Disclaimer: Puh-lease. Either you've got it by now, or you're never going to. Not. Mine.

A/N: Okay, I totally stole a line in this from Ch-Ch-Changes. I love Kyle.

Chapter Four

"Kyle, what are you doing?" Liz asked, watching him add tabasco sauce to his eggs. It was the Sunday morning shift at the Crashdown, and all the tables were full of families doing the post-church brunch thing.

"Checking for alien cells." He took a forkful of egg, doused it in syrup, then put it in his mouth and chewed. Swallowed. "Okay, that was disgusting."

"No static yet?" Liz asked, rather sympathetically.

"No, but I got healed like a year after you did, so maybe I've just got this totally cool window of time where I get to obsess about it," he observed with a sickly half-smile.

"It's not so bad." Liz winced, remembering that she'd melted her favorite Billie Holliday CD that morning. "Mostly. At least you know it's coming."

"Yeah, in the fall semester of my freshman year of college, because I won't have enough to worry about already. No offense, but I was kind of looking forward to escaping the…Czechoslovakian chaos after graduation."

"It's better than dying of cancer or heavy metal poisoning. Besides, think of all the fun you'll have with supercool alien powers," Liz pointed out. "I mean, once you learn how to use them without blowing stuff up."

He brightened. "Yeah, true. The practical joke possibilities alone are worth it."

"Oh, God, I never should have said anything..."

"No, really," he enthused, downright cheery at the thought. "When Isabel wanted to get back at Max for not letting her go to college, we had so much fun-"

"When was this?" Liz interrupted with a frown. She didn't recall anything about it.

"After Alex died, when Max was being an ass." Kyle shrugged. "I don't think she enjoyed it as much as I did. She does love the guy. No accounting for some people's taste," he added around a mouthful of egg.

"Kyle," she admonished. "Shut up."

"What? What'd I say? You dumped him-you obviously saw the light."

"Kyle," she hissed again, more repressively this time.

"What?" The light slowly dawned. "He's standing right behind me, isn't he?"

"Oh, yeah."

He winced, then sucked it up and turned around. "Hey, Max. How's it going?"

"Next time we play basketball, I'm going to fuse your sneakers to the pavement," he replied in the same conversational tone, looking annoyed. His ears were red at the tips-embarassment or temper, it was hard to say. "I need to talk to Liz."

"Talk away," Kyle suggested, clearly lacking the gene that told people when to shut up.

Liz shook her head a couple of times, knowing that he was being deliberately obnoxious. She moved down to the end of the counter, Max mirroring her before taking a seat. "What is it, Max?"

"How'm I supposed to hear everything when you're way down there?" Kyle moaned once before attacking his breakfast again.

"What's with him?"

"His wonderful future as an Antarian subject staring him in the face. He's just blowing off steam."

"Yeah, I guess he must be really freaked out. You were."

"Less so now that I know what it is. I mean, ever since I found out where you're from, I've wondered what it was like…"

"Having secret powers?" he finished for her. "Dangerous, mostly."

"Like I haven't been in danger without them? At least this way, I get some of the fun, too." A spark jumped from her finger to a napkin holder, and she winced. "Eventually. But I know you didn't come here to have this conversation over the milkshake machine with my Dad watching your every move. What's up, Max?"

"Mom and Dad are having a dinner party tonight. With everything that happened, the last couple of weeks, I forgot about it. Anyway, it's going to be a bunch of lawyers, one of Jesse's friends from Harvard and this couple from Santa Fe that my dad knows, and it'll be really boring-not a winning argument, I know-but I have to be there, and I'd love some company."

"Max-"

He interrupted, already hearing the denial in her voice. "It's not a date. Friends. Isabel and Jesse will be there too."

"Michael's picking me up after shift. We're going to his place to work on my powers. I need as much help as I can get before school on Monday."

"I get that, but Liz, maybe Michael isn't the best one to be teaching you. He's always had the worst control-"

"That's because his powers are the most volatile, did you ever think of that?" Liz hissed, insulted on Michael's behalf. "I'm melting things, starting fires. Last night I scorched my sheets in my sleep. You heal, Max. Isabel dreamwalks. Neither of you have ever had these kinds of problems."

"I still don't think-"

"I do. I understand that you want to help, and I appreciate it. Really. But let me ask you a question. What would be your first piece of advice?"

"I-I don't know," he admitted. "I'd just…show you how to use them, I guess."

"Michael's teaching me tai chi."

"I didn't know he knew tai chi," Max admitted after a stunned moment. A frown formed between his eyes, and he looked at her, clearly wondering what that had to do with their conversation.

"Tess recommended it. He goes to classes at the Y when he has the time. He's taught me breathing exercises, too, and some meditation techniques that he learned from River Dog. His first advice was to find something that made me calm. And to concentrate on that, to hold it in my mind until it was always there, and I could find it any time my powers started getting out of my control." Liz decided not to mention that the calming influence she held in her mind was the thought of being in Michael's arms.

"Oh. I've never…my powers don't usually get away from me when I'm upset. I never would have thought to tell you that," he admitted.

