Whom among us, part seventeen

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

Dedication: This part dedicated to fondaroswell, cameraman, and of course Trude. ;)

Liz clung to the nearest body, which happened to be Max, with one arm and tried to peer through the trees in the direction that the blast had come. For an instant, she saw a man-like figure pointing the palm of his hand and firing a devastating energy pulse somewhat to the side of their direction. "Kaffarran?" she whispered hoarsely. "What are they doing here??"

"Damnit," Sanren swore, human-fashion, in an undertone, as he stepped Kyle's body close to them. "I thought I'd lost the Kaffarrans two planets back... how'd they know to look for me here??"

Max, Tess, and Liz all turned to stare at Sanren. "Umm... we had a run-in with the Kaffarrans in Arizona," Tess muttered, also trying to keep her voice down. "Or maybe two. We assumed that they were after us, but if they've been chasing you..."

"Sshhh," Michael interrupted, hurrying over towards them with a supportive arm around Maria. Liz nodded, realizing that against those horrible android-things, any sound might give them away, no matter how quiet they tried to be. "Strategy??" Michael mouthed silently. Isabel and Alex were also heading in to join the loose huddle.

Max considered, waving at the space capsule to indicate that they couldn't leave it behind, and then indulging in some gesturing and pointing that was hopefully meant to help him think silently, rather than to communicate his thoughts to the others. Liz watched as he looked the group over, his gaze lingering over Tess, Isabel, and Liz herself, and then he swallowed hard in the way that she knew meant he was coming to terms with a hard necessity.

First he held up two fingers silently. "Stalk and awe" he mouthed without voice... at least, that was the best guess she could make of what he was trying to say. He pointed to himself, and to Isabel, and questioningly to Alex. "Rear guard?" he asked in that same silent mouth-only fashion.

For a split moment Alex considered, and then he nodded grimly. "No hero," Max warned silently. Then he pointed to Michael, and Tess, and Liz herself, and she understood without being asked that the deal was similar. She was there to keep watch wherever the two of them couldn't, not to indulge in foolish heroics, considering that she had no way to defend herself. She nodded ready acceptance.

Finally, Max turned to Maria and Kyle/Sanren, and indicated the space capsule. then a huge patch of overgrown bushes. Once again, the meaning seemed perfectly clear. Since Sanren had given up his powers in the psychic transfer, and Maria didn't have any, they would watch over the space capsule from hiding and try to find some way to raise an alarm safely if the bounty hunters managed to get this far.

Without a word, they seperated into teams.

* * * *

Michael turned around for just a second to look back at Liz. She nodded at him... the coast was clear behind them, as far as she could tell. He smiled and stepped behind a tree. Liz hunkered down behind a thick bush and watched herself.

Soon, she could see the figure of one of the Kafarran bounty hunters hurrying down the path. All of a sudden, Michael stepped out, his right hand towards the enemy, the base of the palm pushed out furthest, fingers spread. There was a huge shock wave and a flash of light that Liz couldn't really see. Suddenly the android (or exoskeleton, or whatever,) was down on the ground.

Now Tess was on the scene too, streaming unearthly energy towards the fallen figure. Michael contributed a stream of red fire. The Kaffarran struggled, and tried to scream, but both efforts failed as its body started to spark, sizzle, and melt.

Suddenly, Michael nodded, and both he and Tess turned and ran past Liz's hiding place. She hurried to get up and follow them. The sounds of other intruders were quickly converging on this area.

* * * *

Alex rushed away from the approaching automaton... all of a sudden he stumbled and fell to the ground, obviously struggling to get back onto his feet before it was too late. As he got his legs back under him, he quickly ran under a huge, flat rock overhand and rushed away.

The Kaffarran followed relentlessly, not deviating an inch from his path. All of a sudden, just when the bounty hunter was right under the middle of the overhang, there was an ominous crack, and not more than a second later... the huge slab of stone fell. Straight down. It had to be easily three hundred metric tonnes pressing straight down on that artificial body. As far as either Max or Isabel could tell, the two stone faces now met smoothly, without any indication of an obstruction between them.

"These Kaffarrans may be powerful and all that, but they're not that bright," Alex whispered.

* * * *

Isabel walked quietly up behind Michael as the two teams rendezvous-ed. Very carefully, she touched her fingers to the back of his hand and initiated a low-level mental dialog, hoping that this form of communication wasn't even more obvious than talking. It shouldn't be... Tess was good at sensing the use of the power, and yet she couldn't even tell when the two of them were doing this six feet away... unless she knew by the expression on their faces, of course.

