issue, and made sure to keep his voice so that nobody would overhear this kind of thing. "I'm still not quite sure how long it's going to take to... well, to do whatever we have to do here. I - I love being able to spend all of this time with you, and a part of me would want to stay out here just because of that, but - but you've probably got a point."

"Well, I love - love living with you, and everything that goes with it, too," Liz admitted. "But I do miss Maria, and Alex and my parents, and I wonder sometimes what's going on back in Roswell while we're here." She sighed slightly. "But I didn't mean to get us thinking about that kind of thing - sorry."

"Well, that's okay," Max said evenly. "I... I always want to hear what's on your mind, even if its something that might make me sad for a moment, because the fact that we can talk to each other about anything makes me happy." Pause. "And... and the fact that I said that in so cheesy a way makes me sad again."

"No, you shouldn't," Liz told him. "It was earnest and sweet." She sighed and picked at her chicken toes. (Which weren't actually made out of real toes - those didn't seem appetizing; instead, they were like shorter and stumpier chicken fingers.) "Oh - I picked up some new reading material while you were in the post office."

"Yeah?" Max asked. "Lemme see."

"Sorry, I can't do that - it's still out in the car."

"Oh, okay." Max sighed and used his fork to slice some lasagna. "Well, tell me about it, then."

"It's one of the Pern books."

"Oh, yeah, I've heard of those - Isabel has some. Dragons and medieval lands and that sort of thing."

"Well, not exactly medieval - it's settlers on a distant planet - they don't have cars and radios, so I guess the technology is roughly medieval, but the medieval ages on Earth didn't have people living in cave systems, and - there's a bunch of social differences I guess." Liz sighed. "This one isn't so much about the dragons, actually. It's a girl who... who ran away from her home settlement, actually - and lived alone for a while, in the previous book. This one - she's gotten a chance to live her dream, studying music at the Harper Hall, but things aren't as easy as she hoped because she feels like she won't fit in."

"Hmm." Max considered this. "Sounds not bad. Is... is there a guy in the book, too?"

Liz laughed. "Oh, you. Actually - well, there's a bunch, because a lot of the characters in the book aside from Menolly are guys of some age and description. There's Robinton, the wise old Harper who brought her to the hall, and other teachers... a couple of journeymen harpers who she kinduv has a crush on if you ask me, and a younger apprentice who becomes a really good friend."

"Well, that all sounds great," Max admitted. "Are... are there any other books in the series that are later, that tell you what happened to her afterwards?"

"Actually, yeah, but I'm not gonna tell you about them," Liz insisted. "Not until we've read through this one together, at least."

"Oh, okay," Max sighed. "Will you start reading in the car, then?"

"Umm... I guess maybe. As long as you kiss me before we get in."

"I think that just might be do-able."

Liz giggled helplessly for about thirty seconds.

----------

Alex was a bit surprised when he heard the doorbell, but he got up and headed down the hallway automatically. It was only when he'd set foot on the top stair that he wondered who was there. Isabel had said that she'd call as soon as her family dinner thing was over - well, she might have just rushed right over anyway. But maybe... maybe it wasn't Isabel. Maybe it was Liz, and-or Max, just come back to town. Maybe it was Topolsky, and she wanted to harass him one more time? Maybe it was Maria, in tears because the big home-made dinner was in ruins and Michael was mad at her, or something.

He looked out of the landing window onto the front porch and realized that it was none of the above. As startled and not-quite-pleased as he was, he went over to the door and opened it a little bit. "Tess? What are you doing over here??"

"Umm... nothing in particular," she said softly, her lips all big and just a very little bit trembly. "I... I was feeling lonely, and - and I know that we've barely met, and I'm not even sure if you can stand to be around me, but - but you're the only person in town who didn't have other plans tonight that I knew of, so I was hoping that you wouldn't mind me coming over just to kill time."

Alex blinked. "I... well, that's certainly unexpected." He... he was starting to have his suspicions about Tess being here in Roswell, and the determination she seemed to have to attach herself to ANYONE connected with the alien residents of town, but - but he didn't have the heart to reject her based on those suspicions. He'd been lonely, and rejected, enough to know how much that hurt, if Tess really was just a new girl in town with a slightly unusual taste in potential friends. And - and if she was a 'player' in the mysterious goings-on concerning Isabel and the others... then brushing her off would just make it clear that her cover was blown, and that hadn't worked out at all well with Topolsky. Better - better, he thought, to play it casual, to hang out with Tess if she wanted to hang out, and try to figure out what her game was. Of course, she'd be trying to read him for subtle signs about Isabel's secret or other things that she wanted to know about, at the same time - but, well, let it be so.

"Hmm... maybe," he said, feigning more uncertainty than he felt. "Of course, I need to make totally clear right up front that this has to be a purely platonic thing... I'm a one-woman kind of guy, and my heart belongs to Isabel. You even think about messing around with what the two of us have - I'll find some way to make you regret it."

"Oh, brother," Tess rolled her eyes. "First, you're not my type. Second, no, I'd never dream of doing something like that to Isabel. And third - why does everybody who meets me seem to instantly judge me as some sort of man-stealing hussy?"

"Outfits like that might have something to do with it," Alex pointed out. Tess was wearing a tight cut-off black t-shirt, possibly one from Amy DeLuca's store, with a somewhat cute cartoon green guy and a big speech balloon reading 'THIS is Roswell? Where's the five star hotel resort??' The 'outfit' also included short denim cutoffs and black leather boots.

"What's wrong with my clothes?" Tess shot back, and Alex couldn't answer for a moment. "Just because I dress how I like, people have to judge me for it. I... I love the hot weather, and I want to soak up as much of it as I can without being draped in heavy fabrics." She winked at Alex. "Yeah, that's it."

"Riight," Alex drawled, and looked at her. "And just maybe, even if you're not on the prowl looking for a guy, you know that you're hot and can't help dressing to show that fact off?"

"Hmm... maybe."

"Well, I suppose we can grab some snacks and watch something on the DVD player." He waved her further in, and Tess stepped across the threshold. (Alex tried to shake off the notion that he'd invited a vampire into his house.) "There's the Buffy first season, Voyager, Enterprise, or X-files."

"Hmm." Tess considered that notion as Alex led the way to the kitchen to load up on munchies. "Well, I've seen a few bits and pieces of Star Trek Enterprise, and it seemed okay I guess. Though it's a bit weird seeing that guy from Quantum Leap as the captain."

"Yeah, but he's okay once you get used to him," Alex assured Tess. "So, where did you move from?"

"Umm, Delaware, most recently, but Dad and I have moved around a whole bunch. He's... he's an Army contractor, suppllies management consultant, so - well, he goes wherever the job is, and generally never takes him too long to get thing sorted out at any one particular base."

"So... so you're always just settling in at any given school by the time you get pulled out," Alex said. "That... that sounds like it'd get old real fast." It also might explain some of the more flamboyant parts of Tess' personality. She had learned how to make a splash as the new girl coming into any given situation, and had never had to come up against the consequences of burning her bridges and creating rivals, because she had never stayed in one place long enough.

"Well yeah, it's not quite that bad," she said. "Dad does what he can - arranges tours where he's doing several different locations all within range of where he and I live, and that kind of thing. But Roswell's probably going to be a short trip, because there's only the one around here." She sighed and collapsed on the rec room couch - Alex set t te disc, and sat down himself on the other side of the couch. Opened up a can of Sprite. "So, what about you, Alex - have you lived in Roswell all your life? What are your parents like??"

"Umm, we moved here when I was nine, from California - I still have a bunch of family over there," Alex replied after a moment. "My dad's a zoologist, working for a bioresearch company here in town. And my mom - is pretty much just a mom. Come to think of it, you didn't say anything about your mom, Tess. Is it just you and your dad?"

"Umm, yeah, actually. She... she passed when I was six. I don't even really remember her - it's been me and my Dad, taking care of each other for the past ten years."

"Okay," Alex agreed. "Sorry if that was an uncomfortable thing to bring up."

"No, that's okay." By this time, the prologue about about humans first meeting alien races was going on, but Tess didn't seem like she was about to just shut up and watch. "So what's your dad working on right now? Does he tell you any about that sort of thing??"

"Some, yes, he does I guess. Right now - it's something to do with observing the reactions of local New Mexico fruit bats. He has to do a lot of work at nights because of it... because that's when the bats are awake."

"Cool." And whether it was because Tess couldn't think of a followup question or because she was starting to get more interested in the show, there wasn't much conversation for a little while.

Isabel called about twenty-five minutes into the big two-part pilot, and Alex took the phone into the living room to talk to her. "This - this may sound weird, but that new girl, Tess Harding, showed up, and I invited her in. I... I think that there's something a bit weird about how persistent she's being."

"Hmm..." Isabel considered that. "Yeah, I guess you might have a point. Has she asked about anything that might be suspicious?"

"No, really she hasn't," Alex said. "Well, why don't you come over and join us."

"I... I think I will. See you in ten or fifteen minutes, baby."

"Alright, got it." Alex hung up and went back into the rec room. "I hope Isabel won't mind coming in halfway through the pilot."

-----------

"I... I dunno," Maria muttered, reaching out and grabbing her sweater, playing restlessly with it in both hands. "It... it was a really nice dinner and everything, but... but maybe we'd better just not push our luck."

"You - you mean that *I* shouldn't push my luck," Michael growled, sitting up.

"No, no, I meant BOTH of us," Maria insisted. "You can't start acting like you're the only horndog in this room and I'm some frigid maiden priestess. We're *both* slightly horndoggy." It might have seemed like an oxymoron that she chose that moment to slip the thick garment over her head and around her upper torso. "I... I want to go further with you, part of me really wants to. But... but there's another part of me that's warning that neither of us is really ready for that, and that we might end up with more problems if we chase on to that kind of heavy action just because it feels good... or because we're trying to race and catch up to other couples. If I shut you down in a moment like this, it's not because I'm some stuffy schoolmarm type who doesn't want you to enjoy yourself... just that I'm trying to do what's best for us."

"And so..." Michael managed to choke off the rest of his sarcastic reply before it got out from between his lips. "I... okay, I - I guess I get that. It's - it's just frustrating. Maybe not any more frustrating for me than you..."

"Umm, well, it's hard to get a really good comparison working, I suppose, but - but I definitely feel... err, hot and bothered too," Maria said, blushing cutely as she leaned back against the corner of the couch. "But yeah, it's okay to be frustrated, and if making ironic comments is the best way you can think of blowing off your frustrated steam, I can -- well, I'll *try* not to take them the wrong way and overreact."

Michael smiled. "Sounds like it could be the makings of a plan." He sighed. "So, umm, do you want me to clear out, or... or just hang out and quit trying to get underneath your shirt?"

