Michael shrugged. "How should I know? We barely ever talk. I think she's still pissed that I didn't immediately take her side when she arrived in town." Sighing, he added, "But I don't want to talk about this right now. I'll have to go over the whole messy encounter with Maxwell and Izzy tommorrow as it is. This just seems like overkill."
Mchael sighed. "I have no idea, Liz. But I'll tell you one thing, and I know it sounds crazy, but when I touched her wrist... I didn't feel a pulse. I don't know how or why, but she didn't have one. And if that isn't odd, then I don't know what is."
Looking around them, Michael noticed that they'd managed to walk all the way to the convience store on the other side of town. At he thought of some completely non-nutritional food from inside there, Michael's stomach growled. It had been ages since he'd had a Snickers bar.
"Let's not talk about this now, alright? We'll get the full debriefing from Maxwell and Izzy later, I'm sure. But right now, I'm starving."
[You'll get the full briefing anyway] Liz thought with just a touch of bitterness -- even though it was her fault that she and Max weren't on speaking terms. But she didn't say it out loud. She didn't want to make Michael feel any worse -- he wasn't doing well tonight.
Grabbing Liz's hand, Michael pulled her over to the store and walked inside. Heading down the candy isle, Michael pulled Liz behind him until he reached the Snickers. Grabbing one, he asked, "Do you want anything, Parker?"
He was too busy comtemplating the different kinds of junk food to notice the blonde haired pixie and the tall, brunette guy standing at the counter a few feet away from them...
Liz stared at the candy shelf. It all looked absolutely horrible for her. That settled it. She was having some. "Surprise me," Liz told him. "Something with milk chocolate."
Michael grabbed a Butterfinger and tossed it to Liz. "Chocolate, check."
Turning, he started to walk over to the counter, but the two people he saw checking out made him freeze on the spot.
Jeffery smiled at her exuberance. Winking at her, he said, "I love a girl with a sword!" As he reached back to get his wallet -- he had too many gentlemanly tendencies to let her pay for his milk -- Jeffery noticed two more young people had come into the convenience store. He noted that the girl was kind of cute and the guy had weird hair. He assumed they were a couple because they stood so close to each other. And they might be holding hands, he wasn't sure. It was nice to note that someone in Roswell was normal and happy.
Maria didn't follow Jeffrey's gaze - she was busy trying to convince the store clerk she really did want a receipt.
Turning back to Maria, he gave her a couple of bucks. "Thanks for the offer to pay, by the way, but I'd feel bad making you pay for my milk. I appreciate it, though."
"It's no problem," Maria said. "It's not like my mom would notice though. Not with all of this." She gestured to the pile of non-perishables arrayed on the counter. The clerk had taken one look at them and point-blank refused to bag them.
He paused, and then added. "I hope you don't think this is a pick up line, because I don't mean it that way at all, but you are the nicest person I've met in Roswell thus far, and I'm glad I was able to help you with your..." he paused and looked at the items on the counter, "... Spam."
"That's...sweet." Maria looked down at the Spam too and managed to half-suppress a loud snort of laughter. "Sorry. Not laughing at you. I just didn't think I'd meet a nice, normal person with Spam."
Speaking of Spam... "At the risk of sounding anti-female empowerment," she added, "could you give me a hand? I'll give you a lift home."
"Let me just try a little something here," Jeffery said. He hopped up on the counter and leaned over it, to the astonishment of the clerk. He grabbed a couple of plastic bags and swept her non-perishables into them.
"Victory!" he declared, grabbed his milk with the other hand, and then moved over to hold the door open for her. "And much more easily transportable!"
Michael had the sudden urge to duck behind one of the aisles and wait for them to be gone. But he didn't duck. He couldn't even seem to get his feet to work. All he could do was stand there and stare like an idiot. Michael wasn't sure if he wanted her to see him or not. He knew that if they saw each other, they'd have to talk to each other and then all the old hurts would rush back to the surface immediately. But he also had the undeniable urge to just be near her. Not that that was anything knew. It was those "urges" that had got him into trouble to begin with way back when.
