Roswell Fanatics

Winner - Round 6









Author: Girl with No Willpower (Dee)

Coupling: M/L, CC

Disclaimer: I don't own Roswell and if I did this is what would have happened.

Rating: Adult (Now that I've started again I can't make myself stop.)

Summary: So this is the follow-up story to Stay the Night that I said I wouldn't write, the one I said I would put off. Well...it decided it didn't want to be put off and here I am. This story begins the morning after Stay the Night ends.

AN: This is my fantasy version of Roswell, what I wished would have happened. I'm not going to be updating this story like crazy because I'm focusing my attention on ATTWT, Octoroon and an AU fic I'm planning to write with Applebylicious. But you know me...I'll definitely update on a regular basis. Now without further ado:


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Yours

Chapter 1

He could hardly believe he was waking up beside her.

The weak rays of dawn filtered in through his drapes, bathing her naked form in a dusky orange glow. She lay sprawled atop the sheets, her hair spilled across his pillow like liquid silk. She was beautiful and just looking at her filled Max with a wonder he could hardly contain.

Had she really slept beside him last night? Had they really made love? Max was having a hard time processing the reality. Even when he touched the cool smoothness of her skin, smelled her scent he still found himself afraid to blink for fear when he opened his eyes again she would vanish.

But she didn’t vanish. In fact, under the feather light caresses of his fingers, she muttered in her sleep and turned into his body, throwing one haphazard leg across his hip. Max couldn’t suppress his smile over the sleepy gesture, but then he felt guilty for it. He felt guilty that he should feel so happy, so content when they were putting Alex in the ground today. The recollection was a sobering one, bringing with it a multitude of other sobering thoughts…namely: Tess.

She had lied to them all, but especially to him. Liz had warned him against trusting her from the first moment Tess had arrived in town and for the most part Max had listened. But after he found Liz in bed with Kyle that horrible night his entire world had flipped upside down. He had let Tess in and that one moment of weakness proved to be one of the biggest mistakes he’d ever made. He had given her access to his mind and she had played around with it like a kitten playing with a ball of yarn.

Now he couldn’t recall any of the so-called memories they had accessed during their retrieval sessions. Max was just as ignorant of Antar as he had been before Tess Harding stepped into their lives. She had used his vulnerability, his broken heart to play him like a fiddle, giving him the memories that she wanted him to have, pushing him towards some unknown goal he didn’t know. This entire time she had been isolating him, chinking away at his self-confidence, exacerbating the already shaky trust between him and Liz. And he had let her…fool that he was. He had brought the traitorous bitch into their circle and who knew what the repercussions because of it.

It was strange how making love with Liz just seemed to clear him of the fog that had been surrounding him for months now. Strange and yet right that, the moment their bodies joined into one, his world, the world in general became right again. He had woken up, so to speak. He could finally see through clear eyes again and his mind recognized what his heart had known all the while: Liz Parker was his destiny. Not some obscure kingship on a distant planet, but this brilliant, brave girl lying beside him.

However, Max couldn’t rejoice fully with the realization. They still had much tragedy to face. Their dear friend was still dead and his death was still shrouded in mystery. They still had a traitor living among them and, lastly, he and Liz were still on shaky ground, namely because they’d had unprotected sex the night before.

While Max’s logical mind told him there was no way he and Liz could make a baby considering their different genetic backgrounds part of Max knew better. Just like part of him knew, absolutely knew that they had created life together when they made love. He didn’t share his theory with Liz. Max knew that now wasn’t the time. She had slept fitfully enough as it was with all her grief over Alex. She didn’t need to worry about becoming a teen mother to an intergalactic child on top of everything else. Max would keep quiet about it…for now…

Liz stirred against him, tightening her leg around his body to pull him closer. She mumbled something in her sleep, whimpered a moan. Worried, Max whispered her name softly and reached out to caress her cheek. To his surprise she turned her face into his hand, darting her tongue against the fleshy part of his palm in a provocative caress. His body began stirring to life in response.

“You’re awake,” he surmised softly, brushing her lips in a soft kiss of good morning.

“For the last five minutes now,” she confirmed without opening her eyes, “You’ve been staring at me again, Max Evans.” And then her lashes fluttered up and she regarded him with an unconcealed expression of love. Max couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her so unguarded. His throat ached with emotion to see it. “I was thinking this might be a dream,” she murmured.

“What?”

Liz trailed her fingers lightly down the middle of his naked chest, marveling in the satiny smooth feel of his skin. “Last night,” she whispered, “I thought…I thought maybe I imagined it…” She pulled her lower lip in between her teeth. “Did we really make love last night, Max?”

“I was asking myself that same thing not ten minutes ago,” he laughed softly, his own hands continuing their roaming search. He simply couldn’t get enough of touching her. “Even with you lying here next to me…it still doesn’t seem real.”

“But it is,” she whispered, leaning forward to kiss his throat, “You were really inside me last night.”

“Yes,” he moaned, plunging his fingers into her hair as she stroked her hands all over his skin, “I was really inside you.”

He started to kiss her, suddenly filled with the need to be inside her again but she stiffened against him and sucked in a sharp breath of dismay. “And Alex is really dead, isn’t he?” she queried painfully, “That part wasn’t a dream, was it, Max?”

“No,” he answered sadly, “We’re burying him today…remember?”

Liz shook against him, her hot tears leaking onto his shoulder. “I don’t want to remember,” she mumbled, “I just want to freeze this moment with you and not think about anything else.”

“I wish we could do that, Liz,” he murmured gently, “But your parents are probably going to realize you’re gone soon…and my parents…”

“…They wouldn’t exactly be receptive to finding me in your bed,” Liz concluded grimly.

“Exactly,” he confirmed in a miserable sigh. However, Max hugged her close though when he should have let her roll away to get dressed. “I don’t want to let you go, Liz,” he whispered, “I feel like that’s all I’ve been doing for the last few months and, frankly, I’m sick of it.”

“Me, too,” Liz mumbled.

He brushed his lips across the top of her head. “I want to keep you with me…just hold you like this forever.”

“Max, will you do something for me?” she asked, her words muffled against his chest.

“Anything,” he promised softly, tipping his head down to see her face.

“Will you…make love to me again?” Liz beseeched, “Just once more before I go home…before this afternoon… I just need something to hold on to.”

Max was more than eager to fulfill her request. Besides being eager to join his body with hers again Max was also acutely aware that their first time together hadn’t been all that thrilling for her. He had been so excited, so overwhelmed to be inside her that it had been impossible to stave off his orgasm. He wanted to make that up to her, but he was uncertain as to whether he should try at that particular moment. Max realized she was vulnerable and heartbroken and he didn’t want to take advantage of that. Last night they had both been numb from shock and pain, but this morning was something entirely different and there was still so much they hadn’t talked about. Still…

“Are you sure?” he asked in a trembling whisper, “Maybe we should talk first?”

“Later,” she whispered, reaching down between them and grasping hold of his swollen cock. She stroked her fingers along the satiny hot tip. Max hissed out her name in a pleasured moan.

“God…oh…god…Liz,” he gasped, his hips jerking spasmodically under her light exploration.

“Please, Max…” she coaxed, scooting nearer so that she could nuzzle along his collarbone even while her fingers continued to play over his fevered flesh, “I need you…”

They sought out each other’s mouths for a wet, languid kiss, bodies conforming against each other in perfect alignment. Max slipped his hand down the smooth contour of Liz’s back, savoring the satiny feel of her skin, wanting her absorb her into his own. Her fingers continued to work, despite the tight confines, stroking up and down his distended length. Max caught hold of her hand when it began to feel too good and brought it up against his chest. “Stop it,” he implored gruffly, rearing back for a hasty breath, “You’re going to make me come.”

Her belly quivered deliciously at his whispered plea. Suddenly, she felt consumed with the need, the irrepressible desire to do just that. She wanted to make Max Evans come. Max must have read her intention in her eyes because he kissed her again, fervent and hard. “You first,” he whispered, “I want to make you come first, Liz.”

“I know we don’t have time…” she murmured as he gently kissed his way down her throat, “…to go slow…”

Max lifted his head to look at her then, his gold-green eyes soft and solemn. “We have time, Liz,” he said thickly, “I’ll always make time for you. I love you, Liz. I want to show you how much.”

To prove the validity of his words, Max shifted onto his side and leaned up over Liz with the intention of kissing every inch of her nude form. And that is exactly what Max did. He traced his tongue along the sensitive rim of her ear; kissed a path down the shivering length of her to pay homage to the gentle curves of her hips, nuzzled against her ankles, caressed her slender feet…kissed her there as well…

Liz matched his ardor-filled exploration, matching him touch for touch, kiss for kiss. They took time to enjoy each other thoroughly, forgetting for the moment that the outside world was waiting to crash in. Forgetting for the moment that their entire world had changed over night. In that hour everything was perfect and magical and right and nothing existed except for the two of them.

Max felt dizzy with the privilege of caressing Liz, remembering all the times he had yearned to see her this way and touch her…touch her all over. And now he fulfilled his fantasies, delighting in each breathless moan, each whispered plea, each reflexive caress. By the time he leaned above her to grope for a condom in his nightstand drawer she was flushed pink with desire.

With hasty hands and nervous giggles they rolled the latex on together, both blushing over the task, their fingers tangling clumsily. Max flashed a concerned smile down at Liz as he leaned over her and positioned himself between her legs. He brushed himself against her center, flinching a little at the moist heat he found there. “Is this okay?” he whispered, “I mean…if you’re too sore…”

“I’m fine, Max,” she told him, smoothing her hands down his back until they fit perfectly in the small of his back. She lifted her hips against his in unmistakable invitation. “I’m ready.”

Shaking aside his lingering reservations, Max took his time easing into her body, carefully watching her face for any signs of discomfort. But there were none. Her expression was cleansed of everything but quiet ecstasy as he stretched inside her, filling her one excruciating inch at a time. Liz groaned beneath him, arching her hips spasmodically to speed his progress. Encouraged, Max pushed deeper, burying himself all the way. He expelled a shuddering moan of pleasure as her warm flesh closed all around him, enveloping him. After taking a moment to let her adjust, Max pulled out of her, only to enter her once more with the same painstaking slowness.

Liz whispered his name, drawing his head down against her so that his face was cradled in the crook of her neck. “You don’t have to go so slow.”

He groaned over her husky invitation and gratefully picked up the speed of his thrusts. Max rocked inside her, his heart thundering as Liz wrapped herself all around him, her arms, her legs…her heart… The room came alive with the sound of their soft cries of repletion and the gentle squeaking of the bed. Neither of them cared.

Max was overwhelmed, not only by the pleasure he was giving but the pleasure he was inciting as well. He knew how close Liz was to the edge, could feel the desperate need pounding within her and he wanted to give that to her. He wanted to make her come apart just as she’d done to him the night before. Possessed by the need, Max stroked inside her steadily, concentrating on hitting the spot he knew gave her the most gratification.

She came in an unexpected rush, clenching his pistoning hips between her thighs and reflexively biting down into Max’s shoulder as streaks of body tingling pleasure shot through her limbs. The trembling spasms of her inner walls were too much for Max. He thrust into her one last time, driving hard, and shuddering with the force of his own orgasm. When the mad tingling of his body had subsided somewhat, Max relaxed against her completely, curving his arms beneath her shoulders as he waited for his ragged breathing to even.

Liz lifted a weary hand to lightly finger the damp strands of his hair, playing around with the curling ends. She savored the moment because there had been a time when she thought she’d never touch his hair again. She had thought that she would never hold him like this. Liz was unexpectedly assailed by the knowledge that they had nearly lost out on each other because of all the lies and misunderstandings. They had almost lost this moment.

“I’m sorry I lied to you, Max,” she said, suddenly overwhelmed by the magnitude of it all, overwhelmed by how much she had changed with that one half-truth and what she’d almost lost.

“I know you had your reasons,” Max replied but then his expression closed off a little and he pulled out of her body and rolled upright. After removing the condom with the aid of his powers, Max drew his knees against his chest, circling them with his arms as he fixed his eyes ahead blindly. “Did you just not trust me with the truth, Liz?”

Liz sat up as well, laying her head against his shoulder “No,” she denied, “It’s not that, Max. It was never that. I always trusted you or I never would have done any of this to begin with.”

He leveled her with a look of hurt confusion. “Then why?”

Liz forced herself to maintain his gaze, though it was hard to do. “At first…I was just afraid to tell you and then…after that…everything just snowballed and I didn’t know how to tell you the truth anymore.”

Her words struck a chord of guilt within him. Max could well understand how the situation snowballed. He thought about himself and Tess. At one time he wouldn’t have deigned to talk to her, let alone trust her. But after he saw Kyle and Liz together everything had quickly spiraled out of control. Despite all his attempts to regain control, however, Max knew now that he never had.

He turned to Liz now, gathering her into his arms to press a kiss to the top of her rumpled head. “So tell me exactly what he said,” Max cajoled, “This…this future version of me. Tell me exactly what happened that day.”

“Well, I was in my room,” Liz began with a shuddering sigh, “And I was daydreaming about you, like usual when…”

They once again forgot about the time as Liz recounted that day’s events and her feelings about those events to him. Max learned that it was never really Liz’s idea to turn him away from her at all, but his own. In an ironic way, he was to blame for all that had unfolded since then. His future self and his oh so brilliant plan… Max understood now that Liz broke her own heart to save his life and Isabel’s and Michael’s. She did it knowing she would probably never have recognition for her deed and knowing she’d incur his hatred because of it.

Max stared at her with wonder-filled eyes, as if he could hardly believe she was real. “What did I do?” he whispered, “What did I do to deserve you, Liz Parker?”

“Don’t say things like that,” she muttered, “I made a big mess of everything, Max.”

He searched her anguished features in confusion. “How can you say that?” he asked, “You saved all our lives, Liz. You changed the future.”

“Was it for the better?” she queried thickly, “Because you know…in that first timeline, Alex lived. He was there at our wedding, Max. He was alive and now…now he’s not…because I changed things…”

“Liz, don’t you blame yourself,” Max ordered fiercely, “What happened to Alex is not your fault!”

“Then why does it feel like it?” she mumbled.

“Stop it,” he admonished quietly, covering her trembling mouth with his own, “Just stop it. We’re going to find out what happened to Alex, Liz. We’ll find out together.” He glanced over at the digital clock beside his bed, realizing that more than two hours had commenced since they’d first awakened. Beyond his door he could hear the telltale sounds of his family rising. “We should get dressed now,” he told Liz.

“I know,” Liz agreed, but neither of them made any attempt to move. Instead, Liz snuggled deeper into the circle of his arms. “I don’t want to leave.”

“And I don’t want you to leave,” Max said, “But, unfortunately, we can’t stay here forever, Liz. We can’t afford any trouble from our parents…not with everything else going on.”

“You’re right,” she replied glumly, finally rolling from the bed to pull on her clothes, “I should get home and start getting ready for the funeral. So should you.”

For a moment, Max watched her movements with avid eyes, studying her body in open adoration before climbing from beneath the sheets to follow your example. “Go wait for me in the jeep,” he told her, “I’m going to go make excuses to my folks…tell them I need to get some air or something.”

“Max, you don’t have to take me home,” Liz protested, “I can walk. I’ll be fine by myself.”

“No, you won’t,” Max replied firmly, his eyes dark with determination as he pulled her into his arms to hold her tight, “That’s just it, Liz. You don’t have to be by yourself. Not anymore. Never again.”

Chapter 2

“Okay…um…so what are we going to do about Tess?” Liz asked as Max cut the engine to the jeep after pulling into the alley just beneath her balcony.

The unspoken question had been between them all morning and Max had known it was only a matter of time before one of them asked it out loud. He had also known that Liz would be the one to ask it. Frankly, Max didn’t really want to think about Tess because the implications concerning her were so monstrously large. Tess was up to something. Max could only conclude that the “something” was not very good if she were willing to go to the lengths of mindwarping him. It was slowly, but steadily dawning on Max that they were all in serious trouble and he didn’t have the faintest clue how to get them out of it.

“What do you think she’s after, Max?” Liz whispered when he didn’t respond to her first question.

“Besides me, you mean?” he queried dully, “I don’t know…”

“Do you think it might have something to do with Alex’s death?” Liz wondered, though she couldn’t fathom why or how.

However, Liz was only allowing herself to think of Alex in clinical terms at present. For the most part, she felt detached from his death completely. Her mind and body had gone on emotional autopilot. She cried because her head recognized Alex was gone and that she would never see him again, but the reality had still failed to sink into her heart. Liz wasn’t quite there in her grieving process as she was still caught somewhere between sorrow and the wild hope that it was all some colossal joke.

In the meantime, Liz concentrated fully on what she could...seeking justice for her fallen friend. Really it was the only thing keeping her sane at the moment. She would not let Alex’s death be ruled as a suicide. Her quest didn’t seem nearly so grim as it had at first though because now she didn’t have to do it alone.

“Is it possible that the mindwarping and Alex’s death are related somehow,” she continued on in a pensive whisper.

“I doubt it,” Max said, “I just don’t see a connection…do you?”

Liz shook her head regretfully. “I don’t know…there’s definitely something weird going on though,” she said, nibbling pensively on her lower lip, “If Tess has been mindwarping you all this time who knows what she’s been doing to the rest of us, Max. You remember how she planted those thoughts in Michael and Isabel’s heads the last time. We don’t know what she’s capable of.”

He couldn’t dispute that. Tess Harding had proved how manipulative she could be with all the games she’d been playing lately. She had gone to great lengths to convince him that he loved her in another life and she’d been working that angle for a long time now. Max belatedly realized that her machinations didn’t just start with prom as he’d first supposed but dated as far back as their trip to New York. She’d begun mindwarping him even then. What Max couldn’t understand was why. Tess finally had the tentative acceptance of the group. She had been finally finding a place among them so why would she start with her games again and after working so hard to prove herself a friend?

“None of this makes sense,” Max muttered to himself, “I thought that Tess was finally beginning to understand her place among us. I really thought she’d let go of all that destiny crap.”

“So did I,” Liz mumbled, “I couldn’t have pushed her at you otherwise. I was…really hoping we could trust her. I mean…you…um…Future Max made it sound as if you needed her to complete the foursquare…like she was meant to be a part of you guys.”

