Title: The Saga of the Pod Squad
Part: 3
Author: Chris Kenworthy
E-mail: kelworthchriskweb.net
Homepage: PG-13
Disclaimer: I have no rights over the characters and situations of Roswell, this is a not-for-profit creative outlet so please don't sue me. :]
Synopsis: A broad-strokes picture of what the gang's future SHOULD have been more like after the junior prom. ;)
"Okay, here's the last of the tops," Maria said, holding out a small overnight bag and tossing it into the back of Liz's father's station wagon, which was already crammed with everything she owned, just about. The worst thing was, all of it didn't really seem to take up very much space.
"You sure the CDs and books are all in here??" Liz asked, a little doubtfully. One of the things that upset her was that if she couldn't find enough stuff to fill up the back seat, her mom might insist on coming along on the road trip to Illinois. It was getting towards the last week of August, and orientation would be starting at Northwestern before too long.
"If they aren't, they're nowhere else," Maria told her. "Plus, if you look hard, you'll see that the boxes of books are forming the bottom layer of the port column and most of the central column of the cargo area, and we have compact discs piled on top here, and off here on the starboard stern, and of course the passenger's side back seat." Liz giggled a bit at Maria using nautical terms to describe parts of the car, though she supposed it made sense -- terms like left and right were relative to which direction you were facing, which was why 'port' and 'starboard' had been invented in the first place, to turn them into absolutes. (As far as the vessel itself was concerned, of course.)
"There has to be something that I'm forgetting," Liz insisted, frowning slightly.
"Maybe to tell Max the truth before you leave town??" Maria suggested probingly. It was hardly the first time she'd made such a suggestion, but Liz suddenly realized that if she didn't respond to it seriously, the trip might get very frustrating for her. Suddenly she made an imperative gesture, waving Maria into the car behind the driver's seat. Once Maria opened the car door, she followed, taking the front passenger position, and made sure that both doors were closed before continuing.
"I know that I haven't really discussed this with you lately... no offense, but best friends forever notwithstanding I wasn't sure if it was any of your..." Liz broke off, realizing that not only did that not sound right, it WASN'T right. "I didn't think you'd understand."
"Well, I don't understand a lot of what you tell me," Maria said in a small voice. "Chemistry and the allure of 'The West Wing', to name two subjects at random. It doesn't mean that I don't want to hear what's on your mind."
Liz smiled, truly grateful for the sentiment. "Well, my feelings about Max have been... changing recently. It wasn't something I wanted -- I just kinda woke up one morning and I wasn't a lovesick mess pining away for him any more."
"Well, I'm all for that," Maria confirmed. "Big 'No' on the ining-pay... I was the one who told you that, remember?" She paused for a moment. "But do you still love him, Liz?"
"I -- I'm not sure," Liz had to admit. "He's very dear to me, and always will be... at least I think 'always.'" She sighed. "But it's started to seem to me like it wasn't any one thing that kept Max and I apart... not his future self or Tess or the throne of his planet or even the fact that we're different species... it was the WHOLE situation. We were star crossed lovers, literally, and it was never going to end well." She sighed, noticed Maria about to say something, and blurted out a pre-emptive reply without meaning to. "And I'm not in love with him any more, I'm pretty sure of that; I fell out somewhere along the way, though I'm not sure when." She realized that there was a phrase passing through the shadows of her mind, and paused a moment to chase it down. "'Falling out of love and falling back into life...' where do I remember that from??"
"I'm not sure," Maria said softly. "But if that's the way things are, then I guess you're right: better to leave things be with Max. No sense in stirring up the past." She sighed. "And I'm a little disappointed on your behalf." Liz turned and looked at her best friend in surprise. "I just still remember how MUCH you were in love with Max. Always thought that was going to work out in the end."
"Hmmm..." Liz thought. "Yeah, you're right. But that love brought me so much pain, that..." She couldn't finish the thought... wasn't even sure if it HAD a finish.
They stayed there, in the car, a long moment without speaking. "C'mon," Maria said finally. "Let's go tell your folks that we're about ready to leave." She spotted a single tear on Liz's face, and reminded herself to tell Liz to use the washroom. In about ten minutes the gang would be dropping by with their goodbye presents for Liz.
"Okay, Tess, was it you who put these bowls in the bathrooms?" Isabel called out. There was no answer. Iz put it down and headed off in search of the other hybrid girl.
She found Tess, along with Maria, trying to heft a large desk up the last few steps to the landing, and helped out. With all three of them working, the piece of furniture was inside the door of their new place in a few minutes.
"Maybe I shouldn't have told the guys they weren't needed to help us move in," Maria admitted, conceding the obvious. "I'm sorry, but Michael was being so damned smug about it! 'You pretty little ladies need a few big strong men to do the heavy lifting for you, huh?'" she mimicked in a passable imitation of Michael at his most condescending.
"Heck, girl, you were right," Isabel agreed. "Who needs guys?" With a small nod to Tess, Isabel concentrated, and the desk lifter into mid air and cruised down the hall, floating into a room and gently settling against the far wall.
Maria looked as if she didn't know whether to rub her eyes or scream. "And the reason you girls couldn't do that to lift it up the stairs was..."
"What else?" Tess replied with a small sigh. "Too much chance that someone walked around a corner and spotted it. We probably shouldn't even be doing it here in the apartment, but I'm too tired to care right now."
The three of them had all enrolled at Eastern New Mexico U, the only college within three hundred miles of Roswell, and Maria and Isabel has realized that working together might be the best way to find an off-campus apartment and move out of their parents' houses. Tess had been looking for somewhere new to stay in Roswell after Jim Valenti left for a new job in Albuquerque, (an established private investigation firm had made him a very generous employment offer,)
Isabel repeated her question about the bowls in the bathroom. "Oh, those are mine," Maria replied. "Solosys crystals... to purify the spirit and give you energy. I've found that they seem to work best right after I've finished showering."
"They stink," Isabel opined concisely.
Tess just looked back and forth from one to the other, and somehow the message was clear. The three of them had to find some precedent for sorting out little clashes like this, or they'd drive each other crazy before christmas exams. "Try them in one bathroom for a week??" Maria suggested, and Isabel nodded.
"Yeah, Max just got back from Los Angeles yesterday," Isabel said to Alex. They were up in Frazier woods, sitting and watching the stars from the very same rock that they had used on the father's camping weekend, nearly three years before. It was their special spot now. "Not that much too it, the way he tells it."