Finally, unable to take it anymore, he spoke up, even though it was likely to be his death warrant. "Hey."
****************
"Wow," Max said with eyebrows raised. "That must take a lot of patience," he commented as Amy beamed proudly. Max was trying to process everything he'd been told. Doyle was certainly older than Amy, but if it worked for them... And what did he mean disappeared? In Roswell that tended to mean abducted. Or, like in Miss Tupulsky's case, interrogated by the FBI.
Doyle grinned, slipping an arm around Amy's shoulders. "More then ye know."
Looking over at Amy, Doyle said, "Well, it's gettin' late. Perhaps we should be headin' home. We both have school tommorrow, after all."
****************
As they drove, Xander gave Oz directions periodically. Finally, they were parking in front of his apartment complex and he jumped out of the van. Turning back to face them, he said, "Well, do you guys want the guided tour or what?"
Oz turned off the ignition, and got out. He opened the large sliding door on the side of the van, and let everyone out. "Hey, anything is better than the van huh? This thing only requires a one second grand total." He looked around at the small neighborhood. Simple. So was this whole town. Even still, he had only been there for a few weeks, but everyone was in such a rush to get here. Maybe when school started again, things would pick up.
Cordelia climbed out of the van as gracefully as she could manage in her skirt. Placing her hand in Xander's she said "I'm up for the tour."
**********************
Maria let out a little squeak and spun around, knocking into Jeffrey and nearly sending the bags o' spam flying. She had been quite ready to confront Michael, really she had, but - and this was a key point - she had been ready to confront him /later/. Not now. Not, say, when he would see Jeffrey and jump to every wrong conclusion it was possible to jump to.
Not that she cared what he thought. Honest.
"Um, hi. Michael. Hi. Nice to - " She collected herself and smiled nervously. "Hi."
Liz held her Butterfinger in one hand and watched the scene unfold before her eyes. She marvelled that Maria was standing there with a cute new guy at her beck and call. Liz hadn't heard from Maria much over the long summer. Liz had just assumed her best friend needed time without any memories of home thrust in her face, and Liz had tried hard to give Maria the space she needed. However, what if the reason Maria hadn't called home was that she had a new boyfriend and didn't know how to tell everyone. The guy was pretty cute, though he looked older than they were.
Michael knew he should feel badly about startling Maria like that. He really should. But he didn't. Just seeing her again, seeing the light in her eyes, the way she always spoke with a flurry of hand motions, the barely contained excitment that marked her every action... it was intoxicating, as always. That was what had attracted Michael to her in the first place. Her energy. Her life. The world he'd come from had been lacking those particular qualities. Maria was to Michael what he'd always wanted but could never have. A way to forget about all the bad stuff and reason to wake up in the morning that /didn't/ have anything to do with his "unique" origins.
And that was why he'd broken up with her. That's why he'd stayed away from her over the summer. Because he had to keep her safe. He had to know that, no matter what happened to him, she was out there, somewhere, being Maria.
But just one moment in her presence and he was already so close to forgetting all of those good reasons just so that he could be with her. Maria was like a drug and Michael was hopelessly addicted.
As all of these emotions and thoughts warred in his brain, Michael could only manage a simple, "Maria."
Did anyone else notice the waver in his voice when he said her name? Because Michael sure as hell did. And if he could barely even say her name without cracking, how was he supposed to survive an entire conversation with her?
The change in Maria's friendly, happy demeanor caught Jeffery's attention immediately. He gave the two newcomers a once-over. The girl was cute, all right -- of course, Jeffery could find something cute about any girl -- but the guy didn't seem that great. In fact, he looked kind of like a delinquent, with wierd hair, rings, dark clothes... but it was more than his appearance.There was something in the guy's eyes. Jeffery had always been perceptive about romantic liasons. Perhaps that was because he'd been involved in so many. He could tell just by the way Maria and the guy reacted to each other that they were, or, perhaps more importantly *had been* something more to each other.
