Title: "Not sure yet." (Yes, that's a title.)

Part: 3

Author: Chris Kenworthy

Email: chrisk@fanfiction.net

Series: Roswell Dreams. Sequel to 'In another world.'

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. :]

Home archive: http://www.fanfiction.net/~chriskenworthy

Category: Alt universe, skewed reality season 1. UC couples leading to CC couples.

Spoilers: Pilot and 'Morning after'

Liz opened up her lunch bag. She and Alex were sitting alone on one of the concrete risers out behind the high school. "So, I mean, it's impossible... right?? That she's not who she says she is?"

"A geometry teacher?" Alex took a bite out of his sandwich and looked over at her, a worried expression on her face. "I'd be surprised if that was all she was."

"What??"

"I've been doing a little crash research ever since you told me, Liz," he continued with a sigh. "Every source that is willing to accept that aliens on earth is a reality agrees on one thing - wherever there's a sighting or a suspicious incident, federal agents don't take long to arrive. Hushing up public knowledge of whatever went down and trying to get to the bottom of it themselves."

"Alex!!" Liz shook her head in frustration. "You're pulling my leg, aren't you?? Trying to make me think Ms Topolsky is... is an 'X-files' agent or something like that."

"Liz, trust me, I am very serious here!!" Alex insisted. "Where do you think they got the idea for that show?? Now, I'm not saying that it's Topolsky for sure. But sooner or later, one or more alien hunters are going to show up here at West Roswell High, and we have to be suspicious of every new face."

"Hmmph." Liz sighed to herself a moment. "Well, if that's so, what do you think that we can do??"

Alex mulled over that a bit. "Maybe it's time we considered bringing Maria into this. She's got good instincts."

"No, we can't!!" Liz insisted. "Look, Alex, there's no way we can ever tell *anyone* else about this!!"

"Well then what else can we do?" Alex countered. "You can't deny that things are getting creepy. We don't even know how far we can trust your little 'Albanian' friends. We won't make it as just the two of us against the galaxy, Liz. We need some help."

Somehow, at the same time both of their gazes were drawn across the field, where Maria sat on a bench with her back half turned towards where they were sitting. She was sketching something out on a large pad which Liz recognized the pattern of - a star chart. Maria fancied herself as an amateur astrologist, among other things, and had developed quite a patter line for mapping the stars and planets of vague acquaintances. Today, the victim was apparently one of Kyle Valenti's buddies from the football team. It seemed to Liz as if she could almost hear her best girlfriend as she gestured emphatically at a particularly dramatic moment - and lost her grip on the pad, which flipped into the grass, the pages spilling out every which way that they could.

"I know she doesn't look like much, but she's the only secret weapon we've got access to," Alex whispered softly.

* * * * *

Jim Valenti strode into his office in a foul mood. An FBI agent sitting in the middle of his station?? And Jim had to essentially threaten to throw him out physically to get him to leave. He sat down, picked up the telephone, and dialed a number.

"Federal Bureau of Investigations, Santa Fe. My name is Amy. How may I direct your call today??"

"Hello, Amy," Jim drawled sardonically. "John Stevens please - that's Stevens with a v as in Victor."

"Thank you sir, one moment please." There was a faint click, but the next voice Jim heard was still Amy's. "My apologies, sir, but Special Agent Stevens has flagged the do not disturb option on his extension. I can connect you to his voice mail if you like..."

Valenti didn't even respond to that - the voice mail of an FBI special agent was like a black hole - nothing good ever emerged from it again. "But he sent an agent into my building! I think I have a right to an immediate explanation..."

"Or if you like," Amy continued, talking over him without even seeming to notice that he was there, "you can try again later when Special Agent Stevens may not be so busy..."

"No, I won't call back."

"Or if you like, I can take a note and personally remind Mister Stevens to return your call - say tomorrow, at nine thirty in the morning, schedule permitting??"

"No, *tomorrow* is not acceptable!!" Valenti raged into the phone.

"I'm sorry if I haven't been able to meet your needs today, but..." Amy started, and Valenti saw the brush-off coming.

"Yeah, I'm sorry about it too. Listen..."

"Thank you for calling the New Mexico Bureau of Investigations."

"No, excuse me..."

"Have a nice day!!" The line clicked dead.