"I don't really see why he felt he had to take off and drive to California as soon as he heard about this Langley guy," Alex commented.
"Think it's because he's so worried about Ava. She was supposed to check in months ago... it's like she disappeared off the face of the planet." After the nearly disastrous incident with Lonnie and Rath, Liz, Max, and Isabel had worked together to track down Ava, the last surviving clone, and make sure that she was okay. She'd been calling Max regularly every few weeks, up until early October, and now it was nearly New Year's. "But Kal said that he didn't know anything about her... considering that he was originally their guardian, he didn't even seem to care. Max said that he seemed more curious about us."
"And... what was this stuff about not being able to hurt Max? Biologically able??"
"It... Max said that it was encoded into his genes somehow, though I don't really get how," Isabel repeated. "Not only couldn't he hurt Max, he had to obey a direct order, though he hated it. I have to say, I'm not sure I blame him... I'd resent something like that if it were done to me."
"Sounds like Max was probably wise to head home when he did," Alex agreed. "Even if the tiger's in a cage, there's no good point in making him mad."
"Well, I think that's enough about Max," Isabel said, and proceeded to demonstrate the point very thoroughly. "Oh Alex, I missed you so much," she whispered huskily when they came back up for air.
"Maybe I should transfer back to Roswell," Alex suggested.
"No, no," Isabel insisted stoically. "Alamogordo is such a great school, and you're loving it, don't deny that you are. And we're only four hours drive away... it's not like that's so far, really." She kissed him again. "We're just going to have to make more of an effort to visit each other regularly."
"I guess I can't argue with that," Alex said with a grin.
"Oh, speaking of transfers, Max might be leaving," Isabel said. "Mom and dad have noticed how depressed he's been lately, and Dad wants to send him to this fancy private university up in Santa Fe. Saint Johns. He's thinking about it... they might be right that a change of scenery will do him good."
"Hmmm," Alex thought. That would leave, of the original gang, only the three sisters of Upsilon Phi Omega in Roswell... (that was an in-joke about the loft apartment that Isabel and the others were sharing... you had to know that Phi was the closest greek equivalent to a letter F to see the hidden meaning of the name of their pretend sorority...) And of course... "How's Michael doing?"
"Struggling a little, but I think he really loves being the working guy." Michael also had gotten a job offer, security shift manager at the electronics plant not far outside town, and it had been an easy decision for him to take... especially since his high school grades weren't exactly the ones that even mediocre colleges liked. "And Maria is shocked that he's actually started paying for things." Alex laughed.
"And then there's Tess," Isabel continued. "She goes to her classes and hangs around the apartment with us, and she seems fine. Excited, happy. And then, like the flick of a switch..."
"Not so much??"
"Yeah. She..." Isabel struggled for words to describe. "I think she's lonely in a way that being with us can't do anything about. Tess loved Kyle like a brother -- and now he's gone. He hasn't been back to Roswell all term. And Max... I don't think he's looked in her direction since Liz told him she was going to Chicago." Isabel sighed. "He blames Tess for the fact that Liz moved on, and that's killing her."
Alex sighed... he certainly didn't have any answer to that problem. Unless... "I realize this may sound stupid, but... well, maybe it would help her to make a new connection. With... well, y'know--"
"With a guy?" Isabel finished. "Believe me, we've been trying to set her up. Maria and I, that is. Considering that she always seems to get worse when it hits her that both of us have boyfriends... but she never really lets anyone in. I don't know if it's because they're human, but we don't really have any other alternatives available, you know what I mean??"
Alex laughed softly. "Yeah, I think I do. Well, when Tess is ready, she'll find someone... I'd hope." He brushed a lock of hair away and kissed Isabel's air, and then something caught his attention. "Hey, is that the Trifid Nebulae??"
Isabel looked. as Alex scrabbled for a skywatching guidebook, and she quietly made the print fluoresce so that he could read it without turning on a light that would block out the stars and force their eyes to readjust. "Is Trifid in saggitarius?"
"Yeah, I think so," Alex agreed. "Yep, here it is. Messier number twenty, emission/reflection nebula."
"It's beautiful," Isabel breathed, staring out at the soft red patch in the sky.
"So far away," Alex whispered.
A thought struck Isabel, and she leaned over to check her facts in Alex's book. "Less than six light years. As interstellar distances go, that's practically 'right down the street.'"
"Hey, Parker!" Liz looked up from her burger, (among other things,) to see Casey Richards sitting down at the table next to hers in the small campus coffeeshop.
"Hi there." She gave him a small wave, just to be polite. Casey was in two of her biology classes this term, (first semester of sophomore year,) as well as the course she had taken for her physics requirement. He was fairly tall, stylish, witty and outspoken during discussion sessions, with wavy blonde hair. For a few weeks now, Liz had felt something about him rub her the wrong way, though she hadn't been sure exactly what. She didn't seem to feel it now -- but after a few moments she went back to her book and brought a forkful of rice up to her mouth.
"The Predation questions??" Casey's voice probed at her. Liz looked up and had to force herself to restrain a scathing reply... since her mouth was full of food that she didn't really want to spray all over the place. Casey might have mistaken her annoyed expression for shock, because he continued. "Saw you had your nose in the ecology reader, and I guess I figured you were already doing reading for the discussion questions about predators, prey, and predation." He sighed slightly. "You don't have to keep hitting the books quite SO hard just to make sure you stay at the top of the class, Parker."
By this time, Liz had swallowed, and took the brief opportunity to get a word in edgewise. "If you must know, I was taking a look at the feature study on community competition." She allowed her eyes to take on something of an angry glare... at least, she hoped that was what they were doing. "I'm not some grade-grubbing brown-noser. I just happen to really like this stuff."
"You're a little bit of a grade grubber," Casey corrected her. Before Liz could vehemently object, he continued. "You're a scholarship student from way out of state, so you kinduv have to be a bit of a grade grubber."
He had a point there... slightly. "I try not to let myself think about it."
He nodded, and changed the subject without a second's pause. "Have you been keeping up with Doctor Ebelin's work with the burrow cats?? In Argentina?"
Liz shook her head, mystified. "Never even heard of them."
