Max slipped into Liz's room and settled himself on the bed quickly. He didn't want to make noise, but he didn't want to go so slow that he got caught either. Shortly afterward, Liz came in. He rolled over like she had just woken him up.

"Where'd you go?" he asked lazily.

"I was making sure it was locked. Dad was getting on my case about responsibility. And since I want them to take more "adults only" vacations, I gotta do a good job." She smiled sweetly. If he hadn't eves-dropped he would have believed her. And he partially did. She wasn't lying. Her parents were on vacation.

"Well, aren't you the perfect little daughter?"

"Yup."

"Well come back over here. No fun crashing at my girlfriend's house if she's gonna be down in the restaurant the whole time." Max smiled. He'd talk later. Right now he just wanted to bask in what he was sure was meant to be. And since, for right now, his destiny didn't exist, there was no reason he couldn't fall back on the one he made for himself.

"Morning," Liz said sweetly when he opened his eyes.

"Morning" he replied sleepily. They had slept all night. And were still wearing yesterday's clothes. Max still had his on from the day before that. He made a note in the back of his mind to change and shower the instant he got home. That was if he could pry himself away from Liz long enough and not go crazy.

"I need to go open up," she said matter-of-factly. She started to get off, but Max pulled her back down. "Max!" she began to protest.

"Shhhhh," he said quieting her with a finger. "Stay here. Besides, if you open, then you gotta close. Which means you'll have to close. Which means that you'll have to come late to the camp out."

"Hmmm, good point. But you know what? We're leaving at noon, so I'll just come back to close. Then we'll go back out. And I wont have to come back in the morning 'cause dad said I could just leave it closed on Sunday. Since they're coming back late tomorrow night and want things to be quiet and cleaned up." Liz smiled at him then slipped quickly off him before he could react. She bounded out of the room leaving him there staring out her door.

"Guess I'd better go get that shower," Max said to nobody in particular.

"Stayed at Liz's?" Isabelle asked Max as he came in.

"Yeah. Is that ok?"

"Perfectly. Alex crashed in your bed. Hope that's ok. We stayed up doing a comparison of the various versions of Romeo and Juliet. And by the time we were done, there was no point in him trying to sneak in his house without getting caught."

"Yeah, that's fine" Max started up the stairs. Then stopped and turned around. "You were comparing the various versions of Romeo and Juliet?!"

"Yeah. We kinda did extremely bad on our finals in English. With us trying to shake the government and all. So we managed to find a way to do delayed extra credit. So basically we watched every version, in order of when they were made. And by the time we got the one with Leo DeCrapio in it, we were tired enough to not make fun of every scene."

"Sounds like fun."

"How about you and Liz? Anything exciting happen?" Isabelle added a wink at the end.

"Yeah, we slept together." Isabelle raised her eyebrow. "Yup. The technical version though. We ended up crashing on her bed and that was about it. Stayed on top to boot." Max smiled lopsidedly and went up the stairs.

"Huh," Isabelle said to herself, "he is different. Normally he'd be complaining about Liz not giving him any." Then she shouted, "So when are you two gonna do it?! You can't buy Liz's silly 'There might be serious consequences' excuse forever!" Max slammed his door shut. Isabelle smiled smugly. Maybe he wasn't that different after all.

"Hey Max!" Maria said to him as he walked into the Crash Down around 11:30. "Oh! You're all nice and clean," she said giving him a hug. "Silly boy, get all clean just to get dirty again."

"Well, I'll be less dirty. Besides, if I wasn't all squeaky clean, I'd probably clear out all the customers."

"Yeah, but then we could close early and I could get out of the spare apron. Aren't spare uniform's supposed to be too big? This thing would probably even be too small on Isabelle." Maria tried to make small talk. She didn't want to let Max know she knew. After all, he wasn't at the meeting. And Liz didn't seem like she was going to tell him she told them.

"Let's go!" Michael said pulling up. His dad had lent him his truck. When by lent he meant without Michael's dad's knowing of it. Besides, there was no way they'd all fit into the Jeep. "You riding with me?" he said more quietly to Maria. He hoped that since only three of them could fit in it that she'd sit beside him and maybe she'd remember what they were like together.

"Sure. Alex is too."

"Cool," Michael said nonchalantly. Inside he was cussing everything he knew. Why Alex! Ever since they had heard their destiny, they'd been too chummy. Alex didn't seem that fazed. Isabelle had him dazzled. But Maria liked the idea. A lot. And that troubled Michael greatly. But at least she'd be beside him. The smallest person always sat in the middle, right?

"Can I ride shot-gun?" Liz asked Max.

"Sure." He walked over and held the door open for her. She climbed in and settled herself. Isabelle started to protest, but Kyle quickly walked to Max's side and opened the door and pushed the seat forward for her and Tess to get in.