"Hello? Hello!?" Jim barked into the phone, but he knew it was hopeless. He hung his own handpiece up too. An awful suspicion was starting to play around the edges of his mind. It was a fantastic piece of paranoia perhaps, but Valenti had spent enough time around men like Stevens to know that paranoia was not only healthy, it could sometimes be required. He opened his private files and started to fish around, looking for something.

He sorted through endless photos and witness depositions. They weren't of the utmost importance. Valenti had memorized them all, and if Stevens confiscated them all, they probably wouldn't tell him anything that he didn't already know from the FBI's own research. Of course, they represented physical evidence, and for that reason alone they were valuable to Jim. But he didn't think he'd be able to save, if Stevens was being as methodical as usual.

Ah, there it was. A single piece of typewriter-quality paper, only five inches by eight and a half. Both sides of it were covered in strange symbols and writing, inscribed in what looked like green-colored ballpoint ink. Jim could probably replicate this also from memory, but he still hadn't figured out its meaning and thus might miss some critical detail. Plus, he was absolutely certain that it was nothing like anything that Stevens had, and he wanted things to stay that way.

Looking around, his eyes fell on a framed picture of himself and Kyle on his desk. That would do. Taking the back off the frame, he winced and folded the paper into three sections along its width - it had never experienced so much as a crease before. But necessary sacrifices - the resulting package was small enough to fit into the four by six space easily. He restored the back and returned the frame to its usual place. He doubted that any of Stevens' goons would disturb that.

* * * * *

Liz had actually forgotten the whole mess with the geometry substitute teacher and Alex's warning by the time fifth period let out. She was just racing down the corridor, hoping to be in time to get one of the good seats near a window for study hall, when she felt herself collide with someone and realized, belatedly, that she hadn't been watching where she was going.

File folders scattered everywhere. "Uhh... Mrs. Topolsky!!" she muttered, surprised as she recognized her collidee."

She looked up. "Parker. Liz."

Liz blinked. "Yeah..."

Her confusion must have shown through that syllable, because Topolsky grinned quirkily. "Photographic memory," she explained, almost apologetically.

"Really - like eidetic recall?" Topolsky's face went blank. "I, I, uh never met anyone with a photographic memory before."

"Helps in my line of work." Now, what did she mean by that?? Well, a substitute teacher probably had to learn and remember a lot, looking at a page once and being able to visualize it would probably be useful, yeah.

It was weird - at the same moment, both of them became aware of all the papers that Miss Topolsky had dropped. "Here, let me help you with that," Liz mumbled, squatting down and reaching for one of the fallen folders.

"No, that's okay," Topolsky blurted out, practically snatching the file away from Liz's vicinity. Liz watched for an uncomfortable moment as the teacher tried to get everything in order, and then very tentatively and carefully picked up a folder that had ended up behind her foot. Topolsky accepted this with a little more grace - she was almost put back together by this time, but when the files shifter for an instant, she could see a familiar face looking back at her from within the folder. A photograph - Tess Martin's picture.

"Thanks, Liz." And then Topolsky was gone. It belatedly occured to Liz that she should have tried to find some way to look for photos in the other files, but there had been no time. She stood there, in the middle of the corridor, study hall forgotten. It was hard to be sure, now, that she'd even seen what she thought she had.

No - she definitely had seen Tess' photo in that folder. And come to think of it, Topolsky had been behaving very suspiciously all through that exchange - as if she had something to hide.

The question was, what did she, Liz Parker, do about it now?

* * * * *

So, after last class ended, Liz found herself trying to find one Miss Tess Martin. She quickly cruised past Max's locker and the corridor where she thought she had seen Tess herself, but no luck. She finally spotted a familiar face dimly through the windshield of a blue SUV and hurried over, waving. Tess slowed down and came to a stop, and Liz dashed out in front of the vehicle to come around to the driver's side window and talk to her.

Suddenly the engine roared, and Liz realized that Tess HADN'T actually seen her - she had only been waiting at the stop sign. Liz shrieked, and then Tess finally turned and saw her and yelped herself, slamming on the brakes. The front fender of the car lightly touched Liz's shins.

"Parker, are you trying to get yourself killed??" Tess shouted through the glass.

Her heart still racing, Liz turned around and tried a new tack. She opened up the passenger seat and got in without waiting for an invitation. "Drive," she ordered softly, pulling the shoulder-strap seat belt snugly around her.

