"So, allow me to recap," Alex said to Liz. "Max came back from fourteen years in the future, told you to break up with present-day Max and get him to fall in love with Tess, so the world wouldn't get invaded by bad guys in the future?"

"Yeah," Liz said.

"You didn't want to do it, and the more you dragged your feet the more unstable Future Max got, so you pumped him for details about what's coming, then ambushed him with a black five-sided alien gizmo, told him that his guilt issues weren't your problem, he wasn't thinking clearly, and you killed him with a gun you stole from Jim Valenti, then went off to party all night and next day with our Max, going to the Gomez concert in Santa Fe, and then back to the fortune teller, who told you that it's probably going to work out okay?"

"Kind of." Liz sighed. "At least I have a chance. But it's going to be tricky, since I don't want to let Max or the others know about this stuff yet. I'm afraid of how they'll react, but things are probably going to get sticky; I have to use this knowledge about the future to guide them without anyone getting so suspicious that I know everything before they do. So that's why I told you about it, because I'm going to need somebody's help - someone I can trust."

"And you're not sure that Maria's too stable lately, since she and Michael broke up over the Courtney thing," Alex said.

Liz turned to face him. "Are you okay with this? Tell me if you're not. I know that you were keeping your distance from Isabel, letting her make up her own mind without you crowding her, but we're going to have to spend a lot of time with the pod squad now, including her."

"That's easy for you to say," Alex muttered. "You and Max are back together."

"Except that I can't let Tess clue in yet," Liz sighed, starting to walk again. "It's not exactly an enviable position over here."

"Okay," Alex said, and thought for a moment. "What's the next important thing that's going to hit?"

"The Copper Summit skins are going to find out that Whittaker is missing." She sighed. "There's a letter from the 'Society of Friends' in her office... if she doesn't check in by tomorrow at midnight, they're presume that she's dead and go into cover-up mode. There's a spare husk for her; it's like a human spacesuit that these guys live inside, that they were growing because her husk was about to die. They'll use that as a 'body' and have a funeral service in Copper Summit."

"But she was a New Mexico congresswoman," Alex said. "She should have a state funeral here in Roswell, or somewhere in the second district. That would mean that these skins have to give up control of their 'body' and risk somebody discovering that it's hollow."

"I think that they'll find some way to run the whole show in Arizona." Liz shrugged.

"Well, Courtney will tell Michael about this stuff, right?" Alex said. "Once he confronts her, or she him. You should probably prod him into searching her apartment as soon as possible, so that he finds the photos."

"Yeah." Liz thought a second, and then asked a big question. "Do we want to do something with that letter? Before the deadline hits tomorrow night?"

Alex mulled that over. "I'm not sure I can see any reason why. Whittaker is dead, and her death does need to get covered up - the Skins would do us a favour if they take care of that. And from what you've told me, with the funeral service taking place just as the Harvest is just about to mature, there'll be all kinds of confusion in Copper Summit. It'll be a good opportunity for our guys to make a sneak attack, maybe." He sighed. "And we don't have Whittaker to produce anyway, so what could any of us tell them that would make them pay attention?"

Liz hesitated for a long time, debating, as she had already debated in her head dozens of times, whether to tell Alex this detail. In her heart, she really believed that there wouldn't be any harm in it. "The skins believe that Isabel used to be a traitor, way back when, you know. That Vilandra sold out her brother and the rest of the Royal Four. And Whittaker apparently thought that she could use this to get Isabel to switch sides. Future Max told me that that was why Whittaker took Tess, the night of Isabel's birthday party. She wasn't sure if it was Tess or Isabel who had been Princess Vilandra. Whittaker thought she could get Vilandra to betray Max again, and give her the granolith."

"Which Isabel didn't even find until after Whittaker died," Alex said, putting it together. "But Isabel could never..."

"No, of course not. Even Future Max stressed that point, that she'd always been loyal as long as he'd known her, and she'd used the 'Vilandra' angle to sucker the leader of the bad guys in and play him. But it gave me an idea." She took a deep breath.

"What if she pretends to be switching sides right now, to infiltrate the skins in Copper Summit? She could call and say that Whittaker convinced her, but Max or someone else killed Whittaker too soon, and she's been hiding her new true loyalties from everyone."

Alex pondered that notion for a long time. "No, it's an idea with some theoretical merit, but we couldn't make it work in time. Remember that Isabel hasn't confessed this Vilandra thing to any of us. We'd have to tell her that we already know, and I'm not sure that she's ready to face the idea and turn it against an town full of enemy aliens. Not to mention the fact that Max and Michael would never go for it. And, even if it weren't for all of that, having her go undercover alone like that would be very dangerous... I think you'd better drop it."

