Title: In another world part 4
Series: Roswell Dreams
Author: Chris Kenworthy
Email: kelworth@chriskweb.net
Rating: PG?
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or premise of 'Roswell,' look for Melinda Metz, Jason Katims, or the Fox head honchos. I just write stories here. :]
Category: Very AU, skewed reality version of... well, early season 1 to start with. UC couples leading to CC couples - yes, it's homecoming backwards. ;-)
Spoilers: Well, if you haven't seen the pilot, what are you doing here? ;-) Any events from the show might appear here, somewhat distorted. Familiarity with early season 1 will probably help you to make sense of all the clever things I'm trying to do. :-D
Home archive: http://www.fanfiction.net/~chriskenworthy
Dedication: To all you rabid dreamers and candygirls. I dunno if you're gonna love this or hate it, but either way it's *all for you.* hehehehe.
True to her word, Liz showed up to their 'spot' in the quad fifteen minutes before class the next morning. Maria and Alex were already there, discussing their costumes for the Crash festival that night, and Kyle showed up about a minute after Liz did from the other direction.
"Hey babe," Maria said, greeting her summer sweetie with a kiss. "You up for lunch at the Burrito stop today?!"
"Sorry, no can do," Kyle apologized, draping an arm around Maria's shoulders and sighing. "My dad is insisting on picking me up for some 'father/son' time today at noon. Totally lame, yes, but what can I do about it?"
"If he was my dad, I think I'd be too scared to talk to him," Alex put in. "Except, of course, that that would probably piss him off..."
"He's not that bad," Kyle disclaimed. "The thing with my dad is, you have--"
"Ooh, hold that thought, Kyle, 'kay??" Maria asked. She gestured out across the throng of students. "Ray Sanchez, he's in that band I was telling you about. The one that I'm thinking about joining if they promise me I can write my own songs and they'll perform them if they're any good. I'm gonna go talk to him for a second, alright?" Blowing a kiss to Kyle, she was off.
"Oh-kay..." Alex said after a moment of silence. "Well, Kyle, I guess as long as Maria's got you stuck 'holding that thought,' we need a new topic."
"Uh... whatever," Kyle sighed.
"Hmm... how about... 'When is Maria going to take you in to get your leash resized?'" Alex teased. Kyle fought back a blush and shook his head.
"Come on, Alex," Liz spoke up. "Watch the line."
"Ah, hey Liz," Alex quipped, turning to her, still obviously on too much of a role to stop easily. "How're you this morning? Still radioactive??"
"'Radioactive?!'" Kyle repeated, turning to Liz. "What's this about, Liz?"
"Since when do I keep track of the demented notions that breed like bunnies in Alex Whitman's head?" Liz cut back. "I have no idea. You'd have to ask him."
Actually, Kyle didn't, since as soon as he turned, Alex was more than glad to fill him in on the details. "Liz has this really funky glowing mark on her abs. Like a handprint or something. I saw it last night after walking her home from the movie."
"Hmm..." Kyle considered this, grinning rogueishly. "And what were the two of you doing when you happened on this choice view, Alex? Are manly congrats in order?" He reached out a hand for Alex to high-five if appropriate.
Liz bulled between the two of them, knocking Kyle's hand away. "*We* weren't doing anything - I was turning off the kitchen light. And Alex didn't see anything glowing on my 'abs' because there's nothing there to see."
This was totally ignored by Kyle. "Maybe it's the piece de resistance for her Crash costume." He turned slightly to address Liz. "Did you get some psychedelic glowing paint or something? What does a handprint have to do with aliens anyway?"
Liz toyed briefly with the notion of going with that story - and rejected it. Too many things could go wrong. "No, it's not a costume, it's a delusion. Alex, you must have been seeing things."
"Fine," Alex said levelly. "Then why are your arms wrapped around your waist?" Liz jerked her arms away - she had indeed been crossing her arms somewhat protectively in the vicinity of her stomach. "If there's nothing there, just show me," Alex finished.
"No, I don't think I'm going to show you my stomach in public just because you came up with some crazy story." She sighed. Maria was heading back over, and one more person hearing about this was the last thing that Liz wanted. "Drop it, Alex, okay? Right now. I'm asking you, as a best friend, to drop it. Alright?!"
Alex sighed and dropped his defiant stare. "Okay. But you know the rules, Liz: I get to use that 'best friend' thing next. Right?"
Liz agreed with a nod and a grateful smile, as Maria rejoined them and Kyle started talking about how to handle his dad again.
* * * * *
Max caught up with Liz in the west hall between third and fourth periods.
"Hey, I wanted to talk to you," he said, pulling her aside. "You seemed a little freaked yesterday..."
"Yeah, I know..." she said, looking up at him with that vulnerable smile. "But I'm okay now, believe me. You don't have anything to worry about."
"That's good to hear," Max replied, catching onto the code that they were using to talk about his secret in public. "I wanted to be sure that you're... comfortable - with all th..."
"Max, I gotta go!!" Liz cut him off. "I have comp lab in like one minute, and I can't be late. Don't worry, I'm not gonna crack and spill. Byee!!" And with a frantic wave, she hurried away.
Max shrugged with a little suppressed aggravation and headed off to study hall.
* * * * *
As her sixth period spare began, Liz was rooting around the chairs in the band room looking for her bookbag. It hadn't been in its customary place on her dresser that morning, and Liz had been trying to trace her steps yesterday. She knew she had had it when she'd come in here to talk to Max, so...
"Hey."
Liz turned up to identify who had just spoken to her. "Maria. Hi, listen, have you seen my bookbag anywhere?"
"Uhh... not since yesterday afternoon. Can I talk to you for a second?"
Liz called off the search and gave her best (girl)friend in the world her full attention. "Of course. What's up?"
"Well, I've just been... a little worried about you. Ever since... well, yesterday, you've seemed a little weird. And I don't mean weird in that Liz Parker destined-to-be-great-scientist way we all know and love."
Liz sighed. Another suspicion she had to quash. "C'mon, Maria, aren't you jumping the gun? I'm allowed to have a weird day or two, aren't I??"