“But now we know the truth,” Max responded glumly, meeting Liz’s dark stare across the distance, “Tess is dangerous. She has an agenda. She’s not one of us and she never has been.”

“We can’t let her know we’re on to her, Max,” Liz advised, “We don’t know what she’ll do if she’s cornered or who she’s teamed up with…”

“Okay, so we’ll call a group meeting,” Max said, “Bring the others up to speed on what’s happening and then we’ll decide what to do about her.”

“Can we wait a few days?” Liz pleaded, “I’m not negating the danger we’re in but I think we all need time to…adjust to Alex’s death. Everyone’s still so raw and…they might have trouble keeping up the pretense with Tess considering the circumstances. I just don’t want to lay anything else heavy on them so soon.”

In truth, she hadn’t adjusted to it herself. Liz didn’t think she could deal with the consequences of Tess’ betrayal as well as all the explanations she’d likely have to make right then. She was on emotional overload as it was.

Max nodded in agreement, feeling the weightiness of the day finally settle down on him. While they had been alone in his bedroom making love Max had felt elated, content, truly on top of the world, but now that they had left the warm circle of each other’s arms reality sluiced over them like ice water. He couldn’t help but wonder if they would feel like that again or if something else would manage to come between them again. Max was determined that he’d die before he let that happen.

“So I guess that brings us back to your original question, huh,” he sighed, “What are we going to do about her?”

“Like I said…we can’t let her know that we’re on to her,” Liz reasoned, “We…we just have to go on like nothing has changed. That…that means you, too, Max.”

Max balked at the idea, his features draining of color. “No, Liz,” he protested, shaking his head wildly, “I can’t do that. Don’t you understand what you’re asking me?”

“It’s just pretend,” Liz whispered thickly.

“She thinks we’re together, Liz,” Max emphasizes in a hiss, “Together…like a couple. I can’t have her touch me… I can’t be near her, especially after what’s happened between us. I just…I can’t.”

“Max, if she knows then it’s all over,” Liz replied firmly, “Is that what you want?”

“I want to be with you,” he said, “That’s all I want, Liz…just to be with you.”

Without warning, she reared up and leaned across the gearshift to press her lips to his. However, the brief, reassuring kiss she’d planned exploded when Max cupped the back of her head and slipped his tongue between her lips. The kiss spiraled out of control then, becoming wrought with aching desire and raw hunger. Their mouths slanted against each other’s again and again before Liz finally found the strength to pull back.

“You can’t kiss me like that again,” she warned him breathlessly, “Not where people can see us, Max.”

“Liz, I don’t want to do this…” he groaned.

“What choice do we have?” she cried, “You don’t know what Tess is planning. What’s to keep her from disappearing once she learns that you know what she’s been up to? She’s been mindwarping you into believing that you two belong together and you’ve…you’ve just got to keep her believing that…”

“For how long?”

“Until we find out what she wants,” Liz whispered, “And if it had anything to do with Alex’s death.” Even knowing that what they planned was for the best, Max’s reluctance to comply was palpable and Liz couldn’t help but be glad about that. If she had any lingering doubts that he might want Tess in some secret part of himself they were dispelled in that moment. “Look,” she sighed, “You should be able to put her off for a couple of days because of the funeral and everything. Afterwards, we’ll talk to the others…we’ll make sure that you’re never alone with her, okay.”

“Liz, I get what you’re saying, but--,”

“Listen to me,” she persisted, pressing her fingers to his lips for silence, “We’re going to have enough on our hands trying to figure out what happened to Alex. Please, Max…let’s not add Tess to the mix just yet. For now we know we can’t trust her so we can act accordingly. I just need you to hang on for a few days…just a few…until we can get a lead on Alex’s death.”

“Fine,” Max agreed reluctantly, “But just for you, Liz. I couldn’t be near her otherwise…not after everything… Know that I’m doing this only for you.”

“I know it,” she whispered, lowering her eyes, “It won’t be for long, I promise. I just need to figure out what’s going on with Alex’s death first.”

“We,” Max corrected definitively.

“Huh?”

“We, Liz,” he stressed again, “We are going to find out what happened to Alex. I told you already…you’re not alone anymore.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled almost inaudibly, “I’ve gotten so used to doing things on my own these last few months that--,”

“—that you don’t know how to depend on anyone else,” he finished for her knowingly, “Yeah, I know a lot about that myself.”

She offered him a shy smile. “I’m working on it.”

“Me, too,” he said.

“So…um…okay…” Liz hedged, reaching reluctantly for the door handle, “I guess I should…um…go up now.”

“Yeah.”

“Max?”

“Hmm?”

“I…um…I love you, Max,” she stammered nervously.

He smiled at her and leaned across the distance to brush her lips in an awkward, but ardent kiss. “I love you, too, Liz,” he whispered, “It feels good to say it…feels goods to hear it.”

“Ditto,” she whispered back before indulging in another languid kiss. In the end, Liz had to force herself to back away and exit the vehicle. “So I’ll see you at the…at the funeral then?” she said through the window when they were separated by the jeep door.

Max jerked a nod. “I’m going to head back home and get cleaned up and then I’ll head over to see Valenti,” he said, “Try to find out what’s going on.”

“Thank you, Max.”

“No problem.”

“I should go,” she said again.

“I know.”

She leaned her forehead against the window frame miserably. “Why is it so hard to leave you this time?” she muttered.

At her mournful underbreath, Max exited the jeep and crossed around to her side to sweep her up in a hungry kiss. His fingers tangled in her hair, cradling her head for his avid plundering. But Liz gladly accepted his tender fervency, wrapped her arms around his shoulders and returned his passion with equal measure. When they finally broke apart again they were both breathless and their mouths swollen and tingling.

Staring up at him in amazement, Liz fingered her lips with a trembling hand. “You have to stop kissing me like that.”

Max bit back a smile over her stunned tone. “I’ll work on it,” he lied irreverently, “Go on up before I can’t let you.” He watched her shimmy up the ladder and disappear completely before returning back to the jeep.

He made the drive home with a mixture of joy and sadness. While he was glad that he and Liz had managed to find their way back to one another it saddened him that it had taken Alex’s tragic death to do it. Their reunion was bittersweet at best, mainly due to Alex’s death but also because, even after all they’d been through, they still had to sneak around and hide their feelings for one another.

By the time Max crept through his front door much of his good feeling from the morning had been dispelled and he was left feeling despondent and a little discouraged. He started off for the bathroom for a shower, mentally preparing himself for his impending confrontation with Valenti when his sister’s voice sounded behind him.

“So where did you go?” Isabel asked, popping her head into the bathroom. She looked as if she had just survived a world war. Her face was wiped clean of make-up, giving her skin a sallow, washed-out appearance. Her hair was pulled back in a lank ponytail emphasizing her eyes that were red-rimmed and puffy from crying. “Mom said you needed some air,” she queried again, “Where did you go?”

“Just around,” Max answered vaguely, “How are you doing?”

“I feel like my head is in a fog,” she muttered, leaning in against the doorframe, “Mom gave me a sleeping pill last night. I only woke up a few minutes before you walked in.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have taken it,” Max replied in concern, “You know our systems can’t handle that sort of thing.”

Isabel shrugged noncommittally. “Please don’t rag on me, Max. I just…needed something to help me sleep, you know,” she whispered mournfully, “When I’m awake I see him everywhere. I actually talk to him, Max. And then when I’m asleep I see him then, too.”

“Isabel, I think that’s normal,” Max murmured gently, “You miss him. We all do.”

“You don’t think I’m crazy?” she whispered.

Max closed the distance between them and enfolded her in a protective hug. “No.”

“God, I feel like I’m falling apart,” she muttered into his shoulder, “I can’t imagine what Maria and Liz must be feeling right now.”

“Maria has Michael,” Max told her, “And Liz…”

Isabel reared back slightly to regard her brother solemnly. “Who does Liz have, Max?” she countered softly, “She shouldn’t be alone right now. She needs a friend.”

“I know,” Max replied uncomfortably.

“She needs you, Max,” Isabel pressed, “Don’t let her be alone right now.”

“I won’t,” he promised her, “I won’t let her be alone.”

Fresh tears welled in her eyes at that. “God! It just doesn’t seem fair,” she mumbled tearfully, clutching at him as if she expected him to disappear, too, “He…he had his whole life ahead of him. Alex was a good person, Max! Why did it have to be him? I wish I knew what happened.”

Max wanted to tell her about Tess and about Liz’s theories over Alex’s death but he didn’t think now was the time. Liz was right. Isabel was too emotionally raw to consider that Alex’s death might not have been an accident at all; that there was the obscure possibility their enemies had targeted Alex and killed him. Max could hardly think about it himself but there was no denying the weirdness going on all around them. He couldn’t negate the likelihood completely. And he couldn’t shake the innate feeling within him, despite all the unlikelihood, that Tess was at the heart of it all.

“Why don’t you go ahead and get dressed, okay,” Max suggested, carefully shrugging out of Isabel’s desperate hold, “I need to leave early so I can talk to Valenti.”

“Is something wrong?” Isabel asked, immediately on alert.

“It’s fine,” Max hedged, “I just need to follow up on something…trust me.”

“Okay,” Isabel sniffled in agreement, “I’ll go and get dressed. Really, this day can’t be over soon enough for me.”

Max drifted back into his bedroom, finding a marked difference in the atmosphere now that Liz was gone. His room felt cold and void now, whereas before it had been brimming over with Liz’s warm presence. In that moment, Max recognized exactly what had been missing from his life all these months: Liz’s laugh, Liz’s smile…Liz. She filled his life, completed it. There was no reason for happiness without her, which was the very reason he’d been little more than sleepwalking through his life ever since they parted from each other.

Now that she was back in his life, however, Max was breathing again. He was finally waking up. Max wondered why that was. Why, after so many months of fog, had it taken one night of lovemaking with Liz to clear his head? Why did he feel as if something profound had changed between them because of it, not just on an intimate level but beyond as well? Max felt clearer than he had in months, more certain, more connected.

Before he had been so unsure of Liz’s love and so unsure of himself but now Max didn’t harbor a single doubt, not about her love for him or his place in this world. There was nothing blocking his connection to Liz anymore. The electrical bond flowed and ebbed between them freely, as if there had never been any cessation at all. They were stronger, better, closer… Max knew that instinctively even while he didn’t fully understand the reason why. He wondered if Liz sensed the same change he did.

Aching with the loss of her physical presence and left weary by the confusing jumble of his thoughts, Max stumbled over to his bed with a wistful groan. His sheets were still rumpled from their lovemaking earlier that morning; her scent still clung to them faintly. Max decided to forego stripping down his bed as he’d first planned.

He wanted to hold on to the memories of their morning together…just for a bit longer.

*Some excerpts are taken from the Cry Your Name episode.

Chapter 3

“I need to talk to you.” Max snagged hold of Valenti’s sleeve just as the older man started off for his truck. Liz had already left with her parents. Max had followed her departure with his eyes until she’d disappeared from his line of sight altogether. His heart had ached to watch her go, especially since the more time that passed, the more his insatiable need to be near her grew.

They really hadn’t had the opportunity to talk during the funeral or subsequent burial though he’d felt her presence the entire time. He wanted so much to stride up to her and pull her into his arms but he knew he couldn’t. Tess had been clinging to him throughout the whole ordeal, making it impossible for him to seek Liz out and Valenti, too. As if Alex’s funeral wasn’t a stressful enough situation, Max was put completely on edge with his efforts to keep up pretense with Tess. He just wanted to run as fast and as far away from her as possible. As it was, Max had taken the first opportunity while Tess was paying her respects to the Whitmans to seek out Valenti for some answers.

The former sheriff didn’t appear overjoyed by the prospect of talking to Max either, probably because he already had an idea what the young man wanted to discuss. “If this is about what I said to Liz the other night,” he began wearily, “I don’t have any apologies to make about that. I know it was hard for Liz to hear but she needed to know the truth. You all do.”

“How can you say that me?” Max hissed, “Worse…how could you say that to her? You almost killed her. God…how can you even think it--,”

“Max, this is difficult for everybody,” Valenti interrupted, “I took no joy in telling Liz what I did.”

“It’s not true, dammit,” Max muttered, “It’s not.” And then Max let himself feel the anger he’d been containing for days now, the crushing impotence he’d felt ever since he tried to heal Alex and failed. The emotions exploded from his body in an uncontainable rush. “No!” he cried angrily, shoving his finger directly into Valenti’s face, “Alex Whitman did not kill himself, okay? It didn’t happen. And you’d better not let Hanson anyone else put that in some file. I’ll never forgive you if you do.”

Shaking with emotion and sorrow and a fair amount of dread, Valenti stepped over to his truck and retrieved a sheaf of papers from inside. What he was planning was definitely unprecedented but Jim doubted Max would believe until he saw the truth with his own eyes. He lowered his gaze somberly and passed the papers to a reluctant Max. “Here…read it.”

“What is it?” Max asked, still eyeing the papers suspiciously.

“It’s everything we’ve discovered about Alex Whitman over the last two days,” Valenti revealed quietly, “Read for yourself.”

His stomach churned over the prospect but Max did as Valenti ordered him, growing more disgusted with each word he read. By the time he reached the end of the file Max was ready to throw up. He weaved against the door of the truck and swallowed back the hot bile that rose in the back of his throat, shuddering again and again.

“Do it,” Valenti invited gently when he noted Max’s ashen color, “I know I did.”

Max covered his mouth and stumbled over to the edge of the truck. “I don’t believe it,” he mumbled weakly, “I won’t believe that.”

“You read it yourself, Max,” Valenti pressed quietly, “I didn’t want to believe it either.”

Max staved off his tender concern, shaking his head a little wildly. “It’s too clean,” he muttered faintly, “Everything falls too neatly into place. Nothing is that perfect, especially not death. But besides that…besides that…Alex would never kill himself.” He stared at Valenti with frenetic eyes. “Even if I were to let myself believe what’s in that file…Liz won’t believe. She’ll never believe and I trust her with my life. If she says that file is a lie then I believe her.”

“Liz is grieving,” Valenti reasoned quietly, “So are you.”

“That’s not it,” Max denied, “Something else is going on here and Liz and I are going to find the truth. I promise you we will.” Max threw up then, doubling over and losing the meager contents of his stomach. Even after he was empty Max continued to dry heave, his body shaking all over. He was vaguely aware of Valenti hunkering down beside him as he body heaved again and again.

“I’ll go and get Michael,” Valenti offered softly.

Max sagged closer to the tire, wiling the palsied shaking of his body to stop. He couldn’t get that document out of his mind…the photos… It all seemed so real, so convincing and yet, he knew that it wasn’t the truth. It couldn’t be.

“Maxwell, are you alright?” Michael asked, anchoring Max’s arm over his shoulder and assisting him to his feet, “You look like you’re in bad shape.”

“Give me a minute,” Max replied weakly, “I’ll be okay.”

Despite his reassurance, however, Max felt lethargic and dizzy. He didn’t know how he knew but Max suspected his feelings weren’t just his own. He was experiencing Liz’s weariness as well. She felt tired and sapped of strength. Dealing with both her emotions and his own was leaving Max drained of energy as well. He would have probably dropped back to the ground if Michael weren’t keeping such a firm hold on him.

“You want me to go get Tess?”

“No!” Max cried out sharply. At Michael’s curious stare Max amended in a calmer tone, “I mean…no, don’t do that.”

Considering that he and Tess had supposedly been growing closer lately, Michael was surprised by Max’s vehement response. He narrowed his eyes speculatively on his friend’s face. “Are you sure everything’s okay with you?” he wondered carefully, “Isabel said you were acting weird earlier.”