"Okay." She sighed. "Well, I guess I should go and chat with Max and Michael."

"Have fun," he said. "I don't think I'll join you - having me around might just raise questions that we don't want them to think about."

"Okay."

#

Michael opened the door for the two of them, noticing how Liz took Max's hand quietly for a second as she passed through, and then slipped their fingers apart as if she was trying to hide the contact from Michael.

"So, you want to talk about Courtney?" Michael said, turning around to keep them in sight as they walked further into the apartment. "What about her, particularly?"

"Well..." Max looked a little uncomfortable. "Last I heard, you said that you were investigating her and we'd talk - today. About anything you'd managed to find out."

"And Alex let it slip that - Courtney came here, last night," Liz added. "So I thought maybe we'd better do it in person, and I hope you don't mind my tagging along... hey, has your window been busted like that for long?"

With an ungracious sigh, Michael told them the cliff notes version of his rendezvous with Courtney the night before - how Alex had taken it upon himself to punch Michael as soon as he realized that Michael was meeting with Courtney the same day that he'd broken up with Maria, how Courtney had bent over and looked at his bruised face with detached concern, how Michael, still upset at everything Maria had said to him that morning, had been unable to resist the impulse to kiss Courtney.

"And a thin layer of skin from her forearm came off in my hand. I just stared at her for a moment, remembering the dry skin that I found out in the desert, a few weeks ago, and she laughed at me - not mocking me, but as if she was looking forward to a game." Michael shook his head. "She ran faster than I'd ever seen anybody else move before - I tried to zap her, but she used some kind of alien mist to throw it off course. And she crashed through the window. By the time I looked out, she was gone."

There was a bit of awkward silence after Michael finished his story. "Is that it?" Max asked. "Has anything else happened?"

"Well, I told most of that," Michael explained. "I called the Evans homestead early this afternoon, but mommy said that Maxxie and Izzie were napping, so that was that. And, well, I've been trying to fix up the window, though I don't really have the right tools."

"You didn't do anything about Courtney directly?" Liz said. "You haven't tried to find her again, or gone to look at her apartment?"

Michael shrugged. "I thought that 'his Majesty' would want to know the scoop before allowing me to go and do such a thing, especially since I'd be challenging an alien agent who could overpower me if she tried."

Liz looked over at Max, and he didn't say anything, so Liz pushed the issue further. "Well, Max knows now, and in my opinion, it's really important for you to find out more about Courtney as soon as you can. Take some backup if you need to - Isabel or Tess... maybe."

Michael blinked in surprise, and then shot a look at Max. Max tried to catch Liz's eye, only to have her return the silent treatment. "Yeah, I guess it makes sense if you guys are careful. Maybe I should come along too. To shield and heal, as the need arises."

Liz froze. This wouldn't be a good idea, but she wasn't sure how to talk Max out of in. His future self had said that Courtney resented him, because as king he had lost everything, and had been much more comfortable when dealing with Michael only or with Michael and the girls.

Fortunately, Michael gave a good answer. "No, that's okay. Why don't you go up to the rocks with Liz tonight, show her the Pod chamber? Heck, maybe if the two of you start groping right next to the darn thing, you'll get a vision of what we can do with it, since nothing else seems to help. If that special 'soul mate connection' you two have could find an alien orb, out buried in the desert, there isn't much it can't do."

Max smiled. "I guess I don't need to tell you that Liz and I are back together."

"It's pretty obvious. I'm happy for you, but the universe's checks and balances are working pretty well. Maria and I cut loose, and you two have your grand reconciliation." There was an awkward silence. "Forget I said that."

Liz nodded. "And I think Max and I should hit the road again. Are you going to go to Courtney's tonight?"

"Yeah, just need to call and see who's available for backup duty first," Michael said. "Max, give me a ring tomorrow morning, and we can trade stories."

"All right," Max said. He seemed a bemused that Liz and Michael had left him out of the essentials of the conversation. "Take care, man."

"I intend to," Michael said.

On the way back to the car, Max shot a look at Liz. "What was that about? Suggesting that Michael snoop around Courtney's apartment?"

"It just seemed to make sense," Liz muttered. "Yes, it's risky, but Michael's no fool and knows how to cover his ass. I don't think Courtney really wants to hurt him. If she did, she probably would have by now, whether he knew that she was an alien or not." Max mulled that over.

