Fifteen years ago, a young boy saved the life of the prettiest girl he knew, right there in that café. People talked about it for years, even now whispers followed the footsteps of the café owners. Townsfolk wondered about the rumors, the supposed aliens, the strange things that had happened, lights in the sky, men and women in dark clothes, fancy people coming around and asking questions.

Fifteen years ago, everything changed, more than that boy knew at the time. He saved more than one life that night. He saved his entire race.

~~~~~ "Hey, order up."

Ah, another snazzy night, at the snazziest place in town. Jo De Luca, full name Claudia Joy, sprang up from her carefully slouched position behind the counter (enough to look cool, not enough to look lazy) to retrieve the order her best friend, and fellow CrashDown employee, Seth Parker had just shouted out. Barely sparing a glance for her friend in her hurry, the slim young woman danced her way across the café, plopping the platter down on the table with zero spills.

"Here we go. One Mutant Mushroom Burger with a Venusian Love Shake and a Jupiter Burger with a vanilla coke. Anything else tonight?"

The young couple offered a mutually exhausted smile. "Oh, Jo, this looks lovely, thank you so much."

"No problem.” Almost everyone knew Jo and Seth. The teens had grown up in the café. Jo mirrored the couple’s smile, only with a bit more pep, and pivoted on her heel. Returning to her carefully designed slouch behind the counter, the sandy blonde sighed as she turned another page in her Cosmo magazine, a magazine she'd already read at least twenty times just this evening. Roswell was just not known for it's exciting…well, anything. Aliens schmalians, the most exciting thing to happen in the last twenty years had been her mom and her mom's best friend moving in together. The entire town had been convinced that Jo's mom was a lesbian…right up until she slept with the Mayor. A small yawn escaped her mouth, prompting Jo to check the clock. 11:42, it looked like time to prevent any late-coming customers. Just as Jo rose, key in hand, to lock the front doors, two men entered the café. Resisting the urge to slam the door in their faces, she fought to find civil words. Time stretched as she gave up her battle for civility in favor of simply watching the newcomers. They seemed oddly poised, as if the slightest thing could either send them running or set them after you. For the first time in her life, Jo understood her mom's warnings about dangerous men. "If someone you don' t know comes up to you, especially here in Roswell, find me or Seth or someone. Don't talk to them, don't answer questions, nothing."

And Jo had more than most to hide from strangers.

She restrained a full-body shudder from erupting in time to find something intelligent to say. "I'm sorry, we're closed." Jo clutched the countertop for strength, only to relax slightly when the darker of the two men offered her a soft smile that alleviated his intense presence. His companion, however, continued to aim an unspoken growl at the entire café.

"That's ok. We're not here to eat; we're looking for the owners."

Jo looked behind her, silently begging Seth to come forward, but he merely stood there, his eyes glued to the dark-haired stranger. "Mom's not here."

The obnoxious looking stranger interrupted, "The Parkers, or Liz, that's who we want."

Alarm bells, klaxons, and a severe flight impulse burst in Jo. Whoever these men were, they couldn’t possibly be friends. Liz didn't really have friends, except for Maria and Alex and maybe Mr. Valenti.

"Jo, don’t answer them." Finally, Seth chose to come forward, placing himself between Jo and the strange men. The young boy squared off with the strangers, playing the silence game, "whoever speaks first loses." Jo almost groaned; this was silly.

"Look, I don't know who you are, and I have a very strict policy of not talking to strangers, so please, just leave."

"I'm sorry if we've upset you. We'll come back tomorrow." The dark stranger made to leave, but his friend stood his ground, piercing Jo with his stare. "Maxwell, we're not going anywhere until we find them."

Seth turned to Jo, the wonder on his face reflected in hers. As they turned back to the men, voices came from the back room. Louder and louder they grew, until both teenagers could clearly identify them. Frozen, the teenagers and their adult 'guests' listened to what the voices said.

"Liz, Liz, Liz, I'm telling you, that guy had potential."

"Potential for what, recycling? No thanks, I'd rather go take a hot bath, read a book, or even spend time with my grumpy teenage son."

"You're getting to be such an old lady. We may be mothers, but that doesn't mean we can't have fun."

"We had fun, that's why we're in this situation."

"That wasn't fun, that was…a really long time ago."

"Oh, Maria, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to…"

"Stop it. They…the Czechoslovakians were a lifetime ago. I got Jo, you got Seth, and they got away. That's life." A long pause punctuated the dialogue, then, "Liz, what don't you hear?"

"Huh?"

"Our children creating havoc."

A slim hand pushed through the kitchen doors, revealing her slim petite body and the equally slim petite body of her friend behind her.

