"Maria, it's worse than you think. I have to ask you a question, and I need you to tell me the truth." Alex looked into her eyes, while gripping her arms tightly.

Michael and Isabel crept downstairs to listen in. Michael was ready to gag Max's sister if need be, since she didn't know what had happened this morning. Alex's question was going to shock her, but Maria would be less likely to tell the truth if she knew they were there.

"What happened between Liz and Kyle? They didn't actually... you know. Did they?"

Maria got a deer-in-the-headlights look. She wanted to tell Alex the truth, but with a house full of aliens... Besides, it wasn't her secret to tell. She tried to placate him. Smiling, she said, "Alex, do you honestly believe..."

"Maria, I am not joking. I know that Liz told you everything that happened." He was bluffing, but she didn't know that. "I need to know what she told you." His blue eyes pinned her in place, and she desperately prayed for the floor to open up from underneath her, for an earthquake, lightening, anything.

"I can't."

"What do you mean you can't?! Maria, it's me. You know, the third musketeer. We promised not to keep secrets from each other any more, especially secrets involving the you-know-whos. Now, what happened?"

"Alex, I can't. Please don't ask."

Alex was torn. He hated to put Maria in this position, but at the same time, he was truly worried for Liz. Finally, he compromised with, "Ok, then just tell me this. Is there any possibility at all that Liz isn't feeling well because she is pregnant?"

Relieved, Maria answered truthfully, "No."

"You're sure?"

"Absolutely."

In the kitchen, Isabel had heard enough. She punched Michael in the arm - hard. "Ow!"

"Michael?" Maria asked, turning to face the doorway.

Isabel shoved him into the room in front of her. "Have you both lost your minds?" she asked angrily of Alex and Michael.

Back upstairs, Liz asked softly, "What did you want to talk about?"

Max got up and paced to the window. "About you being sick. Liz, you should know that some of the kids at school who were here last night came up with an unusual explanation for you passing out downstairs. I wanted to tell you so that you didn't hear it second hand tomorrow." He took a deep breath and turned around to face her. Her tired eyes were full of trepidation as they looked steadily at him. Her courage nearly undid him. For a moment, he couldn't speak. She was so beautiful, even with the obvious signs of stress on her face. He couldn't imagine ever finding another who could ever compare to her.

The light from the window fell across her features, painting her skin more ethereal than usual. She looked like an angel. His personal gift from God. Again, his conviction that what he saw the night on the Gomez concert couldn't have been true returned in full force. Everything he knew about this person told him that there must be something else going on that he didn't know about. He loved Liz, but more, he trusted her, believed in her. She could never have gone to Kyle in that way. Not for any reason.

A grin broke across his face as he thought of the dread he'd been carrying around with him all the morning. Swear to god, he was going to give himself an ulcer with all this worrying over nothing. A chuckle escaped him as he began to shake his head.

Liz just stood there and watched all of the expressions chase themselves across his face in confusion. For a moment there, her stomach had dropped to her toes. He had looked like whatever he had to say was terrible, awful. Now he was laughing. Laughing? She couldn't help but smile in reaction.

She stepped closer and put a hand on his arm. "Max, what?"

"You're not going to believe this, Liz, but the latest rumor is that you're carrying Kyle's baby." He grinned down at her, the sheer stupidity of the statement causing mirth to well up in him again.

Liz on the other hand couldn't find any humor in this at all. In fact, she was stunned. "Oh my god." The humor lurking in his eyes was her undoing, and she spun away from him shouting, "This isn't funny, ok!"

Immediately contrite for having just blurted it out like that, he grabbed her hand and reeled her back in. "Liz. Liz, I'm sorry. You're right, it's not funny."

"What am I going to do?" she wailed.

"What can you do? You just have to ignore them. It's none of their business, right?"

"That's easy for you to say. You're not going to be the one they're staring at all day long."

"Liz, it'll pass. By next week they'll have moved on to some other gossip and this'll all be forgotten." He hugged her to him and was overjoyed when her arms crept around his waist. "I promise." She clung to him like he was her salvation. And he was. She couldn't believe that he was able to laugh at this, especially since he finally believed she and Kyle had been intimate. In light of the past lies, the present disaster wasn't so unbelievable after all.

The fact that he didn't believe it created a warm spot in her heart, and she tightened her arms around him. Perhaps they stood a chance to reclaim what they'd had once upon a time... She hoped so with every particle of her being. The past month of struggling against him and herself had shown her how futile the struggle had been. She'd made a promise to her grandmother to follow her heart, but her heart just kept leading her back to this one person, this gentle soul. Future Max had compounded it when he'd told her that she was free to go forward and create her own destiny. All she wanted was Max. He was all she could see in her world. He owned her so completely.

Didn't Future Max understand that? How could he not know what he meant to her? Had the future version of herself failed in some way to make it clear to him? Well, that was one mistake she wouldn't be repeating, she promised herself that. If, God willing, they were ever together like that again, she vowed to find a way to prove to him that without him, she, too would cease to exist.

Max knew he should let her go. This hug was barely inside the bounds of friendship as it was, and he was fighting the urge to run his hands over her sleek back. He wanted more than almost anything to press her body fully into his. The only thing that held him in check was his uncertainty. Did she want him to? Did she feel what he was feeling right now? Their fragile friendship was the one thing he wanted in the world. For with it came the right to talk to her, the right to touch her, to see her smile and watch the way the lights reflected in her eyes. Any lights: the florescent bulbs at school, the mood lamps downstairs, natural sunlight, moonlight and starlight. He wanted it all. And so, reluctantly, he dropped his hold on her and stepped back slightly.

The rest of their friends came trooping back in at that moment. Maria hurried over and whispered in Liz's ear, "We've got a serious problem, and I mean serious."

"Yeah, I know. Max told me."

Maria gaped open mouthed at her. "Max knows?!?" She faced Max in shock. Unthinking, she asked the first thing that popped into her head. "Is Kyle still alive? I mean, you didn't kill him, did you?"

"Maria!" Liz scolded. "Of course Kyle's fine. Max knew better than to believe something so stupid."

"He did?" Michael asked from behind them, his voice heavy with irony.

"I should hope so," Isabel was indignant on their behalf.

Alex grinned at Max's discomfort and raised his eyebrows in question. Max smiled sheepishly and looked away. Quick to redirect the conversation, he said, "I guess we'd better be getting back to school. We're going to be late as it is."

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Isabel left after sharing dinner with her. Liz wasn't scheduled to work, so there was one fight easily avoided. She did come downstairs frequently to check on Maria or talk with Michael, but soon she would be ushered back to her bedroom. Her parents returned that evening from their trip and so Liz was left in peace to study and rest.

The next morning she returned to school and had to weather the storm of gossip. All of her friends rallied around her like a living shield, protecting her from the worst of it, for which she was grateful, though she still burned with embarrassment.

As Max had promised, the gossip soon faded away, helped greatly by an incident in the Eraser room involving Melissa Taubman and her boyfriend.