Sorry for the lateness, but I have some heath problems that kept me away. Nothing that will bring me to an early grave but they don't make me a happy camper. Because of that my muse had disappeared for a while. I'm back but not at full time unluckly.

Anyway on with the story!

4. Distance makes the heart grow fonder

Meditation was the only thing that helped him lately. Tess had become even crueler with her training session after he lost it with her five days ago. She had stopped trying to mind-wrap him, but he was almost sure that she was still doing it with the other, even if during their secret meetings they hadn't show changes in thought or opinions.

Since Liz went away it had become increasingly difficult for him to control his alien side. Maria had even told him that he looked like a PMSing woman and she wasn't wrong. Every little things that didn't go well made him angry and he had arrived at the point that he couldn't stand Tess. Not that she was helping him on the matter. Every time Tess opened her mouth it was to say something hurtful toward Liz.

The awakening of his alien side was scaring him a bit, he had been afraid that with it would come back memories of his past life and he had been right. He started to dream of Antar, but of now he never dreamed Tess. Only Micheal, Izzy and his mother. It spooked him at the start seeing them so different, but even in the memories he knew perfectly who he was looking at. There was a sort of aura around everyone that he easily could place with their counterpart.

Meditation was the solution that Izzy proposed him. Every day, before calling Liz, he would meditate for an hour. It helped a lot, it made him calmer and was useful even to make peace with his alien side, but the best thing was that while meditating he could feel Liz. The concentration required to meditate helped him to open their connection even over every past limits and made him able to feel her.

They had already tried to talk through it but it was still out of their possibilities. Anyway they were happy about being able to feel the other again after almost two weeks.

"Knock, knock." Izzy voice come from outside his door.

"Go away, I'm meditating." He wasn't angry, but he will be if she made him be late to his 'date' with Liz.

"I think that you will love what I have to tell you and it will be wort not being with Liz for ten more minutes." He rolled his eyes and got up, he knew that if didn't let her in she would pester him until he would give up anyway.

"What?" He asked with a scowl on his face. She was smirking at him, hands behind her back and the others where there with her. "Hi guys." He sighed, rolled his eyes and gave up. He couldn't win against all of them.

"Hi girlfriend, you ended your PMS?" Maria was laughing without a care at her own joke.

"You are a real clown, Maria." He sat down on his bed. "So what is the big news that couldn't wait for tomorrow?"

"You know, since Tess gave us the whole weekend free we thought that it was time for us to have some PMSing Max free days." Micheal said bluntly to him.

"Micheal put him badly but is the truth. We can't take one more day of this." Izzy was smiling while talking so Max didn't take it badly.

"Thank you, guys. I love you so much too." He said sarcastically.

"Stop pouting your highness." Alex threw him a envelope. "I think you should kiss us." He added with a big smirk on his face.

Max opened the envelope and found a ticket dated for tomorrow before dawn. He was speechless.

"You bought me a ticket to go visit Liz for the weekend?" He still couldn't believe it.

"Told you we couldn't take you one more day in this funk." Maria smiled at him. "Don't worry, the Parkers don't know about it, we even checked with Jessica, and Izzy told yours that we all go camping this weekend."

Max smiled at his friends. He was so lucky to have them in his life.

"Thank you, really." He hugged them all. "Liz knows about this?"

"Nope." Alex answered for them all. "We thought a surprise would be funnier."

"So now we will leave you to your creepy mind date with her so she won't suspect anything wrong." Micheal said standing up with the others.

"Have fun baby bro." Izzy kissed his cheek before disappearing out of his room with the others.

_.-._.- SRW -._.-._

"Aunt, I should be home exercising, we didn't even go out for our run today." Liz complained for the millionth time to her aunt. She couldn't understand why her aunt wanted to go have breakfast in town today. She always said that her pancakes were the best ones. "I thought you loved my pancakes." She added a pout, hoping to use it to get out from her aunt the truth behind the whole story.

"You know that that want work with me missy." Jessica smirked at her. "I taught you that trick."

"But you are always reminding me how it is important to not skip our training and then you make me skip it!" Liz had found out that physical training was helping her a lot. She was already stronger after only a week of it, and even better she started to see that it seemed to help her with her powers too. Her stamina was raising at a faster pace than before. She had wanted to do a little more tests to see if her hypothesis was true before telling it to Max and this outing was taking away time that she could have used to train her body and mind.

"I think that you won't mind so much." Her aunt was smirking at her. "Look there." She pointed toward one of the tables of the cafe and what she saw there made her hear beat so fast that she was afraid that it could beat out of her chest.

"Max!" She screamed running towards his open arms. When their bodies touched the bond between them opened again to the max of his strength and she was drowned in Max's love for her.

I missed this, you, so much. Her boyfriend told her while kissing her as if there was no tomorrow.

Oh God, I love you so much. She didn't let him stop until the very last second she could go without oxygen.

"Love you." He whispered in her ear.

"Love you too." He wiped away the tears that she didn't even know she had started to shed. "This is the best surprise ever, aunty." She added when she saw her smiling aunt watching them.

"I know, but I can't take merit for this."

"The others bought the ticket and organized the whole thing." Max explained her with a big smile on his face. She knew that he had missed having her so close to him. Body and mind. "They couldn't take me being so depressed."

"Oh, poor baby." She mocked him earning one of his embarrassed smiles that she adored. "when you leave?"

"Tomorrow night." Tess gave us the weekend free, but we have a training session on Monday morning. He added for her only.

"I'll take what I can." She smirked at him and sent his way some mental images of what they could do the whole day when her aunt would need to be at work for making the last adjustment before presenting her project.

Max rewarded her blushing like crazy and she had to use all her control to not laugh out loud.

You are so bad, Liz Parker.

Maybe you should punish me. She smirked when the color on his cheek went from dark pink to bright red.

"Oh, Aunty, I'm so sorry, I'm so bad," She smirked when Max chastised her for the use of the word. "This is Max, the boyfriend a talked about. Max, this is my aunt Jessica, my father's younger sister."

"I'm a lot younger than Jeff." Jessica added with a smile. "And you are just as sexy as Liz said."

"Aunty!" She reproached Jessica blushing.

"Hem. Thank you?" Max had gone impossibly red. She was almost afraid that if he didn't change subject he could auto-combust.

"Well, what you have planed for us, Aunt Jessica." Liz took Max hand in hers again and smiled. "I know you and I'm sure you have plans."

Jessica smiled and started to explain them her ideas.

_.-._.- SRW -._.-._

They had thought that she wouldn't find out, but what she had needed to do to find out Max whereabouts was only to put a little power behind her not so subtle question.

He decided to use his free time to run to that Parker bitch.

Tess had thought about informing both Max and Liz's parents about the happening, but she discarded the idea. It wouldn't help her a bit, and people could start to doubt her.

Tess had used the past week to subtly interrogate everyone but Max, but she didn't get enough information out of it and they were starting to show the strains of the multiples mind-wraps. That's way she gave them some days before the next training session.

"Did you find it out?" Nasedo asked again when he didn't recive an answer.

"Not for sure, they don't know anything about our heritage." She rolled her eyes when her questions had been recived with confused looks. "But I have some guesses."

"And those... guesses would make our plan start in..." He prompted.

"Ten months, maybe a little less."