"Umm, well, hanging is definitely my preference." Maria couldn't entirely restrain a bubbly, nervous laugh at that point. "And the other part too, yeah, would be appreciated." She sighed. "I... I don't feel like watching tv or a movie... maybe just sit and listen to music?" She seemed to reconsider that, realizing how often sitting together with music playing had been the prelude to the making out thing between them, and wondering if it was smart to fight against behaviour patterns like that. "Or... or we could try doing something on the computer - finding a game to play, or just surfing the net looking for silly websites."

"Hmm." Michael considered that. "Yeah, the computer thing could work." He smiled as Maria led him out of the living room. "Never really been around a home computer. Well, I guess that was probably obvious if you ever stopped to think about it."

"Is i... oh, yeah, I suppose so," Maria replied. "Which, well, I guess my reaction has made it clear the amount of thought I ever put into that particular question before this instant."

"Hey, it's okay."

"Yeah, I suppose that Hank wouldn't have been the kind of guy I'd expect to have a computer in the trailer... well, from what little I've ever heard about him."

"Wait a second, you never met Hank?" Michael asked. "Well, I guess that makes... of course, I should know, you wouldn't likely have ever met him without me being around, and you didn't." He sighed. "Max and Isabel ran into him... Max a few times at least. And Liz came to see me that once, before she even knew very much about - well, about us - because she was worried about Topolsky checking up on me." He sighed. "Which she probably was, and not just because I was ditching my way out of school. That was just her excuse - it was because I was Max's friend, or something like that." He sighed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to ramble on like that." They were sitting in front of the computer by this point, and Maria was digging around looking among the microfloppy disk cases.

"Hey, it's okay." Maria assured him. "When - when I say that I want us to get to know each other even more than we already do - well, this sort of thing is part of it. Finding out about your background, even the parts that probably aren't all that much fun to tell about." She sighed. "How - how long were you with Hank, anyway?? He doesn't seem like the kind of guy who'd have much patience with a little kid, even given the, umm, the attraction of county support cheques."

"Hmm." Michael considered that. "Well, I guess I was placed with Hank, umm, about a year and a half after I was found, which means that I was with him maybe nine years or so." He sighed. "Was in the westlake orphanage for a while first, and had another foster family, the Paschels, but I guess they thought I was creepy or something." He shrugged. "And Hank - actually, he was pretty cool up until the time I was twelve or so. Never exactly tender and loving, but - but I do think he cared about me, and tried to do what he could for me." Michael sighed. "He... he always saw himself as an outsider, I guess, and me as one too, so even though he didn't have a strong nurturing streak, he felt protective of me."

"And... and what changed when you were twelve?" Maria asked softly. Her busy fingers had frozen among the plastic cases now.

"I guess you could say that puberty happened," Michael remarked, and Maria couldn't entirely stifle a snicker. "Yeah. I guess I started to get more moody and defensive around then, more worried about him being a problem if he figured out my secret, and that made HIM resentful and sour towards me. I, umm, I thought about bombing one of the social worker visits so that they'd have a reason to try placing me somewhere else, but I was worried about getting some nosey do-gooders who would try to keep an eye on every aspect of my life. With Hank, at least I didn't need to worry much about getting interfered with."

"So... so you learned to - to take care of yourself, kind of," Maria breathed softly. "To do everything for yourself, because you couldn't find a parental figure that you can trust." There was a pause, and Michael wondered if Maria was going to make some kind of judgement about that sort of life, but she didn't.

"Yeah, well, I think that you're pretty self-sufficient yourself," Michael said. He hadn't meant for it to be a clear prompt, but realized that he wasn't too unhappy with the fact that it could be construed that way. Maria had asked him about his childhood, after all, and he did want to understand about hers.

"Umm, yeah, I guess. Not like you, maybe - but, but as I grew up I could see how much my mom had to deal with, trying to keep a roof over our heads and everything all by herself. I guess I did as much as I could to not be a burden on her or anything like that." Maria sighed. "Okay, how about Clyde's adventure?? There isn't much fighting or monsters in this one, but I think you might like it - it's all about puzzles and mazes and jumping around, trying to collect gems and treasures, using a magic wand on certain kinds of floors to make them vanish - and there's teleporters and magic zones and all kinds of wild stuff." She sighed. "I've never figured out the solution to level sixteen - maybe you'll get it and make me jealous."

"Hmm, okay," Michael said and reached out to take the disk that she was holding out, making a point of letting his fingers brush against hers. He hadn't expected Maria to cry out like she was... not like she was hurt, more like she was in a very intense make-out session or something for just an instant. The floppy nearly dropped, but Michael managed to catch it with the help of his other hand. "What, what did you..." that much was out of his mouth already before Michael realized. "Was it a flash? What did you see??" He couldn't help but grin, never having expected that he'd be able to unwind enough so soon that...

"Oh, my god, that was creepy," Maria blurted out, and the smile on Michael's face suddenly dropped. If it had been scary, why had her response sounded like pleasure? Maybe it was just the exhiliration of sensation itself, before the meaning of what she'd been seeing sunk in. "A - a room, a room all white on the inside, nearly featureless. Big square-like panels. Some of them were, like, they were one-way glass - I don't know how they're white on the other side instead of being mirrorred, but you could definitely see in and not see out." Maria's breath caught. "And... and there was a guy, a guy looking into the room, and kinduv smiling just a little. Waiting. Confident." She looked straight up at Michael, her green eyes with a touch of brown hitting him with the impact of a -- well, a baseball bat if not a small car. "I'm really afraid of him, Michael."

"Just... just from somebody looking into a room?" Michael said, although he could only just keep his own voice from quavering enough that Maria could hear it. Because, even though he hadn't been the one to see it, he knew what the room was, if not where, and in general terms who the man must be. He'd read too much of the crazy UFO chaser stuff, living in Roswell, to not put it together.

"I, I'm not sure why I'm afraid of him," Maria said, and something in his face must have betrayed his surprise. "You... you do, Michael, don't you?? You know what that room is, what it's for."

"Yeah, sweetie, I - I think I do." He reached an arm around to hold Maria close to him. "It's for them to take aliens to, once they catch them."

----------

"Well, umm, hi there guys," Isabel said as she stepped up to the rec room door. "Alex, the front door was unlocked - I knocked, but not that hard I guess."

"Umm, whoops, yeah," he muttered. "Might have been an idea to lock it after Tess came in - or then again, maybe not, since I knew that you were coming." He got up from the couch and accepted a kiss from Isabel that was a lot hotter than he'd expected - but maybe he should have, just because of the situation, she might feel an impulse to mark her te... well, to make some things quite clear in front of Tess. Alex didn't mind that much.

"So, umm, what's going on?"

"Klingon troubles," Tess reported. "Also, this weird guy from the future is running around causing trouble for Captain Archer."

"I see." Isabel sat down. "So, what kind of Klingon trouble? Do we want to torpedo the lot of them??"

"No, not really, I think," Alex said. "The Earth fleet won't be ready for a Klingon war for ninety years or so, I think. Just trying to soothe the ruffled egos and get this crash victim handed over without starting a shooting fight."

"Ahh," Isabel decided. "Alright." She paused. "Wait a second - a Klingon guy crashed on Earth?"

"Yeah, I got a bit of a laugh out of that one too," Tess told her. "Don't worry, it wasn't near New Mexico I'm pretty sure. And it won't be for like three centuries at least."

"Alright, fair enough." For a long time, they watched the show without much more conversation, and then Alex suggested a break before the final half-hour, and refreshments, which both girls agreed to enthusiastically. Isabel started whipping up custom milkshakes with all kinds of odd ingredients in them, but when she was bringing Tess her mashed-banana, lemon, and honey, she flinched at nothing at all, stumbled, and most of the yellowish concoction ended up splashed all over Tess' shorts and covering one of her legs, with a bunch also spilled on the floor behind her.

"Oh, mygawd, sorry really doesn't seem like enough to say, but..."

"It, well, it isn't a total disaster," Tess muttered. "I, I'll be in the washroom for a few minutes." And she beetled off towards the bathroom that Alex had made a point of showing her earlier, just in case. "Shouldn't be too bad..."

"Oh brother," Isabel muttered, and hurried over to where the spill was laying on the hardwood dining room floor. By reflex Isabel relapsed to the use of her powers to fix the situation, waving a hand over the spill and puffing it into a combination of harmless vapors. She continued along the path that Tess had taken, eliminating the drips and taking care to not leave any stains in the wood.

"What, what happened?" Alex asked. "Did, did you have a premonition or something?"

"Yeah, I guess you could call it that, or a flash out of the clear blue." Isabel shuddered slightly as she walked, bent low down so that Alex could see bare skin where her beige pants were riding down slightly. "Or maybe just a sudden waking nightmare. It... it was Topolsky, out alone in the woods - except that she wasn't really alone. People were... were coming to get her." She turned and stood straight again, and Alex could see a tear in the corner of her eye. "I... I was really only thinking of us when I said that we had to stay away, not - not about her. If - if she's really in trouble, and we could have helped her..."

"Maybe, maybe we could have?" Alex agreed softly. "But... but considering that we don't have Max and Liz to back us up, I'm really not sure if we could take on the FBI or whoever else Topolsky might have pissed off. It... it doesn't make me feel good to know that she might be hurt because of her mission to Roswell... but it wasn't our fault that she came in the first place. I don't know if she volunteered, or if it was just a random assignment and her rough luck, but... but it was the smart thing to do not to get messed up in h..." He shook his head. "Hi, Tess. Everything better?"

"Umm, yeah," Tess agreed,.stepping back towards the dining room. "Little toilet paper and it all came away really easy. Looks like you've had as much luck cleaning up in here, except not quite finished. Let me... wait a second. Isabel? What were you using to clean up??"

Isabel made a face at Alex, still not turning to look at the other girl, and he realized that they didn't really have a good answer to that question, since the truth, even vaguely, would raise a lot of questions they didn't want Tess to be thinking about. And then suddenly, Alex caught something in Tess' eyes and made an intuitive leap. She *knew*. Or at least she guessed, maybe knew that alien powers could do what Isabel had done, and suspected that much of her origin. And Tess was just playing with them, asking questions that she knew would be difficult for them to answer without telling her what they weren't supposed to realize she already knew.

So Alex decided to try playing with her. "Oh, there were a bunch of tiny little Klingons in here a moment ago," he said to Tess. "They cleaned up, and then it was their quitting time, so they flew out the window. I'll get you a rag to use on the rest of the spill."

Tess blinked in definite surprise at that. "Umm, the window's closed."

"They shut it behind them," Isabel said, her face showing as much shock as Tess' but the same emotion wasn't audible in her 'arrogant Princess' tone of voice. "I mean, even very small Klingons could do that much if they all work together."

"Yeah, I - umm, I guess I just wouldn't have expected them to go to the trouble after quitting time," was Tess' bemused reply. Alex went into the kitchen to grab the rag, tossed it over to Tess, and she bent down to start mopping up milkshake.