"Sure," Maria agreed. "If that's all that there is. On the other hand... if something's going on, I'd hope that you'd talk to someone about it. Doesn't have to be me... Alex, even your parents, the guidance counselor... whoever your pretty little head feels more confortable talking to...." Even Maria had to shake her head to find her place after that ramble. "I just don't want you burying stuff deep inside, 'key? It's not healthy for the aura."
"I'm not burying any stuff deep inside," Liz told Maria with all the sincerity she could muster.
"So you're alright?" Maria pestered.
"I'm alright, okay??" Liz smiled back at Maria.
"Glad to hear it." Maria waved, headed back towards the door, and gasped to see Principal Forrester and the old Indian deputy enter the room.
"There she is," Mister Forrester said, pointing at Liz. Liz gasped in shock. What was *this* about? Maria seemed at least as dumfounded.
"Miss Parker, the Sheriff needs to ask you some questions," the deputy solemnly intoned. Liz looked at the principal, who nodded slowly, and slowly walked towards them.
At least, Liz got to sit in the front of the deputy's county police car. She would have felt totally humiliated if she's had to get into the back like she was being arrested herself. At the Sheriff's station, Liz had to wait in a reception area for a minute or two before Valenti was actually ready to talk to her.
When the secretary told her to go in, Liz could hardly believe her eyes. Walking out the same door Liz was supposed to head into was none other than Alex Charles Whitman. Liz wanted to ask him what this was about, but didn't dare get out of line under the impatient glare of the secretary and the tangible presence of the Sheriff in the next room. She did look into Alex's eyes for a second, and they seemed apologetic, frightened, and disappointed in her all at once.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, Miss Parker," Valenti said in that deadly calm way he had, indicating the chair right in front of his desk. "Your father said it would be all right if I talked to you."
**Dear ol' dad.** Liz nodded, but Valenti hadn't waited for a response from her. "Sorry to have to show you these."
**Show me what??* Liz wondered, and then wished that she hadn't. **Eww!!** A black and white photograph of a man's body in only boxer shorts on a forensic bay was slid onto the table in front of her. As best Liz could figure out, the guy seemed just shy of middle age, and quite likely to be dead. She couldn't suppress a shudder, and somewhere in the back of her mind a little voice said that she shouldn't have tried. **It'll be the reaction that Valenti would expect from a high school girl with nothing to hide.** Fortunately, it was also the reaction of a high school girl with something big to hide.
"This man was found dead, with no apparent cause of death," Valenti was saying, "except..." Another photo was placed above the first, a closer shot of the upper chest, neck, shoulder, and half the face of the unfortunate corpse. This time, Liz *did* have to stifle her reaction. Across the upper chest, near the throat, another handprint faintly glittered on the man's skin. In black and white, it was impossible for Liz to tell how similar on color or tint they were, but the pattern was exactly the same as hers. She couldn't believe it.
"What do you make of that mark?" Valenti asked, pointing to it for unneccesary emphasis. Liz tried to look away from the handprint without making it too obvious that she was doing so, and ended up staring at the categorizing tag that had been paperclipped to the eight by ten piece of photographic paper. 'Coroner Mochtley. J Valenti. Nov 16 1959. 117503'
Liz looked up towards Valenti, only to find him staring down at her. "I have never seen anything like that before," she told him as smoothly and calmly as she could.
"Alex Whitman has just told me that he saw a very similar mark on your stomach last night," Valenti told her with just a trace of self-superiority. "A glowing silver handprint."
"Alex was wrong," Liz whispered, almost feeling like she was commiting a betrayal just by saying the words.
"I'm sure," Valenti responded easygoingly. "From what I hear, he's a young man with quite a wild imagination. But..." the pause was just long enough to somehow telegraph Valenti's seriousness. "I am going to have to see for myself?"
"Why??" Liz burst out. "I mean... silver handprint or no silver handprint... there's no crime involved, is there? No reason for the sheriff to get involved."
"I have my reasons." Now Valenti's tone was unflexible, pure steel. He gestured for her to stand up.
Liz considered passive resistance, but discarded the thought after a second. The way James Valenti was acting about this, she had no doubt that he'd be willing to call in two deputies and have them lift up her sweater and shirt... (only as far as the stomach, of course,) by force if necessary. What's more, making such a big deal out of this would only prove that she had something to hide.
**What would I be doing here if I really knew nothing about Max Evans, if the thing at the Crashdown was really the non-incident it seemed to be.** "Come on, sheriff, I told you that I spilled ketchup, and I... I said that like a thousand times." What had posessed her to say that? Ah well, it wasn't a big stretch to connect the shooting in the cafe to the mark that Valenti was so concerned about. Even for an innocent girl.
"Liz, please," Valenti sighed, all business. Not relenting a fraction of an inch.
**Well, it's over. Might as well try to handle this with grace and some semblance of dignity.** Liz quickly rose to her feet, fingered her sweater nervously for a second or so, and then grabbed the material of the sweater and shirt at the same time and drew them up until her thumbs were almost at her bra-line. She kept watching Valenti's face.
For what seemed like the longest moment he looked clinically at her midriff. Then Valenti's eyes tracked up to meet hers without his head moving a milimeter, but his expression held the faintest touch of confusion, and then... aggravation. Confused herself, Liz looked down, and then bent over so as to get a good look at her own belly.
There was no sign of any kind of silver glow, or any marks at all in the place where the handprint had been. She couldn't resist stretching out a few fingers cautiously to run over the place it had been.
"The glow faded from the corpse, too," Valenti informed her with a resigned sigh. Liz shrugged and sat back down, letting her clothes resume their normal configuration. "What do you know about a kid named Max Evans?"
**Uh-oh, this isn't over yet.** "Max Evans?" Liz repeated. Valenti umm-hmmed promptingly. "Umm..." **Come on, if you don't say SOMETHING soon that's going to look suspicious.** "I don't - really know him all that well." That should sound responsive without helping Valenti out much, and without commiting her to something Valenti could find out was a lie just by asking around at the school.
