What would you do if someone told you you were an alien? Seriously, how would you react? Would you roll your eyes and say "look who’s talking"? Would you laugh and ignore it? Would you be offended? Freaked out? Would you run? Would you jump onto the back of a motorcycle and bury your face against a leather jacket and try not to cry because you were so happy and so frightened and so confused all at the same time? If someone would have asked me before I think I might’ve chosen the first one, but there I was, speeding through the night, passing by all the meaningless little shops and restaurants I’d ever been to, speeding past the high school, the elementary school, the pre school and the daycare center.

When I saw the pre school I was knocked back into my senses.

I couldn’t have been the girl in the unopened pod. I wasn’t adopted. I didn’t come into this world, seven years old. I had been a baby, I had been a toddler, I had gone to that pre school. I had the pictures at home to prove it.

I was disappointed.

This was all a big mistake.

He must have felt me tense. He turned his head slightly to yell, "What’s wrong?"

I didn’t want to tell him. What the hell’s wrong with me? I didn’t want to tell him that I wasn’t the one he was looking for.

I shook my head, and he turned his attention back to the road, satisfied. My heart was pounding in my chest. He was going to find out sooner or later. When we got to Roswell the other two – they might know. What if they took one look at me and knew and killed me for knowing about them? What if Michael knew? What if he realized his mistake and was just looking for the right time and place to do it…

He pulled off to the side of the road suddenly and stopped the bike. We were so far away from the town, nothing but trees alongside the road, no diners no gas stations, no people for miles.

I could run and hide in the woods if I had to. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to find me in the dark…Oh my god can aliens see in the dark…?

I was on the verge of having a heart attack.

"Why are we stopping?" He got off the bike and motioned for me to do the same, but I just sat there trying to decide if I could figure out how to start the damn thing and get away. He rolled his eyes and sighed looking at his watch.

"It’s midnight. We’re still pretty far away and I don’t feel like an pulling an all-nighter okay?"

"We’re sleeping out here?"

"I’m gonna sleep. You can do whatever the hell you want except leave so get off the bike so I can haul it into the woods." I slid off the seat, mentally crossing my fingers that all he wanted to do was sleep and not make me disappear or melt or whatever it is aliens did.

I followed him past the trees, wrapping my arms around myself. I was not a nature girl by any means, and I was not looking forward to all the mosquito bites I’d have to put up with in the morning. It’s funny how that’s what was worrying me the most at the moment. A second ago I was worrying about getting my mind melted by an alien, and now all I was thinking was "why didn’t he tell me we’d be camping? I would have brought "Off!" or some other bug-getter-offer product. I can’t stand camping. I want to go home. I want to go home, I want to go home. I’m already getting bitten. I can feel it…"

"Do you have any bug spray?" I asked hopefully.

"No I don’t have any bug spray."

"We’re gonna get eaten alive out here!"

"So deal with it."

"I could if I had some bug spray!"

"Are you always like this?"

"Like what?"

"Such a…"

"A what?"

"A princess." Princess? Princess?

"What about you?" I said as he stopped rolling the bike and leaned it against a tree. "Are you always such a…"

"A what?"

"A buttmunch?" Okay, definitely not one of my finer moments in the insult department. "Very mature."

"You started it!"

He unstrapped a sleeping bag from the back of the bike and tossed it onto the ground. "Yeah, this is gonna be fun." he mumbled to himself, and I eyed the sleeping bag suspiciously.

"What’s that for?"

"I dunno, sleeping maybe?" He unrolled it then looked up at me from where he was squatting on the ground. "I bet you expect me to do the guy thing and suffer the cold hard ground for you huh?"

"You’re not going to?" He sighed again, like he was making some huge personal sacrifice and unzipped it, flung it open, and motioned for me to get in. I did because I didn’t know what else to do and I was afraid he’d change his mind.

"Are you going to start a fire?"

"Yes I’m going to start a fire."

"Look buddy, lay off the attitude." I growled struggling with the zipper. He leaned over and did it up for me, then paused, staring into my eyes in a way that reminded me of that weird desert vision I’d had where it was just the two of us alone and…

"Princess." He murmured and turned away from me to clear a space on the ground to build up a fire.

