Liz sits up so that she can look into Max's eyes. Max reaches out and taking hold of her hands, then continues. "Until you became a part of my life, all I could do was watch you. I looked forward to seeing you, even though I couldn't let you know how I felt. When I saw that you were shot, I felt like I was the one dying, I couldn't breath. Then when you excepted me for what I am, for the first time I had hope, hope that you could love me. That we could find happiness together. That I didn't have to lived my life day to day anymore. That I could actually start thinking about a real future. I can no longer imagine my life without you, Liz."

With tears in her eyes, Liz leans in and kiss him tenderly on the lips. "I know what you mean. Since that day when I first felt your touch, you know as you healed me; I have thought about the way you made me feel. Max, all I have to do is think of you and that same feeling comes rushing back. Before you became a part of my life, all I did was plan for the future. I never took the time to appreciated the present. I wasn't living my life; I was just moving through it. Max, I want to live my life to the fullest. I know we've talked about not rushing things between us, but we both feel the same way about each other. Since the other night when we made our connection it's been that much harder for me to control my desires. Ever time our eyes meet, my heart begins to beat harder. I want to be with you, I can't seem to think of anything else. I don't know how , but I feel your need for me growing as well. I mean, I don't know of two people that have shared their most intimate that they way we have. For me to know exactly how you feel about me, no guess games for us. How many people can say that? I don't understand it, but for some reason I can't seem to remember why it would be wrong for us to share our love for each other?"

Max is taken back by Liz's revelation. How can he now deny what his own body is telling him to do. Liz wants him as much as he wants her. Before these thoughts would have scared him, not for himself, for Liz. He had to protect her from any harm that would come her way. Even if that meant from himself. When he tried to remember why they need to wait, he also drew a blank. The rules don't seem to apply here and now. He couldn't explain why the difference, except to say that he felt safe and at ease. He too had been unable to control his thoughts. Max wanted to share all that he is with this person he loved more than his life its self.

Max lovingly pulls Liz into his arms. Flirtatiously he asks, "Here all of this time I thought you wee a good girl. Are you telling me that I've turned you in to a bad Girl?'

"If you know what's good for your health, you'll stop teasing me." Liz answers meeting his playful tone.

They both become aware of music coming from somewhere in the distance.

Max stands to his feet and extends Liz his hand. "Will you allow me the honor of this dance Ms. Parker?

Smiling at him she takes his hand, "It would be my pleasure Mr. Evans." Max helps Liz to her feet and draws her close in his arms. They sway to the music as their hands wonder freely. Max's strokes her face gently from one cheek to the other, then he proceeds to slowly traces her soft lips.

Even the stroke of his finger on her lips excited her. Liz's mouth draws one as she takes in a deep breath. She could feel him gently lifting her chin, raising her lips to meet his. Their kiss was tender at first, but the heat between them is one they can no longer ignore. Their kiss rapidly grew deeper, filled with all the hunger that has built inside of Max. Liz received his lips willingly and with equal amount over hunger. Everything about being with Max feels so right. Liz lets her hands migrate under his shirt to caress the muscles in his back and chest. She wanted to feel his warm skin beneath her hands.

The touch of her hand beneath his shirt drove him crazy. He was out of control, and he knew it. Something about this was different from the last time things started getting out of control.

Still unable to identify the reason for the change, he let his hands explore the softness of her skin. He slowly starts to raise her shirt and stops to check her expression for any doubt that might linger there. Seeing no shimmer of a doubt present in her eyes; he continues easing it up slowly.

Letting his hands stroke her smooth silky skin along the way; revealing her simple yet elegant yellow bra. Liz mimics Max's motions as she remove his shirt; revealing his well defined muscles .

As Max starts to caress the newly revealed skin, he feels goose bumps aries on her skin. "Are you cold?" he asks with concern. "No Max, I'm fine. It's not that." Realizing that is was his touch on her sensitive skin, continues to caress her upper body.

Liz's senses are going crazy with every touch, every stroke of Max's warm, strong hands combined with the warmth of his body so close to her own. While she strokes his chest she can't help but to admire the sight of him. He was truly as beautiful as she had imagined him to be.

Max wants to enjoy every precious moment of this special time with Liz. It would be the first time for both of them, and he wanted it to be as memorable for her as for himself. Their strong love for each other had brought them to this moment and he wanted her to know his love as well as his desire. He pulled her in tightly against him so that he could feel her skin against his own.

Suddenly she was alone. Max was gone, unable to find him she suddenly felt scared and completely alone.

*******************

(Same time frame.)

Max was awakened from his dream by his mother knocking on his bedroom door. "Max, it looks like rain this morning. You need to put the cover up on the jeep." Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he answers. "Thanks Mom, I take care of it in a few minutes."