“There’s…there’s something,” Max revealed hastily, aware that Isabel and Tess were advancing towards them quickly so he didn’t have time for a lengthy explanation, “I’ll tell you later…I promise…”

~~~***~~~***~~~

Max watched Liz surreptitiously from across the Whtimans’ living room. She looked incredibly pale…listless. He knew that she had gotten more than a few hours of sleep from the night before. Likely, she hadn’t eaten anything since the macaroni either. He certainly hadn’t seen her take a bite in the half hour he’d been at the Whitmans’ home. Max had to squelch the urge to rise and hover over her protectively like a mother hen. But the instinct expanded within his chest, natural and nearly uncontainable.

“You okay?” Tess inquired softly, giving him a nudge with her shoulder, “You’ve barely said a word to me all day.”

“My friend just died,” he snapped a little testily, “Forgive me if I don’t feel much like conversation.” Belatedly, however, Max recalled the conversation he’d had with Liz earlier that morning and forced himself to gentle his tone. He knew he couldn’t afford to estrange Tess, at least not until he discovered her agenda. “I’m sorry for snapping at you,” he sighed, “I’m just…on edge.”

“Yeah,” she murmured, “I get that. It’s only…I’m here for you, Max.” She laid her hand against his shoulder and leaned into him. “You don’t have to be alone.”

Max looked away from her, prickling with rage over her reassurance. He wanted to shout at her that he wasn’t alone, that he and Liz were together again and that nothing and no one was ever coming between them but he bit his tongue. It was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. Knowing what he did now, Max didn’t doubt that every sentence out of Tess’ mouth was a calculated lie. He was sickened by her act, sickened with himself for having to play along. After vacillating over her place in his life for so long Max simply wanted to be done with Tess entirely.

Careful to mask his unflattering thoughts, Max favored her with a weak smile. “Thanks, Tess,” he said.

“So maybe I could come by later,” she prodded hopefully, her blue eyes searching his face hopefully, “We could keep each other company, you know…find a way to cope with the loneliness.”

Max sincerely hoped that he didn’t look as sickened as he felt by that prospect. He’d spend time alone with Tess Harding only when hell froze over! “Um…I…promised Isabel I’d spend some time with her,” Max lied, “She’s having a hard time. But maybe later. I…I’ll definitely call you.”

“Good,” she replied, smiling. But as she leaned forward to kiss him Max turned his head at the last second so that her lips grazed across his cheek. Tess regarded him curiously. “Are you sure nothing’s wrong?”

“I’m just not feeling like myself,” he replied lamely, “Give me a little time, okay.”

“Whatever you need,” Tess murmured, “You know I’m here for you.”

He bobbed his head in a noncommittal nod. “I think I’m gonna go talk to Liz now,” he announced suddenly, surging to his feet, “Go offer my condolences.”

“I’ll go with you,” Tess offered, already moving to her feet.

Max declined with a shake of his head. “No. That’s probably not such a good idea,” he considered, “I’ll only be a minute…I promise.” He leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to her forehead in the hopes of mollifying her. It was imperative that he escape from her as soon as possible otherwise Max wouldn’t be responsible for what he said or did. Max supposed it worked because she was smiling at him as he walked away. When his back was to her fully he swiped a disgusted hand across his mouth.

He made it over to Liz just as she was finishing up an emotional conversation with Alex’s dad. Max hung back, letting them have their tender moment. Afterwards, Liz pulled out of their grieving embrace and headed off for the back of the house. When Max was assured that no one was watching him, he followed after her.

Max found her on Alex’s bed, his guitar cradled in her lap and strumming off a few notes. He crept closer, his heart breaking a little over her anguished expression. “Liz?” he whispered, startling her with his sudden entrance, “What are you doing?”

“Max,” she gasped, setting aside the guitar, “You shouldn’t be back here with me right now. What if Tess--,”

He crossed the room to sit down alongside her and press his fingers against her lips, staunching her flow of words. “Stop,” he admonished quietly, “I needed to be with you…right or wrong…good or bad… I couldn’t stay away.”

“I’m glad,” she whimpered, burying her face into his chest, “I’m glad you couldn’t stay away. I just feel so lost right now.”

“I’m here, Liz,” Max promised, sifting his fingers through her hair to tenderly massage her scalp. Gradually, he felt the tension seep from her body until she was all but limp against him. “You have to stop pushing yourself so hard. I’m worried about you.”

“Max, please,” she groaned.

He cradled her face in his hands so that she had no choice but to meet his worried stare. “Have you even eaten anything today?”

“You sound like my mother,” she teased weakly.

His lips twitched a bit but didn’t quite stretch into a smile. “Don’t try to change the subject,” he said sternly, “I’m really worried about you.”

“I’m fine,” she assured him, “I nibbled on a piece of toast this morning but I…I really don’t have much of an appetite.”

Max thought of their possible baby growing inside her right then and Liz’s nutrition took on a whole other meaning for him. He didn’t let himself think about the possibility very often, not with so much going on around them already. Yet, every now and then the idea would reassert itself and Max would feel an irrepressible rush of protectiveness with the thought. “You have to eat, Liz,” he insisted quietly, “You can’t afford to get sick right now.”

Thinking that he was referring to her need to keep her strength up for their investigation, Liz nodded her agreement. “I don’t guess I’ll be doing Alex any favors if I pass out from malnutrition and exhaustion, huh?” she considered wryly.

“It’s pretty doubtful,” Max agreed with a small smile, whisking away the tear drops clinging to Liz’s pale cheeks, “And I won’t be too happy about it either.”

“I came in here hoping I could find some answers, you know,” she whispered plaintively, “I mean…I know Alex didn’t commit suicide. He just…wouldn’t but…I don’t know how it prove it, Max. No one believes me.”

“I believe you,” Max replied, “Valenti showed me the file today and… I’ll admit what I read there was pretty convincing but I believe in you, Liz. You knew Alex better than the rest of us. If you say he couldn’t have committed suicide then I know it’s true.”

“But how can I prove it?” she cried mournfully, “I don’t even know where to start.”

In weeping frustration, she pushed up from the bed and dragged all ten fingers through her disheveled hair. “I really need your help, Alex,” she murmured to her dead friend, “I know that something’s wrong here. I know what Valenti is saying about you isn’t true but I don’t know where to go from here.” She emitted a broken sob of pain. “Please, Alex… I really wish you could give me some advice…something… Just point me in the right direction.”

Liz roamed her eyes unconsciously about the room, searching desperately for a divine sign of some sort. She caught sight of the book then, lying on the edge of Alex’s nightstand. Her heart jumped a little in anticipation as she started towards it, knowing in some deep, instinctive part of herself that it held the answers she needed.

“Liz, what is it?” Max asked anxiously.

“Robert Frost,” Liz mumbled absently as she swept the book up and began leafing through the pages with shaking fingers, “A book of poetry.” She discovered that Alex had marked a particular page with a pair of concert tickets. Liz glanced at the tickets briefly before removing them from the book to read the passage Alex had indicated.

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,” she read aloud, “But I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep.” She closed the book with a snap, her eyes welling up with fresh tears. “Thank you, God…thank you, Alex. Thank you.”

“Liz?” Max questioned again, coming to stand behind her. He circled his arms about her waist, holding her close as she began to weep uncontrollably. “Liz…what did you find?”

Liz turned in his arms then and Max realized that she wasn’t just crying but laughing as well, weeping tears of joy. “These tickets,” she clarified, clutching them tightly in her fist, “They’re concert tickets to Beth Orton. Alex bought them on the day he died…probably for him and Isabel. The concert is tonight, Max. Don’t you see? You don’t buy concert tickets on the day you plan to kill yourself! You don’t make plans for the future when you’re not planning on having a future! He didn’t kill himself. He didn’t!”

“I know, Liz,” Max whispered, stroking her heaving back in soothing circles, “I know that.”

“We have to find out what happened to him, Max,” she wept, “I can’t rest until I know.”

“And we will,” he promised quietly, “We will.”

Chapter 4

“So we’re having a group meeting?” Michael asked when the gang had situated in his living room, “For what exactly?” Four puzzled pairs of eyes swung around in Max’s direction. He had called them all together for what he’d labeled as “urgent business” but had failed to give any further details. They were still shaken up after the funeral and not prepared for another crisis. Consequently, Kyle, Michael, Isabel and Maria were cranky, frustrated and more than a bit anxious.

“So what gives, Maxwell?” Michael demanded brusquely when Max seemed reluctant to begin.

“I think you should all sit down and make yourselves comfortable,” Max prefaced grimly, “This might take a while.” Beside him, Liz tightened her hand around his reflexively, comforting him with her touch, her nearness. Max favored her with a wan smile of gratitude.

During their furtive exchange, Kyle glanced around Michael’s living room, extremely aware of Tess’ conspicuous absence. He got the impression, however, that her lack of presence wasn’t an accident. “So what’s going on, Evans?” he asked, paraphrasing Michael’s earlier question, “Does it have something to do with Tess? I can’t help but notice she’s not here.”

“Yeah, I noticed that, too,” Isabel piped up, frowning her puzzlement just like the rest of them, “Why isn’t she here, Max?”

“Her not being here isn’t an accident,” Max revealed quietly when Isabel started to flip up her cell phone to correct the matter, “There’s something you all need to know.”

In the few minutes they’d had alone during the wake, Max and Liz decided not to keep their friends in the dark any longer. They were both sure that Alex’s death had most definitely been staged to look like a suicide, which meant that there was someone after them. And, considering what Max knew about Tess and her manipulations, it was beginning to appear more and more likely that she was that someone. What neither Max nor Liz could figure out was why. What was Tess up to and why had she made Alex a casualty? Max and Liz knew they would have to enlist the help of their friends if they were going to find out.

“Max, what’s going on?” Isabel asked deliberately, putting away her cell phone, “You’re acting really weird. It’s starting to scare me.”

Max shared a fortifying glance with Liz before taking a deep breath and forging ahead. “Liz and I have been working on a theory,” he informed his friends bleakly, “We don’t think that Alex’s death was an accident after all.”

“My dad said that they think Alex committed suicide,” Kyle interjected gently, “Maybe that’s something we all should consider.”

At the gruesome revelation Isabel choked on her tears and Maria whimpered a keening moan of grief and turned into Michael’s waiting arms. Losing Alex was painful enough, knowing they would face day after day without his toothy grins and lame jokes but to think that he had taken his own life was…agonizing. And if Alex had been that unhappy why had none of his friends noticed and, because they hadn’t noticed, what kind of friends did that make them? However, while most of the gang was drowning in remorse and guilt Liz sought refuge in her anger.

“That’s a lie,” she fired sharply, “Alex did not kill himself and I can prove it!” She held up the concert tickets, flashing them around the room triumphantly as if they were a trump card. “These are to Beth Orton,” Liz clarified in answer to her friends’ bewildered stares, “Max and I found them in Alex’s room this afternoon. He bought them the day he died. Why would he buy concert tickets if he planned to kill himself, huh? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Liz, you went snooping around in Alex’s things,” Maria whispered, aghast, “God, that’s just…just creepy. What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“I needed to find answers,” Liz replied stiffly, “And I’m glad I did. We can’t let Valenti rule Alex’s death a suicide because that’s not what it was.”

“Well then what was it?” Michael queried carefully, “If it wasn’t suicide and it wasn’t an accident then what are you saying to us?”

“Murder,” Max revealed in a low, ominous tone, “We think Alex was murdered.”

“We?” Isabel prodded woodenly.

“Liz and I,” Max elucidated, “We think that maybe our enemies targeted Alex and…and killed him. And we think Tess might have something to do with it.”

“What?” Isabel cried, leaping up from the sofa in agitated horror to pace the length of the living room, “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! What’s the matter with you, Max? Our enemies targeting Alex? Tess? She’s been our friend…proven herself… Why would she just suddenly betray us? It doesn’t make sense! None of it makes sense!” She couldn’t bear the thought that Alex had died because of her…just as Grant had died because of her.

“You know what makes even less sense,” Michael interrupted glacially, leveling Max with a penetrating glower, “That you’re assuming Alex was murdered based on evidence as flimsy as concert tickets! Don’t you think that’s a leap?”

“That’s not all,” Liz interjected quietly, rising to stand up alongside Max, “We have this, too.” She extended a credit card slip to Michael, carefully watching his face for a reaction. Liz had procured the slip from Jerry the previous night and had been puzzling over it with Max ever since. She watched as Michael turned the recent over in his hands, frowning. “Do you see how he signed it?” Liz asked him.

“11100100100111011001? What’s with all the ones and zeros?” Michael queried in confusion, passing the receipt to Maria so she could inspect it as well.

“It’s some kind of a binary code,” Max said quietly, “We don’t know what it means.”

“Why would Alex write this,” Isabel muttered, as she scrutinized the receipt herself, “This is just too weird.”

“And what does it have to do with Tess?” Kyle demanded impatiently.

Liz and Max traded uneasy glances before Max plunged on. “Tess has been mindwarping me,” he announced grimly. As he expected a mild pandemonium broke out among the group. Max had a least a dozen questions coming at him at once, making it impossible for him to respond to a particular one. “Look, I know this is confusing,” he interjected mildly, “And hard to believe…but it’s definitely true.”

“How do you know?” Kyle asked, “I mean…I thought you weren’t supposed to be aware of a mindwarp. Besides that…why would she? What does she have to gain? You trust her now…we all do…”

“Kyle has a point, Max,” Isabel added quietly, “I mean before when Tess mindwarped you she was trying to insinuate herself into our group. That’s no longer necessary. She’s a part of us now. The two of you are even growing closer so why would she suddenly start manipulating you again, Max?”

“She didn’t suddenly start,” Max answered,” She’s been warping me for months now…since New York.”

“Again…how do you know?” Kyle reiterated, “Sounds to me like you’re just working on assumptions.”

Of all of them, Kyle was having the most difficulty with Max’s theory. In the past few months he had gotten to know Tess very well, possibly better than anyone else in their small group. Beneath her hard, brash exterior Tess Harding was vulnerable and lonely. Kyle knew how grateful she was for her second chance with the group. He couldn’t believe she’d blow it to start playing games again.

“Like I said…I know this is hard to believe,” Max replied, “But she was definitely mindwarping me. I came out of it the other night and now everything is much clearer.”

“What do you mean you came out of it?” Maria queried carefully, “And why do I get the feeling it has something to do with Liz?”

“Liz helped me to see,” Max explained vaguely, “And now I realize that all the visions I’ve been having about our home world…all the memories… None of them are real. Tess was planting them in my head.”

“But why?” Isabel cried, “Why would Tess want to make you remember all those things if they’re not real?”

“I don’t know,” Max replied.

“And what does it have to do with Alex’s death?” Michael followed up.

“I don’t know that either,” Max said in mild exasperation, “That’s what Liz and I are trying to figure out right now. But our instincts tell us that the two are definitely connected. We feel this, guys.”

“You and Liz, huh?” Michael echoed thoughtfully, “Since when did you two start working together? Since when did it become ‘we’ and ‘us’ again?”

“Yeah,” Maria tossed in, “Last we heard you and Liz were barely speaking and you were liplocking with Tess. Oh my God!” Maria clapped her hand over her mouth, her eyes widening with a horrified thought. “Was that kiss a mindwarp, too?”

“I don’t really remember it clearly,” Max replied quietly, “So I guess so…”

“So how did you and Liz figure all this out,” Isabel wondered softly. Though her question was completely innocent both Max and Liz blushed brightly and lowered their guilty gazes to the ground. Their surreptitious reactions didn’t escape their friends’ notice. “Oookay,” Isabel murmured with some concern, “So what’s going on, you guys?”

“It’s a…really long story,” Liz hedged uncomfortably.

“We’ve got time,” Michael replied brusquely, “Enlighten us.”

Liz rubbed her damp palms against her thighs and pulled up a barstool. After she’d situated herself she sighed heavily and said, “I suppose I should start at the beginning.”

“That would be nice,” Isabel intoned with biting sarcasm, “Because at this point I don’t know what the hell is going on and, considering we just buried Alex today, I really don’t feel like trying to puzzle it out. Just give us straight answers.”

“Okay, I’ll start,” Max murmured, reaching out to take hold of Liz’s hand. He waited until their fingers were firmly laced together before he elaborated. “First of all…Liz didn’t sleep with Kyle. That was a lie.”

Kyle flushed over his declaration, Maria coughed to cover her own embarrassment and Isabel and Michael merely stared at Max as if he’d grown a second head. “Maxwell, as much as that knowledge enriches our lives,” Michael quipped sardonically, “I really don’t see what it has to do with the problem at hand.”

“Liz set it up to make me think that she had slept with Kyle,” Max explained, “But the point is the reason why she set it up.”

“Before Whittaker died I had a visitor,” Liz added quietly, “It was Max. He had come from the future to warn me about the end of the world.”

The only people who didn’t look at her as if she had gone completely insane were Maria and Max. The rest of the gang clearly believed Liz was certifiable. Michael cleared his throat and surveyed Max with an “oh brother” look. “The future,” he murmured pensively, “Riiiight…”

“She’s telling the truth, Michael,” Max insisted, “Evidently, the Granolith can be modified and used as some sort of time machine because a future version of me did come back and visit Liz. I saw it myself.”

“You saw it?” Isabel parroted skeptically.

“Through…through flashes,” Max clarified with a self-conscious blush.

“I thought you and Liz only had flashes when you were intimate,” Isabel considered, causing her brother’s color to heighten considerably. When she noticed the crimson staining his cheeks Isabel grunted in belated understanding. “Oh, I get it now. I guess we have a pretty good idea how Liz broke through the mindwarp then.”

“That’s not important right now,” Michael interrupted dismissively, “So what did this…um…future version of you have to say, huh?”

“He said that your enemies had defeated you in his time,” Liz told him, “Because Tess had left and the foursquare was weak. Her absence made you vulnerable and you fell.”

“So that means we need her, right?” Isabel reasoned.

“That’s what Future Max said,” Liz explained, “He said that after Tess left Roswell you all were left exposed to your enemies. You couldn’t stand strong without her.”

“So why did she leave?” Kyle asked.

This time Max answered. “It was because of me,” he whispered, “Because of how I felt about Liz. Tess couldn’t deal with the way I shut her out so eventually she left Roswell.”

“Future Max said I had to prevent that from happening,” Liz joined in, “He said I had to find a way to make Max fall out of love with me so that he’d stop shutting Tess out and she wouldn’t leave town.”

“Ahh,” Kyle said with dawned understanding, “So that’s where I come in…why you wanted me to pretend to sleep with you…”

Liz confirmed his deduction with a guilty nod. “I…I knew Max would be there,” she said, “And I wanted him to see us together. I’m so sorry for using you, Kyle…I just didn’t see any other way.”

“So why did Future Max come to you for help?” Michael demanded, “Why not me or Isabel, huh?”

“I trusted Liz,” Max interjected gently, “I still do.”

“But if you and Liz aren’t supposed to be together…if that’s what drove Tess away in the first place…” Isabel puzzled aloud, “…what’s going on between the two of you now?”

“Okay, I’m not completely sure what was happening with Future Max or why he thought we needed Tess so much,” Max replied, “But I do know this. Liz and I belong together. She makes me better and stronger and I’m not giving her up so if this is the beginning of some whole debate about why we should be apart…save it! I don’t want to hear it anymore, not ever again!”

The room felt curiously silent with Max’s antagonistic response and no one, not even Michael, dared to dispute him. “We obviously can’t trust Tess,” Liz considered quietly, “She’s been playing around with Max’s head for months now. Who knows what she’s been doing to the rest of us.”

“So what do we do about her?” Maria asked.

Michael swiveled around to face Maria at her soft question, his brows drawing together in a suspicious frown. “You know…you didn’t seem particularly surprised about this whole Future Max deal,” he speculated to his girlfriend, “Why exactly is that?”

“I already knew,” Maria confirmed softly, lowering her eyes.

“I asked her not to tell anyone,” Liz rushed out when a look of betrayal slashed across Michael’s features, “Don’t be mad at her. I begged her to keep it a secret.”

“You should have come to us,” Isabel fired out angrily, “You had no right to keep this from us for so long, Liz! Who gave you the right to make our life decisions?”

“Boy, does that sound familiar,” Michael muttered, “I can definitely believe her and Max are meant for each other! They pull the same crap!”

“Stop it,” Max ordered in a low tone, “Liz did what she thought was right. She was trying to save our lives and secure our happiness and all at the expense of her own. She deserves your gratitude, not your accusations. If you can’t tell her thank you then just shut the hell up.” For a second time, he rendered his sister and best friend speechless.

“So what are we supposed to do in the meantime?” Kyle asked in frustrated confusion, “Obviously something weird is going on with Alex’s death and Tess is up to something but how do we know the two are related?”

“We don’t,” Liz answered softly, “That’s what we have to figure out.”

“Tess has to believe that her mindwarp is still working,” Max expounded grimly, “We’ve all got to play along but me especially and I need your help to pull it off.” He glanced over at Liz, bringing her hand to his mouth and brushing a kiss across the back. “I’d like to be alone with her as little as possible,” he told his friends, “I’m sure her tricks won’t work on me anymore but…just being in the same room with her makes me sick. Right now she thinks we’re together and…she’s going to expect things from me. I have to play along to an extent but as much as I can avoid being intimate with her on any level…I want to…”

“Max…I’m not knocking your plan or anything, dude,” Maria interjected carefully, “But won’t Tess realize that her mindwarp is no longer working on you? And if she does find out…what is she going to do about it?”

“I’m with Maria,” Isabel threw in, “I mean…is Tess dangerous. If she finds out you’re playing her, Max…”

“I don’t think she does it all the time…just whenever she feels the need to control me,” Max considered, “This afternoon at the funeral…I could feel her probing around in my head but I knew she was there and I knew what she was doing, what she wanted and I could pretend. But it didn’t affect me. I’ll be able to play along.”

“And you’re okay with this?” Maria asked her best friend, “I mean…he’s going to be pretending to be with Tess.”

“There’s no other choice. This is what we have to do,” Liz decided gruffly, “If Tess had anything to do with Alex’s death…anything at all…I want her to pay for it.”

“So then we’re really doing this…” Michael concluded ominously.

Max nodded, sweeping his gaze across his friends’ faces as he took his rightful place at Liz’s side. “We’re doing it together.”

Okay, this part contains dialogue from ITLAITB. Up until this point this fic has pretty much followed what happened on the show except where it regards Max, Liz and Tess. Now it's about to diverge completely. Just warning you.

Chapter 5

“It’s a two page yearbook spread, a collage that captures,” Maria explained to Mr. Whitman carefully as they perused the various pictures spread across the bed, “you know, everything Alex was.” While she spoke Maria was acutely aware of Max and Liz pawing through Alex’s belongings like a couple of foraging animals. They made an attempt to be discreet about it but Maria wouldn’t be surprised if Mr. Whitman didn’t think they were all lunatics.

“You guys are just great friends to Alex,” Mr. Whitman murmured with a wistful smile tempered by his grief. His eyes sparkled with tears as he regarded the three young people who had loved his son so much. “You still are good friends to him. It means a lot.”

“Thank you, Mr. Whitman,” Maria murmured, wanting to kick Max and Liz because they only seemed to be half paying attention to the man, “Thanks for letting us look through his stuff again.”

“It’s not a problem,” Mr. Whitman said, “Oh…and Liz, tell your folks that Gloria and I said thank you for the food they sent over.”

“Yes…sure…of course, Mr. Whitman,” Liz replied absently, thumbing through a stack on envelopes on Alex’s dresser, “What are these?” Max came to stand behind her, glancing over Liz’s shoulder to see what Liz had indicated.

“Those are condolence cards from floral arrangements,” Mr. Whitman answered, “You can take a look at them if you’d like. Gloria and I won’t mind.”

“From the Olsons?” Max read aloud over Liz’s shoulder, “Who are the Olsons?”

“They were Alex’s host family in Sweden,” Mr. Whitman explained, “It’s really awful to admit, but Gloria and I didn’t’ even think about contacting them. I guess we were still in shock over…over everything.”

Max and Liz traded thoughtful frowns over Chuck Whitman’s revelation. “Okay…so um…if you didn’t contact them,” Liz queried carefully, “Who did?”

Mr. Whitman shrugged, evidently not as intrigued by the unfolding mystery as Max and Liz seemed to be. “I’m assuming someone from the school contacted them,” he replied, “Alex’s entire trip was set up through the guidance office.”

“Is that normal?” Max wondered.

“I suppose so…we were just really happy that Alex had such an opportunity in the first place.” Mr. Whitman sighed, caught up in the memories of his dead son. “Well, I can see you kids are going to be here for a while. Why don’t I order you a pizza?”

“No, Mr. Whitman, please…that’s not necessary,” Maria protested.

“It’s nothing,” he replied easily, “What do you like?”

Maria fixed Max and Liz with another death glare but they remained oblivious as they were too preoccupied with murmuring amongst themselves over Alex’s condolence cards. “Pepperoni is fine,” Maria told Alex’s dad. When he was gone Maria strode over to Max and Liz and thumped them both on the forearms.

“What was that for?” Liz asked petulantly, rubbing the bruised spot.

“I can’t believe how rude the two of you were,” Maria hissed, “The man is grieving and here you two are tearing through his dead son’s belongings like you’re Crockett and Tubbs!”

“Maria, can you give us a break?” Max grumbled as Liz slid into Alex’s desk chair, “We’re trying to figure something out here.”

“Alex put every single thing about his entire life in this computer,” Liz recounted to them as she tapped into Alex’s database, “There’s got to be something in here to help us find out what happened to him.”

Max leaned over her, his mouth directly against her ear when he asked, “Do you know what you’re looking for?”

Liz knew that he hadn’t meant for the question or his manner to be provocative but the way his breath stirred so warmly against her ear, stirred her. Their eyes connected in a sizzling stare so intense that Maria blushed just watching them. “Um…no…” Liz whispered, feeling inexplicably compelled to hold Max’s stare, “I’ll know what I’m looking for when I find it.”

“Sure…” Max murmured in response, equally transfixed.

“Um…hate to break up the moony looks and everything,” Maria interrupted, commanding the lovers’ wandering attention, “But don’t you think we’re taking advantage of Mr. Whitman’s goodwill? He let us go through Alex’s things for the yearbook spread. We can’t just rifle through his stuff to look for clues. It’s immoral.”

“No,” Liz countered as she scrolled through Alex’s files, “What’s immoral is that someone murdered Alex. We already have three clues: the Thai receipt, the tickets, and his girlfriend Leanna. Maybe if we can find her address or something we can get an idea of what sort of mind frame Alex was in. Why don’t you start looking through his drawers, Maria? See if you can find anything?”

Maria balked at the suggested, visibly disgusted. “Um…no!” she cried sardonically, “Are you crazy?”

“Maria, come on,” Liz urged impatiently, “We only have a couple of hours here.”

“I can’t believe you’re okay with what she’s doing,” Maria accused Max in a dubious tone, “Don’t you know her theory? She thinks Alex’s death was alien related…specifically that your enemies might have targeted him.”

“I know that,” Max confirmed quietly, “I happen to think the same thing. That’s why I’m helping her.”

“But how does that make you feel, Max,” Maria pressed, “I mean…if Alex’s death is really alien related then doesn’t that sort of make it…your fault.”

“No!” Liz denied, abruptly swiveling around in the chair to regard them both, “It’s not his fault. I have never blamed him.” She pinned Max with an emphatic stare. “I have never blamed you, Max,” she said with soft sincerity, “Never.”

“I know,” he whispered, “But I do feel responsible, Liz. Because knowing me put Alex in danger and--,”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Liz interrupted fiercely, “This is not your fault and I won’t let you blame yourself. Alex was your friend because he chose to be. He knew the risks, Max. Please…please don’t take the responsibility onto your shoulders.” She framed his face in her hands, bringing him closer so that their foreheads touched. “I couldn’t take it if you did.”

“I’m trying,” he said thickly, tears welling in his eyes, “But it’s so hard. I try not to think about it but…I know that I’m the reason he’s dead. I couldn’t save him. I couldn’t help him when he needed me most, like he helped me… It is my fault…it is…”

“No…no…” Liz muttered tearfully, punctuating her denials with desperate kisses of reassurance.

Their exchange was so intimate, so heartfelt that Maria felt embarrassed to witness it, like an interloper. In an effort to preoccupy herself, she stared blindly at the computer screen when she noticed an odd icon highlighted on the screen. Frowning, she nudged her best friend.

“Liz, what’s this?”

“What?” Liz asked, reluctantly loosening her hold on Max and, after brushing away her clinging tears, turning in the chair to see what Maria indicated.

“This,” Maria clarified, pointing towards the computer screen, “What’s that?”

Max frowned as well, leaning in for a closer look. “Is that document…”

“Why would he lock this document?” Liz wondered to herself and then she explained aloud to her friend and boyfriend, “Inside this folder there are 5 subfolders and in the last one, there’s this document…which is, for some unknown reason, locked.”

“Why would he lock it?” Max asked.

“That’s the part that doesn’t make sense,” Liz muttered, trying to bypass the password prompt but failing, “None of the other files are locked. It’s like…like Alex was trying to hide it or something. Maria, do you have any idea what his security code…” She trailed off in her question, already seeing the answer written all over Maria’s face. “Tell me,” she cajoled.

Maria backed away from the computer desk, wildly shaking her head. “Oh no, Liz!” she protested, “This is going way beyond! You’re talking about breaking into Alex’s private things! I can’t be a part of this.”

“Don’t you want to know what really happened to Alex?” Max charged her softly, “Tell her the password, Maria…please…”

“Try…try ‘I, the stud,’” she sighed in defeat.

Liz quickly typed in the password and heaved a shocked gasp with what happened next. “Oh my God,” she uttered in disbelief, watching along with her friends as the computer screen suddenly began filling with the repeated words: Leanna is not Leanna.”