Tess seemed about to challenge this, but perhaps there was something in Liz's voice that she didn't feel comfortable arguing with right away. As they pulled away and travelled several blocks away from school grounds without being seen, Liz started to relax. Tess took that as her cue.

"What the hell is this all about??"

"I... I came to warn you," Liz stuttered out, still nervous and feeling more than a little foolish about, as Tess had put it, 'trying to get herself killed.' "Miss... Miss Topolsky."

"Gawd, are we back on her again?? She's just a substitute teacher, Liz. You're jumping at shadows."

"Then why did she pull your file from the school records, Tess?" Liz jabbed back, and had the satisfaction of seeing the other girl jump a little in surprise. "I bumped into her this afternoon, sent a bunch of her papers flying. Some of them were DEFINITELY about you - your picture."

"Well, maybe she's..." the sentence died away as Tess presumably couldn't think of an innocuous reason why a substitute teacher would have her files. She turned up a fairly quiet-looking residential street. "Well, what do you want me to do??"

"I... I don't know," Liz muttered, as Tess slowly cruised up the street. The thought suddenly ran through her mind that this was Max's girlfriend, and how she would feel if it had been Max whose picture was in those records. Suddenly the answer was clear. "Maybe stay clear of school? Just until we've figured out what her deal is??"

"You mean ditch??" Tess pulled into a driveway and turned off the motor. "Well, it's not like I don't appreciate the excuse, I guess." She opened the door. "Well, thanks for the warning, Liz. It's good to know that there's someone else looking out for us, I guess." The look she was throwing Liz unmistakeably said 'Get out of my car, I'll deal with this from here.'

Liz did get out, but as she looked around she couldn't help wonder what she was going to do next. Ending up in this situation wasn't something that had gone through her mind when she got into Tess' car. "Um, listen, could I go in and use your phone??"

Tess sighed, and looked around. "I guess. Derron's here, though." She gestured to a car out parked out on the street in front of her house. "Don't talk to him unless you're spoken to, okay? Last thing I want is the two of you to get into a conversation."

What did that mean? Who was this Derron. "Step-father? Your mom's new boyfriend?"

"Personal Assistant," Tess said cryptically as she led the way across her lawn. Liz followed the other girl up the porch steps and through the front door into the house.

"Tess, hi. Ohh - and you've brought home a new friend!! What's your name??"

"Let's not go that far," Tess mumbled softly - presumably about Liz being her friend. But Derron wouldn't have been able to hear her - Liz could only just make it out.

The man waiting for them in the living room was short, only an inch taller than Liz or Tess (and neither of them were tall girls,) with very short hair, shaved down to a fraction of an inch and dyed a brilliant shade of blonde, black-rimmed glasses with small lenses, wearing a white dress shirt, gray tie, black dress pants and shoes. He seemed, to Liz, more than a little effete but also friendly and likeable.

"Umm... Lis Parker, sir," Liz answered him softly.

"Liz just came in to use the phone, Derron," Tess said firmly. "I'll show her where it is." As she led Liz out through another open doorway, she whispered quietly "My mom worries about me being a 'latchkey teenager' with her having to work late hours. So she sends Derron around to check in on me pretty often." She stopped and made a dramatic gesture. "Voila - phone."

Liz picked up the handset and called the DeLuca residence. Maria agreed to come right over and pick her up.

* * * * *

Things came to a head at the Martin house a little later that evening. Max had come over to pick Tess up to go out for pizza, and bumped into Michael on his way in, who Tess has called over to discuss what Liz had told her. Once Max found what they were so worked up about, he called Isabel to come over and join the meeting. (And for backup, as Michael muttered out loud.)

"You're being ridiculous," was Isabel's first comment. "I mean, granted, I haven't even seen this subsitute teacher," (Isabel was already taking junior math - Trig,) "But there is *no* way that a government operative is going to show up in geometry class, of all places. NO WAY." Michael could tell that she was trying to convince herself as much as she was trying to make her point to the rest of them.

"Why not??" Tess fired back. "I mean, if there are alien hunters, they're not retarded. If this situation calls for subtlety, and I think I can see why it might, what better cover story than a teacher?? Since we're high school students, they're automatically part of the scenery."