The thing Jeffery didn't want to think about was the alarm bells that were going off in his head. This guy had something to hide. It was obvious in the way he held himself and in the way he looked around -- as if he were afraid someone was going to attack from behind. Could it be vampirism this guy was hiding? He didn't seem like the average vampire, but Jeffery knew in this world you couldn't be lax on the job. But he would try to give the benefit of the doubt -- or at least to disprove suspicions before any staking...
Michael sensed eyes on him and looked up, meeting the eyes of the guy standing next to Maria. The guy was giving Michael the once over and apparently he didn't like what he saw. Not like that was anything new. Michael was used to the disapproving glares and the suspicious glances. It was like he had a scarlet letter tattooed on his chest. But, unlike in the book, his letter wasn't an "A". It was a "T" for trouble. Or maybe an "L" for loser. One or the other.
Michael smirked at the guy, letting him know with a look that Michael was /not/ at all afraid of him. The guy might be older, that much was clear, but Michael was still a few good inches taller than him and he knew he could take him down in a fight... if need be. And Michael's expression let the guy know that in no uncertain terms.
Giving Maria a tentative yet genuine smile, Liz said, "You're back... I'm so glad!"
Maria latched onto her friend quickly, since if she kept looking at Michael she was going to get really angry or she was going to cry - or, given her track record, both - and that was exactly the last thing she needed.
Liz put her Butterfinger on the nearest shelf and returned her friend's hug. It was reassuring to know that Maria still cared about her. It made Liz more sure that the silence of the summer had been due to Michael, and not anything Liz had said or done.
She was also glad that Maria didn't seem to question the fact that she was here with Michael. Liz wasn't looking forward to explaining to her best friend that while Maria had been gone for the summer Liz had become close friends with her ex-boyfriend, the man Liz ought to hate just for what he had put Maria through. The thing was, Liz had hated Michael for that at first. Then they had talked. Liz still thought Michael's actions were wrong, but hearing his point of view had helped her understand. And it had been the same way with Michael's feelings for her about Max. Liz just wasn't sure if Maria, or Max, would ever understand that.
"I got back a little while ago," she said. "My mom kinda kicked me out of the house. She's kinda got a bunker commando thing about my neighbor disappearing." She wanted to add that she had suspicions about what might be causing said disappearances, but Jeffrey was here and chances were he wasn't in the know about aliens.
"Um, this is Jeffrey. Jeffrey, that's Liz and that's Michael. Jeffrey helped me with my groceries," she added, although she had no need to explain herself to them. There was nothing going on between her and Jeffrey, but Michael could jump to conclusions...
Not that she cared what he thought.
When Maria said that, Michael felt a weight lift from him. He'd been convinced that Maria had found herself a new guy, one that was human, for starters. And one that she would be proud of dating. Basically the opposite of Michael.
It's not like she didn't deserve a guy like that, because she did. But Michael was selfish. He wanted to keep her for himself... even though he was trying to stay away from her...
[Wow, that makes a lot of sense, man. Great logic you've got going there. No wonder you flunk all of your classes in school.]
Jeffery straightened up -- during Maria's speech he had camoflauged his interest in the topic of the disappearances in Roswell by gathering the Spam that he fallen out of Maria's bag at the shock of seeing the guy, Michael, again -- and nodded at Liz and Michael. "Nice to meet you both."
Liz gave Jeffery an uncertain smile. "Nice to meet you, too. I've never... um... seen you in town before, Jeffery. Are you... um... a tourist?"
Jeffery shook his head. "My sister and I just moved here from California."
Liz nodded slowly. Another stranger in town. She remembered the days when the arrival of a stranger was something exciting, not something dangerous. But Jeffery looked normal, probably too young to be F.B.I., if the Feds were still a threat. Liz hadn't heard an update on the Nasedo situation since Max left. "California? What part?"