"Buttmunch." I mumbled, pulling the material up over my ears.

I watched as he gathered some wood and stones for the fire. I watched him carefully arrange the stones in a circle and start to build up the wood and sticks into a mini log cabin. He was so exact about it, making sure the sticks made a perfect square. It made me smile.

"Stop looking at me"

"I’m not looking at you." I said, still staring at his back.

"Yeah, you are."

I thought about telling him I wasn’t the girl in the pod. That I wasn’t an alien. That I was just a human that could sometimes do…stuff.

I couldn’t explain why I had those visions, why I felt so close to complete strangers, why I felt compelled to follow him wherever he wanted to take me.

I should tell him. I should let him know he’s wasting his time with me.

He turned around suddenly to catch me staring at him.

The moonlight filtering through the leaves touched his face and I felt that pull I’d felt the first time I’d seen him. I’d never felt that about anyone, never felt that connected and so alive as when I had my arms around his waist and my body pressed against his back.

I wanted to be that girl. I wanted to be that lost alien because it explained so much. It explained what I felt for this boy, why I felt drawn to him even though for the most part all he’d done was scare me and piss me off. It explained why I had always felt so alone and so out of place. It explained why I had always been able to do weird things like fix broken coffee cups without touching them.

"What’s the matter with you?"

I was going to lie. He’d figure it out on his own soon enough, and if he didn’t Max or Isabel would. Until then I was going to go along with it because as confused as I’d been since I met him, this was the first time I felt complete, the first time I felt like I belonged, and as selfish as it sounds I wasn’t letting go of that until I had to.

"Nothing. It’s just a lot to take in y’know?"

"Yeah."

"So…how did you find me?"

"Nasedo."

"What’s a nasedo?"

"He’s one of us. He’s from where we’re from. He wasn’t born here on earth. We’ve been lookin’ for him for years and then he just showed up one day and said there was another one of us out there and that we had to find you so we could all be together again. He knew where you lived. And Max knew what you looked like so…"

"How come it was you?"

"What?"

"How come you came and got me and that Nasedo guy didn’t?" He turned away from me suddenly and angrily threw another stick into the pit, almost knocking over the log cabin he’d spent so much time making perfect.

"Because he disappeared. Again. I came because it doesn’t matter if I leave town for a few days. Max and Isabel would be missed.

"But what about your parents?"

"I don’t have any."

"I mean your fost-"

"Emancipation."

"Oh." Sore spot.

"Yeah so what about your parents?" He sounded so defensive.

"What about them?"

"They’re gonna be looking for you right?"

"Well yeah. I mean I figure I’ve got at least two days before my mom knows I’m gone. After that I don’t know what she’ll do. Call the cops probably and say I’ve been kidnapped. She’d never believe I’d run away."

"You’re close with her." He sounded like he disapproved. Who the hell did he think he was?

"Sometimes."

"What about your "dad"?"

"I dunno. He left when I was a –" God, I had almost said "baby". "Ah…younger. He left me and my mom a long time ago." Silence.

"Two days huh?"

"Yeah. At least."

"That’s not good enough. You’re gonna have to call and tell her your not coming home for awhile." I started to object (y’know to be convincing) but he cut me off. "Just until we’ve got this all figured out. Maybe once the four of us are all together Nasedo’ll come back and tell us what the hell’s going on."

He turned back to the fire and held his hand over it.

"What are you doing?"

"Tryin’ to start the stupid fire." He lifted his hand and ran it once through his hair, frustrated, "Shit. I can’t…Do you have any matches or a lighter or something?"

"No." He turned to look at me all pissed off because I wasn’t a smoker, and then blinked, like he was remembering something. He got to his feet.

"C’mere."

"What – why?"

"You can do it. Start it up."

"What are you talking about?"

"C’mon, it’s cold. Just pretend they’re a stack a’ books." He said impatiently nodding at the sticks.

"You saw that?"

"Yeah I saw it now start up the fire before I freeze to death…Some of us don’t have sleeping bags to keep warm you know."

"I can’t just make that happen. I don’t know how I did it before."

He sighed and plopped down on the ground annoyed.

"Then what good are you?"

"Y’know what? Bite me spaceboy. You’re the one that dragged me out here in the first place. I don’t owe you any favors." He was quiet, then after a moment said.

