1 [b]Part 7B[/b]

Her knuckles still stung in response to her urgent knock upon the wooden door. Liz glanced behind her to where Michael sat on his rumbling motorcycle, Maria grasping his waist for grim death behind him. Liz waved them on, and with a gunning of the engine, Michael and Maria were off. Turning back to face the door, Liz could hear fumbling at the door locks and almost breathed a sigh of relief at the sight in front of her as the door swung open.

A rumpled Max stood in the opening, his fingers clutching a cereal bowl filled to the brim. His eyes widened at the sight of Liz and he quickly swallowed, almost choking in his haste.

"Liz!" he exclaimed, and looked self consciously down at himself. Unable to help herself, Liz glanced down also and was rewarded by the sight of Max in a tight shirt that clung to his chest like a second skin. His muscular legs were encased in a pair of boxer shorts and Liz blushed, jerking her head upwards again. Max's eyes were amused as they met hers.

"Do you want to come in?" he asked, gesturing with his bowl carefully.

Liz nodded and stepped inside, her body automatically relaxing in the calming atmosphere of the Evans home. She heard the door close behind her and she turned, watching as Max glanced over at her, his eyes worried.

"Liz, is everything okay?" he asked quietly, placing the bowl on a nearby stand.

"Max, I'm sorry to come here so early in the morning, but..." she broke off as Max came towards her, his hands reaching out to cup her shoulders tenderly.

"Liz, you know that you can come here anytime," he said quietly before releasing her, one of his hands gently caressing her shoulder before moving away.

Liz nodded, speechless for a moment. They had gone through so much together, yet he still had the power to render her incapable of logical thought. She shook her head and focused her thoughts on the reason why she had come. "Max, you need to go and get dressed. We need to go to the pod chamber."

Max was startled at the urgency in her voice and he frowned, worried that something had happened without his knowledge. Before he could speak, Isabel came down the stairs, her footsteps light before faltering when she saw Liz.

"Liz?" she asked in confusion, one corner of her mouth curving upwards as she saw the unblinking stare both Max and Liz seemed to be enthralled under. She knew this was what Maria called their "soulmate" look, yet had not really witnessed it herself.

"Get dressed, Isabel," Max murmured, tearing his eyes away from Liz's and heading towards the stairs. "We are going to the pod chamber."

****

Max rejoined an impatient Liz ten minutes later, his body now fully dressed. "Michael and Maria?" he questioned, his hand reaching towards the phone.

"They should already be there," Liz responded, watching as Isabel walked down the stairs, flawlessly dressed even though she knew where they were going.

"Kyle?" Max asked and Liz shook her head. Dialling quickly, Max told the sleepy young man where they were going and that he was to meet them there. Kyle had no time to voice a protest before Max hung up, his hand already reaching for a set of near by keys.

As though on cue, Diane walked through the kitchen doorway, her gaze startled when she took in the sight of three teenagers impatiently shifting near the front door.

"Mom," Max started holding up the keys. "Isabel and Liz are making me go shopping with them. Can we borrow your car?" He rolled his eyes and tried give the impression of a hard done by brother/friend and knew when his mother laughed that he had succeeded.

"That's fine, Max." Diane smiled at Liz Parker, who blushed lightly and smiled in return. "Now you two girls, try not to wear him out too much!"

The two girls nodded, inching towards the door as though eager to get started. "We won't!" they chorused, before looking at each other, startled that they had spoken in unison.

With Max, they all sung out goodbyes before heading towards the car.

****

Diane watched as her son and daughter followed Liz Parker out the front door. Smiling, she walked over and peeked out of one of the windows, telling herself that what she was doing was not called spying; merely motherly concern.

She watched as her quiet son glanced over at Liz, his gaze lingering and smiled knowingly. "Liz Parker," she said quietly to herself. That had been a name increasingly mentioned in the Evans household, despite Max's almost desperate need for privacy. It was usually a name that brought a pink tinge to Max's ears, a sure sign that he was embarrassed. Her son had finally started to become a normal teenage boy she had wanted him to be, not the quietly aloof young man he had been previously, and Diane knew that she had Liz to thank for that.

Strangely, however, all mentions of Liz had ceased when the blond had entered the scene. Tess, Diane recalled her name to be and grimaced lightly. There had always been something about that girl that Diane just did not like, yet she could not place exactly what it was. No matter. She had not seen the blond in weeks now.

No, Diane decided to herself, watching as they pulled out of the driveway. Liz was just right for her son.

****

The trip out to the pod chamber was swift, the ride silent as Liz stared blankly out the window, lost in thought. Together, Max and Isabel darted concerned glances towards her, yet knew their questions would be halted until the group was all together. Soon, they were pulling up beside Michael's motorcycle and Kyle's car, the occupants of whom awaited for them anxiously.

"What are we here for?" Kyle asked, yawning mightily as he did so. He had been awoken from deep sleep by Max's telephone call, and he was eager to seek out his bed again to gain some much needed sleep.