"Sunnydale," Jeffery told her. "It's a small town within driving distance of L.A."
Liz nodded again. "Ah..."
Jeffery darted a glance at the clerk, who was rapidly getting disgusted with them clogging up the aisle. [Not like anyone else is in here] Jeffery thought to himself disgustedly, but the clerk didn't have to be rational about things. Glancing at Maria and the others, Jeffery suggested, "Why don't we take this outside? And we can get this food into your car, Maria..."
Michael narrowed his eyes, studying Jeffery closely. Was the guy trying to set up some kind of ambush? Did he know who... what... Michael was? That would explain the looks he'd been giving Michael earlier.
[Okay, now you're being paranoid. Stop it. Like Maria said, he's just... helping her with her bags. Hell, he's probably trying to hit on her and just pissed at me because I'm cramping his style.]
Michael wondered why that thought didn't make him feel at all better.
Taking Maria's bag out of her hands, Michael tossed his Snickers back beside Liz's discarded Butterfinger. He wasn't in the mood for candy anymore, and he doubted Liz was either. Looking at Maria, he asked, "Where'd you park?"
****************
So that's what the fangs were like in Roswell? Okay she'd been up against worse. Kakistos ring any bells? Better than that there was that crazy redhead one back in Dallas that was missing a fear gene or something.
The nut would run out in the sunlight if it meant getting a snack. Sure she singed and crisped a little but she ended up with her meal. Faiths secretly got a kick out of seeing someone scarier and more twisted than she was.
It happened so rarely afterall. The Slayer smirked more to herself than the vampire she was about to stake. Dust settled around her and she looked around. Nothing. Well...so much for a run of the place right? Hell with patrols this lame she could let the Scooby Doofs handle it.
She started walking keeping one eye on the dark surrounding her and one ear strained to it's limits. The rest of her was fully unaware of anything else other than the creamy yellow moon. Well that and the Creed lyrics running through her head.
"Can you take me higher? To the place where blind men see, Can you take me higher? To the place with golden streets"
Gotta love Creed. Faith sung along softly with her hands stuffed in to her back pockets. /'cause there's a hunger longing to escape, from the life I live when I'm awake./ Yeah no freakin' kidding.
She kept going and pretty soon she was going to run out of town to walk. Maybe something would be open so she could get a bite to eat. Del Taco or something. Hell...anything. She had nothing to do, no one to hang with.
Well there was that one club she'd sorta heard about while trailing a few fangs. UFOnics or something like that. Typical for a town like this to be a themed establishment. Like the Crashdown.
Only that place was pretty good with the Cherry Cokes. Faith made a quick detour and started off for the edges of the town at a jog trot. She'd make it there faster if she just broke out and ran but that might raise suspecions as to what exactly she was.
No human could run that fast. Speaking of humans there was still that lingering feeling that vampires and werewolves weren't the only non humans in this town. It was like this feeling tickling the back of her mind. She couldn't place it because it didn't feel demony.
That didn't usually mean anything though. She could smell the difference between a furball and a fang but that didn't mean that there wasn't something she hadn't come across yet. Something she hadn't had the chance to classify yet.
Then there was that one fang face. The one she hadn't staked that is. That...girl. She was a vampire. A new one but there was something there that bothered her. Like this power or energy or something. Maybe it was all in her head. Maybe she was just looking for something to match her somehow.
Strength...nope. Speed...nope. Maybe she'd concede to being matched by a smart mouth. That's one thing the vamp had for sure. Which only made Faith grin at that thought that anything had the guts to stand up to her knowing they would die and probably painfully. Okay...definately painfully.
She could feel the bass lines shaking the pavement under her feet long before she even got there. The smell in the air was different too. Like someone had been smoking something not quite tobacco.
The Slayer paid the cover charge and pushed in to the club. It was Bronze level entertainment for sure. She was starting to miss the clubs back home. Hell even the ones in Miami or the ones LA. Not wasting much time she wandered over to the bar and leaned back against it to take in the scenery for a few minutes.
