"Our enemies are preparing to attack us," Max explained. "We can feel it. They`re everywhere and there`s only four of us. There`s just too many of them."

[This Velvet Glove by the Red Hot Chili Peppers plays]

"I know," Liz said. "I need you to go so that I`ll know that you`re safe."

[Close to my skin
I`m falling in
Someone who`s been

Sittin` by the phone
I`m left alone
In another zone

John says to live above hell my will is well...]

"Thank you, Liz," Max said. She spoke like she understood, but she looked so dissapointed. "Liz...I`ll be back, you know."

"No, Max. I always knew this was bound to happen. You can`t stay in Roswell forever. You have alien missions to accomplish that have nothing to do with me and you have to get out there and do it, not keep having to return to the same boring town of Roswell just for me. You have a life out there now." As she talked it didn`t seem like she was convincing him not to come back, but telling him the reasons he WASN`T coming back ever. Like she didn`t even believe him when he told her he would return.

[No one is waiting for me to fail
My will could sail yeah]

Max shook his head. "Liz, no matter what I am or what my missions are, this place is my home and it`s always going to be my home. Roswell is my home and...and your heart is my home. Don`t you see that no matter where I go I`m bound to come back. Back to you."

[It`s such a waste to be wasted in the first place
I want to taste the taste of
Being face to face with common grace
To meditate on the warmest dream
And when I walk alone I listen to our secret theme...]

Liz just looked down at the concrete floor of her balcony. Max sighed and looked up at the starry sky. "I`ll need you to do something, then." Liz looked up as he dug around in his jacket pocket and took out the necklace of the alien symbol on the black cord. "See this? I want you to hold on to it. This is all I have left of my planet. That book about how we were engineered was with Nasedo and now he`s dead and we don`t know where he hid it. The Skins stole the orbs so that we couldn`t communicate with our planet anymore. This is all we have left." He handed it to her and closed her hand over the pewter symbol that was getting cold in the night air. "I`ll come back for this. I don`t care if it`s ten years from now, Liz. I will find you and come back for this. Come back for you."

[Your solar eyes are like nothing I have ever seen
somebody close that can see right through
I`d take a fall and you know that I`d do anything
I will for you...]

Liz looked up at him sadly. "But part of your mission is to be with Tess."

"What am I expected to do? We won`t be 'together' if I`m far away and it`s not like I can just stop loving you. If I`ll be violating something in the bullshit alien book of rules by thinking about you every day that I`m away than there`s not much that can be done about that, is there?" He stared into her eyes. "I will, Liz. I`ll think of you all the time."

Liz smiled. "So will I." The night was so quiet and peaceful. Just being with him seemed to set it afire with love and make it beautiful, as if nothing was wrong and he wasn`t even going away.

Liz looked down at her throat, thinking, and then removed her blue and purple jeweled choker and gave it to him. "I want you to hang on to this, too."

Max looked down at it in his hand. "It`s not like you`ll be able to find me if you want it back some day."

Liz shrugged. "But you`ll find me every time you take it out of your pocket."

He smiled and then wrapped his arms around her. "No matter how long I`m gone, don`t ever think I forgot about you or anything. That`s impossible."

Liz hugged him back tightly. "I sure hope so."

[Sailin` for the sun cause there is one Knows where I`m from
I care for you
I really do
I really do

Come closer now so you can lie right by my side
Sit alone in the sun I wrote a letter to you getting over myself...

Your solar eyes are like nothing I have ever seen
Somebody close who can see right through
I`d take a fall and you know that I`d do anything
I will for you...]

Max looked behind him over the side of her balcony at his jeep. Michael, Tess, and Isabel weren`t impatiently watching him and Liz like some snoops, but he knew they were waiting. "I guess I have to go then."

[Close to my skin
Someone who`s been
I`m falling in
Disasters are just another star
Falling in my yard
John says to live above hell
My will is well

Long to be with
Someone to tell
I love your smell]

He turned to go but Liz held his arm. "Wait, just one more second. I gave you something to remember me by, but there`s something else I want to give you. But this is for good luck."

"What?" Max asked. And then she gave him a kiss. It didn`t seem like a kiss for good luck because it was such a sad kiss of saying goodbye, full of such unfortunate meaning. Nothing else was said when Max ended the kiss and climbed down the ladder from her balcony. As Liz heard the jeep speed away, she held the necklace he`d given to her to her heart. But she couldn`t see the car driving away because of the tears that blurred her vision.

[Parallel Universe by the Red Hot Chili Peppers plays]

By next morning they were still driving. It was very sunny. It was very hot. It was very sad.