Liz didn't answer, merely made her way up the crest towards the entrance of the chamber. Frowning, the rest followed, picking their way carefully over the loose rocks and debris that surrounded the area. Nothing had been disturbed since they had last been there, the entrance to the chamber remaining clear from haphazardly piled rocks.

Halting, Liz turned towards the group, nodding slightly in the direction of Michael and Maria. "I spoke to them both this morning," she began and discreetly did not mention how the meeting had come about. "I had a dream last night, one that had seemed so real that for a moment I doubted that it was a dream. It was about Alex."

Isabel gasped and Liz looked at the blond in sympathy. Isabel's lips trembled and her eyes watered with tears, yet she bade Liz to go on.

"When I woke, I could remember everything perfectly – the mist that covered as far as my eyes could see, Alex and his words to me, his actions. I remembered that he took me to the pod chamber, and what happened there. I remembered everything, except for one thing…" Liz knew that she was babbling slightly, and her eyes pleaded with them for patience and understanding. The group remained silent, still as they watched the brunette in front of them, their eyes trusting.

"I couldn't remember what I had last seen," Liz remarked quietly. "Even though I knew that it was the most important, I just couldn't remember. It wasn't until I was at Michael's when it came to me." Nodding her head, she silently asked Max to open the chamber and his eyes worried, Max complied.

The door opened with a barely audible whoosh, the quick expelling of air brushing past Liz and blowing her hair around her shoulders.

As each stepped inside, they saw what they had expected to see, the scattering of rocks flung in every direction, the enclosed space appearing as though threatening as they picked their way carefully across the cave. The soft glow of the pulsating pods seemed to grow brighter still as Max, Michael and Isabel edged instinctively closer to the pod that was their own.

Liz waited until she was the last one to step through the doorway, her action graceful as she went through. Her eyes struggled to adjust swiftly to the sudden dimness as she straightened, looking about her. The world tilted dizzily and Liz's head swam, her steps faltering. Briefly, her eyes closed, willing herself to regain control. When she at last opened her eyes, she opened them to a whole new world, a world that Alex had tried to show her. Before her was the image that she had last seen in her dream, so unmistakably real that Liz's breath gasped for a moment.

Stunned, Liz moved forward, her steps heading erringly towards the pod placed slightly away from the others, its glow not as bright. Her eyes narrowed in thought as she stood before it, her head cocked slightly to the side as she contemplated her next move. Behind her, her friends shifted uncomfortably, still unaware of the reason why they were there.

"Liz, what are you doing?" Isabel questioned, a confused smile playing upon her lips. She darted a quick glance over to Max and saw that he watched Liz worriedly.

"Quick," Liz answered, not even looking at them, merely allowing her eyes to remain fixed in front of her. "Tell me what you see." She raised her hand, her fingers outstretched as though to grasp at something the others could not yet see.

"Umm…you have your hand on a pod," Michael said slowly, watching Liz warily. He clamped a hand upon Maria's shoulder, stopping her movements when she would have gone up to her friend. Silently, he shook his head at her when she whipped around, her mouth open to scold.

Nodding her head, Liz stared straight ahead for a moment, thoughtfully. Turning, she faced the group who all watched her with varying degrees of attentiveness.

"There is nothing here," she said quietly, undisturbed by the startled exclamations her comment had produced.

"What are you talking about?" Kyle asked, finally speaking. "I can see you….you have your hand on that…thing."

"No, I don't," Liz said firmly before turning and walking to the opposite side of the cave to touch the rock wall. Startled gasps behind her told Liz that she had made her point. In order to touch that particular section of the wall, she had to have walked through the pod itself.

Max blinked as the image of the pod wavered as Liz walked towards it, and faded as she walked through it. She did it all without pausing, nor hesitating.

"How did you know?" Max asked, hoarsely.

Liz turned, reaching her arms about her as though to encompass the entire cave. "This was my dream," she said quietly. "This was the last image that Alex had shown me, the one that I couldn't remember."

The cave, once filled with four pods, now only held three as the image of one was dissolved and faded, the thrall of the mind warp banished forever.

"It was Tess' pod, wasn't it?" Liz asked Max quietly.

Max looked sick, swallowing thickly a couple of times before finally nodding his head. "It was hers," he confirmed in a low voice.

"Oh my God," Maria whispered. She wrung her hands, her knuckles showing white, silently wishing for her cypress oil. She longed for the calming scent to invade her nose and fill her senses.

"Here," Michael said, thrusting a hand into his jacket pocket and withdrawing a small vial which Maria gratefully accepted. Unstopping the bottle, Maria breathed in deep, sighing in relief.

"Max, she wasn't one of us," Isabel said, her voice shocked. It was one thing, she knew, to be betrayed by one of your own, but it was quite another to discover that she wasn't even one of them to begin with.

Max nodded grimly, his eyes focused on the area where Tess' pod had once stood. "Everything has been a lie," he murmured half to himself, half to the group that surrounded him.

Kyle's face flushed red with his fury. "God help your planet," he snarled at Max, "when you are so easily duped by a blond who bats her eyelashes and makes you believe anything she wants you to!"

