Roswell Fanatics

Chapter 17B

Max drove Liz to his house hoping his parents wouldn’t be in. They really had to find a way to fix this before something really bad happened.

“What are we going to do, Max?”

“I don’t know. First, we’re going to my house to see if there is anything more in Atherton’s journal. If not, well, I thought I would try the crystal. It’s supposed to be a guide for us according to what Atherton wrote. I’m hoping that I can access it and maybe find out more about what’s going on with us. There has to be a way to fix this. How are we supposed to go up against evil aliens if we can’t be apart for more than a few hours?” Max exhaled roughly, almost wishing he could go back to when things were simple. When he was just an alien boy in love with a small town girl.

Liz chewed on her lip, thinking and wondering if it would be that easy to find what the answers they were looking for, “Do you think I should try the crystal that glowed for me?”

“We’ll see what happens when I try my crystal first and then go from there.” Max pulled into his driveway, cutting the engine and just sitting there for a moment. “Let’s get this over with.”

Grabbing the journal and crystals, Max and Liz curled up together on Max’s bed. “Okay, let me start, Max.” Opening the journal to where they left off the other day, Liz began reading.

Journal Entry 6

Oh my God! Nesado is dead! I can hardly believe it. One minute he was alive and telling me more of what I needed to know to help the kids and the next I see him in front of stranger. The stranger grabbed Nesado and placed his hand on his chest and then it glowed. Nesado fell to the ground. The stranger saw me so I ran. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to die but I fear the alien is going to find me. I am leaving this journal here in the hopes the kids will find it someday when they are ready. I’m taking the key to RiverDog. He has more information. I know Nesado talked to him as well. Hopefully, the kids will be able to get whatever information I wasn’t able to record or find out from him.

Incase this is the last time I’m able to write and I end up dead. Here are some things that I haven’t had a chance to write about.

Nesado told me that he gave RiverDog some crystals. He called them Healing Stones. Because the kids physiology is different enough from humans they won’t always be able to get professional help, the stones were sent with them to heal anything that their healing abilities would not be able to fix. If they were badly wounded or if the balance in their bodies was out of whack they would be able to use the Healing Stones to fix it. RiverDog was given the instructions on how to use them.

One of the boxes in the cave is filled with alien technology. Several of the devices are weapons according to Nesado. He said the information crystals would show them how to use them and what they could do. He said to be very careful of them though. Most of the devices used something he compared to a radio signal. If they were used, anyone with the ability to track that signal would pick it up within a 1000 mile radius. He told me that kids should not even try to use the devices unless it was an emergency or they were able to get at least a few states away from their home territory so their alien enemies could not trace them.

Third, he told me when the Cromerians showed up they would more than likely head to a desert area. It would be the closest they could come to their home world conditions. He said it was more than likely they would stay within a couple states of where the ’47 crash occurred and for the kids to be careful of using anything that would draw unwanted attention to Roswell, providing they remained in Roswell after they came out of the pods. Nesado wanted me to get them out of New Mexico and take them somewhere else when they came out of their pods so they would be as far away from Roswell as possible but I don’t believe I will be around to ensure they are taken somewhere safe. My guess is unless they are taken out of the area for adoption or fostering after they are found, they will grow up in Roswell or one of the towns close by. My hope is they will have the chance to grow up and find the information they need to survive and win this war.

The last thing Nesado mentioned to me is even though he doesn’t know what happened to the last shapeshifter, he somehow believes he is still alive. He said he more than likely will go by some derivative of Kallion Lelanglian. It is his original name on Antar. He said for the kids to be wary of him but this shapeshifter does have the programming to protect the kids and to obey any direct order from one of them. He doesn’t know what this shapeshifter has been through and doesn’t know where his loyalty will lay but as long the kids give him a direct order he cannot disobey.

The traitor is a shapeshifter of some sort but is not this Kallion Lelanglian. Nesado had the chance to draw a sketch of what the traitor looks like in his most likely form. If the kids are to ever see this shapeshifter in this form, they are not to trust this alien at all. He is a traitor and has killed many times and sabotaged this mission as much as he could. Nesado also gave me a sketch of Kallion’s main shape. Hopefully, this will allow the kids a chance to be careful if they run into them and know who they can trust and who they can’t.

My final note is to the kids themselves. My hope is you live long and prosperous lives. That you find love and happiness and that this war is over with quickly and painlessly. I hope what I’ve been able to write helps you find your way. I ask your forgiveness for not being around to help you or guide you through this difficult life you find yourself in. When I first learned about you guys, you were just an idea; a far out and preposterous concept that didn’t seem real, but since then, I’ve come to consider you my adopted children. My wish for you is what any parent wishes. I hope you’re healthy and happy. I know that no matter what happens, I am proud and honored to have been apart of this. Nothing that has happened or will happen, even my death, will change the fact that I feel absolutely blessed to been a part of this secret.

Do not allow yourselves to be burdened with the crimes of the traitor or what he has done. No matter who he has killed or will kill, do not allow him to win. Prove not only to yourselves but to those that gave their all to make sure you have a chance that you’re worthy of their every sacrifice.

