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

Chapter Twenty-One That's the Way the Fortune Cookie Crumbles

"No way man," said Alex. "There is no way I want to go along with anything that mind warping hell beast comes up with! And, I think you are nuts to even consider it, Max. You want to give her the book? You're insane!" Finished speaking, Alex shoveled several heaping spoonfuls of General Gau's Chicken on his plate.
"What?" he asked as everyone stared at him, in shocked silence. "I'm hungry. Hey, you know what would go good with this, some chocolate syrup. Do you have any Michael?"

"Uh, I'll get it," said Maria, rising quickly and heading towards the kitchen, Michael hot on her heels.
"Man, what is wrong with Alex tonight?" asked Michael after he reached the relative quiet of the kitchen.
"Don't you get it?" demanded Maria, her eyes filling up with tears. "That bitch is getting to him, despite the platinum ring he's wearing. It's starting to affect him. This has to stop, Michael, and it has to stop now, before Alex gets any worse. If you don't stop it, I will. I don't care if I have to kill the stupid bitch to do it!"

"That's enough, Maria," said Alex, from the doorway. "You're not going to kill anybody. You can't even kill the ants when we go on a picnic," he added with a snort.
"Yeah, well, Tess is lower on the evolutionary scale than an ant," grumbled Maria, wiping her tear-streaked face. "I could happily kill her for what she's doing to you."
"She's not doing anything to me Maria," said Alex, reaching for the chocolate syrup he spied on the counter. "Okay," he amended, "She's messing up my taste buds, but other than that, I'm fine."
"But, you just exploded at Max in there," said Maria. "That is so not like you."
"Maria, that was very much like me. Especially if you take into consideration the fact that I haven't slept more than 2 hours in the past two days. Kyle, Ava, Isabelle and I worked on the dupes book last night. I had just barely gone to bed when Tess called to set up our little breakfast tête-à-tête. I'm working on no sleep here, Maria. That's all, I promise."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, Maria, I'm sure," said Alex, raising his eyebrow as he spoke. "No sleep, that's all. Now why don't you go out into the other room? Max has something important he wants to tell us."

Maria looked at Alex, her confusion apparent as she turned and left the room. Alex started to follow her when Michael reached out and grabbed his arm.
"Are you sure your okay?" he asked. "Cause Maria will totally freak if anything happens to you because of us."
"Just Maria?" asked Alex, an amused expression on his face.
"Well, Liz and Isabelle too," said Michael, squirming a little. Alex said nothing. He just stared at Michael, one eyebrow raised. Michael grimaced, and shook his head slightly.
"Fine," he groused. "You want to make me say it, I'll say it. We'll all fall apart if anything happens to you." Michael pushed past Alex and walked into the living room, his face suffused with color.
"Interesting," said Alex, softly to the empty room. "Maria never gives up on anything that easily, but she stopped going on and on as soon as I thought it. And Michael would never in a million years admit that he cared about any of us, yet he just did, as soon as I pushed him. He said exactly what I wanted him to say. I wonder what it means?" Alex started to walk back to the living room, and stopped and reached back for the chocolate syrup and then headed back into the living room.

"Houston, we have a problem," he deadpanned as he walked in the room.
"What's wrong, Alex?" asked Isabelle, her face a mask of concern.
"I don't know if wrong is exactly the word I would choose, but it is something," said Alex.
"Well what is it?" demanded Max, impatiently.
"Max, don't you feel like standing on the coffee table and singing, "What's New Pussycat?" asked Alex.
"Alex, what the hell are you talking about?" asked Max. "It's not like this is the best time in the world for fun and games. Alex just smiled, and gave a small shove with his mind, his eyebrow raising as he concentrated. Suddenly, Max stood up, and climbed up onto Michael's dilapidated coffee table and began to sing the old Tom Jones standard.

"Alex, my God, what did you do to him?" cried Liz as she tried to get Max to get off the table, which groaned alarmingly under his weight.
"Max, you can stop now," said Alex, his face wet with perspiration. As quickly as he had begun, Max stopped singing and climbed down off of the coffee table.
"You can mind warp," he said, flatly. "Since when?"
"Since just now," said Alex. "It started in the kitchen. "I got Maria to lay off of me, and I got Michael," he paused, seeing the look of anger on Michael's face. "Well, I got Michael to say something he usually wouldn't," said Alex. "Both of those things could have been a coincidence, so I figured I'd try something to totally weird, just to be certain. I'm sorry Max," he added with a chuckle. "But if I were you, I wouldn't quit your day job."

"Well at least nobody else is showing any signs of developing powers," said Isabelle. Kyle, what about you, any powers yet?"
"Nope," said Kyle. "I'm clean. For now," he added in a whisper.
"Maria, how about you?" asked Michael.
"Nothing that I know of, but if I'm going to have powers, can I blow stuff up, like Tess maybe?" asked Maria.
"Great," said Isabelle, so all we have is this new trick of Alex. Liz did contact Max that time," she added, "But I don't thing that counts, I think that was more of a love thing than a power thing."
"Don't be too sure," said Liz, passing her hand over Isabelle's plate of congealed Chinese food. Steam began to rise from the food as Liz looked bleakly up at the others.