"Oh, it's amazing stuff!" Suddenly animated, Casey swung his chair around so that it was halfway to her table. "She discovered this entire new species of felines... digging and tunnelling wild felines, not much bigger than house cats, living in the Andes foothills. I've seen the pictures -- cute little guys when they're sitting around posing for the camera... pretty vicious when they've spotted anything big enough to eat and small enough to catch." He sighed. "There aren't many of them, of course, and despite everything the professor is doing to raise awareness they seem to be more in danger of extinction with every passing month." Just why is he here, sitting at the tables without any food or drink, Liz couldn't help but ask herself.
As Liz finished her lunch, she continued to talk with the keen young man -- their mutual interest in the sciences provided several topics of conversation right off the cuff. And as they chatted, Liz suddenly got a realization of what it was that had startled her about Casey Richards when she had first met him... something that was completely different from what she had expected.
Suddenly a beeping rang out. Casey checked his pocket watch, but it was actually Liz's trusty palmpilot that was sounding the alarm. "Sorry... I've got an hour booked in the lab with one of the genetic simulator computers, and I don't want to waste it," she said, hurriedly packing up her belongings and throwing out the small portion of lunch she hadn't gotten to yet.
"Oh, no, I totally understand," Casey allowed. "I've got my booking for... is it next week or the week after that?? Maybe the weekend in between." He shrugged the question off. "Make the most of your time."
"Okay," Liz said, and checked her watch. Even allowing for a possible delay on the way to the biosciences building, she had thirty seconds to spare. "Case... do you want to grab dinner some time??"
Casey blinked in surprise... and then smiled, a trifle shyly. "Yeah, that'd be all right," he mumbled with an understating nod.
"Okay... you know my ee-maiil," she called out as she rushed away.
As thunder rumbled faraway and the rain poured down on Roswell New Mexico, a dark green sedan pulled up outside the south doors of ENMU's fine arts building. After peering out at the raincoat-clad figure still waiting under the shelter of the small sunroof that extended out just above the doors, the driver groaned and leaned way over to open up the passenger door a few inches. The figure, hard to make out in the dim light and through the rain, lifted up one hand palm out in a 'wait a moment' gesture. Michael closed the door again and arranged himself once more behind the steering wheel.
About a minute and a half later, the drumming of the rain on the windshield seemed to slacken slightly, and when he turned to look that someone was rushing towards the car and letting herself in on the passenger's side. "Sorry about that," Maria DeLuca muttered, sweeping the hood of the coat back from hanging over her face once she was safely inside the car.
"Me too," Michael said quickly. "I'm really, really sorry that..."
"It's okay," Maria insisted, buckling herself up, and Michael put the car back into gear and drove off. "You were only... what, fifteen minutes late coming to pick me up? And the weather isn't exactly great for driving," she allowed tolerantly.
"Yeah, but that wasn't what slowed me down, really," Michael admitted. "I just couldn't find... well, find my fancy pants." Maria snickered goodnaturedly.
"Looks like you found them eventually," she said, reaching out a hand, (carefully dried from the rain,) to brush softly against his right leg, as if to reassure her that the fabric was indeed the fine italisn wool that she had helped pick out... and unable to not be aware of the smoothly muscled flesh of his leg underneath.
"Yeah," Michael agreed, breathing a small sigh of bittersweet relief and renewed attention to driviness when Maria took her hand back. "You look pretty smashing yourself... did anyone comment on the fact that you were all dressed up for the tutorial session??"
"A few people commented," she allowed, "and I used the excuse to brag to everyone within earshot how my boyfriend, the bigshot working man, was taking me to a fancy dress party for his company's twelfth anniversary."
"Yeah, like it's really going to be that cool," Michael sighed. "Man, I wish that we could both just blow this thing off." He looked sidelong in Maria's direction under the pretext of glancing at a road sign. "We could go back to my place... pop some corn, put some good music on the stereo." His voice was softly persuasive. "I bet you're feeling a little stressed - I could give you a foot massage... and then help you take that tight little dress off." He shot a flirtatious glance over towards her openly now.
"Michael!!" she screeched in delighted indignation. "No, come on... we HAVE to go. We've been over this, it's a good opportunity for you to network, make some contacts, impress the big boys. Right??"
Michael sighed. "You impress them for me," he said, only half joking. "You're better at it than I am."
"Hmmm... well, just maybe." She winked over at him. "But then you'd owe me, and I'd have to take it out in trade, wouldn't I??"
"Morning, darling." The words woke Liz Parker up gently, and she froze in shock for an instant, as she had many times over the past few weeks, unable to quite believe that she hadn't been sleeping alone.
Not that she felt she was doing anything WRONG, of course. Although it had only been a little over a year now that she'd been dating Casey... (a year and twenty-seven days now, not too hard to keep track under the circumstances,) Liz had realized after only three weeks that she was falling very deeply in love with him. She hadn't believed, up until that very moment of epiphany, that she could ever fall in love again.
With anyone other than Max Evans, that was...
Casey seemed to feel the same way, and the two of them had quickly become inseparable. She had drawn the line fairly conservatively on physical intimacy, and even that hadn't fazed him, though he did see fit to tease her about the subject good-naturedly. But when Casey had asked her to marry him on their one-year anniversary, she hadn't been able to restrain herself, or him, any longer, and...
"Are you getting up??" Case asked. He had already stood out of bed and was slipping on a T-shirt. "Got lots to do this morning."
"Yeah," Liz agreed, taking just a moment to admire the sleek lines of his physique before struggling out of bed. The cordless handset, sitting on her dresser, was blinking with a red light on a one second interval. "There's a message... did you hear the phone ring??"
Casey looked across the bed at her, and when he didn't answer the question Liz realized with a pleased sensation that he was admiring the view as much as she had - she was wearing a bra and tap pants, her habit for sleeping in. "Umm... yeah, actually I did. Didn't feel like getting up for it though." He looked at the clock. "Might have been someone from out west, come to think of it - we both slept pretty late."
Liz nodded and tapped in the voicemail codes. "Hey Liz, it's me Maria..." the familiar voice sang out over the handset. "What's up... I'd have thought you'd be up already, what's going on??"
"Who is it??" Casey asked softly at her.
"Why do you think??" she whispered back. Casey smiled and nodded.
"...can't wait to see my best girlfriend, so you'd better not miss that plane. Oh, and I am NOT going to let you weasel out of telling Max Evans about your new status as an engage woman while you're here for Christmas break. He knows that you've been dating someone all year, but the poor boy is still so crazy about you that he keeps saying it's not serious," Maria rambled.
Liz blinked in surprise. This was the first time she'd heard that!
