Disclaimer: You know the drill…the characters aren't mine. A lot of stuff in the beginning is taken from End of the World. God knows THAT'S not mine. Anything that makes sense and makes it all better, now that's mine. Seriously, Roswell and all characters belong to Jason Katims, 20th Century Fox etc. I'm just borrowing them.

Rating: PG-13 – possibly to R

Love Changes Everything

Chapter Six – Come Together, Right Now

Michael sat up all night, watching over Liz, but nothing else happened. He woke her as the sun began to rise over the horizon.
"Liz, I need to get downstairs, I'm supposed to work the morning shift today. Do you want me to call Kyle, or Alex to come over here and hang with you?"
"No Michael," said Liz, wiping the sleep from her eyes and pushing her sleep-tousled hair from her face. "We don't know how long Kyle was up, watching Tess, and Max and Alex were working on the book last night. Let them sleep."
"I'm not leaving you alone Liz, we can't take any chances."

Liz sighed, raised her arms above her head and stretched. "Fine, I'll get dressed and meet you downstairs and help you open, will that work?"
"Okay," said Michael, settling down on the bed.
"Michael, what are you doing?"
"Waiting for you to get ready," said Michael.
"Oh, God!" said Liz in exasperation. She jumped off the bed, grabbed some clean clothes from her dresser and stormed into the bathroom. She emerged several minutes later, scraping her wet hair into a ponytail. "The next time you use my bathroom, pick up your soggy towels and put the lid down," she growled.
"I see someone is not a morning person," said Michael.
"Shut up, I'll meet you downstairs. Go put the coffee on."

Michael climbed down off of the fire escape leading to Liz's room and walked around to the front of the café, to find Alex, Max and Kyle standing outside the door, waiting for the café to open. Michael jogged down the short stretch of sidewalk to where the other's stood.
"Glad to see I have such a following for my cooking," he joked.
"Oh yeah, like that's it," said Alex. "Can Liz come down and cook for us? I so want to keep the lining of my stomach intact."
"Loser," said Michael, cuffing him lightly as he made his way to the door. "Why are you guys here, anyhow?"
"We need to have a meeting of the minds," said Kyle.
"Don't you mean a meeting of the mindless," quipped Liz as she walked into the restaurant.

Max, Kyle and Alex sat down in a booth, while Michael went into the kitchen to get the grill heated. Liz quickly made some coffee and grabbed the first cup for herself. Filling three other cups, she brought them over to the table. She waited until the guys had their first sips before asking, "So why are you here, really? You all can't have Liz sitting duty, can you?"
"Liz, what time did Tess leave here last night?" asked Max.
"I'm not sure," she said. "Shortly after Kyle did, I think. Why?"
"Michael!" Max yelled across the still empty restaurant. "Did you see Tess leave last night?"
"Yeah, she took off right after Kyle left. Why?"


Max looked around and motioned to Michael to abandon the grill and join them at the table. Max waited until Michael joined them before telling them what happened.
"When Kyle left here, he called Alex and me on his cell, and we took turns talking to him, while he watched the CrashDown. After about two hours, he figured he missed her, so he drove home."
"I talked to Max, all the way home, because I was tired, and didn't want to fall asleep while I was driving," continued Kyle. "When I got home, it was about 12:50, Dad was just going to bed, but he asked me if I knew where Tess was. Now this is where it really gets weird. I went to bed, but I never disconnected my call to Max."

Liz looked at her three friends. "Is there a point to this?" she asked, because as entertaining as it is, I'm just not in the mood for a bedtime story so early in the morning."
"It gets much more interesting Liz," said Alex. "Like Kyle said, he forgot to hang up the call. Max's phone was just sitting on the desk, when I heard Kyle's voice again. I figured he was just talking in his sleep,"
"So of course, you picked up the phone to eavesdrop," said Liz, laughing.
"Well, yeah," said Alex. "Wouldn't you? Anyhow, I heard Kyle asking somebody where they had been for so long. Then I heard Tess's voice saying she'd left right after him, and that they talked in the parking lot. Then she told him that she went over and helped Maria and Isabelle with the inventory at Maria's mom's store."
"What!" said Liz? "No way! Kyle, did she leave with you?"

"I don't know, Liz," said Kyle, clearly upset. "I remember everything she said, so clearly, yet, Max and Alex said I spoke to them for a few hours on my cell. And Alex said he heard all that stuff on the cell. I don't know what to think."
"Wait a second, said Liz, her finger's drumming absently on the side of her coffee cup. "I feel like I'm remembering something. Damn, why can't I remember? Wait a second!" she yelled and ran out of the restaurant and flew up the stairs leading to her family's apartment.
"Hi Mom, Hi Dad!" they heard her call. "Yeah, Michael's got the grill going, and it's pretty dead down there, so why don't you hang up here. I'll shout when we get busy." There was silence for a few minutes, followed by the uncommon sound of Liz Parker thundering down a flight of stairs.

"I found it," she said, excitedly.
"What?" said Michael. "What did you find? Don't tell me you lost your journal again?"
"No, but I did find something in it. Do you remember last spring when Pierce caught Max, and took him to the White Room?" She waited while the others nodded. "Well, how did we get him out?" she demanded.
"Well, we managed to sneak into the facility," began Michael, and Nesedo taught me how to manipulate my fingerprint to resemble some other agent, so we could get in."
"Right," said Liz. "Go on, then what happened?"
"I – we, uh, I'm not sure. It all happened so fast, it's all kind of a blur."

"Right, I can't remember either, and I bet you, neither can anybody else," said Liz. But when Max and I hid in that old delivery van, I wrote down everything on some paper I found. Max told me about Isabelle dreamwalking him, and how she told him that Nesedo was coming. To get Pierce alone and agree to go along with whatever he wanted. Then Max told me what Pierce wanted; he wanted the orbs to work. Max told him he'd do it. And all of a sudden, they worked. I had hypothesized that Tess made Pierce think the orbs worked. When we got home, and everything settled down, I remembered about the scraps of paper. When I read them over, most of it seemed like a dream, but I transferred them to my journal anyhow."

"I don't get it," said Kyle. "What does this have to do with anything?"
"No, wait," said Max, drumming his fingers on the table. "I think she's on to something. I swear, I remember Tess telling me how she made Pierce think that the orbs worked. But it seems like a dream."
"Just suppose," said Alex, "That Tess does have the ability to make people think they are seeing things that aren't there, or just messing with their minds in general."
"Right," said Michael, picking up the thread. "If she can make people think something, why can't she make people forget something too?"

The teens looked at each other, a growing sense of horror showing on all their faces as they realized the extent of Tess's deception. They had their who, now they had their how. Now they needed to find out just how far Tess was willing to go to continue her deception.