Liz rushed, excited, up the Crashdown steps, into her room, grabbed her phone and speed-dialed. After a ring and a half, the line picked up and Max's lazy 'hello?' greeted her.

"I talked them into it," Liz puffed, collapsing into her bed. "Promised them that we weren't running off to have sex or do drugs or anything else they told us about in health class, said I just needed a bit of summertime off with a few of my friends."

She could picture Max smiling in his own room. "Great."

"Did you-know-who tell you where we're going to be going yet??" Liz continued.

"Umm, not exactly. Mid-west coast, and a fairly large city. Portland, maybe, or San Francisco. He's got a few ideas of who we can talk to once we get there to narrow it down."

"Hmmm." Liz considered that. "Well, I just hope that the whole deal works."

"Yeah, me too," Max agreed softly. "So, how was your day otherwise??"

----------

"So... so that's it??" Isabel breathed, near fainting with relief.

"So it would seem," Gird replied, the pleasure somehow perfectly readable on his face though he wasn't smiling, nor were his eyes 'twinkling' as human eyes might.

"When I spoke with the admiral of the second fleet, he seemed to realize that an attack was pointless even before I explained why. Tess, and the baby, can be transferred aboard the Rebel courier ship, which will then disappear beneath its 'cloaking field,' practically impossible to trace. The two of you will be leaving for Earth in the Granilith as soon as its countdown has completed again, and no other ship can match its speed. Given all of that, Kivar's officers don't have any real chance to capture a prize trophy for their supreme leader. They can probably fight through the Rebel warships and blast our settlement, but that won't accomplish anything, and might even prove counterproductive to Kivar if public opinion turns against him."

Michael weighed that from his bed. (A private room for his recovery had been found not long after the energy transfer.) "And there's no way they could get here and snatch us before the Granilith is ready to go??" he asked softly.

"Not really," Gird assured them. "They'd have to fight their way through first."

"And what if there's some other cloaked vessel, in orbit already?" Isabel asked nervously.

"I doubt it," Gird assured her. "Those ships aren't cheap or numerous. And they can't enter the atmosphere with a sub-etheric field going anyway, so we'd see if they were coming to get you."

Michael nodded, satisfied. "Well, I'm feeling better now. Can we see Tess before she leaves? Talk to the people who'll be taking her away?"

"Of course." Gird thought a moment. "How long will you need?"

Michael shared a look with Isabel for several seconds. "Not sure... probably not long. We don't want to delay things, especially if the bad guys might still be coming towards us."

"Well, we were going to bring Tess out onto that wide, flat plain right in front of the settlement, and transfer her to a landing shuttle there. In about an hour. You can be there."

Isabel nodded, Michael too, and sure enough in an hour, there they were. Tess was being led out from the settlement front gateway, guards on either side, the restraining collar still around her neck, but hands and feet unbound. Michael stared at her, possibly for the last time, with profoundly mixed emotions.

"Gird gave me this," he whispered, showing her a tiny little alien gizmo with a purple crystal built into it. "Ultrawave communications transceiver. Once the baby is born, if you want to go anywhere NEAR Earth, you make sure to reach us first using it, and get Max's okay. Otherwise, we'll consider it a declaration of war. Got it??"

Tess nodded, words not coming to her for a moment. When they arrived, she said softly, "Michael, I'll miss you too." He glared. "Okay, strike that last word then," she muttered uncomfortably.

"Take care of my nephew... while you can at least," Isabel said, also sounding undecided about what emotional tone she should have. "I kinda wish things could have been different."

"Me too, and I'm so sorry," Tess replied. "Especially... about the whole thing with Alex, and what I tried to do when I realized he was dead. I wasn't trying to kill him, you have to believe that."

Isabel considered it for a moment. "No," she shot back, her voice full of grief and a little revulsion. "You were only trying to violate his mind one more time, taking the true memories out of his brain, to cover up your own dirty secret. I don't think that's any better than being an intentional murderer."

