"Do you have any money?"

Liz stirred and blinked, trying to shake herself out of the daze she had been in since they had sped out of Roswell at four a.m.

"I have my ATM card with me. There's about three hundred dollars in that account, and about a thousand in my college account."

"Can you access that account?"

"Yeah. Maybe. If we can find another branch of my bank around."

Max rubbed his eyes. "Good," he said. "I have about two hundred with me and I could get more. But right now we need to find a place to sleep."

Liz couldn't have agreed more.

****

They stepped into the "lobby" of the West Desert Motor Inn at six o'clock in the morning. The man at the desk looked up and grinned, like he saw this sort of thing all the time.

"We charge nightly," he told Max before he even reached the desk. "Forty bucks a night."

Max reached for his wallet and pulled out the cash. The man reached under the desk and revealed a room key, but when Max reached for it he said, "Now what are two kiddies like you doing at a motel at six in the morning?"

Max growled. Liz touched his arm lightly. "That's not any of your business," she said, tossing the money at him. She caught the key when he threw it at her.

"I s'pose not," he said, scratching at his yellowed beard. When they were out the door, he reached for the phone and dialed a number from memory. "Jack?" he said, when the man on the other end picked up. "You had any runaways reported lately?"

****

Liz insisted on unlocking the door with the key, even when it got stuck and she had to wiggle it around in the lock. She was afraid, in some secret part of her brain, that Max's continual defiance of the laws of physics and nature in general would cause irreversible damage to something. It could be this half-rotted old door. It could be something at school. It could be -- and she believed this despite his miraculous healing of her -- it could be the next person he tried to heal. She had seen that picture of William Atherton with the glowing handprint on his chest. Was that alien trying to kill, or to heal?

When she finally worked the lock open, Max had to throw his whole weight against the door in order to get it open. Amazingly, it didn't break or fall off the hinges. Max stumbled into the room, daylight cascading after him. One bed took up most of the room and a tiny bathroom peeked from around the corner. There was no closet, only a tiny bureau that looked even older than the carpet, if that was possible.

She stepped inside and saw Max eyeing the single queen-sized bed unhappily. "So who's going to get the bed?" he asked.

Liz's eyes widened. "I'm not sleeping on the floor," she said, glancing at the moldy-looking 70's shag carpet.

Max grimaced. "It didn't seem like a good idea to me either," he admitted.

"Do you mind..."

"No, not at all."

"Well, I guess that's settled."

"I guess so," Max said.

****

Liz stepped into the shower, relishing the feel of hot water cascading over her skin, washing away the road grime and desert dust. Just as she washed the cheap hotel shampoo out of her hair, the water turned ice-cold. Liz shrieked and hopped out of the shower. She swiped at the faucet to turn off the water and got shampoo in her eyes.

"Shit," she swore. The room's sink was outside of the "bathroom" that held the toilet and the shower. Her only clothes were the filthy ones lying in a pool of water on the ground. There was a singular towel on the metal tower rack.

Wrapping the towel carefully around herself and trying not to touch her stinging eyes, she crept out of the bathroom. Max was sprawled on the bed, sound asleep, though she could barely see him through the cloud of tears that obscured her vision. She leaned over the sink and turned on the faucet, rinsing the shampoo out of her eyes, then dipping her head in the sink to finish what the shower had interrupted. Max slept on, fully clothed, above the covers.

He had gotten no sleep whatsoever the night before; Liz had gotten at least a little. She was running on pure adrenaline, and wasn't really all that tired any more. She needed clothes, at least one change to bring with them if they were to stay on the road. She didn't really want to put her dirty ones back on, but she didn't seem to have much choice.

She snatched the keys off the night table and crept silently out the door, closing it carefully behind her.

Liz drove a few blocks and discovered a small gas station/tourist trap that neither of them had noticed on the way in. It wasn't the nicest-looking place on the planet, but it did sell clothes. And food.

Liz selected two shirts for herself, and one pair of jeans. Both shirts were rather gaudy with "Welcome to the Home of the Aliens" printed across the fronts. She wondered briefly what Max would think of that. For him she picked out a T-shirt with a rip-off logo pasted across the front, and another pair of jeans in what she hoped was his size.

She sat her purchases down on the counter, barely noticing the old woman who watched her through thick glasses. She went for the refrigerator in the back, grabbing several bottles of water and some snacks. She took her purchases to the counter.

The old woman raised an eyebrow at her. "Just this?"