She supposed it was normal; she was a teenager, after all. Her body was ruled by hormones, the same as every other teen she knew. But she guessed that most teens didn't have dreams like this.

Dreams where her body was exposed, Max, caressing and biting and loving her. Dreams that made her wake up in a sweat, her entire being shuddering.

Then there was the dream about the locker room at school, when she turned around, and there he was. In that particular fantasy, he made love to her against the wall of the shower stall, his clothing strewn around the wet tiles.

Max had seen that one in her mind. He knew all her fantasies, the way she knew his past: the army, the desert, the terror of being alone.

She didn't think it was a very fair deal.

And when she woke up in his arms on the desert floor, her one regret was that she had not fulfilled any of her fantasies; she hadn't gone "all the way," so to speak.

So she made it her new goal.

Liz's life had been filled with goals. Get straight A's, get into a good college, make my parents proud of me.

This one was much more difficult.

Max wasn't cooperating. After several failed attempts, he refused to go any further, saying that he would hurt her. He was afraid of hurting her. Liz wasn't afraid. She was determined to turn seventeen no longer a virgin.

She wanted to ask Maria about it, but chose not to. Maria seemed a bit terrified of what could happen if a human and a Czechoslavakian had sex. She cited pregnancy and unknown diseases like the health worker that taught sex ed in the eighth grade. In fact, Liz began to wonder if Maria hadn't taken notes on that particular school day and then kept them just for this occasion.

So she planned her seduction with no outside help at all.

***

Liz stayed up late into the night. When her parents went to bed she made the excuse that she still had a ton of homework; they should just go to sleep. Then she had to creep into the hallway to make sure they were asleep. She opened the door to their room, wincing when it squeaked loudly.

They were both there, snoring in synchrony with each other. Liz sighed and tiptoed back to her room. She opened the bottom drawer in her dresser and slipped the package of condoms she had hidden into her coat pocket. Pregnancy and diseases, check.

She opened the window and walked onto the balcony, and then slipped over the edge. Her mind was focused intently on the seduction ahead. Creep into Max's room, and wake him in the night with a big surprise.

Liz, however, got the great shock for now. Max was beside her when she got to the bottom of the ladder.

She shrieked in surprise, and Max's eyes widened. "Ssshhhh," he hissed.

She looked around, and then whispered, "What are you doing here?"

He shrugged. "Waiting for you."

"How did you-- never mind."

"I wanted to ask you something, Liz."

She grabbed his hand, hoping his warmth would seep into her in the cold desert night. "Can we go to your house?"

"No, Michael is there. His apartment's plumbing decided to stop working, so he's staying with us until it's fixed."

"Oh. Well, is there someplace we could go?"

"Ummmm...yes." He led her to his Jeep and helped her in. She shivered in the cold.

"Couldn't you have a car with a top?"

"At least I have a car."

Liz sighed. Nothing was going the way she had planned it. "Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

***

Max turned the car off the road and shut off the engine. Liz still had no clue where they were, but she could hear the gentle swish of water in the distance. Max took her hand and helped her down, ever the gentleman. She smiled to herself. "Where are we?"

"The reservoir," he said, leading her toward the sounds of water. He stopped suddenly and jerked her back as the ground came to an abrupt halt. Liz could see blurry stars reflected off the water below as the water lapped the shores in the night wind. "There isn't anyplace more private than this."

She supposed he was right. "What did you want to tell me?"

"I...I just wanted to say that I think we should stop."

"Stop?"

"Stop...being with each other. Physically. I mean, we were just doing it because of the messages and now that those are gone, maybe we should stop."

Liz swallowed a lump in her throat, half in anger and half in pain. "So in other words, you were just using me to find out about your past. You didn't really care about anything but that."

Max remained silent, not reminding her of when he asked if she wanted to stop. She knew as well as he did.

"Well, I can't stop, Max. Not while I'm still here. I can't look at you every day in school without wanting you. I can't sit next to you in bio. I just...I can't."

