Liz opens her eyes and looks at him … cross-eyed. Max tries to control a grin and unable to stop himself, dissolves into a fit of laughter.

“I’m sorry but she started it,” Max tells a frowning director. The director walks over to Max and Liz and raises a golden eyebrow.

“Really, it wasn’t me,” Max insists.

“No, Max, it was you,” Liz counters.

“See, she’s still doing that cross-eyed thing,” Max bursts into another round of laughter.

Meanwhile, Maria’s practicing throwing snappy lines at Michael like, “You’re kidnapping me, no, wait, you’re abducting me!”

He responds by crossing his eyes and saying “Maybe because I love you too much.”

Maria falls on the floor laughing her head off. “Who are you addressing, me or your nose?”

The thoroughly exasperated director DC turns to his assistant director Jo, a perky brunette, who, you guessed it, looks at him cross-eyed.

“I told you she started it,” Max explains, still convulsed with laughter.

DC quickly runs his fingers through the stray locks of hair on his forehead, a sure sign of frustration. He corners Liz and says, “Are you trying to deceive, inveigle and obfuscate me?”

“No, because you know … the truth is out there,” she responds.

“Then why? Why did you ruin this shot when you knew I loved it? That I still love it?” he almost screams.

“Ah, DC,” Jo pipes in, “you did tell and I quote ‘Go with it, just go with it before I change my mind and take it all back.’ Maybe Liz thought the whole cross-eyes thing would just work in this scene.”

“Darn it, whoever heard of cross-eyes soulmates?” he screeches. “Liz has to do this scene properly, otherwise, that whole look-into-my-eyes-soulmate deal just isn’t going to fly!”

Upon hearing this, Liz straightens her eyes, walks back to her spot and lies down on the floor. DC looks so happy, he’s about to cry.

“Okay, let’s do this scenes right. Max, stop laughing. It isn’t funny anymore. Liz isn’t even cross-eyed.”

Max gets back into position, placing the palm of his hand on Liz’s belly. “Liz, you have to look at me,” he pleads.

Liz opens her eyes, smiles evilly and morphs into … Mr. X?

“Oh, fer Chrissakes!” DC shouts.

Mr. X gets up from the floor and tells Max, “Trust no one, Mr. Mulder.”

“Mulder? My name’s not Mulder! It’s Evans!”

Mr. X just stares hard at Max, says nothing and then walks off the set, his black trenchcoar looking really out of place in the bright summer light of the New Mexico desert town.

“Now that he’s gone …” DC break off his statement as he hears a scuffle in the background. Michael is picking a laughing Maria off the floor and carries her bodily off the set. His progress is slowed down considerably by his cross-eyed condition. Bump! Oof! Ow!

“You’re kidnapping me, no, wait, you’re abducting me!” Maria chokes, in between laughs.

“That’s okay,” DC tells a crew member who tries to stop M&M from leaving. “I have an idea for them later on. Probably a road trip or something like that. What was the name of that highway we passed earlier? 285 South? Sounds catchy. Maybe I’ll use it.”

“Max, can you get the real Liz back on the set? I think she went running off in the desert, crying her cross-eyed eyes out because some total outsider was trying to take her rightful place. She might be in trouble – she could drown with all those tears going sideways!” DC instructs Max.

Max leaves the set in hot pursuit of his leading lady. Visions of her cross-eyed looks flash through his mind and he doubles over in laughter. “I gotta get her back. I gotta show her how I can keep a straight face while she’s doing her cross-eyed thing and she’s going to forget all about feeling hurt.” Max vows.

Meanwhile a certain short curly haired blonde (SCHB for short), saunters onto the set, clutches DC’s shoulders and intones, “I knew this was meant to be. It’s our destiny!”

“Whoa! Wrong guy, wrong show! What am I saying? Wrong planet!!!” DC steps back from her.

Out of nowhere, a well-manicured man (WMM for short) approaches DC and SCHB and drawls in an English accent “I want to believe!”

“Believe what?” Max asks as he arrives with a smiling, non-cross-eyed Liz in tow.

“I want to believe that Liz can do this scene without succumbing to the after effects of the antidote we developed to combat the virus that the alien colonists were planning to unleash on this planet through a series of bee attacks. The main after effect is the propensity to look at someone cross-eyed,” WMM explains.

“So, you mean, Liz, Michael and Jo and possible others are infected with the antidote? We’ve got to tell Valenti!” Max responds.

“Wait, Valenti doesn’t even come up for another couple of minutes! Let me tell you, at the rate this scene is going, he’s never going to show up!” DC exclaims.

“I thought that ‘never showing up’ idea was reserved for his son Kyle,” Jo replies.

“We have better resources than Valenti, stronger ones,” SCHB pipes in.

“Oh, yeah, how fast can those little legs carry you to Alaska, missy? Because that’s where you’ll find your answer!” WMM says.

“But, but, I can’t walk that far,” SCHB pouts.