"I almost blurted out the news to him last night... but you CANNOT duck the issue and drop it in my lap, because it's not my place to tell him the bad news. Okay, let's see, what else is new? Oh, you will NEVER believe this!" Liz sighed... why Maria insisted on telling gossip to her voice mail, over LONG long distance, when they'd be seeing each other in person in about fourteen hours, Liz never knew.
"Guess who's dropping out of university as soon as his winter finals are done, which should be any hour now? Alex Charles Whitman, that's who!! Yep, he got a job offer from this fancy software company, so he'll be able to move back to Roswell and tele-commute, and they included a big honkin' signing bonus. Guess what he's gonna be doing with it? One guess, rhymes with swing. And it's to be given to Isabel. Yep... you aren't going to be the only one who gets asked the big question!!"
"As far as Michael and me... well, no notion that he's going to be saving up for a 'swing' for me anytime soon, but we're doing plenty all right... well, nothing seems to ever change in his job, and as for me... I got an A minus on my business management paper!! Yeah I know, business and music make an odd combination, but you gotta try to pay the bills somehow, am I right?"
"Okay, we'll pick you up at the airport at eleven thirty PM, Roswell time. See you both then!!"
Liz sighed, deleted the message, logged out of voice mail, and hit the END button. Casey was looking at her, standing on the bedroom side of the door to her en suite bathroom, (quite a rare perk for Columbia's residences, but Liz was a star scholarship student and a residence advisor besides,) looking freshly scrubbed. "What did Maria want??"
"What else, to yatter at me for five minutes, share all the latest New Mexico gossip, and right there at the end confirm our airport pickup." Liz grinned. "Okay, what's on the to do list for today??"
"Well, I'm heading up to Northfield to buy those little figurines as a gift for your mother," Casey rhymed off, as Liz slipped into the bathroom herself, took a small box out of a nondescript bag, opened it up, and closed the door almost all the way while she attended to business. "You wanted to drop by Professor Warner's office to pick up your midterm, so that you can pore over it on the plane and study how you can do better than ninety-six percent next time. And to drop by that acquaintance of yours... what's-his-nick, who offered to burn that disc that you think your friend Alex would be interested in."
"Right," Liz agreed, stepping back out of the bathroom after a minute and stealing a kiss. "Have I thanked you for all the trouble you're going to with this trip to see my parents??"
"Hey, that's indicated for purely selfish reasons," he said, brushing a lock of hair back and tickling her ear affectionately. "Your parents are going to be my in-laws... and I want to make a good impression on the occasion of them realizing that little fact." Liz laughed at him.
"Okay, so... we want to be arriving at O'Hare around quarter after two, which means leaving here around twenty to one... how long do you figure for getting the car packed?"
"We're not taking that much luggage," Casey reminded her. "Ten minutes at most."
"Okay, sounds good," Liz replied, with a nod and a smile. The agenda nailed down, she could start to concentrate on what to wear for the day, and began searching through the clothes that hadn't already been packed.
"Oh, I was talking with my parents," Casey mentioned as she started to dress. "They want to throw us an official engagement party sometime, maybe in February, and they were hoping that your parents and some of your friends from down in Roswell would be able to make it."
"Hmmm..." Liz thought about it. "Yeah, I think that could be managed. My parents will probably worry about exactly who's minding the cafe, but my dad was telling me that they've got a new manager who's really working out well."
"Cool. Oh, and... well, I want to disclaim that we weren't making plans without you, just discussing the timing, and they thought that maybe we could schedule the wedding for May or June a year and a half from now, once we're both graduated, and..."
Liz poked her head into the bathroom... and the color drained from her face in an instant. "Might... we might want to consider setting a date a little sooner than that."
"Err... what??" Casey looked up, his running shoes tied, and saw Liz standing there in the basement doorway. He went up behind her, and after a moment cleared his throat. Liz got back out of the way, gesturing inside with one hand.
Sitting on the edge of the sink was the unmistakeable shape of a home pregnancy test. Casey had no idea what the system of interpreting results on the test itself was, but it didn't take a genius to understand what Liz's own reaction was. "We're... you're going to have a baby??"
"Looks kinda that way," she said in a soft tone. "I... I didn't really believe it, just thought it was probably good to check rather than let myself get worked up over a tiny possibility. But... there it is."
"I..." A thousand thoughts were running through his head. "I thought we were being careful."
"Not careful enough," she reminded him. "Oh, my god, what happens now??"
"What do you think?" Casey replied in a mildly incredulous voice. He took Liz by both shoulders and looked at her, waiting a moment for her to make eye contact before continuing. "We're going to get married. Probably in just a few months. We're going to have a baby and I promise you, Elizabeth Sara Parker, that I am going to do WHATEVER I need to do to take care of you, and our child."
Liz beamed, tears starting to brim in her eyes. "Oh, god, Casey... I love you. And thank you." She reached up to brush at Casey's cheek, where a small manly tear was also dripping slowly down.
"All part of the service," he quipped, and then considered a moment. "Are we going to tell your parents when we get to Roswell? Are we going to tell my parents??"
Liz only had to think about that for a second. "No... the mother and father aren't supposed to tell anyone else this early. It's bad luck."
"Really? I never heard that."
Liz nodded in affirmation. "This early on... well, there are a lot of things that could go wrong. I think I heard that the custom of not telling originally started so as a way of sparing loved ones the pain and grief... but it's become a point of superstition and I think we can use all the good luck we can get."
"Yeah. Say, should you really be, you know, flying?? In your condition?"
Liz shook her head at him. "I'm four weeks. There isn't going to be any danger to me or the baby from travelling until a lot further on... that is, in anything short of a rocket ship."
"Sorry!" he chirped. "Just... don't know these things."
"It's alright," she promised. "Now come on, you'd better get going." He kissed her one more time and hurried out of the door.
Liz watched him go, made the bed and tidied up just a little, and then stepped out herself. Someone was waiting right there in the residence corridor, just outside her room. A little twelve-year-old boy with a demented smile.
Nicholas Crawford. But how...
She backtracked instinctively, trying to close the door for what little good it would do her. But he reached out and touched the palm of her hand, and instantly her body was reacting differently. As smoothly and gracefully as if it were her own will behind the motions, she flipped off the light, closed the door, locked it, and walked off very calmly with the pint-sized alien.