Michael broke in. "I'm not sure about this Topolsky chick, but there are definitely government agents in Roswell." Everyone stared at him. "Valenti threw one out of his station this morning. Two more have been watching the place without bugging him."

Isabel shook her head in disbelief. "Is that what you've been doing all day?? Watching the sheriff's station for suspicious characters??"

"Isn't it a good thing that I did?" Michael shot back blithely. "Maybe they're looking to take that photograph off of him. Don't you think we'd better break them to the punch?"

"Break into the sheriff's station?" From her tone of voice, even Tess thought that was a little risky. "Do you even have a plan or anything, Michael??"

"Not yet," he replied enigmatically. Before anyone could ask Michael exactly what he meant by that, the front door opened.

"Tess?" Carol Martin called as she came into the front hall. "Oh -- cheer, cheer, the gang's all here." She smiled at Max, Michael, and Isabel - she knew them all, of course. Tess had been friends with all three since before Carol had adopted her. "What's going on??"

"I was just paying a quick drive-by visit," Isabel quickly blurted out, and Michael nodded in agreement.

"Okay." Carol turned to Max and Tess. "D'you wanna stay for dinner, Max?? I've got a chicken stir-fry ready to go into the frying pan, as it were."

"Actually, we were planning on..." Tess changed her mind in midsentence and looked up at Max, who nodded slightly. "Yeah, we'll stay Mom."

As Michael and Isabel stepped down the front walk, Isabel half-smiled over at him. "So... well, we could go and grab something to eat. Y'know, just as friends."

"Maybe another time," Michael mumbled. "I've gotta go buy some peanut clusters."

* * * * *

Kathleen sat on the hotel bed, waiting for the telephone to ring. Her instructions, the ones she had burned and flushed last night, had told her she would be getting a call - between 8 and 8:15 she thought, though she had been waiting at 6 and 7 just in case she had misremembered. (She wished she really *had* photographic memory, but that had just been to cover the fact that she recognized Liz Parker on first sight.)

Had there been more to that collision with Parker than met the eye?? Topolsky couldn't be sure. After picking up that geometry class, Kathleen had tried to settle into her role as guidance counsellor, and pulled some files from records, including the one of her three suspects who was doing worst in geometry class, Tess Martin. (She had figured it would seem less suspicious to be pulling files on middling students than honors kids.) She had also found that Evans, comma Max had a sister in the same grade, Evans, comma Isabel, and added Isabel mentally to her investigate list. She had asked Tania the gofer if the Evans kids were twins, but Tania didn't know.

Topolsky had also found an apartment that was within the funds she had available, but it wouldn't be ready for her to move in until the day after tomorrow, so that sounded like another two nights in the hotel.

And then the telephone rang, and Kathleen had scooped it up before the first ring had finished. "Yes?"

"About fourteen, sixteen dollars," a voice mumbled over the line. Oh! Kathleen hadn't realized that this code word would be repeated, but it made a little sense. She fought to remember the correct response yet again.

"Sounds like a great bargain to me."

"Good evening, Agent Topolsky. Did you have a productive day??"

"I... I think so." The voice seemed familiar - of course, the CD message. "Agent Stevens, sir."

"Tell me about it, briefly." Topolsky summarized her activities at the school, and Stevens mmmed agreeably.

"May I ask, sir... what is this about?? What is Max Evans suspected of??"

"Of being an agent of an alien power."

"A spy for a hostile foreign country??" Wouldn't that be a job for the CIA or NSA?? No, not necessarily, considering that he was operating within US borders, Kathleen remembered. Federal Bureau did monitor such suspects that came to their attention.

"No, Agent Topolsky," the voice corrected. "Not for a foreign country here on earth."

"What??" It took Kathleen a second to process that qualification. "So, when you said alien, you mean... alien alien?? As in extraterrestrial?"

"Precisely. Agent Topolsky. Aliens are quite definitely real."

She couldn't resist asking. "And a flying saucer really landed in Roswell in 1947??"

"I'm not allowed to comment on that, but for the purposes of this investigation, you should probably consider the reality of the Roswell Incident a strong possibility."

Tess shook that off and got back to business. "What evidence do you have? Is Tess Martin a suspect? Max's sister Isabel?? What, exactly, were Liz Parker and Alex Whitman witnesses to??"