"Oh…my…god." Both women froze, obviously terrified at what they saw.

Jo spoke, frightened by the silence. "Uh, Mom?" Her mother didn't appear to hear her as she stared into the liquid darkness of the darker stranger's eyes. "Mom?!?!"

Her daughter's scratchy, slightly panicked tone finally edged past Maria De Luca's own panic. "Honey, it's okay, really, come here." The young girl shuffled into her mother's waiting arms. Seth moved close to his own mother as she held out her hand to him.

"Mom, are they Max and Michael?" The still changing voice of Seth shot into the silence, sitting there uncomfortably.

"Yeah, babe, that's them."

"That's them? No hellos, no greetings, just that's them? And what do you mean by them?"

"Look, Czechy, don't walk in after fifteen years and expect all open arms and joy. You can go screw yourself and your ancient sacred cause for all I care."

"Oh yeah? I should have known what to expect from you. Did you even wait for a few months before sleeping with the kid's father?"

Maria's mouth dropped open and she started to giggle hysterically. Jo turned in her mother's arms, staring at the older woman incredulously.

"This is getting us nowhere…and it's making Maria hysterical. Um, are Isabel and…” Liz stumbled over the name, “…Tess with you?"

The darker man, the one Jo was sure was Max, spoke. "They’re at the caves, waiting for our signal."

"What, the alien signal?" With that, Maria fell into full-fledged laughter, bending over slightly and letting her daughter out of her arms.

"Tell them to meet us all upstairs. We'll talk there, right after I slap some sanity back into Maria." Liz spared a slight smile at Max and Michael, turned to Jo, and started back into the kitchen. The men paused, and Jo finally got to look into the eyes of the fairer man. He had the most beautiful eyes, melting pools of amber brown anger, frustration, and need. Jo closed her own eyes without thinking, and a low hum radiated from her chest. Love, couch, more, never, go, too much, too much, never again, never again, a shift, come, now, café, be careful…the words flew through her head, only too abruptly cut off when Liz shook her arm.

"Jo, honey, come on." Amber brown eyes met amber brown eyes for a split second, as Liz guided Jo through the kitchen doors, only stopping to motion for the two strangers to follow.

Minutes later, they opened the door to the upstairs apartment, where Liz and Seth, and sometimes Jo, lived. A lump on the living room couch revealed that someone else was living there at the moment. When Liz saw what Jo had already seen, she herded the pack of people behind her into the kitchen. Without a word, she slipped out of the kitchen after turning on the overhead light.

No one in the kitchen spoke. She didn't know why, but she didn't want them to glare at each other.

"Um, so, did you guys contact the others?" Jo felt sure that the strangers, Max and Michael had somehow signaled the other aliens to meet upstairs at the Crashdown.

"Jo!" Seth hissed at his best friend, giving her a deadly look. Jo shrugged back, indicating her unwillingness to ignore the strangers.

"Yeah, will they be joining us shortly? Or did Tess die of peroxide poisoning?" Jo watched her mom roll her eyes and pass a hand through her shoulder length dirty blonde hair. The hand trembled as it moved back to Maria's lap. Jo moved over to her mother who sat at the kitchen table. Sitting in the next chair over, the young girl took her mother's hands in hers, squeezing tightly. Jo had never seen her mother so shaken.

"Why don't we wait for everyone before we hash all of this out?" These wise words hardly surprised Jo; of all the people in the room at the moment, Seth was probably the most calm. Well, the dark-haired stranger…wait, this was totally lame. They didn't have to talk about what was going on to exchange names. Emboldened by her decision, Jo strode over to the dark man and held out her hand. "Hi, I'm Jo De Luca, what's your name?"

"Jo!" Maria almost shouted at her daughter, standing straight up, her chair shooting out from under her.

Casting a mocking look in Maria direction, the blondish stranger answered for his friend. "He's Max, I'm Michael. Who's the other kid?"

"I'm not a kid, and the name's Seth. Jo, I really don't think we should talk to these guys."

"Hey, I didn't start this."

Seth opened his mouth to contest his friend's statement when a thump and a moan came from the living room. The dark stranger, Max, cocked his head to listen to the happenings in the other room. They all heard Liz speak softly, but too softly to be heard by the humans in the room. Seth and Jo exchanged a glance, both noticing that Max and Michael had focused their entire attention on the activity in the other room. A loud, familiar voice boomed out of the room.

"What the fuck do you mean, they're back? Where?" Alex Whitman, singer, songwriter, and one time diaper changer did not sound happy. Then again, he rarely sounded happy. As the volume of the conversation indicated that it was on the move, Jo hauled herself back to her seat, yanking her mother down as well. Seconds later, a sweatpants clad Alex Whitman and an unsmiling Liz entered the room. Alex stopped dead when he saw Max and Michael, causing Liz to plow into him. He muttered a very unconvincing sorry, staring at the men with icy eyes. Jo shivered. It felt like WWIII was about to start in her kitchen and she wasn't even sure why.

