Part 5

After walking around aimlessly for 3 hours Alex found himself at the Talon. It was 9 o' clock Monday morning. and the Talon was empty.

He took a seat by the window and looked at all the pedestrians. A silver BMW whizzed by and made an abrupt stop. The bald headed man seemed important in the way he walked and also in the way the pedestrians looked at him with fear and disgust.

Alex couldn't help but stare. He appeared to be powerful. And a guy who would keep secrets.

As he walked in and went towards the ordering counter Alex told him, "Hey, buddy, nice ride."

He stopped in mid stride and turned his head, "Thanks, are you skipping school?"

"No, I'm new here, I don't start for another day," Alex said.

"Because if you were I would salute you," he said with a smirk, "welcome to Smallville, I'm Lex Luthor."

"Mario Parker."

"What brings you and your family to this very humble nitch in Kansas?" Lex asked receiving his coffee from a waitress, who smiled at him.

"Oh the prospects of starting over," Alex said taking a sip of his own coffee.

"I know the feeling. Well, Mario Parker, I do have to go. I have an appointment I must keep. You seem like a nice guy, maybe I'll see you around. I'm be sure to tell Clark Kent to give you the run down of the town," Lex said shaking his hand.

"Oh Clark, yeah, I met him last time, thanks."

As Lex was leaving Alex thought about the way he said the name Mario. Something about that name sounded familiar. He thought so when he made it up on the bus. As he started to gain strength to remember he was hit with another flash.

"Hey, Maria, are you going to hear the band's CD?" he heard himself say.

He was at the restaurant again. This time he could see a blurry figure. Long blonde hair, "Sure, I'm going to Michael's tonight, but swing by the Crashdown. I'll be here covering the late shift."

He jumped out of his vision. He looked around the Talon and much to his expectations some of the patrons were looking at him funny.

"Thank the heavens that be," he told himself. He almost ran out of the Talon and walked to the Internet café he found before.

He burst through the double doors intent on finding something useful.

He logged onto the Internet and went to the first search engine he could think of. He typed in Crashdown. To his disappointment nothing useful or relevant turned up. He typed Crashdown restaurant next. There were results that matched in Georgia. He entered the web site and there were no waitresses in green. He looked at the results again, 20 more listings, but there was a figure coming towards him.

"Hey, man, we gotta close. There's a virus in the main computer and we gotta shut these off before they become infected too," a man with a curly afro and thick black rimmed glasses said.

"But hold on, I gotta find something important," Alex said panicking.

"Sorry, man you gotta try somewhere else," he said trying to get a hold of the keyboard.

"No, you don't understand. I need to find a place. It's a life or death situation," pushing the guy out of the way.

"That's what they all say," the guy said again from the floor. As he got up Alex heard him say, "oh Buddha help me."

When Alex heard that, he stopped. That definitely struck a chord.

"I said you have to come back later," the employee said, getting angry.

"Fine," Alex said numbly. He walked outside and a woman bumped into him, as he apologized he saw the local movie theater. As he looked up, he had another flash. This time, he wasn't prepared. He couldn't handle it. His body had had it. He fell onto the ground. He felt paralyzed. He couldn't speak, he couldn't move, he could only see a series of images.

"So what about a regular movie instead?"

"Yeah, OK Isabel, sure, yeah, new movie, not old movie," he said.

"It's called an aqua bra. Would you like to try it on?"

"Jonathan what's wrong with him?" Alex heard a woman say.

"So I'm sure you're eager to hear the results of your computer profile."

Alex's body began to convulse.

"Psychologist. Wow. How did you get started in this field?"

"OK, I'm making a point here. The point here is, musicians get the ladies.

"I need your blood."

"Oh God what are you people hiding?"

His vision began to fade.

"What is it.... drugs? Is that what this is? You and Max go out for a drive. He gets wasted, almost kills you both. That's what I'm covering for isn't it?"

"So they're Canucks."

Isabel and Max Evans. He knew them. He could feel it.

He screamed in pain and the last blurry image he saw were the worried expressions of Jonathan and Martha Kent.

~

"Alex!" Liz screamed. She woke up from her daydream and twenty-five sets of eyes were locked on her, including Max, Tess, and Maria's.

