"Agent Mulder, can I have a minute

"Agent Mulder, can I have a minute?"

"Liz…" There was a warning tone to his voice.

"Please."

Mulder let go of Max's arm and walked a few feet away. He was out of earshot but still close enough to protect her if necessary.

"Liz, what is going on?" Max asked.

Where to begin? Liz's pulse was beating so fast and hard through her system she thought for sure she would have a heart attack.

"Michael and Maria said they found your journal. You wrote that some guy named FM made you pretend to sleep with Kyle, that he made you break up with me. FM. Fox Mulder."

Slowly she began to understand.

"FM doesn't stand for Fox Mulder, it stands for Future Max," she whispered. "Max, you came to me from the future. You told me that if I didn't get you to stop loving me then it would lead to the end of the world."

Max just stared at her for a minute.

"Future Max?"

"It was you. You—he—Future Max told me that you were going to serenade me before you actually showed up. He told me that you learned the words for Mr. Delgado. He told me that you were going to bring me those Gomez tickets that night. We knew you were coming--that's why we set that whole thing up with Kyle. We knew that if you saw me with him you would stop loving me."

Max tried to wrap his brain around what she was saying but it was like she was speaking a foreign language.

"But why?"

"Because of Tess. If you and I continued to love each other it was going to drive Tess away and Tess is important to your survival, our survival. This planet's survival."

She looked up and saw Agent Mulder coming toward them again.

"Listen, Max, I don't have time to explain the whole thing right now. I'm in the middle of a whole other thing. You just—" She hesitated, realizing the level of betrayal he had believed her guilty of. "You just have to trust me."

That's where he'd gone all wrong. He hadn't trusted her. Not about Kyle, not about Agent Mulder, not about anything. He'd allowed himself to lose faith in her and that's where he'd gone wrong. He had trusted his eyes and his ears but never his heart. What she was saying restored the balance he'd believed in. With one hand, he took her hand and with the other he wiped the tears off of her cheek.

"I do."

* * * * *

Isabel was running. And in three inch heels that was no easy feat. She skidded to a stop and plucked them off. She sent one flying in one direction and then she chucked the other in the other direction.

"Come on out damn it!" She shouted into the night.

There was no response.

"You've been following me for weeks. You've been in my dreams, in my home, now here I am—willing to go and where the hell are you?"

She looked in every direction. The school gym was in the distance, just a shimmer of lights. Around her was a scattering of rock formations and brush but nothing else. No people, no aliens, no one else at all. She looked up into the stars.

"I'm ready to meet my destiny," she shouted in frustration. Still there was no reply. She shook her head and started back toward the gym. "I knew this wouldn't work," she mumbled. She looked down at her feet and knew her nylons would be shredded by the time she got back to the dance. "What a waste of pantyhose."

"You look beautiful, Vilandra."

The voice spiked goosebumps over every part of her body. She turned and there was a figure standing behind her. He looked human, but she couldn't see his face in the darkness, even with the full moon overhead. She took a step back.

"But then again, you always did."

He stepped toward her and she stepped back. That's when she hit someone. She turned and found the aliens that had been harassing her standing behind her.

"It's time," the faceless figure said. "It's time to meet your destiny."

* * * * *

"Agent Mulder," Liz said quickly. "This is Max, my boyfriend. He knows I'm an alien." She felt Max stiffen next to her but he didn't say anything to dispute her. "When he found out I was with an alien hunting FBI agent he sort of freaked, but he's fine now."

"He knows you're an alien?"

"He was at the Crashdown the day I healed myself of that gunshot wound. It's OK, I trust him."

Mulder looked at her and then at Max.

"So I should ignore the whole exchange about him not remembering doing things that you saw him do?"

Liz bit her lip and nodded.

"Uh, yeah."

Mulder shook his head and was about to say something when a scream split the air. Liz and Mulder looked off in the distance then back at each other. Max recognized the voice.

"Isabel," they all said in unison.

* * * * *

"What's the matter, my love? I thought this is what you wanted."

Isabel shook her head and tried to break free of the grip that the four aliens had on her.

"No, I lied. I want you to leave me alone! I don't care what happened in any past life. There is no one in this world or any other that would make me betray my brother." Her voice sounded fierce but she was trembling so much she knew she would fall if her captors let her go. She still couldn't see the other alien's face as he walked closer and it was scaring the hell out of her. Then she realized that she didn't want to see his face and she squeezed her eyes shut.

"You said the same thing before, but you came to realize that your brother was not the leader that your people needed. I was. I am the only one that will love you the way you need to be loved."

Isabel stopped trembling. Her eyes popped open.

"Then how did I end up dead?"

Before she could focus on the face in front of her he leaned in and kissed her, sensually, brutally. Images exploded behind her eyes—a star lit kingdom, strange beautiful creatures, and the touch of something frightening and exciting. And then she saw Alex's face, the way he looked right before he kissed her, his lopsided grin, the hysterical strip tease, everything that she loved about him. She brought her knee up and connected with her past life lover. He ripped away from her and she let out a scream.

Only this scream was not a terrified scream, it was filled with rage. She twisted savagely in the grip of the aliens holding her as her past life love scrambled to his feet. When he reached for her again, she kicked him. She was tired of being tortured for something she did so long ago, for something she would never do again. And it was just about time she proved it.

She ripped free from the four aliens and she whirled on them.

"Get away from me!"

"You should not have done that Vilandra."

"My name is Isabel!"

One of them lifted something up at her, she didn't know what it did but she was sure it was a weapon. She lifted her arms to ward it off when a gunshot split the air. The aliens holding the weapon fell. Isabel turned and there was a woman in a dark suit standing behind her, still pointing her gun at the other aliens. She had medium legthn auburn hair and intense blue eyes.

"Back away from her," she ordered the aliens, in a tone that you didn't want to argue with. But the aliens merely grinned. The one she'd shot climbed to his feet.

Isabel, now unsure of using her powers in front of a witness, backed away from the aliens. The woman with the gun fired at the aliens again but they just kept coming.

"I don't think that's going to do it," Isabel said.

"What will?"

They were both backing away from the advancing aliens cautiously.

"You don't happen to have a bat, do you?"

"There's a crowbar in my rental."

Isabel nodded and they both turned and started running. The car seemed like it was a million miles away and the mystery woman reached it first. She was trying to get her keys out as the aliens charged them. The woman turned and started firing pointlessly at the aliens. With her back to her, Isabel popped the lock with her powers and started clawing in the trunk for something to use against them.

She grabbed a steering wheel Club as someone grabbed her from behind.

She took a swing and connected with one of the aliens. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the other woman getting knocked off of her feet.