"Now, do you want me to try mixing you a replacement?" Isabel asked brightly. "I'll promise to make sure it end up in your hand, not splashed all over you this time."

Tess giggled. "Yeah, that'd be nice I think, thanks. I tried a little bit of it actually, and it tasted really good."

"Well, then I'm going to need to peel and mash another banana I guess," Isabel said. "Sure your Mom won't mind Alex?"

"Yeah, that's fine, she'll be thrilled that my friends are actually eating her fruit," Alex commented. Tess giggled nervously. Isabel grabbed the bunch of bananas, tore one away with a casually efficient motion and started to delicately rip the peel away. "So, Tess - all joking about Klingons aside, do you think it's possible that aliens actually landed here in Roswell, way back when??"

"Umm, uhh - I dunno," Tess flustered, clearly surprised at being put on the spot that way. Isabel tried to glare at him without letting Tess see, but Alex just smiled ever so slightly. "I... I suppose it's possible - the universe is big and I don't really think that we can be the only planet with people of some sort on it... though it seems unlikely that they'd just kind of crash into us by accident. It's a fairly slim chance, though, and if they did ever come I... well, I don't think there's much truth to any of the stories that people tell about it. Nobody here but us Earthlings, not any more."

"Hmmm," Isabel said, some different reaction coming over her face. Alex wondered exactly what she was thinking about now.

"Well, come on," Tess hurried Isabel back toward the hand blender. "We've got more of the show to watch!"

TO BE CONTINUED...

Part Nine

"Tell me," Max whispered, lying in their bed with Liz and brushing some hair back from her ear.

"What?" Liz giggled as Max planted a soft kiss on her earlobe. "I, umm, I mean - tell me what?"

"Anything," he drawled softly, his voice sounding so richly sweet in her ears. "Tell me something about you that I don't already know."

"How am I expected to know the things that you already know about me," Liz countered, stretching out her arm until it nearly poked her dearly beloved's belly button. "I mean, you're mister flash, mister connection. Whatever I think of, maybe you've already seen it and not happened to mention it to me."

"There - there isn't much that I've seen from you that I haven't brought up in conversation so far," Max replied with a wide grin on his face. He let his own hand cup her shoulder, and then slipped his fingers between her body and the smooth mattress sheet to gently stroke her back in a spot just next to her shoulder blade, which he had learned tended to make her relax, even when it was as hard to get to as it was now. "And if you happen to hit one of those, I won't mind at all. Would probably get a different perspective from hearing you speak about it than just getting the visual, after all."

"Yeah, I guess that that's true," Liz admitted, and sighed. "But there's so much, and I'm not sure what to say."

"The first thing that comes into your mind?" Max said, and snapped his fingers. "Right now?"

"Okay, umm..." Liz laughed nervously. "This, umm, this is one that isn't a favorite memory, but I don't want to be hiding stuff from you just because I don't like to talk about it, so - so here goes. When I was eight, I just loved these antique china figurines that my mom had. Like dolls or miniature statues, three or four inches high, completely rigid and painted with incredible detail. But she didn't like me touching them much, and I resented that I guess. So one Saturday morning, when I was awake to watch cartoons before my mom was awake, and my Dad was downstairs opening up or something, I started playing with them without permission. And even though I was so SURE that nothing could go wrong, that she'd never even know - somehow I managed to knock one of her favorites into the wall hard enough that the outstretched arm broke off."

"Oh, man," Max breathed, reaching one arm across Liz's body to hold her tight, in front of her shoulders. "What - what did you do about it?"

"Well, I was tempted to hide it or make it look like somebody else's fault," Liz admitted, "but I wasn't sure that that would work anyway and didn't really want to be lying to my mom at that point." She sighed. "So I put everything else away carefully, and went into her room with the two pieces of the broken doll. Woke her up, and..." She took a long breath. "Told her what I had done, and what happened."

"That took a lot of guts for a little girl," Max allowed.

"Yeah, I guess... I didn't feel very brave when I was confessing, but looking back I guess I'm proud of what I did at that moment, if not at the choices that got me into that mess." She sighed. "Mom and Dad grounded me for a few days, made me stay home from a big festival that I was really looking forward to, and cut my allowance for a few months to help make up the cost of what I'd broken." Pause. "And they said that they were proud of me for coming clean about it right away."

"Not the worst way to handle it, I guess," Max admitted. "What about the figurine - did she actually replace it?"

"No. Mom tried to repair the break, but it never looked really right, and it came off a few more times." Liz sighed. "And she got a few new ones, but was never able to find that specific one again - it had been a limited issue from earlier that year, so they weren't being sold anymore - unless she wanted to pay extra to get it secondhand."

"Some things, when they get broken, just can never be repaired or replaced," he said unhappily. "Okay, well, that sounds like a good big share, and thanks." He sighed. "Do you want to hear about the worst thing I ever confessed to when I was a little kid too?"

Liz giggled. "No, tell me something happy."

"Hmm." Max considered that a moment, shifting on the bed, and ending up with Liz in the crook of his arm with her hair spreading out onto his chest. "Well, I'm not sure if this is completely happy, but it's a funny story at least. When, umm, when we were both thirteen, puberty was hitting Michael with a vengeance, and for a while he had a mad crush on Melanie Adams. And he talked me into trying to use our powers to make a spying peephole into the girls' changing room in the showers building in the ravine park..."

"Oh, lord," Liz said. "Did you guys ever get caught at it?"

"Umm... let me tell the story in order..."

----------

"Well, umm, I guess that you'd better be getting home," Maria said. The mood of the evening had been ruined by her little Phoebe Halliwell moment, and Michael had helped her clean up all the dishes fairly quietly, with a disconcerted look on his face. "Do you want a ride back to your apartment?"

"Umm, yeah, that'd be great," he said, smiling. After she had locked the door, and started walking out to the driveway, Michael reached out and held her fingers in his. "I... I'd hate for you to get into any trouble, because - because I am what I am."

"Yeah, well... I didn't really get dragged into all of this Czech stuff because of you," she reminded him softly. "I found out the truth because Liz found out, and because Liz is my friend and I kept bugging her about what had happened when that gun went off." Maria smiled as Michael went around the car and got inside. She took a look around in the dim light before getting behind the steering wheel, and that's when she spotted it.

Maria gave a little yelp that had Michael rushing back out instantly. He had probably noticed, but Maria couldn't help but reach out one hand and point. At the far end of the driveway, just before it joined the street, something was blocking the way. It was an irregularly shaped lump, and the overall size of it seemed vaguely familiar.

"Oh, no," Michael muttered, and with one glance at his maybe-girlfriend, he headed up the cleared asphalt path. Maria followed, and Michael made sure to block her off from passing him - possibly he'd be happier with her keeping her distance, but didn't really see any way that he could investigate himself and keep her away at the same time.

There was a pale yellow patch at one end of the lump, and that was when Maria started to realize what it was. Michael reached out, took a spot that was definitely shoulder-shaped, and turned the lump over slightly. "Dammit," he muttered, hurrying back. "It - it's Topolsky, and I'm pretty sure that she's dead."

"Her... her face looks so still and full of color still," Maria remarked idly. "Shouldn't one of us check for a pulse or something?" Michael shook his head violently. "Come on, we need to be sure, and anyway, it's something that's reasonable for ordinary kids to do when they find what looks like a bod..." She pushed past Michael and reached out her fingers to his neck. From that position she spotted what looked like a sewing needle stuck into Topolsky's chest, well above the semi-conservative neckline of her shirt, but below the first rib probably. Maria checked the neck, where she thought the pulse point was. Her skin was cool and dry, and there was no trace of movement or pressure beneath it. Curious, she reached down towards that little...

"Don't," Michael muttered. "No touching the needle, just in case." She looked up at him. "It - umm, it might be coated with poison or something."

"Ohh, umm - right," Maria admitted. "Well, uh - what now. Do we - umm, do we call 911 or something like that?"

"Probably not... oh, actually, I guess that might work," he admitted. "Already dead people really aren't their thing, but it couldn't hurt to seem a bit more frantic than we... um, than I really feel, or to act uncertain over whether she's really dead."

Maria considered that for a moment, and then picked up the phone and dialed. "Hello, New Mexico 911 dispatch. What is your emergency??"

"Hi, umm... I'm not sure if this is the right number to call, but - there's a lady here in my front yard, and - umm, and I don't really think she's still alive."

There was a pause. "Okay, can I get your address?" Maria reeled it off. "Okay, we're going to send the paramedics over there just in case there's anything that they can do to help this lady."

"Thanks."

"Alright. Can you stay on the line? I'd like to connect you to somebody who can tell you what to check on, in case there's anything that you can do to help."

"Al- alright." Maria wondered if they'd also be using her reactions to judge better whether Topolsky was already dead, so that they could send the paramedics away to where people needed their help more. "Okay, what do I do?"

Things from that point on were a confusing blur. She wasn't really sure what the new person on her cell phone had told her to do, or what she had said and done in reply - at one point she'd been too woozy even to follow, and Michael had hung up the phone, carried her inside to lie down on the couch, and then went back out to see who would come. She had a vague memory of looking out the window and seeing that the collapsed figure didn't seem to be on the driveway anymore, and not being able to recognize an emergency vehicle in front of the house. And then there was another brief gap, and a clearing throat, and two pair of men's shoes inside the house.

"Mister Valenti, she was... um, she kinda got overwhelmed by everything while talking with the 911 operators," Michael said. Valenti? Maria looked up and saw the sheriff, in full uniform, standing at the other end of the couch, with Michael right next to him.

"Umm, hello sir." She sat up, straightening herself as well as she could.

"Hi, Maria." Valenti sighed loudly. "I, umm, I don't mean to add to your stress this evening, but it would help if you could describe generally what happened this evening. A formal statement with a deputy can wait, until tomorrow at least, but..."

"I *told* you what we saw," Michael insisted, and Valenti raised a hand for quiet. Michael, of course, didn't pay any attention to the hand, and he drew in a breath and got about half a word out, (unrecognizable to Maria, though she thought it started with a 'sh' sound.) Very firmly, Valenti turned and glared at Michael at that point, which managed to shut him up.

"You have told me what *you* saw, and I thank you for that, Michael," Valenti insisted. "But different people will notice different things, so..."

"Don't give him a hard time, Michael," Maria said dully, and saw the frustrated look settle in on his face. But somehow Maria herself couldn't resist giving the lawman just a little bit of carefully camoflaged sass. "How much of the evening do I need to describe? Michael coming over after work, eating dinner together? What we talked about, the computer games we played..."

"No, thanks. Just the - umm, the part about Ms Topolsky."

"Well, we'd gone out the back way - I was going to drive him home," I said. "Saw that something was blocking the driveway, and Michael went to go see what it was. I, umm, I followed after, and when we got close we could see that it was a person - with blonde hair. Michael took her shoulder to turn her over - we could see that it was Topolsky, and the - there was a needle sticking into her chest. Not a full hypodermic with a plunger..."

