"That's our cue," Liz said.
Max leapt up in sync with Liz who seemed ready to run full speed toward the alley. Max jumped out in front so he could set the pace at more of a half-speed jog than a sprint. While he wanted to be involved—after all this is what they were in El Quarterlejo for—he felt somewhat uncomfortable by how crowded the park was and didn't want to draw more attention to him and Liz scrambling to interfere.
The bully in pursuit quickly caught up to the others. The four bullies surrounded their victim. They pushed him to the ground and began kicking him violently, just as Liz described from her vision.
When Max and Liz approached, Max surveyed the environment for a way to use his powers subtly as to not clearly out himself as an alien. Liz did not hesitate to render aid.
"Hey!" Liz shouted.
Max noticed a junction box and electrical wiring and recognized that he could send a surge through it all, creating a small explosion to stop the bullies. He didn't want anyone to notice his hand pointing in that direction, though. The bullies were already retreating after Liz yelled out and before Max could drum up the power surge, one of the bullies yelled back toward the student he'd just been kicking the crap out of.
"We'll finish this next time, Zan!"
Max looked over at Liz and they exchanged looks of, Did we hear that right? That brought it home to Max that he did hear the name right. The bully said Zan. A feeling of nervousness, excitement and bewilderment swelled in Max's stomach just hearing the name.
Max quickly gained his composure. He wasn't about to let these bullies simply get away and he already identified his plan of attack before getting distracted. With his arm hanging down by his side, he ever so subtly curved his wrist up at the junction box and piping coming out of it. A sea of sparks exploded from the box and rained down on the bullies, who promptly ducked and covered. They got stunned by the explosion and probably burned a little too.
Max and Liz approached the victim and Max's nature to help and heal immediately began to overshadow any additional fighting with the bullies that might be needed.
"Are you ok?" Max asked.
"I think so," the student said softly, slowly rising as Max and Liz helped him to his feet.
"Did one of them call you, Zan?" Liz asked.
The student didn't reply. He seemed in shock. While Max would normally be more empathetic, he tried prodding the student along, feeling a searing desire for more information.
"That's an unusual name," Max said.
Max stared in at him intensely, on the edge of his seat, eagerly wanting a reply. He hoped to hear that confirmation that his name was Zan. That it could be his Zan.
"Is that short for something?" Liz asked.
This helped Max dial down the intensity of his feelings, just a bit. Liz could always do that for him. He knew she would use scientific method to dig into this more and fought to prevent himself from getting swept away in the emotional tug from the scar of giving up his son, a feeling that was always with him.
"Max," Liz announced, "they're running."
She was talking about the bullies. Max noticed it too and started to shift his mindset into hero mode. He could go after them, maybe create another electrical surge. Faint police sirens in the distance meant he wouldn't need to stall them much longer. As he took a couple steps after the bullies, he felt the sweaty palms of the student tightly grasp his wrist. Max stopped his pursuit and turned back to look at the student.
"Please," he pleaded with Max, "Don't leave me here. Take me home."
Max was empathetic and turned his attention away from the escaping bullies. "Ok."
It threw Max off when the student hugged him. He wanted this to be Zan and wanted to hug him back. But Liz's reaction was still on the top of his mind and he didn't want to make an assumption based on what he wanted to be true. He hugged him back tentatively. The student moved his right hand so his palm rested on the back of Max's head.
Max felt that swelling feeling in his brain. It was exactly like when the emissary projected the Royal Seal out of his brain when he and Tess went to New York with Rath and Lonnie. Whatever that might mean for this being his Zan or anything alien related, Max's self-preservation instinct took hold. He couldn't let anyone, not even Liz, watch him project the Royal Seal out in public like this. Max stepped back while simultaneously grabbing the student's hand and pulling it down toward his side. Max stared at the young man deeply, trying to size up what all this meant.
"They're getting away," Liz said.
Max knew she was talking about the bullies, but no one was in danger and in light of this student seeming to have the ability to project the Royal Seal out of his mind, Max was not concerned. He noticed Liz running off after them. Memories of what happened to Maria suddenly flooded his stream of thoughts. He should not let her go after them alone, even though he didn't want to leave the student.
"Please, don't leave me here," the student said.
Max directed his attention away from Liz back toward him.
"I won't," Max assured him. He looked back up and noticed that Liz tentatively turned the corner at the end of the alley. "Let's go get Liz and together we'll take you'll home."
In parental fashion, Max grabbed the young man's hand and guided him to the corner of the alley. He stopped at the corner and saw Liz just standing there, only a few steps in. No one else appeared to be back there.
Max called out to her. "Liz," he said. He paused for a brief second, but when she didn't react at all, he continued, "C'mon, Liz. Let's go. Let's get him home."
Whatever had taken a hold of Liz, she seemed to finally snap out of it. She turned back toward them and smiled, "Yes, you're right. Let's go."
Both Max and Liz knew that they didn't want to stick around and talk to the police if the bullies had gotten away. Max turned back toward where they entered the alley and noticed a few of the people from the park staring in at them. Since the path around back remained empty, he gestured for Liz and the student to continue around back and out the other side. It was all clear.