"Uncle Alex, when did you get in?" Seth's mundane question gave Alex pause, and the older man smiled at the boy he had helped raise.

"Few hours ago. I just crashed on the sofa. This isn't what I expected to find when I woke up. I thought," his voice cracked, "I thought that I'd left all of this behind."

"Funny, for something you thought you left behind, you sure do write a lot of songs about it."

The voice so familiar to some of the room's occupants that they froze in shock at hearing it again belonged to a tall, svelte woman in the doorway. A shorter, curly-haired blonde stood next to her, a hesitant smile gracing her soft, rounded features.

"Great, what next? Nasedo? FBI?"

"Good going Alex, start us out on a positive step. Why don't you just bash them over the head with one of your keyboards - it would be more subtle."

"Maria, shut up. I don't like it when my life becomes a soap opera. Every time they," Alex gestured at the four strangers, "come around, my life goes from normal to trashed in 0.5 seconds. I won't…"

Seth chose that moment to speak up for the confused teens of the moment. "I hope the adults and parents don't mind me asking, but those four are the Aliens a.k.a. the Czechoslovakians, right? Or are Jo and I reading the situation entirely wrong?"

All of the adults in succession opened and closed their mouths, turning to Seth and Jo in shock, amusement, and pride.

"Yeah, what's with the code talk anyway? It's not like we don't know who they are. It's not as if we haven't heard about them every day of our lives. Let me see…the short blonde is Tess, the tall one is Isabel, Max is the dark nice guy and Michael is the annoying blonde one." Jo slapped her hands together and giggled. "So, how'd I do?"

Liz and Maria turned to each other in tandem, and began to laugh. Soon, the two women were grasping at each other in an attempt to keep themselves from falling to the floor. Alex stared at them with disgust, trying to keep the grin off his own face. Only Max, Isabel, Michael, and Tess remained stoic and unbending.

"What the hell is going on? De Luca, stop laughing and tell me why the kids know so much?" Maria looked up at Michael, and restrained herself from slapping him. The man had the density of granite and the intelligence to match sometimes.

Isabel’s striking eyes narrowed as she suddenly walked over to Jo and placed her hand on the girl's. With a gasp, she let go as if burned. "Oh my god."

"What?" Michael spat out the single word question impatiently, still waiting for Maria to answer him.

"Michael, this is your daughter."

Michael tried to speak, but suddenly found all of his words coming out as unintelligible grunts. Max walked over to Seth, as if to touch him. The boy took a step back, holding his hand out to ward off the older man. The lean alien settled for looking at the boy, watching the way he held himself, the way he moved himself closer to Jo.

"So, our task is already accomplished, how tidy." Tess's cool words filtered through the confusion and wonder lacing the atmosphere of the room.

"Task? What do you mean by that?" While the aliens had been figuring out their connection to the teenagers, Liz and Maria had been busy collecting themselves. Liz's statement was aimed directly at the curly haired Tess, waves of animosity radiating off both of them.

"Liz, maybe we should all sit down and do what you suggested, talk. You can tell us about the…the children, and we'll tell you why we came back. Fair?" Liz took a hard look at what was in Max's eyes and apparently decided that what she saw she could trust. She turned around, walking back into the living room from which she had come so recently. One by one, the aliens, Maria, Seth, and Jo followed her. Once all the players in the drama took their seats, Liz opened her mouth to speak, but found herself interrupted by Michael.

"She's mine." Not a question, but a flat, unemotional statement.

Jo bristled at the proprietary statement. "Don't do me any favors buddy, Alex has been plenty enough dad for Seth and me."

"This has nothing to do with that, I just wanna know, are you mine? Biologically?" He questioned Maria with sea-foam green eyes, liquid with their plea for truth.

Maria answered for her daughter. "Yeah, she's yours, and she's mine. But mostly, she belongs to herself these days."

"Since parental rights seem to be where this is heading, why don't we start there?" After gaining a nod from everyone, Liz looked to Maria, who started shaking her head.

"Uhuh, no, I don't think so, I'm not going to tell this tale."

"Let me, I think I'm the best thing we have at a neutral party here." Alex rubbed a hand over his face, waiting for his two best friends to hash out the decision. The duo nodded at him and he girded himself against the memories, falling back fifteen years. Back when he knew who his friends were and who his enemies were. Back in the days when Liz, Maria, and he had been so sure of their futures.