"We know what the needle was like," Valenti said brusquely. "It was still there when the body was collected."

I sighed. "The body. So - so she's definitely dead?" They both nodded. "Well, umm - I tried checking her pulse - couldn't find one. That's when I called 911, and - and reported the address, and I don't really remember that much. I think that they had me try to open her eyes, and hold a little mirror from my purse up to her mouth."

"Alright." Valenti said. "Umm, I called your mother, and she's going to be home soon." He paused. "Well, you probably don't need me waiting around here until she arrives..."

Maria tried to think about that. "No, that's okay. She'd probably worry more if you were here in an - umm, in an official capacity." Simu-nod. "Umm, maybe you could give Michael a ride home, though."

Valenti and Michael shared an awkward look. "Yes, well, I suppose so."

"Is it okay if I sit in the front of the cop car this time?"

"I'm in the van," Valenti said in a low voice. "But yeah, that should be alright." He managed a chuckle that didn't sound too fake.

Impulsively, Maria kissed Michael, right in front of the sheriff, before they both left. And then she sat to wait for her mom, wondering how much Valenti had told her about what happened. Then something occured to her, and she picked up the telephone. There was no response on Max and Isabel's private line. Hmm - why had she tried that number first? Then she went for speed dial three.

-----------

"Well, that wasn't too hard, was it?" Alex asked, as he looked out the window and saw a powder blue SUV pulling away.

"At least she's gone," Isabel grumped. "There's something about Tess Harding that still... that discombobulates me." She shuddered, and Alex stepped close, wrapping his arms around her. She kissed him, and smiled slightly. "Fortunately you're a good de-discombobulator."

"All part of the service," Alex quipped. "And the show was cool."

"Yeah, I liked the second episode better than the pilot," Tess said. "The decon scene was just WAY too egregious."

"Umm... you thought so?" Alex managed to croak. For a moment, he couldn't help but picture himself and Isabel in the place of the rugged engineer and the beautiful Vulcan science officer - rubbing antifungal gel on each other as they baked in the ultraviolet light of the wall panels, and probably paying more attention to that than the important ship business that they were trying to negotiate. "Well, umm, to each their own I guess."

Isabel shook her head at him, long hair flying to and fro. "Typical male reaction." And then she smiled, just a little.

"Well, it'll be even better once we get into it a bit more." Isabel raised a curious eyebrow at him. "The show. I just love the first Andorian episode - that'll be on disk two I suppose."

"Oh, right." Isabel didn't seem to show any particular interest in getting to disk two, and headed back into the dining room. Past where the milkshake had been spilled, she looked over the area for traces of it, found none - turned and gasped. "What - what's wrong honey?"

"That's not right," she whispered, indicating a glass on the table. It had a curved bottom, a design with white stars and a moon printed on it, and there were little traces of a milky substance clinging to the sides and pooling around the base.

"Umm, why not?"

"Because that glass was the one that I poured Tess' first milkshake into, and it got broken when I fell."

"Hmm?" Alex stepped over to pick up the glass and examine it, testing the substance of it for any weak points. "Are you sure that you're not mistaken? Maybe this was one of the other milkshake glasses."

"No," Isabel insisted. "None of them were shaped like that and had that design on them. Anyway, our three glasses are all in the kitchen sink, full of water. Right?"

"Yeah, I think so." They both went over to check on those glasses before returning to the mystery one. "So, a glass that was broken has now been made whole," Alex summarized. "And presumably you didn't do it yourself. I *couldn't* do it, and that would seem to leave..."

"Tess," Isabel finished. "I, umm - I wonder if she was deliberately trying to leave me a message here with this..."

Just then the telephone rang, and Alex quickly picked it up from the counter. "Hello? Yeah, Maria, what's... oh."

"Alex?" Isabel asked, clutching at Alex's arm when she realized he had suddenly paled. "What - what's happened?"

"Um, Topolsky is dead," he muttered softly. "And whoever did it dumped the body in front of Maria's house."

"Aaah!!"

----------

"Sweetie?" Amy DeLuca called down the hallway.

There was a few seconds' pause. Then: "In here, Mom."

She took a moment of orienting, trying to figure out from the remaining echoes exactly where 'in here' was. Then a few slow steps, a pause with her hand raised in a fist as if to knock, and then a decision that the previous reply could be taken as permission. Amy poked the door open and peeked inside.

Maria was sitting up against the pillows on her bed with the covers pulled up all the way around her. She was wearing a black t-shirt with the picture of a white dove across the chest, and her in-between-lengths hair had been brushed too many times. "Babygirl!" The word just forced itself out of her in that moment.

Maria looked up towards the door and managed something of a smile. "I'm not your baby girl anymore, Mom."

Something seemed odd about that insistence - Amy would have thought that her daughter wouldn't be quite so stubborn on such a detail after - well, after whatever had happened. Maybe that she'd even welcome getting mothered for a bit. But, well... "So what DID happen?" Maria stared, but didn't answer that question. "Jim didn't say much, just that you and Michael had... had discovered a, umm, somebody who had..."

"It was Miz Topolsky, Mom. Yeah -- the one from the school last fall."

All of the breath came out of Amy's lungs in a single moment, followed by an equally vigorous inhalation. "The one who I was so upset about splitting town, right after making an appointment with me?"

"The very same," Maria agreed. "I promise, Mom, I definitely didn't have her iced - not even to keep her from singin' to you."

"Huh?" Amy was thrown by the statement for a few seconds, and then she laughed out loud, seeing the joke. "Yeah, that's a load off of my mind, ho... Maria." She pulled up the desk chair to sit down on, beside the bed. "I didn't even realize that Topolsky was back in Roswell."

"I knew," Maria said. Amy looked up with a start. "I'm sorry that I didn't tell you. But - but I never expected that she'd end up lying at the end of our driveway like th..." She shuddered and didn't finish the last word. "Mom - this may sound random under the circumstances, but what's happening - if anything, between you and Mister Valenti at this point?"

Amy blinked at the tenuous sequitur, but didn't try to challenge or evade the question. "Umm, well, we're still friends, but - um, but not really anything more at the moment. Why do you ask?"

"Because I saw him today, I guess," Maria admitted. "And because talking about him distracts me from... the other thing. You seemed happy-ish with him back in the late winter, around the time that - umm, well..." She struggled for a way to briefly sum up the events of the period she wanted to convey, and stalled out.

"Yeah, I think I know what you mean," the older lady agreed fondly. "But - well, I guess I realized that I was setting an example to you, and that made me rethink the choices that..."

"Mom," Maria interrupted. "I - umm, I don't think that Michael and I are going to go 'just friends' because you are." Amy stared at her in surprise. "You might do better by trying to take it slow and be... er, considerate and safe in your relationship, instead of..."

"It's not quite that kind of example," Amy shot back with a smile. "I realize you're past the 'monkey see monkey do' level and won't mimic all of my actions. I'm just trying to look at the whole situation and do what's best for me and for our family, not just what feels good in any given moment." She sighed. "Was that what you're already trying to do with Michael?"

"What's best for me in the long run?" Maria said. "Umm, yeah I guess. Haven't thought about it in those terms..."

"No, that wasn't actually what I meant," Amy replied. "Take it slow, be considerate and safe."

"Oh, yeah, that," Maria said. "Yes, I suppose so. Trying my best at least." Amy nodded. "Well, thanks for the chat, but I think I wanna try getting some sleep, okay?"

"Yes, sure, of course." Amy stood up and started to push the chair back over.

"Naw, leave it there." Maria pointed to a spot against the wall that wasn't too far from the bed. "You never know."

"Okay." Amy put the chair in the spot indicated. And smiled.

And left the bedroom.

----------

Isabel headed out of the bathroom by the hall entrance that night, and dawdled disconsolately near the door of an empty room that was much too full of memories - not to mention a number of other things that her brother hadn't been able to pack up and take with him. Then she headed back into her bedroom and slipped under the covers, already wearing a long, slightly old-fashioned nightgown. She'd brushed her teeth and hair, washed her hands, face, and behind her ears, and there was nothing left for it but to try.

So with a sigh, she reached out and pulled a photograph from underneath her pillow and lay back upon it. "Don't need the yearbook any more," she whispered softly. "Not for her." In fact, since the West Roswell High 'face book' was often inconveniently large, she had little snapshots for many of the usual suspects stuffed inside the bedside table drawer. This one showed a lithe, short-haired teenage girl wearing a halter top and shorts, apparently just dodging a spray of water. She wasn't actually sure of the reason for that, as the picture had come to her third-hand. Maybe she should ask its subject, when she had a chance.

Reaching out and touching the half-face in the picture, the dream plane pulled at Isabel with more vigor than she'd expected, and her eyelids very nearly slammed closed. Suddenly the tall alien girl was standing barefoot in a wooded path, which wasn't quite as fun or as comfy as it sounded. There was a familiar voice raised in song not far away, but Izzie paused to make a mental effort first. Trying to make conscious and lucid changes to her presence in other people's dreams was somewhat hit or miss, but her first attempt was successful - she got a pair of old-fashioned sandals on her feet that seemed somehow appropriate both to the pastoral and sylvan setting, and also matched her cream nightclothes. A half-hearted wish to transform her attire into a comfortable daytime gown was a no-go, so she shrugged and followed the music.

It took a few false paths and one near-tumble into a thorny bramble, but a few minutes later Isabel emerged into a picturesque clearing. On the other side, Maria was sitting on a seat made out of a tree stump, wearing a pretty pink medieval-type dress of the type that Isabel had sortof been hoping for herself, and singing a duet with... with a unicorn who was contentedly grazing nearby, and allowing one of Isabel's hands to rest casually upon his (or her) soft side.

Isabel blinked in surprise. She wasn't exactly the most horse-crazy girl in town, and had always thought the unicorn obsession in some of her popular acquaintances to be immature and a little bit pathetic. But... but that 'corn was one of the most beautiful creatures she had EVER seen! Sleek, lean, but powerful, with a richly dark purple coat and a brilliant white spiral horn that was playing music something like that of a small oboe, with touches of a flute's tone and a trumpet's mixed in. "Hey, who's your friend?" Izzy asked, a smile playing across her face.

Maria looked up and spotted Isabel for the first time. "Umm... Isabel Evans, meet Andante -- Andante, Isabel." The unicorn looked over at her, nickered slightly without stopping his tune, (though Maria had ceased to sing along for the moment,) and tilted his head in what seemed like a fairly friendly way - mostly because the horn was pointing further away from her.

"Andante, nice to meet you," Isabel replied with a nod of her own, and for the heck of it, she tried an old-fashioned curtsey, which didn't work out very well. "Nice name." She recognized it as a musical term, probably a speed designation, which seemed appropriate for such a talented creature.

"So, can I guess that you wanted to check up on me without letting my mom know that you'd be dropping by?" Maria asked.

