Whom among us, part sixteen

Author: Chris Kenworthy

Email: chrisk@fanfiction.net

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-13

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

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

By the time they had organized and stepped out of the second cabin, an alien dawn was starting to light up the sky. Liz blinked in shock at the clouds lit up in the sky in shades of baby blue and lavender, while the rest of the heavens were beginning to assume a dark peachy color.

"Is a sun going to come up over there, and if so, what will it look like?" Kyle muttered in disbelief.

"Don't be so narrow-minded... it could just as easily be two or three suns," Alex retorted.

"Come on, guys, don't freak," Tess told them. "Remember, this is just another prank of the gamemaster program. We're still on your dearly beloved Earth, the sun and the sky are really the same as they ever were. Only the light entering this reality field has been altered."

"Among maybe a few other effects," Maria mumbled, holding out a compass. "For what it's worth, if anything, that's reading as south by southwest." She pointed out at the alien dawn.

"Probably doesn't mean much," Isabel mumbled.

That wasn't the only thing that had changed. All three of the paths that had been leading away from the cottage last night had vanished, and a single new one set up, leading away in a different direction. "Looks like your guess of the timing was right, Liz," Max said out loud. "The obstacles are gone."

Liz didn't say anything. She hadn't demanded that they leave the cabin right then because of any guess about the timing and the reality field's alternate efforts to block their way and facilitate their progress somewhere. She had done it because of the way their dreams had been coming real at the cabin, and she had had a sex dream about Max that had totally freaked her out. But of course, she couldn't tell people about that... with the possible exception of Maria. Though Max might already know, if the dream had been *real* enough to in some strange way include him... but she couldn't take that chance without knowing for sure.

This path blocked them from stepping off of it, like the first one had, but in a vaguely friendlier way... or was that just the difference that daylight made, strange alien daylight though it was? No, the branches at the side of the road were softer and more flexible, though they restricted you by sheer volume if you were determined to press through.

They walked on in interspersed small talk and silence for about fifteen minutes, according to Liz's watch, which she wasn't sure if she trusted on general principles here inside the warp, but it felt like about fifteen minutes too. Then, the path curved around in a sharp circle, and there it was! The path just deadended, but near the edge of it lay a huge metal object, mostly cylindrical in shape. "The capsule," Michael breathed.

"Little hard to grasp that this is what we've been chasing for... how long?" Isabel whispered. No-one answered her.

It was about three and a half feet in diameter by cross-section, and perhaps eight feet long, with a snub nose at one end. Liz knew that the object she'd been tracking through space had been larger than this, but it had probably jettisoned the propulsion module to crashland in an ocean or something. This was just the payload.

Max rushed forward to investigate, forcing panels open and looking at the circuits and what looked like fiberglass conduits within. He beckoned Tess over, and they discussed a few different topics in hushed tones that Liz couldn't make out into words.

Finally they turned back to the rest.

"It's essentially a Psychic Identity Tranceiver unit, hardwired to a particular frequency and sidereal orientation," Max said.

"And just what does that mean??" Liz asked him.

"Using another P.I.T. terminal, someone can use this one to transmit his self-awareness to earth and into the body of a temporary host here on earth, and then back to his own body when he's done."

"Like the summit?" Alex asked softly.

"Kind of," Max muttered. "That wasn't voluntary, though, those were hostile takeovers. With this unit... well, if we want someone to use it we'll have to connect the designated host up to the equipment and activate the receiver antenna." He sighed. "Do we want to do that?"

"This thing was sent to us for a reason," Michael pointed out. "We've come all this way - are we not going to let it go through with it now?"

"We still don't have any confirming evidence that whoever sent this is friendly," Isabel reminded him. "We might be inviting an enemy agent right amongst us."

"Let 'em come," Max shot back. "The power is rooted in the body - no adept can keep much of his power when using psychic transference. If it's an enemy, we'll be able to handle him and boot him back the way he came using the tranceiver."

"And if the enemy pretends to be a friend??" Liz asked softly.

"Oh, hey," Tess put in, turning back from some readout on the capsule she had been investigating. "There are parameters for the type of host the unit is pre-programmed to accept."

"What kind of host??" Maria asked her straight out.

"Fully human... male gender." That announcement dropped another bombshell.

"Why would an alien want to transfer into a human body??" Michael asked.

"Maybe because that way he can be sure that he can talk to all four of you face to face," Liz thought out. "Instead of beind inside one of your bodies, which could definitely be awkward."