"Think about it this way," Liz blurted out. "If some other crisis hit, say if we found out about some other alien agent that was nosing around, the first thing you'd tell Michael to do would be to track down Courtney and figure out what her story was, right?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"And, it's safer to do that now, before the next dangerous situation comes to us. It's the same strategy; we're just getting our act together sooner instead of procrastinating."

Max shook his head as he climbed up into the seat. "How did you know I'd make that decision?"

Liz shrugged awkwardly. "If I don't know you by now, then what's the point of this past year?"

"Huh. I guess I don't spend a lot of time thinking about the hypothetical future like that... not when I could be enjoying the present." He stole a quick kiss before Liz buckled herself into the shotgun. "So, the rocks... you want to go see?"

"Sure." Liz didn't say that she was feeling of two minds about Michael's suggestion of 'groping right next to it.' On one hand, making out with Max was always great, and the sensation of touching a tiny part of his soul when their intimacy triggered a flash dwarfed the strictly physical and hormonal pleasure.

But, when she got flashes from Max, he would usually get flashes of her too, of her past or her thoughts, and there were quite a few things that she was not prepared to have him see. Not yet, while she wasn't sure how he would react or how small changes could affect the future that Liz was trying to build.

Maybe, if she kept a tiny part of the back of her mind focused on sealing off that stuff, or forced herself to think about other things, safer things... could she keep Max from seeing it? Well, maybe she would try. Or maybe the idea of a heavy make out session just to satisfy Michael's curiosity would put Max out of the mood.

She concentrated on enjoying the desert air as Max drove past the city limits sign.

#

"This way," Max said, holding out a hand to Liz and leading her to the left as soon as they got into the Pod Chamber.

"Wait a second," Liz said - not because she distrusted Max, but because there was something that she felt she needed to sort out for herself. "Isabel told me about finding the Granolith chamber, and she said that she crawled through one of the - well, the leftover spaces where one of your pods used to be." She waved over at the remains of the four pods that had held Max and the others for over forty years, deeper into the chamber.

"Yes, that's how she first found it," Max agreed. "You can crawl through that way if you want, but it's not the most comfortable route. Once we knew that there was more, we kept exploring, and there's a passageway through here that you don't have to get down on all fours for. Actually, it's possible that Isabel did something when she got in the first time that opened up this passage - Michael swears that if it was here during the summer, he'd have found it first."

Liz considered that as she let Max lead the way. "But he never tried crawling through the busted pods?"

"Nope, I guess his curiosity has limits," Max agreed, chuckling. Soon they'd passed through the narrow opening, and Liz could see the four empty spaces again, two beneath and two above - from behind, this time. There was a large rectangular door on the hallway opposite, and Max used his spread hand to open up the granolith chamber.

The inverted cone dominated Liz's eyes as it stood in the center of the room, refusing to give away its secrets. The more Liz stared at the thing, the more it seemed like a mathematical abstraction instead of an alien artifact, so she forced herself to look away.

There were a few risers and blocks, in the room, each more than two feet on a side. It was hard to tell if they were functional, decorative - or something else entirely. There was nothing that looked like a control interface, but then, the orbs didn't have a 'push here to start' button on them, and the healing stones hadn't come with directions. This alien stuff just seemed enigmatic by nature; as if the designers knew that extraterrestrial artifacts should be strange to the point of absurdity.

Liz cut off that train of thought, realizing that it could lead towards paranoia. "Umm... this may sound like a stupid question, but have you tried to find a handprint interface anywhere? You know..." She made a wide sweep through the air with her own outstretched right hand, trying to mimic the gesture that Max used to open the doors in the pod chamber, and that they had seen Tess use to find the hiding place of the destiny book in the public library.

"Yeah, as many places as I could think of," Max said with a wide smile. "I get the feeling that they're here, but I need to find some other key first before I can just home in on them - or have a better specific idea of where to look." He stepped closer to her, grinning. "Well, we're all alone here, and as much as I hate having to perform on cue, I also don't like to give up any excuse for a kiss."

She smiled shyly. "Well, I don't either. But it feels weird, don't you think?"

"Maybe you're just letting the pressure get to you," he whispered. "Close your eyes and I can make you forget about all this."

"Okay." Liz knew she was smiling as she closed her eyes, anticipating the kiss. She could hear Max step close, smell the mix of his aftershave and the very faint masculine fragrance which always struck her as uniquely Max. He had to be very close, and she was surprised that she couldn't feel him touching her.