~~~***~~~***~~~

“Isabel, have you seen Max?”

When Tess Harding’s voice sounded behind her Isabel had to coach herself not to jump in reaction. She calmly shut her locker, closing her eyes briefly as she took a moment to compose herself. Though she pivoted around to face Tess with a dazzling smile inside Isabel was a nervous wreck.

She hadn’t slept a wink last night. When she wasn’t obsessing over the fact that Alex was gone she was obsessing over Tess and Liz’s Future Max revelation. Isabel was so confused. If Tess was integral to their group like Future Max had said then why was she betraying them now? It just simply didn’t make sense. Isabel also couldn’t imagine what Tess could have to do with Alex’s death but her brother seemed so adamant that there was a connection there that Isabel was reluctant to doubt him.

Consequently, that placed Isabel in a rather precarious position. Here she was facing Alex’s potential killer and she had to smile and pretend to be her friend when she really wanted nothing more than to choke the life out of her.

“Since when have you taken to chasing after my brother?” Isabel asked lightly as they started down the hall together.

“Since I’ve been looking for him all day in class and haven’t seen him once,” Tess answered, “I get the impression he’s avoiding me.”

“Avoiding you?” Isabel queried, hoping she didn’t sound as tense as she felt, “Why would Max be avoiding you?”

Tess shrugged. “The other night…at prom… Max kissed me,” she whispered.

Isabel glanced around at her sharply with the mumbled revelation. It wasn’t necessarily Tess’ words that caught her attention, but her tone. She didn’t sound triumphant, as Isabel would have expected, but angry, despondent and a little confused. A small frown marred the smooth skin between her eyebrows and her blue eyes took on a far off, pensive stare. It was almost as if she couldn’t understand the notion of kissing Max at all. Isabel wondered over her strange behavior.

“I thought maybe he felt weird about it or something,” she muttered in consideration, seemingly unaware of Isabel’s dissecting stare.

“And how do you feel about it?” Isabel found herself asking. She was getting a very strange vibe from Tess, something off…

“I think I feel weird about it, too,” Tess said, “I was thinking that maybe Kyle and I would hook up that night but… God, it was just bizarre the way things worked out.”

“You don’t sound happy with the development,” Isabel reasoned carefully.

“I don’t know if I am,” Tess replied absently, “Look…anyway…could you tell him I was looking for him? I think we really need to talk about some stuff.”

“Sure,” Isabel agreed and then because she remembered she was supposed to be keeping up pretense she added, “Um…hey…do you need a ride somewhere? I’ve got the jeep today since Max decided to ditch.”

“So that’s why he wasn’t here, huh,” Tess murmured, “Never took Max for one to cut school for no good reason.”

“He didn’t feel much like a crowd,” Isabel said.

“How about you?” Tess asked, “How are you holding up?”

For a second time Isabel found herself staring at Tess in astonishment. Either the girl was one hell of an accomplished actress or she was being sincere. Isabel didn’t know what to believe. Was Tess a traitor or a concerned friend? When Isabel stared down into her eyes she glimpsed no malice or guile lurking in their depths at all.

“I guess I’m getting along,” Isabel mumbled, “One day at a time, right…”

“I didn’t know Alex so well,” Tess whispered, “but he seemed like a really decent guy. I’m really sorry, you know…for your loss.”

“Thanks, Tess,” Isabel croaked, feeling confused by her vacillating emotions. She wondered briefly if Tess was mindwarping her, but then Isabel considered that if the possibility actually crossed her mind it was likely that she wasn’t. Which could only mean that something about Tess was not adding up. Isabel felt inundated with the need to find out exactly what that something was. “So…uh…about that ride… You need one?”

“I have my car,” Tess said, shaking her head in refusal, “Besides I think I need to be alone right now…sort some things out.”

