He smiled and took her hand. "Yes," he said. "Liz, I've missed you so much."

"Me too," Liz said, sitting up for a hug. He squeezed her tightly, trying not to crush the bulge of her baby. "Where am I now?"

"My old place," Alex admitted. "There's not a whole lot left of it."

"So what have you been up to?" they both asked nonchalantly and simultaneously.

Liz laughed softly. "Not much."

Alex looked at her belly doubtfully. "Well, you've obviously been up to something. Were you with Max?" Liz nodded slowly, her eyes filling with tears.

"What's wrong? That's great! Everybody thought you guys were dead!"

She buried her face in her hands. "For all I know, he could be dead."

"Tell me what happened, Liz."

Liz smiled bitterly. "You want the whole scoop, huh?"

Alex nodded.

"All the details, however gory they may be?"

"Everything, Liz."

"All right, then. Let's start from the beginning. It's not a very long story, I guess.

"As you obviously knew, Max and I were very much in love. We went out to the desert in the middle of the night, intending to consummate our love." She watched Alex's face for a reaction. A year ago she would have been incredibly embarrassed to talk about her sex life with Alex in any capacity. Now it didn't bother her at all. The consequences of what they had done were right out in the open for him to see. "But it didn't happen because Max got a flash of his sister and Michael being hurt. We didn't know what was going on. Max's flashes went away and we drove back to Roswell. By the time we got there, his house and Michael's apartment had gone up in flames. We panicked and took off. After a while we realized that we were being followed, but we didn't know who was following us.

"We finally lost them and we wind up finishing what we started in the desert the first night. I'm assuming that that's when I got pregnant. Uh, a few days later-" She saw Alex's faint grin at that. "A few days later, we took off again. When we crossed the California border, I saw Topolsky. So we decided that we should probably change our appearances. Hence this," she said, lifting up the dyed ends of her hair.

"We found a place in a little town in California and settled down. We figured if they were still following us, they'd follow us forever.

"Then one day Max came home from work and found Topolsky in our apartment. She told him Isabel and Michael were still alive and that they were being experimented on. He believed her, of course. I came home, suspecting I was pregnant and intending to tell him right away. But when Topolsky was there, I got totally distracted and forgot about it. I didn't know for sure, after all. Then, that night, after Max was asleep, I took the test. It was positive. The next morning, I woke up and he was gone."

Liz was in tears. Alex took her in his arms and rubbed her back gently. "Ssshhh," he whispered. "You're here now. We can look for him together."

Liz pulled away and shook her head. "No, that's not all, Alex. There's more." She took a deep breath. "I was a little hysterical at first, and they put me in the hospital and confirmed my pregnancy. I thought about getting an abortion, but in the end I couldn't do it. As mad as I was at Max, this is his baby and my baby. And I still love him." She sniffled and wiped her nose.

"So I hitchhiked down from California. I made it as far as Albuquerque, and I got on a bus to Roswell. But the bus crashed. I woke up outside bleeding from the head. And I don't remember anything after that." Alex stared at her, confused. "And..."

She shrugged. "There isn't any 'and', Alex. I woke up this morning in a Motel 6 outside of Roswell in this night dress with a car key laying on the table." He sucked in a deep breath. "You mean you don't remember anything for, what, several months?"

"What day is it, Alex? I forgot to ask."

He looked at his watch. "It's October 6."

Liz inhaled sharply. "When I boarded that bus, it was May 16."

"Jesus Christ. You mean you're missing almost five months? I've heard of lost time, but...did...are you hurting anywhere? Do you have any marks, or anything X-Filesy?"

Liz shook her head. "No, nothing. As a matter of fact, when I woke up I felt fantastic. And I've felt the baby kick several times, so it must be okay."

"I need some time to absorb all this, Liz."

"I know. So do I."

****

"Maria? What was in the envelope, honey?"

There was no response from her daughter's room. Amy crept slowly down the hall, looking inside the tiny room. Her daughter sat on her twin bed, tears streaming down her face. "Honey, what's wrong?" She looked down and saw the pictures on her daughter's lap. "Who sent you these, Maria?"

Maria swallowed and hiccupped. "Alex did. They're Liz's old pictures, Mom."

Amy sat down next to the teen and wrapped her arms around her, trying to comfort the sobbing girl. "Is Alex back in Roswell?"

"I guess so. That's his return address, but I doubt there are any post offices open there. So he must-he must-" Maria tried to contain her crying. "He must have been there at some point."

"Did they bring back some old memories?"

Maria smiled faintly and picked up the photographs, flipping through them. There was one of Liz and her as kindergarteners, scowling at the camera. Another where they were considerably older, as Maria blew out the candles on her birthday cake. One of Liz, Maria and Alex as younger teens, goofing off for the camera. Then the pictures of Max; there were several of him with Liz. They looked blissfully in love in each of them, just as Maria remembered them. It was how she always wanted to remember them. Then came the ones that caused Maria to sob all over again. There were two photographs of Michael and herself. In one, Michael frowned at the camera in his typical manner as Maria hammed it up next to him. In the other, Michael didn't have a chance to frown. He and Maria were kissing deeply, and their love for each other had been captured intimately by the camera. Maria hadn't even known that Liz had these pictures.

"Yeah, Mom," Maria whispered. "A lot of memories."

****

Liz looked at Alex pensively. "So what have you been up to?"

"I got sent to military school," Alex admitted sheepishly.

Liz looked at him for a moment, then burst out laughing. When she finally recovered, she sat up and looked at him again. And then she began to laugh even harder.

"Yes, it's very funny," Alex said sourly.

Liz wiped her eyes. "I'm sorry. It's just the thought of you marching in line..." She began to howl again.

Alex waited for her to calm down. "My parents sent me there because they said I was obsessed with the dead." Liz frowned. "How do you mean?"

"They meant that I was obsessed with you guys. I was convinced that you were still alive, somewhere, and I was determined to find you. They thought I was crazy. But I guess I was right, huh?"

"I guess so," Liz murmured.

****

Maria rose from her bed in the dark of night and padded down the hallway to her mother's room. "Mom?" she whispered in the darkness.

"Yeah, baby?" Her mother's voice was slurred by sleep.