Whom among us, part twelve

Author: Chris Kenworthy

Email: Chris_Kenworthy@yahoo.com

Disclaimer: No, I don't own any of the Roswell characters. I don't plan to steal them and lock them up in white rooms either. ;-) I just let them out to play from time to time and see what happens.

Distribution: Distribute anywhere you like, now based at http://www.fanfiction.net/~chriskenworthy

Feedback: YES PLEASE!

Category: Roswell future-fic

Rating: PG

Summary: Liz's life changes when, as a university junior, she runs into Max again.

Spoilers: Up to 'end of the world,' kinda

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Kyle sat restlessly in one of the small seats of the 'Pod Squad's RV, crammed in between the driver's seat and some kind of a storage chest.

His usual routine had certainly gotten shaken and stirred this weekend, and he could tell that that feeling was not exactly unique to him. When Max and Isabel Evans had gone to Tempe, Arizona, they had unknowingly set off a chain reaction of events that had, among other things, led Kyle right into this seat, barreling down Route 70 on the stretch between Alamagordo and Roswell, the final leg of their trip that had started at the Arizona State campus.

It wasn't that Kyle resented the sudden disruption in his life. Way back when, he had normally upset when the alien shenanigans intruded on his idyllic high-school existence, but the days of being a football jock at West Roswell High were far behind him now. He'd felt himself drift into a repetitive groove at University, and was glad that something had come along to jostle him out. But still...

He looked towards the passenger seat, and there was Tess, still, Staring off into the distance ahead of the RV, where Max and his small team of Liz and Bentor led the caravan from the second car. Once, so long ago, Kyle had been wondering if he was falling in love with Tess Harding. Had even wondered if she loved him, though she had never hinted at it. And then, she and the rest of them had left Roswell without any goodbyes, choosing their destiny and their mission instead of the people they had met in the alien capital of the US. That seems to have settled that question.

Now, Kyle wasn't sure how he felt about Tess, about any of them. The nagging questions were chattering in the back of his mind, where he couldn't quiet them entirely, preying on his peace of mind. Well, when all else fails, bite the bullet.

Kyle got up, put his hand on the back of the passenger seat (which only took one step forward,) and cleared his throat, trying to get Tess' attention. She shook herself as if startled slightly, and looked up to face him. Something nostalgic stirred in Kyle as those crystal blue eyes locked with his. "Hey, you wanna talk? I'm... a little bored."

Tess was silent for an instant, and then nodded. "Sure. Davin." She nodded at the slightly older-looking hybrid and undid her shoulder belt, getting out of the bucket seat.

"Send someone else up here, 'kay?" Davin whispered softly. "Just to make sure I don't drift off." He needn't have spoken, though, as Kenner was already heading forward into the cockpit of the trailer.

"So..." Kyle sighed as Tess settled into the seat opposite him, feeling a little nervous because Davin and Kenner were well within earshot. The entire RV was short on 'out of earshot,' of course, and it didn't seem like Tess had any secrets from these people, but still.

"So," Tess replied with a reassuring smile.

"We hardly spoke a word to each other beyond 'hello' when I turned up in Arizona, did we?" Kyle blurted out awkwardly. "I mean... well, there was a time when we were close, wasn't there? Living in the same house... and even after you left our place we spent a lot of time together, right??"

"Of course we did," Tess admitted, with a trace of bemusement in her voice. "You remember it as well as I do."

"Well then..." But Kyle couldn't find the words, yet. Tess cocked her head slightly, as if from that angle she could better read his face.

"Are you upset that I never said goodbye??" Kyle shook his head, but without conviction, since that was a part of it. "Max left Liz a note when we left... did you know about that? No, I guess you wouldn't have. I didn't find out about it for more than a year." Tess sighed. "I'm sorry. I would have handled things some other way - almost any other way - if I had had a choice. But I didn't. What was, was, because that was the way it had to be."

