While she had decided that she was going to find out what the heck Max thought he was doing, that did not mean that her heart was not still in her throat at the thought of actually seeing him....

The last time she had seen him had been at the pod chamber. The pleading way he had begged her to stay, the way he had looked like a lost little boy when he had told her that she meant everything to him...it had taken all her strength to walk away from him...she had barely managed to control her tears, but seeing Max on the verge of weeping himself had almost been her undoing...

Max had always been the strong one...first loving her for so long, so silently, so completely, so sure that she was never going to notice him, yet remaining so faithful...

Then he had taken the step back, not because he had wanted to, but because he feared for her...She had not believed him when he had told her that he was scared of the way he felt about her...It had been an excuse, his way of protecting her...

And finally she had convinced him that he couldn't control everything, all the time...that he couldn't stop her from loving him just because he was afraid she would be hurt...

But he had been right all along - she HAD been hurt...but not by him...

She had done it to herself...she had not been brave enough to stand by him when he had wanted to make it work despite all they had heard from his real mother...

Maria had told her the night she had returned from the desert that SHE had been brave, selfless, that Max would thank her someday, that if it was meant to be they would find their way back to each other...

But, as always, Liz had been afraid. She had run away...

Her parents had not known what to do with her when she had come home...she had been gone for over twenty-four hours - again. Her mom had ranted about the influence THAT boy was having on her, that she was too young, that she and Max had to start behaving more responsibly...

Liz had just sat on the couch, in a daze, not really listening to a word of her mother's tirade...all she kept thinking was, "How can I live without ever touching him again?" How could she live never again feeling that connection that she knew she would never, ever, in a million years feel with anyone else? She hadn't even commented when her mom told her that they were sending her to stay with her aunt in England for the summer...that if she still felt the same way about Max when she came back, well then they would consider letting her see him again...

See him again... as if she would ever stop seeing him...she didn't need to be in his company to see him, to KNOW him...she had seen into his soul - more than once in fact...

She had always been rational, in control...she had never believed that every person had a "soulmate," that one person that completed them...she had believed that people could be happy with any number of people as long as they had things in common...

But when Max Evans had touched her for the first time - he had done a lot more than just healing a physical wound...he had healed her soul - had opened her heart to the fact that there WERE people in the world meant for each other...As she had told him a thousand times, he had brought her to life...

She had continued to run away... when the summer had ended, she had stayed in London, had enrolled in a semester-long exchange program...Her mother had been ecstatic when Liz had told her her plans on the phone...

"I told you Liz. There is such a big world out there... What you and Max had was special, but you're both only teenagers... it would never have worked in the long run..."

Liz had not responded. Her dad had not been as easy to fool though.

"Are you sure Lizzie?" He had asked in his quiet, concerned way.

"Yeah dad." He didn't believe her, but he let it go. Mr. Parker had always been more sensitive to what was really going on with his daughter...their relationship had improved again after the last camping trip, when he had finally figured out that although his daughter was growing up, she would always be his little girl... he had gotten to know Max and had always been more reasonable about the way Liz felt about him then Nancy had... In fact, he liked Max a lot - liked the way he made Liz glow...

When the semester had ended, Liz had returned to Roswell. She had not felt any more capable of facing Max - but it had been time...

But now...now that she had heard that Max had apparently lost his mind, that Maria and Alex and even Isabel had had to deal with it all on their own...well, she was angry.

Liz had realized for the first time that it wasn't all just about she and Max.

Yes, what they had was special, but what she shared with the five others in their small group was special too...

She had let them down for the last time. She was going to get the real Max back, help Maria figure out what was going on with Michael, and help poor Alex and Izzy, who had basically been caught in the middle of the whole mess, find their way back to each other.

Liz had decided not to go back to school that day. She would start on Monday. So the first time she would see everyone else would be at the bus that night. She knew that it was not going to be fun, but she was determined. They had a whole weekend to work everything out...

They had all been close once - brought together by circumstance, had fought to stay close...but they had all given up...

It was going to end this weekend... on the same camping trip that had begun the string of events that had brought them to this point.

As Liz threw clothes into her duffel bag, she thought back to that last Father's Camping trip. She had paid Maria to accompany her, Alex had hauled his father along because he knew Isabel was going to be there, Max and Izzy had gone because of the sighting - the sighting that had turned out to be Nasedo's first signal to them...that had led them all to that pod chamber several months later, when all their hopes and dreams for themselves had been shattered...

Liz and Max had still technically been on the outs during that trip, but it had also been the first time Liz had really admitted to herself that she was not going to give up on Max Evans... the way he had looked at her when he had had to leave her and Maria to face those dogs had told her that he had felt the same way...

She wondered briefly what Max was going to say to her when she saw him later today...she had absolutely no idea... she just could not picture him being rude or mean, but from the way Maria and Alex talked, it might happen... it was not a pleasant thought...

An even more unpleasant thought was that he might ignore her altogether...she could not remember a time that she had been in Max's presence that he hadn't looked at her in some way, totally aware that she was in the same room. It had seemed that he had been totally incapable of ignoring her. The looks had sometimes been longing or sad, but always loving. They had often been teasing or lustful in happier times... the ones she liked the best though were the ones that told her that nothing that ever happened was going to change the way he felt about her...

Liz felt a lump rising in her throat. She stared at a photo of Max that still sat on her bedside table. Maria had snapped it for a photography project she had done the previous school year.

It was totally candid. He was seated on a bench in the quad, munching on a bag of Doritos, a bottle of tobasco at his elbow. He had a book open in front of him and he was avidly reading...

Liz even remembered the book...It was "The Alienist" by Caleb Carr, one of her favorites. She had given it to him for his birthday. He had quirked an eyebrow at her questioningly when he had opened it. "The Alienist?" he had asked wryly. "Is this about what I think it is?" Liz had grinned and replied, "Not alien silly, alienist...it's the old-fashioned word for psychiatrist..." Max had grinned teasingly.

"Are you trying to tell me something?" Liz had rolled her eyes. Just as she knew would be the case, he had been unable to put it down after he started it. When he had finally finished, it was a long, dense book, she had asked him what he thought of it. He had looked at her seriously for a moment and then replied,

"That Sarah character reminded me of you." It had been the nicest thing he had ever said to her. Sarah was totally logical and Liz had identified very strongly with her. That Max saw it to, that he understood why she found the book so fascinating... it had moved her...

Just as everything about Max had always moved her. She was going to get the REAL Max back, the sensitive Max who almost cared too much about others, whose selflessness sometimes bordered on SELFISHNESS, so determined was he to protect the people he loved...