"This is really uncomfortable."

"Now who’s a princess?"

"My vote still goes with the chick who stole my sleeping bag. You can’t even see the stars from here" He sounded disappointed. "When you camp in the desert you can see the stars", he explained. "They’re everywhere."

"I’ve never been to the desert, not for real anyway."

"Yes you have, you just don’t remember." I swear to God he is incapable of not arguing with everything I say.

We were quiet for awhile until a memory hit me – not one of the bad ones, but one I couldn’t believe I had ever forgotten because it had been so important to me at the time. I didn’t realize I had wanted to tell him about it until I heard myself saying quietly, "I went to a summer camp when I was eleven. I hated every minute of it except for this one night where our counselor took us on a kitchen raid. The mess hall was at the end of this huge field of grass, and walking back it… it was just amazing. All there was was the ground and the stars… I’d never seen so many stars. It was like there was hardly any sky at all…" My eyes started to burn when I remembered how I fell to my knees, and just cried and cried and cried at the beauty of it. My heart had felt so full. I had felt so free. "I felt so alive… like I was a part of something bigger, like I could reach out and touch them all if I tried hard enough." I remembered aching inside because I couldn’t reach them, and I had kept feeling that way even when my mom had finally come to take me home. The first night back I had stayed up all night staring out of my window, wondering why I still felt so far away from everything when I was where I was supposed to be, when I was home with my mom.

"It’s like that in the desert", he said softly. "You’ll see."

"Do you do that a lot?"

"What?"

"Sleep under the stars?"

"I used to."

"What made you stop?"

"I finally had a place to come home to at night."

"You didn’t before?"

I felt him squirm uncomfortably in the darkness next to me.

"No."

We were silent for a while, listening to each other breathe, listening to the gentle whisper of the leaves sliding against each other in the wind. I unzipped the bag enough for me to get my arm out and pointed up to the sky between us where I thought I saw a few flickers of light.

"There’s some." I whispered.

"Where?"

"Right there."

"I don’t see anything."

"You calling me a liar?"

"Where are you looking?" Exasperated, I grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and pulled him closer to me. I pointed again.

"There." I said softly.

"Okay, yeah I see them."

I brought down my hand and quickly pulled the sleeping bag material up over it again. "My arm’s cold."

"Imagine how I feel." I felt him shiver beside me and felt guilty. It was his sleeping bag after all.

"Fine", I sighed. Big baby.

"Fine what?" I unzipped the bag and held it open.

"Just get in. I know you’ve been dying for me to offer."

"Don’t-"

"Flatter myself, I know. Just get in here before I change my mind." I scooted over as far as I could and turned my back on him as he crawled inside and slowly pulled up the zipper. There was barely enough room for two people to fit once he zipped it up all the way, and our backs were snugly pressed against each other.

"You better not be a kicker."

"Same goes for you pally."

*~*~*

I dreamt of the stars and the sand, the rock jutting out into the sky pointing at the Aries constellation. I dreamt of a dark haired boy. I dreamt of his kisses, his hands. And it was unsettling. Not in the way the other visions had been - those didn’t make me feel so…trapped. I felt like I belonged in them, like they were natural. This one felt forced even though I was responding to him. Even though I was kissing him back, touching him back.

I couldn’t control myself.

It was scary.

I didn’t feel like me.

The vision wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. I didn’t know Max. How could I see him like that? The vision was not real.

I woke up, my face pressed against the inside material of the sleeping bag, slick with condensation from my breath.

I don’t know why I kept calling it a vision. It wasn’t. It was just a dream.

It was just a dream.

My stomach grumbled and I closed my eyes, determined to fall asleep and stay asleep without being woken up by anymore sex stuff – dreams or visions.

Michael shifted slightly behind me.

Yeah. Good luck with that one Maria.

I closed my eyes even tighter and told myself that the thing with Max didn’t mean anything. It was probably a result of having nothing but a handi-snack, half a can of Dr. Pepper, and a couple of cinnamon tic tacs for dinner.

It didn’t mean anything.

I finally fell asleep again, murmuring that to myself over and over again until the words lost their meaning.