Suddenly a trio of scary looking droid-like figures encased in black leather with tubes sticking out of their heads materialize in the midst of the set. “We are Borg. You will be assimilated,” they says in a monotone.

“Whaaaaaaat? Look, I just want to direct this damn scene and now we’re being assimilated? Puh-leeze!” DC screams.

“Oops!” the lead Borg answers, “Scotty, beam us up, will ya? We’re dropped in on the wrong show!” The transporter beams up the three … plus one.

“Uh-oh! Where’s Max?” Jo says worriedly.

“They have Max! They have Max!” cries Liz pitifully. (And she thinks to herself, “Where’s Michael when I need a hug? Probably smooching Maria’s nose because of his cross-eyed condition!)

“Great, now I’ve lost my male lead. The show’s not going to work without him. The network will probably threaten cancellation now,” DC despairs.

Liz gets a brilliant idea and decides to share it. “Don’t panic! We’ll just have to convince the Borg to return him to us. How about we send them 4,000 bottles of Tabasco and tell them ‘Max is Hot!’ so better return him on the spot?”

“Wonderful idea, Liz!” everyone responds.

“I have an idea, too,” SCHB says sulkily. “How about I send them visions of Max kissing me? Then they’ll know it was our destiny.”

Everyone on the set rolls their eyes but SCHB goes ahead with her plan.

Max materializes among them instantly.

“See, what did I tell you, my plan worked!” SCHB announces triumphantly. (She thinks to herself, “4,000 bottles of Tabasco … yeah, right, like that would work!)

“Actually, SCHB, the Borg were screaming and howling in pain at all those images of me kissing you. ‘Make it stop, make it stop!’ they said. Finally the Borg queen just decided to whisk me back here because they couldn’t take it anymore,” Max illuminated her.

Stung by Max’s rebuttal, SCHB shoots a glance at Liz and asks, "Hey, how come she’s not cross-eyes anymore, huh? I mean, if she’s infected, why isn’t she showing the symptoms?” (She thinks to herself, “There, answer that!”)

Max shields Liz protectively and responds, “Because I kissed her and we saw into each other’s souls. That cured her.”

“But Max, weren’t you afraid of being infected yourself?” SCHB questioned.

“Whether I get infected today, tomorrow or 50 years from now, my destiny is the same. It’s with Liz. I love Liz,” Max replies resoundingly.

“People, people, please! We’re only in the pilot episode! The pilot! Do you know what ‘pilot’ means? It means the beginning of the series! We can’t even get through this one scene and already you’re giving out the ending. C’mon, we’ve got 21 episodes to go yet! I haven’t even introduced Alex and Isabel yet, not to mention the alternately gross and sexy shapeshifter, the cute-looking-Relativity-star-turned-sadistic-evil alien hunter, oblivious parents, a cool Indian and his hubba-hubba shirt baring friend!” a harassed DC rambles on to his glazed-looking audience.

WMM responds, “That’s why I keep telling people like you to ‘Trust no one’. You never know who will spill the spoilers of the season.” He leaves the set and a black limo pulls up in front of him. The window rolls down and a puff of smoke emerges. “Cancer man, is that you? Why are you smoking out of your nose? Oh, my God, you’re cross-eyed too? We gotta get you some help, man!” The limo speeds off.

SCHB approaches Max and tries to put her arms around him. Before she can get a solid grip, she de-materializes from sight.

“Yep, I thought so. Those horrifying visions she sent to the Borg pushed them over a cliff and they decided to assimilate her just to shut her up,” Max explains to the group.

“Now that no one is cross-eyed anymore, can we please reshoot scene?” DC pleads.

Max and Liz get back into position and DC fiddles with the knobs on the camera.

“Uh, DC, those aren’t knobs you’re playing with. Those are my shirt buttons,” Jo tells him.

“God, now I’m infected!” DC shouts. “Scene let’s this just, KO? I mean, let’s … just … shoot … this … scene, OK?” a persistent DC decides to tough it out. “Og! I mean, GO! Action!”

(flashback to Max and Liz healing scene in Pilot)

“Liz, you have to look at me!” Max pleads. Liz opens her eyes (not cross-eyed) and Max heals her gunshot wound.

“Cut, print it! Great, you two!” Jo tells them, having taken over DC’s directorial duties!

“Wow, that scenes went off without a hitch, huh? Not like the first time,” Max comments jovially.

“What are you talking about, Max?” Liz inquires.

“You know, that whole cross-eyed thing. You really made me laugh. And then DC got all mad, you shapeshifted in Mr. X, SCHB came in and so did WMM.” Max responds.

“Huh?” Liz gets puzzled.

“Maybe that antidote didn’t just affect your eyesight, it also affected your memory, Liz,” Max explains.

“What are you babbling about?” Liz reiterates.

“C’mon, you know!” Max calls DC, Jo, SCHB and the rest of the crew to back him up. As his explanation gets longer, everyone looks at him strangely.

“Max, I hate to tell you this but … it was only a dream,” Liz says carefully, not wanting to hurt his feelings.

“Oh,” Max says in a little voice.