One last thing before I leave. Nesado mentioned that there was a way to communicate with Antar. It is highly dangerous and should not be undertaken lightly. I have not included the information on how to do that in this journal because I do not want you kids to try to communicate with Antar. If you ever discover the way on your own, do not try from anywhere in New Mexico. To be quite honest, you should try to go somewhere extremely far away, like overseas before attempting. According to Nesado, the signal to communicate that far away will be so strong that even normal human technology will be able to pick it up and triangulate the location. The moment you activate the communicators to Antar, your location will be compromised and not only will you have to deal with the alien threat but you will have to deal with Earth governments coming down on you.

Good luck to you all….

James Atherton

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Edited to add: I don't have pictures of the shapeshifters but I think it's pretty obvious who's who. Kal Langley is Kallion Lelanglian and Ed Harding is the traitor. If someone wants to do a sketch of the two and figure out how to put it up just pm me.

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“Oh God, Max. Poor Mr. Atherton. We should do something to honor his memory. He gave his life to help you guys.” Liz stroked the pages of the journal wishing Atherton could have survived. She couldn’t help wondering how things would have been different if he could have made sure the hybrids got somewhere safe. Would she have even met them? Would she even be alive now?

“We will. We’ll find some way to honor and remember what he’s done for us.”

-----

Michael was glad school was finally over with. He needed to get ready for his shift at the Crashdown and stop by the Evans’ to find out how Max was doing. He may have seemed unsympathetic and mean earlier in the bathroom but he was worried. He didn’t like what was happening. What would happen if Max and Liz couldn’t get to each other in time? Would they get exposed when someone called an ambulance to take them to a hospital or would they die and leave him and Isabel alone? What would happen to their mission if Max and Liz died?

Sneaking into the attic, he grabbed what he needed to for the night and headed back down only to run into Maria. Groaning, Michael wished he really had better mindwarping abilities so he could make Maria forget he was coming down from the attic.

“What do you want, Maria?”

“Why are you going into the attic, Michael? Is that your stuff? Are you living up there? Why are you living up there? Why aren’t you at Hank’s or the Evans’?”

Slapping a hand over Maria’s mouth, Michael couldn’t help the sigh of exasperation that escaped. “I’m waiting on the Evans’ to get the documentation for me to be emancipated. Hank’s an asshole and if I stay there much longer I’m going to end up killing the bastard and exposing us all. I’m staying in the attic ‘cause I’m into the whole happy family crap that Max and Isabel have. That answer all your questions?” Michael demanded.

“Oh…” Maria didn’t know what to say to that but it gave her plenty to think about. There had to be someway to help Michael. She watched him leave thinking maybe she should talk to Mr. Evans. He might be able to come up with something that Michael wouldn’t be able to say no to.

----

Max pulled out his crystal wondering if he could really do this. Sometimes he could almost forget that he was different. Sometimes he could fool himself into pretending he was just a normal boy in love with a normal girl. Somehow, trying to access this alien crystal made it harder for him to deceive himself into thinking he was normal.

“You ready to try this?”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be truly ready but we need to know what’s going on with us and how to make it better.” Concentrating on the crystal, Max tried to think of what was going on with him and Liz and what could be done to fix it.

Suddenly, the rest of the world fell away and he found himself standing in a large circular room. The walls were a shiny, metallic metal with a bluish silvery shine. There was a podium in the center. Approaching it, Max saw glowing alien letter scroll across it. “I don’t understand this. How do I find what I need to know?”

A light shined out of the podium and scanned across his forehead. Seconds later, a computerized voice spoke. “Language confirmed. Antarian translated to Earth language English.”

Max was startled to see the alien script he didn’t understand a moment ago change into English. “How do I find out information on the bonding and on changed humans?”

The script changed once again and Max realized it gave details on what Liz and he were going through and what they had to do to fix the problems they were having. Max groaned as he realized just what he and Liz were going to have to do. He and Liz hadn’t even been together that long and now they were expected to do this…. Sighing, Max concentrated on returning to the real world. He was going to have to fill Liz in and hope she didn’t kill him for this.

Liz worriedly watched Max. He had gone into some kind of trance. He hadn’t seemed to be aware of her and hadn’t answered her when she had called his name. She could only hope that nothing was wrong and he was finding out what they needed to know.

Seeing his eyes open, Liz nearly wept in relief. “Max, what happened? Did it tell you what’s going on with us? What was it like?”

Max pulled Liz close and breathed in the scent of her hair. No better time than the present to explain. “Yeah, I found out. I was pulled into this room that had metal walls. There was the podium that had alien writing on it but as soon as I said I didn’t understand a light came out of it and scanned my forehead. The writing changed into English. I asked about what was happening to us and how to fix it and it showed me. Apparently, we are in the first stage of bonding or the Antarian version of marriage. The bonding isn’t complete until we have sex for the first time. The longer we go without having sex, the more problems and side effects we’re going to have.”