"I wasn't *trying* to take him away from you," Tess insisted.

"Not Alex, no. Not until you would inevitably decide that you needed me to be where he couldn't come and follow. Just stop talking to me now, Tess." Tess's face quirked as she turned away slightly from the other hybrid girl.

Meanwhile, an impressively uniformed Antarian had stepped forward from the waiting shuttle. "Prince Michael, Princess Isabel??"

"Umm..." Michael once again shot a bemused look at his oldest friend. Isabel nodded back slightly. "Something like that." He opened his mouth to ask who the officer was, then shut it again because he didn't know the proper formula for asking, if there was one, without seeming rude.

He didn't need to. "Commander Vellissar. I have a message for you, and for Max Evans, from Queen Alinda."

Isabel gasped slightly. "And Alinda would be... she was Zan and Vilandra's mother??"

Vellissar nodded crisply. "Yes. The message goes as follows:" He took a subtle breath before beginning to recite in a ritualized accent of the Antarian language. "'From the secondhand news that has reached me, it is clear that the three of you are both less, and more, than my dear children reborn, but I would still be honored to call you family.'" Isabel squeaked low again, holding tight to Michael in the excitement of this missive.

"'Isabel, Michael, my heart is heavy with the realization that we will not be able to meet at this time, but the fact that you were able to come so near will buoy my aged spirits for many more orbits of the worlds. I will be among those waiting at - a secure location, to meet with Tess, and to assist in the birth and care of her baby. I'm not sure if he will count as my grandson or great-grandson, but he will be kin, and that is the important thing.'"

"'To Max, I ask that you carry all my love and all my best wishes, (after taking first your own due portions, that is,) to sustain him through any trials or challenges that his life may bring in the coming years. The rebel army that is still loyal to what your father stood for is trying to keep our war from spreading to disrupt your new lives in this time, but the usurper hates that your names live on, in this fashion, and that the chance to live again after death has come to any of his enemies. Be warned that he may attack on Earth again.'"

"'Isabel, Max: I am aware that you were taken in as 'orphans' by a childless Earth couple, who have cared for you as if you were their own children and know nothing of the unearthly side to your nature. My gratitude goes out to these people, to Phillip and Diane Evans of Roswell, New Mexico, for taking care of you when I could not. You will probably not be able to pass my thanks on to them, but remember to give them your own. I know that if I were in their place, I would want to be told the truth, and would love my children no less for hearing it. The circumstances may make that impossible, but I wanted to mention my opinion here in this letter.'"

"'Blessings of the powers of creation be upon both of you on your return home, and on those you love who have not left Earth. May the day of our meeting draw near. Alinda.'"

"Cool," Isabel whispered, wondering if she might, after all, pass on the thanks of her 'birth mother' to the only parents she had ever truly known. Michael was smiling just as much as she was, and had pulled out the destiny book translation from one of his pockets.

"Could you go over that again?? I'd hate to misremember some of it when we try to tell Max, or to be unable to explain one of the Antarian turns of phrase, so maybe we can transcribe it all into English."

The fleet man smiled patiently and went over the entire missive in small detail, he and Gird explaining little bits as they went. By the time they were done, Tess had been long past escorted into the shuttle.

"Gird has given me the instructions for communicating via that ultraceiver as well, Princess," Vellissar murmured once they were done. "Someone will be sure to contact you once the child is born."

Isabel and Michael both thanked him for that. "Is there any reply you wish conveyed back to Alinda??" That stunned Michael a bit, whose head was spinning a little bit with how much things had changed, so quickly.

"Tell her... tell her that we appreciate her kindness and the blessings she has sent," Isabel started uncertainly, "and that we want to meet her as well. For now, though, our place is back on Earth." That seemed to cover it, and she shrugged uncomfortably."

"Very... well. We should probably make ready to launch now." With one more respectful bow, he went back into the shuttle, and its hatch closed with a dreadfully final clang.

