Chapter 26 – Putting it Together

Liz Parker woke up slowly, groaning slightly at the stiffness in her body.

I must have fallen asleep out on the patio, she thought to herself.

Angry at herself for doing that, she opened her eyes slowly so the bright sunlight of the morning wouldn't be too much an assault to her sleep fogged mind.

Something's not right,I she thought. IThis isn't the patio. It' s my bedroom, and what am I doing on the floor?

With a groan, Liz pulled herself up into a sitting position and looked around her room. Her desk and dresser looked as if a thief had ransacked them. On the floor lay one of her desk drawers, it's contents scattered around the floor.

She crawled over and flipped the drawer right side up and prepared to scoop the contents back inside, when she became aware of a piece of paper clutched tightly in one hand.

She unfolded the paper with shaking hands, afraid to look at it, but more afraid of not knowing what it said. She smoothed out the last crease and saw Alex's smiling face staring back at her.

"It's just a picture," she said out loud to the empty room in relief. "Just a," she stopped as her mind registered the meaning of the words printed beneath the picture June 21, 1984 – April 29, 2001.

A silent scream ripped through her mind and she crumpled the card in her hand.

"No, not Alex," she whimpered. She ran across the room and looked at the calendar tacked to the wall above her desk.

"Wait, this can't be right," she said out loud. "It's only October 12, 1999." But even as she said the words, she knew deep within the inner recesses of her heart that it was right. Alex wasn't supposed to be alive.

Liz showered quickly and ran down the stairs of her family's apartment, still buttoning her shirt as she ran. She waved to her father shouting something unintelligible as she ran to deflect any questions he may have had for her. Out on the street she stopped for a second, unsure of where to go. She thought for a minute and then found herself running down the street in the direction of Alex's house.

She bypassed the front door and ran around to the back of the house and peered in Alex's window to see if he was awake. She raised her hand to knock on the glass and stopped as she realized there were two figures in Alex's bed, and one of them had long blond hair. She began to back away slowly as the figures began to stir, but not before she recognized a very naked Isabel Evans pressing kisses on the equally naked Alex. Blushing, Liz turned and ran out of the yard.

A short time later, after wandering aimlessly around the residential streets of Roswell, Liz found herself standing in front of the home of Max Evans. Unsure of how to proceed, Liz stood under a tree, just staring at the house.

Fate for once had decided to work with Liz, and in a short while, the front door opened, and Max stepped out, dressed in shorts and a pair of running shoes. He stretched briefly on the front lawn, and Liz watched, enjoying the way the sun shone on his muscles as he contorted his body into various positions.

She waited until he started to move away from the house before she sprinted until she caught up with him.

"Max, wait! Max!" she called to him. "I need to talk to you."

"Liz," he answered with pleasure. "I'm guessing you didn't come out here to go jogging with me," he said, his grin fading as he saw the distressed expression on her face. "What's the matter, Liz?"

"Max, what do you think this means?" Liz asked handing him the crumpled card she had clutched like a talisman on her journey through town.

"What is this, someone's sick idea of a joke?" Max demanded when he finished reading the card.

"I don't think it's a joke," Liz said, her voice trembling slightly. "I think it's real."

"Liz, it can't be real. The date on this is a year and a half away," Max said, his voice desperate.

"I know Max. God, don't you think I know that? But something isn't right here. Someone is changing things, making them different. There is too much we all remember, and there are too many things that just don't make sense. Nicholas shifted time before, maybe he's doing it again! We have to fix it Max, Alex can't die!" Liz shouted, her voice becoming more and more agitated.

"What did you say?" Max asked. He reached out and grabbed Liz by the shoulders and began to shake her as he yelled, "Damn it Liz, answer me, what did you just say?"

"I said Alex can't die!" Liz shouted right back at him. "He's my best friend Max, he can't die."

"Before that, what did you say right before that, Liz? You said someone had done this before. Who was it?"

"Nicholas," Liz said slowly. "Nicholas did this before. Him and the other skins came to town. The stuck a big green rod in that billboard outside of town, and it shifted time so that everyone who wasn't an alien disappeared."

"Except for you, Maria, Kyle and his dad," continued Max.

"Because we were all out of town when it happened, but we disappeared, didn't we, one by one?" Liz finished. "And Nicholas is a small dark haired little boy."

"Like the one Isabel thinks she saw driving the truck that almost ran us down," Max finished. He looked down into Liz's dark brown eyes and found his mind filled with flashing memories, but he couldn't tell which were real, and which this Nicholas person had created. He lifted a hand to her cheek and caressed it gently. "It was you," he whispered. "It was you."