Neither of them noticed Casey, who had turned around, realizing that he'd forgotten his keys in the room. Something struck him as odd about the scene playing out between Liz and the little kid, and he followed them at as great a distance as he could manage.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Part: 3
Author: Chris Kenworthy
E-mail: kelworthchriskweb.net
Homepage: PG-13
Disclaimer: I have no rights over the characters and situations of Roswell, this is a not-for-profit creative outlet so please don't sue me. :]
Synopsis: A broad-strokes picture of what the gang's future SHOULD have been more like after the junior prom. ;)
"Okay, here's the last of the tops," Maria said, holding out a small overnight bag and tossing it into the back of Liz's father's station wagon, which was already crammed with everything she owned, just about. The worst thing was, all of it didn't really seem to take up very much space.
"You sure the CDs and books are all in here??" Liz asked, a little doubtfully. One of the things that upset her was that if she couldn't find enough stuff to fill up the back seat, her mom might insist on coming along on the road trip to Illinois. It was getting towards the last week of August, and orientation would be starting at Northwestern before too long.
"If they aren't, they're nowhere else," Maria told her. "Plus, if you look hard, you'll see that the boxes of books are forming the bottom layer of the port column and most of the central column of the cargo area, and we have compact discs piled on top here, and off here on the starboard stern, and of course the passenger's side back seat." Liz giggled a bit at Maria using nautical terms to describe parts of the car, though she supposed it made sense -- terms like left and right were relative to which direction you were facing, which was why 'port' and 'starboard' had been invented in the first place, to turn them into absolutes. (As far as the vessel itself was concerned, of course.)
"There has to be something that I'm forgetting," Liz insisted, frowning slightly.
"Maybe to tell Max the truth before you leave town??" Maria suggested probingly. It was hardly the first time she'd made such a suggestion, but Liz suddenly realized that if she didn't respond to it seriously, the trip might get very frustrating for her. Suddenly she made an imperative gesture, waving Maria into the car behind the driver's seat. Once Maria opened the car door, she followed, taking the front passenger position, and made sure that both doors were closed before continuing.
"I know that I haven't really discussed this with you lately... no offense, but best friends forever notwithstanding I wasn't sure if it was any of your..." Liz broke off, realizing that not only did that not sound right, it WASN'T right. "I didn't think you'd understand."
"Well, I don't understand a lot of what you tell me," Maria said in a small voice. "Chemistry and the allure of 'The West Wing', to name two subjects at random. It doesn't mean that I don't want to hear what's on your mind."
Liz smiled, truly grateful for the sentiment. "Well, my feelings about Max have been... changing recently. It wasn't something I wanted -- I just kinda woke up one morning and I wasn't a lovesick mess pining away for him any more."
"Well, I'm all for that," Maria confirmed. "Big 'No' on the ining-pay... I was the one who told you that, remember?" She paused for a moment. "But do you still love him, Liz?"
"I -- I'm not sure," Liz had to admit. "He's very dear to me, and always will be... at least I think 'always.'" She sighed. "But it's started to seem to me like it wasn't any one thing that kept Max and I apart... not his future self or Tess or the throne of his planet or even the fact that we're different species... it was the WHOLE situation. We were star crossed lovers, literally, and it was never going to end well." She sighed, noticed Maria about to say something, and blurted out a pre-emptive reply without meaning to. "And I'm not in love with him any more, I'm pretty sure of that; I fell out somewhere along the way, though I'm not sure when." She realized that there was a phrase passing through the shadows of her mind, and paused a moment to chase it down. "'Falling out of love and falling back into life...' where do I remember that from??"
"I'm not sure," Maria said softly. "But if that's the way things are, then I guess you're right: better to leave things be with Max. No sense in stirring up the past." She sighed. "And I'm a little disappointed on your behalf." Liz turned and looked at her best friend in surprise. "I just still remember how MUCH you were in love with Max. Always thought that was going to work out in the end."
"Hmmm..." Liz thought. "Yeah, you're right. But that love brought me so much pain, that..." She couldn't finish the thought... wasn't even sure if it HAD a finish.
They stayed there, in the car, a long moment without speaking. "C'mon," Maria said finally. "Let's go tell your folks that we're about ready to leave." She spotted a single tear on Liz's face, and reminded herself to tell Liz to use the washroom. In about ten minutes the gang would be dropping by with their goodbye presents for Liz.
"Okay, Tess, was it you who put these bowls in the bathrooms?" Isabel called out. There was no answer. Iz put it down and headed off in search of the other hybrid girl.
She found Tess, along with Maria, trying to heft a large desk up the last few steps to the landing, and helped out. With all three of them working, the piece of furniture was inside the door of their new place in a few minutes.
"Maybe I shouldn't have told the guys they weren't needed to help us move in," Maria admitted, conceding the obvious. "I'm sorry, but Michael was being so damned smug about it! 'You pretty little ladies need a few big strong men to do the heavy lifting for you, huh?'" she mimicked in a passable imitation of Michael at his most condescending.
"Heck, girl, you were right," Isabel agreed. "Who needs guys?" With a small nod to Tess, Isabel concentrated, and the desk lifter into mid air and cruised down the hall, floating into a room and gently settling against the far wall.
Maria looked as if she didn't know whether to rub her eyes or scream. "And the reason you girls couldn't do that to lift it up the stairs was..."
"What else?" Tess replied with a small sigh. "Too much chance that someone walked around a corner and spotted it. We probably shouldn't even be doing it here in the apartment, but I'm too tired to care right now."
The three of them had all enrolled at Eastern New Mexico U, the only college within three hundred miles of Roswell, and Maria and Isabel has realized that working together might be the best way to find an off-campus apartment and move out of their parents' houses. Tess had been looking for somewhere new to stay in Roswell after Jim Valenti left for a new job in Albuquerque, (an established private investigation firm had made him a very generous employment offer,)
Isabel repeated her question about the bowls in the bathroom. "Oh, those are mine," Maria replied. "Solosys crystals... to purify the spirit and give you energy. I've found that they seem to work best right after I've finished showering."
"They stink," Isabel opined concisely.
Tess just looked back and forth from one to the other, and somehow the message was clear. The three of them had to find some precedent for sorting out little clashes like this, or they'd drive each other crazy before christmas exams. "Try them in one bathroom for a week??" Maria suggested, and Isabel nodded.
"Yeah, Max just got back from Los Angeles yesterday," Isabel said to Alex. They were up in Frazier woods, sitting and watching the stars from the very same rock that they had used on the father's camping weekend, nearly three years before. It was their special spot now. "Not that much too it, the way he tells it."