----------

"Alright, alright, I'll do it," the tall young woman with the bright shocks of electric pink and blue in her short dark blonde hair said, adding in a soft growl. "'Cause clearly, you ain't gonna stop buggin' me until I do, huh?"

"Pretty much, yeah," Kyle answered. They had finally found Lonnie near the edge of a wide, open city park near downtown Portland, after several days of searching.

"Alright, well, I'll need to sit down and concentrate," the dupe girl muttered, and stalked off towards an unoccupied bench. Kyle, Max, Liz, and Rath followed. Lonnie lowered herself catlike to one end of the seat, closed her eyes, and remained there for several minutes, as still as a statue. Finally she opened her eyes and looked around again, searching for Max's face. In an instant she found it.

"Sorry, I can't contact them," Lonnie said softly.

"Try again," Kyle growled menacingly.

She laughed shortly and fixed the human boy with as withering a stare as she could manage. "You don't get it, little V. Michael and Isabel, I can't reach them because they're back in warp space again. They left that planet in the Granilith. Should be back in Roswell in about a week and a half. Congratulations."

Liz jumped. It seemed to sudden. "What about... about Tess? The baby? How can we be sure you're telling us the truth?"

Lonnie shrugged. "It's true enough, and how you can tell that is up to you. Why did you want me to act as a gobetween anyway, if you couldn't trust what I said??"

"Well, partly I guess we were hoping you would get a message that was clearly from them," Max said honestly. "Something that you'd never think to fake, because you definitely don't understand either of them. But I guess half a loaf is better than nothing. Tess?"

"Umm.." Lonnie frowned, as if going over the impressions she had managed to get from that far distant planet. "She's in transit too, but a different ship, different destination. Heavy armed guard to the secret Rebel base, I guess."

Max and Liz shared a look. "Then everything's going to be okay I guess," Liz said slowly. "As long as..."

"I think she's telling the truth," Rath spoke up. "Unless she's managed to change her 'tell' entirely since the last time we ran together, and I kinda doubt that. If they don't show up within two weeks, then you can start worrying again."

"Yeah," Lonnie said with a crisp nod. "And don't come running to me every time you need to pass along a message back home, 'kay?? I gave you this one more or less free, but it could get old real fast."

"You owe me a little more than this, Landra," Max said, his own eyes at least as dangerous as Lonnie's. "But we won't try to find you again unless there's great need I think."

"Alright, I guess that'll do for now." And Lonnie got up and stalked away from them all.

"Well, it's too late to head back now," Kyle suggested. "Shouldn't have to look too far to find a cheap motel though."

"Yeah, sounds okay," Liz agreed, then made a big sigh. "But I'm gonna have to get my own room - I promised my mom."

----------

(Nine days later.)

Sitting up on his bed in the middle of the night, Max pressed the hook button on his cordless phone to get a new dial tone, and then rang through again. It took five rings before there was an answer.

"Uhhh... hello??"

"Maria, it's Max. Sorry for cal--"

"Max, it's... what, it's around three in the morning, right??"

"Yes, and they're about to arrive home!"

The words took a little while to register with the girl on the other end of the line. "Michael and Isabel? Right now??"

"In an hour I think, or maybe a bit less. I've already called Alex and Liz, and I'm going to ring Kyle as soon as we're done."

"But... but how can you know, Max??"

"It... it was a kind of a dream. I can't explain how I know that it's real, but trust me when I say that I'm certain."

"Uhh, okay." Maria crawled out of bed and tried to think of what she should wear for an occasion like this. "Was Isabel dreamwalking you, maybe?"

"Not sure... it wasn't exactly like that, but the fact that she's still in warp space and I'm not might have distorted the dreamwalk effect. I'll pick up Liz and... you can get Alex and Kyle, right?"

"Umm, yeah... where are we going? Where the pod chamber was?? The door there is ruined, and it'll take us about an hour just to get to the site..."

"Um." Max thought for a moment. "No, it's not going to be back there. Rendezvous at the south city limits sign, route 285."