Then she felt his hands, one pressing softly at the small of her back and the other near the back of her neck, fingers stroking her hair. His lips met hers with the impact of a semi ton tractor trailer barrelling down the interstate. Her arms wrapped around his without any decision on her part, just the kind of instinctive reaction that happens when you're about to fall, and she sank deeper into the kiss. His strong arms held her steady and...

Flash!

Liz did forget all about the granolith and the pod chamber for an instant, or at least she wasn't aware of where she was. She was walking into the cafe early in the morning, arm in arm with Max... kissing him before going inside, feeling the heavy orb hidden in his pocket.

She remembered the moment while still experiencing it... it was the morning after his kisses had given her strange flashes about the '47 crash and its aftermath, and following those hints, the two of them had uncovered the orb, buried underneath a radio tower out in the desert. They had been teasing each other, and seconds later they walked into an ambush arranged by their parents.

Fortunately Liz didn't endure a replay of that scene, as the flash ended just in time, and she was back in Max's arms with her eyes closed. "What did you see?" he whispered.

Liz told him, suddenly frightened because she hadn't even thought to try protecting the future-Max material from him. But Max said that he had only seen their first kiss, after the Sherriff had through her and Alex in jail the night of the old soap factory rave. That was a harmless memory, and romantic too.

"What do you think about trying for more?" His lips brushing her ear as he whispered the words.

Liz froze, torn by indecision. "I want to... but not on the bare floor here. I do have standards, you know mister!" That qualification had been the only delaying tactic that she could come up with.

"Well, I have a blanket back in the jeep," Max said, like a resourceful, prepared young Boy Scout. "It shouldn't take too long to run down and get it. Do you want to come with me, or stay here until I get back?"

Again, Liz hesitated. She wasn't eager to stay in this profoundly alien place without Max. On the other hand, she could use the time alone to prepare herself for the next round of flashes, putting up some kind of privacy shield about the parts of her mind she didn't want to let him into. "Yeah, hurry back." She flashed him as bright a smile as she could manage. "I'll be fine here."

Max kissed her sweetly, and then hurried out. She could hear the door mechanism for the Pod Chamber, letting Max out and sealing her in, and it was hard not to feel very lonely. Liz found one of the blocks that seemed about the right size and hiked herself onto it, then focused on some breathing exercises that she made up on the spur of the moment.

Trying to lock particular thoughts away seemed, now that she thought of it, like a contradiction, because there was no way of even knowing what she was locking away without thinking of it. It was almost exactly like the old chestnut about telling someone 'no matter what you do, don't think of a pink elephant.' Focusing on something else seemed like the better task, but it had to be something that Max wouldn't be upset or confused to realize that Liz was thinking of.

The flashes seemed to point a way. If she focused on happy memories of herself and her Max, from last year, would that work? Or would it be too short a mental jump from there to Future Max trying to take her future happiness away? Was that a leap that she could make without realizing it?

Still, this plan seemed to be the only one that she could try. Liz started thinking about her favourite moments of Max... which got her as excited as if he were actually here. Oh well - at least she had a plan now.

It was several minutes before she heard the door mechanism going again, and Liz was waiting for Max as walked into the Granolith room - she waved one hand and kissed him hard. It was nearly a minute before he was able to break away for long enough to get the blanket properly spread out on the cold, hard floor.

#

"I'm really sorry."

Kyle looked up from the book he'd been reading without moving his head. Tess was poking her head into the living room from the kitchen side, wearing an expression so woebegone it was begging anybody to adopt her - but then, Kyle's family had already taken her in.

He tried to make his voice as gruff as he could. "Okay, let's hear the excuse."

"Does Michael Guerin count as an excuse?" She walked into the room, trying to give him even cuter puppy-dog eyes. "He literally dragged me away from my dinner plate at the diner to go and search the apartment of that psycho waitress girl who's been sniffing around him for the past few months, and lately, vice versa." She collapsed with a very believable groan into the desk chair. "And of course, I couldn't exactly tell him that I couldn't come because you were waiting in my old bedroom to pour chocolate sauce and honey on me for dessert... at least I didn't want to tell him. Michael would have loved to hear it."

Kyle tried not to commit himself. "So why did Guerin go stalker-boy? I mean, I've seen Courtney - she's not that cute."

"It wasn't a hormone thing," Tess said, taking off her sweater. Kyle couldn't keep his eyes from straying to the low neckline of whatever she was wearing underneath, and Tess didn't seem to notice his eyes straying. "Apparently, she's one of us, except not. You know what I mean - one of the alien 'skins' that Ed warned Max about before he died."