"In any event, this is better from the tactical point of view," Tess commented. "That way, we don't need to worry about him using the powers of whoever's hosting against the rest of us."

"So... are we doing this? And if so... Alex or Kyle??" Maria summarized the questions at issue.

There was a short silence... and Isabel crossed over to stand beside Alex, and somehow the gesture was subtly protecting him from having to bear the responsibility. Liz wondered if this had anything to do with this mind meld thing that Alex had agreed to do for her... she didn't want anyone else messing with Alex's brain before she had a chance to get to it, maybe??

"Okay, I'll do it," Kyle sighed. "Should have expected this." At Max's direction, he sat on a log that had been dragged over next to the capsule, and the strange colander-shaped metal arc was secured into place on top of his head.

"Here's nothing," Tess muttered, and flipped the switch. There was a sudden, sharp impression... like a bolt of lightning whose light wasn't quite in the visible spectrum. Kyle's eyes shut and his head lolled to the side slightly.

"Kyle!!" Maria exclaimed. "Did something go wrong??"

"Not necessarily," Max breathed. "The transfer can be very disorienting." A second after his voice died away, Kyle's eyes opened up again and his body straightened slightly. Slowly, slowly his fingers reached up to the fastenings that attached him to the capsule and undid them. Then, smoothly, Kyle's body rose to its feet and surveyed the rest of them.

Suddenly he focused on one of them. "Max Evans. Once known as Xamiten of the royal house of Liaret, crowned prince and later King of all Antar," Kyle announced... except it was apparent now that this was not Kyle Valenti, that the transfer had been successful in bringing the identity of an alien being into his body.

Max straightened up a little bit himself. "I am. Who is it that I have the pleasure of speaking with."

Kyle chuckled a little. "You may find this difficult to believe, Xam. But I am Sanren of Liaret... your father and predecessor."

There was a sudden pause... broken only by a string of hushed profanities that Isabel was mumbling under her breath. "What the hell is this fucked-up s..." Max hushed her with a brief gesture, never taking his eyes of of Kyle's own.

"I, I..." Max seemed hard put to form words himself, and Liz impulsively hurried up and took his hand, and that seemed to help him come to grips with the situation. "I hate to re-enact the cliche, but here goes: You can't be my father. *My father is dead*."

"'Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated,'" the figure countered. "Mark Twain, yes??"

"I hate to even say this, but... Kyle, man, are you playing some kind of weird trick on us, man??" Alex asked tentatively.

There was silence for a moment. "No... he is here, but so am I, and this is not a jest on either of our parts," Sanren said. "I can allow you to speak with him directly if you so wish."

"Maybe that would be best," Tess suggested. "Kyle???"

"Yeah, here," Kyle quickly replied in his normal voice. "Somebody's definitely in here with me, and though I know I can't tell for sure, I think what he told you was on the up and up."

Max looked over at Tess, who nodded. "How can we be sure that this is really..." she started.

"Buddha sandwiched between Hustler and Busty biker babes," Kyle said quickly, cutting her off. Max shot a look at Tess again. Liz stifled a giggle.

"That's really Kyle," she decided. "Even if an intruder could get at Kyle's memories, there's no way he could have known to pick out that particular recollection so quickly. Only Kyle would have known."

Max turned back to Kyle. "Sanren, maybe you should explain how your death was 'exaggerated.' All of us remember your assasination... our retainers too, who are stuck outside the warp. I touched your body."

"Not quite... Max," Sanren said, seeming to have a momentary difficulty with using the human name. "Do you happen to remember the visitors that were attending court shortly before the assassination attempt?"

The four hybrids looked at each other in confusion for a long moment. "I think I might..." Isabel said softly after a moment. "They were weird-looking guys... kinda looked like a cross between four-foot high spiders and squid..." She turned to Michael and Tess. "Do you remember who I'm talking about?"

"Oh, yeah!!" Tess exclaimed.

"They were visiting dignitaries, from halfway across the galaxy," Michael confirmed.

"Yes, I remember now," Max agreed. "From..." he paused and turned to Sanren. "Would you do the honors??" He still wasn't sure about this being, and wanted to steer clear of either filling in too many of the blanks for an impostor, or letting Sanren fill in the blanks in his own memory through suggestion. Getting him to confirm a detail that Max was reasonably sure he remembered himself seemed like a good step.

"From a star system known as... I guess the closest human equivalent sounds would be Targlateanu." Max nodded in agreement. "And yes, they were visiting dignitaries, although their people were so alien that we didn't understand them very much. Turns out that that problem went both ways.

