Eight-year-old Elizabeth Parker peeked out from under her bangs, at the new boy at school, while she pretended to be tying her sneaker. What was it about him that drew her so? She frowned trying to figure it out. She usually wasn't interested in boys. They were still creepy most of the time, except for Alex and Kyle who were nice to her and Maria. So why was she drawn to this one?

She had been playing with Maria on the playground this morning, when she had suddenly felt something and had turned to find a new boy who had just gotten off the bus, staring at her with deep eyes that seemed to pull her in. She had stared back, unable to look away.

She had felt as if some force was pulling her towards him, but as she had been about to move to go to him, he was pulled away toward the office of the school by another new girl.

Since then, she had been feeling goose bumps whenever the new boy was around. And it fascinated her.

She had been listening to her teacher and passing messages with Maria when she'd first felt the goose bumps and had turned toward the door to see the new boy standing there with the Vice Principal. He had stared right back at her for a minute, and then quickly turned away when Liz had stared back at him.

And for the rest of the morning, Liz had felt something in the air and was just so aware of the new boy that it puzzled her.

Now, on the playground again at lunch, Liz was trying to figure out what it was about Max Evans that made her feel this way.

"Hey Liz, that new boy is staring at you again?" Liz heard the voice behind her and realized she had been pretending to tie her shoe for way too long.

Sighing and standing up, Liz pushed her bangs out of her eyes and turned to her best friend Maria Deluca. "I know. There's just something about him Maria…it's weird."

"I think he likes you Liz." Maria giggled and turned to look directly at the new boy.

She laughed again when he looked startled at being caught so blatantly, and then he put his hands in his pants pockets and walked off.

"Maria!" Liz sighed when Max walked off.

"What? You WANT him staring at you?" Maria asked and tilted her head as she realized it was true.

"Liz! Oh my gosh! Do you like the new boy?" Maria asked, her eyes widening in surprise. Liz never looked at boys that way. Maria was always joking about this boy or that one being cute, but Liz was always totally uninterested.

Liz just shrugged. "I don't know. It's…just weird." Was all she said. She didn't understand it herself and couldn't explain it.

************* Max Evans felt his whole body hum every time he saw Liz Parker. First on the playground when he'd first gotten off the bus, and then again when he'd seen her in his class. He didn't understand it, and it scared him, but he was also fascinated with her and couldn't NOT look at her. It was like she drew him to her. And he'd never felt that way before.

He knew she had been sneaking peeks at him all day too, and wondered if she felt the same things he did.

"What's wrong with you Max? You've been acting strange all day." Tess Evans asked, staring at her brother as they sat down at the table to eat snack after school.

"You mean he's acting stranger than he always does?" Isabel Evan's teased her two siblings as she reached for the Tabasco sauce to put in her juice.

Tess laughed but Max just ignored both of his sisters. They wouldn't understand and he certainly wasn't going to try to explain it. It would probably freak them all out if he told them he was getting these humming vibes from a human.

Tess frowned when she finally got the Tabasco sauce from Isabel. "Hey mom! We're out of Tabasco sauce again!" she called into the living room where her mother was surrounded by moving boxes.

"That's because you are a pig and eat it all." Isabel said with a sniff of disdain.

"Me! You are such a hog with the sauce Isabel and you know it! No one can get any until you get it!" Tess pouted.

Diane Evans came into the kitchen smiling and took down another bottle from the pantry.

"Okay girls, enough fighting. I've learned to buy these in bulk since you three drink it like water." She teased and brought it to the table. She ruffled her quiet son's hair and he looked up at her.

"How was your first day at school honey? Isabel and Tess couldn't wait to tell me about their first day. Did you have any problems?" Diane asked with concern showing in her eyes at the thought.

Max saw the worry and quickly reassured his mom that nothing "funny" had happened. That their secret was still safe.

"It was fine mom. Just school you know. Nothing much to tell." He mumbled.

Diane let out her breath and nodded. "Yeah, I know." She smiled and squeezed her son's arm lightly before she headed back to the living room to continue unpacking.

Diane looked around the new house and all the boxes still to unpack, and then back at her children in the other room. They were acting just like normal children, but they were anything but normal.

Diane Evans looked over at her children and sighed. She was so grateful that she and Phillip had found them that night over two years ago. She thanked the stars everyday for giving them these children, and yet she worried constantly that they would be discovered and she and Phillip would lose their babies.

At first the fact that the three couldn't speak English had worried her, but they'd learned quickly over the last two years as Diane taught them at home. She realized that everything had happened the way it had for a reason. She believed she and Phillip were meant to find these three and take care of them.

