"Max! I won't let you give yourself up." Phillip Evans said hoarsely as he realized what his son was doing here.

"It's okay dad. Trust me." Max said and released his mom and turned to Pierce.

"Release them and Liz will go to the meeting point for you to pick her up." He said.

"NO!" Nancy cried out and Jeff held her tightly. "Max no!" Nancy sobbed.

Max ignored the plea. He had to get Pierce to let them go.

"How do I know that Liz will come?" Pierce asked calmly.

"She will not leave me here alone. She wanted to come right away, but I told her this way our parents would be freed."

"You are a clever species if nothing else. But then I never doubted that since we had some of you in captivity for quite awhile." Pierce grinned coldly.

"And you enjoyed torturing them didn't you?" Max's voice became cold and deadly as he stared at the maniac who had hurt so many. And wanted to continue to hurt innocent humans and aliens.

Pierce met the boy's eyes and stared back just as coldly. "I actually was in on one of the autopsies. Fascinating!" Pierce smiled, his eyes dark orbs that looked like death.

Max clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. Not yet. "Release your captives." Max demanded.

Pierce met his eyes for another minute and then finally nodded. "Very well. They may go. But if your mate does NOT show up at the meeting place, not only will you die a VERY slow, painful death, but also I will just kill your parents in their homes. Don't think I couldn't." Pierce stated. He figured he would kill them later anyways. He could wait until he had the woman who was carrying the alien's child.

"I don't doubt anything about you." Max said in a deadly calm voice. His anger was in control, but wanting to be unleashed on the evil animal in front of him. He hoped Jordan was ready. He had given them the directions on how to reach this place while they were driving up, and he only hoped they were in position by now.

"Just to let your parents know what will happen to you if your mate does NOT show up once I release them, here is a taste of what I will do to this creature, Max." Pierce stated calmly, but with a glint of pleasure in his eyes.

He nodded to one of the guards who held out some kind of rod and they zapped Max quickly, before anyone had time to react.

Max screamed and fell to his knees and Diane Evans cried out and fell to her knees to hold her son. "STOP! You are a MONSTER! What could you possibly get out of torturing people!?" she asked hysterically.

"Max is not a people. He's the monster Mrs. Evans, and YOU'VE been protecting him all these years. Which makes you just as bad." Pierce explained looking at the woman in disgust and fury.

"Agent Pierce! Agent Johnson just radioed in. He found one of our guards dead sir." A young agent came rushing into the large room.

Pierce absorbed this and then spun back around to Max Evans. "You lied. What are you up to? Hmmmm, well for that one of the parents will die! How about the woman you call mother?" Pierce hissed and started toward Mrs. Evans with a gun drawn.

"NO! Never again!" Max shouted coming to his feet, losing it, and lifting a hand to Pierce.

"Sir! Watch out!" Pierce heard his fellow agent warn but before he could turn to the agent to stop him, the agent aimed his rifle at Max and shot him.

"No! Don't kill him!! We need him!" Pierce tried to stop the agent but it was too late.

They watched as Max was flung back by the bullets that ripped through his chest. But he got Pierce before he went down. Pierce too was flung through the air and killed instantly.

Diane Evans screamed and ran to where Max lay on the floor against a wall halfway across the room from where he'd been standing.

Diane was sobbing and holding her son, pushing his hair back and rocking him. A low moaning 'no' was coming from her trembling lips.

The other adults were in shock and just stood staring at the scene of Max dying in his mother's arms.

Mr. Evans swore and turned on the guard who had shot his son with bottled up anger. It took both Jim and Jeff to hold him back. They didn't want him shot as well and they guessed that Pierce's men would not hesitate to shoot the boy's father since he was of no use to them anymore.

A rage of anger burst from Mr. Evans and he bellowed out like a wounded animal, then shrugging off his friends, he went to his wife and son.

In all the confusion, the guards didn't hear the commotion outside the door until it opened. As they spun around with their guns raised, they saw a large man with white hair burst through the door and with one hand raised, he sent the guards across the room, knocking them unconscious.

Nancy gasped as she saw her very pregnant daughter push past Jordan and run to Max. She was afraid her daughter would not be able to take the sight before them all.

"MAX!" Liz screamed as she saw her own nightmare coming true. She stumbled forward and fell to her knees awkwardly, all the while sobbing. She grabbed his hand and turned to Jordan who was striding toward them with the rest of the gang right behind him. Amy ran to Maria and held her tight as they both watched the nightmare unfolding before them as Max's lifeblood emptied onto the cement floor before their eyes.