"They fathomed Khivar's assassination plot, but didn't warn my court or the royal bodyguard or anything. Instead, the Targlatuanians simply went about quietly diverting me from the place of the attack at the planned time, and provided a lifeless replicon to walk right into the trap. Knowing what I do about their technology, I'm not surprised that no-one ever noticed that my body was a fake. They're very good at what they do."

"W... wait a second!!" Isabel exploded. "You're saying that these... these really alien aliens saved your life, but wouldn't let you come back and let us all know that you were alive... you didn't stop them from crowning Max as king in your place. You didn't come back to help when Khivar started a war against us, for crying out loud!!!"

"I know," Sanren agreed. "I really, really couldn't come back to you."

"So what, they..." Michael started, did a bit of a take, and goggled a bit as he stared at Sanren. "Are you telling us that they took you back to their home planet??"

"The one halfway across the galaxy??" Tess added.

"Got it in one." Sanren quirked Kyle's eyebrow up.

"And what did you do there??" Liz couldn't help but ask.

"Well, let's see." Sanren/Kyle looked around, and after a few moments sat down on a tree stump. "These aliens who abducted me, well-- they're..."

"Wait a second," Michael broke in. "You can adjust the reality warp, can't you? Create a slightly more comfortable locale for this meeting?"

Sanren smiled uncomfortably and shook his head. "Actually, I don't think that I can. That warp generator is unfamiliar technology... I was only just barely able to set it to 'protective field' with a little help from a Zxygahtsien native. Without him, I'm competent to turn the field off, and that's about it... but I don't think we want to do that yet."

"Come on, don't be such a baby," Isabel chided Michael as she sat down on the ground not far from Sanren's stump, wrapping her arms around her knees.

"We could go back to the second cabin, maybe," Maria suggested.

"If it's still there, and the setting hasn't changed on us yet again," Alex pointed out.

"I'm not sure that it's a good idea to leave the capsule behind," Max pointed out, "Sanren will need it to get back out of Kyle's body. And I'm not looking forward to taking it with us, powers or no powers. Maybe we should just stay put for now." There was a pause, and no-one objected. A few other people started sitting down on the ground, though Michael and Tess remained standing stubbornly.

"Umm... where was--" Sanren started, but he didn't finish the question before Max supplied the answer.

"The guys who abducted you, the Tarr-glah-tee-ahn-uians...."

"Right. They are beings of principle, refusing to live on any terms than their own... and sometimes I think there isn't anything scarier in the universe than a being that lives by its principles." He chuckled. "At least their principles aren't very far from my own... which is why they wanted me in the first place."

"They're freedom and democracy maniacs... crusaders against dictatorial, oppressive, and totalitarian governments wherever they travel. They admired my campaign to modernize our planet and curtail the unrestricted powers of the old noble houses, and decided that I could do more elsewhere."

"But..." Isabel spluttered for a second. "Everything that you accomplished on Antar fell apart once you were gone. Did they..."

"I'm not sure if they cared, and I did try to make that argument," Sanren assured her. "As far as they were concerned, the needs of the many worlds outweighed the needs of one." He sighed. "On the other hand, just because they had saved my life, I could not abide dedicating it to their cause forever. So, after some determined negotiating on both sides, a deal was struck - I would work for them for a certain length of time, in exchange for the resources I would need to begin my journey back home. I've been on that journey for..." he thought. "Over ten earth-years, about eight Antarian cycles."

"Wait a second," Alex broke in. "I mean, ummm... mister Sanren, sir... your majesty or whatever--"

"You don't need to address me with a title, Alex," Sanren told him with a laugh. "I have no kingdom anymore, not even a house to call my own."

"Umm..." Alex thought about this. It seemed to Liz that leaving the king and lordship issue to one side, Alex was having problems with the idea of calling the true father of the girl he was in love with by his first name. Liz was kinda feeling that herself.

Finally Alex shook his head and skirted the issue. "They brought you from your world to their own in obviously some very fast ship, since you said you were there before you had a chance to object... but you had to work for decades to get a little dinky vessel that would take years more to make the journey home??"

"It wasn't actually like that." Sanren smiled quirkily at him. "They had taken almost six cycles to travel to Antar themselves, following almost exactly the same route I've been travelling, and took me back to their home sector through a Trans-space conduit -- a paranatural phenomenon that allows easy travel across long distances, but only at very infrequent intervals. If I wanted to use that route to get back, I would have been waiting about sixty years more. Also, incidentally, though the subjective time for flying through that passage is about thirty-four seconds, the elapsed time is more than two and a half months."