“Sure,” Isabel agreed, staring after Tess as she walked away, a perplexed frown creasing her brow.

~~~***~~~***~~~

Tess shifted her books in arms, fumbling around with her car keys to unlock her door. She knew that she could take the simpler route of using her powers but doing things the human way made her feel more human and, strangely, since Nasedo had been killed Tess found the human way of doing things comforting. Tess was desperate for some comfort now. It seemed that her friends had gone back to treating her like a pariah and her thoughts and life lately were a confused jumble. Just when she thought she finally had everything figured out with her and Max, when she was starting to feel something more for Kyle than friendship her head went all screwy again. She couldn’t even find relief in her dreams because her subconscious seemed just as twisted.

She was so preoccupied with her inward turmoil that she was completely taken off guard when a hand clamped over her mouth, cutting off her terrified scream. Tess barely had time to struggle before the chloroform saturating the cloth in her captor’s hand rendered her unconscious. No one saw a thing as her limp body was dragged into a waiting car and carted away.

Chapter 6

“I think we need to talk to someone who knows something about binary codes,” Liz suggested to Max quietly as they sat together in the back seat of Maria’s Jetta. They were headed towards the UFO Center to drop Max off for work and running through their game plan at the same time. Liz leaned her head against his shoulder, gleaning comfort from the gentle way he stroked her cheek with the tips of his fingers.

“You’re right,” Max agreed, brushing his lips through her hair, “We definitely need to know what we’re dealing with. Maybe…Maybe Alex was trying to tell us something.”

“Yeah, but what? We need to be really discreet, Max,” Liz considered, snuggling closer, “We don’t want to draw a lot of attention by asking too many questions.”

Maria watched their interaction in the rearview mirror, taking some small comfort at seeing them wrapped so lovingly in each other’s arms, kissing and whispering as if they had never been separated at all. They nuzzled each other almost unconsciously, as if they were drawing strength from each other’s presence. Maria could definitely tell that there was something different about them now…something unbreakable. She heaved a rueful sigh. At least one good thing had come out of Alex’s death.

Her throat worked spasmodically with the thought. For days now Maria had been replaying her last conversation with him over and over in her mind, mentally searching for some clue of the coming tragedy. Alex had seemed so optimistic and he’d been so close to giving into Isabel’s wiles. Maria didn’t understand how it all could change so drastically in a matter of hours.

“Look, whatever happened to Alex happened while he was in Sweden,” Liz reasoned presently, “The ‘Leanna is not Leanna’ document we found was created on January 16th, while Alex was still in Sweden. That’s where the answers are.”

“But what could he have meant?” Max wondered, “‘Leanna is not Leanna?’ Why would he write that…what was he trying to tell us?”

“Maybe we should think about it in alien terms,” Liz said, “It could mean she’s a shapeshifter or a skin or some other type of alien that we don’t even know about yet.”

“There are four orbiting planets around Antar,” Max considered direly, “Who knows how many different races live on those planets. I didn’t make a lot of friends at that Summit in New York. I can believe somebody’s holding a grudge. Maybe one of them killed Alex.”

“God,” Maria cried from the driver’s seat, “Can you both just stop saying that!”

“What?” Liz asked, shifting upright at the quivering anxiety in Maria’s tone, “What is it, Maria?”

“I mean…dammit! We just buried Alex, like, four days ago and already we’re up to our necks in alien intrigue!” she rambled brokenly, “None of us have even had a chance to grieve, Liz, and you and Max are talking about alien conspiracies and murder… I just want to grieve my best friend, okay! I just want to remember him the way he was.”

“Don’t you think I want that, too?” Liz whispered, leaning forward against the driver’s seat, “I want to grieve for Alex…I want to miss him but…I can’t. I’m just consumed. Every time I close my eyes I think about how young he was and how bright his future was and I get so angry that someone took that away from him…from us! I can’t rest until they pay for what they did to him.”

Max rested his hand against her shoulder, transmitting comfort through his gentle touch. “We’re going to find out who did this, Liz,” he whispered.

“Okay…okay,” Maria conceded tearfully, “But is it possible that we’re looking at this all wrong? Maybe ‘Leanna is not Leanna’ isn’t alien related at all. Maybe she and Alex got into a fight or maybe she cheated on Alex and he realized she wasn’t the person he thought she was.”

“That’s a possibility,” Max reasoned, “But there’s just an element of weirdness to this that we can’t ignore.”

“Weirdness?” Maria echoed.

Max looked over at Liz, giving her a silent cue. “Okay…so I played around with the sequence of ones and zeros that Alex wrote on the delivery receipt the night he was murdered--,” Liz said.

“God, do you have to use that word, Liz?” Maria interrupted tiredly.

“The night he died then,” Liz amended, “Anyway…there were twenty altogether. Then I counted the number of letters in the phrase, ‘Leanna is not Leanna.’ It wasn’t a match but when I counted the spaces between the words the 17 letters plus the three spaces equaled twenty. I think there might be a connection.”

“What possible connection could there be, Liz?” Maria asked gruffly, “Please don’t take this the wrong way but…it sounds like you’re grasping at straws.”

“There’s something there, Maria,” Liz insisted softly, “I know it. I feel it.”

“Maybe we should give it a rest for now, Liz,” Max suggested quietly, pulling her back down against him, “Things will look fresher in the morning. You haven’t eaten or had a decent night’s rest in two days…take a break.”

“You’re right,” she agreed tiredly, curling into his body and closing her eyes. For a moment she simply lay there, listening to the gentle thumping of his heartbeat and breathing in the sweet, clean scent of him. It was a brief second of respite, something Liz hadn’t known for some time now. But it was destined not to last and Liz knew it. Her mind invariably began to wander again and Liz found herself gearing up for worry all over again.

“We need to talk about the other night,” she told Max without opening her eyes.

He flashed a furtive glance up at Maria, making sure she was preoccupied with driving before he answered Liz. “I know,” he said, “It’s just…with everything going on about Alex and…and Tess…it never seemed like the right time to talk.”

“Tonight after you get home from work,” Liz decided, “Come over to my place and we’ll talk then, okay?”

He kissed her, letting his lips linger against hers. “Okay.”

A few minutes later Maria reached the UFO Center and Max climbed from the backseat, pausing to stoop down in the passenger side window to thank Maria. “I appreciate you giving me a ride,” he told her, “I owe you one.”

Maria smiled at him. “What are friends for, Max?”

He and Liz shared another languid kiss over the passenger’s seat and several murmured “I love you’s” before Max disappeared into the UFO Center. Liz stared after him the entire way. Maria waited until after she had pulled in front of the Crashdown and parked the Jetta before swiveling around in her seat to confront Liz.

“Okay spill, girlfriend,” she demanded lightly, “What’s going on with you and Max?”

“You know what’s going on,” Liz replied self-consciously, “We’re back together.”

“Hmm…well maybe the more appropriate question would be…when?” Maria amended, “When did you two get back together? I thought the infamous liplock at prom had spelled the end.”

“I thought so, too,” Liz mumbled softly.

“So what happened to change your outlook?” When Liz seemed hesitant to share Maria whined, “Please, Liz…I need a bright spot, okay. Alex is gone…Michael is barely talking to me because of this whole Future Max fiasco…and that’s your fault, you know! Come on, you owe me. Have a heart.”

“Maria,” Liz groaned.

“You don’t have to give details or anything,” Maria rushed out, “Just tell me what happened, okay.”

“Okay,” Liz sighed, “But you can’t go blabbing to everyone.”

“Since when do I blab?” Liz leveled her with an “Are you kidding” look. “Okay, okay,” Maria grumbled, placing her hand over her heart, “I do solemnly swear that I will not repeat one word of what you’re about to tell me. Now spill your guts.”

“I went to him that night after I talked to Valenti,” Liz revealed in a whisper, “I was really upset about that whole suicide theory…totally messed up, you know. There was only one place I could think to go…to Max.”

“And?”

“I asked him if I could stay with him for a while,” Liz said, “He invited me in, listened to me rant and fed me some macaroni and cheese.”

“That’s it?” Maria grunted, clearly disappointed, “Max dishes you a bowl of macaroni and presto you’re back together. Kinda gives a whole new meaning to the slogan ‘thank goodness for Chef Boyardee.’”

Liz choked on her laughter, feeling odd that she should want to in the first place when Alex was dead. She knew she was being ridiculous but it just seemed wrong. “It’s more complicated than that,” she hedged.

“Then please share the details, my friend,” Maria replied, “Getting information out of you is like pulling teeth, Lizzie.”

“Okay…so somehow we got on the subject of prom,” Liz rambled on, rolling her eyes over Maria’s impatience, “I told him that I saw him kiss Tess and that…that I was fine with it--,”

“Which was a total crock of shit,” Maria interjected dryly.

“Are you going to let me tell it?” Liz demanded impatiently.

“I’m sorry…continue…”

“Anyway he seemed kind of stunned afterwards,” Liz recounted, “Like a deer caught in the headlights. I guess I expected him to say he was sorry or something but he just stood there staring at me so I decided to leave…”

“And then?” Maria prodded excitedly.

“And then he asked me to stay,” Liz replied wistfully, “He said that I needed to be held and that he needed to hold me. He put his arms around me, Maria, and it was like this perfect, unbelievable moment. I just cried and cried…like I couldn’t stop. It’s like all that stuff about Alex and him just came pouring out.

“He took me back to his bedroom and he held me the whole time. He made me feel so safe and loved…” As she spoke Maria could tell that Liz was no longer with her in the Jetta but back in that night, back in Max’s arms. “He stroked my hair, my cheek….he kissed my tears away…I felt so totally precious…treasured, you know?” Liz trailed off then, her cheeks flushing red as she realized she was waxing poetic and sounding a little lovesick. “We talked about things and…that’s when we got back together.”

Maria narrowed her eyes suspiciously on Liz’s flaming features. “Is that all that happened, Lizzie?” she queried, “You just talked and that’s all?”

Liz ducked her head and fiddled with the ends of her hair. “God, Maria…you act like I’m hiding something from you,” she brazened, “I told you everything, okay!” That first time with Max was still new and innocent in Liz’s eyes and she wasn’t quite ready to share it with anyone, even Maria.

However, her defensive reaction was as good as a flashing neon sign of guilty on her forehead. Maria was all over it. “Oh my god,” she whispered in shock, “You did, didn’t you? You slept with Max.”

Her face became even redder. “Maria…please,” she muttered.

Liz’s embarrassed plea cinched it for Maria. “You did!” she hissed in disbelief, “It’s all over your face. You and Max did it! Oh Liz, you’ve got to give me details.”

“I’ve gotta go,” Liz evaded, pushing from the car and avoiding Maria’s accusation altogether, “I’ll see you at school tomorrow, ‘k?”

“So I take that to mean your lover will be picking you up for school,” Maria teased irreverently. Liz simply rolled her eyes in response and trudged into the Crashdown, her eyes turned toward the UFO Center the entire way.

~~~***~~~***~~~

Tess awakened in groggy stages, concentrating assiduously on rolling her head upright. Her cranium felt weighted, abnormally heavy…like it was made of lead. It took an incredible amount of effort for her to lift it but she managed. Once she had, Tess slowly parted her eyelids…and screamed.

She might have gone on screaming forever if he hadn’t backhanded her violently across the mouth. Tess coughed and sputtered, licking at the trickle of blood that escaped the corner of her mouth; her piercing cries dying down to sobbing whimpers. She shuddered with the pain throbbing in the lower half of her face.

“That’s better,” Nicholas murmured in satisfaction, stooping down before her, “Are you ready to act like a good girl now?”

Tess shook her head wildly. She wanted to escape, wanted to run but she was tied securely to a chair. Glancing around her dim surroundings only increased her panic. Her mind only vaguely registered the fact she was in some sort of warehouse mainly because she couldn’t seem to process the fact that Nicholas was in front of her. “No…no,” she cried in abject terror, “You’re dead! You’re dead! I saw you die! I saw it!”

“Oh, you poor dear,” Nicholas clucked in artificial concern, fingering one of her bouncy blond curls, “Did you really believe those things I put into your pretty widdle head? My God…I’m better than I thought.”

“What are you talking about?” Tess demanded warily.

Nicholas yanked her curl hard enough to bring tears of pain to her eyes before rising to his feet. “You seem to have forgotten your mission, majesty.”

“What…what?” Tess groaned in weary confusion, “What in hell are you talking about? What mission?”

“You want to go home, don’t you?” Nicholas queried.

Tess nodded and then shook her head right after. “Yes…no…no!” she cried more definitively, “I don’t want to go back home. Earth is my home now.”

Nicholas grasped her head between his hands and forced her bleary blue gaze to his. “They don’t trust you here, majesty,” he cajoled seductively, “They want to hurt you. You must do what you must to survive…to get home…”

“Earth is my home,” Tess maintained weakly, “They…they love me now. They’re my friends…Kyle… Kyle loves me.”

“You are an Antarian queen,” Nicholas insisted, hypnotizing her with the smooth timbre of his voice, “You belong to Zan. Humans mean nothing to you… Their lives are expendable. They are insignificant…weak…”

“No,” Tess moaned, struggling against the warp, but the tendrils of Nicholas’ power easily entwined themselves in her already weakened mind, “Kyle…Kyle isn’t weak. He cares for me…he loves me… I love him.”

“He will turn on you,” Nicholas told her, “Betray you… You cannot trust him. Nothing else matters except the mission, majesty.”

“The mission,” Tess repeated obediently.

“And what is the mission?” Nicholas prompted.

“To secure an heir and return home,” Tess recited robotically.

Nicholas leaned up and pressed an almost loving kiss to her forehead as Tess dropped off into oblivion. “There’s a good girl.” He straightened then and turned to one beefy henchman. “Take her back to where you found her,” he ordered, “And keep an eye on this Kyle. If she’s getting strong enough to shake off the warps…we may have to use him as leverage to keep her in line.”

Chapter 7

Liz was waiting in her lawn chair for Max to arrive when he swung his legs over the edge of her balcony. “Sorry I’m late,” he whispered, striding over towards her, “It was an inventory night.” Liz met him halfway with an excited smile, turning her face up for his kiss.

Max cupped the back of her neck and sealed his mouth to hers with all the tender urgency he felt. Liz had fully expected his voracity because it was her own as well. When he slanted his mouth over hers Liz matched his fervor. It was as if they hadn’t seen one another for months rant than a mere matter of hours. When Max finally released her a long time later, his breath was escaping his lungs in hitching gasps and Liz’s dark eyes were glassy with desire.

“Wow,” she breathed, wilting against his chest.

Max chuckled into her hair over her monosyllabic response. “I guess I’ve had a lot stored up,” he laughed and he didn’t just mean for that day but also for the months they had spent apart. He had missed holding her and touching her so much Max didn’t know how he was supposed to stop now.

Liz nodded into his shirt, knowing instinctively what he meant without further explanation. “Me, too,” she whispered, “I feel the same.”

It was with a great deal of reluctance that she finally pulled from the circle of his arms. Liz took hold of his hand and led him over to her bedroom window. Max stopped short just of climbing completely through. “Where are your parents?” he asked, darting his eyes furtively about her bedroom.

“They’re asleep,” Liz said, “This is way past their bedtime.”

Max laughed at her little joke and climbed inside but it was easy to tell the sound was forced. He felt self-conscious and even a little excited to be in Liz’s bedroom. It had been months, after all. Max had gladly avoided being there because whenever he had the memory of her lying in bed with Kyle would invade his brain. Unconsciously, Max stared over at her bed now, surprised that the memory still stayed with him. He could still see them tangled in the sheets, whispering and smiling. However, some of the sting was taken away because he knew it was a set up now. Still…

“It was totally fake, you know,” Liz whispered, following the direction of his thoughts and his eyes, “Nothing happened between me and Kyle at all.”

He dropped his eyes to the floor, a little mortified that she’d discerned his inward ramblings so easily. “So…um…then you weren’t…um…naked…you know--,”

“—We had on our underwear,” Liz interrupted gently when he began foundering. She stepped forward to cup his chin, so that he could see her eyes. “We weren’t naked and we didn’t touch or kiss or anything, Max. It was a total set-up…completely platonic.”

Max gave a jerky nod of understanding. “When…when I saw you,” he recounted in a painful rush, “You both were lying there and you were laughing and I…I…” He closed his eyes as the memory pervaded him. “I didn’t think anything could hurt that much.”

“Max, I’m so sorry I hurt you.”

“Don’t,” he whispered, pressing his fingers to her lips before replacing them with his mouth. “Don’t apologize to me,” he told her, “I know why you did it and I’m completely grateful and amazed that you could love me so much…sacrifice so much just for me but… Don’t ever lie to me again, Liz, even if you think you’re protecting me. There needs to be complete honesty between us from here on out.”

“Complete honesty,” Liz agreed, nodding.

“And on that note,” Max sighed, clasping her hand and leading her over towards the bed so that they could both sit down, “We’ve got some things to talk about, Liz.” She nodded her agreement and folded her hands into her lap; however, no force on earth was going to make Liz start the discussion. Thankfully, Max let her off the hook.

“So we…uh…didn’t use a condom the other night,” he began awkwardly.

Liz cringed with embarrassment, fighting the reflexive urge to curl into a ball and hide her face in a pillow. “Um…no…we didn’t,” she confirmed weakly. She chanced a glance at Max and realized he looked as mortified as she felt. “You think I’m pregnant, don’t you?”

Max shook his head. However, Liz’s beginning sigh of relief suspended in her chest when he said, “I know you are.”

“You know it?” Liz wheezed in disbelief. He nodded grimly. “But…what…how? How do you know, Max? We…we only just slept together a few days ago.”

“This is weird to say,” he muttered, scratching his eyebrow in disconcertion.

“Just say it, Max,” Liz prompted gently, “I’m dating an alien…the weird factor is a given for me.”

Max inhaled a deep breath before forging ahead. “Okay…well…that night that we made love after it was over and we were lying next to each other… I was holding you and watching you sleep and I just knew.”

“Knew?”

“That you were pregnant…or that you would be…”

“Max,” Liz whispered with a small, indulgent smile, “That may have just been your guilty conscience working. I mean…you knew we didn’t use a condom so…well, it’s natural to assume that I’d get pregnant because of it but we don’t know for sure. We’ll just be extra careful from now on.”

“No, Liz,” Max denied, “I am sure. This morning when I was in class I felt it.”

“Felt what?” Liz queried slowly.

“Well…specifically speaking…I felt…I felt…” He nibbled at his lower lip, his face darkening with an embarrassed blush. Max heaved another sigh, screwed his eyes shut and just went for it. “Ifeltwhenmyspermpenetratedyouregg,” he revealed in a chaotic rush, “There…I said it.”

“What?”

“The cells are dividing now,” he told her, “Very, very fast. By the end of the week our baby will be a fetus, Liz.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t ask me how I know,” he said, “I just do. I know he’s in there and I know he’s growing. I can feel him…like he’s inside of me, too…”

“Him?” Liz echoed. Max was dropping too much on her at once. Sperm…fetus…our baby… The words rushed through her head in disjointed echoes. Liz felt swept up in a tumult, unsure of how she should feel or react. The only emotion that had no trouble manifesting itself was fear. “I’m pregnant?” Max confirmed her shaky question with an equally shaky nod. “Is it…is it…”

“…Human?” Max finished for her quietly, “Not completely.”

“Oh.”

“Do…do you want to have him?” Max forced out past the lump in his throat, “I’d understand if you didn’t.”

Liz stumbled from the bed on jellied knees and drifted over to her full-length mirror, staring at her reflection in the glass. The moment she spread her fingers wide over her abdomen it hit her full force. She was pregnant. She was pregnant with Max’s baby. A boy. A son.

That was miraculous enough alone. She had always wondered if she and Max were capable of reproducing and now she knew. Yet, as much terror and uncertainty and even outright remorse as the realization evoked, Liz could not stop the resulting smile from hovering on her lips. She couldn’t squelch the small shaft of joy she felt over the fact.

“A baby,” she murmured to herself, “My baby…”

“You never answered my question,” Max whispered, coming to stand behind her. He circled his arms around her middle and covered her splayed hands with his own, regarding her reflection. “Do you want to have this baby, Liz?”

Liz twisted a glance up at him. “Would you think I was a horrible person if I said yes?” she whispered. He didn’t need to answer her aloud. The way his body sagged against hers made his feelings more than evident. Max wanted their child just as much as she did.

“I mean I know it’s the last thing we need,” Liz considered, turning back towards the mirror, “We’re still in high school and we only recently got back together. Our lives are chaos right now, not to mention the fact that we don’t know a thing about alien pregnancies. This might put a definite crimp in your hide in plain sight strategy, you know.”

But even as she listed all the cons Liz’s mind kept revolving around one certain pro: she was having Max Evans’ baby. What else mattered? As she stared at their entwined reflections in the mirror, Liz admired how well they complimented each other. She thought they looked beautiful together and now…there would be a little person, the perfect combination of the two of them and Liz couldn’t bring herself to regret that.

“Our parents are gonna freak when we tell them,” she muttered.

“Your dad’s going to kill me,” Max predicted with a grimace, “And God…the others… Everyone will think we were irresponsible.” He sighed in chagrin at the thought. “I guess we were irresponsible.”

“We weren’t thinking,” Liz whispered, “You were grieving and so was I.”

“I should have stopped,” Max mumbled against her temple, “But when I was inside you, Liz…you felt so warm…and soft and…wet… I couldn’t stop, Liz…I couldn’t….”

Shivering with his words, Liz turned against him, wrapping her arms loosely about his waist. “Maybe we should wait to tell people,” she suggested, “Just until we figure out what’s going on with Alex and Tess…”

“Liz, your pregnancy is progressing fast,” Max reasoned, “I don’t know how long we’ll be able to hide it.”

“As long as we can,” she whispered.

He started to protest further but Liz didn’t want to let reality creep in just yet so she pressed her mouth to his and slipped her tongue between his lips. He responded to her immediately, his hands sweeping her closer as they were both caught up in the kiss…in each other. There were already so many things weighing them down, so many things to worry about. They wanted to take this magical moment between them and just freeze it. They wanted to hold on to the joy flooding their bodies as long as they could.

Max hardly put up a fight as Liz nudged him towards the bed, devouring his mouth while she simultaneously pushed his UFO Center vest from his shoulders and tossed it aside. They broke their kiss briefly to pull Max free of his t-shirt and toss it away before fusing their mouths together once more. Liz roamed her fingers over his silken skin, tracing the corrugated lines of his chest and abdomen. “You’re so beautiful, Max.” Max groaned under her light touch and her sweet words.

He leaned over her, nuzzling against her cheek, her eyes…brushing light kisses all over her face. “Shouldn’t I be saying that to you?” he teased breathlessly before finding her lips for another kiss. “I want you, Liz,” he murmured, kissing a hot trail down her throat. His hands swept beneath her shirt, caressing her hot skin. Between them, his cock swelled to life, throbbing in the soft hollow of Liz’s belly.

“Let’s lie down,” she whispered in invitation.

“Are you sure your parents are asleep?” Max whispered as they fell onto her bed, tangled in each other’s arms. He pushed aside her pajama top and fastened his mouth to her bare nipple, swirling his tongue around the aching peak.