"Was he one of the kids at the Crashdown that day?" Valenti pushed.
"No." It seemed safer to stick by her original story about that as long as she possibly could. Then again... Alex had recognized Tess, and Liz herself had mentioned that she was there with Max, just in case Alex could possibly have forgotten. And Valenti had just been talking to Alex. Had he testified to Max being there that day?
Well, Liz couldn't come up with the nerve to change her story now. If she was confronted with a direct rebuttal, she could claim 'her mistake' and that she hadn't known Max was there, which would still seem to exonerate Max from anything to do with her.
But Valenti didn't confront her with anything. "I see."
"Can I go back to school now, Sheriff?" Liz blurted out.
Jim nodded, once again the soul of easy-going-ness. **It's amazing how many times the guy can switch attitudes in a matter of minutes.** "Just one more thing." He pulled something out of a desk drawer and put it on the desk. It was Liz's bookbag. "Somebody turned in this bookbag. It *is* yours, isn't it??"
Liz stared at it for a second. She couldn't figure out how it had anything to do with the cat-and-mouse game Valenti had been playing with her. And then the connection dawned on her. She had put her Crashdown uniform in that bookbag. With the bloodstains buried underneath the ketchup stains, and the bullet hole. She had totally forgotten about that while carrying the bag around yesterday. Then the bag went missing, and now it turned up in the sheriff's station. Except...
Nobody had 'turned it in.' Liz was sure of that, just as she was sure that if she looked inside, she would find no uniform. Somewhere, somehow, Sheriff James Valenti the second had deliberately set out to obtain the bookbag and he had succeeded. She couldn't even imagine how he had guessed its significance, and she didn't care. **Was it last night, was he in my room while I was sleeping? Or while I was out at the movies with Alex? Did he do the break and enter job himself or somehow convince one of the deputies to do his dirty work and never say a word??**
Liz couldn't wait to get out of that building. Being there, sharing air with the quote unquote 'lawman' James Valenti, was chilling her right down to the bone.
* * * * *
"A shot was fired," Valenti ranted, pacing back and forth in his office not fifteen minutes later. "There's a bullet hole in the dress. I'm telling you, the girl was shot!!"
The slightly short man sitting down to the side of Valenti's desk stroked his beard thoughtfully. He was mostly bald, with just a bit of dark hair over each ear to complement the patch growing out of his chin, and wore a beige long-sleeved shirt, a dark green vest, and a matching tie. In front of him on the desk were a silver-colored metallic briefcase and a blue waitress' uniform.
Valenti stared at the new man. After several seconds' pause, he slowly and deliberately stood up, not saying a word.
"What are you doing?"
"I have a flying saucer sighting in Phoenix," Agent Stevens said as he opened the case and casually put the uniform inside. "An accountant in Barstow who thinks he's Jesus. Both cases were more solid than this." He said the sentences matter-of-factly, but it was impossible to tell whether he truly believed them or was just trying to puncture Sheriff Valenti's certainties. "I'll have this checked out at the lab." To judge from his tone of voice, he didn't expect that much to come of the checkout. "Call me, Sheriff, if you ever have anything... *real.*" He draped his coat over his arm and left the office.
Valenti hurried after Stevens as he left the station. "Listen, you guys told me to call you if something went down. What happens now?"
"I have the lab check out the dress," Stevens repeated like he was talking to a six-year-old. "I'm gonna handle this case in the proper manner without getting too personal, and I suggest you do the same." He put his sunglasses on.
"I'm not walkin' away from this," Valenti declared, coming to a determined stop a few feet away from Stevens' car. "I'm gonna be a part of this investigation."
Stevens turned around to face him down. "Sheriff, do you know what everyone used to call your father?? Sergeant Martian." Stevens laughed without humor. "You don't wanna end up like him." He opened his car door and got inside.
Valenti moved closer until he was leaning his hand on the car near Stevens' window and looking inside. "Agent Stevens, I was eight years old when my father discovered that corpse. My whole life I thought he was as crazy as everyone else did, crazy to believe. Now I'm not so sure." From the look in the Sheriff's face, one might think he was looking for reassurance, something that was certainly a rare event.
Stevens thought himself up to the task. "Thank you Sheriff. Your work is done now, we'll take it from here." And he started the car and pulled out.
* * * * *
Liz hurried all the way to the other end of the art room, not feeling that a closed door was enough protection. She tossed the book bag onto a table and spun around to face Max Evans. "I need to know the truth, Max."
Max just looked her, seeming somewhat out of place in his blue West Roswell High gym shirt. (Liz had essentially dragged Max out of a gym class - wrestling - to talk to him now.) "I need to know everything, Or I'll... I'm just going to go to Valenti and tell him everything I know."
Liz felt horrible making that threat. But on the other hand, she felt as if she deserved to know. If Valenti was going to be using Liz and her friends as pawns in whatever he was trying to do to Max, the more Liz knew the better she'd be able to protect him.
For another thing, Liz needed a little reassurance that she actually *wanted* to protect Max Evans... That picture - what if Max Evans could have been responsible for that too. He was an alien, he didn't have to age in the same way that humans did. Maybe he wandered the earth, killing people and saving the lives of others as it suited his whim. Liz wasn't so sure she wanted to lie to Valenti to protect someone like that.
"Okay," Max said softly. He didn't seem at all disappointed in the threat Liz had just made, he didn't refer to it at all. To him it was probably just a reasonable request that Liz want to know more of the facts. Now she felt embarassed.
"Okay." Her mind was blanking. Fortunately, she had prepared for that, and dug a little slip of paper out of her jacket. She had wrote a few questions out on the ride back to school without letting Alex or the deputy know what she was doing, by *volunteering* to be in the back this time. "All right, here we go. 'Where did you come from?'" She looked up from the note to see Max's reaction.
For an instant his face was filled with disappointment, pain, and loneliness, and then it cleared as Max tried to answer her question matter-of-factly. "I don't know. When the ship crashed I wasn't born yet."
Liz asked her first unscripted follow-up. "So there was a crash?"