“Oh God,” Liz moaned. She should have known this was what was happening. She wasn’t really ready to have sex yet. Sure she was in love with Max and thought having powers was cool. There was even the part of her that was beyond thrilled she and Max were married… but that didn’t mean she was ready to lose her virginity to him. “How long do we have before we have to have sex?”

“It said we only had weeks after the start of the bonding before the bonding would guarantee we finished the bond.”

“What do you mean guarantee we finished?”

“It said that if we waited too long to finish it ourselves, the bond would amp our hormones up so high that we would have sex with or without our consent. If we wait that long, it said it wouldn’t even matter where we were. It could possibly activate while we were in a public place and it could cause us to be exposed because the bonding will have some ‘special effects’ going on.” Max grimaced at the thought of what Liz was likely to make of that thought.

“WHAT? You mean it’s going to make us have sex in public with people watching?” Liz nearly shrieked. She stared at Max as he nodded. She couldn’t believe this was happening. “Wait a minute, what do you mean by special effects?”

“According to the information, their will be mutual glowing but it doesn’t say how bright or how long or even when the glowing starts just that we’ll both be glowing. Also, we’ll basically be completely vulnerable. We won’t know what’s going on around us. We could be going at it with a room full of people and we won’t hear or see them.”

“Oh God” Liz moaned. Holding her head in her hands, Liz couldn’t believe this was happening. “So what do we do? It’s already been a few weeks since this started.”

“I don’t know, Liz. I really don’t know.” Max just pulled her close and wished he could do something to make this better.

----


Everyone gathered at the Evans’ once again. ‘If they kept this up, people were going to start wondering what they were up to,’ thought Alex. He couldn’t help but think someone was going to notice especially the Sheriff, if they kept having these big meetings here. “So what’s on the agenda for today?”

Max pulled out Atherton’s journal. “We read the last entry after we got home today. Thought, we would share it with the rest of you before we continued.” Max read the last entry out loud. By the time he was through, there was several sniffles from the girls in the room.

“How sad. He knew he was going to die but he didn’t run. He could have just gone somewhere else and saved his life. Why didn’t he run instead of going back to RiverDog?” Mrs. Evans gripped her husband’s hand wondering if she would have been brave enough to go back where there was an alien that wanted to kill her. She couldn’t imagine what she would do if she had been in Atherton’s shoes. She would gladly give up her life to protect her kids, but Atherton didn’t know her kids. She had been blessed with ten years of raising them. Of watching them grow and learn and become the people they are today. What kind of person does that make her that she couldn’t see herself sacrificing herself for a bunch of unknown alien kids?

“Maybe he didn’t think he had a choice.”

“We should try and track this RiverDog down and see if he knows anything else. If for no other reason than to find out about the Healing Stones.” Alex mentioned. “I can see if I can find out anything on the computer but I doubt it will have much. The Mesaliko tribe doesn’t have a whole lot to with modern technology.”

“Thanks, Alex. We appreciate it.” Max nodded at Alex gratefully. He was glad they had help. He couldn’t imagine what they would have been doing if it wasn’t for his parents and the others helping.

“We’ll come back to that later. What I want to know about is what happened to you and Liz earlier and how do we prevent it from happening in the future?” Mr. Evans spoke up for the first time. He couldn’t think about finding RiverDog or more alien tech right now. They needed to fix his son before something bad happened.

Blushing, Max explained the events of earlier today for those that hadn’t witnessed them. Finally, he told how he had accessed the information crystal. “The information in the crystal said the problems aren’t going to go away until we complete the bond.” Ducking his head, he wished he wouldn’t have to explain how that bond was completed but knew that he and Liz weren’t going to be that lucky.

“Just how is that bond completed?”

Neither Max nor Liz spoke up just studied their joined hands. Neither of them wanted to be the one to say.

“You have to have sex don’t you?” Maria squeaked. It made sense to her. They couldn’t be apart and the bond was like marriage for the Antarians so assuming the Antarians could have sex….

Nodding, Max just blushed and refused to look at anyone as everyone started talking and shouting at once.

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A/N:

I seriously doubt it is any surprise about who the fourth podster is going to be. I’m not very subtle at all. You guys probably figured it out before I was sure I was going to do it. So just laugh at my idiocy of trying to make it a surprise of who it is.

Again, sorry about how long it took to update. Just about every time I tried to finish 17B, I would get stuck on how I wanted it to go or I would be too tired to concentrate long enough to type it out. Today it decided it wanted to work for me. Hopefully, I can continue to get out new parts in a reasonable time frame but in case I don’t, I still haven’t forgotten this fic and will update as time and the muse allows me. I decided to go ahead and post this next part since I think it’s as ready as it’s going to be. Hope you enjoy!

For those that are interested in my other two fics, I will eventually get back to those but I realized writing the three at the same time had screwed up my muses and caused me to get stuck so I’m going to try to finish this fic before I go back to them. So if you’re waiting on them, please be patient and I promise eventually I’ll get to them.

Any familiar dialogue is taken from the Crashdown transcripts. This fic doesn’t have a beta so any mistakes are mine and I don’t mind if you point them out. If you are interested in betaing this fic, please pm me and I’ll be glad to let you beta it for me. It could definitely use it.