"That was some dream, it felt so real!" He starts to climb out of bed, and knocks the phone receiver to the ground and realizes that he must have fallen asleep while still on the phone with Liz.

He reaches down and picks it up from the ground. Raising it to his ear, he listen to find out if Liz was still on the other end of the line. To his surprise he could hear her breathing heavily. He couldn't help but wonder if it had been more than just a dream after all. Had they some how connected in their dreams or had he subconsciously been dream walking. Max wasn't one to dream walk he felt that it was an invasion of privacy, but this did have the same effect on him that there connection had, had on him. He needed to know , and there was only one way to find out. "Liz!"

Liz is still sleeping. In her dream she hears Max calling her name. "Max, where are you?"

Again she hears him call to her. "Liz wake up. Liz wake up its me, Max."

Liz sits up in her bed and disappointedly says. "It was only a dream, but it felt so real. Max Evans now your presents is invading my dreams. Why did that feel so incredibly real. Never before have my dreams felt so real. Why can't I control myself when it comes to you, Max Evans?"

Max could hear that Liz was awake and talking to herself. He could barely make out what she was saying, but now he knew that he was right. Now he just had to draw her attention to the phone. Calling her loudly, but not so loud that someone outside of him room would hear. "Liz, pick up your phone, pick it up."

Liz could hear Max's voice, and looked around for the phone, she spot it still lying on her pillow, once she retrieved it she answered, "Max, is that you?"

Max wasn't sure how she would take the news of there shared dream. It scared him to think that what happened or almost happened wasn't completely of her choice. "Good morning Liz, we need to talk. Can I pick you up in say an hour."

Liz could heard fear in his voice, and felt fear growing inside of her. "Max is everything okay? Has something happened?"

"Don't worry Liz everything is fine, but we really have to talk, and the sooner the better.

**********************

Max had showered and dressed in record time. He was head out of his room when he ran into Isabel. "Is can you get ride with of your other friends this morning. Liz and I are going to the school library to finish our history projects."

She could resist the opportunity to tease him, plus she expected that he was going to be doing to meet with Liz for other purposes then to finish an assignment. "What Liz Parker and my brother haven't finished on assignment before the morning it's due. Somebody stop the presses. We have a new front page store." Isabel was relieved that she didn't have to explain to him that she didn't need a ride. Alex was already planning to pick her up. They had some work of their own to do.

*********************

Michael upon waking up; grabs his drawing of the cave message from the floor. He has three more pieces to the message. After writing them in the correct spots; he read it out loud. "Our mission is the last chance for both worlds. _______ must _______ power. I'm getting closer to solving this thing, it can't take much longer. It's coming to me faster and faster." He looks over at the clock then walks out of his room and picks up the phone.

"Isabel, I've solved some more of the message. We need to meet before school. Can you call everyone over to your place? I get the feeling we're going to have to work together on this."

"Max and Liz already left for school. He said they had to finish their history assignment. I'll tell everyone to meet there. Stay there. It's raining really hard. I have someone pick you up. It will be quicker that way."

After hanging up the phone; Michael goes back to his room and quickly dresses.

******************

Max is a bundle of nerves as he pulls up to Crashdown. Was he right about the events of the night.?. How would Liz react to the news if he was right? He looks to see if he can spot Liz. He doesn't cherish the idea of getting out of the jeep. It started rain on his trip over.

Liz is sitting in a front booth inside. She has been sitting there watching for Max. As soon as he pulled up she grabbed her stuff and was heading out the door. Before leaving the door she opened up her umbrellas, but to her miss fortune as soon as she cleared the door the wind caught it and turned it wrong side out and she gets drenched.

Max sees Liz having trouble, without hesitation he gets out of the jeep to help her. Once she is safely in the jeep he walks back around to his side and climbs in.

Flirtatiously Liz announces, "My hero!"

"Until the end." Max and Liz draw together instantly for a passionate kiss.

"Now Max, what was so important that we had to talk this morning? Are you sure there's nothing wrong. You sounded worried on the phone."

Max started out slowly, trying to word this correctly. "Liz, know this is going to sound really strange, but I think it could be important. Liz, I need to know if you remember anything from your dream last night, and if you do, what do you remember."

"Max, I really dont think that's good idea. Can you tell me what this is about?"

"This is important, please tell me something about your dream. Where you where, or something that happened."

Liz is extremely puzzled by his interest in her dream. She knew she couldn't lie to him, but she was to embarrassed to admit that she was dreaming about making love with him. What would he think? She decided to stay as vague as possible. "I was dreaming about you. We were cuddling in front of a fireplace talking."