"All I know is, it wasn't a weather balloon that fell that night," Max answered in that same half-joking tone he had used when he said he preferred to be called 'not of this earth.'
Okay... Liz decided to try going a little further afield. "The ship crashed in 1947. But you're sixteen... I mean, are you?"
"We were in some kind of incubation pods," Max explained.
"We??" Liz picked up on, cutting him off.
"Me, my sister, Michael Guerin, and Tess Martin." Liz couldn't contain a smirk and a soft chuckle, and Max picked up on that. "What??"
"Well... I mean, everyone knows that the four of you date... or at least used to." For a wild fraction of a second Liz wondered if it could be possible that all this was a joke. That Max and the people he had just named were ordinary human teenagers who had planned out one heck of a prank, that she really never had been shot.
"Well, you hear such horror stories about dating outside of your species," Max teased. "Last winter, there was this weird V-shape constellation and it kind of - triggered dreams. Very intimate dreams. So yeah... it's a long story, but now we date. Kind of the easiest way of dealing with what we think might be an alien mating instinct."
Liz shook her head. *WAY* too much information, though she might want to ask more about that later, once she was mentally buttressed and what have you. "Okay, moving right along... what powers do you have??"
"Well, I can heal people or animals, when they've been hurt... as you know." Max shrugged diffidently. "When I touch them and look into their eyes, it's like I make a connection. And... we can all manipulate molecular structures."
"What does that mean?" Liz put in. "I mean... I know what the words mean, but what does it mean in practice??"
Max looked around quickly and settled on a tube made of see-through plastic and containing some yellow paint. He concentrated, and new color swirled inside it, finally coming to rest with all of the visible paint being a delicate pink. He handed it over to her.
"I... see..." Liz said slowly, after a few seconds. "The pigments that made this appear yellow are just simple organic compounds, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen in typical proportions. It's the shape of the pigment molecule that makes yellow light reflect off it. By rearranging how the atoms fit together, you destroyed the yellow color and created a pink pigment." Max nodded in agreement.
Liz was lost in thought for a second. Yes, it was a simple demonstration Max had just made for her. But what a power that was. Molecular structure quite literally provided quite literally the foundation of the world around them. With this kind of abilities, Max and his friends could open doors in solid walls, change what writing appeared on virtually any sheet of paper. It was almost certainly the foundation for the healing powers Max had used to save her life. The cellular structures of her body had been disarrayed by the bullet, and Max had restored them by altering the molecules that made up those cells.
It was also a power that could kill - like on Valenti's corpse, perhaps. Alter the molecules of the heart muscle so that they could no longer beat properly.
Max was looking at her. **Move on, quickly... if he hasn't figured this stuff out already, he doesn't need YOU giving him ideas.** "Max, who else knows this??"
"The four of us... and now you."
"What about your parents??" Liz couldn't believe that they would all keep this secret from their parents, (or in Michael Guerin's case, possibly a foster parent, she wasn't sure.)
"We don't tell anyone," Max told her gently. "We sorta think our lives depend on it."
"But then..." For a second Liz had trouble phrasing her thoughts into words. "When you healed me, you risked all this getting out, didn't you?"
"Yeah."
"So why did you do it??"
Max sighed. "Tess asked me that same question last night. I kinda let her believe that it was just altruistic intentions, that I wouldn't have let anyone die under those circumstances if I could possibly help it, that kind of thing. But I'm not sure that's true."
"Um... okay," Liz replied, starting to feel uncomfortable about this.
"I think the fact that it was you... had something to do with it," Max continued slowly. "Not like I've been secretly in love with you and life would lose all meaning if you weren't in this world," he disclaimed. "I love Tess and I'm happy with her. But... I've been aware of you, Liz Parker. I've admired you. And it was the thought of such a senseless tragedy wiping out a life as full of promise as yours that pushed me out of the booth the day before yesterday."
"Okay..." Liz repeated, feeling vaguely flattered. Suddenly, something else occured to her. "Max... what about that handprint. What does it mean??"
"I don't know," Max admitted. "I mean... we've all discovered that we can leave glowing handprints like that on purpose, They fade out after about a day and a half. And I kinda get the impression that there's some... significance to them, although I couldn't quite tell you what. But that one on your stomach was the first time I'd ever seen one that the four of us didn't leave intentionally."
"Valenti showed me a photo of a corpse," Liz told him. "A murder victim. It had the same silver handprint on its chest."
"That can't be," Max said in surprise.
"The photo was marked 1959," Liz continued.
"That's impossible!"
Liz knew she had to tell him the worst now. "Alex saw the handprint on my stomach, and Valenti stole the waitress uniform with the bullet hole in it. He asked me if you were in the cafe during the shooting. Max, he suspects you."
Now, it was Max who was rushing away. "Max..." Liz called after him.
"I have to go," he mumbled over his shoulder.
"Wait, go, where? Where are you going!?" As Max slipped out the art room door, Liz rushed to follow him. "Max, wait! Max!!"
As Liz burst out into the corridor, a pack of strange-looking creatures in shades of gold, green, silver, and purple screamed around her. Liz bashed into a furry brown alien, and screamed. It took her a few seconds to realize that these 'aliens' were just fellow high school students, excited and already in their costumes for the Crash festival tonight.
* * * * *
Max sighed as he climbed up the long straight staircase in his parents' house. This was the first stop, to pick up his essentials, fill Isabel in on the situation, call ahead to Tess and Michael. Then swing by the Martin house and rendezvous with Michael about halfway from the trailer park.
Everything had changed now. Before Liz had told him about that interview with Valenti, he had bene the firmest apologetic for staying in Roswell, hiding in plain sight, pretending to be ordinary kids. **But hiding in plain sight only works against people who don't know exactly what to look for.** Mentally, Max had just done a complete flip-flop. Leaving town was their only way.
He passed by Isabel's door and swung it open witout knocking. Iz was lying on her back on her bed, already in her spandex seven-of-nine-ish costume, legs up in the air, trying to straighten out some detail with her boots or something. "Forget the festival," Max blurted out. "It's time to leave.
