"St. Luke's cemetery," Gavin answered. "And the first effect of your wish."

Michael laughed. "Let me guess, I'm buried here, alone and friendless because I didn't change my ways?"

Gavin shook his head. "Now you're just mixing your holiday movies, Michael. Like I said, you never landed here, you don't exist to the people on this planet. There's no way you could be buried here. But someone else that you know is."

Michael stared at him, bored. "Yeah? Who, Hank? Finally drank himself to death?"

"No," Gavin said somberly. Then he stepped out of the way of the gravestone he was standing in front of. "She's buried here," he said with a flourish, closely watching Michael's face for a reaction.

"Elizabeth Anne Parker; Beloved daughter and friend. May 25, 1983- September 8, 1999," Michael read. "Liz? But what-? I mean, how-? I mean, that's the day that Max saved her life at The Crashdown."

Gavin shook his head. "No, he didn't, Michael. Max wasn't even there. Don't you remember who's idea it was to go to The Crashdown that day? That's right, it was yours," he said when he saw the flash of recognition come over Michael's face. "You needed to talk to Max about something and you wanted to go there because you liked the food and the service."

"But that's so stupid!" Michael exploded. "Max would have gone there anyway. He's been in love with Liz since, like, the third grade. He would have wanted to hang out where she was, regardless of if I was there or not. He still could have used his powers to help her."

"You're not getting the full picture here," Gavin said. "First of all, Max would not have gone to The Crashdown alone- he was way too shy to be that obvious around Liz. He needed you to be there with him for moral support. But anyway, that's not the point here. The bigger picture is that without you around, Max never really honed his powers. Hell, he never even knew he had half of them."

"What are you talking about?" Michael demanded. "Max was always working on his powers. I'm the one who doesn't know what the hell I'm capable of half the time."

"Yes, but remember who it was that first discovered that you had many of these powers. It was you, Michael. When you were still children and you kept having those dreams about your powers."

Michael remembered. It had been not long after he'd first met Max and Isabelle and knew they were all the same species that he'd started dreaming about his home planet and the powers he knew they all possessed.

It had all come to a head one day when the three of them had been playing in the park and a bully had pushed Max to the pavement.

Michael had felt something welling up inside of him that had allowed him to push the much larger boy several feet away with such force that the boy had run home and never bothered them again.

He'd then gone over to Max and, listening to an inner voice, had placed his hands on Max's scraped knees. There had been a glow between their skin and Michael found he could suddenly see pictures from Max's own mind. He'd been frightened and pulled his hands away, revealing clean unbroken skin on Max's previously injured knees.

"Michael, how did you do that?" Isabelle had breathed. "You made Max's cuts go away."

"I, I don't know," Michael said. "I just knew I could do it. I think we all can." He'd then gone on to explain his dreams, and after that Max and Isabelle had begun working with their powers. But Michael had been too scared by what he had experienced to work with them. He hadn't liked the out of control feelings flowing through his body, and he vowed then and there that he was not going to use his powers unless it was absolutely necessary.

Of course, since he didn't practice them, he didn't know the extent of his powers, and still had no control over them. But he didn't really care. *Let Max and Izzy worry about that stuff,* he always thought to himself. *I know my powers are here if I need them, and that's what really matters here.*

Michael looked up at Gavin. "So without me here, Max and Izzy really don't know what they're fully capable of, and Max isn't there to save Liz's life at The Crashdown?"

Gavin nodded. "Yes."

"So basically I have to be here so they can achieve their full potential with their powers and so Liz doesn't die that day in The Crashdown."

"Well, that's the first part of it anyway," Gavin said.

Michael eyed him warily. "The first part?"

"Yes, come on, we still have much more to see," Gavin said. He turned and began walking out of the cemetery, and with a much beleagured sigh, Michael soon followed behind. A few minutes later Gavin stopped in front of a large house in the most expensive neighborhood in town.

"So who lives here?" Michael asked when he finally caught up to Gavin.

"Some rich mean old guy who needs to learn the spirit of Christmas or something?"

Gavin gave him a withering look. "Mixing those Christmas stories again, I see," he said. "No, the man who lives here may be rich, but he's not Scrooge. He's actually someone you know. Alex Whitman."

Michael looked at him incredulously. "Alex lives here? Well, looks like he's not suffering any for not having known me."

"Ahh, that's where you're wrong again," Gavin said. "Alex made a huge amount of money because of a revolutionary computer system he designed, but it's not given him a very happy life at all."

Michael sighed. "Okay, I know you wanna thrill me. Explain that one."

"Very well. After Liz died in the shooting at The Crashdown, Alex was quite depressed. After moving around so much when he was younger, he didn't have a lot of friends in Roswell. Liz and Maria were his two best friends, but Liz died and Maria withdrew from him. The friendship between her and Alex withered, and since your "illness" from the Indian Reservation couldn't happen without you there, it wasn't there to bring all of your friends together. Alex was never brought into that circle of friends, he never became friends with Max or Isabelle, and he spent most of the rest of his high school career withdrawn and depressed.

He was afraid to try to make new friends, so he spent his free time in his room with his computer designing his system. It was easier for him because computers can't reject you or die and leave you all alone, so that's what he stuck with.

"Now he lives in that big mansion all alone. He donates money and gifts anonymously to charities all the time, but he doesn't have any loved ones to share any of his success or money with. He's terribly depressed- more so around Christmas time; very lonely when you're by yourself, you know- and on Christmas Eve 2015 he'll take too many sleeping pills with an Absolut chaser, leaving his money and his house to charities in the area."

"So because I'm not here to get sick and Alex is depressed about Liz's death, he never has any friends and kills himself?" Michael asked, disbelieving.

"Well once again you've managed to boil it down to its basest form, but yes, that's the general idea," Gavin said.

"God, I mean I like Alex and all, and I'm glad Izzy's found someone human of the opposite sex that she can trust, but I didn't think I could possibly have such an impact on his life."

"Well, you did. And without you there, Isabelle does not find "someone human of the opposite sex that she can trust," Gavin reminded him. "And that takes us to the next leg of our tour. Hang on a minute, very delicate part this. Gonna have to make you invisible to protect you here."

"What? What are you doing?" Michael questioned as Gavin touched his arm again. "Why do you have to make me invisible?"