Max didn't like to think of the month he had spent separated from her. It was after he and the other aliens had used the orbs to discover their true purpose here on Earth. When Liz had found out that he had a destiny that was so far outside the realm of her own small-town world, she panicked. She couldn't see a place for herself in a destiny that included not only himself, Isabel, and Michael but also Tess. Tess Harding who had been created to be his life mate, and was doing everything in her power to make it so. At the time, Liz had felt that Max would be better off without her to hold him back. What she didn't understand was without her, he was stymied, going nowhere. He needed to be with her, not as in some superficial emotional outpouring like when a person says they want this or have to have that. He needed to be with her like a person needs food and water and air. Without those things, they would surely die. That was how he needed Liz.

Not a day passed that he didn't think about Tess and how they had discovered that she wasn't who she appeared to be. It turned out that she was really a shape-shifting alien like Nasedo, from their home planet whose mission had been to find the four human/alien creatures and kill them. They discovered that she had located the pod chamber shortly after he, Michael and Isabel had escaped. She had killed the fourth incubated alien, the one who was to have been his mate, his wife from their previous existence, and assumed her place just as Nasedo had arrived to collect them. Then she had bided her time, waiting for Nasedo to lead her to the other three aliens, which he did, ten years later.

It had been Liz who had found out the truth. Liz, with her sharp analytical mind, had pieced together the puzzle of her own destiny. She realized that Max, while healing her of the gunshot wound, had stimulated the growth of cells in the part of her brain where their powers originated. It had taken a few months, but they eventually began to function and she showed signs of developing powers on her own. It was why she got flashes from time to time when she touched him. She had secretly been working on learning to control her powers when they began to realize that Tess was dangerous. Liz dressed up as a fortuneteller in order to get close enough to touch her without making Tess suspicious. It had worked, and to Liz's horror, she had gotten a flash that had told them Tess's true identity and her mission here in Roswell. After that, it was a simple matter of luring her out to reservation and having her participate in a "sweat" which they knew from past experience was a sure fire method of neutralizing her. It had worked, and now she laid buried in the desert outside the reservation boundaries.

Not a day went by that he didn't remember the images that he had seen from the flash Liz had from Tess. Needing to know the full truth of what she had seen, Max had connected with Liz, and had forced her replay the scenes from the flash for him. It was terrible. What they had seen, what Tess had done, was indescribable. He was thankful every day that she was gone, and wouldn't be around to threaten him any longer. That left her allies to worry about. From the flash, they had seen that she had come to Earth with five other aliens, all determined to see him and his family die. With Tess gone, Max knew the other members of her team would eventually show up in Roswell looking for her. It was only a matter of time.

Max had alerted the sheriff to the situation at the same time he explained that Tess Harding was dead. With Nasedo impersonating Agent Pierce in the FBI, there had been no parental figure to watch over Tess, and Valenti had placed her into foster care for a time. With her gone, she would have been reported missing, and there would have been an investigation, so Max had gone to the Sheriff's office as soon as he could after it had all happened and told him about the situation. Valenti was willing to cover up her disappearance, telling everyone that her father had called from where ever he was, and had requested she be put in the first plane going there. It seemed to have worked because no one had ever questioned the story.

Max was grateful to have the sheriff on their side. He was a good man with strong values who could be counted on to see that justice was done. He was as strong an ally as he had been formidable as a foe. Once he had gotten over his natural fear of aliens that had been put there by his father, Max had no doubt, he could see that Max, Isabel and Michael were just like regular teenaged humans trying to survive high school... and avoid getting caught in the net of an FBI manhunt. Max didn't blame the sheriff for setting the FBI after him, not really. The sheriff was doing what he felt that had to do to keep the town safe. What a strange twist of fate, Max thought, that in telling an alien nut named Everett Hubble about him would set into motion the chain of events that would eventually lead them to the relationship they had now.

Max, over the past months, had come to think of Valenti as kind of a father figure because, unlike his adoptive father, the sheriff knew the truth about him. Max didn't have to hide himself and lie to the sheriff any longer.

Not that they were openly friendly. In the best of circumstances, Max was laconic. Liz was the only person he was completely open and honest with, and sometimes he withheld things from her, too, in order to protect her or to spare her feelings. No, so it wasn't like they were Sunday afternoon fishing buddies or anything like that, it was more of a bond of mutual respect and a protective urge that ran deep in both men. Valenti had sworn to protect the citizens of Roswell, and Max had sworn to protect the five people who looked to him for guidance: Michael, Isabel, Liz, Maria and Alex.

Having been declared the leader of their small band had been a tremendous experience for him. It put a lot of pressure on his shoulders, more pressure than a teenager should have to deal with, but fortunately with things having been so calm these past two weeks, Max didn't really take time to worry about it. The extent of his duties so far had been to suggest that everyone who had powers should practice using them whenever it was safe and they were alone, and he'd told Valenti about Tess's death and the five alien allies he was expecting to arrive in town looking for her anytime now. Max had asked the older man for guidance on how to handle the situation, and the sheriff had promised to have his deputies keep an eye out around town for any strangers. Max reminded him that whoever was coming would be powerful and, like Tess and Nasedo, able to change their forms to look like anybody which would make them more difficult to spot. They had agreed to take the cautious approach, and keep each other posted if anything strange happened.