Sorry again for the long author’s note… now onto the fic.


Chapter 18A

Kallion was a lot of things. He wasn’t a traitor, but he had no interest in returning home to Antar or helping the royal hybrids with their mission. Earth was his home now even though he had gone through what would have broken a lesser man or alien as the case may be. He had avoided Roswell for decades except for when he made sure the hybrids were found and taken care of. Unfortunately, he missed one. He wasn’t sure but he believed the traitor may have gotten her. He could only hope she was killed quickly.

Laughing to himself over the embarrassment of the king’s clone and his bride, Kallion ended the amplifying powers that allowed him to spy on the royal hybrids. Soon enough he would either have to approach them and help them… or he would have to walk away and hope the programming would allow him to without the extreme pain. With everything that had happened since he had arrived on Earth, he was fairly certain he only had to follow direct orders. He didn’t think he had to follow any of the other programming. Whether something inside him was permanently damaged by the torture or the crash or just living on Earth he wasn’t certain. Only by approaching the royals would he find out if any of the genetic programming remained intact and he wasn’t so sure he wanted to find out.

He owed his life to King Zan and had vowed to help him with his cause but now billions of light years away and decades later, his life on Antar was but a distant memory. He wasn’t so sure he wanted to get involved in what was sure to be a dangerous life, but he wasn’t so sure his conscience would let him let these unprepared kids face it alone. Decisions… decisions… time enough later to decide.

Right now, he had to check on the other hybrid in town. He wondered for the hundredth time since arriving in Roswell, how these three had never discovered the fourth or how the fourth had never discovered them. Shaking his head, he mused that soon enough circumstances would throw them together and then, well, only time would tell how they would react to each other. Or he could give them a little help in meeting up… so little time… so many decisions that must be made… so many consequences to be considered and pondered over. Oh well, it wasn’t like he couldn’t just disappear if he made the wrong ones and there wasn’t anyone around that could punish him if he made the wrong ones.

----

Carefully, entering the elder Valenti’s bedroom, the fourth alien hybrid moved to search for any evidence the Sheriff had on the other three aliens. He had only recently discovered they existed and couldn’t believe he had never known. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. He had spent his entire life believing he was the only one to finding out there were three more here in town and that he knew them. Maybe not all that well and maybe he hadn’t been all that interested in getting to know them but now he couldn’t help but visualize what would happen when he approached them. But first, he had to make sure there was no evidence that could be used against any of them.

If the Sheriff could find out about Max, Michael and Isabel, then it wouldn’t take him long to figure out what he was as well. After a careful search, including using his powers to help, he found the Crashdown uniform covered in blood with a distinctive bullet hole in it and reduced it to ashes. He found pictures in the same box of people that had died due to a silver handprint. Realizing he couldn’t leave those either, he took them. The others may want to see them. It at least proved there was another alien out there. Making sure no evidence remained of his presence there, he left the way he came.

He wasn’t sure what to do. He didn’t want to wait too long and have them pissed off at him for not saying something sooner, but he didn’t want to approach them at all if it was going to turn out badly to begin with. Shaking off his dire thoughts, he decided to just wait and see what happens. He needed to keep an eye on Sheriff Valenti without him knowing he was being watched and without the Sheriff getting suspicious about him. If he started hanging out with six kids he had never voluntarily hung out with before, the Sheriff would immediately put the pieces together and he didn’t want that to happen.

----

If it hadn’t been so embarrassing, Max probably would have laughed his head off at the reactions of everyone at finding out he and Liz had to have sex, but it was embarrassing and completely humiliating. Why, oh why, did he and Liz have to be in the spotlight? Why did he and Liz constantly find themselves in this position of having to explain embarrassing and personal information that should have been just between them with the rest of the group? Their first time together should be perfect and private and not a group discussion.

“I really hate to cut this mortifying meeting short and all, but Maria, Michael and I have to be at work shortly. We’ll have to continue this later or like never.” Liz sarcastically grumbled as she untangled herself from Max and grabbed her stuff.

“Right, later… We are so talking about this later, Lizzie. You aren’t getting out this that easy.” Maria muttered loud enough for Liz to hear on their way out the door.

----

The hours at work seemed to crawl by to Liz. She couldn’t wait until her shift was over. Max was planning on coming over and they were going to discuss what they learned earlier. She didn’t know how she felt about it. On one hand, she was thrilled… and on the other, well, she was terrified. Everything seemed to be going too fast to catch up. They learned one thing only to turn around and learn something new. They figure out what’s going on with one aspect of their lives only to have to something else happen and have to figure that out and would be given information that was hard to accept.

She didn’t really know what she and Max were going to do. She would have preferred to wait until she was ready to have sex, after she and Max had been dating awhile, like a year or two. This being forced into having sex after only a month of being together really made her want to just dig in her heels and refuse, but she knew that wasn’t possible. She didn’t doubt the information Max found out. She wasn’t going to be given the chance to figure out when she was ready. If they didn’t complete the bond, it would be forced out of their hands and she knew with their luck it would happen in the middle of the Crashdown with fifty spectators who would see way, way more than she was comfortable with and that wasn’t including the alien special effects. They were going to have to have sex and they were going to have to do it soon. The only questions were where and when.