"And now you and Max are husband and wife," Kyle said slowly, trying to keep any trace of emotion out of his voice as he said the words. "For real, now."

"We are," Tess was staring at Kyle again. "Kyle, are you..."

"Did you know I was going to ask you to the spring dance??" Kyle blurted out. "I had it all planned out... the limo, the tux, the corsage for you. I went to your locker to ask you, Monday morning a week before the dance, and Max was there with you, the two of you, laughing and touching each other. I could hardly even say hello before you were telling me how excited you were to be escorting *him* to the festivities."

"Oh, god," Tess breathed, a mortified look on her face... and then her mouth quirked slightly in a long-ago amusement. "I wondered how you ended up with Arlene Peterson."

Kyle didn't dignify that with a response. "I fell in love with you that spring, Tess, and no sooner did I realize it than you weren't there for me anymore. Within a few weeks, you simply weren't *there*. Period. It took me a long time to figure out how to stop falling."

"Kyle..." Tess whispered, more serious now. "I... I never realized you felt that way either. You were very important to me, especially at that time in my life, but... what can I say? Max is the only man I've ever loved. If there was something I could have done, to spare you the pain, then I would have, but..."

"You couldn't," Kyle muttered hollowly. "That's the way love is. No matter how foolish or inappropriate it is, there's no way to keep it from running its course. That's the beauty, and that's the horror of it." He sighed. "I... I didn't really mean to throw all this in your face, Tess."

"Maybe it's best that we actually had it out," Tess said, attempting a faint smile. "Oh, look! We're heading into Roswell."

Kyle was all too happy to remain quiet and watch the old familiar landmarks, rendered into ghosts by the combination of night-dark, streetlamp, and headlight.

* * * *

"Right through here." Liz focused on Max's voice as she climbed on her hands and knees through the hidden tunnel behind what was left of Isabel's pod. So many years later, threads of alien substance still hung down and brushed Liz's forehead and cheeks, making her skin crawl. She nerved herself not to back up and leave.

And then she was through, or at least her head was, and the granilith room opening itself up in front of her. Liz had never been here, but she couldn't help recognize it from Maria's descriptions. She'd always expected a much bigger space, but that mysterious inverted cone said it all. The Granilith. Capital T, Capital G.

This is what brought Future Max back, Liz thought, so intensely she was actually surprised she could help but give voice to the words. This is what ruined my last hopes for a true reunion with Max.

But the Granilith just hummed along, as blissfully unaware of how much she despised it as only an inanimate thing could be. Belatedly Liz realized that she was still blocking the entrance tunnel and scrambled free.

"Hey, Liz, over here," Max called the pedestal at the base of the cone. A control unit of some kind? Tess was standing beside him, looking disgustingly radiant in a gown that looked like it had been poured from the Milky Way itself. When had she changed into *that*??

"What *is* the Granilith, exactly," Liz asked as she walked up to the pair of them. "Did you ever find that out??"

"Pretty much," Max told her, smiling obliquely. "Primarily, the granilith functions to facilitate the genetic alteration of living things. It has a large store of reseve power though, to perform quantum reality manipulations, and that's what we'll be using tonight."

"We don't need to touch any of the Granilith's higher functions at all," Tess continued, breathlessly. Smiling at everyone. "We just need to release a pulse of energy and see what it bounces off, out in space. Care to do the honors, Max??" She waved at the pedestal, which was flashing a large, lime green circle as if it was a huge push-button.

"Delighted," Max agreed, reaching out and tapping the indicator.

A pulse of what seemed like ripples in the air emerged from the Granilith cone and spread out through the room, fading as they did so. "Don't worry," Max said, to no-one in particular as far as Liz could tell. "That was just a small side effect. The true energy pulse was directed outward."

Liz nodded vaguely, and then gasped in shock. A cloud of those ripples in the air seemed to be surrounding her, closing in on her. "Max, help!!" she called, trying to reach him, feeling ironically like Super-man trapped in the time window, unable to touch Lois Lane through it. (Now where had *that* image come from??)