"Jordan! DO SOMETHING!" Liz sobbed and turned back to Max who barely had his eyes open. He knew he was dying. She tried to heal him herself, but she couldn't. Her hands were everywhere, all over his bloody chest as she sobbed his name.

Jordan knew it was too and lifting Liz up gently and placing her in her mother's waiting arms, he looked at the dying man on the floor, knowing he couldn't bring him back, but knowing that he had killed Pierce as he had wanted to, and could die content.

Meeting Max Evan's eyes Jordan asked, "Where is he?"

"Follow the anger." Max Evans managed to cough out before he died.

"NO!" Diane Evans cried again and started rocking her son's lifeless body. Isabel broke down and fell to her knees where Liz had been, she too was sobbing Max's name.

Michael wanted to throw up he was so angry and upset. He looked down at his brother's lifeless body and wanted to kill someone and he wanted to howl like a baby.

Maria moved out of her mom's arms, as she felt Michael's emotions screaming in the silence. She slid her arms around her husbands and held him tight as they both let silent tears streak their faces.

Jim Valenti had his fists clenched and he was screaming silently at the injustice of it all. He had grown to love all of these kids like his own. He held his own son's shoulder tightly thanking God it wasn't him. Kyle turned to him in understanding, but pure pain on his face at the loss of his friend.

Cassie buried her face in Kyle's chest and silently cried as well.

Alex watched the scene of horror in shock and pain. He felt for Isabel, and for himself and the others. Max had been part of them all.

Liz suddenly twisted out of her mother's warm arms and ran out of the room. Jordan followed.

Maria broke from Michael's too ran after Liz as well. She couldn't imagine what Liz would do with Max gone. She felt sick for all of them, but mostly for her best friend.

Maria ran down a corridor she saw Liz and Jordan turn down and stopped in front of an open door half way down and gasped when she saw Liz and Jordan untying a furious Max Evans.

"WHAT the!" she whispered, her hand to her throat in shock and a burst of excitement.

Liz was already hugging and kissing Max before Jordan had completely untied him. When Max got his hands free, he too was touching Liz everywhere at once, making sure she was okay and so were the babies. Their kisses were frantic and sporadic, some on the mouth, nose, chin, anywhere they could reach. Liz was crying Max's name over and over and when Max finally noticed the blood on Liz's hands he froze and cried out.

"Liz! you're hurt!" he said hoarsely.

"Not mine… Nasedo's." she said in-between kisses. She still couldn't let him go. She was in his arms and couldn't stop kissing or toughing him as she sobbed.

"Nasedo…" Maria whispered as it finally started to make sense.

Jordan let the two ridiculously stubborn kids have their reunion for another minute and then gently reminded them that their parents were inside and still thought Max was dead.

"Oh God!" Liz exclaimed remembering. ************** When Max stepped into the large room, his eyes went directly to his still sobbing mother and sister, and they gentled and teared up at their pain. He wished he could have avoided it. He had not known about Nasedo until Nasedo, posing as one of the guards, knocked Max out and tied him with rope in which Max couldn't get free of.

"Mom." Max said gently as he stood before his mom. He didn't want to scare her more than she had been.

The others saw Max come in with his arm around Liz and Maria and Jordan right behind, only gasped and stood in shock. All of it was too much to comprehend at once.

Only the kids and Jim knew about Nasedo, and they pieced it together and all sighed in relief and closed their eyes in thanks.

Michael almost fell to his own knees when he saw his brother was okay. Maria went back to him as if sensing this, and held him tightly to her with a bright smile on her face.

When Diane Evans looked up at the hand on her shoulder and Max's voice in her ear, she gasped.

Max helped his mom up gently and met her eyes. "It wasn't me. It was a shape-shifting friend of ours who became me. I'm okay." He said all this very gently.

Diane Evans looked from the dead body of what looked like her son, to her son standing before her, and collapsed into his arms and sobbed again, all the while her hands were caressing his face and pushing his hair back. "Max, oh Max… oh God Max."

Liz wiped her tears and smiled as Isabel and Phillip Evans suddenly came forward and grabbed Max as well.

When they finally let Max go, he turned to his brother and walked toward him.

Michael met him half way, and they embraced. No words needed. ****************

"Jordan, why didn't you tell me that you had contacted Nasedo and planned this?" Max finally asked as they all sat around Jordan's living room several hours later.

