"Welcome home." I don't hate him. I miss the hate. Well, not exactly. Miss isn't the word. I don't miss anything. But the emptiness of my existence is intensified by the fact that every emotion, even hate, is gone. For the first time in over fifty years, the hate is gone. I try to feel. But I can't. He laughs at me. It's a hollow, lifeless sound.

Maybe it's because I am hollow. Lifeless.

"You didn't think that we would risk another rebelling, did you?." He taps my head. I try to want to bite his hand, but I can't. "We have modified your chip. It disrupts your brain waves. You couldn't feel anything if you tried. You are just another body."

I try not to believe him. I try. But I can't. My will is gone.

I look at the door. I see the others. Not my others anymore. Just others. Geometrical shapes put together to form a 3-D figure in the range of my vision. I know what I should feel. I should feel scared. But I don't.

I stand up and circle the room. It is cold, I know, but it doesn't mean anything to me. It doesn't mean anything. I feel my breath flow in and out of my body. But it doesn't mean anything to me. I try to remember what has happened. But I can't.

Because it doesn't mean anything to me.

I don't know what to do. I don't know anything anymore. I can't. I am too empty. Too inanimate. This is death. The death that I have been raped of for so many years. But that doesn't mean anything to me either. I look at Big.

"It's time to finish your job." My job. That is what I must do. I am not empty anymore. I have a job. A purpose. I should care what the job is. But I don't.

"Tell me what to do." ______________________________________________________________________

I see them inside of the apartment. The targets. There are eight of them. Packing. Destroying all evidence of their existence. I move closer to the window. Two of the others are behind me. The other three are closing in at the door.

I hear their thoughts in my head. That is almost all I hear. My thoughts are nearly gone. I can feel all that they are trying not to feel. As much as I can, anyhow.

*One. Two. THREE!*

I jump through the window. We trap them in a circle. I hold my gun up to a forehead. I stare into a pair of eyes. I know these eyes, but I can't remember them. I can't remember. Something important.

The others wait for me to start. It is the orders. I make the first kill. And the second. And the third. I have to kill them all. I try to pull the trigger, but I can't. My hand won't move. I hear crying. Crying.

My breath shakes. My head hurts. The pain shoots down my spine, burns a path all over my body. It hurts so much. I don't know what to do. My head hurts.

I don't know how to hurt anymore.

"I. . . I have a. . . a j. .ob. . . I. . . have a job. I have a JOB!" It hurts. My ears are ringing. A sensation. Warmth. The warmth of Blood. Blood is running out of my ears. I squeeze my eyes shut. Trying to block out the pain.

"I HAVE A JOB!"

My eyes open. I see. I see Michael. He's scared of me. Of the gun. Of the death that lays between my fingers. I can't do this.

"I can't do this. . . it's too much. . . TOO MUCH!" The gun weighs heavily in my hand. I want to pull the trigger so bad. I want to. Want. I am weak.

I turn the barrel of the gun towards myself and pull the trigger. I hear some one cry out as I feel the bullet tear into my heart. Me. I cried out in ecstasy ______________________________________________________________________

I don't know where I am. In an ocean. The waves crash around me, pulling me under. I don't fight the current. I am dead, but alive.

This is limbo. I have been in limbo since 1947. I remember.

**It's been two years, Viola. The war is over. He's not coming home. He's dead.

I twist the small gold ring around my finger. The tiny diamond cuts into my thumb, but I hardly notice. "He's coming back, Johnny. I know he is."

I look at Johnny, leaning up against the rock beside me. His eyes are so sad. They are always so sad. I can't look into his eyes without seeing the sadness.

He blames himself, I know. He hates that he couldn't go with his brother into battle because of his vision. Because he was nearly blinded in one eye in a baseball accident when he was seven.

"I miss him too. You know I do. He's my brother." I don't want to hear this again. Not again. But I need Johnny nowadays. To keep me alive. To keep my hope alive until my fiancee finally comes home.

"He wouldn't have wanted this. He wouldn't have wanted you to live like this. Waiting for him, even after his death."

I don't hear him. I listen to a wind blow through the desert. Singing, just for me. I remember another time I sat against this rock. "This is where he proposed, Johnny." I smiled, even though I could feel my heart break all over again. "We were going to get married. Have children. . . he wanted a big family. . . " I try to keep my voice from shaking, but all it does is forces the tears out of my eyes before I could hide them. "We were going to move out of Roswell. To California. . . " I can feel my smile widen. "He always wanted to go to California. . . "

I can feel Johnny's arms slip around me. "I want him to be alive too."

We don't talk anymore. There is nothing to say anymore. We don't need to talk. Because we can feel each other. "Let's go to California." I look at Johnny. He gives me a little smile as he twists one of my red curls around his finger. "Come on, just you and me, Viola. It'll be fun. . . "

"And maybe then I will forget." That's what he was thinking. I know it was. Even though he wasn't going to say it out loud. He looks away.

"It's worth a shot."