****************
"Just outside," Maria said. "And I can take that..." She trailed off when it became obvious that Michael wasn't taking no for an answer. She looked back at Jeffrey. "Um, if you want a ride, I can give you one. It's not like I have anything perishable in there," she added with a gesture to the bag.
Now she just had to cue Liz and Michael that she needed to talk. Not about how Michael seemed, well, not happy to see her, but as happy as Michael ever got. There were some serious issues here.
"Liz?" she asked as she took one of her other bags from Jeffrey. No point in having the boy lug them around when she had two free hands. "I think some friends of ours might be back in town. You know, like the ones we met before summer break?" She kept her back to Jeffrey briefly so she could make 'we need to talk' gestures at the other two.
Jeffery walked to the door of the store and held it open for the others to walk through. Even Michael. When they got outside, he followed Maria to her car and put the bag he carried inside once the door was unlocked.
From her comment, he gathered that she needed to talk to her friends, and, again, Jeffery was not wanted. That was becoming quite the theme tonight.
[Whatever] Jeffery thought. [I don't need to be where I'm not wanted. I swear, this town is going to give me a complex!] But he wasn't really that bitter. Not against Maria anyway. Unlike Isabel, Maria had at least been nice to him. He felt a twinge of regret that they hadn't had the change to follow up on their wacky conversation from earlier. That had been fun.
Hooking the gallon of milk out of the bag he'd put in the car with two fingers, Jeffery said, "Thanks, Maria, but I've got my own car." He gestured at the red Camero. "But maybe I'll see you around sometime. And, if you ever need help with your Spam again, give me a call." He toyed with giving her his number for a second, just because Maria would be a fun girl to have as a friend. But he decided that would look like he was interested in romance. And, while he never ruled out romance, it had burned him so often lately, he really wasn't on the active market. Besides, Maria knew his whole name. She could call information if she wanted to find him.
"Thanks," Maria called. "The way my mom's talking, I'm gonna need the help." She gave Jeffrey a big smile and a pseudo-wave - she was holding bags, after all.
Michael followed behind Jeffery and placed the bag he was holding in the car as well.
Grinning at Maria, he added, "It was great to meet you. And you Liz. Michael."
"Jeffery," Michael replied gruffly.
Liz blushed under Jeffery's gaze. It was odd. When he looked at her, she felt like she was the only thing he could see. She could see how -- if someone were in the market for a boyfriend, which she most definitely was not -- a girl could be captivated by such a thing.
"Nice to meet you, too, Jeffery," Liz said.
With a quick wave, Jeffery strode over to his new Camero and hopped in the driver's seat. The car made it out of the parking lot in three fluid turns and then he was on the road. Jeffery rolled down the window so he could feel the wind in his hair. He gave the Camero a little juice and headed for home.
Michael was not sorry to see him go, especially after the way that Maria and Liz had been acting around him. Michael just couldn't stomach the thought of that guy spending any time with Maria and he knew that Max would /not/ like the way that Liz had been looking at that Jeffery guy.
Back in the parking lot, Liz glanced around to make sure no one else was in ear shot, then she asked Maria, "OK. Now tell me. What's going on? Who is that guy? And what 'friends' were you talking about? Friends like Czechoslovakians, or like the FBI or what?"
"Friends like Nasedo," Maria said quietly, her quirky smile disappearing as she spoke. "I've been reading the papers. All of the disappearances started right around the same time a whole lot of new people moved in. Last time I checked, Roswell wasn't exactly pulling in people for its night life."
She blew out a long sigh and kept talking as she loaded the bags into the trunk. "I talked with some other kids when I got back. Most of the people who moved in our near your age." She was looking at Michael here. "I know that there's only supposed to be four of you, but..." She let the sentance hang.