Liz stepped in between them, holding up her hands to stop the bristling boys. "Guys, stop!" she commanded, deliberately making her voice louder than it would have normally been. "This is not helping. Kyle, you know that the ability Tess had was very powerful, and I suppose it shouldn't surprise us that she would use it at full force. Max, Kyle, now is not the time for fighting."

Both young men nodded, their bodies relaxing slightly yet their eyes still following the other resentfully.

"How did you know this?" Max asked, turning towards Liz.

"Alex showed me the way, the way to access the power you gave me when you healed me. I hadn't even realised it was there, otherwise this might never have happened," she answered.

"Wait, wait. What is your power?" Kyle asked.

Liz swallowed. "I think it is the ability to see beyond the mind warp, to see the truth that lay underneath." She glanced over at Maria who sniffed her oil repeatedly, her expression nervous. "I'm not anything like you guys," she said, although she directed her comment to Maria, knowing that she needed the reassurance that her best friend was still the same. "I guess…well, do you remember what Ava said? She said that I had been changed as part of the healing." Liz winced as she watched Maria's eyes grow bigger at the sound of the word "change" and tried to retract her words somewhat. "But my powers would only be residual," she theorised out loud.

"Like Kyle," Isabel said helpfully and Liz nodded in response, appreciative of Isabel's assistance.

"Could this have been what had happened in the Crashdown the other day?" Kyle queried. "It felt as though you were…reading me."

"I think so, I mean, I had had a continuous strange feeling for the past few weeks, but it was only after my dream with Alex when I realised what was really happening," Liz said slowly. She allowed a small smile to crease her lips as she remembered her dream. "He threw a ball of light at me," she confided, yet remained silent on the rest of her dream, wishing that it remained private. "It was like a symbolic way to open up my mind to something I wasn't accepting." Liz laughed slightly. "Don't get me wrong, it scared the hell out of me. But I'm glad that he did it."

She sobered, looking at her friends that surrounded her, their faces pale. "Look, I knew that something was strange about how Max was describing your entrance into the world the other night, yet the reason why eluded me. It suddenly clicked on the way to here – Max, when you had first told me about exiting the pods, you said that you were just like ordinary kids. There was nothing ever mentioned about green goo, or anything else for that matter."

Max nodded slowly. He vaguely recalled telling Liz that, and he knew that there was no mention of the slime they had had to break through, yet the other memory seemed so much more clearer. His jaw clenched as he realised and Max looked at Michael and Isabel. "Tess mind warped us," he said, his voice distorted slightly due to the compression of his jaw.

Michael nodded tightly, his eyes hooded yet Max could feel the anger simmering underneath. Isabel looked horrified.

"How are we supposed to know what is real, and what is not?" she whispered.

Liz stepped forward. "Me," she said simply.

Michael stepped forward also, cradling Maria within the circle of his arms. "Well, thank God we have you on our side," he said, trying to joke lightly.

The group smiled half heartedly and, by unspoken agreement, moved towards the chamber entrance. An inhalation of breath from Liz stopped them, and Max turned to see Liz swaying slightly, her eyes closed.

She could hear words about her, fuzzy and indistinct, yet could not make out what they were saying. In frustration, Liz gave up on trying to decipher them, focusing instead on the images in front of her, the images of Max and Tess.

Liz knew that this was the final confrontation between the two, judging from Max's angry movements and Tess' trembling. She watched as Max gestured towards the Granolith, his actions clearly telling her to go. Tess stepped forward, her expression imploring only to have Max shrug her off.

For a brief moment, Tess' face flickered into an expression of fear before sly cunning took its place. As Liz watched in horror, Tess closed her eyes briefly, appearing as though to concentrate for a moment, her face straining with the effort. Before long, Liz watched as Max gestured once more towards the Granolith, and knew that he was again telling her to get inside it.

Staring unblinking, Liz observed Tess make a furtive movement, as though in trial before grinning broadly when Max remained non-reactive. She slunk over to the corner of the cave, her eyes carefully watching for any sign of a response from Max. Max remained with his eyes fixed on the Granolith, and he appeared to stand there for what seemed an extensive amount of time.

Finally, Liz could feel the ground rumble beneath her feet, and knew from the way Max scurried out of the chamber that he had felt the same. With a powerful burst, the Granolith lifted into the air, shooting up into the sky and leaving behind a rain of rocks and debris in its wake.

That is what Max saw.

Liz saw something quite different. She watched as the glow of the Granolith dimmed once Max had exited the chamber, its position remaining firm upon the chamber floor. The rocks surrounding the area remained solidly in place, a silent testament to what had really happened.

And Liz watched as Tess waited until time had passed before escaping the chamber and running off into the desert.

Her eyes snapped open to confront her reality, her mouth opening and closing in time with her gasps. Around her surrounded the concerned gazes of her friends, and Liz smiled to reassure them, before letting the smile drop.

"Tess is still on Earth," Liz revealed, and felt her body tremble.