Max and Tess were looking at her with less concern than annoyance visible on their faces. "Liz, what's with you??" Tess asked as the bubble of ripples closed in around her body.

Once anything was clear again, Liz could tell instantly that she wasn't where she had been. Brilliant starlight shone all around her. Slowly she realized that she was standing on a small hilltop, her feet suddenly bare against the the white sand underneath them. She couldn't see the plain that this sand hill presumably rose out of - it was shrouded in darkness. But everything right around her was brightly lit, though the stars didn't seem THAT luminous. It was as if the light came from nowhere at all - she couldn't even see it directly, just the things that it illuminated.

"Liz!" The voice came from behind her, and Liz thought she recognized it as she spun around, then she was distracted with realizing that she was wearing a purple flowered sundress. A sundress that she distinctly remembered cutting into ribbons, if it came to that. The air was warm and dry against her skin, not too hot.

And then Liz actually looked at the man she was now facing. "Max. Future Max??" His appearance was unmistakeable, every detail of the leather clothing, the long dark hair, even down to the tiniest bit of stubble above his lip. "Do... do you recognize me??" she blurted out. "Not just that I'm Liz, but..." She trailed off, not sure how to put it into words.

"I remember," Future Max assured her, with a smile. "I remember coming back for you. Back through time. I remember telling you about our wedding. I remember dancing with you on your balcony, just before I had to leave. Liz, I still believe..."

Liz shook herself out of the magic of the moment. "Do you remember what you came back to do? How we got you to leave me and fall in love with Tess?"

Future Max's face frown in perplexity. "No... no, I don't," he admitted.

"And *how* do you remember?" Liz continued. "You left because your timeline had collapsed completely. So where are we now??" She looked out over the hillside to the dark plain beyong, confused herself. "What is this place?? Is it the future?"

"This is Esparoweel," another familiar voice. Liz turned around and was somehow unsurprised to see Maria. She looked seventeen again, with her hair flowing down from two pins in the back, wearing a red spandex top, a miniskirt, green boots and a pair of tights that were almost hot pink. (When did Liz remember that outfit from??) "It's, well... some kind of place trapped between the dimensions."

"How did we get here?" Liz asked.

"The granilith brought us all here," Maria replied. "Don't you remember that much, Liz??"

The granilith... yes, she did remember. All of a sudden, another cloud of ripples appeared, 'depositing' Isabel a few yards away from them. "Isabel??"

"Alex?" Isabel turned toward's Liz's voice, but her eyes had no recognition in them.

"She's in pretty bad shape," Maria muttered softly. "Not that much left."

"Alex will be here soon, Isabel," Liz blurted out for some reason, and then turned back to Future Max. "Can we... talk? Alone, you know??"

"It's not too safe to wander far from the hilltop," Maria pointed out.

"Wait a second." Future Max waved a hand, and Maria and Isabel vanished. Liz blinked in surprise.

"Where did they go?"

"They're right here, but neither group of us can see, hear, or even touch each other," Future Max told her. "Wow, I didn't know I could do that."

Seized by a irresistible impulse, Liz leaned up on her tiptoes and brought Future Max's face down to meet hers. She'd never kissed Future Max, though she'd wanted to. While they were sharing that magic dance, especially, she'd wanted to. She'd been waiting for the right moment... and then he was gone. In more ways than one.

When his lips touched hers, it took her breath away and ran tingly, hot and cold sensation down her arms and her legs. She smiled, and lowered her arms, not caring that one of the straps of the sundress slipped off her shoulder, and brought her hands up beneath Future Max's jacket, Soon they were tumbling to the soft white sand, and kissing again.

An image flashed into Liz's mind. Herself, Max, Tess, and Isabel. Back in the granilith chamber... they had received an echolocation from the space capsule. Good for them.

Wait a second... herself??

"What am I doing back there?" she whispered.

"Back where??"