"Err, okay. I'll be there as soon as I can."

----------

Max led the way off the road, about fifteen miles south of town, and maybe a hundred yards away from the late-night traffic. When he parked the Jeep, Maria pulled her mom's Jetta up next to it and pulled out. "What the heck is this place?"

"Nowhere very special," Max admitted. "Someplace that Isabel, Michael and I used to come when we were younger."

"And you think that they're going to bring the Granilith back here??" Liz asked, confusion and tiredness evident in her voice.

"Well, it's more convenient than the Maideckezne rocks were," Max pointed out. "Not such a long drive, and no reason for anyone to look for it here."

"But there's nowhere to hide it here!!" Kyle burst out. "No handy underground vault or anything. People are going to notice a giant alien cone that big - they might even be able to see it from the highway."

"No, I don't think so - the Granilith will take care of hiding itself, with Isabel and Michael's help." As Maria looked over at Max's face in the darkness, she could see he was smiling in the darkness. "I always wondered how the protectors, on the run and without much time, had managed to arrange all of the defensive features in the pod chamber and so on. I think I've figured that out now. They used the Granilith itself to create the entire installation. Hollow out the rocks, install the pods, create the handprint door lock, and the whole deal. With the power available to that thing, it wouldn't have taken longer than a moment."

"So you mean, they're going to..." Liz started.

"Hey, look!!" Alex called out. Far above them, a shooting star was growing brighter, moving along the sky only slightly. And suddenly Maria realized that whatever it was, it was about to land pretty much on top of them.

"Max, are you sure they aren't going to..."

And then, so quickly, it was all over. The wave of light, of sound and horrible pressure, landed maybe fifty feet away from where they were standing and crashed down into the ground. And then the ground began to move, filling in the circular impact hole, then lifted itself into a gentle desert hill. And mere steps away from where Max stood, finally, a sheet of solid bedrock slid away to reveal stairs, lit by some unearthly light. Up the stairs walked two familiar figures in unfamiliar clothes. Michael was wearing slightly baggy pirate-like black pants and a white shirt that was apparently made of a single sash of material wrapped around and around. Isabel was lovely in a long and simple blue tunic dress.

"Well, you guys sure know how to make an entrance," Kyle joked.

"Isabel?" Liz and Max moved aside, knowing that the person who had said her name had pre-eminent rights on the reunion. Isabel stared at him as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing, which wasn't too surprising under the circumstances.

"Okay, I know that I've imagined him before," she muttered. "Do... do you guys see, umm... see Al--"

"YES!" Liz shouted out too loud in her excitement. "Sorry, but yeah, Isabel, he's really here and it's really Alex. Kind of a long story about what really happened, and we can tell it all to you in great and gory detail, but..."

"Welcome home, darling," Alex said, smiling shyly, and impulsively, he stepped towards her with his arms spread. Isabel nodded, a tear falling from each of her eyes, and Alex swept her up in an enthusiastic embrace and kissed her.

"Okay, come on, at least give us a hint," Michael complained, as he gave Maria her own reunion hug. "Rhymes with..."

"Bath," Max quipped, waving to the other people he had driven here in the Jeep, who had hung back in the shadows thus far and not said a word.

"Umm, I'm not sure I can claim any credit for why Alex is still alive," Rath mumbled. "I'm kinda the reason you thought he'd been bumped off, though. If it weren't for Ava's mental shield, he woulda been."

Isabel pushed Alex partly away, (though still keeping one of her arms around him and vice versa,) to look at the dupes. "You did this? But why??"

"We were trying to stop Tess from getting away with something awful," Ava muttered nervously. "Since Alex is alive, you two are back home with the Granilith, I kinda think that we did -- right??"

"Umm, yeah, I guess so," Michael muttered, still trying to come to terms that Tess' "murder" of Alex had apparently been falsified.

"Um, speaking of Tess," Max said softly. "What happened to her? To the baby??"