Isabel sat up and looked at him, a stunned expression on her face.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Series: Roswell Dreams
Author: Chris Kenworthy
Email: kelworth@chriskweb.net
Rating: PG?
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or premise of 'Roswell,' look for Melinda Metz, Jason Katims, or the Fox head honchos. I just write stories here. :]
Category: Very AU, skewed reality version of... well, early season 1 to start with. UC couples leading to CC couples - yes, it's homecoming backwards. ;-)
Spoilers: Well, if you haven't seen the pilot, what are you doing here? ;-) Any events from the show might appear here, somewhat distorted. Familiarity with early season 1 will probably help you to make sense of all the clever things I'm trying to do. :-D
Home archive: http://www.fanfiction.net/~chriskenworthy
Dedication: To all you rabid dreamers and candygirls. I dunno if you're gonna love this or hate it, but either way it's *all for you.* hehehehe.
True to her word, Liz showed up to their 'spot' in the quad fifteen minutes before class the next morning. Maria and Alex were already there, discussing their costumes for the Crash festival that night, and Kyle showed up about a minute after Liz did from the other direction.
"Hey babe," Maria said, greeting her summer sweetie with a kiss. "You up for lunch at the Burrito stop today?!"
"Sorry, no can do," Kyle apologized, draping an arm around Maria's shoulders and sighing. "My dad is insisting on picking me up for some 'father/son' time today at noon. Totally lame, yes, but what can I do about it?"
"If he was my dad, I think I'd be too scared to talk to him," Alex put in. "Except, of course, that that would probably piss him off..."
"He's not that bad," Kyle disclaimed. "The thing with my dad is, you have--"
"Ooh, hold that thought, Kyle, 'kay??" Maria asked. She gestured out across the throng of students. "Ray Sanchez, he's in that band I was telling you about. The one that I'm thinking about joining if they promise me I can write my own songs and they'll perform them if they're any good. I'm gonna go talk to him for a second, alright?" Blowing a kiss to Kyle, she was off.
"Oh-kay..." Alex said after a moment of silence. "Well, Kyle, I guess as long as Maria's got you stuck 'holding that thought,' we need a new topic."
"Uh... whatever," Kyle sighed.
"Hmm... how about... 'When is Maria going to take you in to get your leash resized?'" Alex teased. Kyle fought back a blush and shook his head.
"Come on, Alex," Liz spoke up. "Watch the line."
"Ah, hey Liz," Alex quipped, turning to her, still obviously on too much of a role to stop easily. "How're you this morning? Still radioactive??"
"'Radioactive?!'" Kyle repeated, turning to Liz. "What's this about, Liz?"
"Since when do I keep track of the demented notions that breed like bunnies in Alex Whitman's head?" Liz cut back. "I have no idea. You'd have to ask him."
Actually, Kyle didn't, since as soon as he turned, Alex was more than glad to fill him in on the details. "Liz has this really funky glowing mark on her abs. Like a handprint or something. I saw it last night after walking her home from the movie."
"Hmm..." Kyle considered this, grinning rogueishly. "And what were the two of you doing when you happened on this choice view, Alex? Are manly congrats in order?" He reached out a hand for Alex to high-five if appropriate.
Liz bulled between the two of them, knocking Kyle's hand away. "*We* weren't doing anything - I was turning off the kitchen light. And Alex didn't see anything glowing on my 'abs' because there's nothing there to see."
This was totally ignored by Kyle. "Maybe it's the piece de resistance for her Crash costume." He turned slightly to address Liz. "Did you get some psychedelic glowing paint or something? What does a handprint have to do with aliens anyway?"
Liz toyed briefly with the notion of going with that story - and rejected it. Too many things could go wrong. "No, it's not a costume, it's a delusion. Alex, you must have been seeing things."
"Fine," Alex said levelly. "Then why are your arms wrapped around your waist?" Liz jerked her arms away - she had indeed been crossing her arms somewhat protectively in the vicinity of her stomach. "If there's nothing there, just show me," Alex finished.
"No, I don't think I'm going to show you my stomach in public just because you came up with some crazy story." She sighed. Maria was heading back over, and one more person hearing about this was the last thing that Liz wanted. "Drop it, Alex, okay? Right now. I'm asking you, as a best friend, to drop it. Alright?!"
Alex sighed and dropped his defiant stare. "Okay. But you know the rules, Liz: I get to use that 'best friend' thing next. Right?"
Liz agreed with a nod and a grateful smile, as Maria rejoined them and Kyle started talking about how to handle his dad again.
* * * * *
Max caught up with Liz in the west hall between third and fourth periods.
"Hey, I wanted to talk to you," he said, pulling her aside. "You seemed a little freaked yesterday..."
"Yeah, I know..." she said, looking up at him with that vulnerable smile. "But I'm okay now, believe me. You don't have anything to worry about."
"That's good to hear," Max replied, catching onto the code that they were using to talk about his secret in public. "I wanted to be sure that you're... comfortable - with all th..."
"Max, I gotta go!!" Liz cut him off. "I have comp lab in like one minute, and I can't be late. Don't worry, I'm not gonna crack and spill. Byee!!" And with a frantic wave, she hurried away.
Max shrugged with a little suppressed aggravation and headed off to study hall.
* * * * *
As her sixth period spare began, Liz was rooting around the chairs in the band room looking for her bookbag. It hadn't been in its customary place on her dresser that morning, and Liz had been trying to trace her steps yesterday. She knew she had had it when she'd come in here to talk to Max, so...
"Hey."
Liz turned up to identify who had just spoken to her. "Maria. Hi, listen, have you seen my bookbag anywhere?"
"Uhh... not since yesterday afternoon. Can I talk to you for a second?"
Liz called off the search and gave her best (girl)friend in the world her full attention. "Of course. What's up?"
"Well, I've just been... a little worried about you. Ever since... well, yesterday, you've seemed a little weird. And I don't mean weird in that Liz Parker destined-to-be-great-scientist way we all know and love."
Liz sighed. Another suspicion she had to quash. "C'mon, Maria, aren't you jumping the gun? I'm allowed to have a weird day or two, aren't I??"