"I'm still in the granilith chamber. I can *see* myself there. Why am I still there??" Liz could see herself opening a pad of scratch paper and starting to make rough calculations, in point of fact.

"I'm not that good about explaining..."

"Then drop the obscurity field," Liz snapped, opening her eyes. Future Max groaned. "Drop it!!"

Future Max waved a hand slightly, and Maria, Isabel, and Alex popped into existence. Alex? Yes, he was here too now, and making up for lost time with Isabel, apparently.

"Why am I still in the granilith chamber??" Liz asked Maria. She closed her eyes to check on the gang. Yes, Alex was there too now, though she couldn't see Isabel.

"Why... why wouldn't you??"

"I..." For a second Liz couldn't think of an answer to that. "How can I be here and there at the same time??"

"Well, aren't we all??" Maria shook her head. "I'm back in Roswell, aren't I? When the granilith frees us, one part of us stays behind in Roswell, while the true believer inside us comes here."

"The true believer??" Liz repeated.

"The part of you that never stops trusting in the first love. The part that will never accept destiny."

It was starting to hit home. "So... that Liz Parker who is in the Granilith chamber..."

"She's accepted reality," Alex filled in, in between kisses. "She's moved on, the more fool her. Put Max behind her."

Liz considered that, and shuddered.

"But *you* don't have to!!" Maria insisted, "Here in Esparoweel, you never have to admit that. You can stay here, forever, with Max." She looked at Future Max. "Or the closest available approximation. Sometime, I know that the granilith is going to free Michael too, and then he'll come to me."

"But wait a second," Liz muttered, feeling confused. "When were *you* freed, Maria? The only time you've been to the granilith chamber was years ago, and in all that time you *never* moved on, you never lost faith in Michael."

"I'm sorry, Liz."

Liz waited for the end of that... and then it struck her that everything had changed again. Some strange trick of Esparoweel?? No... reality was hitting her.

The whole thing had been a dream. She was waking up in the RV... and Davin was watching her from the door. "I didn't mean to wake you up, Miss Parker."

"No," she yawned, "it's alright. What is it??"

"The granilith test run was successful. As soon as you're all set to plot a course, we can finally find our capsule."

Liz smiled at him, as she remembered what had really happened. As the caravan arrived in Roswell at around 1:30 am, it had suddenly hit them that there would be no computer stores open until the morning. Michael, Isabel, and Davin had headed up to the Maideckizne rocks and the granilith chamber, to test whether they could get an echo from the capsule. Everyone else had taken to bed in the RV, or the tent that had been pitched next to it in the park, until the morning.

"What time is it?"

"Not quite 5 am. You should get back to sleep."

"No, I couldn't." Not after such a weird dream, at least. Davin smiled and closed the door, and Liz crawled out from under the covers and pulled her clothes from last night back on. She tried to get out the door without looking at Max and Tess sleeping in the double bed, all sweetly cuddled together. And failed miserably.

As she walked through the streets of Roswell in the pre-dawn hours, Liz found her feet taking her towards Maria's building. (She had only been there once, almost a year ago, but from the regular phone calls she knew that Maria was still living there.) Step down through the well-flora'd courtyard and knock on the door.

No answer, of course.

Something inside Liz was unwilling to wait to see her best friend. Sure, it was early, but not early enough that Maria would be uber-pissed, right? And Maria DeLuca being herself, there would have to be, somewhere around here...

Ah, there it was, Third flower-pot from the left, just as Liz had guessed, Buried just underneath the surface of the potting soil was a small metal object. A 'safety key.' She took it to the door and made her way in, locking the front door again behind her.

It took a while for Liz's eyes to adjust to the dimness inside, with heavy drapes drawn over all the windows, but she didn't want to risk waking up a room-mate, (or apartment-mate, Liz supposed,) by turning on a light. Once she could make out the dimness well enough, Liz carefully tiptoed down the hall and into the room that she knew was Maria's, pulling up a chair beside the bed.