----

Max hated the fact his alien DNA was causing problems. He had dreamed of making love to Liz Parker since he knew what it meant. He had dreamed of marrying her and having this perfect normal life where they would live happily ever after and never have to worry about his alien heritage disturbing their perfect, peaceful lives. Not only had the information they had gotten so far completely shattered that illusion of a normal life with the picket fence and 2.5 kids, but it made what should have been a beautiful expression of their love after they were both ready and willing into something they had to do whether they were ready and willing or not. The only thing he could do was to make it as special and beautiful as he could under the circumstances. They couldn’t afford to wait until they ready but he would be damned if they were just going to lose it and screw like animals.

First, he had to set up where and when. They couldn’t afford to wait too long so it had to be soon. He didn’t want their first time to be under threat of being discovered or with their friends or family close by; which meant, they couldn’t have their first time at his home or Liz’s, especially with the information there would be alien side effects to their first time together. Who knows how bright they would glow or how loud they would get. He didn’t want their first time to be marred by embarrassment over their friends giving them a hard time about what they overheard or saw.

The only question was where. This was a small town. It wasn’t like he could get away with renting a motel room without the gossip spreading to everyone and he found that idea distasteful anyway. He didn’t want to lose his virginity on some dirty motel room bed or have the first time he would make love to his soul mate on one.

After an hour of coming up with ideas and then discarding them, he finally came up with a plan he thought might be acceptable to both Liz and himself. Now all he had to do was set it up and making it as special as he could under the circumstances. It wasn’t what he would have preferred but he didn’t have the time to come up with something better. Hopefully, Liz wouldn’t mind too much.

-----

Liz doodled on her order pad while waiting for another customer to come in. She was trying very hard not to think about anything they had learned today. Drawing the alien symbol she saw on the pendant she saw Isabel wearing earlier, she wondered what it meant. Was it just a pretty design the Antarians wore for decoration, or did it mean something? Could it be important to Max, Michael and Isabel? She was really tired of having questions with no answers and questions that had answers she really didn’t want to accept much less think about.

She was almost grateful when the bell above the door jingled announcing a new customer. Anything was better than being stuck with her thoughts in a never ending loop. Seeing the Native American deputy, Liz put on her best smile and walked over to help him. After taking his order and ringing him up, Liz went back to her doodling while waiting on Michael to get his order done.

“I haven’t seen anything like that since I left the Reservation.” Deputy Owen commented after seeing the symbol drawn on the order pad.

“Oh, really. I saw this at the mall the other day. What reservation did you see it at?” Liz concentrated on keeping herself from showing too much excitement.

“The Mescalero Reservation where I grew up. You saw this at the mall?”

“Yeah, it was on a necklace I thought about getting. I just didn’t have enough money for it.” ‘Saved by the bell’ Liz thought as she hurried to get the deputy’s order for him. ‘Well at least we know that part of Atherton’s journal is correct. Someone at the Reservation had to have known about the aliens in order to recognize the symbol so easily.’ Making a note to tell Max about it later, Liz got back to work wishing the time would hurry up.

----

Maria was totally frustrated. Liz had either avoided her or stayed too close to someone that wasn’t in the know so she couldn’t interrogate her about what was happening between her and Max. She thought it was completely scary what was happening to her best friend but it didn’t seem like Liz was even freaking out about it. She just seemed to be taking everything in and totally accepting it. That just wasn’t right.

She was totally going to have to have a chat with her before she did something stupid… like have sex with her alien boyfriend without finding out if there were more consequences. Like getting pregnant… I mean who knew what kind of sperm they had. Maybe they super alien sperm that could eat through a condom. It was her duty as a best friend to make sure her friend thought of all these things.

Or maybe he could have Alien STDs. I mean it could happen. Who knows what they could have or transfer when they had sex with someone? Max may not even be a virgin. He’s a 16 year old guy. Aren’t they like horny all time? You just couldn’t know for sure, so it was job as bestest friend to make sure Liz thought about all this.

Plus she and Max had just started dating. It so totally wasn’t a good idea to have sex with him when they had just started dating. It didn’t matter if Max had been in love with her for years or that some alien device said they had to get it on. Liz totally needed to take her time and think about this. She needed to wait until they had been dating a year or ten before doing it. Screw whatever alien hootenanny device told them.

Since she couldn’t corner Liz, Maria decided that she needed to do something about Michael. It just wasn’t right he was living in the attic of the school. She just needed to figure out what to do. I mean, it wasn’t like he could just move in with her and well, she didn’t think he would voluntarily live with the Evans even if she thought it was a good idea. Maybe she should talk to Mr. Evans. Maybe he would have some ideas or could even loan Michael the money to get a place so he didn’t have to wait a few months to save up enough to get one.

Plan in mind, Maria headed to the Evans. Michael didn’t know what was best for Michael. After all, she didn’t mind fixing things for her friends. It wasn’t like they were doing what was best for themselves.

