The growing excitement filled the group headed for the transporter room. They all realized what a momentous event the first contact had been and the fact that the date and type of alien first encountered on earth would probably change in the history books because of what the crew of the Enterprise had found put them in the history books too. Alexis still wanted to ask her father about Q, though. If he could help, why didn't the Captain want to accept that help?

As they all reached the surface, they looked around at the small town. With the exception of the mode of transportation and more technology, Alexis could tell that really not a whole lot had changed. However, there weren't many people around and it looked like the town was falling apart at the seams. As she spotted the Crashdown Café, however, her heart began to pound in her chest. It was just as she had pictured it, if a little run down.

"Well, Dr. Picard, shall we start with the café?" Jean-Luc asked Alexis, noticing the excitement in her eyes.

"Yes, let's start there!" she exclaimed.

Commander Data and Commander Riker decided to look around at the rest of the town and meet the others back at the café later. As they entered, Alexis was disappointed to notice just how far run down this little piece of history actually was. Her hopes brightened, however, as she noticed that there were pictures on the wall of the café from years earlier. She started to cross the room over to them to study them when someone came from the kitchen stopping her in mid stride.

"Afternoon! What can I do for you folks today? Hope you're hungry 'cause we've got the best food in town!" a young man in his mid thirties came out saying. He was rather tall with sandy blond hair and seemed to be a jovial person. He seemed to be the only person in the café at the moment and Alexis assumed that he was left to run things after the lunch crowd had dissipated.

"Let's keep a low profile here, people. I don't want the media alerted to the possible change in history just yet," the Captain told his crew before smiling and turning his attention to the young man.

"Yes, we are actually. I would love to see the menu!" Jean-Luc answered him.

"Great! Pull up a chair or a booth and make yourselves at home! The menus are on the table and I'll get your orders in just a minute. Let me just fire up the grill!" With that the young man disappeared back into the kitchen.

The group decided to sit in a couple of booths and Alexis sat down in one not too far from the door. As she sat down, she got a flash of a young man with dark hair and telling eyes, who she knew from previous flashes and pictures as Max Evans, sitting in this booth with school books spread out in front of him, his eyes following a dark haired young waitress. As she started to tell the Captain about this flash, the young man reemerged from the back.

"Everything here is made from scratch. No replicators here! No sir! What can I get you folks?" he asked jovially.

Alexis looked at the menu and laughed out loud. Every food item on the menu had something to do with the 20th century view of aliens and the movies from that time period. She told the young man that she liked the menus and he seemed pleased.

"That's the original layout of the menus as they were over 300 years ago! My family has owned this restaurant since it opened in the 20th century!" he boasted.

"Oh, so you're related to Jeff and Nancy Parker?" Alexis asked.

The young man narrowed his eyes at her, studying her for a moment but then the smile returned to his face. "Yup! My great-great-grandparents were their brother and sister-in-law. When their only daughter disappeared, Jeff decided to leave the restaurant to his nephew my great-grandfather. My name is James Parker by the way."

James was such a jolly person and so obviously proud of his heritage that he had everyone smiling except Worf who was seriously debating weather he should eat the food that came from this place. Alexis decided that this James would be easy to get to talk about anything having to do with Liz Parker and this restaurant. As they placed their orders with James, she thought about how to bring it all up.

They were discussing this as a group when James brought back their orders. Worf eyed his order of Saturn's onion rings with suspicion. James pulled up a chair and wiped his face with a towel. He grinned at the site of a Klingon in his café trying to eat human food.

"So James, you said that the Parker's only daughter disappeared. What happened, does anybody know?" Deanna asked him.

"No, not really. It was a family joke to say that she was abducted by aliens, given where we were and everything, but really nobody knows what happened to her. Her name was Elizabeth Parker and she disappeared not long after graduating from college. She was pretty though and so full of life before her friends disappeared. That's her there up above you in that picture," he told them pointing above their heads.

Alexis studied the picture. This was the girl she had seen in her flashes and in the pictures with her information. She was in a turquoise blue uniform with a funny silver "alien head" apron around her waist. She had on a pair of antennae and she was standing with her arm around a girl about the same height as her, maybe an inch or two taller, with blond hair and laughing. Alexis knew who it was but to confirm it she asked about her to James.

"Oh, that was her best friend, Maria DeLuca, one of the ones who disappeared. They were friends from the 3rd grade up until her disappearance. She worked here too as you can see. Those were happier times for this place," he said rather forlornly.

"Why? What do you mean?" Beverly Crusher asked.