~~~~ Late August, 2000 ~~~~~

Maria curled up at the base of the tiny bathroom in the back of the CrashDown. With a shaky finger, the blonde traced the tiny alien faces on the linoleum. Tears poured down her face as a hesitant knock sounded.

"Maria, are you ok?"

No answer. The neon green door eased open to reveal the very worried face of Liz Parker. The beautiful brunette kneeled at her friend's side, rubbing her fingers up and down Maria's goosebumped arms.

"Hey, you ran out of there pretty fast. I think that guy thought you were going to add something else to that Scully's Skeptical Spaghetti special you dropped in his lap." Liz's attempt at humor didn't do much for Maria. The young woman just curled further into herself, wrapping her arms tightly around her lower stomach. "Maria, please talk to me, you're starting to scare me."

Shimmering hazel eyes lifted to warm brown ones. "Lizzie, something very bad has happened." Liz's heart skipped a beat as her mind quickly considered the possible implications of that statement. Michael, Max, and Isabel were dead. Maria's mom was in trouble. Someone had discovered the events of last May. A stream of terrible possibilities sped through Liz's mind, each one worse than the one before. "I'm pregnant."

With that statement, all the possibilities coalesced into one Liz hadn't even thought of yet. The reality fell far past the possibility on the terrible scale; this was bad on a galactic, pardon the pun, scale. She whispered her next words, fearing prying ears. "Are you sure?"

"I've missed my period, and I was so nervous for so long that I'm not sure how many I've missed. Yeah, I'm sure. I even took one of those tests, you know, two stripes for dead bunny, one for living bunny. The rabbit is like so dead, Liz." Maria gripped Liz's hand in hers, their eyes transmitting the horrible fears both had been living with for months now but were now finally sharing. How could you tell your best friend that you just wanted to die when you knew they pretty much wanted the same thing?

Liz swallowed hard and decided to reveal her own news. She hadn't been sure until now, not until the warm feeling in her tummy when she and Maria had touched hands.

"My bunny is dead too."

If at all possible, Maria's eyes grew wider, her mouth dropping open with shock. Then, without missing a beat, laughter erupted from her chest, and her body started shaking with the power of the giggles rather than the overwhelming fears she had been living with for so long.

Easily drawn into the hysterical mood, Liz joined her friend, rocking forward, hitting her head on the toilet. She put a hand to her head, rubbing the sore spot, laughter rolling through her body.

