She was regretting more and more that she'd let Ava get away without finding out what she knew.

Max quickly found her in the crowded restaurant and their eyes locked for a moment. Her heart gave a little leap of delight and a smile lit her eyes. He was here and he was safe. He even looked glad to see her too. She could almost imagine that things between them were the same as they had been last fall. But then she read the hurt and disillusionment buried deep in his amber gaze, and reality came crashing down on her.

Giving her customers an absent smile, she moved behind the counter to get rid of the coffeepot before approaching Max's usual table.

Smiling uncertainly, she greeted him quietly. "Hey."

"Hey," he answered in an equally soft voice.

They met each other's eyes, then looked away and fidgeted nervously.

"Um, can I get you anything?"

"That depends. What time do you get off?"

She looked at her watch. "In about 45 minutes."

"Would it be okay if I wait till you get off so we could talk?"

She nodded.

"Okay, then could you bring me a Galaxy Melt and a cherry coke?"

"Sure. Be right back with your coke." She started to turn away, and Max grabbed her lightly by the wrist. She pulled in a quick breath and her eyes locked on the hand holding her. It had been so long since he'd touched her even casually. She'd almost forgotten how his simplest touch could cause her heart to race, and send an electrical charge zinging straight through to her core.

He dropped her wrist quickly, and once again their eyes caught and held, then bounced away.

"Uh, how are you?" he asked huskily.

"I'm okay."

His eyes continued to question her, and she knew he was wondering about the change Ava had talked about. "Really. I'm okay," she insisted.

He nodded in acceptance. "Okay. Good."

"I'll be right back, okay?"

Moments later she brought him his order, then returned to her other customers. As she finished out her shift, she often felt his eyes following her movements, and would look up to catch him watching her intently, his gaze brooding. At least he was no longer avoiding looking at her, she thought. And she was glad to note that intense anger was no longer his expression of choice.

When it was time for her to get off, she headed over to his table, pulling off her headband as she went.

"Do you want to go up to my room? My parents aren't home and we'll have some privacy there.

Max nodded, and got up to follow as she led the way.

When they got upstairs, she left him alone for a few minutes while she went into the bathroom to change clothes. Max wandered aimlessly around her room, steadfastly refusing to let his gaze rest on the bed with its painful reminders.

He still wasn't sure what he was going to say to Liz about their relationship, even though he'd thought about it all the way home from New York. She'd said she wanted them to be friends. He grimaced. Friends. After everything they'd been to each other how could they go back to just being friends? He wanted more than that from her. Much more.

But at the same time, he was afraid he might never be able to put the thing with Kyle far enough behind him to even be able to offer her friendship. Just the memory of her betrayal was enough to wound him more deeply than anything ever had in his life. He still wanted to believe that it wasn't true even though he'd seen it with his own eyes. But even if that were true, it hurt almost as much to know that she would lie to him about something like that.

He no longer knew what to believe about her. He just knew he missed her. He missed her laughter, her caring, her understanding. What's more, he missed the person he was when he was with her. Things had been spinning so completely out of control lately, and he just couldn't seem to catch his balance without Liz beside him.

He was ready to get past all this, and get things resolved with her. The way things had been between them lately had just been killing him in small degrees.

He found himself standing in front of her stereo, and absently looked over her collection of CDs. Two empty cases were laid out and he idly read the titles. There was one by Sheryl Crow, but it was the other one that gave his heart a pang.

It was Gomez.

She'd been listening to Gomez. And he had the exact same CD in his stereo at home. He knew it was masochistic to listen to it, but he did it anyway. Constantly. It had taken the place of the Counting Crows.

Before he had time to figure out the significance of Liz listening to the music that symbolized the beginning of their romantic relationship, the bathroom door opened, and she walked out carrying her uniform folded over her arm.

Finding him in front of her stereo, she gave him a shy smile, and set the dress down on the bed.

Max cleared his throat and pressed his lips together. "So."

"So," she returned softly.

They both fell silent.

Liz moved further into the room, and cast about for a safe topic of conversation. "Oh! How did the summit go?" Liz asked.

Max made a face. "Well, Nicholas was there. They offered to take us back home. But only the four of us who were in New York. And only if I gave them the Granolith."

"Max!" The very first thing he'd said had stabbed Liz with a trepidation that grew with each additional sentence. But it was the last thing she addressed. "You didn't tell them where it was, did you?"

"No. I remembered what you said. How did you know, Liz? Will you tell me now?" His eyes begged her to give him some answers.