"Sure," Maria agreed. "If that's all that there is. On the other hand... if something's going on, I'd hope that you'd talk to someone about it. Doesn't have to be me... Alex, even your parents, the guidance counselor... whoever your pretty little head feels more confortable talking to...." Even Maria had to shake her head to find her place after that ramble. "I just don't want you burying stuff deep inside, 'key? It's not healthy for the aura."
"I'm not burying any stuff deep inside," Liz told Maria with all the sincerity she could muster.
"So you're alright?" Maria pestered.
"I'm alright, okay??" Liz smiled back at Maria.
"Glad to hear it." Maria waved, headed back towards the door, and gasped to see Principal Forrester and the old Indian deputy enter the room.
"There she is," Mister Forrester said, pointing at Liz. Liz gasped in shock. What was *this* about? Maria seemed at least as dumfounded.
"Miss Parker, the Sheriff needs to ask you some questions," the deputy solemnly intoned. Liz looked at the principal, who nodded slowly, and slowly walked towards them.
At least, Liz got to sit in the front of the deputy's county police car. She would have felt totally humiliated if she's had to get into the back like she was being arrested herself. At the Sheriff's station, Liz had to wait in a reception area for a minute or two before Valenti was actually ready to talk to her.
When the secretary told her to go in, Liz could hardly believe her eyes. Walking out the same door Liz was supposed to head into was none other than Alex Charles Whitman. Liz wanted to ask him what this was about, but didn't dare get out of line under the impatient glare of the secretary and the tangible presence of the Sheriff in the next room. She did look into Alex's eyes for a second, and they seemed apologetic, frightened, and disappointed in her all at once.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, Miss Parker," Valenti said in that deadly calm way he had, indicating the chair right in front of his desk. "Your father said it would be all right if I talked to you."
**Dear ol' dad.** Liz nodded, but Valenti hadn't waited for a response from her. "Sorry to have to show you these."
**Show me what??* Liz wondered, and then wished that she hadn't. **Eww!!** A black and white photograph of a man's body in only boxer shorts on a forensic bay was slid onto the table in front of her. As best Liz could figure out, the guy seemed just shy of middle age, and quite likely to be dead. She couldn't suppress a shudder, and somewhere in the back of her mind a little voice said that she shouldn't have tried. **It'll be the reaction that Valenti would expect from a high school girl with nothing to hide.** Fortunately, it was also the reaction of a high school girl with something big to hide.
"This man was found dead, with no apparent cause of death," Valenti was saying, "except..." Another photo was placed above the first, a closer shot of the upper chest, neck, shoulder, and half the face of the unfortunate corpse. This time, Liz *did* have to stifle her reaction. Across the upper chest, near the throat, another handprint faintly glittered on the man's skin. In black and white, it was impossible for Liz to tell how similar on color or tint they were, but the pattern was exactly the same as hers. She couldn't believe it.
"What do you make of that mark?" Valenti asked, pointing to it for unneccesary emphasis. Liz tried to look away from the handprint without making it too obvious that she was doing so, and ended up staring at the categorizing tag that had been paperclipped to the eight by ten piece of photographic paper. 'Coroner Mochtley. J Valenti. Nov 16 1959. 117503'
Liz looked up towards Valenti, only to find him staring down at her. "I have never seen anything like that before," she told him as smoothly and calmly as she could.
"Alex Whitman has just told me that he saw a very similar mark on your stomach last night," Valenti told her with just a trace of self-superiority. "A glowing silver handprint."
"Alex was wrong," Liz whispered, almost feeling like she was commiting a betrayal just by saying the words.
"I'm sure," Valenti responded easygoingly. "From what I hear, he's a young man with quite a wild imagination. But..." the pause was just long enough to somehow telegraph Valenti's seriousness. "I am going to have to see for myself?"
"Why??" Liz burst out. "I mean... silver handprint or no silver handprint... there's no crime involved, is there? No reason for the sheriff to get involved."
"I have my reasons." Now Valenti's tone was unflexible, pure steel. He gestured for her to stand up.
Liz considered passive resistance, but discarded the thought after a second. The way James Valenti was acting about this, she had no doubt that he'd be willing to call in two deputies and have them lift up her sweater and shirt... (only as far as the stomach, of course,) by force if necessary. What's more, making such a big deal out of this would only prove that she had something to hide.
**What would I be doing here if I really knew nothing about Max Evans, if the thing at the Crashdown was really the non-incident it seemed to be.** "Come on, sheriff, I told you that I spilled ketchup, and I... I said that like a thousand times." What had posessed her to say that? Ah well, it wasn't a big stretch to connect the shooting in the cafe to the mark that Valenti was so concerned about. Even for an innocent girl.
"Liz, please," Valenti sighed, all business. Not relenting a fraction of an inch.
**Well, it's over. Might as well try to handle this with grace and some semblance of dignity.** Liz quickly rose to her feet, fingered her sweater nervously for a second or so, and then grabbed the material of the sweater and shirt at the same time and drew them up until her thumbs were almost at her bra-line. She kept watching Valenti's face.
For what seemed like the longest moment he looked clinically at her midriff. Then Valenti's eyes tracked up to meet hers without his head moving a milimeter, but his expression held the faintest touch of confusion, and then... aggravation. Confused herself, Liz looked down, and then bent over so as to get a good look at her own belly.
There was no sign of any kind of silver glow, or any marks at all in the place where the handprint had been. She couldn't resist stretching out a few fingers cautiously to run over the place it had been.
"The glow faded from the corpse, too," Valenti informed her with a resigned sigh. Liz shrugged and sat back down, letting her clothes resume their normal configuration. "What do you know about a kid named Max Evans?"
**Uh-oh, this isn't over yet.** "Max Evans?" Liz repeated. Valenti umm-hmmed promptingly. "Umm..." **Come on, if you don't say SOMETHING soon that's going to look suspicious.** "I don't - really know him all that well." That should sound responsive without helping Valenti out much, and without commiting her to something Valenti could find out was a lie just by asking around at the school.
"Was he one of the kids at the Crashdown that day?" Valenti pushed.
