"Yo? What are you, trapped in 1989?" Liz asked, handing her the salt shaker while picking up her slice of pizza. "I still find it gross that you put salt on pizza."

"Yeah, Maria, I'm a guy and I even find that pretty nasty."

Maria smirked at Alex and sprinkled salt on her slice. "I can't help it, it's in the genes. My mom does it, my Aunt Kate does it, I do it. I know, all this sodium'll kick me in the butt later on, but hey -- I'm 19 years old, I don't smoke, drink, or do drugs. I think I'm allowed a little excess salt intake."

"True," Alex said, reaching for another slice.

"Speaking of nasty, pig-boy, what is that, slice number seven?"

"Hey, I'm a growing boy!"

"Newsflash, buddy -- puberty stops somewhere before your 19th birthday."

"Whatever. Anyway, I skipped breakfast. And lunch. This is like all my day's meals packed into one convenient pizza package."

Maria smiled at that. "That's a way to go."

Pizza was a standing tradition in the Parker-DeLuca-Whitman household. It was their ultimate comfort food, called into service whenever any of them had a bad or tiring day. The delivery guy knew them well, the pizza place always knew their order when they gave their phone number, and more often than not they would find a free order of breadsticks with their order. Tony knew how to take care of his best customers.

Afterwards, Liz and Maria would break out ice cream while Alex settled in with a bag of Doritos, all three crashing on the living room couch where they would settle in for a night in front of the TV. Often fights broke out, tussles over the remote that caused even the mild-mannered Liz Parker to break out language that would make a sailor blush.

"What'll it be, Liz?" Maria asked, poking her head in the freezer. "Mint Chocolate Chunk or Peanut Butter Cup?"

Liz paused to consider her decision. "I vote for both."

"Hey, I'm all over that," Maria answered, grabbing the two pints out of the freezer and elbowing the door shut behind her. "Spoons?"

"Covered." Liz held up two and headed out of the kitchen.

"Is it on yet?" Maria called as she opened the refrigerator, searching for something to drink.

"Almost, the pregame show's just wrapping up," Alex's voice answered.

"Cool . . ." She grabbed a half-empty bottle of Saratoga water from the fridge, kicked it shut, and scurried over to the couch, tossing herself down between Alex and Liz.

"You know, you guys should buy stock in Ben & Jerry's," Alex said. "Your purchases alone must have made revenue go up remarkably during the past year."

"Ha-ha Alex," Maria responded, a smile softening her sarcastic tone. "Shut up and watch the game."

"Yes ma'am." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They moved in, she remembered, on a Saturday. They were away from home -- really away from home -- for the first time in their lives. Thousands of miles separated them from the world they knew, the world they had grown so accustomed to that they forgot any other kind existed. And she, for one, was glad.

The air, she remembered, had been heavy, and hot in a way that Roswell rarely experienced. It wasn't the dry, arid heat of the New Mexico desert, but rather the wet, oppressive one of the Northeastern Summer. She liked the distinction.

To them, she remembered, Boston had seemed the natural solution. She and the other five had applied to a number of schools, and by the time of the accident nothing had been decided. It was a topic no one had wanted to discuss, the possibility of being separated by higher education. The possibility of being separated at all.

Their avoidance, she remembered, had been moot, since discussion or no discussion, on a cruel April night they were separated. Not by college but by death, the most permanent division. The six became three, half torn away so harshly that the remaining ones felt pieces of themselves had been taken with them.

Roswell, she remembered, had been so full of memories that she felt she was suffocating from them. Every street held a memory, every block a recollection. Some happy, some sad, all coming with a pain so sharp she could almost taste it. She had to leave.

Alex and Liz, she remembered, had felt the same. Getting away. All she wanted, all they wanted was to get away, hoping that in some way that by leaving Roswell they would be leaving part of their pain behind.

Alex, she remembered, had had connections. His father, a respected professor, had pulled strings for the three at their respective colleges -- Liz's Harvard, Alex's MIT, and Maria's BU -- and had somehow managed to finagle them out of dorm life. An apartment was found, a small one with three bedrooms, which came at a ridiculous price, but the three would have given anything to ensure that they would remain together.

Together, she remembered, had been their mantra. We'll be together. We'll be far away from home, but we'll be together. We'll be lost in an unfamiliar city, but we'll be together. We'll know no one, we’ll be confused, we'll be lonely, but we'll be together.

They had moved in, she remembered, rather quickly, and had instantly loved the place. The bedrooms were insanely small, the water pressure sucked, and God knew who had lived in the furniture before them, but they were together. And nothing about the apartment, the building, the streets, or the city were anything like Roswell, New Mexico. The golds, tans, and oranges of their home was replaced by the greens, grays, and browns of their new city. Nothing to remind them of home. Or their loss.

Nothing, she remembered, but each other. Every time Liz realized that days had passed without a real, true Alex Whitman smile, she was reminded of the way, before the accident, his spirit had seemed indestructible. Every time Maria heard the sharp edges of bitterness and anger in Liz's voice, she remembered how unfathomable they would have been to her before the accident. And every time Alex saw Maria retreat into her mind, her eyes blank, lips quiet and face still, he remembered the vivaciousness that Maria had displayed since the moment he met her until that cool April night.

She missed, she remembered, everything. Michael, of course. He was her heart, and with him gone she felt eerily hollow. Max and Isabel too, though. She missed the way Max's jokes would be so subtle sometimes that it would take her a few seconds to realize they had been jokes, and then only because his eyes would meet hers and twinkle slightly. She missed the way Isabel would occasionally reach out and straighten a wrinkle or change a makeup shade for her without being asked to, simply because it was the easiest way for her to reach out in friendship.

She missed, she remembered, the feeling of purpose. She missed knowing that her life wasn't just like any other teenager's. She missed knowing that she was part of something important enough that the government kept tabs, she missed knowing that her world was bigger than most other people's, that she knew and understood more than most people did about the world they lived in. Their sudden death had made it seem almost as if it had never happened. Her world had been thrown off its axis for the first time early in her sophomore year, when she learned about them, and had been thrown off its axis again years later when they disappeared into the night. The suddenness of the loss had been jarring, as if she had been thrown from some imagined life into a real one, or perhaps the other way around. She couldn't be sure anymore. She was lost. She knew it, and she suspected that her mother could see it too, so she tried to hide it as much as possible, with limited success. Forced smiles and laughs and jokes replaced real ones. She missed knowing what real felt like.

Completely fake, she remembered, was how she had felt on that first night. Their parents had come with them to Boston to help them move in, and she had spent the whole day acting Happy and Excited, like she just couldn't wait to Move On, and that she did appreciate what an important First Step college was towards that end. When the door had swung shut behind the last of them she had let out a long sigh and finally let the facade fall.

Liz and Alex, she remembered, had done the same, both collapsed on opposite ends of the puke-green overstuffed couch that, despite its extreme ugliness, was their favorite piece of furniture already. They had looked as lost as she felt, neither making eye contact with each other or herself. Staring out with vacant eyes while they became lost in the memories they had traveled so far to avoid.

She had been the one, she remembered, to turn on the TV that night. It sat on a cheap faux-wood stand that looked like it was about to tip over, the other piece of furniture that compromised their living room set. She had sat on the couch between the two of them, not knowing what to do next.

She had thought, she remembered, that had her life been a movie, this would be the time for the Big Talk where they shared their deepest and truest feelings. As she sat there, though, between the two people she was closest to in the world, the idea of even beginning that conversation was impossible. The words didn't need to be spoken, at least not yet, not now. They understood without trying, shared without speaking, bound by their loss.