"Roswell was a small town with very few people having heard about her until the infamous UFO crash in 1947. Then everything here changed. It became a tourist town with most of its income coming from everything being based on the premise of aliens. This town was bustling with people who wanted to visit the crash site, especially during the conventions. I mean there was a UFO museum for crying out loud. However, it kind of slowed down after a few years. When all those kids disappeared, it picked back up but when a year went by with no clues and even the parents had stopped looking, it died down again. The only other time it picked back up after that was right after first contact was made with the Vulcans after WWIII. People got interested in extraterrestrials again and business picked back up. That only lasted another few months, however. People started to realize that the crash of 1947 was probably in fact just what the military had told them then, a weather balloon. So everything went down hill from there and now this town is a ghost town. Even the UFO museum is boarded up. You guys are the first customers I've had in here all day," he recounted sadly.

Alexis's heart broke to hear this story. It always made her sad to see change and time affect a town or city so badly. She was especially disappointed to hear that the museum had been boarded up, she had wanted to see it. Then she made up her mind that she would see it.

"James, do you live upstairs now? I noticed it looked like there was an apartment up there," she asked him gently.

"Yes. I just can't give up this place. I don't have any children so I suppose that when I die it will be boarded up too. It's just that it's a piece of my history and I can't let it go. I've tried to remodel this place but I don't really have the resources to do it," he said wiping a tear away. "Well, I need to get the kitchen cleaned up. You folks stay as long as you want and feel free to look around."

As he headed back into the kitchen, Alexis started looking at the pictures on the wall again. Worf mumbled something about looking around at the old buildings and left. Dr. Crusher went in search of the ladies' room and the Captain decided to look around at the outside of the café.

Alexis sat studying the pictures quietly. There were several of people who she somehow knew were Jeff and Nancy Parker. There were pictures of Liz and Maria and Alex Whitman together. There were some of Sheriff Valenti and his son Kyle. However, the pictures that fascinated Alexis the most were the ones of all of them together. There was some sort of celebration going on, apparently after the café was closed, and they were all having such a good time. In these pictures, they looked happy. Michael Guerin, Isabel Evans, Max Evans, Kyle Valenti, Sheriff Valenti, Jeff and Nancy Parker, Liz Parker, Tess Harding, Amy and Maria DeLuca, Phillip and Diane Evans, they were all there and all happy. What had happened to them? Where did they all go? Were any of them Healers like she thought?

Deanna broke into her thoughts, "You look like her, Liz I mean. It's amazing how much of a resemblance there is considering there has to be at least 3 generations between you. I really think you are a descendent of her."

"Deanna, what could have happened to them all? I mean they can't have just disappeared into thin air?" Alexis asked.

"I wish I knew, Alexis. It certainly is a good mystery," Deanna said sympathetically.

"I can't believe that I'm in the same place they used to be! It is just amazing. Looking at these pictures, I can see it all. I can hear the clinking of plates and glasses as people eat. I can hear Liz and Maria yelling out orders in the back. I can hear it almost as if I am actually there. It's very unnerving," Alexis told the Counselor.

Just as she finished saying this, the Captain came back in the café with Data and Riker and Dr. Crusher came from the back. Data and Riker told them that they had seen the UFO museum and felt that they could get inside fairly easily. Jean-Luc said he didn't really find anything outside but Alexis wanted to look around outside the café before they headed back to the museum. As they started to leave, James came back out of the kitchen.

"You all leaving so soon? That's too bad, I enjoyed talking with you. Please come back again," he told them sincerely.

"Thank you, James, for all of your help. Do you mind if we look around outside the café for a few minutes?" Alexis said shaking his hand.

"Sure! You go right ahead and if you want to know anything else about this town, just let me know. I may not know all of it but my family has passed down a lot of the history," he answered.

As Alexis looked around outside the café, she came around the back and discovered an old-fashioned fire escape ladder leading to a small balcony outside one of the windows of a room in the apartment upstairs. She walked over to it and as she put her hand on it to climb it, she suddenly got flashes of Max Evans doing the same thing and Liz Parker coming down it. She quickly scaled the ladder and stood on the balcony. So many images flooded her mind she sat down on the concrete floor. Max and Liz kissing. A much older Max dancing with a young Liz. Liz crying, hugging her knees to her chest, as well as her writing in the journal, and stargazing from an old lawn chair. So much just from this one spot! What it all meant, Alexis didn't know. Some of it, she remembered from the journal but some of it she didn't understand.

She climbed back down the ladder and explained what she had gone through up on the balcony. The Captain looked concerned and asked if she thought she was ok. When Alexis assured him she was fine and suggested they head for the museum he consented.