"Yeah, umm, something like that. Alex said that you sounded a bit weird, and you didn't talk to him too much, so..." Isabel left that sentence unfinished.

"Yeah, well, it was pretty freaky," Maria admitted.

"I can imagine," Isabel said, shuddering slightly herself. She looked around for a place to sit where she'd be more or less on Isabel's level, but there weren't any other handy stumps. So, sighing, she sat down on the grass, keeping her knees together and angling her legs in front of her, which was awkward. At least she wouldn't get any grass stains on her nightie this way.

"But, well, dreaming a dream like this has been helping me to calm down," Maria said a moment later. "And I don't mind you dropping by, but I'd rather not talk too much about Topolsky just now. Kay?"

"Sure," Isabel agreed. "Anything you do wanna talk about?"

"What was your evening like??"

"Oh, umm - pretty interesting, though not as surprising as... well, I dropped by Alex's place and watched some star trek with him - and Tess."

"Her??" Maria exclaimed.

"Yeah. She dropped by at his door, and Alex decided not to turn her away, since she was being so blatant. Better to figure out just what she really wants, and so on and so on." She sighed. "And - and I'm starting to think that she might even be an alien herself."

"Really?" Maria explained. "Why?"

"Well, I guess that I've really only got the glass to go on with that." Quickly Isabel rehashed the story of the broken glass that had been perfectly made whole. "Also, she didn't seem too surprised when I had cleaned up the spill without a sponge or a cloth or anything..."

"That was careless," Maria said with a trace of sourness. "What if she HAD been surprised?"

"I know, I know," Isabel admitted. "But it kind of fits. If she has that power herself, she'd know what it meant for me to... well, I guess I'm kinduv jumping a bit early, I know..."

"Not really, as long as you don't insist on that interpretation," Maria said slowly. "It - it's important to figure out what's going on here, and I guess that forming theories and seeing how they match up against future events is an important part of that. Just don't settle on one possibility that seems to fit the facts, and refuse to consider anything else."

"Wow," Isabel marvelled. "How very logical of you. You could probably apply for the Vulcan academy if you keep on like that."

"Heh," Maria remarked. "Well, Liz is usually the calm and rational one, and since she isn't here - I guess that I know her best and can try to fill in, even though I'm usually the emotional and impulsive yin to her sober yang, or however that goes."

"It's appreciated, I think," Isabel said.

"For instance, you're supposing Tess to be another alien," Maria said, warming to the topic. "Maybe we'll get definite proof of that, if she uses her powers more obviously when she doesn't know that one of us is watching. And we also know a few things about another alien who's been kicking around - Nasedo, the one who River Dog met."

"Who killed Atherton, and Hubble's wife," Isabel filled in. "And left us that symbol in the woods near River Dog's cave."

"Yeah, well," Maria muttered. "It'd be a bit of a stretch, though, to immediately equate Tess with all of that, even though Hubble thought that the alien he was tracking could look like anybody, and thus, could presumably take the form of a pretty teenage girl." Isabel nodded. "And, come to think of it, we don't really have any evidence that all of the things you mentioned were the same alien person."

"Hmm." Isabel considered that. "Yeah, I guess. There could be as many as three of them - one setting off the Frazier woods sightings, one with Sheila Hubble, and one with River Dog..."

"Or even more," Maria insisted. "Once we have shape shifters in the mix, it's impossible for anyone to be sure that he recognizes the same one on another occasion - or really hard, anyway."

"Yeah, but come on," Isabel said. "Remember occam's blade, or whatever it is. The simplest explanation we can come up with, that involves the fewest unobserved entitites..."

"Is more likely, but not certain," Maria said. "Occam's razor doesn't always hold - it's just a somewhat helpful rule of thumb."

"Okay, well it's good enough for me at the moment." Isabel groaned. "I do see your point about Tess though. For any of us to accuse her would be like - well, it would be way too close to what Hubble was doing, blaming Max for his wife's death. Whoever really killed her should have to answer for that, but we'll need to be sure of the perp first."

"And give him a chance to explain himself," Maria said reluctantly. "Maybe he didn't mean for her to die."

"Yeah. Now I guess I'm the one who wants a change of subject," Isabel decided. "How was your evening with Michael??"

"Umm, pretty good actually, except." Maria shook her head. "He was pushing for more, on the physical side, and I'm just not sure that I'm ready for that."

"Oh." Isabel hesitated, not sure how to respond to this. "Just how much are we talking about here?"

"How much physical, or how much pushing??" Izzie groaned in frustration. "Well, umm... it's nothing really big, just - trying to slide into second while I'm still fielding at first."

"Right." Isabel sighed. "I... I know that Michael can be prickly and get his manly ego in a bunch, but - well, if you're not comfy with it, you'll have to tell him so straight out." Pause. "The good news is... I don't think this is really the sort of thing that he'd pitch up a real stink about, that could really cause a problem in your deal, whatever it is. That's not his style, I'm pretty sure. For all that Michael seems like a guy's guy, it's the subtle emotional stuff that you actually need to be worried about, not the obvious things like gettin' physical."

"Hmm." Maria considered that. "Yeah, I never thought about it, but that does make sense." She sighed. "And how are things going with getting physical for you and Alex??"

"Umm - I think that's a subject of conversation for another dream," Isabel hedged. Maria laughed. "Say - have you ever thought about growing your hair out?"

"Umm... well, yeah I guess so. I kind of am, except that - well, this is as far as it's gotten so far."

"Yeah - would you like some help in getting around the waiting part?" Maria's eyes grew wide. "I've experimented a little - think that I could stimulate follicle growth at many times the usual rate - though you'll have to eat the right things to keep it from knocking your metabolism for a spin."

"But - but wouldn't people notice that sort of thing, I mean?" Maria asked. "We're not supposed to be doing anything suspicious."

"You're a teenage doing something different with your hair," Isabel pointed out. "It's not like they can afford to call the FBI every time that happens. Most people will probably just assume that it's a wig, or some kind of fancy cutting-edge extensions. Or that they'd been misremembering how long it had been since they saw you with really short hair."

"Hmm... well, I'm still not sure," Maria admitted. "What made you bring that up anyway?"

"Not sure, just wondered out of the blue how good you'd look with long hair," Isabel admitted. "Like, shoulder length at least, and curly - or at least soft waves. Not really tight curls or anything."

"Yeah." It didn't take too much to realize who Isabel was associating really curly hair with, right now. "Well, as much fun as it's been having you here, maybe I'd better..."

And Isabel blinked to herself, back in her own bed with the picture. That happened sometime - for a dreamer to think about the end of a dream too hard often made it just end out of nowhere. Isabel sighed and turned over, putting the photo on top of her clock radio and drifting off into a dreamland of her own.

----------

"Hey." Max got to his feet and struggled over to the bedroom door. "Why didn't you wake me up?"

"Umm... why should I?" Liz asked, hurrying across the living room. She was dressed up in a new outfit that they'd got while out on the postage run the day before, a very 'Alisa-ish' set of clothes, with a short green skirt and a low-cut white top. At the time, 'Alisa' had said that she should be able to wear it to work at the bar and possibly fish for some nice tips. "You don't have to work today. And you looked too cute while sleeping for me to bug you."

"I can sleep when you're gone - not that I'm going to sleep the day away until you get back," Max said. For one thing, he intended to drop by for lunch or something, and maybe Liz could take her break at the same time and spend it with him. "While you're here and up, I want to be conscious to spend that time with you."

"Aww," Liz said, and rushed over to hug and kiss him. "That's sweet... and maybe next time I will give you more of a shaking, honey." There was a pause. "And I think that I've got just long enough to spend some time watching you put on some clothes, before I have to go."

"Hmm... and what's the point of putting clothes on, if you have... then again, either way, I don't see that much point in having clothes on, until I have to go myself." Liz giggled as he pulled her closer to him. "Though, I have to admit, you definitely look good wearing THOSE clothes..."

"Hmm, then don't pull them off or muss them up," Liz teased back. "And I'll round up some dishes if you agree to wash them while I'm gone." With that, she slunk away from his grasp.

"Hey, I didn't agree to that!" But the look that she shot him a moment later squashed any further protests deep down into Max's chest where they died away. "And I don't need to work very late today - just till four thirty or so." She sighed. "We could stay in together, or maybe go looking for that little patch of forest that whats-his-name told you about."

"Hmm... yeah, I think that staying in sounds great," Max admitted. "The forest can wait - it'll be better if we give things a little time to get greener." Liz nodded partial acceptance of that. "Have a nice dinner together, play spite and malice or something, listen to the radio cuddled up on the couch - and see where the evening takes us."

"If it's anywhere different than the place it usually takes us, I'll be surprised," Liz admitted. "But I wouldn't complain. Okay, dishes are all gathered. See you, baby." And with one more kiss, she headed for the door. Max waved, moving aside slightly to minimize any chance of someone from the hallway seeing him. (Not that any people CAME from the hallway, but they might look inside the room from the hallway, and - well, never mind.) And, just because he could entirely disregard everything he said about there not being much point wearing clothes while he was inside by himself, he went back into the bedroom and put on a t-shirt and some shorts.

Washing, drying, and putting away all of the dirty dishes didn't take much time, and Max listened to news on the radio as he worked. He missed some of the conveniences and entertainments of home in Roswell at times like these - friends, computers, and television. Hmm... computers. There was the internet laundry downstairs - and there was even enough dirty clothes in the cheap plastic hamper to make two decent size loads. Spending a little money to surf the web for a bit while his clothes were going wouldn't attract much attention.

By the time the laundry had been sorted and divided, Max was so excited about the plan that it was a startling disappointment when he brought it all down the stairs and clued in that the laundromat was closed up, locked, and dark inside. Oh. Sunday morning - right. Probably it'd open up around noon, after people were home from the little church down the road or whatever. (Liz probably wouldn't have much to do in the bar after the early morning breakfast crowd cleared out - maybe Linda would have her help clean the kitchen and the dining room, while there was nothing else to do. Liz wouldn't mind that sort of thing - she didn't seem to mind much these days, any more than Max did himself. An odd kind of contentment seemed to have settled over the both of them when they settled down in this out-of-the-way place, even though he suspected that their little nirvana couldn't last. Roswell was still waiting, and eventually they'd have to come back.

But in the meantime, Max reflected as he hefted his dirty things back up the stairs, he was really enjoying having run away from home. And not just the sex - every moment he could spend with Liz seemed to be fueling that sense of contentment and peace, though exploring the pleasures of the bedroom was possibly one of the funnest parts in all...

"Oh, hey Jacen," the landlord said, standing in the doorway of room one. Max hadn't realized that he lived there, assuming that he did. "Umm - guess you didn't realize that the downstairs wouldn't be open."

"No, I guess not, Mister Kendrick."

"I can let you inside before I leave if you like. No big deal."