There was a bit of a pause. "Sorry, didn't mean that to be a 'conversation stopper,'" Sanren said with a wry smile.

"Sorry, um, father..." Max replied. "It's just... what now? You're... well, your physical body is with these Zzigastian people... your spirit is here with us, but that can only be a brief visit. What happens when you go back?"

"Yeah," Tess chimed in. "Are you going to come here, for real?"

"Hopefully, I'll find a way in time," Sanren assured them. "For now, although I'm glad to have found a way to come here and make sure that you're all right, my priorities are on the homeworld. I have a score to settle with the usurper." He said that last with an unmistakeable tone of deadly calmness.

There was a moment's shocked pause. "You're serious, aren't you, D-Dad?" Max asked haltingly. Sanren nodded.

"Then you have to wait until we can join you," Michael announced. "Without us, you're one man going up against a planet. We've been preparing for this for years."

"So eager for the glory of battle," Sanren said, looking up at the young hybrid warrior and shaking his head slightly.

"I've faced battle already," Michael told him matter-of-factly. "But this is more than that."

"There's no way," Sanren told him bluntly. "Leaving aside my personal feelings about bringing the four of you into such a dangerous situation, there's no logistic way. Unless you guys already have a captured starsship ready to launch and have been hanging around Earth because you weren't sure where to go..."

"No such luck," Tess confirmed.

"Not at the moment," Michael confirmed. "But if you can just wait there for a bit, I'm sure we could figure out something..."

"I don't have any more time... not on the scale we'd be talking about, little brave. For a number of reasons... my agreement with the Zxygahtsien for one thing... the advantage of surprise. But come, you don't need to worry about me. I still have friends on the homeworld, including quite a few that Kivar doesn't suspect of being loyal to me. I don't expect great danger... or failure."

Kyle/Sanren looked out into several solemn and uncertain faces. "But enough of that... I've found you, or maybe you've found me. In any case, the universe has reunited family after far too long. We've got a lot of catching up to do."

Isabel was the first to break out laughing, and it spread through the rest of the group.

* * * *

"We got separated very soon after we came out of the pods, or most of us did," Max said. "Tess came out later, she was found by Nasedo -- by the only one of the shapechanging Protectors to win free after the crash. The other three of us found each other in the desert, but when a car came by and stopped, Isabel and I stayed together and Michael hid. We got adopted by that couple who was in the car, the Evanses. Michael went into the foster care system, and Isabel found him again at school, a few years later." He took a breath.

"Just before my sophomore year at high school, Michael and I were in a cafe when Liz got shot - a stray bullet from some stupid argument that had nothing to do with her. I couldn't stand to see her die, so... I used my powers. I healed her. After that, I had to tell her what I knew about us, that I knew I wasn't human, and she told Maria... and Alex, a little later, after he helped us out of a jam and started demanding to know what was going on."

"Nasedo and Tess came to town about half a year later, along with a government organization that was trying to capture or kill us all. During the midst of that Jim Valenti, Kyle's dad, found out the truth about us and decided to help us, but Kyle got mixed up in the whole thing and got shot, accidentally. I healed him too, and that's when *he* found out. A little later, we used the Orbs to get the message from mom, and that's when Kivar's agents here on earth started coming after us." He paused for a reaction from Sanren.

He was blinking sporadically and shaking his head... make that shaking Kyle's head, very slightly, in small jerks. "I knew a little bit about Earth... there had been surveillance missions and such since my father's time. But I never thought that this planet would be so... so dangerous for you. Are humans really that xenophobic or..."

"We didn't know what to expect," Alex blurted out loud. "Speaking on behalf of humanity, I think. It's not that we automatically hate humans for the sake of it, it's that we don't know what we can expect and that's deeply frightening. Considering some of the things that human beings have done to human beings, it's not exactly natural to assume that beings from distant stars will come in peace."

Sanren weighed that. "I understand. My own people, for all that they like to think of themselves as galatically sophisticated, are not that different from you in their hearts, I think." He considered. "And from Kyle Valenti's memory, I know that there are many times that the four of you... five, counting his father - have sacrificed unflinchingly to protect the people that I love. For that I thank you, and I would be honored to call you family as well."

Maria blinked. "Umm... thanks, I guess... even though I still feel like I hardly know you." Liz and Alex seemed to be having a bit of a hard time with this as well.

