Part 5

"Our questions?" Max asked. Liz shot a look at Maria and Alex. She sighed, knowing what their reaction to this was going to be.

"Listen, you guys, this is something I need to talk to Max alone about. I’m really sorry, but we’ll call you a bit later. Maybe we can go hang out tonight or something."

"So you’re kicking us out, Liz?" Maria exclaimed.

"I’m really, really sorry, but yeah. I’ll call you on your cell when I’m done with Isabel and Michael."

"Cell? I don’t have a cell, Liz." Maria looked at Liz strangely.

"Okay, I guess that’s a my-world thing. Anyway, I’ll call you later."

"Fine, bye Liz." Maria and Alex left in a hurry.

"Can you believe this Alex? We finally get our best friend back, and she goes and ditches us for Max Evans. Liz never gave Max Evans the time of day, and now she, like, can’t keep her eyes off him. And why is it that she went to him first instead of us. This is too weird. Something’s going on here."

"Maria, cool it, okay? You’re just being crazy again."

"Excuse me? I think I’ve earned the right to act a little crazy. It’s not every day that your best friend is resurrected from the dead. But she’s acting like a total stranger."

"Of course she’s going to act differently. She isn’t our Liz, Maria. She looks the same, and she may have the same personality, but she’s not the same person. Our Liz is dead. This is just a temporary replacement. Don’t get your hopes up that she’ll be back for good." And by the looks of it, one of us should tell Max Evans that too, Alex thought.

"You’re right, Alex. I know you’re right. You’re always right, but I can’t help feeling a little upset that she just blew us off. And for Max Evans. She barely even knows Max Evans. Something weird is going on here, apart from the obvious. And I intend to find out what it is!"

"And how exactly do you plan on doing that Maria?"

"Well, I’m not sure yet, but let’s keep a close eye on this Liz. Try and figure out what her secret is."

"And what makes you think she’s got a secret?"

"Everyone has got a secret, Alex. Some of them are bigger than others, but we all have them. I mean, yours is that you’re an underground computer hacker, mine is…well…mine is that my father abandoned me and my mom. This Liz has to have one too. So are you going to help me with this Alex?"

Alex sighed. He and Liz used to always laugh at Maria when she got worked up over her crazy theories. "Sure," Alex agreed, "Why not? It’s not like I have anything else to do this weekend."

Isabel and Michael sat silently in Isabel’s bedroom, waiting to talk to Max. Isabel was organizing her makeup, again, while Michael sat in a chair across the room staring off into space. He started tapping his foot impatiently.

"Will you stop that Michael? It’s really annoying."

"Well what am I supposed to do? Huh? I’ve been stuck sitting in here watching you pamper yourself for an hour, while Max is in his room with Liz, doing God knows what."

"I for one don’t WANT to know what they’re doing in there."

"Whatever they’re doing, he’s breaking the rules just by being with her. You saw the way they looked at each other. We agreed not to get involved with anyone."

"Michael will you just shut up? Max will come and talk to us when he’s ready."

"Knock, knock." Somebody rapped loudly on the door.

"See," Isabel shot at Michael. "Come in! It’s about time you come and talk to us Max."

"It’s not Max, it’s Liz," Liz opened the door, and slowly walked in. "Can I talk to you guys?"

"What do you want. Where’s Max?" Michael snapped at her.

"I asked Max if I could talk to you guys first. I wanted to start by apologizing for just barging in on you guys like this. I know you never would have expected something like this to happen, and especially not for you guys to be the people that I turn to in this situation…"

"Well that’s really sweet of you, but does this little talk have a point?" Isabel remarked sarcastically.

"Let me finish. You have to understand that things are very different where I come from. We’re all a big group of friends in my world: you guys, Max, me, and Maria and Alex, and there’s no secrets between the six of us."

Isabel laughed, "No secrets, huh?" She gave Liz a wry grin, "I wouldn’t be so sure about that if I were you."

Liz gave Isabel a pointed, serious look. "I meant that Isabel. No secrets." Isabel stared back at Liz, and then turned to Michael, who had a shocked look on his face too. Michael finally broke the silence.

"Are you saying that you know…" He drifted off, not wanting to be the one to say it.