"Mare? Sorry to wake you up so early, but, well... surprise!!"

"Go away," Maria moaned without opening her eyes, and rolled over to face the wall.

"Not a chance," Liz whispered. reaching out to shake her friends' shoulder slightly. "Maria, it's Liz. I know it's early, but, well, I kinda need to talk to you."

"Liz??" Somehow that got partway into Maria's sleepy brain. "You can't be Liz. Liz is in Arizona, I just talked to her yesterday."

"It was the day before yesterday," Liz corrected, "and it doesn't take that long to drive from Arizona to Roswell. Sorry I forgot to let you know we were coming last night, but everything was crazy."

"Liz??" Maria repeated again, turning back over and opening her eyes. "Is it really you??" Obviously the light wasn't bright enough for Maria to make out Liz's face, because she flailed an arm out and switched on the small lamp on the bedside table, wincing at its brightness a second later.

"Yeah, it's me, bug," Liz laughed... somehow dredging up that nickname from over twelve years ago. "Surprise!!"

"Boomer," Maria laughed, and gave Liz a big hug. "So, what are you doing here in Rosw..." She broke off, guessing part of the answer. "Chechoslovakian-related??"

"What do *you* think," Liz shot back, laughing.

It was not quite fifteen minutes before Maria was quickly cleaned up, dressed, and the two of them leaving the apartment, to avoid waking up Maria's apartmentmate. "So... you're here to use the Granilith to trace this space capsule thingee??" Maria repeated as they walked up the courtyard steps.

"That's the plan," Liz confirmed. "Michael brought you in there that one time, didn't he??"

"Yeah, not long after they found it," Maria confirmed. "Why??"

After a slight pause, Liz started retelling her dream. By the time she was done, Maria was shaking her head and trying to keep from letting a laugh escape.

"Girl, you got some serious Max Evans issues," Maria laughed.

"So... you wanna tag along with the merry men?" Liz asked. "Everyone *else* is."

"Sure, what the heck," Maria laughed. "So... how tight to Michael and Isabel..." she apparently couldn't keep from scoffing at the two names together, "seem? Really??"

* * * *

Too many people were crammed inside the Granilith chamber - the REAL one this time.

"So, Max..." Maria whispered, sidling up beside the hybrid king. "Just what have you been putting my Lizzie through??"

"What?" It took a second for Max to get his mental balance. "Look, I'll admit that this situation hasn't been ideal for anybody. But it was Liz's idea to help out, and I haven't been keeping her here..."

"If you two are just going to bicker about me," Liz called out, "can you go out and do it among the pods?" She turned to Isabel. "Another pulse." Isabel obliged, touching the granilith base and making the necessary mental command. Liz clicked a stopwatch at the same time, then turned to Bentor. "Do these energy pulses travel at the speed of light??"

"Uh, yes, take away perhaps half a percentage point. Why... you are seeking to use the elapsed time as a measure of distance??" the seer guessed.

"Got it in one. We need to identify this thing's precise position in space as well as we can, and there's no time to match it against the old course plans we drew up. Three measurements to pinpoint an object in space, that's altitude, azimuth, and distance for us." A light appeared on one of the walls of the chamber, that had been jury-rigged into a primitive display screen, and Liz stopped the chronometer. "Okay... we'll wait five minutes before doing it again,"

Once the ritual had been repeated, Liz nodded, began a printout from the laptop computer that Max had purchased for her in town, and closed the lid. "That's it," she announced to Max, who had been waiting silently all this time, though Maria had left, perhaps in search of Michael Guerin. "We've got an estimated landing point, and now that I know where this thing is, we can watch along the way for course corrections."

"That... that's it?" Max muttered. "Do we have to get going right away??"

"If we have any hope in hell of catching this thing, yes we do," Liz replied sharply.

"Where's the estimated landing point??" Isabel asked.

"Alberta."

TO BE CONTINUED...