----


Liz finally got off work. She took a shower and got ready to go with Max. She was totally nervous about it. He had called and said he wanted to take her out so they could talk without having to worry about the parents overhearing them. She wondered if Max had any better luck thinking up a plan than she was.

Luckily, her parents went to bed before he showed up. They wouldn’t even know she wasn’t there. Fixing her bed to look like someone was sleeping in it just in case they got up to check on her, she climbed out her window. As soon as Max pulled up, she was down the balcony ladder as quickly as she could manage and hopped into the jeep.

“Hey Max. Where are we going?”

“We’re going out in the desert. There won’t be any prying eyes around and we can talk in private.” Max explained. The rest of the journey was spent in quiet tension. Max didn’t know how Liz was going to react to his suggestion and he was worried about what this would do to them. He could only hope this night would go perfect.

He wasn’t going to spend another day like today. They both came too close to being seriously hurt or exposed by what happened that morning, and he really didn’t want to sit around and discuss his sex life with his friends and parents. He shuddered. Really, he couldn’t think of much worse to talk about with his parents than his sex life. Now all he had to do was convince Liz that it wasn’t just the bond that made him want her and convince her that tonight was the best night to take that final step.

He really hated thinking like this about their first time. He only hoped he could make it as special as it could be under the circumstances.

-----

Kallion sensed the young royal hybrid had finally gotten some sense into him. He followed them out into the desert and made sure there was nothing there that would disturb them whether it be human, alien or animal. After making sure they wouldn’t be disturbed and verifying they would follow through on the bonding, he left them alone and headed back into town. He wasn’t inclined to stick around for the show.

It was time he had a little chat with the fourth little hybrid and made him reveal himself to the others. Sometimes it was such a pain in the ass to deal with reticent individuals. He had thought about waiting and seeing how they worked it out themselves… if they ever did, but he felt like something was about to happen. He didn’t know what but he believed it would be better to have the fourth as part of the group before whatever was making him uneasy made an appearance.

Allowing himself into the hybrid’s home, he made his way to where the fourth podster was working on something, probably homework or some other mundane human chore. He had watched him for a moment before the podster sensed he was being watched.

“Who the hell are you and how did you get in here?”

“You can call me Kal and how I got in here… well, powers are handy for more than just heating up my food.” Kal smirked at the dumbfounded look on the hybrid’s face. He had to take his amusement in the little things after all.

“Powers! What the hell are you talking about?”

“I guess a demonstration is in order after all. Did you really think you were alone on this godforsaken planet?” Kal mocked. Lifting his hand, he changed the color of the walls to prove who he was. “Now that we’ve gotten that taken care, on to more pressing matters. I know you know who the other aliens in this town are. They have much more information than you’ve been able to find out on your own. It’s time you approached them. You’re going to need to work together soon. The sooner you meet and greet, well, the sooner you can all work towards your goal.”

“And what goal would that be?”

“Why you’ll find out when you get in touch with the others. They already know. I wouldn’t contact them tonight if I was you, but I would contact them in the next day or two.” Kal left a befuddled hybrid behind as he left. He had done his duty for now. Now it was up to the kids to figure out what they were going to do next.

-----

Chapter 18B


The Sheriff was extremely frustrated. All the alien or possibly alien evidence he had gathered over the years was gone. He hadn’t a clue who had taken them or how they had even known to look. The ones he thought might be alien had airtight alibis for the general time frame he believed the evidence had disappeared during. He was left with the belief that somehow some other alien hunter or maybe even the FBI had found his stash, unless there were more aliens running around that suddenly decided to search his place for alien evidence, but the odds of that occurring were pretty slim.

He had spent his career carefully maintaining a reputation for dismissing everything alien so as not to raise any eyebrows. He had distanced himself from his alien obsessed father and carefully made sure he did not allow anyone to witness him being a little too interested in anything remotely related to aliens. So why had someone come into his home and found what he had hidden? Did he talk to the wrong people or mess up somewhere? This was going to set him back years unless he could find a way to gather undeniable evidence. Staring at the police report of the Crashdown shooting, Valenti wondered if he could get the evidence he needed without tipping anyone off that he was looking.


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Tess nearly vibrated in her seat. They were on the plane that would take them to New Mexico. Once they landed, the shapeshifter was going to have her stay in Albuquerque while he drove to Roswell and set up a place for them to stay and a cover story for why they were moving to Roswell. He had told her he was going to scope out the town and make sure the others really were there. If they were, then he would come back for her and they would go to Roswell. She only had to wait another few days, maybe a week or two at the most before she would be reunited with the others. She wondered what they were like. Were all of them together or would the shapeshifter have to go off to find any that were missing?

She could hardly believe that just a few short weeks ago she hadn’t a clue where the others could be and had often wondered if she would ever find them or if she was doomed to being alone for the rest of her life. Now she was on the way to meet them for the first time and hopefully once they were found, it wouldn’t take long for them to go home. She couldn’t wait for the day they finally left this world. The shapeshifter had told her many stories about her home world and her role there and how she could return once she was reunited with her husband and the others. She couldn’t wait!