**What are we looking at??** she asked mentally.

**They've come together,** Michael replied, waving down a slope through the trees. Sure enough, the remaining Kaffarrans had adopted their own strategies... there were three of them moving together as a unit, with one of them watching behind.

**They're being cautious too... don't think you're gonna lure them into another booby trap like that rock drop,** Michael added after a few minutes.

Isabel considered. With all three of them together, they wouldn't be able to use a sudden ambush and numerical superiority to disable any of the exoskeleton units again either. **Then we play that up. Scare them, try and make them jump at shadows. At least we can try to slow them down.**

And they tried. But the Kaffarrans were canny, not easily fooled, and soon all six of them were running out of plausible ruses. As the hunting party's search pattern started to bring them closer to the space capsule's hiding place, Max made a decision again.

He waved Alex and Liz away and brought the rest to him, obviously ready to face all three bounty hunters in a last, desperate stand to protect his father's retreat.

Suddenly, something stopped him. The blue sky and sunlight above them all darkened, as some sort of thick gray veil materialized about thirty feet above their heads... it seemed to cover the whole area. And then a voice rang out.

Kyle's voice.

"You are here for Sanren of Liaret, are you not?? Then come for me!!"

Everyone froze for a long moment. And then the lead android stepped towards the source of the voice. Max moved slightly to make certain that he was immediately in between.

"Don't interfere, Max. Any of you!!" Sanren called out again. "This is between me and them, now. I don't want you getting hurt over my dealings."

And so, very reluctantly, Max walked aside. So did the rest of them, and the bounty hunters calmly proceeded past them.

"Uhhh... wait a second??" Liz asked suddenly. "What do they want to do with him?? Is Kyle in danger?"

* * * *

(A few minutes earlier...)

Maria looked around from where she was crouched down almost flat in hiding. It had been a long time since they had heard the loud crash, and none of the teams had come back to check on them. What if something had gone wrong?? What if they were all lying out there in the woods somewhere, dead or dying??

Sanren jogged her elbow slightly and pointed. She didn't know if Sanren had somehow been aware of her nervousness, but as she looked she caught a glimpse of Michael and Iz a long way away... seeming perfectly healthy if concentrated on whatever it was they were doing.

Something occured to Maria then, and she poked Sanren back. (How weird was it for Max and Isabel's dad to be here on earth, and to be sharing Kyle's body of all things??) When he looked at her, she pointed at him, then at the space capsule, mimed putting a bowl-shaped helmet down onto her head and pulling a huge switch, and finally made a swooshing gesture with one of her hands flying to the sky. If these androids were after Sanren, shouldn't he use the psychic transfer gizmo inside the space capsule to get back to his own body?? Once he'd left, maybe the Kaffarrans would leave the rest of them alone... though there would be the problem of convincing them that Sanren had left the planet, she supposed. At least *he* would be safe, though.

Sanren seemed to have understood Maria's charades, but he shook his head. Pointed down in the direction that they had seen Michael and Isabel, repeating the point to emphasize further, beyond them. Waved his hands, (or Kyle's hands, whatever,) flat in front of him, fingers waving. Duplicated Maria's swoosh gesture, except that his swooshing hand ricocheted off the other hand, held flat as a barrier, and zoomed down again.

Maria understood him too, pretty much. The bounty hunters were somehow generating some interference that would prevent the transfer device from working correctly, that might even somehow capture Sanren's psychic essence if he tried to use it, or leave him stranded without a body. Certainly better not to risk that, she agreed.

After a long few seconds, another thought occured to her. She pointed back to the space capsule again, and then mimed a huge roundhouse punch, hoping that her meaning was clear. If Sanren couldn't use the space capsule to escape, could he use it to fight the Kaffarrans?

Kyle's face creased as Sanren considered this. Then he replied, pointing to the capsule himself and mimicking her roundhouse punch, (knocking some of his own fingers as stand-in androids,) then putting his two hands together at right angles to indicate a readout with the level low. Then putting the bowl helmet down over his head, and the swooshing hand unable to rise at all.

If he uses the energy of the probe to fight the Kaffarrans, he won't have any to get home, Maria realized. She nodded her understanding to Sanren, but to her surprise he wasn't there!! She looked around frantically saw him at the controls to the capsule.

Quickly a huge dark shadow appeared overhead, obscuring the sun. Maria gasped, and as he noticed her, Sanren waved Maria well back. She got up and edged away, very slowly, trying to keep him in sight.