"I don't really see why he felt he had to take off and drive to California as soon as he heard about this Langley guy," Alex commented.
"Think it's because he's so worried about Ava. She was supposed to check in months ago... it's like she disappeared off the face of the planet." After the nearly disastrous incident with Lonnie and Rath, Liz, Max, and Isabel had worked together to track down Ava, the last surviving clone, and make sure that she was okay. She'd been calling Max regularly every few weeks, up until early October, and now it was nearly New Year's. "But Kal said that he didn't know anything about her... considering that he was originally their guardian, he didn't even seem to care. Max said that he seemed more curious about us."
"And... what was this stuff about not being able to hurt Max? Biologically able??"
"It... Max said that it was encoded into his genes somehow, though I don't really get how," Isabel repeated. "Not only couldn't he hurt Max, he had to obey a direct order, though he hated it. I have to say, I'm not sure I blame him... I'd resent something like that if it were done to me."
"Sounds like Max was probably wise to head home when he did," Alex agreed. "Even if the tiger's in a cage, there's no good point in making him mad."
"Well, I think that's enough about Max," Isabel said, and proceeded to demonstrate the point very thoroughly. "Oh Alex, I missed you so much," she whispered huskily when they came back up for air.
"Maybe I should transfer back to Roswell," Alex suggested.
"No, no," Isabel insisted stoically. "Alamogordo is such a great school, and you're loving it, don't deny that you are. And we're only four hours drive away... it's not like that's so far, really." She kissed him again. "We're just going to have to make more of an effort to visit each other regularly."
"I guess I can't argue with that," Alex said with a grin.
"Oh, speaking of transfers, Max might be leaving," Isabel said. "Mom and dad have noticed how depressed he's been lately, and Dad wants to send him to this fancy private university up in Santa Fe. Saint Johns. He's thinking about it... they might be right that a change of scenery will do him good."
"Hmmm," Alex thought. That would leave, of the original gang, only the three sisters of Upsilon Phi Omega in Roswell... (that was an in-joke about the loft apartment that Isabel and the others were sharing... you had to know that Phi was the closest greek equivalent to a letter F to see the hidden meaning of the name of their pretend sorority...) And of course... "How's Michael doing?"
"Struggling a little, but I think he really loves being the working guy." Michael also had gotten a job offer, security shift manager at the electronics plant not far outside town, and it had been an easy decision for him to take... especially since his high school grades weren't exactly the ones that even mediocre colleges liked. "And Maria is shocked that he's actually started paying for things." Alex laughed.
"And then there's Tess," Isabel continued. "She goes to her classes and hangs around the apartment with us, and she seems fine. Excited, happy. And then, like the flick of a switch..."
"Not so much??"
"Yeah. She..." Isabel struggled for words to describe. "I think she's lonely in a way that being with us can't do anything about. Tess loved Kyle like a brother -- and now he's gone. He hasn't been back to Roswell all term. And Max... I don't think he's looked in her direction since Liz told him she was going to Chicago." Isabel sighed. "He blames Tess for the fact that Liz moved on, and that's killing her."
Alex sighed... he certainly didn't have any answer to that problem. Unless... "I realize this may sound stupid, but... well, maybe it would help her to make a new connection. With... well, y'know--"
"With a guy?" Isabel finished. "Believe me, we've been trying to set her up. Maria and I, that is. Considering that she always seems to get worse when it hits her that both of us have boyfriends... but she never really lets anyone in. I don't know if it's because they're human, but we don't really have any other alternatives available, you know what I mean??"
Alex laughed softly. "Yeah, I think I do. Well, when Tess is ready, she'll find someone... I'd hope." He brushed a lock of hair away and kissed Isabel's air, and then something caught his attention. "Hey, is that the Trifid Nebulae??"
Isabel looked. as Alex scrabbled for a skywatching guidebook, and she quietly made the print fluoresce so that he could read it without turning on a light that would block out the stars and force their eyes to readjust. "Is Trifid in saggitarius?"
"Yeah, I think so," Alex agreed. "Yep, here it is. Messier number twenty, emission/reflection nebula."
"It's beautiful," Isabel breathed, staring out at the soft red patch in the sky.
"So far away," Alex whispered.
A thought struck Isabel, and she leaned over to check her facts in Alex's book. "Less than six light years. As interstellar distances go, that's practically 'right down the street.'"
"Hey, Parker!" Liz looked up from her burger, (among other things,) to see Casey Richards sitting down at the table next to hers in the small campus coffeeshop.
"Hi there." She gave him a small wave, just to be polite. Casey was in two of her biology classes this term, (first semester of sophomore year,) as well as the course she had taken for her physics requirement. He was fairly tall, stylish, witty and outspoken during discussion sessions, with wavy blonde hair. For a few weeks now, Liz had felt something about him rub her the wrong way, though she hadn't been sure exactly what. She didn't seem to feel it now -- but after a few moments she went back to her book and brought a forkful of rice up to her mouth.
"The Predation questions??" Casey's voice probed at her. Liz looked up and had to force herself to restrain a scathing reply... since her mouth was full of food that she didn't really want to spray all over the place. Casey might have mistaken her annoyed expression for shock, because he continued. "Saw you had your nose in the ecology reader, and I guess I figured you were already doing reading for the discussion questions about predators, prey, and predation." He sighed slightly. "You don't have to keep hitting the books quite SO hard just to make sure you stay at the top of the class, Parker."
By this time, Liz had swallowed, and took the brief opportunity to get a word in edgewise. "If you must know, I was taking a look at the feature study on community competition." She allowed her eyes to take on something of an angry glare... at least, she hoped that was what they were doing. "I'm not some grade-grubbing brown-noser. I just happen to really like this stuff."
"You're a little bit of a grade grubber," Casey corrected her. Before Liz could vehemently object, he continued. "You're a scholarship student from way out of state, so you kinduv have to be a bit of a grade grubber."
He had a point there... slightly. "I try not to let myself think about it."
He nodded, and changed the subject without a second's pause. "Have you been keeping up with Doctor Ebelin's work with the burrow cats?? In Argentina?"
Liz shook her head, mystified. "Never even heard of them."
"Oh, it's amazing stuff!" Suddenly animated, Casey swung his chair around so that it was halfway to her table. "She discovered this entire new species of felines... digging and tunnelling wild felines, not much bigger than house cats, living in the Andes foothills. I've seen the pictures -- cute little guys when they're sitting around posing for the camera... pretty vicious when they've spotted anything big enough to eat and small enough to catch." He sighed. "There aren't many of them, of course, and despite everything the professor is doing to raise awareness they seem to be more in danger of extinction with every passing month." Just why is he here, sitting at the tables without any food or drink, Liz couldn't help but ask herself.
