The man shook his head as he pulled himself to his feet, blood streamed through his eyes

The man shook his head as he pulled himself to his feet, blood streamed through his eyes. He surveyed the destruction that the two had caused; half the structure was demolished beyond any hope, the other half looked as though it could go at any time. A third of his men were dead, others milled about, unsure of what to do next. The man wiped some blood from his brow and patted his jacket; he found what he was looking for and was surprised to see it not damaged. He punched in a series of numbers into the small silver phone and angrily spa out the state of his facility's condition into the receiver. The voice on the other end appeared to sate him for a moment, as he seemed to calm down momentarily, nodding his head at the other person's speech. He cut in though, and yelled into the small cell phone…

"I want his parent's dead now!" he yelled.

"It was a mistake to even let them live…" his eyes turned cold as he hung up and slipped the phone back into his jacket, momentarily filled with a small degree of happiness because he could cause more pain and suffering.

Just the way he liked it.

Max's arm was slowly going numb, Liz was sleeping on it but he didn't want to wake her. She looked so beautiful when she slept; her dark hair partly exposed her face, where her rose-colored lips parted, as she slipped deeper and deeper into unconsciousness.

He was awash in confusion, he could not formulate a reason why The Chamber would just leave her in the dark like that…he wondered what they must have told her to explain her powers. He also felt that it was his responsibility to tell Liz about her origins..but that was another touchy subject. He barely knew much about where he had come from, added with the fact that she had already suffered so much in one night; he didn't think that it was right to spring such news on her. Honest Max kept winning in the mini-debate though, and he felt sickened by the fact that he was about to decimate her once again. He gently moved his arm, which promptly woke Liz up.

"What's wrong Max?" she asked, still half-asleep.

"Nothing" he said quickly.

"Liz what did they tell you that you were?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Uh, I just wanted to see if they told us both the same thing."

She looked at him oddly but continued, nonetheless.

"They told me that I was genetically engineered, they kept saying that I was the "next step in human evolution" or something along those lines"

"They actually wouldn't tell me that much," she admitted

"They just did test after test," Liz shivered at the memories.

Max took a deep breath and forged ahead.

"Liz you weren't genetically engineered, or whatever they told you."

Confusion littered her pretty face.

"Liz I'm an alien."

Liz stopped breathing.

"And you are too."

She found that she couldn't start again.

"Liz breathe," he yelled.

She complied and began taking slow, deep breaths.

"Liz," Max uttered weakly…

"You wouldn't lie to me would you?" she asked softly

"Never"

She appeared to try to process the information…

"Great…I was abducted 7 months ago; my parents are dead; and now I'm an alien"

Her voice rose inside his head, she stood on the verge of delirium, teetering ever so slowly…What else could happen that would turn her world upside-down?

Max recognized her slipping grip on reality and dove in.

"Liz, I love you, do you hear me," he asked as he voice filled with concern.

Faced with either a gaping black chasm of hopelessness and denial; or Max's love and support; she quickly decided her permanent path.

She nodded. And grabbed hold of his hand.

"I'm fine," she smiled weakly, "I have you, that is all that matters."

Max smiled and internally celebrated that he and Liz were able to divert yet another catastrophic event…

"So what do you know about us?"

"Uh, not too much," he replied

He thought it best to start at the beginning…rather than jump the story around and confuse her anymore than she already was.

"I have a sister, Isabel..and my friend Michael, we are all aliens. We hatched from maturation pods in 1989. When we left our pods we looked like normal 6 year-olds, but the authorities found us wandering around in the desert and we were adopted out."

" The pods are in a cave nearby Roswell,"he continued.

He thought that he was probably confusing the hell out of her right now, but she just looked up into his eyes and asked for him to continue.

"Uh, we all have individual powers, like Isabel's was dream walking."

"Dream walking?"

"Yeah, she could enter people's dreams while they were asleep. Micheal was good energy blasts, I mean he was good at his offensive powers."

"And you," she asked, " what were you good at?"

"Healing"

She smiled at that.

"But we all had certain similarities in our powers, like our ability to change molecular structure, like when I changed your appearance for Em."

"So I should have that ability, by your facts?" she asked, and then barreled on "but why can't I do anything then? All I am good at is talking with you like we are now, why can't I do anything else?"

"I don't have all the answers Liz, I wish I knew why you were different…. After we get my parents to safety we'll go to the cave...maybe there might be some clues there" he offered.

"Michael, Isabel, and I really haven't found too much information about us…"admitted Max.

She sat in silence for a long moment.

"We're freaks," she said softly

"Liz," Max ordered, "Look at me"