"No." It seemed safer to stick by her original story about that as long as she possibly could. Then again... Alex had recognized Tess, and Liz herself had mentioned that she was there with Max, just in case Alex could possibly have forgotten. And Valenti had just been talking to Alex. Had he testified to Max being there that day?
Well, Liz couldn't come up with the nerve to change her story now. If she was confronted with a direct rebuttal, she could claim 'her mistake' and that she hadn't known Max was there, which would still seem to exonerate Max from anything to do with her.
But Valenti didn't confront her with anything. "I see."
"Can I go back to school now, Sheriff?" Liz blurted out.
Jim nodded, once again the soul of easy-going-ness. **It's amazing how many times the guy can switch attitudes in a matter of minutes.** "Just one more thing." He pulled something out of a desk drawer and put it on the desk. It was Liz's bookbag. "Somebody turned in this bookbag. It *is* yours, isn't it??"
Liz stared at it for a second. She couldn't figure out how it had anything to do with the cat-and-mouse game Valenti had been playing with her. And then the connection dawned on her. She had put her Crashdown uniform in that bookbag. With the bloodstains buried underneath the ketchup stains, and the bullet hole. She had totally forgotten about that while carrying the bag around yesterday. Then the bag went missing, and now it turned up in the sheriff's station. Except...
Nobody had 'turned it in.' Liz was sure of that, just as she was sure that if she looked inside, she would find no uniform. Somewhere, somehow, Sheriff James Valenti the second had deliberately set out to obtain the bookbag and he had succeeded. She couldn't even imagine how he had guessed its significance, and she didn't care. **Was it last night, was he in my room while I was sleeping? Or while I was out at the movies with Alex? Did he do the break and enter job himself or somehow convince one of the deputies to do his dirty work and never say a word??**
Liz couldn't wait to get out of that building. Being there, sharing air with the quote unquote 'lawman' James Valenti, was chilling her right down to the bone.
* * * * *
"A shot was fired," Valenti ranted, pacing back and forth in his office not fifteen minutes later. "There's a bullet hole in the dress. I'm telling you, the girl was shot!!"
The slightly short man sitting down to the side of Valenti's desk stroked his beard thoughtfully. He was mostly bald, with just a bit of dark hair over each ear to complement the patch growing out of his chin, and wore a beige long-sleeved shirt, a dark green vest, and a matching tie. In front of him on the desk were a silver-colored metallic briefcase and a blue waitress' uniform.
Valenti stared at the new man. After several seconds' pause, he slowly and deliberately stood up, not saying a word.
"What are you doing?"
"I have a flying saucer sighting in Phoenix," Agent Stevens said as he opened the case and casually put the uniform inside. "An accountant in Barstow who thinks he's Jesus. Both cases were more solid than this." He said the sentences matter-of-factly, but it was impossible to tell whether he truly believed them or was just trying to puncture Sheriff Valenti's certainties. "I'll have this checked out at the lab." To judge from his tone of voice, he didn't expect that much to come of the checkout. "Call me, Sheriff, if you ever have anything... *real.*" He draped his coat over his arm and left the office.
Valenti hurried after Stevens as he left the station. "Listen, you guys told me to call you if something went down. What happens now?"
"I have the lab check out the dress," Stevens repeated like he was talking to a six-year-old. "I'm gonna handle this case in the proper manner without getting too personal, and I suggest you do the same." He put his sunglasses on.
"I'm not walkin' away from this," Valenti declared, coming to a determined stop a few feet away from Stevens' car. "I'm gonna be a part of this investigation."
Stevens turned around to face him down. "Sheriff, do you know what everyone used to call your father?? Sergeant Martian." Stevens laughed without humor. "You don't wanna end up like him." He opened his car door and got inside.
Valenti moved closer until he was leaning his hand on the car near Stevens' window and looking inside. "Agent Stevens, I was eight years old when my father discovered that corpse. My whole life I thought he was as crazy as everyone else did, crazy to believe. Now I'm not so sure." From the look in the Sheriff's face, one might think he was looking for reassurance, something that was certainly a rare event.
Stevens thought himself up to the task. "Thank you Sheriff. Your work is done now, we'll take it from here." And he started the car and pulled out.
* * * * *
Liz hurried all the way to the other end of the art room, not feeling that a closed door was enough protection. She tossed the book bag onto a table and spun around to face Max Evans. "I need to know the truth, Max."
Max just looked her, seeming somewhat out of place in his blue West Roswell High gym shirt. (Liz had essentially dragged Max out of a gym class - wrestling - to talk to him now.) "I need to know everything, Or I'll... I'm just going to go to Valenti and tell him everything I know."
Liz felt horrible making that threat. But on the other hand, she felt as if she deserved to know. If Valenti was going to be using Liz and her friends as pawns in whatever he was trying to do to Max, the more Liz knew the better she'd be able to protect him.
For another thing, Liz needed a little reassurance that she actually *wanted* to protect Max Evans... That picture - what if Max Evans could have been responsible for that too. He was an alien, he didn't have to age in the same way that humans did. Maybe he wandered the earth, killing people and saving the lives of others as it suited his whim. Liz wasn't so sure she wanted to lie to Valenti to protect someone like that.
"Okay," Max said softly. He didn't seem at all disappointed in the threat Liz had just made, he didn't refer to it at all. To him it was probably just a reasonable request that Liz want to know more of the facts. Now she felt embarassed.
"Okay." Her mind was blanking. Fortunately, she had prepared for that, and dug a little slip of paper out of her jacket. She had wrote a few questions out on the ride back to school without letting Alex or the deputy know what she was doing, by *volunteering* to be in the back this time. "All right, here we go. 'Where did you come from?'" She looked up from the note to see Max's reaction.
For an instant his face was filled with disappointment, pain, and loneliness, and then it cleared as Max tried to answer her question matter-of-factly. "I don't know. When the ship crashed I wasn't born yet."
Liz asked her first unscripted follow-up. "So there was a crash?"
"All I know is, it wasn't a weather balloon that fell that night," Max answered in that same half-joking tone he had used when he said he preferred to be called 'not of this earth.'
