One night, Ciara told Liz how she and Conor came to America from Ireland after their parents disappeared. Their parents left one night, never came back and were presumed dead. So, Conor and Ciara finished secondary school, and started taking correspondence courses in college like Liz. When they turned 18, their parents’ will was found and read. Conor and Ciara were left a cryptic message on a videotape that was made a few weeks before their parents vanished. Instructions were left that they were to be given a certain amount of money each year from their trust fund and that they were to head to Snow Valley, Colorado to live there. Ciara had no idea what was going on but kept the tape. As Liz watched it, she sensed a fear in the parents’ eyes that they seemed desperate to veil.

Ciara and Conor didn’t understand why their parents disappeared, and why they were to come to Snow Valley, but they faithfully waited for the parents they so desperately missed. Liz understood their pain. One day, she went online to see if the Crashdown was still up and running and found a webpage for it. She clicked a link on the bottom of the page only to find her last school picture with a caption pleading for any information relating to the disappearance of "our beloved daughter."

Liz’s heart sank, thinking of how lonely and depressed her parents must feel without her. Liz wondered if they felt as abandoned as Ciara and Conor felt with a missing family.

Liz spent so much time at the McKernan’s that the two siblings decided that Liz should move in and occupy the empty bed in Ciara’s room. Their apartment was colorful and homey, exactly the opposite from Liz’s. She was hesitant to move in because she feared that somehow her real identity would show. That and she was afraid what she would do if she lived with Conor. Shy looks had evolved into the occasional hug and a deep relationship. Conor had given her the first hug she had received since she left. When he did, she felt her head fill with an eerily familiar light that spread through her body and into her heart. She felt safe for the first time since… When she pulled away, she was crying. Conor looked at her with a cloudy haze reflecting in his large eyes. It cleared in a moment, and the incident was not mentioned again.

Despite her hesitations, she started packing. Ciara and Conor came to help and were shocked by the "squalor" that she lived in. They refused to let her sleep another night there and stayed up past midnight to move her out. Their friendship and love fed Liz’s hungry soul. Ciara was much like Maria, so much that Liz often heard Maria’s voice reflecting in the words Ciara spoke. Then her achy feeling would return, and she would sit alone on her bed with her arms wrapped around herself.

Conor came into the room. Seeing her in a slow-rocking position, he rushed over to see her lift her tear-streaked face and teary brown eyes to his. She didn’t speak a word, but once again, Liz found herself wrapped in a firm yet gentle hug that warmed her to her toes. The light came again with the feeling of peace. Conor was always there for her, but she never mentioned her past, and he never asked. There was a peace between them that left no room for unnecessary words.

There were many similarities between Liz’s old friends: Max, Isabel, Michael, Maria, and Alex that were reflected in both Conor and Ciara. Sometimes, this served to relieve some of Liz’s loneliness for her old life, but others, it only made her hunger for the "connection" that she had shared with the others. Something continued to make her heart ache with memories of Roswell. She had never returned to her home, in fear of being discovered and caged. She had no contact with anyone. Now, she felt this draw pulling her there. Perhaps it was just because it was Christmas; perhaps it was something more… Now, she had a feeling that Conor and Ciara were involved but didn’t know how to place it. She knew innately that she was to trust them, and she would not be harmed.

She wanted to return, but she had a fear of her memories and old life rushing back. She didn’t know if her feelings were significant until one night.

Liz was sleeping in her twin bed across the room from Ciara. Her dreams were usually quite empty. This time, however, her head flashed with images of Max, their love, Roswell, her friends, and something colder…something alien. She had never dreamed of her friends, and Isabel had never entered those dreams out of respect to her. This dream started out with a warmth of her former life, just memories, images, sounds, and feelings. Then, it turned into how she felt seeing Max’s mother tell them that Tess and Max were "destined."

Liz writhed in the pain she was once again re-experiencing. Then, the night of her escape from Roswell flashed through her brain. Her desperation and depression at the time flashed through her again, slicing her heart in two.

Then something else started to play in her mind. It was an image of Max walking down the street of a large city alone. His posture was completely different than what she had remembered. Gone was the hesitant yet strong, shoulders-back pose. This Max was slouched with a smirk that was anything but sweet. He had a swagger to send a message to all other people around him that he was not interested in anything they had to say. This was not the Max that Liz had known. Then, more pain flashed through her as she realized that she had caused this dramatic change in him. She now knew how stupid and cruel she had been to leave him alone, with no one to share his shock of his learning of his past with. Well, at least no one that knew him as she did.