She hesitated. She'd been dreading this moment. She hadn't been able to decide what to do about this. He really did need to know exactly what it was he was protecting, didn't he? He'd turned down a chance to go home because of it, and it seemed only fair that he know more about it. But she was still afraid to tell him the truth. So much depended on what she and Future Max had done, and how would she ever know if the future had been altered enough for it to make a difference? She wanted to tell Max about the Granolith, but as she considered telling him, she just couldn't see any way of revealing some of it without revealing it all.

"Liz?" he prompted.

"I really don't even know that much about it, Max. I don't know what its purpose is, or all that it's capable of, or even how it works.

"Okay," he said slowly. "That covers what you don't know. But what about what you do know?"

Liz bit her lip and her eyes filled with regret. "I-I can't tell you, Max. I'm sorry."

Max heaved a sigh and looked away. Shaking his head impatiently, he said curtly, "You say you want to be friends, Liz, but how could a friend keep something this important from--"

"It can be used for time travel," she blurted, interrupting his outburst.

"What?"

Liz took a deep breath and tucked her hair behind her ear. "It can be used for time travel, " she repeated.

Max was speechless for a moment, and she squirmed under his intense regard.

Finally he asked, "How do you know that?"

She shook her head. "I just do. It wasn't originally intended to be used for that, but it does have an enormous amount of power, and it can be modified to artificially create a tear in time space."

Max was looking at her as if she'd lost her mind. "Who told you this?" Shaking his head in disbelief, he said, "Time travel isn't possible. It goes against all the laws of physics. I mean, you're the scientist, Liz. You know that."

Liz had to fight back the absurd urge to laugh. This whole conversation was beginning to sound exactly like the one she'd had with Future Max, except she was playing his part now, and Max was repeating her own words. Could her life be any more Twilight Zone?

"I know it sounds crazy, Max, but it's true."

He just looked at her, trying to reconcile this wild theory with the logical realist he knew Liz to be.

"Liz, I don't understand how you could believe something like that. If someone told you that...how do you know you could trust them?"

"I just do."

"How? I'm sure we still have enemies out there that we know nothing about. How do you know someone wasn't trying to trick you into...I don't know, giving them information or something? I mean, come on, Liz. Time travel?"

"I didn't just accept this blindly, you know. I was skeptical, too, at first, but- he proved it to me."

"Who proved it?"

Her eyes filled with apprehension and jerked away from his, and Max knew he was on to something.

"Who, Liz?" he repeated when she didn't answer.

"I can't tell you. I've already said too much," she replied and turned away.

Max stood there and tried to figure out what it was she wasn't telling him. If she was sure this was true then he was prepared to accept her judgement. She was too smart to let herself be deceived about something as important as this. So what did that mean? Had someone used the Granolith as a time travel device and then come to Liz to tell her about it?

But why come to Liz, he wondered in confusion. It would have to have been someone who knew how to use the Granolith, which led to the natural conclusion that it must have been an alien. Unless sometime in the future they revealed their knowledge of it to someone else. That seemed unlikely, given Liz's insistence on secrecy. So, if an alien came back through time, why go to a human? Why not go to one of the four other aliens that lived in Roswell? It didn't make sense, and he was becoming frustrated with her reticence.

"Liz," he said in a hard voice. She turned slowly to face him. "Tell me the rest of it," he demanded.

She swallowed hard. "Max, you wanted to know what I knew about the Granolith, and I-I've told you. That's all I know," she said, avoiding his eyes.

"You're lying to me." He looked at her with accusation and hurt, and she felt as if she'd betrayed him all over again. Right before her eyes, he was reverting to the cold, hostile attitude he'd treated her with since finding her with Kyle. She was desperate to keep that from happening. He'd been so different today, as if he were willing to return to a friendship with her. But there was nothing more she could tell him about this, she thought, torn with indecision.

She looked at him pleadingly. "Max, please? Please don't be this way. I can't- I just can't tell you anything more. I'm not keeping this from you to hurt you. It- it's really for the best that you don't know."

"Whose best?" he asked, not giving an inch.

"Ev-everyone's," she replied, lowering her eyes.

"Not ours, Liz. Not yours and mine."

Her eyes filled with tears as she looked up at him, and he softened at the sight of them.

"Liz, how can I trust you when I know you're willing to lie to me and keep things from me?" he asked, his voice rough with emotion.

A single tear escaped and slid down the slope of her cheek. "Can't you just...accept that I have a good reason for not telling you, and leave it at that?" she implored.

