Last chapter, for now at least. It ties up loose ends. No flashbacks and this may be subject to revision because I can't work on it anymore for a day or two but it feels finished to me.

Thanks again to all my reviewers. Without you, this fic would have remained unfinished indefinitely.

I disclaim.

Chapter 3

Everything is different now. I'm different, Max is different, Nicholas is very different, and Liz is going to find out just how much we've all changed.

She can't have him again, not now, not ever. Max is mine now, as Zan always was.

He cares that I love him. He cares that once we were married. He cares that once he pledged undying devotion to me. He cares that once he was my King and I was his Queen. He cares that once I bore his children. He cares that together the four of us are invincible. He cares that the fate of our home planet lies in his hands. He cares that Kivar is evil and that he is the only one who can stop him, with our help. He cares that we are aliens and don't belong here. He cares that we are meant to be.

He cares for me.

All he used to care about was Elizabeth 'Liz' Parker.

Then she betrayed him with another human and now she looks at him like he is the only one in the world for her. I don't know how she can, the slut. Not after what she did to him with Kyle. She thinks he's the same person, but he's not. He's changed.

Like I said, everything is different now.

He understands that what we had and have again is real. He knows the love of his life is a busty, blue eyed, slim, pale skinned, curly haired blonde and not a tan skinned, doe eyed, skinny, flat chested, straight haired brunette. I don't have to change for him because he knows who we really are, who she can never be. We're aliens, Ava and Zan in new bodies. Our love is destined in the stars.

She doesn't even know what that means.

So I'm going to show her.

"Tess, Max." She looks shocked, but I don't know why. She's the one who cheated on him, broke his heart. I'm the one fixing what should never have been damaged in the first place.

"Liz."

My lover's hand is still in mine. I can feel Max's distress and our connection sings between us. How could she ever imagine she could compete with a love that stretches across lifetimes and the universe? We are the Royal Four. We were designed to be together.

After everything she's done to my Max, Liz is going down.

Sensing what I'm thinking – getting Isabel to give that idiot brunette bitch nightmares for years for breaking our Max's heart – he smoothes a hand down my arm and I calm. He's forgiving her, not because she deserves it, but because if she hadn't slept with Clueless Buddha Boy, tonight wouldn't have happened and he wouldn't remember us. He'd still be in love with her and I'd still be the sad, lonely girl I was earlier tonight. He sends a wave of compassion across our kindness and the cold feeling leaves me. I think I love that kindness best in him, and I love him more now than ever before because I see it again, transmuted through his human body, but still as pure as ever.

"Max, I..." Liz trails off, looking confused.

I guess she expects him to look a lot more upset than he does. I mean, she did just sleep with someone else – not just any someone else, either, but Kyle – and break his heart a few hours ago. She's probably expecting him to be sobbing his heart out, or cursing the day she was born or even just planning to murder Kyle. Instead he's holding the hand of the girl she hates most in the world and looking at her calmly with eyes that silver in the moonlight.

"Let me guess," there are echoes of Zan in his voice, which is level and mild. "You're sorry."

"Yes, I didn't mean to hurt you, Max." I nearly say 'Really? Because that's not what it looks like from here.' What did she expect, that he'd not care when she didn't just reject him but she parted those dimpled knees of hers for the guy who Max used to hate more than anyone else?

Was it only an hour ago that he was crying on this bench, sobbing because the girl he loved and trusted and placed on a pedestal hadn't just had feet of clay but a heart of stone? It's taking all of the joy of knowing that Max remembers me as Ava and loves me as Tess to stop myself from slapping her, as I once slapped Vilandra for a similar betrayal of Zan. If Isabel was here, I'm sure Liz would be holding a smarting cheek right now.

He squeezes my hand. He knows what I'm thinking but that doesn't bother him. There's still a lot of pain in his heart. He might remember life as Zan but he's still Max, the boy who's been in love with Liz since he was six, the man who risked his life to save hers, the alien whose connection with her was the first one with a human he'd ever made. There's a lot of history for all of us. He's angry, he has a right to be, but he's never found violence appealing in his anger before and he isn't starting now.

How could they ever imagine I could love Kyle when I knew Max? Humans, I just don't understand the way their minds work. I realise Liz is staring at me, not just the joined hands, but at my face. She thinks I'll be mad because Kyle and I are friends, but I'm angry enough on Max's behalf not to show any sign to her. I just hope she didn't throw Kyle off his path to spiritual enlightenment; he meditates too loudly as it is.

"I just," Liz is looking up at him with those big doe-eyes and I know that part of him still wants to protect her, because that's the kind of girl she is helpless.

Useless is more like it.

"You don't have to explain, Liz." He keeps hold of my hand as he moves towards her. He's different now; his very walk is more regal than it used to be. He doesn't dip his head so much and his step falls more firmly on the ground. She flinches in fear and I think how stupid she is. As if Max would ever, could ever, hurt her. She can't know him at all if she imagines that a little betrayal would make him do anything rash.

Now me she should be scared of.

Max nudges me out of my fantasies of what I'd do to her if he'd only let me and shake my curls back and give her a smile. "Really, Liz, you don't have to explain anything."

She looks relieved, but goes on anyway, "Please, let me try. It's just you and I can't ever be together, Max, it's all too complicated for that, and, well, Kyle was there and…"

"You felt screwed up so you screwed him." Oh, God of all my Fathers did that feel good.