As Liz finished her lunch, she continued to talk with the keen young man -- their mutual interest in the sciences provided several topics of conversation right off the cuff. And as they chatted, Liz suddenly got a realization of what it was that had startled her about Casey Richards when she had first met him... something that was completely different from what she had expected.
Suddenly a beeping rang out. Casey checked his pocket watch, but it was actually Liz's trusty palmpilot that was sounding the alarm. "Sorry... I've got an hour booked in the lab with one of the genetic simulator computers, and I don't want to waste it," she said, hurriedly packing up her belongings and throwing out the small portion of lunch she hadn't gotten to yet.
"Oh, no, I totally understand," Casey allowed. "I've got my booking for... is it next week or the week after that?? Maybe the weekend in between." He shrugged the question off. "Make the most of your time."
"Okay," Liz said, and checked her watch. Even allowing for a possible delay on the way to the biosciences building, she had thirty seconds to spare. "Case... do you want to grab dinner some time??"
Casey blinked in surprise... and then smiled, a trifle shyly. "Yeah, that'd be all right," he mumbled with an understating nod.
"Okay... you know my ee-maiil," she called out as she rushed away.
As thunder rumbled faraway and the rain poured down on Roswell New Mexico, a dark green sedan pulled up outside the south doors of ENMU's fine arts building. After peering out at the raincoat-clad figure still waiting under the shelter of the small sunroof that extended out just above the doors, the driver groaned and leaned way over to open up the passenger door a few inches. The figure, hard to make out in the dim light and through the rain, lifted up one hand palm out in a 'wait a moment' gesture. Michael closed the door again and arranged himself once more behind the steering wheel.
About a minute and a half later, the drumming of the rain on the windshield seemed to slacken slightly, and when he turned to look that someone was rushing towards the car and letting herself in on the passenger's side. "Sorry about that," Maria DeLuca muttered, sweeping the hood of the coat back from hanging over her face once she was safely inside the car.
"Me too," Michael said quickly. "I'm really, really sorry that..."
"It's okay," Maria insisted, buckling herself up, and Michael put the car back into gear and drove off. "You were only... what, fifteen minutes late coming to pick me up? And the weather isn't exactly great for driving," she allowed tolerantly.
"Yeah, but that wasn't what slowed me down, really," Michael admitted. "I just couldn't find... well, find my fancy pants." Maria snickered goodnaturedly.
"Looks like you found them eventually," she said, reaching out a hand, (carefully dried from the rain,) to brush softly against his right leg, as if to reassure her that the fabric was indeed the fine italisn wool that she had helped pick out... and unable to not be aware of the smoothly muscled flesh of his leg underneath.
"Yeah," Michael agreed, breathing a small sigh of bittersweet relief and renewed attention to driviness when Maria took her hand back. "You look pretty smashing yourself... did anyone comment on the fact that you were all dressed up for the tutorial session??"
"A few people commented," she allowed, "and I used the excuse to brag to everyone within earshot how my boyfriend, the bigshot working man, was taking me to a fancy dress party for his company's twelfth anniversary."
"Yeah, like it's really going to be that cool," Michael sighed. "Man, I wish that we could both just blow this thing off." He looked sidelong in Maria's direction under the pretext of glancing at a road sign. "We could go back to my place... pop some corn, put some good music on the stereo." His voice was softly persuasive. "I bet you're feeling a little stressed - I could give you a foot massage... and then help you take that tight little dress off." He shot a flirtatious glance over towards her openly now.
"Michael!!" she screeched in delighted indignation. "No, come on... we HAVE to go. We've been over this, it's a good opportunity for you to network, make some contacts, impress the big boys. Right??"
Michael sighed. "You impress them for me," he said, only half joking. "You're better at it than I am."
"Hmmm... well, just maybe." She winked over at him. "But then you'd owe me, and I'd have to take it out in trade, wouldn't I??"
"Morning, darling." The words woke Liz Parker up gently, and she froze in shock for an instant, as she had many times over the past few weeks, unable to quite believe that she hadn't been sleeping alone.
Not that she felt she was doing anything WRONG, of course. Although it had only been a little over a year now that she'd been dating Casey... (a year and twenty-seven days now, not too hard to keep track under the circumstances,) Liz had realized after only three weeks that she was falling very deeply in love with him. She hadn't believed, up until that very moment of epiphany, that she could ever fall in love again.
With anyone other than Max Evans, that was...
Casey seemed to feel the same way, and the two of them had quickly become inseparable. She had drawn the line fairly conservatively on physical intimacy, and even that hadn't fazed him, though he did see fit to tease her about the subject good-naturedly. But when Casey had asked her to marry him on their one-year anniversary, she hadn't been able to restrain herself, or him, any longer, and...
"Are you getting up??" Case asked. He had already stood out of bed and was slipping on a T-shirt. "Got lots to do this morning."
"Yeah," Liz agreed, taking just a moment to admire the sleek lines of his physique before struggling out of bed. The cordless handset, sitting on her dresser, was blinking with a red light on a one second interval. "There's a message... did you hear the phone ring??"
Casey looked across the bed at her, and when he didn't answer the question Liz realized with a pleased sensation that he was admiring the view as much as she had - she was wearing a bra and tap pants, her habit for sleeping in. "Umm... yeah, actually I did. Didn't feel like getting up for it though." He looked at the clock. "Might have been someone from out west, come to think of it - we both slept pretty late."
Liz nodded and tapped in the voicemail codes. "Hey Liz, it's me Maria..." the familiar voice sang out over the handset. "What's up... I'd have thought you'd be up already, what's going on??"
"Who is it??" Casey asked softly at her.
"Why do you think??" she whispered back. Casey smiled and nodded.
"...can't wait to see my best girlfriend, so you'd better not miss that plane. Oh, and I am NOT going to let you weasel out of telling Max Evans about your new status as an engage woman while you're here for Christmas break. He knows that you've been dating someone all year, but the poor boy is still so crazy about you that he keeps saying it's not serious," Maria rambled.
Liz blinked in surprise. This was the first time she'd heard that!