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Max parked the jeep close to a large tent he had set up earlier. Getting out, he helped Liz out of the jeep and led her towards the tent. Deciding he couldn’t put it off any longer, he started talking.

“Liz, I have several things I need to say. Let me get it out without any interruptions and then you can ask questions or comment on it, please.”

Taking a deep breath, Max wished for the best and began his speech he had been rehearsing all afternoon. “I had hoped that we could wait until we were both ready and believed the time was right to take the next step. I’ve been in love with you since the first time I saw you, Liz. I may have only been eight years old or two depending on how you look at it, but since the moment I saw you, I knew you were the only girl I would ever love. For years, I dreamed somehow, someway, you would fall in love with me. We would one day get married, buy a house with a white picket fence and have 2.5 kids and a dog. We would have a life where my alien heritage wouldn’t matter and would never interfere in our normal lives together. You would be a world renowned scientist and I would have a found a career that I loved and was able to help people. I dreamed our first time would be after we had been dating a while. That it would be perfect and we would both be ready to take that next step in our relationship.”

“In all of my dreams and fantasies of having you in my life, not once did I believe my alien heritage would cause us to get together or force us into taking a step I’m not sure either of us is ready to take.”

“I know I always believed my alien ancestry would keep us apart. I believed we would find out I was poisonous to you or that I had some weird alien quirk that would make us incompatible with each other for some reason or another. I believed that we couldn’t ever be together because someday I would end up going to an alien home world where you couldn’t go.”

“I never dreamed that this would happen. Any of it. This entire situation we find ourselves never came close to crossing my mind.”

“I know that it doesn’t mean much and there is nothing that can change it at this point in time, but I’m truly sorry that my alien heritage has caused so many problems and is forcing us into doing something I had hoped would come naturally some day. I wish we could wait until we were both ready and willing to take that next step but it’s not going to happen. Instead we have to make a decision on where and how soon.”

“I spent most of the day thinking about this, trying to find a way to either wait or at least make it not as forced as it sometimes feels. I’m scared that what happened this morning is going to happen again only we won’t be as lucky and we’ll end up exposing ourselves or we’ll end up in even worse condition than we experienced earlier.”

“I don’t want our first time together to be in my house or yours with either of our parents or in my case, a sister, down the hall that could catch us or over hear what’s going on. This afternoon was embarrassing enough just letting them know what we found to fix it. I don’t want to look back on our first time and only remember the humiliation we would have suffered from having our personal life discussed in a group meeting. I also really don’t want to wait until the bond forces us to complete it. Who knows when it would decide to force us? We could be at school or in the middle of the Crashdown or somewhere else just as public or as bad of an ideal place to have our first time.”

“I could only think of a couple of solutions to those problems. Either we rent a hotel room for the night and take the risk of gossip getting back to your parents and ruining your reputation or we come out here and spend our first night under the stars.”

“I find the idea of having our first time in a dirty hotel room horrifying and unsettling. I want our first time to be as special and perfect as we can make it. I know this isn’t the ideal situation and far too soon in our relationship to actually be taking this step but I don’t want it to be marred by the location which is what would happen if it occurred in some motel room.”

Getting down on to one knee, Max held Liz’s hands and gazed into her eyes. “I’ll never love anyone the way I love you. You’ve always been my dream girl, Liz. Since the first moment I saw you, I knew I wanted to spend my life with you. Will you marry me, Liz? Will you spend the night with me and complete the bond we’ve started between us? Will you share the rest of your life with me and make me whole in ways I didn’t even realize I wasn’t complete until you loved me?”

Tears slipping down her face at his words, Liz could only nod yes. She knew this was too soon that there would be plenty of problems and issues for them to deal with in the future, but this night was for them. She would forget for the moment that she had wanted to wait. That she wasn’t ready to make this sort of commitment. For tonight she would forget about everything but making love to Max.

“Yes, Max. I love you. I know this is sooner than either of us expected but I’m not going to regret it. Make love to me, Max.”

Walking almost dazedly into the tent, Liz gasped in surprise. Max had completely fixed it up. The top of the tent and sides were sheer to allow them to watch the stars and see the desert around them even you couldn’t see in from the outside. In the center of the tent was a queen size mattress with burgundy sheets and comforter. Around the bed vases of white roses rested on several small tables, filling the air with their sweet fragrance and closer to the corners of the tent, several ornate bronze candleholders held a dozen lit vanilla scented candles. Next to the bed there was a square end table with covered trays and Liz could vaguely smell over the vanilla candles and roses something that smelled like Italian food.

“Wow, Max. When did you have time to do all this?” Liz just looked around in amazement. On the inside, you could barely tell that they were standing in a tent.