I stare straight ahead at the raw beauty in front of me. I look at the stars twinkling far beyond my reach. I wish I could be with those stars. "Maybe I should forget to breathe too."

"No." Johnny turns my face with his hand so I look into his eyes. They are so deep and brown. "Viola, don't give up on life. You're my best friend. Hell, you were practically my sister! I don't know where I would be without you. . . "

I kiss him. Not a passionate kiss. Just a kiss. Because it's true. He is close to me like a brother. My friend. My best friend. And now that his brother is gone, my everything. He smiles and holds me tighter.

"Come to California with me. I'm going with or without you. . . "

I smile back at him. "With."**

**"Let's get out of town tonight!" Johnny climbs through my window. I turn around, surprised.

"What about the crash? Don't you want to stay and find out what really happened?"

Johnny rolled his eyes. "The government isn't going to stop lying to us. They'll never tell us what really crashed!" I smile and brush some of his blond hair out of his eyes. He grabs my hand and squeezes it. "Come on, this is more important that any UFO, or weather balloon, or whatever crashed. We have to. . . to say good-bye. . . "

I frown. He won't believe that his brother is still alive. But I would have known. I would have felt something if he was dead. "It isn't good-bye, Johnny." I wrap my arms around him and let him bury his head in my neck. I try not to cry as I feel his warm tears run down my neck to soak into my dress. God knows that he's done this for me plenty of times.

"Please don't argue with this, Viola. I need this. I need to let him go. . . " I nod my head. I understand what he feels, even if it isn't possible for me to feel it to.

"Just let me get my things. . . "

Johnny watches as I pack my clothes into my suitcase. I start to grab other things; perfume, books, pictures. "You know, we're not moving to California. . . " I glare at him.

"Hey, I'm being prepared, unlike some people. . . " He grins and gives me a wink.

I write a note for my parents and leave it on the kitchen table. It's short, to the point. I never told them that I planned to go to California; they would never have let me go if I had. We climb into his car and start our journey to California.**

**We stop at the side of the highway in Arizona. The tire is flat. Johnny won't let me help jack up the car. Not that I want to, but I hate making him do it all by himself. A stranger pulls up.

"Need a ride into town?" I don't like this man. Something isn't right with him. I don't know what it is, but something isn't right. I hold Johnny's hand. He shakes his head.

"No, sir, we're doing just fine, thank-you." The man is upset.

"I think you should come with me." This man really scares me. Johnny starts to move me behind him.

"Look, mister, we don't want any trouble. . . " The man shoots Johnny. I scream as he falls to the ground. I fall on top of him, trying to stop the blood from flowing out of him. I hold his hand tight as if it could bring him back to life. I can hear the man walking towards us. I look up. A second shot is fired, and I die.**

I'm in the ocean again. The beginning. I remember the beginning of this nightmare. I kick my way to the surface. All of them are there. Waiting at the surface for me. Brown. My brown other. Johnny. And my Michael. Who's aura of mystery reminds me of another boy I once loved. They hold their hands out to me.

"ALICE. . . Alice, take my hand!"

"Don't listen to him! Come back with me!"

They are here. In my dream, my nightmare. To bring me back. I know that my body is healed. Now it's my choice whether or not I live again. I turn to my other.

"Johnny. . . " He looks at me, shocked. "Johnny, come with me."

"Viola. . . " He says it so gentle. . . but then he hardens again.

I send them all my memories about the beginning of this. "Johnny, I don't want to lose you again!" My voice cracks with emotion. Human emotions. "Come with me! Come with us!" I swim closer to Michael. "Come on!"

Michael's hand finds mine. I hold it tight. As tight as I once held Johnny's. I look at all my others now. "Come with us. . . We don't belong with Big. We belong with them. . . " I can feel the others gather around me. Tess, Max, Liz, Maria, Kyle, Alex, Isabel. They all extend their hands. Welcoming my others.

Because this is where we belong. And now they know it too. One by one, my others swim towards us, embracing us. We form a circle, hand in hand, sharing what we feel with each other as we rise back to consciousness. ______________________________________________________________________

I gasp, my back arching off of the floor. The others wake up around me. I can feel new memories flooding each of the ex-drones. Memories of before. Before Big and the hell that he created for us.

I know exactly what they are feeling. There was a time when I couldn't remember anything before I froze over, before I became the living dead. But it's all over now. Because I feel so deeply, I don't think that I could go back even if I wanted to. Even if I tried. If it was my heart's only desire to become what I was again, I couldn't do it.

Because now I know. I don't know what I know, or how I know it, but I know. The secrets to life. The thing that everybody on this earth searches for until they find it and become complete. I wonder if I can hold on to this. But it all doesn't matter.

I barely notice. Because Johnny is crying with me in a tangled heap on the floor. "California. . . " He whispers the name like it is holy, sacred. But he doesn't need California anymore, and neither do I.

I look at Michael, and all the others. "It's time to go back to Roswell." They nod. I wonder if Kyle knows what I know now. If he feels what I feel now. Because we are connected. I look at Michael. He knows.