"Umm - really?" Max blinked. "Well, I don't want to be a bother - and to be honest, I'm a little surprised that you trust me that much, considering that we just met."

"Well, I usually trust my instincts about people." His eyes, gray with flecks of blue, zeroed in on Max's face. "SHOULDN'T I trust you, Jacen?" Max shrugged awkwardly. "And it's not a bother."

"Hmm, well maybe," Max admitted. "I - umm, I was hoping to go online, but not for too long, and you wouldn't be able to..."

"Oh, again, don't worry about it, buddy! It's not like the computers are making me money as it is. Some of the other tenants use them in off-hours too, you know."

"Really?" He couldn't help but smile at the thought. "Well, that's very generous, and thanks."

So, about ten minutes later, the whites were starting to agitate in hot water and the bright colors in cold, with powerful liquid detergents doing what they did best. Max pulled up an internet browser, and tried to figure out what he wanted to look at first. His main email account was tied into the Roswell internet service provider and the Evans family account, and he wasn't sure if he'd be able to pop the messages from here, or if anyone would be able to trace his internet address if he did. But he had signed up for a hotmail account a few months ago, and that seemed safe enough. Microsoft probably wouldn't open up usage records on the service, even to 'help find a teenage runaway.'

Okay, username and password - so. Submit, and the familiar screen full of email appeared. A few things from mailing lists that he wasn't terribly interested in any more, hmm hmm... school stuff that he was never interested in in the first place - somehow the admin office had managed to get ahold of this address and add it to their master list, possibly by putting spying software on the computer lab machines. One from Isabel, subject line 'hope you come home soon' - yeah, she'd have sent that just in case he managed to get a chance to check email. He didn't have the heart to read it just yet, though he'd try to get a printout or something. Maybe if Liz was next to him as he actually read the words it'd be easier.

And... something from an informal circle of 'Alien watchdogs' that he had joined on a whim, after realizing that working at the UFO center had been more helpful than annoying. He'd even sent off a few juicy details about the Frazier woods sighting, after it was all over, and the secret room under Atherton's geodesic dome, in the hopes that sharing a little truth would buy him trust. "Let's see what this one is about..."

It was an account of seeing a man rush into a bathroom stall in the busy Dallas airport, an odd flash of light, and a completely different looking person emerging. Most of the rest of the circle didn't seem to think much of it, but Max's mind was racing ahead. That could be a shapeshifter, like the one that Hubble had told him about. Why he'd have to switch forms so carelessly in an airport Max wasn't sure, but maybe he was trying to 'break his tracks' and make sure that anybody looking for the first man wouldn't be able to find him, even if they watched all the departure gates.

And Dallas was only a very short plane ride away from New Mexico. Was Nasedo, or some other alien, if that term didn't properly apply, heading for Roswell?

Max logged out of hotmail and considered where to go next. He thought about looking at the Roswell Daily Record's home page, but didn't want to get any news from home just yet. He'd been interested in the net as a form of entertainment, right? Not as an information gathering tool. So he started looking for fun java games, as the washing machines continued to agitate.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Part Ten

On Sunday a little before noon, Alex went into the Crashdown dining room, looked around a little, saw Michael sitting at the next booth, and went to join him. There weren't many other people in the place.

"Hey man," Michael said. "Just sort of waiting here, until I start my shift."

"Okay." Alex waited a second, then nodded to signify his acceptance of this. "When is that?"

"One o'clock."

"Gonna have a bit of a wait."

"Yeah, I know." Michael sighed, ran a fork through the leftover mashed potatoes on his plate a few times, (making Alex suddenly wonder what he'd been eating in the morning that came with mashed potatoes on the side,) and ate a very tiny little bit of them. "Maria's off somewhere with her Mom, helping her run some errands."

"I hope that that, umm, helps keep her mind off things," Alex pointed out, and Michael nodded. "I, umm, I heard about, well..."

"Yeah, I figured that Maria would call you," Michael said. "Oh, what's Isabel up to this morning, do you know?"

"Said that she was going to spend some time with her parents, maybe go to church with them if either of them were interested in going." Michael made an expression that might have been an attempt at a smile in response to this, but the effort wasn't really a success.

All of a sudden, a change came over Michael, and his entire attitude seemed more focused. Very intently, he looked around to make sure that nobody was listening in on them, and then leaned close. "I... I've been thinking, about what happened to Topolsky, about the people who might have done something like that, who left her at Maria's house for us to find. The, the people that she tried to warn us about, maybe..."

"Michael, we still can't be sure that Topolsky wasn't working with THEM, up until the point that they decided she wasn't useful to them anymore," Alex insisted. "Or that she wasn't being used as bait without her co-operation. We, I don't see how we could have..."

"I don't care about that," Michael replied a bit brusquely, cutting Alex off in mid-sentence. "It's just... the same people, they might k-- they might try to hurt Maria to get to us. Or you, for that matter." Alex tried not to take offense at this glimpse into Michael's priorities. "And... I don't know how, but somehow I need to keep that from happening. To keep her, keep all of us safe."

"Sounds good to me, though I'm not that sure about specific ways and means," Alex replied. "Oh, except to let you know - Isabel thinks that we have a new player. Possibly - um, someone who's like you and her. And Max."

Michael was openly incredulous. "And she didn't tell me that herself?"

"Maybe she was worried that you'd take the news the wrong way," Alex admitted. "Well, I'm not sorry that I told you, quite, anyway."

"Come on," Michael insisted, and imperatively led the way out of the dining room, leaving his mashed potatoes behind without a second thought. "Okay," he said once they were outside. "First off, who is this person that you're talking about?"

"Tess," Alex said. "Do you remember, she asked to..."

"Yeah, I know her," Michael said darkly. "Well, we're not going to get anything settled just standing around here. There's just time to drive out to her place, do a little surveillance, and get me back in time to cook late brunches for the out-of-church rush."

Alex stared at him in disbelief. "How do you even know where Tess' house is?"

"I did a bit of research in the administration office last week," Michael remarked absently. "Can never tell when a bit of information on a sudden arrival will be helpful."

"Did you suspect her before I said anything?" Alex asked.

"Not about this specifically," Michael said. "But it didn't seem like coincidence that she was so determined to make friends with Isabel of all people. Come on, these are your wheels, right?"

Alex sighed and opened up his Dad's old car again. "So, where to?"

"That fancy new development on the south side. You know the one I mean?"

"Not really," Alex said as he pulled out. "But south gives me a direction to head in for now."

----------

"Okay, is that it," Maria asked, as she puffed and walked the last few steps to the faithful family Jetta.

"Yes, that's all the work for this morning," Amy DeLuca agreed a bit more cheerfully. "Whether or not that's 'it' for the two of us this morning, kind of depends on you."

Maria took a moment before slowly looking up at her mother. "Meaning, that you want to bond, or talk about what happened last night, or something like that, but you're not pushing me if I just want you off my case?"

"Something like that, more bonding that fishing for specific details about any one thing," Amy said. "We're not too far away from Fred's, and we could go there for brunch. You always liked that place."

"Yes, I did," Maria said in a fairly faraway voice. "And you said that we shouldn't go there much because they were the competition, and we had to show loyalty to Liz's family."

"True enough, but sometimes there are other factors than loyalty," Amy admitted. "Every time we both go to the Crashdown, we seem to run into some of your friends, which is great for you, and them, and for Crashdown business, but not so good for you and I spending time together."

"This is so," Maria admitted. "Okay, Fred's is good for me. But you suggested it, so you're paying." She hurried around to the far side of the car and got inside. Amy sighed slightly.

"I'm not quite sure what to talk about," Maria said to pick up the conversation a little while later, as they were walking into the south side retro-diner. "I mean, Michael and Miss Topolsky are both subjects that I'd rather not bring up at the moment, and I don't think you want to share any more about Mister Valenti. So..."

"Well, going from guy relationships to the opposite," Amy said after a moment, "do you have any girl friends at the moment? At school or whatever, since Liz - left. I, I know how much time you've been spending with Michael, and Alex, but sometimes it takes another woman's perspective to keep your life straight, and I know how important Liz was to you in that way."

Maria found herself unexpectedly smiling as she sat down in the booth that her mother had picked out. "As it just so happens, I think I've been starting to get closer to Isabel Evans lately."

"Oh... Max's sister, right?"

"Yeah," Maria agreed. "And, well, she's pretty much Alex's girlfriend right now."

"Really?" This seemed to startle Amy. "I, well, wouldn't... I guess what I mean to say is good for him, especially if she likes him a lot."

Maria grinned. "Yeah, I think that she does, in her slightly frosty way. And yes, it does seem like a bit of an odd match, just from outward appearances - I mean, I love Alex, but he is a bit goofy-looking. Not that I'm one to talk I suppose..."

"Maria, come on, don't be like that," Amy said. "You're beautiful."

"Well, if I'm partway beautiful, I know which side I get it from," Maria teased affectionately. "Okay, about Isabel and me, as friends, though..."

"Certainly - oops, or wait just a moment." Somebody had come by to take their orders, which took a while because Amy asked a lot of questions about what seemed like half of the brunch menu. Once the waiter had finally left with their choices, Amy told Maria to go ahead.

"Well... she doesn't open up that easily to new friends either I guess, but - well, I kind of talked to her late last night, and she tried to make me feel better about stuff." Maria sighed. "Just talking about nothing in particular, or nearly so - well, about dream unicorns, actually, and this new girl at school Tess, and Michael, since she's been friends with him for just about ever. And about whether or not I should grow my hair a lot longer."

"She sounds kind of nice, once you get her comfortable," Amy said with a smile. "I'd like to meet her sometime, if that's alright." Maria nodded silently. "And... did you call her? I didn't hear the phone ring last night?"

"Umm, yeah, I guess I did," Maria said, wishing that she didn't have to hide the truth. But there was no way she could explain about things like dream walking right now.

"Did you end up deciding whether you were going to take that weekend class or not, anyway? The, umm, the e-business thing??"

"Yeah, I signed up for it yesterday. Hope it pays off."

"Me too," Maria agreed.

-----------

Max headed into the bar just around twelve-thirty and managed to find a table for two that wasn't occupied. Liz hurried over to him as soon as she could, kissed him, but didn't take her seat. "I can't go on break for another fifteen minutes," she whispered. "Get you coffee? And what did you do all morning?"

"Laundry, and surfed around on the net," he replied.

"Oh, then I guess you've heard already," Liz said. "It's been so hard trying to hide how upset I am about it." And with that, she had to hurry away, leaving Max very confused and starting to feel worried. It wasn't Liz who brought him his coffee with cream and no sugar, but Linda, the owner and manager. And it wasn't fifteen minutes, but more than twenty minutes of Max sitting alone surrounded by the noise of a small town socializing around him, before Liz was able to take her seat.

"You guess I've heard WHAT already?" he asked in a low voice. "Be - because I don't think I have."