"The baby is fine, Max," Isabel assured him. "Tess has been delivered into the care of the Rebel army, who are taking her to... to Zan and Vilandra's mother, queen Alinda. She's going to make sure your son gets born okay, and take care of him afterwards. Tess -- Tess isn't going to be allowed to raise him herself."

"Oh, and we've got this," Michael said, holding up a little alien doodad. "Communicator circuit... you might even be able to use it to talk to Grandma alien herself. We've got a message from her too."

Now it was Max's turn to have her head spin. "You mean... my real alien mother... did you talk to her?"

"Nah, didn't get a chance, it was all secondhand," Michael replied. "Oh, and there was a pretty kickass space battle too. Take my advice, though -- don't think of Alinda as your real mother. It confuses things, and it's not really accurate anyway, if you're not the same person as Zan was..." he looked at Liz standing close to Max, "which I think you believe now. Call Zan your father, via DNA donorship, and that makes Alinda your grandmother and the little one's great-grandmother." Max nodded.

"I... I can't believe that I have you back," Isabel whispered, holding Alex close as they started to get back into the cars, (with Rath perched in the back of the Jeep so that all nine of them would fit.) "I thought that you were dead, and that some part deep inside me would always be missing you. How did I get lucky enough to get a second chance??"

"I dunno," Alex admitted. "I was thinking the same thing... that it could so easily have been the real me in that coffin, dead for keeps." He brushed a lock of hair behind her ear and kissed Isabel's cheek as they got into the back seat of the Jetta. "The only thing I can think of is sometimes, life gives you a break."

----------

Michael relaxed on the loveseat in his living room, his arms around Maria. Reoccupying the apartment had been easy enough, with the landlord placated not long after he'd left -- Michael had taken little other than the clothes he'd been wearing when he left, so there wasn't even any moving things back in that needed to be done. Of course, in just a few days the rent would come due once again, and Michael hadn't been earning his usual wage at the Crashdown, but they'd find some way to come up with the cash, he was sure.

"So Liz really thought that Rath was me, again??" he said, smiling. "All the way to their hideout, until she saw Ava??"

"Umm, yeah," Maria replied softly. "So did I, for a few seconds. In Liz's defense, well -- we were all waiting for you guys to come back, not sure of when or how it might happen or how much notice we'd get. And Rath has been dressing and acting very differently from he did last winter. He wasn't a perfect imitation of you, but he was close enough that Liz didn't stop to consider the possibilities for a few minutes."

"Okay, okay, I wasn't mocking her or anything," Michael insisted. "It's just a kinda funny situation." He sighed. "And Alex didn't die after all. I never woulda guessed that one, but I'm relieved. He's a great guy, and deserves only the best."

"I know," Maria agreed.

"So, ummm..." Michael brushed away a sweep of her lustrous brown hair back and kissed Maria on the neck. "Have I mentioned just how much I missed you?"

"Not as much as I missed you," Maria replied, and blinked when Michael cocked his head at this reaction. "Well, I had more time to miss you, with the time distortion effect and all. To you, it's only been a week, while more than a month has passed for us poor little Earthlings."

"A very eventful week, I have to insist, but the point is taken," Michael admitted, kissing her ear.

"Ummm--" Maria suddenly stood up out of the seat, which almost made Michael lose his balance and fall over into the space she's been occupying, but he caught himself at the last moment.

"Err, what is it, baby?"

"There's something... something I have to tell you," Maria mumbled. "Not quite sure how to say it, so here goes. Tess isn't the only one who got pregnant with a part-alien baby."

"Uh, she isn't??" Michael asked. It was a few seconds before he remembered their last night together before the Granilith was launched. "You... you're... we're going to have a baby?" His life passed before Michael's eyes.

"No -- gotcha!" she crowed. "Sorry, I just made all of that up. No baby."

"Oh, uh, okay." Michael breathed deeply. "I think 'pheww' doesn't nearly cover it."

Maria smiled and dropped herself back into Michael's tender embrace.

THE END.