Liz glanced from her best friend to her newest friend. "I know that... um... the disappearances are strange, but we didn't think it was... Czechoslovakian in origin. Or at least, not a Czechoslovakian we've seen before. Michael and I kind of looked into it when they started. The sheriff helped us, too. We didn't find anything. No handprints. Nothing like that."
Maria frowned. "So much for that idea."
A sudden chill came over Liz in the middle of the warm New Mexico night. "The thing that I'm wondering, though, is, if it's not... you know... then... what is it."
Maria's frown deepened as a very unpleasant thought occured to her. "What if it's what we got warned about?" she said softly. "Maybe those...those people who killed the Czechoslovakians?"
"Czechoslovakians?" Michael murmured, trying to follow the secret code that Liz and Maria were using. "I thought that country broke apart into smaller countries or something..."
"Aliens?" Maria hissed. "You and Max and Isabel?" She repressed the urge to add a "Duh" to that.
Michael rolled his eyes. Leave it to Maria and Liz to come up with a code word for alien that was that bizarre. Czechoslovakians. Unbelievable.
Liz leaned closer to Maria. "There was one weird thing, though..." She glanced at Michael, hoping he would tell Maria the details. She didn't want to. It freaked her out just to think about them.
"What?" Maria asked impatiently, temporarily forgetting the fact that she was so near her ex-boyfriend. "What is it?"
Michael sighed. He obviously wasn't going to get out of this conversation tonight after all. "Well, we ran into Tess at the Crashdown tonight. She made quite the scene. Freaked everyone out." Michael paused, knowing that the last thing that he had to say would make him sound like a crazy person. And he didn't want to add insane to his list of unattractive attributes. But he had to tell them. The look Liz was giving him basically said that if he didn't tell, she would. With a long suffering sigh, Michael added in a rushed, nearly inconprehensible jumble of words, "Andshedidn'tseemtohaveapulseoranything."
Maria caught it anyway. "She didn't have a /pulse/?" That had been just about the last thing she had been expecting him to say. "She was acting weird and she didn't have a /pulse/? I thought you...you Czechoslovakians all had pulses." This was getting really weird. She gave Liz a sudden, concerned look. "She was spazzing about Max, wasn't she?"
Liz closed her eyes for a minute, shaking her head at the memory. "Tess is always spazzing, but it wasn't just about Max. She was spazzing about everything."
"As opposed to just taking the Czechoslovakian-centric view?" Maria tried for a light-hearted grin, but failed miserably. She didn't really like Tess in any case, but if the girl had developed an anti-Earth complex...She didn't want to think about it.
Liz opened her eyes and looked straight at Maria, so her friend would know how upsetting the whole ordeal had been. "There was this one part where she said she was going to break Jessica's neck."
"Who?"
"A customer at the Crashdown," Michael supplied, leaving out the part where he'd basically accused the girl of trying to steal Maria's job. "She was a friend of our new cook."
"Xander, the new cook, had a lot of old friends show up tonight," Liz said quietly, not sure if that was weird, or just coincidence. She had learned over the past year not to trust coincidence.
"I think she really meant it. I think we have an Chechoslovakian with a God complex on the loose." Liz glanced at Michael. "I don't know about the no pulse thing. I didn't really want to be touching her, you know? But... it is possible that the no pulse thing was a fluke... I mean, our friendly neighborhood Chechoslovakians all have pulses..."
"It could be her Czechoslovakian part showing up," Maria thought aloud. "I mean, we never actually bothered to check if Nasedo had a pulse. If she's decided people here are threats, then she could be going for the homicidal approach to things." If that was true, then she and Liz were big, primo targets - not to mention Alex.
Not a pleasant thought, that.
Michael shook his head. "No, I think I would know if it was something us... um... Czechoslovakians...," he tried not to laugh at the ridiculous code word, "were born with. I mean, I know for a fact that /I've/ never gone without a pulse before. It's not natural."