"Ms. Parker, maybe you should go to the bathroom and get yourself together," Ms. Hardy said understandingly.

Liz blushed immensely and without say grabbed her books and left class.

"Ms. Deluca, you should check up on after her," Ms. Hardy said to Maria, sitting in the first row, first seat. She hated sitting there.

"Sure," she replied, gathering her stuff and exiting the now buzzing with speculation classroom.

Liz splashed cold water on her face. It felt so real. She saw Alex. She could feel what he felt. Pain, despair, loneliness. He was in so much of it.

"Liz, what happened to you in there? One second you're answering a mighty difficult question, the next you screaming Alex's name, Maria said leaning on the sink.

"Nice to see you to, Maria," Liz said, moving away from her.

"You know Liz, I don't even know who you are anymore. You don't come to the yearbook meetings anymore, when you know we're working on a double page spread for Alex. You scream murder at Max. You skip lunch to talk to the computer geeks. Liz who are you? You used to be my friend, but after everything that happened with Alex, you're not. God Liz why aren't you my friend?"

Liz at first took everything with grace but when Maria spoke about friendship, she exploded,"You wanna talk about friendship. OK let's talk Maria. You were the one who abandoned me when I wanted to talk. You immediately went to Michael for comfort. He was the one who comforted you. You left me Maria. I'm the only one in this god forsaken town that gives a damn about Alex."

"That's so not true, Liz. I care about him. This town may suck, but everyone cares for him. He was our best friend," Maria said taking a stand. She couldn't believe the way her soon to be ex friend was talking about him.

"You're talking about him in the past tense. Like's he dead. Well he;s not. I know it. I'm going to tell you like I told Valenti, I'm not going to believe he's dead until I see a body or those results come in positive."

"Don't talk like that, Liz. He's dead, face it, we lost him. Get over it and grieve. I haven't seen you cry, Liz. When are you going to cry?"

"When I see those results."

"You better not act like that in front of his dad at the funeral. If you yell conspiracy, I will never talk to you again," Maria said. She had the last straw.

"You better clean yourself up, the memorial is next period," Maria said with a stone cold face.

"I'm not going," Liz said facing the school mirror.

"What?" Maria said from the doorway, "Why not?"

"Because he's not dead."

Maria sighed.

"God, Liz, I really don't know you anymore." Maria left the bathroom and Liz was left by herself, as she has been for the last day.

All the emotions from before bubbled inside her. She couldn't take it. She couldn't take that no one believed her except Kyle.
She left the bathroom and looked at the class room from where she came from. The door just closed and she knew Maria was the one who closed it.

Liz sighed and walked to her locker. She couldn't help but look at the makeshift memorial the students of West Roswell High made for him.

"God, no one knew him and they try and act like they did," she said to Kyle behind her.

"They're only trying to be nice," he said leaning on the locker next to hers, "shouldn't you be in class?"

"I was about to ask you the same question," she said placing her biology book in her back pack, "Kyle, do you ever get the feeling that Roswell isn't meant for you?"

"All the time. I dream about playing left fielder for the Houston Astros. Being somewhere where the desert isn't your backyard. Where Buddha is accepted without ridicule. Sure, I do," Kyle answered.

"I used to think about being the head of the molecular biology research department in Harvard," Liz answered, closing her locker door.

"Liz you can still achieve that. Especially with that head of yours," Kyle said getting a feeling she knew where Liz was heading.

"Kyle, could we leave?" Liz asked.

"Of course we can leave Roswell. Someday that is."

"No, I mean, could we leave now? I don't want to go to the memorial. I got into an argument with Maria and the bus won't come until 2:30."

"Are you sure you don't want to stay?" Kyle asked. He didn't want her to regret her decision after they left.

"He's not dead, you know. I'm not going to sit around and celebrate his life when he's not dead. We can celebrate his life when he's here with us."

"Sure, Liz, I was planning on skipping it too," Kyle said, "you know after everything you said." He took Liz's backpack and swung it over his shoulder.

"Are you sure Kyle? I don't want to get you into trouble."

"Buddha will forgive me."