"Oh, no?" Liz breathed. "Umm... you didn't check out any local news sites or anything?" Max shook his head. "Okay, well... Kathleen Topolsky was found dead in Roswell, last night - the body discovered near a house where one of the West Roswell High School students lives."

Max's mouth dropped open. "That's, umm, that's horrible." Suddenly, he understood what Liz meant about not being able to show how much this brief statement was affecting him. Nobody could know that they came from Roswell, or particularly knew anyone there. But... Topolsky? Why would she have even come back to Roswell? Who could have killed her, and why? Was the 'student' mentioned one of their friends, or even Isabel?? Was it possible that one of the gang, (as in Michael, most likely,) was really involved in what had happened?

There was this and much more to talk about, but not here. "Umm, I'll have an order of chicken fingers and some fries," he blurted out automatically. Liz raised an eyebrow very eloquently. "When, umm, when you're heading back to work that is. And, and I think that we should take a road trip tonight and drop off a letter." Liz blinked, and nodded - they wouldn't have too long to drive and get very far from this small town, but that was okay for just once, at least. Sending another message to their friends made sense under the circumstances. "I... I'm very glad to see you."

"Yeah, Jacen, me too," Liz said, using Max's fake name. Just then, she was called away by Linda. "Okay, I'll get your order in right away."

Max and Liz didn't have much time to talk while he finished his lunch, but they were able to slip outside for a few minutes after he was done, and before he had to show up briefly to help move something down at the ranch. (His boss had apologized for calling him in on a Sunday, but Max wasn't very observant and he didn't mind.) They talked about Liz's memories of Topolsky's sudden departure from Roswell, how Alex had found FBI material in her private email, and after uttering a few cryptic and disturbing sentences, she had simply packed up and left forever. That had to be some kind of protocol, Max had always figured - if you were undercover and got 'made', just get out of the entire situation, out of town if possible, as straightforwardly as you can and by any means if necessary. Keeps 'the enemy' (which would be the Roswell teen aliens themselves) from finding anything out about who the secret agent really is, who sent him or her, and makes certain that all of their information can get debriefed on at headquarters. Maybe it would have been better to try to confront her instead of just letting her leave now, but that was a moot point. Alex and Liz weren't able to do any such thing, they were just glad that she was leaving them alone, and Liz didn't really tell anybody else of the little plot she had hatched to try to find some dirt on Topolsky, so Michael and Max couldn't have been hanging around anyway. (And that might have dangerous for them if the ploy had turned sour.)

Max kept thinking about this stuff after kissing Liz goodbye and heading off. Obviously *something* important was going on, back in Roswell. Was it important enough that the two of them should just give up on their little honeymoon and head back home as soon as possible? No, somehow he couldn't think so. When the time was really right, they wouldd know, and there'd be no doubt. Somehow Max wasn't worried that by the time he knew, it might be too late.

Right now, he had a bull to go help lift. Or whatever.

-----------

"Hey, sweetie," Isabel said, pulling up to park along Main street, just down a few feet from the edge of the UFO center. "What're you doing over here?"

"Umm, killing time mostly," he replied, hugging Iz and giving her a kiss as she got out of the car. "How are your mom and dad?"

"Okay I suppose, though the not-knowing about Max is starting to get to them. It's weighing heavy on me too, I guess." She sighed. "What's your day been like?"

"Just slightly more full of thrilling espionage than I'd expected." Isabel blinked. "Which means, only a little full, since I didn't expect any at all." That prompted a laugh. "Okay, umm, I hope that you're not mad about this part - I told Michael your suspicions about Tess, and he wanted to go over to her place and peek through the windows. I went along, hoping that I'd be able to keep him out of trouble.

"Hmm." Isabel considered this, fairly calmly, as they headed over towards the diner. "Well, did either of you see anything interesting?"

"Michael says that somebody was levitating a box in the air while they were unpacking, but - well, I don't think it was still going on by the time I got a look." Alex sighed. "Aside from that, pretty ordinary stuff. Her dad's mostly bald, kindof has a stern face but maybe I like him." Alex sighed. "And I'm pretty sure that neither of them actually spotted us."

Isabel took a big deep breath. "Well, maybe after lunch we should both pay a slightly less covert visit - whatcha think?"

"Just dropping by?" Alex thought about that. "It wouldn't seem too unusual, she showed up without warning at my place, after all." He considered that for a longer moment, as they entered the dining room. "Okay, maybe this is just being silly, but would there be any point in calling her first and letting her know that we'll be coming. Er, or asking, I guess, since just making it a stated fact seems kind of rude."

"I can do rude," Isabel said, clearly a massive understatement to anyone who had attended West Roswell High over the past few years. "As far as whether any of it is valuable... hmm, I'm honestly not sure. Doing the surprised drop-by is traditional, in hopes that the targets will be caught unprepared, that they'll say something without meaning to, or have left something out that they don't want you to see. It seldom seems to work out that way, though, so..." She trailed off, and Alex started to say something, but she cut him off. "Sshh, I'm still thinking."

"Okay, let's give that a try. It might spook them out enough, wondering WHY we called first, if it's part of some really subtle ploy, that it just might psych them out. A little bit weird, but hey. Also, they just might get the impression that obviously we aren't poking around looking for their secrets, or we OBVIOUSLY wouldn't have called first, which might mean that they relax a bit more around us."

"Okay I guess," Alex said. "Just for clarity, *they* is Tess and her father, right?" Isabel nodded a bit impatiently. "Well, you know, nobody had really mentioned him in that context before..."

About an hour later, Tess invited them into her home, prattling on cheerfully about how nice it was to have friends over, and whether the weather would be getting warmer over the course of the week. "We, umm, we don't have the tv set up yet really, or the stereo even, but, umm - you could come into my room and try some computer games, I dunno. There are a few pretty decent ones."

"Sounds alright, I guess," Isabel muttered. "Umm, is your dad around?"

"Speak of me, and lo, I shall appear," a tall bald man said, emerging out from a hallway that probably led towards the kitchen. "Might I inquire who the two of you good friends might be?"

"Isabel Evans," Isabel said, and Mister Harding shook her hand. There was something about him that seemed just faintly creepy to her, but she couldn't really put her finger on it. Alex seemed a bit nervous as he made his own introduction, probably trying to forget that he had already seen the man, so Isabel tried to cut things short and move us along, now that she'd at least gotten a look at the guy. (She wasn't really sure what that accomplished, except for making it just about possible for her to try dreamwalking him, though she'd rather not try that without an actual photograph. Actually, it was probably fair to say that she didn't really want to take too close a peek at Mister Harding's dreams even with a photograph, but there was the chance that she really would need to.)

In Tess' room, they started playing a game that was a mix of a pretty good flight simulator and aerial action - trying to take out enemy plans in dogfights, and destroy various island targets with a mix of air-to-ground missiles and dropped bombs.

-----------

"How are you feeling now?" Michael asked Maria, as he reached out his arm to help her up onto a rocky ridge out in the New Mexico desert.

"A little tired of people asking me that," she said after a moment. "Mister Valenti, Alex, Mom, Isabel, and you... I don't think that there's really anybody I've spent much time with over the past day or so who hasn't found some way of probing to see if I'm traumatized by the whole incident." She sighed. "It wasn't great, but the whole thing is pretty much over. I've given my statement at the sheriff's office, and they're not going to make me look at the body again or anything. Somebody from the school staff corroborated her identification."

"Okay," Michael said. After a moment, he seemed to take her statement pretty much at face value. "You do realize that it's more of a beginning again than an ending, right? Topolsky may be gone, but the people who sent her here - they're probably the ones who killed her, and they're not going to let up."

"The ones who made the White Room I saw in my flash, yeah," Maria agreed dully. "I do realize that, even if I don't really want to dwell on it. What can we do?"

"Well, Alex and I started investigating Tess," Michael said matter-of-factly. "She's an unknown quantity right now, but maybe she'll turn out to be an ally, of a sort, and especially with Max gone we'll need all the help that we can get. Aside from that..." He sighed. "I've been thinking about ways to use my abilities, the powers that I have, as weapons without letting them leave me or other people vulnerable. Would... are you interested in helping me with that sort of thing?"

Maria was so startled at this that she managed to lose her footing, not realizing that she was stepping into a small depression in the rock. Completely unable to think about such a minor matter as balance, she compensated the wrong way, flinging herself bodily forward - and landing in Michael's arms. "I... I didn't think that the question would be such a health risk," he muttered uncomfortably.

Their faces were fairly close to each other, so once Maria had regained some control over her limbs she shot forward impulsively and kissed him. Michael automatically changed the way he was holding her to better fit the new position, and for a moment there was nothing left in the universe but the two of them. "Well, it's not a part of your life that I'd have ever expected you to invite me into," Maria said matter-of-factly a few seconds later, "and it's not something that I'd have been terribly wild about helping you with a week or so ago I suppose. But... but things are more serious now. Helping you is a way that I can keep *myself* safe, and you and Alex and Isabel, and that's a very good thing. Umm... I don't really know what would be involved, though. I don't have powers of my own, and even if you can sometimes get flashed from me about red shoelaces and dogs, we don't really have the sort of strong connection that Max and Liz - well, umm..."

"I guess I figured that we'd cross that bridge, of what to do first, when we got to it." Michael sighed, and looked around in every direction. Towards the east and southeast, there was a small gas station just visible from up here on the ridge, and three or four vehicles parked around it. He led the way down off the rock towards the west, so that the ridge would block that single vestige of civilization off from their view - and vice versa. "Suggest something for me to try to do with my powers." Maria raised her eyebrows at him. "I... I think that I tend to limit myself if I think of my own drills, because I only pick stuff that I like to do or that I know I can accomplish. To stretch my capabilities, the suggestions need to come from someone else."

"Hmm, okay, let's see." Maria thought for a long moment, and then dug in the light backpack she had been carrying with her. Finally she emerged with some small object that shone with a dark green color. ~~ "Okay, this may sound weird, but try to channel the gooey filing through the granola layer and through the foil wrapping."

Michael laughed. "That one of your trail snack bars?" Maria nodded. "Okay, well, sounds alright I guess." He concentrated, and got so caught up in what he was visualizing that his eyes closed, although he was paying enough attention to hear if Maria called out in alarm or pain. When he looked up, Maria laughed softly, showed him a lump of jelly-like stuff in her hand, and quickly ate it up. Then she tossed what remained of the green package to him. Under the shiny green wrapping, was a very dry and drained-looking lump of granola. He could see small holes in the granola and the foil where he had pulled, or pushed, the jelly out. (Or some of each.) "So what's next?"

"I'm not sure, I don't really have much in terms of props for you to experiment on," Maria said. "If we can try practicing at your place, I remember a few tricks from a book that might be good - moving a feather through the air, trapping it in a book. Lighting a candle with just your powers." Michael nodded, trying to work out in advance how he'd deal with those challenges. "So maybe we should head back into town?"