Maria coughed, breathed deeply, and tried to speak. "What…" she broke off, cracking up when Liz turned slightly green around the edges and leaned over the toilet bowl. Luckily, the ill moment passed and Liz put the seat down, raising herself up to sit on the black plastic. Maria continued. "What are we going to do?" More sober now, she made their fears into reality, for good. "What will happen to us? What will happen to our babies? I'm only 17, but I really want this baby. I think…Liz, this is crazy, but I swear the kid talks to me."

A warm droplet splashed onto Liz's hand, raised to her mouth. Fingers rubbed away the burgeoning tears. "I know, uh, it, I mean, he talks to me to."

"He? Oh man, I think mine's a girl." They lapsed into silence, coming to the same conclusion at nearly the same time. Their gazes met, calm, collected, and terribly sure of their destiny. Without a doubt, they knew what they had to do. Together they spoke.

"We have to protect them." Each girl placed her own hands on her own belly, feeling movement where movement should not have yet existed.

~~~~~

"Right, so Liz and Maria came to me right after that, dragged me out of practice I might add, to tell me what was going on. I'd suspected something was up; Liz and Maria had been none too willing to do anything more than sleep and they actually turned down ice cream. Twice." Alex's poker face made Maria's lips soften, and almost turn up in a smile.

"I told Mom and Dad the truth - more or less. You were gone, and somehow, I knew that you weren't coming back anytime soon, or Michael. They were so mad." Liz gripped her arms, remembering the look of disappointment on her dad's face when she'd told the beloved man of her condition. He hadn't reacted with angry words or actions. His anger had resulted in a quiet disappointment 20 times worse than any screaming fit. Her mom, however, had more than taken up the slack in that department.

"Mad doesn't even begin to cover my mom's reaction." Maria spoke ruefully, flashing back to the day she finally broke down and admitted her pregnancy to Amy De Luca. Ms. De Luca hadn't stopped screaming and shouting for days. The older woman had eventually been reduced to crying fits when she looked at her daughter, accompanied by things like 'my baby, having a baby' and 'please god, not my baby. don't let her do what I did, please no.' The last one always hurt the worst. "I fucked up so bad I thought she'd never forgive me."

"Great language to use around the kid, De Luca."

"Shut up Guerin, it's not your turn to talk." A hard mask settled over Maria's usually soft, plush features. Whatever remark Michael had been about to shoot off died in the face of what he saw in Maria's eyes. His sweet, feisty, pixyish girl had grown up, the hard way.

Liz went on. "Things settled down. Mom has a sister in California, and Ms. De Luca agreed to let Maria come stay with me there. Aunt Maggie was single, a college professor, and had a lot of cats. She homeschooled us our junior year while we got big, and fat, and moody. Alex came out when were about eight months along, looking for a little hormonal abuse." The slim brunette tossed a bit of paper at her friend, mocking him. Alex caught the tiny missile and took up the story.

"I don't even know why I went. I was sitting in Trig, half-asleep, when I just got up, the teacher demanding that I sit down immediately, and walked out of the school. The parents must have been expecting it, 'cause they had talked things over with Ms. De Luca and the Parkers. I was all set up to join the girls in their exile, and join their home-schooling." Nostrils flared with a forced deep breath as Alex mentally readied himself for the tail end of the story. "Er, to make a long, emotional story short, I ended up being the labor coach for two births in three days." He shot a hard look at the other two adult men in the room. "You two owe me. It was horrible. Maria damn near broke my hand."

"Wimp, it was just a little bruise."

"No, Maria, what Liz did was a little bruise. What you gave me resembled a piece of pulverized eggplant."

Sticking her tongue out at her male best friend, Maria shrugged her shoulders.

Alex rolled his eyes. "We didn't come back to Roswell until after college. Maria didn't want to come back, I didn't feel any need to go back, Liz had no desire to live there again, but eventually we all got drawn back. First, Liz's parents wanted to travel and asked Liz if she might think about moving back. At about the same time, her job at the research institute was closed, because of 'budget cuts.' Maria and I had been hitting the club circuit, in addition to doing music lessons on the side. In a freaky flash, our gigs dried up and our clients took their business elsewhere." A thin line lay where his mouth should have been at the memory. "Once we were back in Roswell, things suddenly looked up. Liz took over the café, Maria bought in for half-ownership."