Because you're such a control freak that it's not an issue, Liz thought, then immediately felt ashamed. The thought was unfair, and even though she hadn't voiced it, as penance, she forced herself to finish her explaination. "He also told me that emotion makes things worse, and he was right. Everything he's taught me since has helped with that. I've been inside your head, Max. I connected with Isabel when you were in New York. I had flashes from Nacedo too. I've asked every nosy, science-nerd question I could think of over the past three years-I already know how you guys use your powers. What Michael is teaching me is how not to use them. You can't do that."

"Oh," he said again, and more than just his ears were red.

"I'm not trying to put you down," she insisted, wondering who she was convincing-him or herself? "But I hate hearing you talk about Michael like that. Like he's inferior, or stupid, or careless, because it's taken more for him to learn control. If anything, he probably had to work twice as hard as you did to be half as good. And he'd never endanger all of us for the sake of pride-if he really believed he wasn't the best one to teach me, he would have sent me to you himself."

"I know that," Max admitted reluctantly. "Okay. So you need to practice. You can cut out early from the party, Liz, but I'd still really like for you to be there."

Liz was still wary, although she couldn't pinpoint why. Then she realized that the tone in his voice was one she'd heard plenty of times before-it was the earnest, reasonable, slightly pleading one he used when he wanted to get back in her good graces. Maybe Max had even fooled himself into thinking he was only asking her as a friend-she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt-but in his heart of hearts, he was trying to make up with her.

It would never happen, wouldn't have even if she wasn't in love with Michael. It would be cruel to lead him on. She remembered something Amy Deluca had told her once, all well-intentioned and protective of her nephew's surprisingly tender heart. Men can't be just friends with a woman that they're in love with, or even in serious like with. They're not verbal communicators, which is why you should never believe them when they tell you it's not what it looks like, because it's always exactly what it…never mind. Listen, honey, you can tell them you're not interested until you're blue in the face, but every time you hug them, or smile at them, or say yes to spending time together, they're going to interpret it as interest. And it's cruel to give them hope when you know there isn't any. And considering their history-how many times they'd both said 'just friends' while wanting something more-Liz couldn't even fault Max for interpreting it that way.

Which meant she had to completely shut him down. Nothing halfway, nothing polite about how she really would love to go, but… Flat denial. But then she looked into Max's hopeful Bambi-brown eyes, and remembered how excruciatingly dull Phillip Evans' business dinner parties could be, and flat denial seemed just as cruel as false hope.

"Please? They'll talk about golf, Liz. They'll talk about handicaps and putting techniques and drink rum and coke, and then they'll get really wild, dig out old copies of Barrister's Monthly, and argue interpretations of legal precedents until my brains leak out my ears. And Isabel just eggs them on out of pure spite, then goes in the kitchen with Mom and plays Crazy Eights."

Liz remembered that as a pretty accurate interpretation of events. And now there were extra lawyers in the mix, which would only make it worse. "Why don't you just stay at the Valentis and watch ESPN Classic with Kyle? You're not even living there, Max, you don't have to go."

But Max was shaking his head. "My father hasn't asked any pointed questions in weeks. Since Christmas, we've actually been getting along. Mom said it would really mean a lot to him if I went. I've been enough of a disappointment to them this year-a few hours isn't too much to ask. No matter how mind-numbingly boring they turn out to be."

"I'm not saying yes for sure," she warned him. "I'll try bribing Michael with cookies, and if that doesn't work, I'll break out the guilt. If we show, we show."

Max's face froze halfway to a sickly rendition of a smile, and Liz knew he hadn't fooled himself about anything. He didn't want her there just as a friend. "Michael."

But she was his friend, wanted to continue to be, so she smiled and said, "The more the merrier, right? What time?"

"Six."

"If I'm not coming, I'll call at eight thirty, and you can fake an emergency. Drunk friend needs a ride home, late term paper, Kyle set the kitchen on fire. We'll come up with something."

"All right," he said, though clearly, his heart wasn't in it. "Thanks, Liz."

She watched him go, thinking of something she'd said to her father only a month ago. I'm not in love with Max anymore, but I'm not over him yet, either. She felt no urge to run after him and tell him what he wanted to hear, the way she had the night he came back from California, and so many times since. He had risked everything to save her life, and she would love him for the rest of it for that. She would always be his friend. But they were over.

A small, secret part of her heart that had been weighed down with guilt and what-ifs lifted up. She felt that happy lift, and smiled. She was free.

She stood there, smiling at nothing for so long that a couple of customers stared. She didn't notice, and wouldn't have cared.

It's over.

oOo

I get so pissed when the other characters are down on Michael for not being as good at using his powers. Healing and dreamwalking are pretty difficult to use by accident, and aren't exactly something that would come out in a fit of temper. Blowing things up, or 'blasting' someone, on the other hand, would probably happen subconsciously with any strong emotion. Nature and nuture ganged up on Michael - he was a general on a planet at war in his previous life, then had the childhood from hell in his current one. It's a testament to his strength of will that he has as much control as he does, and I've totally wanted to have someone make Max see that. Hence my love of fanfic - I got to rant and Max had to listen. Well, sort of. I realize that they are not real people. Honest! They're just more interesting than a lot of the real people I know.