"Just one thing first," Michael said, smiling and taking her hands in his. "Close your eyes."

"Why?"

"Could you just trust me on one little thing?" Sighing, Maria scrunched her face up, so that her eyes closed tightly. Michael spent a long moment trying to perfect the changes that he wanted, and then shook her slightly.

"Okay, I'm done. Open back up again."

Maria looked around, muttered "What did you d--" and then realized something different. Digging once again in the backpack, she managed to retrieve a mirror, which Michael hadn't realized she carried around in there, and looked at herself. Her in-between-length light brown hair was not gently curling, and instead of a light sweatshirt and baggy jeans, Maria was wearing a long purple dress. "How - how did you manage that?"

"Well, I... um, it takes some of the magic away if I go into all of the nitty details," he disclaimed. "Don't you like?"

"I love," Maria declared, and kissed him on the cheek. "Okay, come on, let's go over to your place." She thought as they headed off over the ridge again. "Do you have a candle, a feather, and a book back there?"

"Umm... candles yes, books probably." Michael laughed. "Feather I'm not sure about."

"Well, maybe we'll have to stop off somewhere," Maria remarked. "And really... good job on this dress. I may have to get you working on my wardrobe more often." Michael groaned. "Although my camisole feels different now that it's not tucked into pants."

"If you want the sweatshirt and the jeans back at any point, maybe I'd better reverse it soon," Michael said.

"No, it's fine, neither of them were anything special, certainly not favorites." Maria giggled. "Thanks for asking, though."

And then they rounded a rocky hill and saw where the Jetta was parked.

-----------

"Darnit," Liz muttered with considerable feeling, tossing a blue ballpoint pen onto the dashboard of the car, where it rattled a few times before coming to rest in the far crack between plastic and glass, and tossed the postcard and the book she'd been writing between her feet, on the passenger side.

"Sorry," Max told her automatically. "I can slow down if that'll help you write legibly.

Liz favored him with a bright and embarassed smile. "No, that's not the trouble. I... I just can't make up my mind what to say."

"We'll work it out together," Max insisted. "In fact, maybe this should be mostly my turn to write - I just let you take point because you're normally so good." Liz's smile got noticeably less uncomfortable. "It's actually Michael who needs to hear from us most, and I'm the one who knows him best."

"Alright," Liz said. "Do you want to switch places in a bit and let me drive then? This postcard won't do unless you can wipe it all clean with your powers, but..."

"Yeah, I'll work on paper and put in an envelope," Max replied. "Probably better for what I have to write not getting exposed to postal workers."

"Right, duh," Liz replied. "I guess I'm just not thinking straight today."

"Yeah, well, it was a hard day at work for you," Max replied, and then paused. "Sure you're gonna be okay to drive?" Liz thought about that for just a second, and then laughed and swatted him.

After pulling off in a wide spot at the side of the road, Max got paper out of Liz's bag, took the pen that he had retrieved, and looked at the book for a moment before he started writing. It was a fairly thick hardcover novel, apparently a science fiction action epic involving a trans-galactic conspiracy to 'liquidate' the populations of thousands of worlds and give that territory over to other species. There was a spunky Earth co-ed who had gotten swept up in events, and a charmingly dorky Vegan guy, and some sort of technology that allowed them to metamorphose temporarily into the bodies of other species to interact with their people and live in their environments. "Hey, how come you never told me about this one," he said, waving the front cover of the book just slightly, (which showed the Earth girl in the middle of transforming into some vaguely feline species."

"Umm... I don't know, why should I?" Liz said. "Actually, I really thought I mentioned it, because I told you a little about all the books I bought in Albuquerque, the morning after. You didn't seem too interested."

"You did?" Max repeated, and tried to think back. "Oh, that was after Isabel dreamwalked me?"

"Yeah, I guess it was. We were both more than a little low on sleep, and I was talking to you pretty much non stop to make sure that I didn't fall asleep, or maybe that you didn't fall asleep, or both."

"Okay, well, I guess I didn't remember or wasn't paying too much attention," he said. "I think I'd like to read it - or to have you read it to me."

Liz chuckled. "Why can't YOU read it to ME?"

"Umm... no particular reason I guess."

"Well, we'll settle that one later. Right now is time for writing, not reading, bub."

"Right," he agreed, and started composing the letter. Repeat the bit about the personal ads, to communicate back - they hadn't gotten one yet, but the previous letter had only been sent the day before after all. Walking the line between being vague and concrete in talking about Topolsky and her death... and how much point was there in asking for lots more information on the situation, when the one method of return communication was one where Michael couldn't really talk freely. Max settled for including about as much contingency advice as he could think of, hoping that at least some little scrap of it would be actually helpful.

He included little personalized messages for Isabel and Alex and Maria, and then signed off fairly awkwardly. "You can read it over and add a PS before we post it I guess," he said.

"Of course, sure," Liz agreed. "Have... did you wonder if maybe we should be heading home at this point? Back to Roswell ourselves?"

"Well, yeah I did," Max told her. "But... but whatever the reason is that we're here by ourselves, I don't think that we've quite fulfilled it yet, or whatever. And... and the danger isn't yet great enough to call us back early. It's lurking, it might be time soon. But - but not yet."

"Hmm... oddly enough, that kind of seems to fit with what I was feeling myself," Liz muttered. "But I couldn't quite put it into words, and even if I could have, it's reassuring to know that you feel the same." She sighed. "Okay, well, if we may not have long before we get to go home, let's make every moment of it count."

"Certainly. Of course, it counts best when we're not driving, because then we can't do much more than talk."

Liz's joy and appreciation rang out like music.

---------

"Oh, come on," Tess said. She, Isabel, and Alex were gathered around a 'conversation nook' in the corner of the living room, sipping on sodas. "Do you really have to go now?"

"Yeah, actually - we're supposed to have dinner with Alex's folks," Isabel said immediately. Alex just managed to keep his surprise at this statement from erupting obviously. "But how about we have a movie night, or a housewarming party, something like that soon. Once you've got things a bit more sorted out around here."

"Oh, really?" Tess seemed very pleased by the prospect. "Do you think that Michael and Maria could come to?"

Isabel shot a look at Alex, who shrugged helplessly. "Well, we'll ask them about it - no promises, but possibly."

"Cool, I can't wait."

It wasn't long after that when Isabel and Alex were heading back to the car that they had arrived in. "Okay, what was all of that about?"

Isabel shrugged. "Well, I know that they aren't really expecting us, but I'd like to drop by and have dinner with your parents," Isabel replied. "They won't mind will they?" Alex stared at her, completely unable to come up with a response. "And, well, I just sort of wanted to make an exit and talk to you about some stuff. Being around Tess was giving me just a hint of a headache - or maybe it was her father."

"Okay, that explains that part of things slightly," Alex said. "But why set up the party idea then??"

"Because we *do* need to find out more about Tess, and I'll probably be more prepared that time," she said. "Including, well, I have a slightly underhanded trick in mind. You remember the whole deal about Max on Valentine's day? The blind date concert?"

"Of course," Alex replied. He had been there for the finale of Liz's big night, although he hadn't gotten a terribly good look. He'd certainly heard a lot about how a small dose of alcohol from Kyle Valenti's flask had had a much larger effect than usual on Max... "What, you want to slip something in Tess' drink?"

"Yeah, I thought of something like that," she said. "Vodka in something with a strong taste to mask it. She probably wouldn't expect it, and it'll settle whether or not she's, umm, she's one of us fairly well."

"Assuming that any other alien would react like Max," Alex pointed out. "Well, once Tess is outed as an alien, what happens then?"

"Umm, I'm not sure," Isabel said. "Maybe we'll be able to find out more about why she's here and what she wants of us. If she tries to use alien powers against us, well, Michael and I should be able to ward her off, especially if she's not thinking clearly."

"I'm not so sure about that," Alex said. "You guys have blundered into your powers - she might have had much better training. Heck, she might have decades of experience, if she's a shape shifter or doesn't age naturally in human terms."

"Well, I'll talk the idea over with the others," Isabel insisted, mollifying him only slightly. "Come on, let's not worry about it too much longer. Head over to your place?"

"Sure, why not?" Alex slipped his arms around Isabel before she got into the car and brought their lips together.

Charles and Gloria Whitman were more than a little surprised that such a pretty friend of Alex's had invited herself to dinner, but they rolled with the flow, and by the time the chicken was served out Isabel and Alex's mom were chatting away like they were old friends.

----------

Maria called Alex as soon as she'd gotten home from school Monday afternoon.

"Hey, yeah, what is it?"

"I got a letter from Liz in the mail."

"Oh, right." Alex took a moment to think about that. "A little random perhaps, but can you tell where the postmark is from??"

"Hmm..." Maria scrabbled for the envelope and peered at the stamp corner, trying to discern the mark that had been used to cancel it. "Sanostee, maybe."

"Alright, well, that's not where Isabel's came from, but we think that that was probably sent while they were still on their way," Alex remarked. "Probably they wouldn't send mail from exactly where they'd ended up, but it might give us a vague indication of location. I think that Sanostee is way up in the northwest corner of the state." He paused. "Carry on."

"Most of it isn't really important enough to go into right now," Maria said reluctantly. "Best girlfriends-stuff, a bit about how much fun she's having with Max, apologizing for bugging out on us and her parents, and so on." Maria sighed. "I don't think that they have really any idea what we've been through lately."

"Probably not when the letter was mailed," Alex remarked. "Topolsky's death was reported in the news, so unless they're living in a cave they have likely heard about that."

"Well, speaking of news," Maria continued on. "She said that if we want to send them a message, we should take out an ad in the Albuquerque paper's personals section, ~~addressed to 'William and Dreamgirl', and that they'll check for it. Like that old Madonna movie, 'Desperately seeking Susan.'"

"Hmm." Alex thought about that. "Well, they're being smart about this, to a certain extent, though I'm still not sure how bright the entire objective is. And... the personals desk has a five-thirty deadline, I seem to remember though I'm not sure from when. Do you want to get together and compose a message together?"

"Yeah, definitely," Maria agreed. "Should I come over there and bring the letter?"

"Alright," Alex said. "Oh, I think that Isabel's going to be here soon. You don't mind her being around?"

"No... maybe I should tell Michael, but I'm not quite sure how he'll take the idea. Maybe better to let him in on the whole thing later tonight? He's on shift at the Crashdown right now anyway."

"Sounds okay to me," Alex replied. "Well, I'll see you in fifteen I guess."

"Probably twenty," Maria quipped without any explanation, just before hanging up.

A little over ten minutes later, someone knocked on the front door, but when Alex went to check it, it was Isabel. "We got another letter from the runaways," he said, hugging her hello.

"Oh, Liz wrote you?"

"No, Maria. She's coming over. There's - well, they came up with a scheme where we can send a message back without really knowing where it's going..."


TO BE CONTINUED...