"You are here for Sanren of Liaret, are you not??" he called out. Maria froze. "Then come for me!!"

There was a long pause, and then Sanren added, still in a clear and carrying voice, "Don't interfere, Max. Any of you! This is between me and them now. I don't want you getting hurt over my dealings!"

The silence was ominous, and Maria shivered. All she could hope was that Sanren knew what he was doing, that he wanted to draw the enemy into some kind of trap.

Soon enough, they appeared... or at any rate, three people that she didn't know walked into the clearing area. Their expessions did seem to be a little inflexible, too. Like wax statues come to life.

"So who is it, anyway??" Sanren asked them. "Archduke Melfis??"

"The red peerage of Bertilsandew," the Kaffarran in the middle answered, in a smooth and very human-sounding tenor. "They seemed most excited about the idea of having your essence imprisoned in a restraining crystal to keep in their great sanctuary hall."

"I'll go willingly under one condition." Sanren shot back. "On the moon Zaltrix three... all eight hellseas freeze over!!" And then he punched fiercely at a button on the space capsule.

It happened so fast that Maria wasn't quite sure that she'd seen it at first... that what she saw had actually happened. It was like... well, it wasn't really like anything else Maria had ever seen, which was another part of the problem that she had graspiing it. It reminded her vaguely of some half-remembered cartoon where a character steps on a section of floor that turns out to be at the arm of a catapult... which device automatically goes off, of course. Except here there was, obviously, no actual catapult.

Each of the three enemy aliens had suddenly been boosted up and backwards by some unimaginable, invisible force... attaining such huge speeds in a split fraction that Maria was sure it must have strained their systems, nearly indestructible metal or not. She was pretty sure that she had heard some kind of faint cry echoing over the wind as they departed.

What happened next was a blur... until she was being shaken out of her stunned trance by Liz on one side and Alex on the other. "Mar... what happened??"

"It... he..." Maria shook her head, which still seemed full of confusions, and decided that, having no answers to Alex's question, she might as well ask some herself. "Sanren... did you really..."

Kyle's head nodded slowly... gravely. "A fairly simple kick-out with the emergency impulse engine. I didn't think they'd be expecting it."

"Do-- do you mean..." Tess muttered. "Was that really the Kaffarrans we saw through the trees..." She pointed overhead with a singe finger.

"Yeah," Maria muttered.

"Wow," Michael muttered, overwhelmed by... what?? The elelegance of Sanren's solution? The sheer that had been necessary to carry it off?! Or just the simple fact that they were safe for the moment?

"How far did you send them?" Max asked.

"Umm..." Sanren thought about that. Was he working out the physics of their trajectory or just converting the end result into units that would be relevant for the earth-born? "Probably I got ten miles... maybe eleven or twelve. But more importantly, after that double impact, they'll be in bad shape. Probably not dead... but I don't think any of them will be up for heading back here for a few days at least."

"Really?" Liz asked, and Sanren nodded. "Whew!!" There were similar expressions of relief and muted celebration all around.

And that was when they heard the sound of engines pulling up the trail. The guys tensed up, not sure if it was Kaffarran reinforcements or ordinary tourists... but it wasn't either.

"Hey, chief." It was Davin, driving the RV. Kenner was bringing up the rear with Max's car, and Maria figured that the others were riding along. "We came in as soon as the field came down. Sorry it took so long to find you. What's the what with that capsule??" Max started filling him in and re-introducing him to his liege lord.

"Of course," Alex laughed. "The cavalry arrives just in time to be entirely too late, after our heroes have dispatched the bad guys."

"Watch it with them smartass remarks if you want a ride, bud," Isabel teased him.

* * * *

They set up camp after about twenty minute's drive in the general direction away from that in which the bounty hunters had been thrown... not that anyone disbelieved Sanren's judgement that they had seen the last of them, but just because the thought of going nearer to them made most of the group slightly more uneasy than creating a wider cushion of space.

After a bit of discussion, the 'shadow field' had been kept up -- which turned out to be a recharge feature of the space capsule, so that it could replenish the energy that had been used to boost the Kaffarrans into their trajectory, and once that had happened enough Sanren would be able to return to the Zxygahtsien moon and resume the journey to Antar, in his own body.

"Should be 'all systems go' by a half an hour before sunset," the old Antarian monarch said when he checked the capsule controls while the camp site was being set up. A jury-rigged trailer had been set up so that they could take the capsule with them, towing it behind Max's car. "Until then, we have some more talking to do."