Her expressions is shocked, those doe-eyes of hers looking teary now. I don't think anyone's ever talked to her like that before, but there is a nightingale in my soul that is filling me with song and I can't care about her hurt feelings. Not tonight, anyway.

"What's going on?" Isabel is behind us, and I turn to see Michael with her. Something in Max hums and I realise that this is the first time the Zan part of him has seen his sister and best friend in their new bodies. He smirks, which is such an un-Max like expression that Isabel raises an eyebrow and Michael follows suit.

"Maxwell," Michael looks even more confused than Liz does. He has no idea what's gone on tonight. I can't wait to tell him. He's almost as not fond of Liz as I am. "What are you doing?"

He still has my hand. He's making sure that I know he's never letting go of me again. The connection sings out to me and I return it renewed a thousand fold. His brown eyes close and when they open again they're silver. Max is Zan, or rather that half-and-half mixture of Max and Zan – Zax? – and he's looking at his old friend with new eyes.

"Rath. It's been a long time." He nods a little to his sister and I hear Liz's sharp intake of breath. "Hey, 'Landra."

As if a switch has been thrown, I see their eyes silver too. Isabel runs forwards and throws her arms around Max's neck, sobbing.

"I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry…"

"It's OK, 'Landra," again he calls her by her nickname. "I forgave you before and there's nothing to forgive anymore."

He's got one hand around her and the other one still holds mine.

"Zan," Rath's eyes are wet. "I should have protected her better. It's my fault Re's in that bastard's power."

At last Zan drops my hand and Isabel too. He grips Rath's shoulder. "None of it was your fault, Rath, none of it. You can't believe it was."

They remember everything. At last I'm not alone. I could dance all the way home. He may not be physically holding my hand anymore but Max hasn't forgotten me. The days of the three of them and one of me are over. It's the four of us together again, as it always should have been.

The relief on Michael's face is evident. Guilt is heavy, and I think Rath had the weight of an entire planet on his shoulders, a weight Zan has just lifted. As if it was physical rather than metaphysical weight, the muscles in his arms tense.

Hey, just because I'm an alien doesn't mean I can't appreciate the fineness of the human figure, especially when it looks like Max.

Liz has backed up away from us all and only now does it occur to any of us that we've been speaking in the old language, not English, and that she can't have understood a word we've said.

Max's love must be having an effect. I care enough to turn to her and say in English, "It's OK. We're not about to kill you or anything."

Max shoots me a look as Liz flinches again and I shrug. I never said I liked her and I'm Nasedo's child after all. Human tact is learned, alien honesty is instinctive. She's just lucky that Isabel doesn't know about Kyle or she'd be doing a lot more than flinching a little.

"We're going home." Zan says it and I wait for Michael and Isabel to argue, but they don't. They remember too. The image of my daughter appears before us and I smile. My baby's not going to be alone for much longer.

Max takes another step towards her, his hands held out in a way that in a human would be placating but with Max's powers is a little bit threatening. I can't hide my grin at her expression. Is it wrong to enjoy her fear when she's made Max so unhappy and afraid for so long?

Liz is freaking out. Not that I blame her, but still, you would think that after all she's done tonight she would understand why Max might want to leave.

"But we'll be back."

Right after we kill Kivar, resume control of our Kingdom, rescue our daughter from whatever horrible fate he's subjected her to and eaten some of the alien food I've been craving for the past 16 years. Tabasco sauce on waffles with strawberry jelly and whipped cream just can't compare

Isabel and Michael have stopped hugging Max now and we all just look at each other, faces shining with happiness. Liz is gone, probably to cry in her room or write in that damn diary. I can see it now 'Dear Diary, I'm Liz Parker' No, really? You're not Carmen Electra? Could have fooled me. 'And tonight I slept with my ex-boyfriend, broke the heart of the boy who loved me more than anything in the world and got teary-eyed and scared when he remembered that he wasn't of this world and went back to his alien wife. I just don't know what to do.'

Somehow I don't think any teen agony aunt is going to have a solution for that one.

"Oh my God." Classic Maria, she's already worked out exactly why Max is holding my hand and Liz is walking away. "She did it. She finally mind-warped you all."

Or maybe not.

"Maria," Michael has never been a man of many words and now he seems to skip any idea of them. He just starts kissing her and even Alex, who's talking quietly to Isabel, can see the connection open between them.

"Oh." Maria sighs when he lets her go. "I get it. Come back soon, Mikey, or you might find I've found myself another alien lover to get lost in space with."

She doesn't have anything to worry about on his side. Just because Max and I are together doesn't mean that Isabel and Michael want to be too. Maybe one day, but for now, they love their humans. I hear Michael's thoughts about Maria, and know that Isabel is no substitute for the blonde pixie in his heart. Vilandra's betrayal still cuts, and it will be a while before Rath can look at her without seeing Kivar too.

As for Isabel, well, let's just say that Alex is a little too devoted for her to want to trade him in for Michael's sarcasm and unpredictability. She's always liked being worshipped.

Zan / Max is smiling and I see the suns of our home world dance in his eyes.

I think I love him more now than I ever have before.

I can't live without him.

I can't.

So it's a good thing I don't have to, not anymore.