Liz Parker heard the voice and pulled herself out of the dark place where she had been. She looked over at who was speaking to her and found Maria staring at her, pulling off concern even with that ridiculous alien antennae bobbing on her head.

"Yeah, of course," Liz lied. "Why?"

"Because you've been staring at the Czechoslovakians for ten minutes now."

Liz looked back and realized that she been starting at Michael, Isabel, Tess, and Max in the back booth at the Crashdown. Max looked up at her and she could still see the pain in his eyes. She had often thought that his beautiful, expressive eyes were what she loved most about him. Now they were killing her softly. She turned and rushed into the back room. Maria followed her.

"Liz, are you ever going to tell me what happened," she asked.

Liz opened her mouth: *Yes! Yes, yes, yes. I have to tell you what I did, why I did it. I didn't sleep with Kyle. I could never sleep with him. I love Max. I will love him until the last breath in my body is gone. Because I love him, and you, Maria, and all of our friends, I had to lie to him. I had to break his heart. I had to break my own.*

Slowly she shook her head. If she told Maria, there was the chance--a good chance--that she would tell Max. And if Max knew, then it would have been for nothing. He would love her again and her deception and all of the pain it caused and quite possibly the end of the world would result from it.

Maria sighed. She thought she understood what Liz was going through. She and Michael had always had a volatile relationship at best but she loved him and he loved her. Until his alien past caught up with him and he pushed her away for her own protection. She hadn't really put up with it, but she had thought it was kind of romantic, noble almost. Then Courtney came along and suddenly his not wanting her didn't seem so noble. It suddenly seemed like he was pushing her away because he'd found someone more interesting. Now she couldn't stand the sight of him. She thought that's what Liz was going through but there was more to it. Maria had begun to notice that Max and Liz could barely be in the same room together. She watched as neither could look the other in the eye. She didn't know what happened between them but it had been big.

"You know what," Liz said. "I have to get out of here. I'm feeling really bad."

"Sure, I'll cover for you."

"Max are you OK?"

Max wasn't OK, and he didn't think he ever would be. He would lay in bed at night and see Liz, cuddled up next to Kyle, laughing, naked. He would close his eyes and imagine Kyle going to her rooftop window, reminding her of the good times they'd had before Max had come along. Had she invited him in her bedroom as he reminded her how uncomplicated, unthreatened her life was before Max had fallen in love with her? Did she kiss him first? Did Kyle kiss her? He and Isabel, Tess and Michael would discuss their future, their enemies, their fate and he could do nothing but fixate on Kyle and Liz. Liz, Liz, Liz...

Max looked up at Isabel and nodded.

"You know, Maxwell, we're talking about our survival here. We only have so much time to devote to your decimated love life."

Max's head shot up and he stared hard at Michael. Michael thought for a moment that the table between them was shaking.

"Shut up," Max said in a very scary, very quiet tone. Then he stood up and marched out of the Crashdown.

"Can't you cut him a break?" Tess asked as she got up and followed Max out.

Michael wadded up the straw wrapper in his fingers and chucked it at Max's empty seat.

"Something happened," Isabel said. "Did he tell you what?"

"No, and you know what, I don't care. My love life isn't exactly the stuff of some Freddie Prinze, JR. movie but I can pull it together long enough to worry about what happens to us."

"I know, but that's not the point. Max is hurting, worse then ever before. He's closed himself off, Michael, and we need to get him back. He's our leader and we have to bring him back to us or we could all go down with him."

Liz wasn't sure where she was going and she didn't care. Her only wish was that she didn't have to go back. She wished she was on her way to college--somewhere far away where she didn't have to see Max or Tess everyday of her life. Tess. She may have been his bride in some other world at some other time but she could never have loved him like Liz did. Maybe it was an arranged marriage. They did that here in some royal families. Maybe he never loved her even then. But that didn't matter, he had to be with her here. It was their only chance for survival. It would be better for Max if he fell in love with Tess, better that he loved her than be stuck in a loveless relationship for the sake of his people. Never mind that it would kill her to see him look at Tess even once the way he use to look at her. Tess, Tess, Tess...

Liz wasn't sure, because she hadn't been paying attention to the road, if it had been her fault or his. All she knew was that there were headlights suddenly in front of her car and she was swerving hard to the right.

She must have blacked out, which surprised her because she had been in much more dangerous situations, but the next thing she knew she was on the shoulder of the highway. She turned to see what happened to the other car and was horrified to see it had plunged into the flood channel along the side of the road. She jumped out of her car and ran over to it. It was nose down in the ditch, with only one of it's back tires visible from the highway. Fortunately the driver was already out of the car and he was busy digging something out of the trunk.

"Oh my God, are you OK?" Liz asked.

"Yeah," he replied, his head still buried in the trunk. "But I don't think Avis will ever rent me another car."