"Miss Martin was in the company of Evans at the time of a suspicious incident that came to my attention, so yes, she is probably under some suspicion. We have no cause to suspect Max's sister except for the fact that she is that." And Stevens began to tell her about an argument in a cafe...

* * * * *

It was a little after ten thirty, and "Sleepless in Seattle" had finished. Liz and Maria were indulging in a little 'girls' night in' required ritual - a sweet treat that would normally be off limits. In this case, chocolate hazelnut swirl ice cream.

"Okay, so the big date with Whitman is tomorrow night," Maria recapped, pulling a long string of her ice cream out of the bowl with her spoon, nutty bits and all. "What are you gonna wear??"

"Um, I don't know." Dressing up specially for pizza and a walk in the park with Alex hadn't really occured to her. "My black sleeveless top and red skirt, I guess."

"Hmmm... not bad," Maria decided. "But he's already seen you in that outfit. Karen Riley's cabin party in June, remember??"

Liz scowled. "Well, what do you expect, then? Alex has probably seen every outfit I own, we've been friends for years. And I don't have the time or money to go and buy an all-new outfit before tomorrow."

Maria sighed. "Well, good thing I keep a few emergency date clothes. We can pick something out for you a little later." She sighed and took another mouthful of the ice cream. "By the way, I was meaning to ask you something about the Crash festival."

Liz blinked in surprise, having to be careful not to spit out her own mouthful. "What? Ask away."

"Well, it was really weird. Sheriff Valenti grabbed me like he thought I had done something wrong. But then he realized who I was, and Kyle was there - he asked Kyle where we had been, and then left. Do you have any idea what that was about??"

"Uh, no, no, I really don't," Liz blurted out. Maria's eyes narrowed a little, and Liz realized that she might have said the wrong thing. Any number of people could have seen the stunt they had pulled, with Tess pretending to heal Alex in a costume identical to Maria's and then running away -- anyone could have told Maria that they were involved. Should she change her answer.

But Maria shook the moment off, and soon they were talking about gossip and movies.

* * * * *

Topolsky walked back into the geometry class room - the principal had asked her to keep covering Mister Singer's classes, for the sake of continuity, and she had been more than happy enough to agree, if only to keep an eye on her watch list.

She was still reeling from the background that Stevens had told her, and the additional revelation that a suit agent would be contacting her this afternoon to be of any assistance that he could. She was paying even less attention to the lesson material than the previous day, and that was how it happened.

"Okay, and the interior angles of any quadrilateral will add up to one hundred and eighty degrees," and I heard Liz mutter something ending in 'she talking about.' "Miss Parker, do you have something that you'd like to share with the rest of the class?"

"Three hundred and sixty degrees," she announced out loud, simply.

"What was that??"

"It's a *quadrilateral.* The sum of the angles add up to three hundred and sixty degrees, a full circle." I was stunned at the correction, and not certain if she was right or not, so I stayed silent, which only gave her an opportunity to wax more eloquent.

"You can try it on a square if you like - a square's a good example of a quadrilateral, right??" Liz Parker's voice was condescending, as if she fancied herself the teacher and saw Kathleen herself as a student, and not a bright one at that. "Four right angles, which make up the four quarters of a circle." Some other student waved a paper in the air, demonstrating, a circle cut into four quarters, and a rough square with quarter-circular arcs indicated at the four vertices. Everyone was starting to laugh.

"THAT IS ENOUGH!!" I shouted. "You have made your point, Miss Parker, and quite ably. I made a mistake. That is *no* excuse to show such disrespect."

"I'm sorry, Miss Tolopsky," Liz said, with a sudden facade of meekness, her hands in her lap. "Should I go to the principal's office and say I'm sorry??"

Topolsky wondered. Just what would Parker say to Forrester if Kathleen took her up on that suggestion?? She decided not to risk it. "The latter will be quite sufficient, Liz. After all, what would the rest of us do without you to check my work??"

The kids laughed again, more kindly. Making herself the point of the joke had been a good move. Still she waited, waiting to see if Liz would actually follow through.

"I'm sorry, Miss Topolsky."

"Okay." Kathleen returned to the front. "So, three hundred and sixty for a quadrilateral. Can anyone tell me how many circles the internal angles of a pentagon would make up??"

TO BE CONTINUED...