"So, I guess you know, now?" she asked, darting her gaze from him and looking towards her room in shock. Her secret was finally out and she didn't know whether to punch Ava or kiss her.

"Yes. I know you didn't sleep with him," Max said firmly, a glimmer of sadness in his eyes. "But-but I still don't know why you felt you had to lie to me, Liz! We never lied to each other."

Ava began to stand up from the chair as she saw Max's lip begin to quiver and his eyes begin to water. She didn't need to see their leader crumble like this. "M-maybe I should go," Ava said quietly, heading through the window and back into Liz's room with a sad look at the brown-eyed girl. Liz nodded and smiled at her. Ava smiled back. Had she helped her? She certainly hoped so. She prayed that she hadn't made everything worse.

"Max, I can't. I can't tell you. I promised you- I mean, I promised him," Liz said firmly, sitting in her chair and holding her journal closely to her breast. Max kneeled down in front of her and glared at her.

"You wrote about Tess leaving. You wrote about the Skins taking over. You wrote about the future like you KNEW what was going to happen, how do you know Liz? You wrote in your journal like someone came from the future and told you exactly what was going to happen- and how to stop it!" he cried, finally meeting her gaze. Her eyes watered and she lowered her chin to rest on the top of her journal. Max gasped. "Is that...is that it? How is that--?"

"You came to me from the year 2014, Max! It was you! You were 31 years old. You had long hair, and a mustache, and little patches of gray in your head- but-it was still you," she said matter-of-factly.

Max fell backwards to sit on his knees, his mouth gaping open widely. "How?" he barely whispered out.

"Remember before I left? I told you that the Granilith was dangerous and powerful and not to let the wrong people get their hands on it? That's what I meant...."

"It's- it's a t-time machine?" he asked incredulously. She nodded. "I-I don't understand," he looked at his feet.

She sighed, raising her tired body from the chair and walking past him to the edge of the balcony. "He didn't really explain much. He didn't tell me how it worked." She looked up at the stars, smirking at the irony of this situation. The love of her life came back from the future to make her make him fall out of love with her? It was so laughable....

He turned around to look at her and noticed for the first time that the moonlight was making her skin glow. He had never seen her so beautiful, so honest, so real- than at that very moment. They didn't speak for what seemed like forever. He just watched her with curiosity, wondering silently to himself what her next move was going to be as he pondered his own. "So," he said finally as he sank down into the chair. "You did this to...save the world?" He cringed as he heard the ridiculous phrase ring through his own ears.

"I had to," she said firmly without turning around to face him. "When you and I made- I mean, when we got back together...Tess was so heartbroken that she left Roswell, and you weren't able to defeat the Skins. They took over...the world...." She drifted off. He rested his face in his hands, crumbling. He couldn't believe that he would do that to her- he couldn't believe that he'd make her do that...it just didn't seem like him at all.

"You're sure? You're positive it was me? It wasn't a- a shapeshifter?" he asked her. She turned around and glared at him with horror.

"Do you actually think I'd make something like this up just so I could 'pretend' to sleep with my ex-boyfriend? The one who I dumped because I was in love with you?" she cried.

"No!" he cried, trying to recover. "I-I just can't believe that I would do that to you. Instead of having us talk everything out-with Tess...." He didn't want to cry, he really didn't- but his devastation betrayed him as the tears began to slide down his golden cheeks. "How can you ever forgive me?"

She turned around to face him, watching him as she walked towards the chair. "How can you even ask me that? After everything I did to you? This is not your fault."

"Liz, don't turn this around on yourself. I am as much to blame as you are- I just wish you would have told me about this earlier- we could have worked everything out...and maybe...we could have gone to the Gomez concert that night...." his voice trailed off. He looked into her gorgeous brown eyes and saw them blacken with desire.

"Actually...." she whispered, looking towards her window. "We didn't ever make it to the concert...." he looked at her, confused. "He- you, I mean. You told me that-that night changed everything between us."

Max let his face drift unconsciously towards Liz's. "What do you mean---'everything'"

She felt the familiar low rumbling begin deep in her stomach and spread all over her body as his lips came closer to her own.

She could barely breathe as she spoke the next words. "That was the first night we made love," she got it out quickly. The corners of his mouth turned up slowly, revealing the first smile he'd given her in weeks.

"Oh," he said, barely controlling his excitement as he felt the blush creep up hotly into his cheeks. "Liz, did we-did he tell you if we ever-" he began, only to be interrupted by her.

"-Got married? Yes," she said quickly as she watched his face light up. "We were 19. We went to the Elvis Chapel in Vegas." They laughed.

"Vegas? Wow," he said, lying backwards to relax on the chair. This was the best he'd felt in weeks. He felt like Liz had picked up the million pieces of his broken heart and melted them all back together- just by telling him that they had been husband and wife in the future. It was all too much for him to take, so he just closed his eyes and smiled. She sighed, standing up and walking towards the window and climbing inside. She sat down on the couch nearby and watched him as he laid in the chair quietly. He turned around to face her and got up slowly, walking across the balcony and sitting right near the opening, his face only a few inches from hers. "So...."

"So?"

"So, where does this....leave us?" he asked quietly. She just looked at him with sad eyes.