He stared at the reservoir below. "I'll leave, then."

"What?"

"I'll leave town. You won't have to see me anymore. Ever again."

Liz's lower lip quivered and she tried to hide it in the dark. But Max knew. She could do nothing about it; he could sense all her emotions while he held her hand.

"It won't be so bad. I can get a job someplace. Get my GED. It shouldn't be too tough."

"But what about...Michael and Isabel? What will they do?"

"They'll understand."

"But I won't," Liz mumbled.

Max was silent again. He could say much more in silence than most people could say with a thousand words. Finally, he said, "Let's go home, Liz."

Liz shook her head. "No."

"What?"

"No. We're not going home."

"Liz, it's two o'clock in the morning. We have school tomorrow."

"I am not going home until you tell me that you aren't leaving."

"Liz..."

"We can't be together so instead you just leave? You leave everyone here, hanging, wondering what happened to you? You can't do that. There are too many people who love you too much. I love you, Max. I would die if you left."

Max shuddered and wrapped her into his arms. She was crying freely now. "How could you even say that? You can't leave me. You can't."

"I know. I know," he whispered, rubbing her back.

She sniffled and looked up. "You know, what?"

"I know that I can't leave. I know that I love you too. That's why I wanted to leave. I can't have that sort of attachment."

"Now you sound like Michael," she muttered into his chest, and he laughed.

"It's true. Liz, just being around you, I can hurt you. I can't hurt you."

"You would hurt me more if you left."

Liz felt him hug her harder, and she reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck. "I love you, Max Evans."

"I love you, Liz Parker," he said, and kissed her gently.

The kiss didn't stay gentle for long. Liz gasped and ran her fingers over his hard chest. He moaned and reached for the edges of her shirt. She let him drag it over her head, and reached back for the clasp of her bra, but suddenly he wasn't there any more. He was crouched on the ground in a ball.

"Max? Max?"

"Liz..." he groaned. "It's Michael and Isabel..."

"What? What about them?" she asked, pulling her shirt back on and kneeling next to him.

"They're...oh God..." he said, and collapsed into her arms.

"What? What's going on?" Liz was nearing hysteria. Max, normally so calm, so placid, was shuddering in her arms, tears running down his face. He sat up abruptly.

"We have to go. Now! We might...we might be able to reach them."

She barely reached the jeep and swung herself in before he put it into gear and swerved out of view of the reservoir.

****

Liz remained silent the whole way back to town. Max drove like a madman, ignoring stop signs and doing as fast as the junker jeep would go, which was about one hundred miles per hour. She was no fool; something terrible had happened and Max had evidently felt it while it was happening.

He sped through Roswell. Astonishingly, no cops followed them.

They soon found out why.

Nearly the entire police and fire fighting force of the city were parked in front of the Evans' home. The flames engulfing it shot towards the night sky like a pheonix rising. Liz moaned, but Max's lips tightened visibly. He accelerated again.

"Max, what are you doing?"

"I have to see about Michael."

"I thought you said he was staying with you!"

"I don't know! Maybe he got out! Maybe he went home!"

The rest of the fire fighters were parked at Michael's apartment complex, half-heartedly fighting a blaze that had already demolished most of the run-down building. Liz looked at the flames, then back at Max, tears streaming down her face. Max began to shake visibly. She put her arms around him, crying onto his shoulder.

"Come on, Max," she murmured. "We need to go tell those cops they don't need to look for you."

Max shook his head. "No."

"No?"

"We can't, Liz. Whoever it is that did that, they'll come back. They'll try to kill me too. It's better if I just disappear."

"Max, you can't just assume-"

"I can't assume what? It's not coincidence when the homes of all the resident aliens burn down in one night. That's not coincidence."

His anger shocked her. She expected him to be upset, sobbing, crying like she was, but instead he was mad. She couldn't leave him alone. "I'm going with you."

He looked away. "No, you're not."