“It actually didn’t take as long as you would think. With a little bit of alien powers, I was able to alter the walls and ceiling of the tent. The food is take-out and I stopped at the florist for the flowers. I thought of this shortly after the meeting. I realized that if we waited, we were going to be in the spotlight and nothing we did would be private. I don’t know about you but the fact that my parents know so much about my sex life makes me shudder and want to run away screaming.” Max shuddered, looking pained before continuing, “I really didn’t want to have a discussion about “setting up a time” to make love to you. This was the only option I could think of where we would be alone without interfering friends and parents. And I really didn’t want this to look like a hotel room or trashy tent. Your first time deserves to be special and something you remember with fondness not bitterness or embarrassment.”

“It will be special, because it’s the two of together. The setting doesn’t really matter, Max. As long as it’s you and me, the rest is just window dressing.”

Reaching up, Liz pulled Max closer to kiss him. Now that they had decided to do this, she let go of her control, of her fears and hesitancy and let the desire that was always just under the surface free to do as it would. Pressing her lips against his, she felt the desire spiral out of control taking her with it. It felt so good to just be there in his arms.

Max wrapped his around Liz and surrendered into the kiss. He had dreamed for so long of making love to Liz that now the time was here, he felt overwhelmed and uncertain. Pushing everything out of his mind but the desire to make this as wonderful as possible for Liz, Max pulled Liz closer and poured himself into the kiss. She felt so good in his arms, like she was made just for him. After tonight, she would be his always.

They kissed for what seemed like forever before the bond and their natural desire took over. Their souls shattered and remade themselves forever binding them together until the end of time. They shared each other’s memories, their desires, hopes and fears. The night passed in a blur of shared pleasure leaving two teens changed in its wake.

-----

Liz woke the next morning feeling sated and sore. The night before had been incredible, beyond all of her wildest expectations. She wondered if it would always be that way or if it would be more normal in the future. ‘If it stayed as intense as last night, we might just end up killing themselves making love.’ Liz idly mused to herself. Realizing it was getting late and they had to get going so they could go to school, Liz rolled over to face Max to wake him.

He looked so peaceful sleeping she almost didn’t want to wake him up but she so wasn’t ready to face an inquisition if the others discovered they had stayed out so late in the desert.

“Max! Wake up!” shaking his shoulder gently, she smiled as he opened his eyes. “Good Morning, Max!”

“Morning, How are you this morning?” Max smiled up at the vision leaning over him. He could really get used to waking up to Liz.

“I’m fine. I feel good.”

“Good, you’re okay with what happened last night, right?” Max suddenly worried that maybe things wouldn’t be okay now just because they had made love last night.

“I’m fine, Max. I’m not second guessing what happened last night. It was wonderful, but it is getting late. We need to go home before anyone discovers we were out here.”

“You’re right. I don’t feel like answering awkward questions right now.”

Suiting actions to words both got up and dressed quietly. Surprisingly, there was no tension or awkwardness between them, just a comfortable connection that allowed them to sense the other’s proximity.

The drive back to the Crashdown was spent going over what they would and would not mention to the others when they found out Max and Liz had completed the bond. Max knew that their friends and family would want details of what happened, but it was too personal and special to share even if the others felt they needed to know what to expect if they were ever ready to make that choice.

Once back at the Crashdown, they showered and readied for school, then headed back to Max’s place to pick up his sister.
-----

Kyle Valenti had spent a lifetime hiding who he was from everyone. No one had ever learned his secret, not even his own father who was obsessed with finding aliens. He sometimes found it ironic that his father who had chased after anything alien with a single minded intensity that was scary to behold had never realized the little abandoned boy he found on the side of the road wasn’t exactly human.

Kyle had learned very quickly that he was different and to keep those differences to himself. His mother had left when she had learned her son wasn’t exactly normal although she had never figured out just how out of the ordinary he was. Fortunately for him, she hadn’t said anything to the Sheriff. He sometimes wondered if she knew about his dad’s obsession with finding aliens. He tended to think she didn’t. He couldn’t imagine why she wouldn’t have told him if she knew. It couldn’t have been that big of a leap of seeing your seven year old kid using telekinesis to your husband’s obsession with aliens.

He had never known there were others like him in town, at least not until a month ago when there was a supposed shooting at the Crashdown and he discovered his father suspected something out of the ordinary happened. That’s when he started closely watching three teenagers that he had never given more than a passing thought too. He suddenly realized he wasn’t as alone as he thought.

Now he was faced with the dilemma of having to face them and revealing his secret and hoping he wasn’t wrong. He didn’t really want to take the word of some weird stranger that showed up in his room but if the others had found out more about who they were, it made sense for him to approach them. Now all he had to do was make sure his father didn’t find out. His father may have been absent in his life a lot due to his obsession but that didn’t mean he couldn’t put the pieces together.

Letting his father believe he was heading to school early for practice, Kyle headed to the Evans home and crossed his fingers that things would go well. He was comfortable living in Roswell and didn’t want to have to go on the run just because he made the mistake of believing they were like him when they weren’t.

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(A/N: Okay I really did try to do a more graphic first time but it kept coming out cheesy and awkward. Apparently it just didn’t want to work for me. So after rewriting it several times, I decided to just leave it like this. If at a later date inspiration strikes, I will come back and rewrite it. Hope you’re not too disappointed. As always reviews appreciated.)