There was a fairly length silence. "Okay... conversation stopper," Tess quipped.

Sanren seemed puzzled by that for a second, but he must have accessed the expression from Kyle's mind. "Well... okay, tell me more. What have you been doing here on earth since then??"

Michael cleared his throat uncertainly. "Well... fighting and planning a lot, I guess. We found that congresswoman Whittaker was a Skin, an alien agent... tracked her down to her unit in Copper Summit... attacked them... and ended up wiping them out when they counter-attacked Roswell. We started training ourselves in earnest then... we knew that we had to defend ourselves or lose forever. Ummm..." He thought a second. "What was the next really big thing that happened??" He seemed clearly unwilling to bring up the personal stuff in front of Sanren, who he still didn't really know, and so Liz decided not to bring it up herself.

"The summit, the next spring," Isabel said. "Representatives of the other planets contacted us... and their leaders travelled to earth - in other people's bodies, like you are now. Tried to renegotiate bringing us back home, stopping the violence that has sprung up in the local area... Kivar wanted to get the granilith back..." Sanren gasped a little at that reference, "...and to install us as puppet royalty to try and placate the royalists without giving up any real power."

"Of course... we didn't go for that," Tess pointed out. "So the negotiations pretty much broke down."

"Things got hot again as spring turned to summer," Max continued. "A little too many aliens attacking Roswell, where our family and friends were, so we left to draw them away."

"And we'd found clues to the fact that Bentor and the others had been sent to earth too," Isabel added. "So we went to find them..."

"Long story short," Michael broke in. "Some pretty big battles, a few interesting quests, and a lot of time on the road. But we're the ones left standing, and I think that counts for something."

"It sounds very lonely," Sanren muttered, almost in a whisper. "I would have wanted to spare you such a life, if I could. Heavens know I've had to fight far too many battles since I left the homeworld, though probably not quite as literally as you. Haven't you had the chance to have any fun!?"

There was a long silence. "I don't know about you," Alex put in, "but I'm getting pretty hungry. Lunch break, or breakfast, or something like that??"

They started opening up the backpacks and organizing food.

* * * *

"You know, this is actually pretty good," Sanren mentioned, and took another bite of his sandwich. "Though I'm not sure I'd think so if I was tasting it in my true body. What is it called??"

After a moment's hesitation, Liz leaned over to look at his selection. "A hero melt," she decided. "With turkey, ham, bacon, and pepper jack cheese."

Pepper Jack. For a sudden second, since they had been talking about the past so much, Michael couldn't help but flash back to the time, not that long after the year 2001 began, when he caught Brody and Davis and Maria together in the UFO center. They hadn't been doing anything, just sitting together, but somehow Michael knew that they had just kissed.

As far as he knew, neither of them ever knew that he had been there that night. It wasn't that he could blame Maria... he'd been avoiding her and treating her coldly for months... and nothing ever really happened between Maria and Brody, as far as he knew.

But he knew that something small, at least, inside his heart had broken that night.

"Hey... hey there Guerin, you still with us??"

"Huh?" As he looked up, his eyes couldn't focus for a second, and he almost said Maria's name. That would have been a bad idea. It was Isabel that had been talking to him, of course.

"Yeah, I'm here."

All of a sudden, a high-pitched whine erupted from the capsule. Sanren, Max, and Tess hurried over to it. Michael followed them, Isabel and Alex hot on his heels.

"What's going on??" he asked.

"It's stored reserves of energy are running low," Tess muttered.

"Are you going to be able to transfer back, Sanren??" Isabel asked.

"I think so... but we're going to have to shut down the reality warp," Sanren said. "In less than a minute."

"What happens to us when you do??" Alex asked.

"We'll pop back into regular reality, right?" Max asked. Sanren nodded. "Whatever regular reality happens to be at this point."

"I'm pretty sure that the emergency field will bounce us if we happen to be occupying the same space as a tree or whatever," Sanren commented, and flipped a switch.

Reality changed... and Michael found himself hunched down a little bit on one side, presumably so as to avoid a big branch that otherwise would be right where his shoulder had been.

"Okay, this doesn't look too ba--" Alex started, when suddenly a bright blue ball of light streaked through them, almost hitting Maria.

"Duck and cover!!" Max called out. Michael tried to dive towards Maria, but his feet wouldn't move... he crouched down, to present a small target and take a look. Many blades of grass were embedded in the soles of his shoes.

"What the hell is going on??" Isabel asked.

TO BE CONTINUED...