Disclaimer: Roswell, and its characters do not belong to me. Melinda Metz, Jason Katims and 20th Century Fox have that particular pleasure. If I was lucky enough to own them, you just know the show would still be on the air, and you be watching that instead of reading this.

Rating: PG-13 to R for inappropriate language and some violence.

Winds of Change

Chapter Five – Discoveries

"You want to go to a movie with me?" Liz asked, incredulously. "Why?"

"Uh, cause I think you're hot?" Michael said, his voice uncertain.

Liz looked at Michael and burst out laughing. "Could you at least try and sound like you mean it," she said between chuckles. "Look, you don't think I'm hot, in fact, you don't even like me, so why don't you just tell me what's going on."

"Fine, I'll tell you," said Michael. "Stay away from Max Evans. Got it?"

The mention of Max sent shivers running up and down Liz's spine.

"I'm not near Max Evans," said Liz. "In case you haven't noticed Michael, he can't even stand to be in the same classroom with me. I don't think there's much chance of us running away to get married."

"Yeah, whatever," he said resting both hands on the table beside her. "Look, just stay away from him. Don't talk to him, don't look at him, and stop writing about him. The same goes for that crazy friend of yours too. What's her name, Maria? Tell her to stay the hell away from him, and me too."

Michael left the classroom as abruptly as he had entered, and Liz sat alone at the table fuming over his words. Where did he get off telling her what to do? Who did he think he was, Max's protector or something? Liz thought to herself.

The word protector sent a shock wave reverberating through Liz. She didn't know why, but there was something about Michael and that word that affected her. She turned to a fresh sheet of paper in her notebook and quickly jotted down a few observations about her conversation with Michael. She underlined his name several times and linked it with the word protector.

Liz sighed and turned the notebook back to her lab notes. She picked up the swab that had Max's saliva sample on it and made a new slide. She slid it under the microscope and peered through the viewfinder. She looked, then looked again, but there wasn't anything there. It was as if someone had wiped the slide clean.

She sighed and examined the slide she made with the sample from her own cheek. Liz meticulously noted down every detail of her sample versus the vegetable sample in the lab packet the teacher had provided. When she was done, she cleaned up her station and passed in her work.

Liz quickly exited the classroom and traversed the now empty halls of West Roswell High. She peered into the empty classrooms as she passed, looking for any sign of Max Evans. She finally conceded defeat and made her way to the student lounge to get a soda from the machine. She sat at an empty table while she drank it, ostensibly to study her science notes. She flipped open her notebook, thumbing through the pages to find her notes. Instead she found the notes she had scribbled after her confrontation with Michael Guerin.

"Hey Chica, where've you been?" Maria asked, plopping down on a chair next to her.

"I had to make up a lab," said Liz, covering the notebook with her biology book.

"You had to make up a lab? A science lab?" asked Maria. "Has the world stopped spinning? Is the end near?"

"Shut up," said Liz, laughing at her friend's dramatics. "I just kind of zoned out during class today, so the teacher gave me a chance to make it up."

"You're worrying me here, girlfriend. Zoning through classes falls under my job description, not yours. What's wrong?"

"I'm just tired," said Liz. "I had a nightmare last night about what happened in the CrashDown."

"You had a nightmare?" said Maria. "How do you think I feel. There's Max Evans, telling me to look at him. I open my eyes and what do I see, that spiky haired, freaky friend of his, Michael Guerin. Now that's a nightmare."

"Oh my God, you'll never believed who asked me out," said Liz, turning to Maria. "None other than the spiky haired freak himself."

"No way," said Maria. "For real?"

"Yeah way, but not for real," said Liz. "He was warning me away from Max Evans."

"Why? Max is so hot for you. He used to be in the CrashDown all the time, staring at you. The thing I never got is why you don't find him equally hot."

"I keep telling you, I'm with Kyle," said Liz, but her voice lacked conviction.

"Please, Chica, you belong with Kyle about as much as I belong with Max's freakazoid friend," Maria said. "What did he say, anyhow?"

"Nothing much, just told me to not talk to him, don't think about him and don't," she paused for a moment, remembering Michael's final admonition to not write about Max.

"Not to what, Liz?" asked Maria.

"Huh, oh, um, nothing, just more along that vein," said Liz. "Oh, and he wants you to stay away from Max and him, too."

"He what?" Maria roared, her voice echoing slightly in the deserted student lounge. "Where the heck does that bozo get off trying to dictate to me? After all, Max saved my,"

"Maria!" Liz shouted, her voice covering Maria's, but barely. "We're supposed to keep that quiet, remember?"

"I'm going to give that pin headed, Metallica freak a piece of my mind," said Liz.

"Metallica?" said Liz. "Does Michael like Metallica?"

"Loves them," said Maria, reaching into her pocket for the vial of cypress oil she kept in there to sooth her nerves.

"How'd you know that?" asked Liz.

"Know what?" asked Maria, breathing deeply, her eyes shut.

"I don't know. He just looks like the kind of person who likes Metallica, that's all."

The two girls gathered up their belongings, and walked to the parking lot where Maria had left her mother's red Volkswagen Jetta. While Maria drove, Liz closed her eyes and leaned back against the faded upholstery and allowed her mind to wander over the events of the day.

"It was you," Max said to Liz in the sunlit filled band room. "It was you."

Liz started to say something but found that she was no longer in the band room, and instead was in the science lab, staring into a microscope. The sample under the viewer was unlike anything she had ever seen before. She looked up from the microscope and found she was in the band room again, only this time, Max was dressed like one of the guys from the Men in Black movies, and he was pointing up to the sky. Liz took a step closer to him and found herself in the CrashDown. There was a sharp crack, and she felt something collide with her body, and she went falling to the ground.

"Look at me. You have to look at me," a voice called.

Liz's eyes flew open to the passing scenery as Maria drove them to the CrashDown.