“Just be…just be quiet,” Liz gasped when he sucked hard, “Oh, Max…oh god…”: She tunneled her fingers through his hair, arching into his mouth and closing her eyes with the sensation he evoked.

Max cupped the underside of her breast roughly, pushing it deeper into this open mouth. He couldn’t explain the sudden hungry intensity within him. He didn’t just feel compelled to join his body with hers, but to possess her. The need within him was primal, an inexplicable urge to brand her as his own and to give himself over just as completely…

He couldn’t get enough of tasting her skin. Max slowly removed her top so that he could trace his tongue over every freckle, every line. He delighted in Liz’s excited shivers of pleasures, was spurred on by her whimpered pleas for more. When he finally lifted up on his knees to remove her pajama bottoms he took his time dragging the shorts down her hips. His throat worked spasmodically when Max settled his eyes on the dark triangle between her legs. Following his stare, Liz took hold of his hand and placed it between her legs.

“You don’t have to be afraid to touch me, Max,” she whispered.

Max lowered his eyes with a guilty flush. “I…I’m not afraid,” he denied in a stammer, unconsciously massaging her swollen center.

“Then what?” she moaned in question, leaning up onto her elbows to regard him. “I mean…it’s a little late for us to start getting embarrassed around each other, don’t you?” She flicked a laughing glance between her nude body, his half nude body and his hand cupped against her sex.

“You’re right…” he agreed, giving into the temptation to push his finger inside her. Their reactive moans of gratification mingled. “Do you like when I do this?” Max whispered, watching her face as he slipped his finger further into her creamy center. Liz attempted a jerky nod. “I like it, too,” he mumbled, sliding in yet another finger and finding an easy rhythm as he slipped them in and out of her. “Oh Liz…you feel so good…”

Somewhere in the back of his mind Max recognized that they didn’t have time for this sort of leisurely foreplay. Her parents were less than twenty feet down the hall, they were supposed to be keeping their relationship a secret yet Max couldn’t find the willpower to leave her bed. Consequences didn’t matter. Feeling Liz beneath him, feeling the slick heat of her desire for him obliterated all reason. He needed to become one with her, needed to feel her snug, liquid heat pulsating around him.

His cock leapt and twitched with anticipation, straining within the confines of his boxers. Max worked his fingers faster, deeper, growing more aroused with Liz’s increasing wetness. Max couldn’t believe how moist she was, couldn’t believe it was all for him. His fingers made a moist popping sound with each foray into her body.

Liz undulated her hips in time with the thrusts of Max’s fingers as his touch created a satisfied ache within her for something more. But it was when he pulled his glistening fingers from her body and brought them to his lips that Liz knew she’d be unable to wait much longer. Watching Max dart out his tongue for a tentative lick simply sent her over the edge.

She reared up on her knees to crush her mouth to his in a burning kiss and grappled to free him from his khakis and boxers. When his erection finally sprang free they both sighed with relieved anticipation. Liz wrapped her fingers around his quivering cock, stroking the hot length of him just as she stroked his tongue with her own.

“I need you inside me, Max,” she moaned into his mouth, “Please…now…”

Liz fell back into the twisted bed sheets, pulling him down with her so that he settled between her thighs. Only for a split second was his attention diverted and that only when he decided to click off her nightstand lamp. Once he was done, Max lost himself in Liz, his lips seeking hers again. Max brushed the tip of his penis across her opening before finally breaching the lips of her sex and sliding himself home. There was a slight burning as Liz’s body stretched to accommodate the size of him but as Max pushed inside her completely she gradually adjusted to the fullness.

Together they found an easy rhythm. Max penetrated her silken heat slowly, careful to minimize the squeaking of her bed and the knocking of her headboard. But it was difficult to keep such a pace…not when Liz’s throaty groans for more were sounding in his ear, not when her sweet vaginal walls contracted around him again and again, not when he wanted to bury himself so deep inside her that they fused as one…

Liz clawed at his back, lifting her hips desperately for more of him. “Max, please…” she begged incoherently, needing him deeper…harder…faster… “Oh God…” she moaned.

“Liz…Liz…” he rasped against her cheek, rocking into her as gently as he could, “I don’t want to hurt you…”

“You won’t,” she promised, fitting the arches of her feet against the balls of his calves and lifting her hips high, sending him ever deeper, “I want you, Max…all of you… I want you in every way…”

He surged into her then, driving hard, pumping his hips in an indiscernible motion. He stroked her with hungry need, fisting his fingers into her hair so he could angle her head back for a kiss. Liz was hot and eager, taking every inch of him, her entire body jarring with the force of his grunting thrusts. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, meeting the demanding heave of his hips, driving him towards the brilliant explosion with her eager response…driving them both…

The rush of his orgasm spurred her own. Liz felt him lengthen and harden within her a split second before his climax spurted free. Max moaned long and low with the sensation, his entire body shuddering as he came. Liz ground up into his body, her center quivering again and again as she came around him…over him…bathing the fevered skin of his cock with her wetness.

It was a long, long time before either of them moved. Very gradually, Max untangled his fingers from her hair and lifted his flushed face from her throat. “I love you, Liz…” he whispered, resting his forehead to hers so that he could stare down into her darkened gaze, “I love you so much.”

“I love you…” Liz echoed, smiling. She sifted her fingers through his sweat-dampened hair and pulled him closer for a kiss. “I wish you could stay all night.” Her words were husky, imploring and triggered the lazy stirring of Max’s cock inside her.

He rocked into her gently with revitalized arousal. “Me, too.”

They sought out each other’s lips in the darkness, fusing together for a wet kiss. Max took her off guard by suddenly reversing their positions so that he lay beneath her. Even in the dimness Max could make out the widened flare of Liz’s eyes. “You be on top,” he propositioned huskily, “I want you to ride me, Liz.” He felt emboldened to say such things because of the dark. Somehow he felt less embarrassed.

Liz braced her hands against his chest, uncertain. She leaned low over him so that her hair fell across their bodies like a silky canopy. “What do I do?” she whispered nervously.

“Whatever you want,” he said. Max slid his hands over her breasts, massaging the soft flesh against his palms. Liz bit back a small moan. “Whatever you do doesn’t matter,” Max gasped, “I like it all, Liz…”

When she finally relaxed enough to slide down over his length completely Max groaned in satisfaction. “Oh, Liz…that feels so good…” However, it didn’t escape Max’s attention how Liz held herself stiff over him. He slipped his hands down her body to caress her thighs. “Does it hurt?” he whispered.

She shook her head. “I…I just feel more of you,” she explained with a grimace, “You’re so deep inside me, Max…”

“Hmm,” he agreed, lifting his hips to push even deeper. Liz gasped in discomfort. “Do you want to stop?” Max asked, forcing himself to remain still beneath her. Again she shook her head, but Max could see her nibbling on her lip. She wasn’t comfortable and he knew it. “Here…” he murmured, curving his hands around her waist to draw her down against him, “…lean forward a little…”

As he strummed her spine lightly, Liz did as he said, surprised that much of the pressure eased with her shift in position. “Is that better?” he asked when their noses were within inches of one another. Their lips merged in an open mouthed kiss.

Liz answered by pumping against him, circling her pelvis against his suggestively. She gasped at the unexpected pleasure, the delicious friction the movement caused both inside and outside. Liz quickened her rocking, seeking more.

Max was more than willing to heed to her unspoken demand. He pressed his palms against the soft swell of her buttocks, spearing into her in quick, shallow thrusts. Each foray inside her body drove Liz closer to the edge. She pressed down to meet his driving hips, pushing herself up a bit with each penetration to give him greater access.

It wasn’t very long before Liz had adjusted to the feel of him and she reared back on her knees, riding him like he wanted. Liz found something wildly erotic about making love to Max this way. She felt empowered, omnipotent… Max’s fevered moans filled her with a heady rush of excitement. She basked in the pleasure she was giving him and it fueled her own. Liz didn’t need to see his face to know she was making him feel good. His eyes sparkled in the darkness, burned hot and intense as he watched their bodies join again and again. His fingers bit into her thighs as he began to loose control, his hips jackknifing beneath her.

Liz curled her fingers over his, riding him hard and following the jerky rhythm of his hips. Heat began to unfurl in her belly and her limbs began to tingle with her impending climax. “Yes…yes, Max…”

Feeling his own orgasm approaching, Max reached down between their bodies to feather Liz’s swollen clitoris, taking her over the edge with him. Their soft cries bounced off her bedroom walls and echoed in their ears. The second climax left them drained, weak and teetering on the edge of sleep. Only the fear of having her parents walk in on them kept Max from drifting off completely. As reason slowly reasserted itself in his passion-clouded mind, Max reluctantly pulled from her body. Liz groaned in protest.

“I wish I could stay,” he sighed regretfully, rolling from the bed to gather up his discarded clothing, “But it’s already after midnight. My folks will be wondering where I am and your parents are right down the hall. We shouldn’t antagonize them, Liz…especially because…”

“…because soon we’ll be telling them they’re going to be grandparents,” Liz concluded knowingly.

“Yeah,” he confirmed softly, “We should…just tread lightly, you know?”

As he perched himself on the edge of the bed to dress Liz shifted onto her side to tenderly finger the angry abrasions she’d left on his back. “Sorry about these,” she mumbled in chagrin, leaning forward the kiss each raised welt.

He tossed a grin at her over his shoulder. “Are you kidding? Those are the best kinds of war wounds,” he teased. And then he cupped the back of her head and brought their lips together for a searing kiss, his tongue sweeping possessively through her mouth before retreating back into his own. “I want you to remember that when I’m gone,” he told her fiercely, “I want you to miss me and think about me tonight…just like I’ll be missing and thinking about you.”

“I will,” she promised.

Her lips were still tingling and swollen minutes later when she stood on her balcony and watched him drive away.

Chapter 8

Not even the reaming Max received from his parents for being late and not calling could wipe away the glorious satisfaction at having spent the last two hours in Liz Parker’s arms. Despite the fact his father’s diatribe was still ringing in his ears, Max drifted off for his bedroom with a happy smile plastered on his lips. He was sure that nothing could wipe that smile from his face until he pushed open his door and found Tess Harding sitting on the edge of his bed.

“Where have you been?”

Max’s satisfied smile collapsed then. In that second all his good humor faded into nothing as every instinct he had prickled with alert. His first impulse was to tell her to get the hell out. In fact, it was just on the tip of his tongue but Max restrained himself at the last minute. He remembered that he was supposed to be playing along with Tess’ game and, therefore, he forced himself to relax in her presence.

“Tess,” he said, coming more fully into his room and carefully closing the door behind him, “How did you get in here?” Max hoped his tone was neutral, devoid of any confrontation whatsoever. Apparently not because Tess’ forehead screwed up in a pensive, little frown.

“Through the window,” she whispered, watching him closely with her speculative blue eyes, “You act like you’re not happy to see me, Max.”

He couldn’t possibly respond with the truth and he couldn’t quite form a lie either so Max said instead, “I’m just surprised.”

“That was sort of the point,” Tess laughed, “So you didn’t answer my question…where were you? I’ve been waiting nearly an hour now.”

Max wanted to retort that he hadn’t invited her in the first place so why should he care but he bit down against the response. “I went out for a drive,” he told her instead, “I needed to clear my head.” Max realized sub-consciously that he had yet to move away from the window but no force on earth could make him venture any closer to her. Disgust aside, he was afraid if he got any closer she would see the truth in his eyes. She’d know how he felt and where he’d been and then it would be all over.

“You’re not still beating yourself up over what happened to Alex, are you?” she asked, slipping from the bed and crossing over to where he stood, “You have to realize that none of that was your fault.”

“And who’s fault was it then?” Max volleyed back in a probing whisper. He’d meant the query as an accusation but Tess mistook his question for self-flagellation.

“You shouldn’t blame yourself,” she whispered, stepping forward as if she meant to embrace him. Max danced out of her reach. “Max, what is wrong with you?” Tess asked with some exasperation, “You’re acting all weird!”

“I haven’t showered!” he replied a little wildly, “And I’m totally dirty from work…”

“How dirty can you get working in a museum?” Tess inquired dubiously.

“It was hot,” he prevaricated stiffly, “I…I sweated a lot.” She just stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Okay…okay,” Max said, trying to smooth over the matter before she got suspicious, “Why don’t you just wait here while I shower? We’ll talk when I’m done.”

Tess’ gaze became darker as she looked his body over with deliberate interest. “Maybe I could come in with you,” she suggested, “And we won’t have to talk at all.” However, the moment the words left her mouth Tess frowned inwardly, wondering what the hell had possessed her. Suddenly, she was wondering why she was there, why she was all but throwing herself at Max. She couldn’t remember. The moment felt wrong and strange yet…Tess felt compelled to be there. She felt drawn to Max even as she didn’t want to be. It was as if some invisible string was pulling her along.

She sidled up against him, trailing her fingers down his chest. Tess could feel the tension in him; feel him resisting the urge to leap away from her. He didn’t push her away but she suspected he wanted to. There was so much emotion going on behind his eyes. However, rather than being offended by the knowledge, Tess sympathized. She wanted to leap away from him as well but she couldn’t seem to do it. She couldn’t make herself put the distance between them even though she wanted to. A voice whispered in her head to seduce him even while her heart screamed at her to leave.

“Don’t you think that’s a great idea, Max,” she murmured huskily, “Wouldn’t you like for me to join you?”

“I don’t think so, Tess,” Max said, scooting around her and scurrying to the far side of his room, “We might…um…wake up Isabel and… Well, given the circumstances I…I just don’t think it’s the right time, you know?”

“I guess you’re right,” she agreed, both relieved and frustrated by his answer.

Tess felt like she was being torn in two. On the one hand she was confused and frightened and she just wanted to run. She didn’t want to be here in Max’s bedroom. Tess would have much rather preferred vegging on the couch with Kyle while watching action flicks and binging on buttery popcorn. But there was also the undeniable part of herself that needed to be there with Max. She had to stay…it was a matter of duty.

“Okay, so I’ll wait out here for you then.”

“Yeah,” Max agreed, almost sagging with relief. He didn’t want her to stay at all, but anything was preferable to her being present while he showered.

“You won’t be long?” Tess prompted as he started back off for the bathroom.

“Five minutes tops,” he promised, bending to scoop up his pajamas before falling back through the bathroom door.

Once he had gained some sanctuary he closed the door and locked it. Though Max knew that wouldn’t keep Tess out if she really wanted to join him, he gleaned a little comfort from the fact regardless. He started stripping off his clothes hastily, eager to get in, wash up and get out. The sooner he was clean, the sooner he could get Tess out of his bedroom.

His initial plan had been to come home and relive his night with Liz in slow detail. Max hadn’t been in any hurry to shower. He had rather liked Liz’s scent on his body. However, now he didn’t have a choice anymore. Tess was a smart girl. It wouldn’t take her very long to recognize the smell of sex and then he’d have some serious problems on his hands.

When he exited the bathroom four and half minutes later Tess had reprised her perch on his bed. However, for one brief, unguarded moment, he caught sight of her confused grimace. She was staring down into her lap and muttering something unintelligible under her breath. Something about her manner put Max on edge. Frowning, he crept more fully into his room.

“Tess?” She jerked upright, regarding him with stunned blue eyes. “You okay?”

She worked her mouth ineffectually, as if she had something she wanted to say but she didn’t quite know how to put it. Finally, she ran a shaky hand through her hair and emitted a small laugh laced with tension.

“I…I didn’t happen to tell you why I came by here tonight, did I?” she asked anxiously.

Max shook his head and shrugged, his apprehension growing with her strange mood. “Don’t you remember?” he asked her.

Tess scooted from his bed, her eyes darting about his room in nervous agitation. “I don’t even remember how I got here,” she mumbled under her breath. The last clear memory she had was talking with Kyle when she got home from school. After that…it was all a blur. Tess mumbled to herself, trying to work out her confusion on her own, unaware of how crazy her actions made her seem. She didn’t intend for Max to hear her incomprehensible mumblings but he did.

Watching her, Max’s confusion and unease grew by epic proportions. “Your car’s not out front,” he told her, “I would have noticed when I pulled up.”

“So I must have walked,” Tess surmised with a frown. She began slowly pacing the length of his bedroom. “I…I don’t remember walking over here.”

“Don’t you?”

“I…I did want to talk to you earlier,” she remarked absently, “I looked for you in school but…but you weren’t around.”

“I ditched my last three periods.”

“Yeah…Isabel told me,” she replied gruffly, “But I…I wasn’t going to come over…at least…I didn’t think I was… Kyle…I think he asked me to a movie…said he wanted to talk to me. Yeah…I think we were supposed to go to a movie.”

“Tess?” Max whispered uneasily, “You’re not making any sense. I didn’t ask you over here, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

She whipped around to face him then, evidently growing more and more panicked as the seconds wore on. “What?” And then her grimace deepened as she took in his appearance. “Why is your hair all wet?” she demanded suddenly.

Max frowned at her. “I…I took a shower, remember?”

“Did I just get here then?” she asked. She couldn’t imagine Max would take a shower while she waited in his room. Tess thought they were getting close but not that close.

Max felt as if he’d stepped into an alternate universe. Tess’ strange behavior was wigging him out, but more than that…the fact that he believed on some level that she was being sincere freaked him out even more. Even as a part of him recognized the foolishness of buying into what could be a perfectly executed act Max couldn’t ignore the gut instinct that she was not putting him on right then. In that moment Max could totally believe that Tess didn’t know what the hell was going on. She seemed to be struggling to make sense out of the situation just as he was.

“Tess, you’ve been here for a while already,” he informed her gently, “You said you’d been waiting for me for an hour.”

“I did?”

Max inched closer to her, his concern for her warring with his natural mistrust. His heart wouldn’t let him ignore her anguish even as he reasoned in his mind that the impulse was foolishness. “You…you mentioned that you were looking for me earlier,” he prodded shakily, “You know…at school…”

“I wanted to talk to you about prom,” she said, still frowning in bewilderment.

“What about prom?” Max queried tentatively. He knew that if she started spouting on about their destiny that she was probably manipulating him. However, what she said to him next nearly knocked him flat on his ass.

“Well, I…I think that kiss…it was a mistake, Max,” she told him bluntly, “That’s what I meant to tell you. I just don’t think anything should happen between us.”