He finished retrieving everything and began the climb up the embankment. Liz watched and all she could see at first was that he was wearing a suit and tie. The lights from the highway illuminated him as he got closer and she could see that he was pretty tall and lanky, he had brown hair and beautiful brown eyes. The resemblance of his expressive eyes to Max's caused her heart to constrict.

"Are you OK?" He asked.

Liz wished people would stop asking her that question.

"Yeah, I'm so sorry, I--"

He raised his hand to stop her.

"My fault, I was looking at a map and I drifted into your lane." He smiled to himself. "You would think I'd know how to get there by now."

"Where?"

"Roswell."

"Oh, well I can take you there.. It's the least I can do."

"But you're going in the other direction."

Liz shrugged. "I would have to go back some time."

As Liz climbed behind the wheel of her car she suddenly began to wonder about the wisdom of what she was doing. She had no idea who this guy was. Sure he seemed nice but for all she knew this was a scam to get into her car and do who knows what. He pulled open the passenger door and tossed the big pile of papers he had dug out of his trunk onto the seat between them. There was a large United States of America symbol on the top folder. Suddenly Liz felt terrified for an entirely different reason.

Michael glanced around the rooftop as he picked his way through lawn chairs, telescopes and other Parker family stuff. After the last near disaster he was pretty certain Liz wouldn't leave it laying around where anyone could find it but he looked around just the same. There was no sign of it so he went over to the window. He gave it a tug and it opened without any effort.

*I see she didn't take my advice about changing the locks.*

He looked around to make sure the coast was clear before he climbed in. He didn't know why he bothered. He knew Liz had bailed and that both her parents were downstairs at the Crashdown. Still, he had no desire to get caught.

He looked around her room and wondered exactly where to start. He wasn't familiar with girls rooms, except the time he'd spent the night at Maria's. But he'd been so messed up he couldn't even remember what color her bedspread had been. He did remember that her hair had smelled like watermelon. It was wet, she'd just gotten out of the shower and her hair, and the rest of her, had smelled like watermelon. He only remembered because the shirt he'd been wearing had smelled like it later, after she'd spent the night pressed up against him. He shook the thought, and the warm sensation it sent through him, off and concentrated on his task.

"It's bad enough that Max is distracted by women, one of us should at least be focused."

He rummaged around in the drawers, under the bed, in the closet, but didn't find it. He knew Liz was smart, if she still had it she would have hidden it well. Then he realized that he was going about it the wrong way. He was doing it like a human. He closed his eyes and tried to find it another way. When he was looking for the lock that would fit the key that he had stolen from Valenti he had found it and not by luck. He had felt then that something was coursing through him. If he could do it again he would find what he was looking for now. He closed his eyes but he could still see the room. The colors faded and it looked veiled somehow. Everything was devoid of color except...

Michael snapped open his eyes and went to the wall. He pushed at it but it was solid He kept pushing at different spots until one of the bricks shifted and fell back.

Michael plunged his hand into the dark space and pulled out exactly what he was looking for--Liz's journal.

"Just what the hell do you think you're doing?"

The journal flipped out of his hands and he turned to find Maria, half in, half out of the window glaring at him.

"So you've been to Roswell before?"

The guy in the suit nodded and grinned again--that funny little grin that was making Liz even more nervous.

"Yeah, a couple of times."

"What for?"

"Business. I work for the FBI."

Liz felt the blood rush out of her face. She glanced back down at the files between them.

"Oh." She swallowed hard and tried to grasp one of the hundreds of questions that were swirling in her head. "So you're investigating Senator Whitaker's death?"

He turned and looked at her strangely. Liz bit her lip. Wrong one to grasp.

"No, why do you think that? It was my understanding that the senator died in a car accident."

"Yeah," she laughed nervously and it sounded fake to her own ears. "It's just that not much happens in Roswell, her death was the only thing worth investigating."

"That and the aliens."

Liz's hand jumped and the car jerked. She hoped it was dark enough so that he couldn't see her hands trembling.

"Sorry, I must still be nervous from the accident."

He nodded and reached down to pick up some of the papers and files that slid down onto the ground. Liz chanced a look at the ones still on the seat and saw that the one now on top had her name on the tab.

"Oh, God."

The FBI agent popped his head up with concern.

"What?"

"Um, oh God, you--you're not another one of those people who believe in aliens are you? I mean, you're an FBI agent."

"I believe in a lot of things."

He put the fallen papers on the pile between them, burying her file.

"So you really are here looking for aliens?"

"I'm actually here looking for the Crashdown Cafe."

Liz started laughing uncontrollably. That bizarre tune started playing in her head: *They're coming to take me away, haha, they're coming to take me away....*

"Why? That place is such a tourist trap," she laughed, because she couldn't stop.

The FBI agent grinned at her, obviously not noticing the note of hysteria in her laughter.

"I hear they have great burgers."

Then he leaned over and offered her his hand.

"My name is Fox Mulder, by the way."

She shook his hand.

"Tess. I'm Tess," She stammered. "Tess is me."