[Deep inside of a parallel universe
It`s getting harder and harder to tell
What came first

Under water where thoughts can breathe easily
Far away you were made in sea
Just like me

Christ I`m a sidewinder I`m a California king
I swear it`s everywhere oh
It`s everything...]

"We don`t even know where we`re going?" asked Michael, who was driving.

"It doesn`t matter where we`re going," Isabel said sadly. "Just take us out of New Mexico. Take us anywhere but here."

[Staring straight up into the sky
Oh my my a solar system that fits in your eye
Microcosm

You could die but you`re never dead
Spiderweb
Take a look at the stars in your head
Fields of space kid...]

Max was in the back seat with Tess, who looked just as sad as everyone else as she stared out at the rushing by highway. Max thought, everyone here but her is depressed about leaving everything they grew up with behind. Maybe all she`s sad about is losing Nasedo. Tess didn`t seem to think of anywhere as her home except for...THAT home.

Last night Max had slept in the car while Isabel drove. He`d been too tired then to think about what they were in for. But now it was morning and the sun was shining down on his face aong with the hard reality that he was going into hell. Max was leaving his real home, leaving a lot of people that he cared about, and they had no idea where they were going or what the hell they were going to do. All they knew was that they had to get away from Roswell before they lost their lives...that was it. That was their plan.

Max felt extremely jealous of Tess at the moment. She wasn`t saying goodbye to anything. The only thing she had wanted to stay in her life forever was Nasedo, and he was long gone. He remembered something Michael said to him a long time ago: "Just a little word of advice. Don`t get in too deep, Maxwell. It will only make us weaker." He knew what that meant now. Maybe if he`d just listened to Michael in the first place a lot of this stuff would never have happened.

Max looked over at Tess once again. This time she noticed and he turned away, but she had something to say. She reached over and held his arm so that he`d look at her and said, "Max, I just wanna say...I`m really sorry this had to happen. I mean, I knew this time would come some day, but I didn`t want it like this."

Max stared down at her hand on his arm. This was why he wasn`t comfortable talking with Tess. He couldn`t tell what was a true, sympathetic comment and what was just another move to get farther with him. The idea of having a normal, fluidly moving conversation with her seemed impossible at this point.

Max stared at the road that was whipping by under the jeep`s wheels, taking him farther and farther away from so many things he had cared about. Away from...

He reached his hand into his pocket and took out the necklace Liz had given him. He thought about how lovely it had looked with the jewels glimmering around her throat. How long would it be until he saw her again? How long would it be until they could be together again, until he could hold her in his arms and tell her he loved her again? Or would the day ever come?

Max felt Tess`s eyes on him but when he looked up she shot her head in the other direction. He put the choker back in his pocket and looked out ahead of him, looking over Michael`s head at the yellow line of road in the center of the highway. It was so sunny. He hadn`t been able to look up without squinting ever since he woke up that day. Which brought into his mind, what time had he woken up in the car? What time was it now? He leaned over and looked in between Isabel and Michael`s seats at the clock. It was ten past eleven. He told Isabel to stop and someone else could drive now for a while, but she said she was fine. He should have figured she`d say that, being Isabel.

As they sat around a while longer Michael and Isabel got into some conversation, while Max and Tess remained small and quiet in the back. Max was once again looking out at the empty road when Tess finally said something. "Don`t you ever feel like you`re more than the life you live now? Like this isn`t really who you are at all and that you`re trapped in a life that isn`t real because you once lived the life you were meant to live?"

Max thought about that. "I`m happy, Tess. But I suppose you feel like that a lot?"

Tess looked out at the street distantly. "I feel it all the time. I`m a prisoner of the feeling. There are some days that everything I see is a constant reminder that I don`t belong here. And I don`t want to be here. I want to go back. Have things set right again. The lives we`re living right now, Max? They aren`t the real us. There`s a bigger, better life for us up there, way out there where our real families are waiting for us to come back to our real home. These afterlives that we were reborn into, they aren`t right. Things weren`t supposed to happen this way. You`re supposed to be with me. You`re supposed to be home being the great leader of your planet. Not here, not ike this."

"Some people believe that reincarnation happens so we can relive our lives and correct the mistakes we made before," Max pointed out. Then Tess looked hurt, and Max realized that comment had come out differently than he`d wanted it to. But it was too late now...

"The signs say there`s a place with gas stations and such up a couple more miles," Isabel announced. "We can stop and get something to eat."