Liz realized that, perhaps, she had not been clear about what she meant by fluke. "Yeah, after what was said about you guys having evolved human characteristics or whatever," Liz still wasn't sure of all the details -- she, Maria and Alex hadn't been able to puzzle it out afterwards as they finished up the school year by avoiding the "aliens." She continued hesitantly, with, "Now, don't get mad, Michael, because I don't mean this in a bad way. I just like to look at all the possibilities, OK?"
That said, she went to her idea, "What I meant by fluke was that maybe you didn't have your fingers in the right place to take a pulse. I've helped at school blood drives and stuff, and you have to put your fingers in a pretty specific spot to find the pulse. Any random grabbing of the wrist doesn't mean you'll feel it, you know?" She looked up, afraid Michael was going to blow up or something. "There's this scientific principle called Akim's razor that says if all other things are equal, the simplest answer is often the most correct. Now which is more simple, that your finger wasn't quite over the vein, or that Tess has suddenly found a way to suspend her heart from beating?" Liz paused for a breath and then added quickly, "But I'm not trying to put you down or anything, Michael. I'm sure what you noted was valid. I just think we should look at all the angles before jumping to conslusions."
Michael made a concentrated effort to not get upset. Liz wasn't trying to put him down, she was just being Liz, scientist to the end. But what she didn't understand is that, even though Michael hadn't spent much time volunteering at school blood drives or whatever the hell she did, he knew how to take a pulse. There had been many occasions during his stint with Hank that Michael had come home to find the other man collapsed on the floor and Michael had taken his pulse and checked his breathing to be sure that he hadn't really hurt himself that time. And he'd alsways wondered what he would have done if he'd come one day and found that Hank actually DIDN'T have a pulse. Would he have tried to save him or left him there to die? He never really knew what the answer to that question would be.
Aloud, Michael said, "I know how to check a pulse, Liz."
"Well, if she /has/ decided to go homicidal, we'll have to do something." Michael sighed. He already knew that, if Tess really were ready to start killing people, he'd be the one who had to deal with it. Max and Isabel wouldn't have the stomach for it. They had spent too much time in their little suburban paradise. They didn't know the first thing about death. Hell, he'd said it before, Max healed people and Michael killed them. Just another reason why it sucked being him.
Liz gave Michael a small smile. She felt safe around him. A different safe that she used to feel around Max. With Max it had been the safety of knowing he could fix the bad stuff. With Michael it was a safety of knowing Michael would die before letting the bad things happen.
Liz knew that Michael would think she was disagreeing with him personally. He always jumped to conclusions like that instead of looking at all the options. Liz, as a scientist, was driven to examine every detail and sift through them, discarding one only when she was sure it had been disproven. She hoped that he would think a little and not go jumping off the handle right now. "But... um... maybe there's some new thing we haven't encountered yet. Or maybewell... Tess can make us see and feel things... That's her Chechoslovakian power..."
"Yeah, but why would she make us see /that/? I mean, what's the point of pretending she's freaking out?"
"No, I don't think she was using her powers to influence us," Michael shrugged. "I mean, like Maria said, why would she make us see /that/? If she was going to go to the trouble of making a mass hallucination like that, you'd think it would serve /some/ kind of useful purpose. I've never really seen Tess use her powers if she didn't have a reason to. That was one of the only things that she and I had in common." Under his breath, Michael added, "She's just better at using them than me. No surprise there."
"That's a valid point," Liz acknowledged. "I just thought we should, like I said, discuss every option."
Maria glanced at Michael. "Did you know the girl she threatened? Or anyone else there?"
Michael shook his head. "No, I'd never met her before tonight. Like I said, she was an old friend of Harris. Nobody that Tess would care about."
"She applied for a job at the Crashdown," Liz contributed.
"Oh." Not much reason to threaten to snap necks there. So much for her 'strange-new-people' idea.
She blew out a long sigh and slammed the trunk shut. "If you guys don't mind seeing more of Maria's Dumb Ideas, I can give you a lift home. You watch it," she added mock-seriously in another attempt to lighten the mood - and avoid ever-pressing Michael issues. "Next I'll be saying Roswell's infested by the evil dead or something."