Okay... Liz decided to try going a little further afield. "The ship crashed in 1947. But you're sixteen... I mean, are you?"
"We were in some kind of incubation pods," Max explained.
"We??" Liz picked up on, cutting him off.
"Me, my sister, Michael Guerin, and Tess Martin." Liz couldn't contain a smirk and a soft chuckle, and Max picked up on that. "What??"
"Well... I mean, everyone knows that the four of you date... or at least used to." For a wild fraction of a second Liz wondered if it could be possible that all this was a joke. That Max and the people he had just named were ordinary human teenagers who had planned out one heck of a prank, that she really never had been shot.
"Well, you hear such horror stories about dating outside of your species," Max teased. "Last winter, there was this weird V-shape constellation and it kind of - triggered dreams. Very intimate dreams. So yeah... it's a long story, but now we date. Kind of the easiest way of dealing with what we think might be an alien mating instinct."
Liz shook her head. *WAY* too much information, though she might want to ask more about that later, once she was mentally buttressed and what have you. "Okay, moving right along... what powers do you have??"
"Well, I can heal people or animals, when they've been hurt... as you know." Max shrugged diffidently. "When I touch them and look into their eyes, it's like I make a connection. And... we can all manipulate molecular structures."
"What does that mean?" Liz put in. "I mean... I know what the words mean, but what does it mean in practice??"
Max looked around quickly and settled on a tube made of see-through plastic and containing some yellow paint. He concentrated, and new color swirled inside it, finally coming to rest with all of the visible paint being a delicate pink. He handed it over to her.
"I... see..." Liz said slowly, after a few seconds. "The pigments that made this appear yellow are just simple organic compounds, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen in typical proportions. It's the shape of the pigment molecule that makes yellow light reflect off it. By rearranging how the atoms fit together, you destroyed the yellow color and created a pink pigment." Max nodded in agreement.
Liz was lost in thought for a second. Yes, it was a simple demonstration Max had just made for her. But what a power that was. Molecular structure quite literally provided quite literally the foundation of the world around them. With this kind of abilities, Max and his friends could open doors in solid walls, change what writing appeared on virtually any sheet of paper. It was almost certainly the foundation for the healing powers Max had used to save her life. The cellular structures of her body had been disarrayed by the bullet, and Max had restored them by altering the molecules that made up those cells.
It was also a power that could kill - like on Valenti's corpse, perhaps. Alter the molecules of the heart muscle so that they could no longer beat properly.
Max was looking at her. **Move on, quickly... if he hasn't figured this stuff out already, he doesn't need YOU giving him ideas.** "Max, who else knows this??"
"The four of us... and now you."
"What about your parents??" Liz couldn't believe that they would all keep this secret from their parents, (or in Michael Guerin's case, possibly a foster parent, she wasn't sure.)
"We don't tell anyone," Max told her gently. "We sorta think our lives depend on it."
"But then..." For a second Liz had trouble phrasing her thoughts into words. "When you healed me, you risked all this getting out, didn't you?"
"Yeah."
"So why did you do it??"
Max sighed. "Tess asked me that same question last night. I kinda let her believe that it was just altruistic intentions, that I wouldn't have let anyone die under those circumstances if I could possibly help it, that kind of thing. But I'm not sure that's true."
"Um... okay," Liz replied, starting to feel uncomfortable about this.
"I think the fact that it was you... had something to do with it," Max continued slowly. "Not like I've been secretly in love with you and life would lose all meaning if you weren't in this world," he disclaimed. "I love Tess and I'm happy with her. But... I've been aware of you, Liz Parker. I've admired you. And it was the thought of such a senseless tragedy wiping out a life as full of promise as yours that pushed me out of the booth the day before yesterday."
"Okay..." Liz repeated, feeling vaguely flattered. Suddenly, something else occured to her. "Max... what about that handprint. What does it mean??"
"I don't know," Max admitted. "I mean... we've all discovered that we can leave glowing handprints like that on purpose, They fade out after about a day and a half. And I kinda get the impression that there's some... significance to them, although I couldn't quite tell you what. But that one on your stomach was the first time I'd ever seen one that the four of us didn't leave intentionally."
"Valenti showed me a photo of a corpse," Liz told him. "A murder victim. It had the same silver handprint on its chest."
"That can't be," Max said in surprise.
"The photo was marked 1959," Liz continued.
"That's impossible!"
Liz knew she had to tell him the worst now. "Alex saw the handprint on my stomach, and Valenti stole the waitress uniform with the bullet hole in it. He asked me if you were in the cafe during the shooting. Max, he suspects you."
Now, it was Max who was rushing away. "Max..." Liz called after him.
"I have to go," he mumbled over his shoulder.
"Wait, go, where? Where are you going!?" As Max slipped out the art room door, Liz rushed to follow him. "Max, wait! Max!!"
As Liz burst out into the corridor, a pack of strange-looking creatures in shades of gold, green, silver, and purple screamed around her. Liz bashed into a furry brown alien, and screamed. It took her a few seconds to realize that these 'aliens' were just fellow high school students, excited and already in their costumes for the Crash festival tonight.
* * * * *
Max sighed as he climbed up the long straight staircase in his parents' house. This was the first stop, to pick up his essentials, fill Isabel in on the situation, call ahead to Tess and Michael. Then swing by the Martin house and rendezvous with Michael about halfway from the trailer park.
Everything had changed now. Before Liz had told him about that interview with Valenti, he had bene the firmest apologetic for staying in Roswell, hiding in plain sight, pretending to be ordinary kids. **But hiding in plain sight only works against people who don't know exactly what to look for.** Mentally, Max had just done a complete flip-flop. Leaving town was their only way.
He passed by Isabel's door and swung it open witout knocking. Iz was lying on her back on her bed, already in her spandex seven-of-nine-ish costume, legs up in the air, trying to straighten out some detail with her boots or something. "Forget the festival," Max blurted out. "It's time to leave.
Isabel sat up and looked at him, a stunned expression on her face.
TO BE CONTINUED...