He was right, now how he had to tell her. "Liz that wasn't all we did, is it?" Liz's face turned crimson red. Max seeing the color change in her face, with tenderness reached up to caress her face. "It's okay, we were both there, I mean really there." Her expression asked the next question for her. "I don't know how, the best I can figure is that we make another connection." Talking very slow and soft. "Liz we were about to.. (He swallows hard before continuing) make love." The silence was unbearable. "Liz, say something, anything."

"You really were there weren't you. A connection, how, we weren't even in the same room. There has to be more to this. Max what was different about last night, that could have brought this on?" Liz runs through the events of the night before. A revelation suddenly occurs to her. "Max we were both defiantly heated last night, I'm sure we both had the same thing on our minds.

"Liz, I'm sure your right, but that can't be all there is to it. I've gone to sleep with those thoughts before. What if had to do with us falling asleep talking, or that we could still hear each other while sleeping?

"The phone, Max. Why not, the old commercials always said, ‘Reach out and touch someone', and you sure did that."

Max's worries weren't eased, he still did know how she felt about the events in there shared dream. He still waited for her reaction on this revelation. "Liz do you regret what we were...."

Liz cuts him off. "Don't say it Max, I have no regrets, just questions. You have to know that. I trust you with my life, and my heart, there would never be regrets when it comes to loving you. I take that back there is just one regret."

"What's that"

"You disappeared, and we never... got to finish what we started."

"I'll just have to make that up to you."

"You'd better, because I don't think I could stand another cold shower. Max, I do have another question for you. Last night when we were dreaming all of my anxieties about why we shouldn't... were gone. Do you think that's because it wasn't really us, I mean it was minds not our bodies?"

"I don't know, but I'll confess I sure couldn't tell the difference." They both agreed on that matter. Max desperately needing to change the subject. He knew that if he didn't that they would end up missing school for the day, and how would they explain that to their friends. "Do you normally talk to yourself when you wake-up in the morning?"

"You'll have to wait to find that out. After all a girl has to have some mysteries about her."

"What other mysteries about yourself are you keeping from me?"

"I'll never tell Mr. Evans, you'll have to find them out for yourself"

"Is that an invitation Ms. Parker?"

"Do you really have to ask?"

**********************

Max and Liz pull in to the school parking lot. He had explain that he told Is they were going to the library as an excuse for his early departure. It's still raining really heavily, and they decided to make a made dash for the doors. Max reaches for Liz's hand once they cleared the jeep. But before she could take it, he pulled it back and grabbed his leg. Liz saw him fall to the ground. She stopped to see if she could help him, and sees a medical dart in his leg. Then she feel a sharp pain in her leg.

***********************

Michael and Maria arrive at the school first. They hurry into the Library. They couldn't find Max or Liz, because they had been in such a hurry when they arrived, they hadn't even bothered to look for Max's jeep. Michael decided to check to make sure it was here, and if so he was going to look around to find them. He asked Maria to wait for Isabel and Alex.

Michael spots the jeep in the parking lot and starts to check class rooms and some of the favorite places for couples. He felt that he was getting close to solving the message, and he now knew this would involve all of them.

Back in the library Alex and Isabel walk in hand in hand. Maria could tell that those two were getting really close. When her and Michael had left, they were sitting on the couch whispering to each other. She couldn't help but feel happy for them. Granted the wouldn't be voted the most likely couple in school, but they are really great together. They seemed to bring out the best in each other. And anyone that saw them together could tell they were happy. "Hey guys, Michael will be right back. He went to see if he could find Max and Liz. I figure their probably in the janitors closet or an abandon room somewhere." She flashes them a playful smile.

As they all move to sit at a near by table Alex asks, "Do you have any clue to what this meeting is about?" Isabel hadn't told Alex everything that she knew on the way over in the car but that wasn't much. They both were hoping Maria would know something they didn't.

"All he told me is, that it involved all of us."

Michael returns to the library. "Max's jeep is out there, but I can't find him or Liz anywhere. I'm telling you something is wrong, and I figure it has to do with those two from the Crashdown."

Kyle first spotted Michael looking into the janitor's closet and then watched him as he did a systematic search of all the class rooms. He decided to follow him and see what he was up to . As he entered the library he over heard Michael telling the others of his findings and concern. "What's going on, and don't try feeding me that none of your business line. I know that it's no secret that Max isn't one of my favorite people these days, but if something has happened to Liz I want to help."

Michael stands there shaking his head no. Maria reach out and takes hold of his arm. "Kyle it's no big deal. Their probably around here somewhere. When two people don't want to be found, they usually aren't, if you take my drift. Max and Liz have been getting pretty cozy these days." Maria knew this was going to make Kyle really angry. She was hoping it would make him angry enough that he would drop the subject.

It worked, the though of Liz in Max's arm infuriated him. He turned about without saying another word, and stormed out of the library.