Her tears caused his heart to clench. He hated to see Liz cry, and he especially couldn't stand to be the one causing her to cry. It was obvious that she felt conflicted over this.

She was asking him to place his trust in her blindly. In a way it reminded him of when he'd done the same thing with his mother. Diane Evans had been in the room with him when he'd used his powers to put out a grease fire in their kitchen last year. She'd been suspicious about what had taken place, and for two days, she'd questioned him and Izzie. He'd been afraid that everything was about to come crashing down. She'd been pretty relentless about finding out his secret. Isabel had wanted to tell her so badly, and Max had felt completely torn.

He'd finally just gone to his mom, and asked her to stop questioning him about this. He'd assured her that what he was keeping from her wasn't something bad or dangerous, and he'd begged her to just trust him. She'd been able to do that, to let it go, and trust him blindly. He really didn't think he could do anything less now, for Liz.

"Okay, Liz," he agreed quietly. "I'll let it go for now. I want us to be friends again, and I want to be able to trust you. I don't like it that you think there's something you can't tell me, and I hope one day you'll trust me enough for that." Liz began shaking her head in protest, but he continued, "But for now, I'll just trust your judgement."

"It's not that I don't trust you, Max. Please don't think that. It's just..." She stopped as she suddenly realized that he was right.

It did seem as though she wasn't telling him because she didn't trust him to react responsibly and unselfishly. She was afraid that if she told him she hadn't slept with Kyle that he wouldn't let anything stand in the way of them being together, not even the fate of the world.

But she knew that wasn't true. Max made himself responsible for everyone. He would never choose his own happiness over everyone's well being.

As she realized this, she had to fight the urge to confess to him. It would be so good to get this burden off her shoulders alone.

But Max himself, well, future Max, had told her not to tell. He had believed in what they were doing so strongly he was willing to cease to exist for it. If anyone would know how Max would react it would be him, right?

This was the same old tired argument she'd been having with herself for the past month and it was driving her crazy! She was torn between two Maxes.

Max had been searching her eyes while she remained quiet for so long. He could see the struggle going on there, and every muscle in his body tensed as he awaited the outcome. Was this it? Was she finally going to tell him what she'd been hiding all this time?

Liz decided in the end that she couldn't risk telling him. She was too afraid of what would happen, and she wouldn't be able to live with being the one who was responsible if things still turned out the way Future Max had told her they would.

She could see the expectation in Max's eyes and she felt sick knowing that she was going to hurt him again. And he'd been ready to forgive her and move on, too. She was afraid that this would put them right back where they'd started.

"I want to tell you, Max," she said longingly, "I do. But- there's so much at stake. And...I-I promised."

Max's heart plummeted as he realized that she wasn't going to tell him.

"And...I'll understand, you know, if-if you don't want to be friends." She looked at the floor despondently.

Max studied her bent head and tried not to let the hurt overwhelm him. She felt like she owed her first loyalty to this- this unknown time-traveling alien. There had been a time when she would have put no one before him. She was willing to remain silent even if it meant they could have no relationship at all. That realization sat like a huge lump in his throat.

Max swallowed against it and sighed heavily. This really didn't change anything, though. He still needed Liz in his life. And only moments ago, he had said that he would trust her judgement.

"I do want to be friends, Liz," he admitted softly, "I-I miss you."

She raised shining eyes to his, gratitude and relief written all over her face. "I miss you too, Max."

Their eyes said so much more than that to each other, but nothing else was allowed to express itself by way of their lips. They continued to have a silent, heartfelt conversation for a few short moments. A time that felt all too brief to Liz. She could have stood there and communicated this way with Max for hours and hours and not grown tired of it. This was the way it used to be. She'd missed this. So much.

Max was the one to drop his eyes first, and the spell was broken. In the awkward silence that followed, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and studied his shoes, and Liz tucked her hair behind her ear in a slow deliberate movement.

"So," Max said once again.

"I-I guess a lot happened when I was in New York. Isabel told me about some of it, but I'd like to know what's going on with you. Do you want to talk about it?"

"Yeah, the whole change thing. Max, Ava was wrong."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, she was wrong. You didn't change me. When I...did whatever it was I did, I don't know how I did it, but I think it was only because I was somehow connected to you and to Isabel. She couldn't reach you by herself, and I think, maybe I was able to just channel her energy somehow because of our connection," she motioned between herself and him.