Max checked his watch and was surprised to see that it wasn't even eleven in the morning. Between the desperate race up to Alberta, all of the strangeness of the reality warp, and the cat and mouse games with the Kaffarran bounty hunters, he felt tired enough for it to be sunset already, if not next Saturday. But... "Yeah, I think I'd like that."

So the two of them sat on a park picnic table for a while, Max and Sanren, sharing little moments from their lives since they'd been separated. At one point, something caught Sanren's eye, and he pointed it out to Max. Maria was leaning up against the back of a tree, forcing a smile as Michael insisted on patching up the several minor injuries she had picked up during the Kaffarran encounter.

"He loves her very much," Sanren remarked softly. "And I think she'll be good for him."

For a second, Max couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Dad!! Michael and Isabel are married now... you do realize that, right??"

For a very long moment Sanren was silent. "Yes, I do realize it," he said finally. "What I'm not sure is if it's a good thing." Max just stared at him.

"Okay." Sanren shook his head. "When I was taken by the Targlateanu, it took me a while, but eventually I realized that they had started a new life for me... an existence in which the rules and conditions I had grown accustomed to had been totally thrown out the window. And, bit by bit, I realized that with a new life, you need to make all of the big choices of life over again. You don't have to make them differently, but you should try and make them for the right reasons.

"The four of you have been given a new life, Max -- even more literally than I was, and I wanted to try to find some way to talk to each of you about this before I had to go. I'd be the last one to argue against fidelity and constancy... but these are far from the usual circumstances."

"Dad... what are you..." Max was belatedly getting the feeling that his whole universe was about to shift.

"Now... it doesn't take a telepath to realize that you and Tess, also, found a very treasurable connection with a young human of the opposite gender when you were younger... you with Liz Parker, Tess with... well, with Kyle himself." Sanren chuckled at the irony of discussing this, given that he was still occupying Kyle's body. "And I think that you turned away from those relationships, re-affirmed your marriage because you thought that it was the only right thing to do. Mm?"

"Yeah... I guess you could say that," Max mumbled.

"I don't believe that. If you're really sure that you belong with Tess, or that you've travelled far enough with her that you can't bear to split up and start again... well, I'm not in any position to second-guess your choices."

"He said, after totally..." Max started, then decided not to finish the thought.

"Hey." Sanren actually managed to twist Kyle's face into a classic 'Dad' look. "I'm just offering a little fatherly advice here - a perspective that you may not have thought of. It's up to you what you do with it."

"Riight..." Max thought a second. "So was there anything else?? I think I've gotten the point that you were trying to get across... though I have to admit, I really have no clue what I want to 'do with it.'"

"Give it a little time," Sanren suggested. "I suspect you'll figure out what's right... and who's right for you... before too long."

"Maybe." Max smiled. "Well, you've got a little time before you have to go have 'the talk' with anyone else, I guess. Let me ask you this -- did you make any 'new choices' out there in the unknown sectors of the galaxy?? Anything you wouldn't be anxious to tell Mom about??"

Sanren grimaced a little. "There was someone, I'll admit that... and to your mother, too, when the time is right. But I had to leave her behind, because there were other things that I needed to do. What I'll do after I've dealt with Kivar... that I'm not sure, I'll admit. Will need to decide which of my lives I want to go back to, I guess."

Something in Max's heart softened. "Tell me about her, this other girlfriend of yours. How did you meet??"

* * * *

Alex had been relaxing against a tree when she came up to him, looking all steely and determined. Isabel. "It's time."

"Umm... huh??" he muttered, though he suspected he did know what she was talking about.

"The psyche-merge... you haven't changed your mind, have you??" Alex shook his head. "Then we're doing it now. I want it to be before my Dad has to go... I'm not sure why."

Alex stood up. "Fine by me. Where??"

She led him into the RV, which was almost empty, though last Alex knew there had been several people playing a board game in there. Isabel waved him into the small, enclosed bedroom, where he was surprised to see the older hybrid woman... what was her name again? Alex was sure that he knew it...

"Ardra will be observing the procedure," Isabel told him, a clinical note in her voice. "Monitoring our general mental energies, and attempting to correct any problem that might arise... not that I expect anything."

"I'd rather this was being done under the care of another telepathic master," Ardra muttered softly. "But there aren't any available, and I'm the next best thing. Still sure you want to go ahead, mister Whitman??"

Alex froze a second, and then he looked into Isabel's eyes. "Yes."