*~*~*

I dreamt of the stars and the sand, the rock jutting out into the sky pointing at the Aries constellation. And when I saw the dark haired boy again, felt his kisses on my neck, his hands pressed against my back, I closed my eyes and begged my body to wake up again and stop feeling for him.

But I couldn’t wake up this time.

I still felt his lips, his body against mine, but suddenly they felt different. I opened my eyes and Max was gone. Michael was there, staring down at me with his dark, dark eyes, the stars shining over his shoulder. He reached out, his fingers touching the side of my face in a gentle caress. I kissed his hand, I lifted my face to his. I kissed him and could feel his fear. Could feel him choose to ignore it as I wrapped my arms around him and all there was was us...

*~*~*

I woke up feeling warm and safe. I woke up with Michael’s arm around my waist, and his lips against the back of my neck, in my hair. He must have turned around in the night.

I couldn’t breathe. The sparks were running up and down my body in comforting little waves that made my heart pound. How was he not feeling this?

I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep as I felt him move behind me and his breath on my cheek as he lifted his head. He carefully took his hand from my hip and slowly turned around, trying not to wake me. The zipper unzipped and the sleeping bag rustled as he got out and paused before closing it up again.

I laid there for a few minutes more, wanting to get up but afraid to. I was embarrassed and I knew he probably would be too.

My face was warm and my heart was still racing. I couldn’t face him all strung out like this. He had strong arms. They felt good around me. I liked the way his lips felt against my shoulder, the way my body had curled into his like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like we actually could stand each other, like we liked each other.

Oh please.

I was not about to get all moony over this guy just because he accidentally put his arms around me and held me all night and…

And he doesn’t even like me. He’s a jerk. No – he’s not a jerk - he’s a buttmunch. This was established last night.

Okay now I was irritated. Good. I was now in a much better position to handle him and his attitude. I resolutely pulled down the zipper and crawled out of the bag. He looked up briefly, then went back to messing with the bike.

"You didn’t have to pretend you were sleeping," he mumbled. "You could have just woken me up. I would have let you out."

"I was sleeping."

"No you weren’t." He turned around and ran a hand through his already tousled hair and kicked at the rumpled sleeping bag. "Look, you were having a bad dream okay and that’s why I…" he trailed off with a shrug and picked up the bag.

"What dream?" Oh my God. The dream. I had almost forgotten…

He didn’t know what it was about… Please don’t let him know what it was about.

He started to shove the bag into its sleeve not looking at me, focusing all of his attention on attaching it back onto the bike once it was all the way in and the drawstrings were tightly pulled shut.

I could feel my face getting hotter and hotter. He knew. He knew I had dreamt about Max. I bet you could die from embarrassment. I bet it’s happened before. I be-

"You were being kinda noisy" Oh my God.

"How…how was I noisy?" He shrugged.

"I dunno you just…you sounded upset. So I tried to wake you up but you just kept on whimpering and kicking me. You seemed to calm down when I…held you. So that’s why I…" He trailed off again with another shrug.

"Thanks." I whispered.

"Do you remember what it was about?’

"Huh? No. No I don’t remember."

Yes I did. Max. Me and Max.

My knees felt shaky. I wanted to sit down.

I suddenly remembered that I had dreamt about Michael too last night. Was it because he had touched me? I watched him get on the bike. He turned to look at me expectantly. I met his eyes and I felt like I was going to crumple into a heap of embarrassment all over again. It’s strange seeing someone you just dreamt about – especially if you’ve dreamt about them in that way… like they can take one look at you and know everything.

I stared at my hands. I couldn’t look at those eyes anymore, not without thinking about- "Are you getting on or not?"

I bit my lip and carefully climbed onto the back of the bike. He paused for a second then sighed impatiently.

"You’re gonna have to hold on if you don’t want to fall off." I hesitantly put my arms around his waist. I didn’t feel the sparks or get any flashes, so I relaxed a little bit against him. He started up the bike and drove slowly through the path we had made last night. When we reached the road, he sped up until we were going so fast the trees were just two blurred stripes on either side of us. I buried my face into his back as the wind tore past, trying not to think about how warm his skin was against mine when there were no barriers like the leather jacket, his T-shirt, my T-shirt, my jacket between us.

I bit my lip.

This was bad. This was very bad.

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