"Liz, I don't think that's possible," he said, shaking his head. "Isabel said--"

"Yeah, I know," she interrupted, "Isabel thinks I did it on my own. But I couldn't have, Max. I tried to do it again on my own, later, and I couldn't do it."

He looked at her quizzically. Why was she being so adamant about this? "Why did Ava say that, then?"

Liz grimaced. "I don't know. And she left this morning before anyone could ask her."

"She's gone? She didn't go back to New York, did she? Because I'm not sure she'd be safe with Rath and Lonnie."

"Yeah, she didn't think she was safe, either. She was afraid they'd come looking for her here, so she went to California. She said we should be careful of them, too."

Max digested this slowly. "And no one asked her any questions about what she knew? Because Rath and Lonnie sure seemed to know alot about our past. I don't know how much of what they said was true, but I was thinking maybe we might be able to trust Ava a little more. She seemed different from them. And according to Isabel, she did help save my life."

Liz looked away, guiltily. "It's my fault we didn't find out anything from her. Last night I stopped Michael and Isabel from questioning her, and this morning I caught her just as she was about to leave. I should have tried to talk her into staying a little longer, but I...well, I just didn't."

He looked at her in bewilderment. She seemed to be acting so unlike herself. "You didn't want to know? About what she said?"

"No, Max, I didn't think it was true. I told you, I tried to reach you again last night, and I couldn't. I thought she was just... wrong. And she left so quickly this morning, I just didn't think about asking her about it. I'm sorry I let her go, Max. I-I messed up."

"It's okay," he reassured her. "But, I really think we should try and find out more about this, Liz. Maybe you couldn't do it again because you have to be connected to one of us. I mean, if you do have a power, don't you want to know how it works? What you can do?"

"I don't think I have one," she insisted stubbornly.

"Liz," he said softly, "if I did something to you, I really need to know." She looked up at him and could see the guilt he was feeling over this. "Please? Would you just try?"

She couldn't say no when he looked at her like that. And she wanted to prove to him that he didn't have anything to feel guilty about. She had hurt him enough already. There was no need for him to add this to his burden.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked.

"Maybe we could start small. You could try to do the same thing you did before, only a much shorter distance," he suggested. "Like maybe, just down to the diner."

Liz nodded and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "Okay." She moved to nervously perch on the edge of the bed. "Um, should I try it on my own, or...?"

"Yeah, why don't you try to do it by yourself first, and if it doesn't work, I'll try and help you."

Taking another deep breath, Liz nodded and closed her eyes. She pictured the restaurant in her mind and tried to imagine herself there. When nothing had happened after a few minutes, she concentrated on pulling air into her lungs in a steady rhythm, and tried to call to mind every detail of the diner she could remember. When she didn't think she could make the picture in her head any clearer, and still nothing had happened, she opened her eyes.

Looking up at Max, she said apologetically, "Nothing."

"Well, maybe you can't just...project yourself randomly. Maybe there has to be someone there for you to contact? Why don't you give me a few minutes to get down there and try it again." He moved towards the door.

She felt ridiculous, but she didn't want him to leave her alone while she was doing this. "Wait, Max? Um, you know, actually Michael should still be down there. His shift was longer than mine, today. Maybe I could try to reach him?"

"Okay. But if it works, try not to freak him out too much, okay?" One corner of his lip tilted up a little in a teasing grin, and for a moment Liz was mesmerized. It had been so long since she'd seen him smile. It made her heart lift and she couldn't stop a grin of her own in return. She couldn't tear her eyes away from him until the smile had faded completely from his face, then she gave a little shake of her head to clear it, and got back to the matter at hand.

Closing her eyes, she tried to picture Michael in the kitchen of the Crashdown. It was a sight she'd grown accustomed to over the past nine months or so, and it wasn't hard to call to mind. When she'd connected with Max in New York, she'd been able to sense the familiar pull of his mind. She was well acquainted with the pattern of his thoughts and emotions. She'd never connected with Michael, so she wasn't sure how to go about finding him.

She thought about everything she knew about him, how she felt towards him, and about the sound of his voice. She pictured herself talking to him down in the kitchen where he was undoubtedly standing behind the grill, flipping burgers. She imagined herself appearing before him and totally freaking him out. She would pay good money to see that take place, but when it became obvious that it wasn't going to happen, she opened her eyes to find Max sitting beside her.

"Still nothing?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"Okay. Let me see if I can help. Isabel said that she gave you a boost with her power. I can try and do the same thing." He moved closer and placed his hand palm up on the bed between them in invitation.