They had him lie down near the edge of the bed, and Isabel knelt beside him, their heads close together. She reached out, touched the far side of his face, and then spread her hand so that the back fingers were spreading through the hair behind his ear. Slowly he became aware of something... not something physical. Her presence in his mind.

**Thank you for doing this for me, Alex.** Iz told him silently. **I hope that neither of us regrets it.**

And then... there was blackness, an unconsciousness so profound that Alex could feel it.

The next thing that he remembered, Ardra was gone, and Isabel was sitting in the chair that the other woman had occupied. He couldn't sense any difference in the character of his mind right away, but as he looked into Isabel's face he could tell that she was already aware of a tremendous difference.

"Well... THAT I didn't expect, I have to admit," she whispered.

* * * *

Liz was looking over the space capsule... trying to get her mind around the idea that they had actually found it, that this was what they'd been racing towards ever since her fateful meeting with Max back in Arizona, more than... what, twelve hundred miles away from where they stood now in Alberta.

And to think that this pile of unearthly electronics had brought Max and Isabel's alien father here to meet with them... it still boggled her mind. She ran her hand an inch above the exposed circuits, careful not to disturb anything, but hoping for some clue as to how it could accomplish a feat that went so far beyond human dreams.

"Hard to believe that the quest is over, isn't it??" Liz looked up, to see Michael Guerin smiling that old, familiar, crooked grin at her. "I wanted to make sure that I thanked you... and that I apologized."

Liz blinked in surprise. "That isn't really necessary, Michael. I understand..."

"I've been rude to you this whole time, and we never would have made it here in time if it weren't for you. I'm so sorry, Liz." He said it slowly, and softly, and Liz felt her heart melt with affection.

"You're very welcome, Michael," she told him back with what she hoped was equal sincerity. "I had my doubts at the start, but I wouldn't have missed any of this for the world... any world. More than one of them, maybe."

Michael laughed. "Umm... there was something that I wanted to ask you."

"Sure, okay." Michael didn't continue immediately. "Ask of me what you will," Liz prompted.

"Welll... erm, you've been staying in touch with Maria, right??"

Liz was starting to get curious now. "Yeah, I have. Well, if you count phone calls every two weeks as staying in touch. And I guess the case could be made that she's been the one who's been staying in touch with me, though it's not as if..."

"Not really the point," Michael muttered, and Liz realized that she had been babbling. "The thing is... you know what's going on in her life back in Roswell, more or less, right??"

"Well, yeah, I think I do at least."

"Is she seeing anybody??" After that, Michael could have knocked Liz over with a feather, but apparently he mistook her surprised silence for uncertainty or something... or maybe he started talking again out of uncertainty. "Does she have a boyfriend? Fiance? Husband??"

"Yeah, yeah, I got the notion," Liz assured him quickly. "And no, I haven't heard anything about that. A few blind dates recently that haven't gone too well... but she hasn't been seeing anybody for a while." And then she couldn't resist. "Why are you asking, Michael?? Are you..."

"Sanren said some stuff to me," Michael said quickly, and somehow that shut Liz up. "So... you're probably missing some classes, huh?"

Liz blinked again and realized that he was right. "It's... what, it's Tuesday, isn't it??" Michael considered a moment, and nodded. "I haven't even been thinking about school, or about classes. I guess I'd better be heading back pretty soon though, huh??"

"Might be an idea," Michael agreed lazily. "If university and getting your degree is something that's important to you, of course." He wasn't being sardonic, Liz realized... he was allowing for the possibility that what she'd been through over the past few days might have drastically changed her priorities... and in many ways, it had.

But not there, she realized. "Yeah, it really is."

Michael smiled and headed on his way. After a moment or two Liz turned away from the capsule's exposed innards herself.

* * * *

"I am so glad that I was able to come, and that you were able to meet me," Sanren said that evening, embracing each of them in farewell. "It has been the one true solace to my spirit since I have begun this long journey."

"Good luck, Dad," Max said softly. "Are you... are you sure that you aren't endangering yourself if you go after Kivar alone??"

"I don't really think so. Many of power on the homeworld... even those Kivar counts as his most loyal follower owe allegiance to me that they cannot forswear. That is why he had to remove me from the scene in the first place." He smiled wryly and turned to Isabel. "Take care of your brother, Vil-- Isabel."

She smiled at him. "I will."

"Hey, why didn't you tell me to take care of her??" Max asked.

Sanren just smiled, and put the P.I.T helmet hack over his head. "All ready."

Tess reached out and flipped a big switch, and all of a sudden the solar energy screen faded out, letting the evening light hit on them full. Liz bent down and waved at the figure still hooked up to the space capsule. "Uhh... Kyle??"