His head was spinning. She had gone from trying to seduce him to telling him the kiss at prom was a mistake? Max didn’t know what the fuck was going on and it was starting to scare him. “You think it was a mistake?” he prompted scornfully, “Since when?”

“Since always,” she snapped, made defensive by his snide tone, “Look…I know you were messed up about whatever happened between you and Liz. You were hurt…probably looking for a way to soothe your ego… I totally get that but…it was just weird, Max, and…and wrong. You’ll probably be surprised to know it but…I’m over all that destiny stuff. At first I really believed it but since Nasedo died I’m beginning to see there’s more to life than destiny and duty.” She thought about Kyle as she said that, remembering the past Christmas she’d just spent with him and Jim. “I like where I am now,” she confessed softly, “I’m happy.”

Max stared at her as if he didn’t know who the hell she was and, at the moment, he didn’t. Was she this mindwarping bitch who had been manipulating him since the moment she came to town or was she this confused waif she presented herself as now? Max had to know the truth or the uncertainty would eat him alive.

The fact was that Tess had been mindwarping him for months now. That much Max knew was true. Yet, if he were to believe her claims that she no longer cared about their destiny, what possible motivation would she have for fucking around with his head? If she wasn’t after destiny then what kind of game was she playing? He decided to confront her about it.

“Okay, Tess,” he murmured speculatively, “You want me to believe that you’re done with our destiny, is that right?” She nodded vigorously. “Then tell me why you were trying to come on to me not ten minutes ago?” he demanded shortly.

“Excuse me? You think I…I tried to what?” she sputtered in disbelief.

“You offered to join me during my shower,” Max clarified brusquely, “You were all over me so what the hell was that about, huh?”

Tess didn’t know whether to laugh or slap him silly. What he was telling her couldn’t be true. She might not remember how she’d come to be in his room or why she had come in the first place but surely she’d remember making a pass at Max. The very idea seemed ludicrous to Tess because she hadn’t thought about Max that way in months. The day he’d extended his friendship to her was the day Tess gave up on the notion of destiny. If she had to have a choice between Max as her ordained lover and him as a reliable friend, Tess knew she would choose the latter hands down. Yet, it was evident Max believed something different. He thought she was still after him.

“Max…” she whispered in agitation, “I’m…I’m sure you just misunderstood my intentions or something. I’m not after you. I haven’t been for a long time now.”

“You’ve been mindwarping me again,” he accused flatly, “I know it.”

“No,” she cried, backing away with a wild shaking of her head, “No! I wouldn’t do that to you again! We’re friends now, Max!”

“Are we, Tess?” he demanded harshly, “Or are you just using me to suit your agenda just like last time?”

Tess glared at him with eyes glistening with betrayal and tears. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Max,” she mumbled in angry hurt, “But I thought we were friends. I thought you trusted me.”

“I thought I could trust you, too,” he retorted, “Until I realized that you’d been planting false memories in my head and trying to make me believe things about you and me that weren’t true!”

“I didn’t do that,” Tess gasped, his accusations clouding her brain and blurring her perceived reality, “No!”

What he was accusing her of was beyond outlandish. Of course it had to be. She was beyond those sorts of tricks now. She had a family who loved her, friends, and a future she wanted… She wouldn’t screw it up. She wouldn’t. And yet, simultaneously, the allegations struck a familiar chord within her. Tess sensed the truth. Even now she could hear the voice whispering on the edge of her consciousness: seduce him…take him…make him see. You are his Queen. He is yours. Yours. Tess shook her head against the words, denying their veracity, refusing the charge. Her head throbbed painfully with the effort.

Tess didn’t realize her nose was bleeding until she felt a trickle of liquid across her upper lip. She darted out her tongue to catch the fluid, grimacing at the coppery taste. Mildly panicked, she searched around blindly for something to staunch the flow and a few seconds later Max was pressing a t-shirt into her hands. Tess gratefully pressed the shirt to her bleeding nose, flicking Max with a wary glance. He stared at her in open horror.

“What? It’s just a nosebleed,” she said, “I’m not mindwarping you into seeing it if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Max shook his head. “No, Tess… Your…your ears…” he stammered fearfully, “…your eyes, oh God…”

Shaking with his implications, Tess whirled for the mirror over his dresser and immediately recoiled from her reflection. It was just as Max had said. Not only was her nose bleeding, but her eyes and ears as well. Tess touched the meandering line of blood along her jaw and cheeks with trembling fingers. “What’s happening to me?” she muttered plaintively.

“Tess?” She swiveled around at Max’s soft whisper. “Let me…let me help you,” he implored, “Let me heal you. Something’s wrong…”

“No…” she whispered, backing up towards his window and glowering at him with wary blue eyes, “You never really trusted me. I see that now. You never accepted me. He was right…he was right…”

“Who was right, Tess?” Max asked cautiously, “What are you talking about? You’re scaring me.”

She began muttering to herself again, playing out some odd, maniacal conversation in her head. Without warning she made a lunge for his open window but Max caught hold of her wrist, holding her back. In that instant an involuntary flash of images transferred between them. Max could see that this wasn’t Tess’ first cranial bleed. She had been having them for months now, mopping up the blood before going on as if nothing had happened at all. The flash only confused Max all the more and he didn’t know what to believe anymore.

However, the flash Tess received from him was much more clarifying. Tess saw where he’d been that night. He had been with Liz, tangled in her arms…in her sheets. They had made love and it hadn’t been the first time. Tess knew the bond that formed between them…a bond that was now unbreakable. Now everything had changed…

Tess jerked from his hold, teetering in the ledge of his window. “You finally have what you want, Max!” she spat angrily, “Now leave me alone! Leave me alone!” Max watched helplessly as she disappeared into the night, running off for parts unknown.

He knew he should probably go after her but the first thing Max could think to do after Tess had gone was to call Liz. Tess was obviously confused and in the midst of some kind of physical and emotional breakdown. Evidently, whatever she’d seen in the flash had something to do with Liz and Max didn’t have to think very hard to figure out what that something had been. It was a definite likelihood that Tess knew he and Liz were lovers and she’d been visibly shaken by the knowledge. In her unpredictable state, there was no telling what she would do.

Liz answered her cell phone on the second ring and mumbled a sleepy hello.

“I’m coming over,” Max declared implacably as he crammed his bare feet into his sneakers and shrugged into his jacket, “Be ready for me.”

“Huh…what are you talking about, Max?” she grunted with a yawn, “It’s nearly two-o’clock in the morning. I thought we’d agreed to be careful.”

“Tess was just here,” Max informed her grimly, “She was waiting for me when I got home and…she was acting all weird. I don’t know what’s going on with her or what she might do.”

“Should we inform the others?” Liz asked, made instantly awake with the revelation.

Max debated about that for a moment. He didn’t want to panic his friends needlessly but then if Tess was on a rampage he wanted them to be prepared. “Call Maria and Kyle,” he sighed after a moment, “I’ll take care of Michael and Isabel.”

“Maybe we should all meet together,” Liz suggested fearfully, “I don’t have a good feeling about this, Max.”

“We’ll do that first thing in the morning,” Max said, “Right now I just want to get over there to you as soon as possible. I only wanted you to know I’m on my way. I don’t want you to be alone tonight.”

“Okay,” Liz agreed, “I’ll be waiting.”

Chapter 9

Maria made a beeline for Max and Liz the moment they entered school premises. Even from a distance they could discern her agitated demeanor. “Have you guys heard from Kyle at all?”

“He’s not here yet?” Liz burst out in immediate panic. Maria shook her head and Liz tossed a frantic glance up at Max. “We all agreed to meet here at 7:30 a.m. This is not good, Max.”

“Wait…don’t panic,” Max soothed, not wanting the situation to escalate any more than it already had, “He probably just overslept. I doubt he got much rest last night with everything going on. We were all pretty on edge.”

“I’ll say,” Maria muttered in agreement, “I ended up staying the night with Michael and I still didn’t get a wink of sleep. I kept expecting crazy Tess to put in an appearance and try to hack us to death. It was awful.” Following that glib statement, Maria studied Max and Liz closely, noting the purple smudges of fatigue beneath their eyes. “I don’t guess you guys got much rest either, huh? You both look like refried crap in a can.”

“Gee…thanks, Maria,” Max and Liz returned simultaneously while exchanging guilty glances. They had, indeed, spent most of the night awake and not solely because of worry. Max had come over just as he promised and with the intention of keeping watch out on Liz’s balcony. She had gone out there to join him, however, once they were together, huddled beneath a thick blanket “watching” had been the furthest thing from either of their minds. Afterwards they had snuggled close to talk about the baby, their futures and how they would tell their parents the truth.

That problem had seemed so infinitesimal in comparison with everything else they were dealing with. In the end, she and Max decided to take one issue at a time. Once the dust settled, so to speak, both Max and Liz would allow themselves a major freak out fest and then they’d deal with the pregnancy and their parents.

Before Maria could start puzzling over their strange reactions to her concerned question Isabel and Michael came striding up to join him. “I just called his house again,” Isabel informed Max, “He isn’t picking up the phone so…either he’s on his way to school or…”

“…or Tess got a hold of him,” Michael finished grimly.

“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Max warned, “I told you…Tess didn’t seem like herself last night. She acted really confused…like she didn’t know what was going on. I don’t think she really wants to hurt us…at least I hope not…”

“Well what else are we supposed to think, Max?” Maria fretted, “You said the last time you saw her she was acting all loony tunes. We don’t know what she’ll do.”

Together the five teens converged over towards the far corner of the hall where they could talk in relative privacy. “Tell us again what happened,” Isabel asked Max in a low tone, “Last night you seemed a little preoccupied.”

“I already told you everything,” Max insisted in mild exasperation, “She was in my room when I came home last night. At first she was all over me but then after I was done with my shower--,”

“—Wait,” Liz interrupted, cutting Max with a sharpened glance, “You showered while she was there?”

“Well…I…uh…” Max sputtered in sheepish reply, “Look, I was in a panic, okay. It was the only thing I could think to say to get out of there. She stayed in my bedroom the entire time…I swear it.”

“Can we focus here a minute?” Isabel interjected dryly, “So basically when you came out of the bathroom…”

“…Tess acted like she didn’t know how she’d gotten there or anything,” Max finished, “She seemed out of it. Anyway, somehow we got on the prom kiss and she starts going on and on about how she’s over destiny.”

“So you called her on it,” Maria improvised.

“Exactly,” Max confirmed, “And then she just lost it. She acted like I’d betrayed her or something… That’s when she started bleeding. And then she said that he was right all along.”

“Who is he?” Liz wondered, “Could she mean Nasedo?”

“Maybe,” Max considered with a shrug, “But then I don’t think he’d ever teach her to mistrust us…humankind maybe, but not us. No,” he reasoned, shaking his head, “If someone is manipulating Tess it has to be someone who hates us, too.”

“If someone is manipulating her,” Isabel tossed in ominously, “Tess may be playing us just like before.”

“Do you believe that?” Max asked her.

“I don’t know…” Isabel sighed in frustration, “I told you about how I felt with her the other day. Something was definitely off with her. I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

“We just don’t know anything right now…not about Tess and not about Alex’s death either,” Michael mumbled, “We need to figure out what’s going on, Maxwell. We’re fumbling around in the dark here.”

Liz tugged on Max’s sleeve, drawing his attention away from the group. “I’m going to go and put in a call to the Swedish Embassy now,” she whispered, “Keep me updated on the Kyle situation.”

As Liz stepped away from the group to flip open her cell phone, Michael asked, “What the hell is that about? Why is Liz calling the Swedish Embassy?”

“She’s trying to get a lock on Leanna and retrace Alex’s steps while he was in Sweden,” Max explained.

“Anything we can do to help?” Michael asked.

“Yeah…you can break into the guidance office and steal the file on Alex’s host family so Liz and I can try and contact them,” Max suggested with the utmost seriousness.

“Sure, Maxwell,” Michael snorted; not realizing his friend was serious, “Let’s just add theft to my already arm long rap sheet, shall we?” But when Max didn’t’ laugh at the joke Michael suddenly realized that he meant it. “You’re fucking nuts, dude.”

“We need that information, Michael,” Max said, “Obviously, Leanna has something to do with Alex’s death but we just don’t know what yet.”

“We’re full of ‘I don’t knows’ lately, aren’t we, Max?” Isabel remarked sardonically, “God…I just wish this was all over. Alex hasn’t been dead a week and we already in it up to our necks. I’d settle for just two minutes of normalcy at this point.”

“I’m working on it, Iz,” Max replied softly, “We’re close to figuring this all out…I know we are.”

~~~***~~~***~~~

Tess crept in through her bedroom window when she heard Kyle’s ignition roar to life in the front of the house. She felt exhausted and weak and utterly alone. She had spent most of the night in an alley only three blocks away from Max’s house. There had been no place else for her to go. Max had seemed so convinced that she was mindwarping him again and Tess was certain that it wouldn’t take him long to convince the others of the same thing.

Sometime in between shivering and fighting off waves of dizziness Tess made her decision. She would leave Roswell. As painful a realization as it was, Tess recognized that she would never, never be a part of the group. They would always mistrust her and expect the worst. And there was something else…the call towards something darker. Tess had fought it most of the night, had huddled in the shadows to hide from it but she knew that it would find her eventually. There wasn’t a choice anymore. She would stay long enough to gather some clothes and supplies and then she would be out of there for good.

Her purpose clear in her mind, Tess started across the room to prepare. As she started for her closet she glanced at her reflection in passing. She looked horrible. Her hair was hopelessly tangled and dirty, her face streaked with dried tears and blood. Thankfully, during the night her head had stopped its horrible drumming though Tess continued to feel extremely woozy and slightly nauseous. She had tried earlier to ease the pain and clean up the blood with her powers but was unable to concentrate enough to execute her plan. She tried now, dissipating the remnants of dirt and blood with a simple wave of her hand.

But her clean appearance didn’t make Tess feel better. There was something still seriously wrong inside of her. She knew it. She could feel it though she had absolutely no idea what it was. Tess leaned into the mirror, peering closer as if she expected to find the answers in some miniscule detail of her image. When the flash flared behind her eyes Tess was completely unprepared for its intensity.

“You did this to me!” he cried, stalking back and forth across the room, throwing agitated glares at Nicholas, “You sent me to Las Cruces! Why? Why? I thought we could trust you!”

“Alex, I don’t want to hurt you,” Tess whimpered, “I don’t want this.” She threw a frantic look over at Nicholas. He stood silently, encouraging her with his mind, probing her. Alex didn’t seem to be aware of his presence at all. Tess even began to wonder if he was even real or if she’d made him up in her mind. “I can’t…I can’t,” she moaned. But her head hurt so much…so much.

“He’ll tell if you don’t,” Nicholas warned her, “You’ve come too far already. They’ll never forgive you for what you’ve done.”

“Tess, you don’t have to do this…” Alex mumbled, weaving against her dresser, “We can explain everything to them… You can’t warp me again! You’re destroying my mind…”

“Do it!” Nicholas fired, “Make him tell you where he hid the damned crystal!”

The pain split Tess’ head again. Her brain felt as if it were about to explode. She wanted to resist but her vision began to blur with a red haze. Like a puppet, she carried out Nicholas’ order. She had no choice. When Alex fell to the floor, she fell with him…a torrent of blood streaming from her nose. The last thing she heard as she drifted off into unconsciousness was Nicholas muttered, “Damned worthless humans!”

Tess lurched back from the mirror with a soundless gasp. “Alex,” she whispered mournfully, “No…no…I didn’t hurt him. I didn’t…” But her dreams told her otherwise. She had seen Alex fall at her feet time and time again. Tess knew the flash wasn’t a figment of her imagination. Yet it seemed impossible and, other than the flash, Tess had no memory of that day happening at all. It couldn’t possibly be true. Nicholas was dead and Alex had died in a car accident. She wasn’t a killer…

However, Tess suddenly felt filthy with the implication. Was it reality or some vision conjured up in her twisted mind? She didn’t know anymore. Tess could no longer tell what was real and what wasn’t.

She drifted out across the hall towards the bathroom. As if in a dream she started forward to switch on the taps and then stepped into the shower fully clothed. Tess hunkered down in the corner, drawing her knees up against her chest. The cold water hit her fevered skin like stinging needles. She waited for it to penetrate the fog in her brain, to trigger some dose of clarity. But there was nothing. Tess merely sat there and shivered.

~~~***~~~***~~~

“Okay, it’s first period,” Max announced inanely when the class bell rang, “Kyle’s still not here. I’m going to head over and check things out.”

“All right…well we’re going with you,” Michael declared, scooping up his jacket to follow Max and Liz from the abandoned classroom. Isabel and Maria were close behind him.

“What? No,” Max protested, swiveling back around to face his friends, “It will look weird if we’re all missing, okay.”

“Who cares?” Maria queried, “We’ve only got, like, a week left in school anyway.”

“Besides if Kyle is in trouble we want to be there,” Isabel added stubbornly, “I’ve already lost one person…I’m not planning to lose another.”