When they emerged, Max asked the young man, "Do you live far?"
He shook his head no.
"Which way?" Liz asked.
The student pointed down the road they were now on. The three of them calmly began walking, not too briskly. Max reasoned that to a passerby, there should be no indication any of them were involved in the wild altercation that just took place at the college. He didn't want to deal with the aftermath of that. He wanted to get this shocked young student home and talk to whoever else might be there. Maybe calm the student down at his house. Once they reached their destination, Max intended to press for some answers.
No one spoke in what turned out to be about an eight block walk from the college to the student's home. When they arrived, the student merely stopped outside the house.
"This is your house?" Max asked. The student nodded.
It was a small rectangular, one story house, with white siding and forest green trim around the windows. A small aluminum awning covered the front porch, also painted forest green. A chain link fence surrounded the front yard, with a gate centered on the walk up to the front door. Max and Liz waited a moment for the student to enter, but both intended to follow him inside. The student unlatched the gate, which was unlocked and had no lock as a part of it.
As they stepped inside, Max noticed a living room area off to the right and a small dining area to the left. Continuing back there was a hallway running across the middle that undoubtedly led to the bedrooms and straight back was the kitchen. There was a woman standing at the kitchen sink drying dishes. She had blonde hair that had a little bit of wave to it and sat just below her shoulders. Her figure was fairly slender but also seemed somewhat muscular. She wore a sleeveless navy blue dress with spaghetti straps. As the screen door slowly shut, the student spoke.
"Mom," is all he said as he walked swiftly toward her.
"Zan," the woman said, with both excitement and relief.
Max and Liz walked tentatively behind the student and stopped at the edge of the kitchen floor, intentionally hanging back. As the woman turned, she opened up her arms to hug her son. Zan was taller, so he bent his knees slightly and the woman rose up on her toes for the embrace. She wound up resting her chin on Zan's shoulder, staring out toward Max and Liz.
Max couldn't believe it. "Tess?" he asked toward Liz, "but I thought you saw her…"
"I did," Liz interjected, not even waiting for Max to finish explaining that Liz witnessed Tess die.
Twenty years ago, just weeks before leaving Roswell, Tess returned to Earth with baby Zan. The government found the ship and extracted Zan while Tess was unconscious. When she woke up, she murdered all the government agents on the scene to take Zan away. This triggered a manhunt for Tess. When Tess caught up with Max and the gang, they voted on whether or not turn Tess in. The vote was tied when it came down to Liz, who had the most reason to hate Tess. In a show of support for Max, Liz voted to protect Tess instead of turn her in. Liz would later recount for Max how Tess asked Liz to take her the Special Unit's facility. Per Liz's account, Tess made quick work dissolving the chain link fence protecting the perimeter, walked into the facility and the entire building, Tess included, blew up. Liz said Tess confirmed to her, albeit nonverbally, that she wasn't intending to survive that.
At the sight of Tess now, Max's head was spinning. Did she manage to destroy the facility from a safe distance, escape and stay hidden all this time? Did Tess mind-warp Liz, tricking her into seeing Tess's demise?
Tess possessed the ability to do what she called a mind warp, which entailed manipulating someone's mind to see things that weren't actually there or sometimes masking things that were. It came in handy when they were on the same side, but the ability proved a challenging one to contend with when Tess began secretly working against them. The thought of Tess faking her own death, only to reclaim their son after Max made the painful choice of giving Zan up for adoption for his safety, made him furious.
When Tess left Roswell for their home planet Anatar, she attempted to cash in on a deal Nasado, their shapeshifting protector, made with Kivar, the leader of the rebellion that overthrew the Royal Four. They consisted of Max, the king; Tess, his bride; Michael, his loyal second in command, and Isabel, his sister. Tess was to return to Antar with Max's child. She manipulated Max into a brief affair, got pregnant and almost convinced the whole Royal Four to leave Earth with her in the Granolith. Her deal would've spared her life at the cost of Max, Michael and Isabel getting executed.
But Tess mind-warped their good friend Alex Whitman as much as she could to force him to translate the alien tablets with instructions on how to operate the Granolith. The strain it put on Alex's mind led to his death. Max always loved Liz more than Tess, but was prepared to return home with her and the others for the sake of his son. Tess mind-warped Max into thinking the child would not survive on Earth to manipulate him into going back to Antar with her and the baby. Liz discovered Tess's betrayal and she wound up returning to Antar alone, while still pregnant. She returned to Roswell almost a year later after it was discovered that Zan was fully human and of no value to Kivar.
Max felt a swelling anger, upset at the notion that Tess's final sacrifice of one actual good deed looked to be a lie. He was also angry over the idea that he didn't suspect anything or scrutinize the story, discovering her deception somehow. The thought of her raising his son and the negative impact it would have on Zan unsettled him the most. He felt betrayal, concern and rage. Max glared at Tess with vengeful eyes, waiting for her to distance herself from Zan so he could use his powers to attack her, compromise her defenses and demand answers.
All of these emotions began spiraling in Max over just a few seconds. The next surprise came from Liz, turning Max's attention back toward her and shedding new light on this shocking twist.