She leaned forward, and a glint in her eye told Kyle that she knew exactly what that gesture did for her cleavage. "And let me tell you, I used the term 'psycho' deliberately. She had this incredibly creepy shrine to Michael Guerin in one of her closets... There was an old t-shirt, some other stuff that she swiped from him, and all kinds of pictures taken across the street from his apartment. I think it's fair to say that 'stalker' is appropriate on that side of the coin. We found her hideout apartment; the place looked like a dump, but she wasn't there. He said he was going to go back later, and I told him to shanghai someone else to come along. So... do you forgive me for standing you up unintentionally? How long did you wait for me?"

"I just got back about fifteen minutes ago," Kyle said. "And - 'where there is no intention, there is no offense.' If you could have come, without blowing the secret, you would have. I know that. I'm disappointed, sure, but I don't hold it against you now. I'll just have to find some way to pay Guerin back."

Tess smiled. "Well, it's too late to go back to the love nest or go out parking... Where's your dad anyway?"

Kyle grinned. "He got called in because there was a body discovered - or something like that. He probably won't be back for hours... what do you say we try it here?"

Tess stood up and shook her hips back and forth; her pants fell to the floor. "Try and stop me, lover."

#

resume hereIsabel grumbled under her breath as Michael led her along. "Why did you make me park so far away?"

Michael shrugged. "If she's there and waiting for me, I want to get to the building without being spotted. She's sure to notice if we drive up and get out in front of either building."

"All right," Isabel said. "Which one is hers?"

Michael pointed to a ratty looking apartment walk-up, three stories high, nearly opposite from his own complex. Isabel stayed quiet as Michael headed inside, up the stairs, and down the hallway to 214. A sweep of his hand in front of the doorknob opened the lock, and the door swung open silently, without anyone touching it.

Isabel looked about in distaste at the crappy little apartment. "Nobody's been here for a year."

Michael nodded. "That's the way she wants it to look. But over here by the window, I found little patches of skin that hadn't disintegrated yet, plastic wrapping from a roll of camera film, and an empty bag of those red-hot chips she's always popping. Plus, the view from this window to my apartment is exactly the same in all the pictures."

"Okay, okay, I believe you." Isabel groaned. "So what do we do if she shows up?"

"You go into warrior princess mode while I try to intimidate her?" Michael said. That earned him a nasty look.

Isabel paced a little and wondered whether she should try talking to Michael about what was really on her mind. "While I was away, did Alex talk to you or anything?"

"Well, he dropped by to chat about the Courtney/Maria situation, but generally he stayed away from," Michael said. "You might want to ask Max; I saw them together a couple times."

Isabel looked for someplace to sit down, rejected all of the likely candidates on hygienic grounds, and shifted her weight from foot to foot.

"He called me, tonight. We talked for a few minutes, and then I went out and took a walk by myself. That's why you couldn't get ahold of me, when you wanted to go to Courtney's real apartment, earlier in the evening." She sighed. "It was nice to catch up with Alex, but something seemed different about him. Like he was, I don't know... reserved. Alex has never been reserved, as long as I've known him."

"Maybe he's had enough of you jerking him around, telling him you're not ready to be interested in anyone and then flirting with older men right in front of him. Maybe, just maybe, Whitman's decided to suck it up and be a man." Isabel's mouth dropped open. "Who'd have thought it." Michael finished.

It took a moment for Isabel to collect her thoughts. "Is that really what you think I do to him?"

"That's what it looked like from here." Michael shrugged, and caught her eye with as sympathetic an expression as Isabel could ever remember seeing from him. "Look, I know you didn't mean it. But... all four of us, we've gotten used to living inside our own heads. There's so much that we're keeping inside, that we feel like we need to keep secret... we don't spend much time seeing the world from anybody else's perspective. So we don't think about the stuff we do, in terms of how it looks to the people that we care about, or to the other people that care about them." He moaned, very quietly. "Maria reminded me about that not long ago."

Isabel thought about that for a second. In the silence, they could both hear footsteps coming up the hall. Without a word spoken, Michael and Isabel turned to face the door, he with a hand held up at about shoulder level, Isabel with her right arm crossed over her body to the left side, ready for a backhand gesture with which she could focus some telekinetic power.

The door swung open, and they could both see Courtney Brooks, her hand still on the doorknob. She was wearing baggy jeans, old sneakers, and a long, heavy shirt. Tonight she'd pulled her blond hair up into a fluffy ponytail. "Michael... Isabel. We have to talk."