Max stared from the determined faces of his family and friend down into Liz’s imploring brown gaze. “Okay,” Max relented with a defeated sigh, “Come on.”

~~~***~~~***~~~

Kyle stomped through his front door with a muttered curse. Two blocks away from home he realized he’d forgotten his Chemistry book and turned the Mustang back for the house. His mind had been in another zone since Liz’s call the night before, but he’d been sick with worry and not anxiety. When Tess never returned home, however, that anxiety became outright panic.

He ducked into the living room and started to scoop up the book from the coffee table and beat a quick retreat back out the door when the distinctive sound of running water prickled his ears. Kyle froze mid-step and slowly pivoted back around, his heart doing a slow flip in his chest.

“Dad?” he called out cautiously, easing down the hallway towards the sound, “Dad, is that you?”

When he received no answer Kyle squelched the automatic instinct he had to run. His mind was already running over with the possibility that it was Tess but the prospect didn’t frighten him like it probably should have. He knew that Max believed that she had been mindwarping him for the past few months and the others believed as well, but something within Kyle resisted that rationalization. Tess might have been capable of such manipulation once but no more. She was a different person now. Kyle believed that with everything he was.

Yet his friends seemed so certain and Max definitely wouldn’t lie about this sort of thing. Definitely something was wrong. Kyle just had to prove before the gang turned on Tess completely.

His heart hammering with agitated fear, Kyle cautiously pushed open the bathroom door. “T…Tess?” he stammered nervously, “Tess, is that you?” She whimpered his name in answer and Kyle sagged a bit to hear her voice. He rushed forward then and yanked open the shower door, his heart contracting with worry when he saw her.

Tess sat cowered in the stall, fully dressed and shivering. Her lips were blue with cold, her features pale and ashen. “Oh God, Tess,” Kyle cried out in concern, dropping down to his knees before her. He smoothed back her wet curls. “Tess, what are you doing?”

Tess stared at him with vacant blue eyes. “I…I don’t know what’s happening to me, Kyle,” she sobbed, “I don’t know…”

“Tess, you’re freezing,” he whispered gently, folding his arms around her, “Let me help you out.” He didn’t wait for her acquiesce but scooped her shivering body into his arms and bore her off for the bedroom that had once been his. With infinite care he laid her down onto the bed and knelt down beside her. “Where were you last night?” he whispered, searching her chalky features for answers.

“I don’t understand,” she muttered over and over, “He’s calling me… He is…”

“Tess?” Kyle hovered his hands over her trembling form, feeling helpless and frightened. “I don’t know how to help you.”

“I didn’t… I’m not,” she moaned.

“You’re not what, Tess?” Kyle prodded gently.

“I’m not mindwarping him,” she cried frantically, clenching her stiffened fingers into his shirt, “I’m not…”

“I believe you,” he whispered, “I know this is all a mistake.”

Her eyes darkened with desperate gratitude. “You’re not just saying that to me?”

“No,” he said, “I want to help you, Tess…if you’ll let me…”

She nibbled on her lower lip in consideration of his offer, pushing upright and scooting to the far end of his bed. “I…I want to trust you…”

“You can,” he told her fervently, “You can trust me, Tess.”

“Sometimes I think you’re the only one I can trust,” she mumbled.

“What’s going on with you?” he asked, “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.” She continued to stare him down warily, as if she were vacillating between fight and flight. “Max…he told us that you were bleeding.” Tess nodded slowly. “This has happened before but you told me it was nothing.”

Tess frowned in confusion. “It…it has?”

“I found you once,” Kyle explained carefully, fearful of saying or doing something that might set her off into an emotional spiral, “You were cleaning up the blood… You said it was just a nosebleed but…but it was much more than that, wasn’t it, Tess?”

“I don’t remember,” she mumbled.

“You don’t?” he whispered, creeping closer.

She answered with a deliberate shake of her head. “I’m so confused, Kyle,” she said, “I feel like I’m walking around in a dream.”

“What’s the last thing you do remember?” Kyle asked.

“I…I don’t know,” she replied wearily, “It’s all blurred in my head. I can’t tell what’s real and what isn’t. I’ve been having these totally weird dreams lately and--,”

“—What dreams, Tess?”

“—I’ve been dreaming about…about Alex and that he really went to Las Cruces--,”

She was cut off from saying anything more when the roaring engines of several approaching cars sounded outside. Tess’ eyes grew wide with fear and that was before Max and Liz began calling his name. She tensed and Kyle tried to soothe her with several comforting glances across her forearm. “Wait here,” he told her, “I’m going to go and explain the situation to them.” He smoothed his knuckles down the cold plane of her cheekbone. “You don’t have to be afraid, okay?” Kyle was so encouraged by her nod of agreement that he framed her face in his hands and brought her close for a tender kiss.

Tess mumbled his name, her eyes shimmering with tears over the gesture. “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you,” he promised.

By the time Kyle made it into the living room Max and the others had already let themselves into the house. He hadn’t taken two steps into the living room before Isabel strode forward to smack him in the back of the head.

“Ow!” he cried, fingering the back of his stinging skull, “What was that for?”

“I’ve been calling you all morning!” Isabel snapped, “Don’t you know how to answer your phone?”

“Yeah, Kyle,” Maria threw in irritably, “I thought you learned to tell time in third grade.”

“Huh?”

“You were supposed to meet us at 7:30, Valenti,” Michael clarified dryly, “Where the hell were you?”

“Tess came back this morning,” Kyle revealed in a rush. But before they could all start forward with the obvious intention of tearing the house apart looking for her, Kyle held out his arms to stave her off. “She’s in a very fragile state,” he informed them brusquely, “You need to take it easy on her, okay.”

“Where is she?” Max demanded quietly, “Is she better now?”

“Physically, I guess she’s okay,” Kyle said, “But she’s really out of it. I want you to help her. Whatever you think is going on; whatever theories you’ve got…I know Tess isn’t trying to hurt you. She needs your help and if you can’t give it to her then there’s the door.” Only when Kyle was satisfied with their promises that no one would badger Tess did he finally lead them back to his bedroom. However, all his protective efforts proved to be in vain.

Tess was already gone.

Chapter 10

“We checked everywhere,” Michael announced as he and Maria reentered the Valenti living room, “Her car’s still in the drive so I don’t think she couldn’t have gotten far. She’s probably hiding.”

“Or someone came to get her,” Maria mumbled in added underbreath.

“Enough with this conspiracy crap!” Kyle shouted, “Tess doesn’t know what’s going on anymore than the rest of you do. Cut her some slack, dammit! She’s hurt and she’s scared!”

“So are we, Kyle,” Liz interjected quietly, “None of us have the answers right now and the only person who can fill in the gaps just took off. You have to admit that her actions look a little suspicious.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kyle snapped.

“Okay…then answer this,” Max considered calmly, “If Tess doesn’t know what’s going on, like she claims, then why did she run? We’re not the enemy.”

“You’re not?” Kyle laughed bitterly, “You accused her of mindwarping you!”

“She has!” Max retorted in a near shout.

“I don’t believe you!” Kyle shouted right back.

“Alright enough,” Isabel said, stepping between the two of them before blows could be exchanged, “Fighting isn’t getting us anywhere, okay. We need to figure out where Tess might have gone.” She turned to face Kyle fully. “You know her best. Is there anywhere she might have gone to feel safe?”

“Only the pod chamber,” Kyle said, “But she knows that’s the first place you guys would come look so I doubt she went there.”

“Which brings us back to our original problem,” Michael interjected, “Why is she running from us?”

“She doesn’t trust you,” Kyle replied flatly.

“She doesn’t trust us?” Maria echoed with a mocking snort, “That’s a twist.”

“Can it, DeLuca,” Kyle ordered.

“God, Kyle, you’re so sensitive,” Maria tossed back, “Since when did you get all protective of Tess anyway?”

“Since she’s been living in my house for the last eight months,” he retorted sardonically, “I care about her. I don’t want anything bad to happen to her.”

“Neither do we,” Liz said.

“Like hell,” Kyle scoffed, “You’ve been waiting for her to stab you in the back ever since she came to Roswell.”

“Can you blame me?” Liz demanded shortly, “I mean…she lied about everything. She manipulated Max and Michael and Isabel. She played us all for fools, Kyle. It’s not like she’s above it.”

“She’s not like that anymore,” Kyle replied, “If you knew her you’d realize that. She’s actually a pretty loyal person. When Tess Harding decides to fight for you then she fights hard.” He leveled Max with a steely stare. “You should know that better than anyone, Evans.”

“Then why the games,” Max charged, “Why is she putting false memories in my head? Because she has, Kyle…I’m not imagining it.”

“I don’t know,” Kyle muttered, “But there’s got to be a reasonable explanation…”

“Okay…well, in the meantime, we need to find Tess,” Michael said, “The sooner we get her back the sooner we can figure out what the hell’s going on.”

“We can wait until evening,” Isabel suggested, “I can dreamwalk her then.”

“You want to wait until night time!” Kyle cried in exasperation, “She could be any fucking where by then! Or dead! Maybe that’s what you all want!”

“Stop it,” Isabel admonished him quietly.

“I’m not going to make it easy for you!” Kyle retorted.

“What do you want us to do?” Max cried in frustration, “We don’t know where to look for her. No one took her. She ran away! We’ll just have to wait.”

“Fuck you, Evans!” Kyle bit out, “If you guys won’t look for her…then I will.”

He started to snatch up his jacket and stalk from the house but Isabel sidestepped him and blocked his path. “Kyle, don’t do this,” she implored with uncharacteristic softness, “We need to stick together now…more than ever.”

“I’m not all for making Tess the enemy,” he replied tightly, “You didn’t see her before. She was devastated. She needs our help.”

“Fine, I’ll reserve my judgment,” Max conceded on a sigh, “We’ll wait until we find Tess before we make any more speculations. Agreed?” He stuck out his hand in a gesture for peace.

Kyle regarded Max’s extended hand in tight-lipped silence for a long time before finally reaching out to take hold of it. “Agreed.”

“So what do we do in the meantime,” Michael asked when the handshake broke, “Stand around with our thumbs up our asses?”

“Not quite…” Max murmured, “We still have to find out what happened to Alex, remember?”

“How could we forget?” Maria asked mournfully. She dropped down onto the sofa and dragged both hands down the length of her face in a gesture of weariness. “God…this is just a nightmare!” she muttered, “I mean, if Alex was murdered, doesn’t that mean that we’re all in danger, too?”

Max shrugged, uncertain of the answer.

“Besides that, who would want to kill Alex to begin with,” Isabel wondered as she paced the floor, “What would they have to gain by doing so?”

“You,” Max replied gently.

Isabel stopped cold. “No,” she said, shaking her head wildly, “No…don’t tell me that.”

“No one’s blaming you, Isabel,” Max soothed, “But Liz and I have been talking this out and…well, you and Alex were growing closer. Maybe Khivar didn’t like that…maybe he took steps to get Alex out the way.”

“Don’t tell me that!” Isabel screamed, clapping her hands over her ears, “Don’t tell me Alex died because of me! God…please don’t…”

Liz crossed over to where Isabel stood and tenderly lowered the distraught girl’s hands from her ears. “It’s just a theory,” she reassured Isabel and then tossed a glance over her shoulder at Max, “It’s just a theory, right?”

“Just a theory,” Max confirmed, “We’re just going through all the possibilities right now, Iz. That’s all.”

“So what other theories do you have?” Maria asked.

“Well, you already know about Leanna,” Liz said, “We think she might have targeted Alex, specifically to get information on the Royal Four.”

“What sort of information?” Michael queried, “What could she have possibly wanted? We don’t know shit.”

“The Granolith, Michael,” Liz reminded him, “It’s powerful and Khivar wants it. We already know it can be modified for time travel. Who knows what else it’s capable of?”

“Rath and Lonnie said it was some kind of holy relic,” Max recounted, “Or…or at least that’s what they thought it was. It’s definitely coveted among our people.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like we can trust anything Rath and Lonnie say, now can we?” Isabel muttered, “And it’s not like we can find them to ask even if we could.”

“So far we have the picture Alex cut up, the Thai receipt and the ‘Leanna is not Leanna’ document. I’m positive that all this ties together somehow,” Liz murmured, nibbling her lip pensively, “I just haven’t figured out how yet.”

“Yeah…well, don’t push yourself too hard,” Max admonished softly, stepping forward to brush a hand across the small of her back. The other swept unconsciously down to palm the still flat expanse of her abdomen as he leaned in close to press a kiss to the side of her head. Liz leaned into his body with a staccato sigh. “You need to take it easy, Liz,” he whispered into her hair, “Let me figure all this out. You just get some rest.”

“Rest? Why does she need to rest?” Maria demanded, perking up at the concerned thread she heard in Max’s tone, “What’s wrong?” For a second time Maria found herself puzzling over the guilty looks that passed between Max and Liz.

“I haven’t been eating,” Liz replied in half-truth, “And Max has been worried.”

“Is that all?” Maria asked suspiciously, swinging her narrowed gaze back and forth between her two friends, “You guys have been acting really weird lately.”

“Speaking of weird,” Michael threw in after her, “What exactly is going on between the two of you?”

Max flushed even deeper. “Huh?”

“Yeah, I wanna know that, too,” Isabel considered with a frown, “We know you got back together but when did that happen exactly? I mean, how does that fit into the whole Tess mindwarping discovery?”

Only Maria was grinning smugly as Max attempted to stammer out an explanation. “Um…well…I…”

Liz’s cell phone rang to life at that moment, saving Max from any further embarrassment. “We’ll talk about it later, Maxwell,” Michael promised as Liz flipped up her cell phone. He was with Maria. Something weird was definitely going on with the two of them.

However, all speculations about the nature of Max and Liz’s relationship were forgotten when the group heard Liz mention Sweden during her phone conversation. Everyone froze in place, all eyes and ears trained directly on Liz as she finished up her phone conversation. As Liz’s words grew more and more hushed her friends grew more and more agitated. By the time she said good-bye it was possible to hear a pin drop. The room was that quiet.

With shaking fingers, Liz deliberately clicked off her cell phone. Everyone was already on high alert following Tess’ abrupt disappearance that morning but the dread filling Kyle’s living room skyrocketed to astronomical proportions when Liz’s face drained completely of color following her phone call. Max brushed a shaking hand through Liz’s hair. “Who was that?” he asked softly.

“That was the Swedish Embassy,” Liz whispered in a daze.

“What did they say?” Maria asked, stumbling forward.

“That…that picture…” Liz stammered, “The building he was in front of…they… They said that building was torn down in 1994.”

“What?” Kyle uttered.

“It’s gone,” Liz clarified, “It hasn’t been in existence for almost a decade.”

“Are you sure?” Isabel queried, “But we have the pictures…”

“It must be a manip,” Liz reasoned, “That’s the only explanation.”

“So you know what this means, right?” Max considered softly, “Alex was never in Sweden. He never went at all.”

“Never went?” Isabel parroted, “But he was gone for weeks! If he wasn’t in Sweden then where the hell did he go?”

Kyle shocked the entire group into silence with his quiet, yet emphatic answer: “He went to Las Cruces.”

~~~***~~~***~~~

Tess had run until her lungs felt as if they would burst from her chest before finding an adequate hiding place to rest and collect her thoughts.

They would never believe her. She knew it. Just peeking around the corner at their mistrustful faces and listening to how strongly Kyle had to defend her, Tess had known it. They wanted to believe she was evil. The voice in her head told her not to trust them…so she didn’t. And Kyle…they would eventually turn Kyle against her, too. There was no one she could trust. No one to run to at all.

Not long after she’d found safety, however, they had come looking for her. Tess hunkered down deep in the bushes when she heard Michael calling her name. There was part of her that wanted to cry out to him and alert him of her presence but the voice in her head warned her against it. She could trust no one. No one…

When he finally left she panted a sigh of relief but it was short-lived. Her mind kept torturing her. Tess couldn’t shake the visions behind her eyes. Flashes of Alex and Nicholas were interspersed with one another and nothing made sense. Scenes passed before her eyes but none of them jarring any recollection at all. Her world had acquired soft, surreal edges and Tess felt as if she were merely floating through reality.

Long after Michael and Maria left to search elsewhere, Tess stayed pressed in the prickly bushes, impervious to the thorns tearing at her tender flesh and drawing dark ribbons of blood. Her head and heart were racing with anxiety. She had to figure out what was going on. She had to make sense of it.

Tess concentrated hard, her efforts so full of determination that she made herself nauseous. She spewed out the meager contents of her stomach, shaking with fatigue. As she huddled low between her knees, her stomach heaving again and again, Tess was flooded with a vision.

“Where’s the crystal?” Nicholas demanded, yanking a fistful of her hair to yank back her head. Tess groaned at the pain the snapping motion caused but otherwise she said nothing. “I can make you talk and I can make it very, very painful for you,” Nicholas warned her, “I can find out whatever I want.”

“I’ll die before I tell you anything,” Tess replied weakly.

Nicholas penetrated deeper into her mind, snapping the delicate blood vessels tracing through the gray matter of her brain. “You will die, Tess,” he whispered malevolently into her ear, “Your brain is hemorrhaging as we speak. But I can help you…I can change things…if you help me. Tell me where to find the Granolith crystal.”

“I…I don’t remember,” Tess sobbed plaintively, gagging a little on the blood that ran from her nose into her open mouth, “I…I don’t know…”

He twisted his fist tighter, severing more vessels. “The clock is ticking, majesty,” he grated, “Tick, tock and your time is running short. Tell me where to find the crystal.”

Nicholas might have killed her then, Tess was sure, if a nearby sentinel didn’t speak up. “Lord Khivar will not be pleased,” he informed Nicholas respectfully, “Her majesty must still produce an heir. You cannot kill her now, my lord.”

“You’re right,” Nicholas agreed, straightening. Without warning, he blasted the sentinel across the room, plastering his body into the adjacent concrete wall. The guard slipped to the cold, stone floor…dead. “Unfortunately for you, I don’t like being corrected,” Nicholas informed the dead alien before turning back to a dying Tess, “But he did have a point…I can’t kill you. Not yet. You still have a mission to complete and I must still find the crystal. There’s no point in going home if I can’t give Khivar what he wants, now is there?”

At an almost leisurely pace he healed all of Tess’ broken blood vessels save for one. “It’s a slow bleed,” he told her softly, “You are definitely dying…but I’ll change that for you, if you give me what I want.”

“What?” Tess moaned faintly, “Whatever you want…just stop hurting me, please…”

“Bring me the Granolith crystal and secure an heir,” Nicholas whispered, “Do these things and then this all will be like a bad dream.”

“A bad dream,” Tess mumbled to herself when the flash ended.

Tess didn’t know where the crystal was. She didn’t know how she was supposed to secure an heir with Max when he had already pledged his heart and body to Liz Parker. Furthermore, she didn’t want to. What Tess wanted, needed was answers.

Presently, she didn’t know if she’d really killed Alex or if the flashes were some horrible part of Nicholas’ mind games. She wasn’t even sure Nicholas was really alive or if she’d made him up, too. Worst of all, Tess didn’t know how she would ever untangle the complicated mess her life had become. She barely knew where to start.

The one thing she did know was that she was on her own and, if she wanted answers, she’d have to go to Las Cruces, New Mexico to get them.