We had all been lulled into safety. Into comfort. Going to school. Evading the various new aliens that came into town looking for trouble. I had learned to trust Max Evans and his little group. And I had learned to share a bathroom with Tess. I had learned to fight over the cereal box with her as Dad chuckled and snapped on his service revolver every morning. It had been easy. Too easy.

I'll never forget pulling her with me, down the alley, as the CrashDown imploded. There wasn't time to scream. To call their names. We ran. We ran until all we were breathing scalding shards of smoke and terror...until the desert and the caves swallowed us up and let us collapse.

That's when she screamed. When her pretty face crumbled and her mascara ran, blacker than the soot from the explosion. Max. Michael. Isabel. She had all ready lost Nasedo, years before, and now her only remaining family was gone, too. As I leaned against the cold rock of the pod chamber, I thought about my almost step-sister...Maria--I had been so glad when her mom and my dad didn't work out. About that dork Whitman--who'd turned out to be pretty cool when he taught me to play the guitar. And Liz. The perfect first crush every teenage boy needs to have. It was too painful to think about my dad. I didn't want to know...to wonder who had lived and who hadn't.

We shouldn't have stopped to grieve, but we did. Months of living side by side and eyeing each other like predator and prey finally came to a head. That night in the cave was our first night as lovers. We pulled at each other's clothes, tore at the smell of ash, drowning the fire and the cries of our friends in each other's bodies.

And, almost an entire day later, we stumbled into the sunlight and knew we'd walked into a different world. We stayed low. I held her little hand in mine as we made our way back to town. We had both cried so much our faces felt raw. She must've been sore...but she never complained. We kept away from the burnt out shell of the CrashDown...from the agents in their containment suits and Liz's dazed parents. And the Evans' house was still burning. The sound of fire engines seemed to echo through all of Roswell.

After dark, we made our way past the surveillance on our house. Tess warped the unmarked car down the street into thinking they saw nothing when Dad came out and threw his arms around us. And when Isabel came outside, a plain gold ring on her left hand, I knew what had happened. I knew how they had spent the last day and a half. Dad pulled me aside and explained everything...just listening made my throat burn. I, privately, thanked God that Tess hadn't been detained at Eagle Rock like Isabel. And I tried not to wince at the thought of having a stepmother my age. "My Stepmother is an Alien" come to life. It was for the best. It was to save her. And if I wanted to do the same for Tess...we had to run. We couldn't stay in Roswell a moment longer. We all knew it.

The girls hugged each other. Sobbed. And I let my dad hold me close, kiss the top of my head, and tell me to be safe. I had to bodily pull Tess towards my Mustang...the car that symbolized the remnants of my shallow old life... the car that we would ditch at the Texas border in a matter of hours.

Just like that, we left our lives. It took less than ten minutes.

We left everything but the memories and each other.

* Every once in a while, she still calls Max's name in her sleep. Sometimes her big, gray, eyes get this faraway look and I see him reflected in her pupils. Him. Them. Their home planet. The destiny they never got the chance to fulfill. But then she blinks away the genetically engineered longing and the guilt. She turns to me with gratitude. And her smile.

Six years. We've been on the run six years now. The shadow of a dead alien boy still hangs over me, but I am twenty-five years old now. Too old to hold grudges. I hold Tess instead. I cradle her against me as the waves rock our boat and pull it towards the dock.

We've been moored in Tahiti for a month now. The vacationing American couple. Young and in love. Sailing around the world on a permanent honeymoon. A never-ending dream. Because, sometimes, it's too painful to wake up. She wants to get to Australia eventually. She says no one will find us in the Outback except a few dingoes and the aborigines. I know, without asking, that Australia is where she spent much of her life with Nasedo. It comes out in her voice. In her certainty that we would be safe there.

"Safe" is a hollow word now. It holds little meaning for me.

I'm still afraid to settle down. I would rather run if it means we're both alive and strong and all right. Not locked up on a military base getting poked, prodded, and dissected. I'm not religious, but every morning I throw a coin in the ocean for Isabel and Dad and wish for their safety. I know they miss us as much as we miss them. The picture we sent a few years ago from Cancun was a risk we shouldn't have taken, but whenever Tess reminds me of that, I tug on her auburn curls and point out that we don't even look like the photo anymore.

The couple that dyes together stays together. The six months I dated Liz in high school, I never let her even touch my hair. And Vickie...Meredith...Caty...Molly? They all knew better than to try. But Tess has the run of it now. She always gets out the peroxide and the foil and shoves me into the head when my roots are showing. I think she likes me better as a blond...don't ask me why. Whatever makes her happy. It's become my mantra.

I've been hot for her for almost eight years. And then I fell in love. I fell in love with her face. And her lips. And the way she always knows what to do when we're being followed. I fell in love with her hands and the way they touch me. I fell in love with everything about her that's earthy and human and everything about her that's magical and alien, too.

I know I'm not her destiny. Her destiny exploded one horrible night along with our past and our innocence. But I'm her lover. I'm her husband. I'm the man she has never left. I think that counts for something. I think, in her own way, Tess loves me as much as I love her. And that keeps us moving. That keeps us alive. That makes it easier for us to dream.

"Kyle...?" she murmurs into my chest, poking my side with one finger. "If you think any louder, they'll hear you on shore. Go to sleep."

"Make me," I whisper at her, poking back with something else.

"Cretin!" she giggles, huskily, moving over me...her eyes are bright, awake, and dancing.

"That's 'Mr.' Cretin to you!" I growl, tugging her down and kissing her.

When the sailboat begins to rock a little faster, she has no more orders.

She doesn't call any name but mine.

Over and over.

Memories and sleep are the last things on our minds.

And our life begins anew with the sunrise.