He hadn't had time to talk to Jordan until now. They had all left the facility right after Max had appeared, and Max and Liz had driven with their parents in one car, Max with Liz in his arms, and his mother beside him, still afraid he would disappear on her. Phillip Evans, and the Parker's also couldn't take their eyes off of their two children as they drove together, away from that nightmare.

Now they all met at Jordan's ranch, the closest point from the facility, and tried to make sense of what had happened.

"You would not have allowed Nasedo to go in your place. And we weren't sure if they were going to shoot you up with a drug to drain you of your powers temporarily when they picked you up at the meeting point. Which they did, just as Nasedo suspected they would. If they had shot up Nasedo with the drugs, then he wouldn't have been able to communicate with us as to the location of the place where your parents were. So we agreed that he would take the place of one of the guards until you were both inside the facility. Then Nasedo knocked you out and took your place when he created a reason for the other guard to leave you two alone for a moment."

"How come he couldn't be healed?" Cassie asked softly. She was torn between relief that Max was alive, and sadness that her father was dead. But she still didn't feel like he was her father since she really never knew him, so she wasn't sure how to feel. She only knew that he had saved them not once but twice now, and maybe he hadn't lost all emotions over the years after all.

"There was too much damage little one. And Nasedo didn't want to be saved. He'd told me that he only wanted to live long enough to see the last of his original captors killed. He was not a happy soul Cassie. He wanted to go to your mother." Jordan said gently and hugged her to him.

Kyle took her back into his arms then, and comforted her as best he could. He knew she was confused and sad and torn.

Liz was in her mother's arms, and finally looked up at her with a worried frown. She bit her lip as she asked what she'd been dreading.

"Mom, dad?" she said looking between the two. "I'm… I'm sorry I didn't tell you about… all about Max sooner." She swallowed. "It's just that there was so much for you to…"

"Shhh… it's okay Liz. We understand." Nancy Parker said just glad Liz was okay. She soothed back her daughter's hair and thanked God that she was all right. She had been sure that Liz would have been gone to them all if Max had died as they had thought.

Max stood from where he was sitting holding his mom, and met the Parker's eyes. "I'm so sorry that my knowing and loving Liz has caused so much danger to her and everyone else. Believe me, there are times when I wish I had never come into her life." He said hoarsely.

Jeff Parker swallowed at the boy's heartfelt statement and put a hand on his arm. "If you hadn't. Lizzy wouldn't be alive today. She wouldn't be married to the only man who could EVER love her like you do, and wouldn't be carrying children that we've all come to love. Liz wouldn't be here at all if it weren't for you Max. And I want to thank you for Lizzie's life." Jeff Parker said and hugged Max tightly.

Nancy Parker, with tears in her eyes nodded and hugged Max as well. "Thank you Max. Thank you for saving our Liz. And for making her happier than I ever thought she could be. And thank GOD you're alive too." She whispered as she kissed his cheek gently.

"You know," Isabel, said finally, to lighten the heavy mood, "none of this would have happened if you two hadn't tried so hard to keep things from each other." She said motioning to Max and Liz.

Alex tried to hide a smile, as they both looked sheepish and squeezed Isabel's hand to let her know he was glad she had put them in the hot seat about this.

Both Max and Liz looked sheepish as they realized that they were wrong. In trying to protect each other, they had only put each other at risk more.

"We forgot Max." Liz said softly as she put a hand to her husband's cheek and looked intently into his eyes.

"Yeah." Max said just as softly, and with eyes that begged forgiveness. He had her in his arms, caressing her arms.

"Forgot what?" Amy Deluca asked from where she sat next to Jim.

"They forgot that they are stronger together than apart." Jordan explained for them.

"We all are." Isabel said softly as she looked around at her 7 friends and one by one they all nodded in agreement.

"Well! Now what? I don't know if we know what to do with ourselves if things aren't crazy." Alex quipped with amusement in his eyes.

"Let's just have a normal night together." Diane Evans laughed as she looked around at her extended family. Max and Isabel had brought so much love and joy into her life and she would NEVER regret the day her and Phillip had found them.

"I'll go make some tea." Isabel smiled and moved to the kitchen.

"Popcorn!" Alex chimed in as he followed her.

"Ahh… Alex and his popcorn." Kyle grumbled cheerfully as Cassie laughed.

"OOOOOH!!!" the cry drowned out all other noise, and they all froze and turned to the source.

Liz was looking wide-eyed and holding her stomach.

"Liz!?" Max asked in a voice filled with fear.

"Um... I think my water just broke Max." she whispered and doubled over as a labor pain hit her.