"Max," she said firmly. "We can't. Don't you understand? That's why you came back. To make sure that we never made love- to make sure we'd never get back together."

"Tess won't leave. I won't let her."

"Oh, you won't?" she asked sarcastically. "You don't own her. She lives her own life and she'll do what she damn well wants to do. She doesn't care."

"Liz," he said firmly. "I know Tess. She isn't-she isn't this horrible person that everyone else thinks she is. She's scared, just like the rest of us. If we tell her what we know, she won't leave Roswell. She won't endanger everyone like that. She cares about me, Michael, and Isabel too much to just hand us over to the Skins like that. We're the only family she has," Max said quickly.

Liz looked at him, smiling. "This is what was supposed to happen, you know? It worked."

Max paused. "What? What was supposed to happen?"

"You were supposed to be with Tess. Just like your mother said," she smiled, looking up at the stars once more as she let the tears slide down her face. Max rested his hand on hers softly.

"No," he said quietly, determined. "I am supposed to be with you." Liz met his eyes and for a moment, felt like everything would work out. "Isabel, Michael, and Tess are my family. They are a part of me- we need to stay together. But you're a part of me too." He pleaded with her, wiping a tear from her cheek with his hand and letting his palm rest lightly against her jaw. "And I know that one day, you'll be my family- for real." He kissed the ring finger of her left hand and she couldn't help but smile.

"Max." She shook her head. "Max, I'm scared. I don't think I can stand...."

"Stand what?" he asked as he began rubbing her cheek softly.

"I don't think I can stand losing you again. This has to work. Do you know that Tess will stay this time? I don't know if I can take this pain ever again...." she said softly, her thoughts moving so fast that the words seemed to tumble over each other.

"Never again," he said quietly, kissing her cheek tenderly and letting his lips linger on her olive skin.

Ava sat in the hallway of the Parkers' apartment, her body propped up against Liz's bedroom door. She sighed as the sound of voices diminished until it was completely silent. She walked over to the hall closet and grabbed a spare pillow and blanket and spread them out on the floor. She had a feeling that she wouldn't be returning to the suffocating sleeping bag in her room that night. She stretched out and yawned as she felt herself completely relax into a peaceful sleep. She just prayed that she wouldn't have another horrible dream about Zan.

* * * *

Liz smiled as she found the light pencil drawing tucked safely inside a purple folder inside her nightstand drawer. The memories of the night that the picture was drawn were still fresh in her mind- the intense heartache she felt when the image was captured but also the intense feelings of joy that she welcomed only hours later. She snuggled back into the pillows on her bed as she hugged the sketch tightly to her body.

It had been five years since the night that Ava drew the picture for her, and she still hears from her every now and then. She went back to New York and lives with a minor league football player named Kevin. Must be something in Ava and Tess's genetic code- they're both attracted to the 'jock' type. Her gaze caught sight of the purple-framed picture resting next to her lamp and reached over to pick it up. She smiled as she looked at the image of she and her seven best friends on the night of their senior prom. Who would have thought two years ago that they'd all still be alive to see their senior prom? Alex looked so perfect with his arms wrapped around Isabel's, his dark hair a striking contrast to her bright long tresses. Beside Isabel was Michael, who had his arms around she and Maria and was smiling his perfect Michael smirk- that grin with no teeth that made her best friend fall head over heels for him. Kyle snuggled up next to Tess, whose incredibly high heels made her almost equal height with her date. Tess's arm was linked with Liz's own, and Max had his body pulled flush against hers. Everyone looked so happy and safe. The Royal Four was intact, no Skins took over the Earth. The scariest thing in these eight people's lives was the idea that she and Max had decided to go out east to college while the others remained in the warm and sunny western part of the country.

Liz once again looked at the sketch and smiled at the signature scrawled at the bottom. "By Ava, December 1, 2000." Did Ava know how much she changed everyone's lives? Who knew that Liz Parker could be good friends with Tess Harding and Tess Harding's double? Hey, this was Roswell. Stranger things had happened.

She smiled as she felt the warm body next to her begin to stir. Max moved quietly in his sleep, snuggling his face more deeply into her neck as his hand drifted to rest over her womb. He was always trying to get as close as possible to her, even in his sleep. She moved her hand lower to let it rest on top of his, and was shocked at how warm it felt. She looked down to their joined hands and noticed that the skin under his hand was glowing.

"Max!" she whispered with a shocked look on her face. "I-I'm?"

He moved his lips up to her ear and nuzzled her earlobe. "You're pregnant," he whispered, returning his face to rest in the crook of her neck. She gasped.

"What? How do you know?" she asked with a smile.

"We made a little girl tonight. I connected with her," he whispered into his neck as he snuggled up against her a little more tightly.

Liz looked at him with wonder. "How do you know?" she repeated.

He shrugged, his eyes still trying to capture a little bit of rest. "I just know. It's like instinctual or something. She's there, and she's a girl. Go back to sleep. We can talk about it in the morning." She chuckled at how calm he was about this whole thing! They were going to be parents? She laced her fingers with his as they rested upon her lower stomach. She smiled as she thought about the perfect name for their little girl.

Ava.