"I know everything", Liz told them, "About you three, and where you come from." Michael and Isabel sat there in a daze, trying to process what Liz was telling them. They had spent their entire lives being so careful, making sure that no one ever found out about them, and then out of nowhere, a dead girl walked back into their lives announcing that she knew all their secrets.

"How?" Isabel asked her quietly.

"Well, it all started with the Crashdown shooting…"

Alex and Maria sneak up to the Evans house. They’re dressed ridiculously in camouflage army clothes in an attempt to blend in with the bushes, sneaking around like they’re breaking into a restricted army compound or something. Alex guards Maria’s back with a plastic water gun, as she sneaks by the front windows, and turns the corner towards the side of the house. They finally make into the backyard, and sneak up to Max’s bedroom window, where they crouch down and wait, listening.

Max is pacing around his bedroom nervously, waiting for Liz’s return. "God only knows what Michael and Isabel’s reaction to this all will be. They’re probably going to kill her." The wait was tremendous for him. Max wanted nothing more than to go with Liz in there, so that he could try and make it easier for everyone. He wanted to protect Liz from Michael and Isabel’s accusations, and he wanted to be sure that Liz gave it to them lightly. Max smiled. He knew she’d do fine though. She was amazing like that. Max remembered what it was like for him to hold her in his arms the night before. It was incredible. His dreams hadn’t come even close to comparing to what it was like in reality. Her skin was so soft and silky, and her hair smelled incredible. He couldn’t forget that incredible scent. And she was so beautiful.

He was so lost in his thoughts, that he almost didn’t even hear the door open, and Liz, Michael, and Isabel came marching in. He looked up in surprise. "So, how did it go?" He asked.

"Well, that was something we didn’t expect to hear." Isabel told him, "And you know what the annoying part is? I can’t even get mad at you, ‘cause you didn’t do it. I wish there was someone I could get mad at, but there isn’t, so I guess we’ll just have to live with it."

"I think they took it pretty well," Liz commented, smiling her electrifying smile at Max. It was all he could do to keep from melting into a puddle right there.

"So now what?" Max asked her, "You said that there was more."

"Yeah, there is." Liz sighed, trying to figure out where to start. "Okay, like I said before Max, our relationship wasn’t the only thing that came out of the Crashdown shooting. Neither was my knowledge that you are all aliens. A lot of people became suspicious of the three of you, in particular, Sheriff Valenti. He had previous proof of alien existence, and when you healed me, he focused briefly on trying to get me to expose you. I wouldn’t, of course, but he took me in for questioning, and showed me this picture of a corpse from 1959, with a silver handprint on its chest. This man had been killed by an alien, and he tried to frighten me into revealing you."

"Are you saying that there was another alien besides us?" Michael demanded.

"Well, there was in 1959. Anyway, this picture led us on a series of clues, which eventually led us to the Mescalero Indian Reservation, where a man named River Dog told us the story of his relationship with this alien named Nasedo. He told us everything that Nasedo told him about who he was and where he came from, and he told us the story of Nasedo killing that man in the picture. River Dog showed us the cave where Nasedo lived. There were paintings on the wall of the cave, which Michael recently discovered in a vision were a map home. Max, do you remember that constellation I pointed out to you last night? The V-shaped one?" Max nodded. "Well, that’s where we think your home is."

The three aliens stared at Liz in shock. Liz had just given them more knowledge about themselves than they expected to find in their entire lifetime.

Isabel broke the silence, "Could you take us there? Show us the cave with the map?" Liz nodded.

Outside the window, Alex and Maria stared at each other in shock, barely believing what they had just heard. They heard the front door shut, and waited until they had sped off in Max’s jeep before speaking.

"It’s impossible. Aliens don’t exist. I mean, even here in Roswell we all know that there was no crash. It’s been scientifically proven," Alex insisted.

"Why would they make all that up? They didn’t know that we were listening. I think we just found out what Liz’s secret is, and Max, Michael, and Isabel’s too for that matter."

"So what are we going to do about it?"

"Let’s go over to my place and figure that out. Remember that we’re going to be hanging out with Liz tonight. We have to figure out what we’re going to say to her when she calls later."

TBC...