So far it had been nothing but peaceful. This was fine with Max. It meant that he had more time to spend with Liz.

He rolled over and looked at the clock. He still had three hours before he had to go shower and change. They had stayed out late the night before, "stargazing" but mostly the only stars he'd seen were the ones that danced across the back of his eyelids while she was kissing him. Sometimes when he held her in his arms and looked down at the expression on her face, he couldn't believe that it was really her looking back at him. He'd loved her for so long, long before she'd been shot, long before she even noticed he was alive. Sometimes he felt like he was living in a very, very lucid dream, and dreaded having to wake up on the morrow to the reality that none of it was true.

He knew that she loved him back with the same intensity that he had for her which amazed him. There was no doubt about it. Sometimes when their mutual passion reached a certain level, he would get a flash from her. (He'd been privately calling it the "flashpoint.") The flashes were incredible, and showed him beyond a doubt that she was just as drawn to him as he was to her. They astonished him, every time. Sometimes he saw tidbits of events that had happened to her, other times, he saw her fantasies, but either way, he'd been privy to all of the emotions that were churning inside of her during whatever episode he was seeing. His favorite flash of them all, if he had to choose, would have to be either the fantasy she'd had of him catching her in the girls locker room at school all wet and necked in the shower... Not because he'd had seen her unclothed, though to be honest, it was a bonus, but because of the emotions he'd clearly felt from her, when she'd dreamed him there. She had stood frozen not in embarrassment, but in uncertainty and shyness. She had worried that her body, which was perfection itself, might not please him.

She had been hesitant over how she could ever hope to have him be as attracted to her as she was to him. It was like she thought of him as some handsome, wonderful, knight who was way beyond anyone she could ever hope to catch the eye of. It was an incredible experience.

...Or his other favorite flash had been the one where he had seen again everything that had happened the night he had escaped from the FBI. Through her eyes he had seen them running down the highway, getting trapped between the two vehicles with no way out, then finally jumping into the river to escape them. The emotions she'd been feeling that night were indescribable to him, but again showed him that she was just as committed to him as her was to her. The depth of her love for him and the lengths to which she'd go to protect him took his breath away like nothing else ever could.

He looked back that the clock. It had barely moved. Deciding that he couldn't wait any longer to see her, Max bounded up from his bed and headed to the bathroom. Liz Parker was standing at her dresser brushing her hair. She wasn't really paying that much attention to her reflection. The action was more to keep her hands busy while her thoughts drifted. Max was coming over in a couple of hours, and they were planning to go for a drive to... somewhere. Did it really matter? They didn't care where they were as long as they were together. They had spent pretty much every waking minute in each other's company for the past two weeks. And an occasional sleeping minute there, too. She sighed blissfully at the thought. Laying with him last night under the stars was wonderful. Sometimes she had to pinch herself to make sure she wasn't dreaming. After all, how was it possible that Max Evans, gorgeous, intelligent Max Evans with his intense eyes and melting smile... how could he possibly be interested in her. She sometimes felt for sure that the whole thing was a fantasy, like the ones she'd started having about him in the seventh grade. She was afraid she would wake up to discover that it was the day after the Crash Festival: back when they couldn't be together because of who he was. Because they were too different.

Putting down her hairbrush, she reached for her lip-gloss. Her hand accidentally brushed the cup she had set on the edge of the dresser.

Instantly it toppled to the floor and there was red juice soaking into the carpet. Calling herself several names for being so careless, she ran into the bathroom and grabbed a dark colored towel. Hurriedly, she began to sop up the mess. 'Mom is going to kill me,' she thought. 'This is never going to come out.' She brought a glass of cold water in from the bathroom with a theory that if she saturated it enough; she might be able to get up most of it. Just before she poured the water onto the already wet rug, she had a better idea. She set the glass down on her dresser, away from the edge this time, and knelt down. Taking a deep breath, she focused her thoughts inward for a moment, calling up the feelings of energy that she had been learning how to manipulate. When her skin started to tingle, she held one hand over the red stain on the floor. Within seconds, it was completely gone. A few seconds more and the rug was dry, with no evidence to show it had ever been discolored.

"Liz, honey, what are you doing?"

Liz jumped to her feet and looked, her mouth agape, at her father who was standing just inside the doorway. "Dad! Um, nothing. I was, um, just looking... for my... barrette. Um, what are you doing here?" She quickly gathered her brains back together, and tried for a better poker face, hoping he hadn't noticed that anything was amiss. "Did you want something?"

"No, not really. That boy, Max, is downstairs. I told him I'd tell you he was here."

Liz glanced at the clock. "He's early."

"That's what he said."

She quickly got a windbreaker from the closet, and tucking her lip-gloss into the pocket, headed for the door. She kissed her dad on the cheek as she passed him. "Thanks, dad."