And that`s what they did. Michael got gas while everyone else went into a little cafe there to eat.

[Californication the Red Hot Chili Peppers plays]

Isabel sat next to Max and couldn`t help but tiredly put her head on his shoulder. She`d insisted on driving and said she was okay but Max realized now that she was, of course, utterly exhausted. Or just very depressed. It could have been either or both.

[Psychic spies from China try to steal your mind`s elation
Little girls from Sweden dream of silver screen quotations
and if you want these kind of dreams
it`s Californication...]

"When we get back on the road, I drive, okay?" Max said down at Isabel, who had her eyes closed.

She muttered an "uh-huh" and snuggled in closer to him. Max put his arm over her shoulders as Michael walked in and sat down next to Tess.

"She`s all filled up," he announced to all of them, and looked down at the almost-sleeping Isabel with realization. "I knew she drove for too long."

"I`m taking the wheel next," Max explained. "Well, let`s fill ourselves up."

They could tell as the waitress took their order that she was curious as to how four unshaperoned teens were on the road, but she didn`t say anything and just gave the friendly service she obviously needed to maintain to please her boss. Maybe the woman feared that interrogating them on where they were going and such would count as unfriendly service. Note to self, Max thought. Tip generously.

Isabel lapped up her meal quite lazily, and of course the food could only make her more sleepy, and by the time they were all chipping in for the check she had her head against the back of the booth, looking ready to dose off. Max nudged her side and said, "Time to hit the road, Izzy." She tiredly forced herself to her feet and out of the restaurant. Max took the wheel and Isabel the passenger seat and she was sleeping soundly after the first ten minutes Max drove.

Because no one conversed it was very quiet in the car, and Max had nothing to do as he drove but look ahead at the endless road ahead of him and think.

[Easily by the Red Hot Chili Peppers]

Max didn`t think he`d ever wished to go back to his home planet more than he did now. He just wanted a place to call home again. He had pretty much accepted that he wasn`t going to be with Liz again for a long time. And as long as that was true, he just really wished he had a place to belong like he had belonged in Roswell. That was all.

[Easily
let`s get carried away
Easily
let`s get married today...]

But how could Max ever feel like he belonged somewhere when Tess was there wanting him to live a life he couldn`t imagine himself in? She was the problem. The interruption.

[The story of a woman on the morning of a war
Remind me if you will exactly what we`re fighting for
Calling, calling for something in the air
Calling, calling I know you must be there...]

He had to make Tess understand that it couldn`t be. Otherwise he could never be happy. Neither could she. In a way Max hated Nasedo for the way he had raised her. Humans are weak, he`d taught her, never get tangled up in their issues or more importantly don`t let yourself feel the feelings they let themselves feel. Human beings are unimportant. They don`t matter. Disposing them in order for us to carry out our mission is something we may have to do.

[I can`t tell you who to idolize
You think it`s almost over when it`s only on the rise...

Throw me to the wolves because there`s order in the pack
Throw me to the sky because I know I`m coming back...

E a s i l y]

"Looks like it`s just you and me that are still awake, Max," he heard Tess say from the back. Max looked up and adjusted the rearview mirror so that he could see her sitting back there, and half of Michael, who must have been asleep now.

"Kind of funny, isn`t it," Max asked, "that I would go off with the three of you after all that time I was sure nothing like this would happen?"

"Then do you see now that our destinies are real and there`s nothing you can do about it? This is all meant to happen and it is beginning to happen and it will happen, Max."

"How about some music?" Max reached forward and turned on the radio.

[Right on Time by the Red Hot Chili Peppers]

[One shot all I need
I`ve got rhythm when I bleed
Til death do us part
Break my heart so I can start

Supercalifragilistic
Kiss me in the futuristic
Twisted but I must insist
It`s time to get on top of this

It`s right on time it`s right on time it`s right on time it`s right on
time...]

Max noticed that it was not as sunny now and that the sky was turning red, purple, and orange as dusk climbed over. Next time he reached a town he stopped and the four of them checked into a motel room for the night. By then everyone was exhausted, and they all got settled into bed immediately. Except for Michael, who said he was going for a short walk and then left.

Tess and Isabel lay in their bed next to eachother, and Tess looked over at Max alone in his. His eyes were shut and his stomach was peacefully moving up and down. She realized Isabel was watching her stare at him and Tess whispered, "He hates me."

Isabel shook her head. "Max doesn`t hate you."

"Yes he does, " Tess said. "He`s afraid of his past and I am his past so he`s afraid of me. All of you are probably afraid of me. That`s the way it is."