About an hour later they had gotten all their supplies settled in the caves. Tess had seemed somewhat pleased when she told everybody what to do and they didn't argue. She had them put their bags against the walls by the mouth of the cave, the place that seemed the least likely to have anything buried there. The food area was on the other side of the opening.

"Ok, so now that we're settled, lets get started," Tess said confidently. Liz nodded and they all looked to Tess for instruction. That caught her off guard. She expected to have to tell Liz everything, then have her repeat it all before they'd do anything. After all, Liz was their royal leader, not her.

"Lets start with the area around the pods. See if there aren't any latches or something. Maybe they can be safely removed." They all started to work. Using brushes Tess had brought, they slowly brushed off the dirt around the pods. Max stopped working all of a sudden and just stared at one pod. He thought he saw a shadow of the other side.

Then an arm came through the other side holding a knife and lunged at him. Max yelled, jumping back, and started to run. Liz was coming in and stopped him. "Max, what's wrong?"

He turned around and pointed towards the pod he was in front of. Liz got down and looked into it. "My pod. Hmmm. What's wrong with it?"

"What?" Max got down and looked through. The back was in perfect condition. "I thought I saw an arm punching through. It had a knife in its hand. But the knife was glowing."

"Huh? Maybe you should get a drink of water."

"Yeah, maybe," Max said getting up. That was not the heat, Max thought to himself. I'm sure. Something was definitely on the other side. Max got a drink, then went back to work, keeping a good eye on the back of the pod.

When the sun went down, he and Michael set up lights so they could see. Tess had planned to keep going, but then decided that it's be better if they quit for the night. They all got food and casually talked. Max continued to gaze at that one pod. "Do you still think that it tried to attack you?" Liz asked sitting down next to him.

"I'm not sure, but something happened. And I want to know what."

"That's my job silly. You were probably just hallucinating. Trying to figure out our past has been so much of a focal point for me, Maria, Alex, and Kyle lately that's it's started to affect you and everyone else. I'm sorry that's it's gotten this bad.

"If you say so." Max got up and went over to the pod and looked through. He thought he saw light on the other side. And weirder yet, it was only on half of it. Very distinct angle. Like it was shadowing something. Max tentatively reached forward and pushed on the back of the pod. It started to give way, so he pushed harder. The back completely ripped.

Max stayed there on his hands and knees and just looked through the opening for a while. He saw a very large black structure. Max crawled through and stood up on the other side. From the other side of the cave he heard Liz shriek his name. "Come through!" He yelled back through it. Soon after Liz came crawling through.

"What the-" she started to say. But she let her words fall and just gazed at it.

"Do you know what that is?"

"No. Well, maybe. Remember Tess' dad? Of course you don't. He was a Skin. An evil alien. Anyways, when he found us, he kept demanding that we hand over the granolith. I think this might be it."

"Oh." Max gazed at it for a while. "Liz, what does it do?"

"I have no idea."

"Liz, Max, not fair that you guys found a new room and immediately dub it your private make out room!" Maria yelled from the other side.

"Maria, get over here! And we're not making out!" Liz yelled back.

Soon after Maria crawled through. She stood up and immediately she got that awestruck expression that Liz had gotten. Alex, Kyle, Tess, Isabelle and finally Michael followed her though. Each staring in awe when they say the granolith. "Is that the thing my step father wanted?" Tess asked.

"We think so," Liz responded.

Max could have sworn that he knew that this was meant for him to find. For him to use. Not Liz. He walked forward. "Max, you'd better not," Isabelle started to say. Max ignored her and laid his hand on it.

He got a flash of the galaxy that the five planets formed. The one that Nasado had made the map of to have the crystals go in. He zoomed in on the one on the end. And was all of the sudden in a government building. But it was more like a palace. He saw Liz sitting on a throne. Maria on her left. Then Kyle on her right, down a level. And Alex on Maria's left, on the same level as Kyle.

He focused on Liz. She had a strange crown on her head. A silver circlet that came up to a strange triangular symbol. She then started to flicker. Flicker between her and Max. And then Max became more apparent then Liz. Then only Max was visible. Sitting in the same chair. Wearing the same tunic thing with the same crown on his head.

He looked to where Maria, Kyle, and Alex were. They too had changed into Michael, Tess, and Isabel. Isabel! It's "Isabel" not "Isabelle" Max realized. I knew that spelling was off, he thought. I knew my memories were right.

"Max! Max! Max! Ma-" Max turned around to see Liz floating beside him in a glowing white dress with a crown of white light on her head. Then her dress started to fade and he was back in the room with the granolith and she was in grubby jeans and a shirt that had seen better days.

"You okay?" she asked genuinely concerned.

"Yeah...Yeah. Yeah, I'm definitely ok. I just think I'm tired. I'm gonna get some sleep.

"Okay. Goodnight."