"Anytime," he said, staring at the carpet where she had been kneeling when he walked in. With a shrug, he walked away. Downstairs in the CrashDown Café, Max was talking quietly with his sister, Isabel and her boyfriend, Alex Whitman.

"Where did you see it last?" he asked her.

"I don't know. It's been a few days, at least. I don't wear it very often you know. I'm always afraid I'll lose it when I do." Isabel looked worried.

Max put his hand on her arm. "I'm sure it will turn up. Maybe you put it into a pocket, or your purse. I'll help you look for it later."

"What is it?" Alex asked, understanding from their tones that this was serious. Not 'run for your life, the FBI is after you,' kind of serious, but important enough to warrant anxiety. The past several months of knowing the Evans siblings had taught him the difference.

"It's just a necklace we found. I think it has something to do with our... you know. It has one of the symbols on it from the cave painting on it."

"Is it kind of round? About the size of a quarter?" He asked.

"Yeah," Isabel said, looking at him eagerly, "do you have it? Did you find it in your car or something?"

"No, no I just thought it sounded familiar. I must have seen you wearing it." Isabel looked so disappointed that Alex put an arm around her shoulder and hugged her to him. He gave her a soft kiss on her forehead. "We'll find it. I promise."

"Ok," she whispered, wanting to believe him. She looked up at him, and kissed him tenderly in return.

Max looked away, not in embarrassment, but out of respect. He was happy that his sister had let her defenses down and allowed Alex into her life. He was so good for her, always being supportive in a hundred little ways. Most importantly, he was unashamed to openly admit how he feels for her. She had come into her own under the umbrella of his affection.

"Is this seat taken?"

Liz's voice jarred him from his thoughts. He swung his head around and gazed at her. "No," his voice was barely above a whisper. Just looking at her stole his ability to think. Rather than sliding into the booth next to him, she leaned over and kissed him lightly on the lips. The slight contact was enough to kick his pulse into overdrive. He reached up and slid his fingers into her hair to prolong the kiss. After a moment, they broke away and simply looked into each other's eyes. A sound from across the table broke the spell.

She looked at Alex and Isabel sitting so close together. "Hey guys."

"Hey."

"Hey. So," Alex asked, "what are you two going to do today?"

"Nothing." Liz answered him, but was looking at Max as she said it. Their eyes were passing messages back and forth, about how long they would have to wait before she could be in his arms for the kind of kiss they both wanted. "Just going for a drive."

Max was already sliding from the booth when Alex answered, "Just do me a favor and don't run into any horses this time."

Max smiled down at the other boy, "Hey, I didn't hit the last one."

"That was the problem." Liz added, glad that they could joke about what was once a life and death situation. Who would have known an innocent ride into the desert would have ended with Max in the hospital, where a blood test could have blown his secret wide open. Who knows what kind of torture would have been in store for him as soon as it became public knowledge that Max Evans was an alien. Desperate, Liz had called the only person she could think of, the only one she could trust: Alex Whitman who had been her friend since the fifth grade. Without asking for an explanation, he had allowed Isabel and Liz to remove some of his blood and replace it for Max's in the hospital's lab. It had been a narrow escape, and she has never forgotten how grateful she was to have a friend like him. She smiled at him now as she said, "Maybe you should keep your phone with you, just in case."

"Oh, no," he said. "You're on your own. Isabel and I are going to the movies, after that, she's going to make me dinner."

That caught Max's attention. He looked at his sister, who, to his knowledge didn't know where the stove was, let alone how to use it, and smiled. "You're cooking? What are you making, boiled eggs?"

"Ha, ha, very funny." She glared at him. Alex grinned. His Isabel could say more with a single look...

Liz pulled him away while he was laughing. "Oh, stop it." To her friends, "See you guys tomorrow." Then after waving to her dad who was ringing up a customer at the cash register, she tugged Max out the door.

The man standing across the street stopped at the sound of laughter coming from the front of the CrashDown Café. He watched with a small smile as Liz Parker playfully eluded Max Evans by weaving in and out of parking meters and pedestrians. He heard the teenager call out to her as she ducked into an alleyway beside the building. Max stood still for a moment and waited. Liz came back over to him. She leaned up on tiptoe to whisper something in his ear. He must have agreed with whatever she said, because moments later he pulled her into the alley after him. When they were out of sight from those walking or driving up and down the street, they embraced eagerly.

Even from this distance, it was easy to discern the depth of feelings these two young people had for each other. This was no ordinary high school crush. Having lost his wife years ago, he understood the need these two had to squeeze every moment of joy from the day that they could. He was certain that they knew that each new dawn could bring separation or death. He wished, in retrospect, that he and his wife had thought to enjoy one another as ardently as these two were doing now. Whistling softly, Sheriff Valenti continued towards the Sheriff's Station.

"So what do you want to do?" Liz asked softly a few minutes later, after they had caught their breath. She was still snuggled up against Max's chest.

"Hmm." He looked in her eyes suggestively. "You want to know what I want to do?" He gripped her arms and pulled her a little closer. He bent his head and whispered in her ear, his lips just brushing her skin, "How about some... basketball." He peered into her face with a big grin.

"Basketball?" She repeated, not sure if he was kidding.