"Yeah." Kyle reached up and took the helmet off. "Sanren has left the solar system. MAN, that was weird!!"

Liz laughed. "So... are we heading off now?"

"Not quite yet," Max muttered. Liz turned to look at him. "I know that you have to get back to Arizona, but there's something very important that I need to talk to you about, and I think it would be better to get to it before we hit the road." There was an awkward pause. "If it helps, we've talked about it," he nodded to Michael, "and we should be able to arrange a plane ticket from Calgary to Phoenix for you. You'll be there in time for classes tomorrow morning."

Hmmm... Liz thought about that. She was still behind on sleep... but she could use Davin's meditation technique on the airplane, and she'd be okay until the afternoon, and then she could crash in her room. "Umm... okay, yeah, that's probably a good idea. Where do you want to, umm..." she trailed off.

"Come on." Max led her towards the trail into the woods, and Tess followed. For a long time there was silence, and then Max spoke up again. "Michael and Isabel are ending their marriage."

It took several seconds for that to penetrate with Liz. "Uhh... huh? What?? Oh, my god!!!"

Tess smiled reassuringly. "Totally mutual - and voluntary. Sanren had stuff to tell us, about the choices that we've made, and the reasons why. Michael and Iz decided that he was on to something... that they'd made the choice to be together because it was something they'd come to believe they *HAD* to do, because of their life on our old world."

"That if they had made those choices based on their new lives alone, based on THIS world, they would have done it differently," Max added. "What happened between Isabel and Alex during the psyche merge helped with that. They're joined now, and I'm sure that Isabel never realized how much that would change HER. They're together now, already, and Michael is going to see if he can make things right with Maria. To get back on track with her. It won't be easy, after everything that's happened between them, all the baggage that they both carry, but I think that they can make it work if they try."

Liz's head was spinning. Isabel and Alex... Michael and Maria... she knew how much those pairings meant to her friends, and had given them up as lost causes so many years ago. And by analogy, and the fact that Max and Tess thought it was so important to tell all of this to her... "And... what about the two of you??"

"We're... not sure," Max admitted laconically. Another long pause, as they walked through the quiet woods. "Tess... has made her choice. She loves me and wants to stay with me. But she's also volunteered to step aside if I find out that that... isn't what I need."

Liz looked over at the young hybrid woman and nodded her thanks. That was a decision that she had thought, at the time, the teenage Tess she remembered wasn't capable of. Maybe she hadn't been, back then. "And what do YOU think, Max??"

"I don't know. I.. I love you *so* much, Liz..." he caught her glance, and she could tell that he was sincere, "and I love Tess, too, very much. It seems to me that there's some..." He struggled for the right word for long moments. "Some QUALITATIVE difference between what I feel for the two of you, and that if I can fathom that difference, the right answer will be obvious. But I can't see it for what it is. Maybe I'm not objective enough."

Liz nodded slowly. "I think I know what you mean. I feel so much for you, even after so long... and I feel strongly for Pete too, back in Arizona. I think I've been in love with him for three years, though we've never been able to get our timing together enough to go out on a date." She sighed. "But I'm not sure if I can help you sort out which is which."

"There's one possibility -- even I have to admit it's a little out there." Liz blinked. Tess hadn't said anything for a while, but Liz realized that maybe she wasn't really supposed to. This was between Max and Liz, really... Tess was just along to establish that it was all above board, that nothing was being done behind her back. To show that she approved of Max figuring this out.

"And, umm... and that would be??"

"We have Isabel link our minds, like she did for herself and Alex. There's no secrets in the merge, no mysteries... as the two of them found out. We would know where we stand... that's almost certain."

"And if we find out that we're not meant to be together?" Liz asked. "Isabel warned Alex away from completing the link pretty strongly, as I remember. She thought that sharing her thoughts without sharing her life would be torture for him. I'm not sure that I want to sign myself up for that, or you."

Max smiled. "I think there's a difference. Right now, I'm confident enough in our connection to say that we'll be sharing our lives. The question is how -- as best friends, as husband and wife, as some other relationship that I'm not even seeing right now, but we'll be in each other's lives. And it will be *right.* We just need to figure out what the definition of that relationship would be." He paused. "Of course, if you decide that you don't want to go into the psyche-merge because it's too great an intimacy, I guess that's an answer, too... of a sort."

Liz stood still. She knew that he was right, and she knew what her answer was.

TO BE CONTINUED... ;)