Two years ago, Phillip's law firm had laid him off and they had been heading across the country to Albuquerque to start over. Neither one of them had any other family, so it had been just the two of them starting fresh.

It was on their way across the New Mexican Desert, right outside of Roswell that they found the three children wandering along on the deserted road.

At first it had been strange to find these three naked children out in the middle of nowhere, and then to find they couldn't speak any language. But it was when they realized these children had 'special abilities' that they knew what they had to do.

Phillip and Diane had been getting the children into the car and wrapped in blankets when they had all heard the hissing of a rattler. If Isabel hadn't lifted a hand and sent the snake flying through the air across the desert, it would have attacked Diane as she had moved to protect the children. That was when she and Phillip realized that something was definitely not normal here, and they decided to keep the fact that they had found the children a secret.

Since they were heading to a new city, where no one knew about them, they felt safe enough just letting everyone assume the kids were theirs.

Being a lawyer, Phillip Evans had ways of making the children appear legally theirs and they had gotten birth certificates and all the paperwork needed to make the children seem normal.

Over those first two years in Albuquerque the Evan's had learned that these children not only had amazing abilities, but that their blood was different as well.

Diane, who was studying to be a doctor was able to get samples of their blood and they realized that whatever the children were, they could NEVER be exposed or they would be studied and experimented on. So they taught the children to keep their abilities to themselves and to be very careful and to always act as normal as possible.

And now, after two years in Albuquerque, Phillip had gotten transferred to the town closest to where they had found the children in the first place. Diane sighed hoping everything would be okay. She worried constantly that her children might be taken from her.

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

Liz Parker raced up the stairs to her family's apartment above the restaurant they owned, with her best friend Maria right on her heels.

"Liz? Is that you honey?" her mother called when she heard the door open and she saw the time.

"Hi mom. Maria and I want to go to the park for a little while is that okay?" Liz asked as she raced into the kitchen to greet her mother and grab some cookies for her and Maria.

"Sure but be home by 4 okay? Oh and guess who called and is coming to visit this weekend?" Nancy Parker smiled down at her beautiful daughter and lovingly pushed the hair out of her daughter's eyes.

"Grandma Claudia?!" Liz's eyes lit up and she squealed when her mom nodded and laughed.

"Oh I can't wait! Liz your grandma is so cool!" Maria clapped her hands and jumped around with Liz.

Liz hugged her mom and raced out the door with Maria, both of them excited and still talking about the upcoming visit.

Nancy Parker watched the door slam and sighed. She closed her eyes and hoped that Claudia would not decide that it was time to tell Liz about her past. Liz knew she was adopted, but nothing else, and so far Claudia had agreed with Jeff and Nancy to keep it that way. But she knew that one day Claudia would feel it was time to tell Liz about that night so many years ago. And she didn't want to face that day. Not yet. Sometimes it was so easy to forget the incredible story Claudia had shared with her and Jeff the night she had come back with the small infant girl.

Day to day Liz seemed like a healthy normal human child and Nancy would convince herself that Liz was not from an alien ship or another world. Her beautiful daughter showed no signs of alien-ness, except for her blood, and she thanked God that Liz never got sick, since she could never let Liz go to a doctor without risking her daughter being taken from her.

She didn't know how Claudia had managed it or what strings she had pulled, but she had gotten a doctor to falsify records of a normal checkup for Liz to go to school. Claudia said that the Doctor could be trusted and that was all she said. Nancy didn't care to know more. She was just happy that her daughter was safe and that the secret was safe.

********************* Claudia Parker paced her hotel room in Cairo. She would be heading back to the states in a few days; back to Roswell and her pride and joy, Liz. But she knew that she was also going back for another reason that was not a happy one. She HAD to continue her search for the other children that had been in the pods.

She cursed herself and once again begged the little alien to forgive her for having lost the other pod children. They had been her responsibility too, and she had failed.

Claudia had known sometime in 1989 that the other pods were to hatch. So she had made one last trip abroad on the request of her boss, in early 1989, having gotten him to agree to let her take a leave of absence from her work for the rest of that year.

She had not expected to contract Malaria and be sick and out of it for months. When she'd finally gotten well enough to remember where she was and what she needed to do, and was strong enough to travel, 6 months had passed.

When Claudia finally arrived in Roswell and had gone to the pod chamber, she remembered how devastated she'd felt upon finding the empty pods with no sign of the remaining four children at all.