"No," Liz said. Her eyes narrowed. "You were supposed to spend the night here after our marathon study session, remember? Maria, where were you last night?"

"Michael's," Maria's voice trailed off.

"You were at Michael's last night?"

"Yes."

"All night?"

"Yes."

"Oh my gosh, Maria!"

"Yes!"

"Did you and he?"

Maria nodded.

"Oh my gosh, Maria!" Liz repeated as the importance of what Maria hadn't said sunk in.

Maria squealed and sat on the bed pulling a stunned Liz with her. "You have to swear the best friend's solemn promise, you can't tell anybody about this."

Liz hugged her and then held her at arm's length. "Are you OK?"

"Oh yeah," Maria said emphatically. "It was amazing, Liz." She dug around in her purse and brought out her bottle of cedar oil. She inhaled the scent deeply.

"Details!" Liz demanded snatching the cedar oil bottle from Maria and taking a deep breath herself.

@@@@@@@@@@

At school Michael was waiting for Maria in front of her locker. She headed straight for him while Liz detoured to her locker and started dialing the combination.

"Are you OK?" Michael asked.

She smiled up at him. "I've never been better."

Michael felt a big grin breaking out on his face. He leaned down and gave her a soft kiss. "I'm glad."

She grabbed a hand full of his shirt as he started to move away. "Uh huh," she said. "Come to me, Michael."

He leaned further into her pinning her against the lockers. Instead of kissing her again, he spoke into her ear, "After last night, do you have any idea what those words do to me? What they make me think of and remember?" He made sure no one would be able to see and taking her hand and placed it on his groin. Maria could feel his erection growing and pushing against the fabric of his jeans. "Be careful when you use them," he said.

"Wow," Maria said.

Michael threw back his head and laughed. Students stopped and looked at him with shocked expressions. Guerin laughing was as frightening as an earthquake. Cautiously they resumed their individual paths, but kept a safe distance from Michael, Maria, and other unexpected behavior.

Max walked up to Liz. "What's with Michael?" he asked.

"Maria," she answered. She hadn't turned around, but she knew what was going on. Two people finally were admitting they were crazy about each other.

"Oh," Max said, clearly confused.

Liz closed her locker and slipped her arm through his. "Walk me to class?" "Wow?" Michael kidded. "All you can say is wow?"

Maria blushed to the roots of her hair. "I'll get even with you for this, you know." She turned her back on him and started dialing the combination.

"I'm counting on it," he said.

As she got the locker open and started digging through it, Michael moved to the side and leaned one shoulder against the other lockers. "Are you going to be OK this afternoon?"

Maria focused the contents of her locker. "No," she said. "I don't think I'll be OK until those agents are gone and you are you and Kyle is Kyle again."

"I love you too," he said smiling at her. The bell rang for homeroom and he draped his arm around her shoulders. "Come on, I'll walk with you to class."

@@@@@@@@@@

"OK," Alex said as the jeep pulled up in front of the Valenti house. "Plan review. We get Kyle out of the house and the rest of us casually block anyone's view while Michael changes and Max changes Kyle. Right so far?"

Max nodded. "Right."

"And that's pretty much the end of the plan too, so let's do it," Alex said.

Isabel jumped out of the jeep and headed toward the house. Reaching the porch she put on her brightest smile and rang the doorbell.

Uncle Fred answered the door. "Isabel, right?"

"Yes sir. I'm flattered you remembered me," she said using her best flirting tone. "Is Kyle home?"

Uncle Fred looked over his shoulder. "Kyle!" he bellowed.

Kyle appeared at the door in the jeans and black T-shirt she had specified. He stepped around Uncle Fred and took Isabel's hand. "We'll be in the front yard like last time."

Uncle Fred grumbled, but didn't argue.

"I brought everybody with me," Isabel said for the benefit of Uncle Fred. "Check it out!"

The two of them walked out into the yard and joined Max, Liz, Maria, Alex and Michael. They sat in an amiable circle and concentrated on appearing to be the best of friends with the sheriff's son.

"I don't know how much Isabel has told you about what we can do," Max said. "But one of our powers is that we can change our appearance and make perfect doubles of someone. We can also rearrange someone else's molecules to make them look like us. So the plan is that Michael will make himself look like you and I'll make you look like, I don't know, just another guy."

"So what do I do?" Kyle asked.

"Basically nothing," Michael said. "Just sit there and be dazzled."

"How do you feel about being a blonde?" Alex quipped.

Liz, Maria and Isabel unloaded picnic things from the jeep and began spreading cloths and emptying baskets in an area between the guys and the Valenti's living room window. Uncle Fred only looked out the window once, and when Isabel smiled and waved at him, he quickly disappeared.

The guys got up and moved toward the food and drinks. The transformation was complete. Maria looked from one to the other with a heavy heart. She had just gotten Michael to show his real self and now he was having to hide as someone else. All she knew was she wanted her Michael back. Soon.

"So, anything I need to know about?" Michael asked Kyle as everyone started passing around food and drinks.

"They don't say too much to me except to ask me where something is or to tell me I'm making too much noise," Kyle said.

"Why did they tie you up yesterday?" Maria asked. She didn't like to think that they would do that to Michael, even though she knew he could get free easily.

"No particular reason. It's not the first time they've done it. Any time both of them are leaving they want to make sure I don't disappear in the meantime. I guess tying me is the easiest solution."

"Pigs," Isabel said.

"What have they asked you?" Max asked.

"All the locations where Dad kept files. Keys. Safety deposit box locations and keys. That sort of thing."

"Have they asked if you know about aliens?"

"Yeah. I told them that Dad didn't exactly share information with his only son. I think they believed me at first, until something clued them in that things were missing from Dad's office. I don't know what it was, but they were pissed. They questioned me for a long time yesterday and that's when they used the drugs. I kept telling them that I didn't know anything about aliens in Roswell, but I think they're suspicious."

"They know for a fact that there were aliens. There have to be records everywhere in Clean Slate about Adam," Liz said. She felt a small catch in her heart as she thought about him. She missed him.

"What we don't know is if anyone outside the compound knew about Michael," Max said.

"That's part of the reason why we have Michael posing as you. We're afraid that they know about Michael and what he looks like. If they see him, it could be bad," Isabel explained.

Kyle looked at Michael intently. "It is incredibly weird to look at myself like this."

"I do bring a certain something to the role," Michael said.

"What do I look like?" Kyle asked.

"You can look in a mirror soon enough. You don't look like anybody that we know at all," Michael said.

Uncle Fred opened the door and stuck his head out. "Kyle, time to come inside."

Michael stood and looked over at Maria. She looked incredibly miserable, but was trying to put a good face on it for his sake. "Saturday," he said to her. She nodded and smiled as he walked away. The door closed behind him and he was gone.