"I almost blurted out the news to him last night... but you CANNOT duck the issue and drop it in my lap, because it's not my place to tell him the bad news. Okay, let's see, what else is new? Oh, you will NEVER believe this!" Liz sighed... why Maria insisted on telling gossip to her voice mail, over LONG long distance, when they'd be seeing each other in person in about fourteen hours, Liz never knew.
"Guess who's dropping out of university as soon as his winter finals are done, which should be any hour now? Alex Charles Whitman, that's who!! Yep, he got a job offer from this fancy software company, so he'll be able to move back to Roswell and tele-commute, and they included a big honkin' signing bonus. Guess what he's gonna be doing with it? One guess, rhymes with swing. And it's to be given to Isabel. Yep... you aren't going to be the only one who gets asked the big question!!"
"As far as Michael and me... well, no notion that he's going to be saving up for a 'swing' for me anytime soon, but we're doing plenty all right... well, nothing seems to ever change in his job, and as for me... I got an A minus on my business management paper!! Yeah I know, business and music make an odd combination, but you gotta try to pay the bills somehow, am I right?"
"Okay, we'll pick you up at the airport at eleven thirty PM, Roswell time. See you both then!!"
Liz sighed, deleted the message, logged out of voice mail, and hit the END button. Casey was looking at her, standing on the bedroom side of the door to her en suite bathroom, (quite a rare perk for Columbia's residences, but Liz was a star scholarship student and a residence advisor besides,) looking freshly scrubbed. "What did Maria want??"
"What else, to yatter at me for five minutes, share all the latest New Mexico gossip, and right there at the end confirm our airport pickup." Liz grinned. "Okay, what's on the to do list for today??"
"Well, I'm heading up to Northfield to buy those little figurines as a gift for your mother," Casey rhymed off, as Liz slipped into the bathroom herself, took a small box out of a nondescript bag, opened it up, and closed the door almost all the way while she attended to business. "You wanted to drop by Professor Warner's office to pick up your midterm, so that you can pore over it on the plane and study how you can do better than ninety-six percent next time. And to drop by that acquaintance of yours... what's-his-nick, who offered to burn that disc that you think your friend Alex would be interested in."
"Right," Liz agreed, stepping back out of the bathroom after a minute and stealing a kiss. "Have I thanked you for all the trouble you're going to with this trip to see my parents??"
"Hey, that's indicated for purely selfish reasons," he said, brushing a lock of hair back and tickling her ear affectionately. "Your parents are going to be my in-laws... and I want to make a good impression on the occasion of them realizing that little fact." Liz laughed at him.
"Okay, so... we want to be arriving at O'Hare around quarter after two, which means leaving here around twenty to one... how long do you figure for getting the car packed?"
"We're not taking that much luggage," Casey reminded her. "Ten minutes at most."
"Okay, sounds good," Liz replied, with a nod and a smile. The agenda nailed down, she could start to concentrate on what to wear for the day, and began searching through the clothes that hadn't already been packed.
"Oh, I was talking with my parents," Casey mentioned as she started to dress. "They want to throw us an official engagement party sometime, maybe in February, and they were hoping that your parents and some of your friends from down in Roswell would be able to make it."
"Hmmm..." Liz thought about it. "Yeah, I think that could be managed. My parents will probably worry about exactly who's minding the cafe, but my dad was telling me that they've got a new manager who's really working out well."
"Cool. Oh, and... well, I want to disclaim that we weren't making plans without you, just discussing the timing, and they thought that maybe we could schedule the wedding for May or June a year and a half from now, once we're both graduated, and..."
Liz poked her head into the bathroom... and the color drained from her face in an instant. "Might... we might want to consider setting a date a little sooner than that."
"Err... what??" Casey looked up, his running shoes tied, and saw Liz standing there in the basement doorway. He went up behind her, and after a moment cleared his throat. Liz got back out of the way, gesturing inside with one hand.
Sitting on the edge of the sink was the unmistakeable shape of a home pregnancy test. Casey had no idea what the system of interpreting results on the test itself was, but it didn't take a genius to understand what Liz's own reaction was. "We're... you're going to have a baby??"
"Looks kinda that way," she said in a soft tone. "I... I didn't really believe it, just thought it was probably good to check rather than let myself get worked up over a tiny possibility. But... there it is."
"I..." A thousand thoughts were running through his head. "I thought we were being careful."
"Not careful enough," she reminded him. "Oh, my god, what happens now??"
"What do you think?" Casey replied in a mildly incredulous voice. He took Liz by both shoulders and looked at her, waiting a moment for her to make eye contact before continuing. "We're going to get married. Probably in just a few months. We're going to have a baby and I promise you, Elizabeth Sara Parker, that I am going to do WHATEVER I need to do to take care of you, and our child."
Liz beamed, tears starting to brim in her eyes. "Oh, god, Casey... I love you. And thank you." She reached up to brush at Casey's cheek, where a small manly tear was also dripping slowly down.
"All part of the service," he quipped, and then considered a moment. "Are we going to tell your parents when we get to Roswell? Are we going to tell my parents??"
Liz only had to think about that for a second. "No... the mother and father aren't supposed to tell anyone else this early. It's bad luck."
"Really? I never heard that."
Liz nodded in affirmation. "This early on... well, there are a lot of things that could go wrong. I think I heard that the custom of not telling originally started so as a way of sparing loved ones the pain and grief... but it's become a point of superstition and I think we can use all the good luck we can get."
"Yeah. Say, should you really be, you know, flying?? In your condition?"
Liz shook her head at him. "I'm four weeks. There isn't going to be any danger to me or the baby from travelling until a lot further on... that is, in anything short of a rocket ship."
"Sorry!" he chirped. "Just... don't know these things."
"It's alright," she promised. "Now come on, you'd better get going." He kissed her one more time and hurried out of the door.
Liz watched him go, made the bed and tidied up just a little, and then stepped out herself. Someone was waiting right there in the residence corridor, just outside her room. A little twelve-year-old boy with a demented smile.
Nicholas Crawford. But how...
She backtracked instinctively, trying to close the door for what little good it would do her. But he reached out and touched the palm of her hand, and instantly her body was reacting differently. As smoothly and gracefully as if it were her own will behind the motions, she flipped off the light, closed the door, locked it, and walked off very calmly with the pint-sized alien.
Neither of them noticed Casey, who had turned around, realizing that he'd forgotten his keys in the room. Something struck him as odd about the scene playing out between Liz and the little kid, and he followed them at as great a distance as he could manage.
TO BE CONTINUED...