She opened the passanger door and pointed to the doors. "C'mon. Get in. I'm not that bad a driver."
"Of course, you're not a bad driver, Maria. I'm the one who always wants you to cut Uies in the Jetta." Liz smiled and then turned and got in the front seat, hoping Michael would come along and hop in the backseat. She didn't want to leave the front for him, because Michael and Maria sitting next to each other was probably not what they needed right now.
"Just don't expect me to do one now." Maria patted the dashboard. "Not my car."
"Maria," Liz said, before Michael got in the car. "I just wanted to say... um... I'm... I'm really glad you're back. I missed you a lot."
Maria nodded and smiled. In all the hassle over the disappearances and the FBI and the aforementioned issues, Maria hadn't had as much time as she would have liked with her best friend.
She would have added something else, but Michael chose that moment to hop into the car.
Michael toyed with the idea of just telling them that he'd walk home instead just to avoid the tension that existed between himself and Maria, but it was a long way from his apartment and he didn't really feel like walking.
Michael opened the back door of the Jetta and climbed inside, shutting the door behind him. "Thanks for the ride."
Maria bit her lip, suddenly not sure of what to say. She remembered last year, back when she still considered Michael an anti-social brat. He had practically carjacked her. That was when they had really started to get close and, well, being in the car brought back all sorts of feelings.
"So..." Liz said, feeling uncomfortable in the silence that had enveloped the car. She wondered if Maria were indeed angry at her for some reason. She sure was being quiet, and she hadn't answered her earlier comment.
If there was one thing Maria had learned, it was how to read her best friend. "Liz, I'm not mad at you. I just..." She leaned her head back against her seat. She couldn't go pouring her heart out here. Not with Michael sitting back there. "I'm glad to see you. Really I am." She gave Liz another, warmer smile, albeit a troubled one.
"I should probably get the groceries home." She started the car and pulled out of the lot. "I'll drop you off first, Michael. I think you're closest."
Liz glanced from Maria to Michael, wishing she could help the tension, but knowing she could not. She decided to just bide her time until she had the chance to talk to Maria alone and see what was going on with her. Liz hoped it was only natural Michael-confusion and not something else... The confusion resulting from breaking up with (or being dumped by) an alien was hard enough to deal with, with nothing else to get you down. Liz knew that from experience. She'd been both the dumper and the dumpee in her relationships with Max.
****************
Cordelia was waiting for Xander to let them into his apartment. "So.." she said, trying to strike up a conversation "What are you doing for school this year? You better say you're going to West Roswell High because otherwise...I'm dropping out!" she said with a laugh.
"Yeah, I'm West Roswell High bound and school starts tommorrow, joy of joys," Xander replied with a sigh. He pulled his key out of his pocket and started to unlock the door to his apartment...
"Better than the joy of college," Jessica pointed out. Which reminded her. She had to weasel out of the volleyball team somehow. She would have exactly zero time to hunt vampires - or work - if she went intercollegiate.
At his apartment, Aidan decided he would try one more time to call Xander. Yes, he'd left a message, but some people didn't automatically check the machine when they got home. And now that all the boxes he could unpack before buying furniture were unpacked, he had little else to do but wait.
Picking up the phone, he dialed the number that Xander had given him before he left Sunnydale. Aidan sighed as the phone on the other end began to ring, wondering if this time anyone would pick up...
Cordelia followed Jessica into the homestead. She did a quick inventory of the apartment. Definitely not first class but unsurprisingly it was exactly what she had expected. Xander living...nice.
Xander heard the phone start to ring as he opened the door, dropping his keys on the small table next to the door, Xander sprinted over to the phone which sat in the phone nook on the other side of the living room. He picked up the phone just before the answering maching could pick up and said, "Hello?"
Aidan was relieved to finally hear a human voice (well, almost!) in this town that he recognized. "Xander! It's Aidan. I've been trying to get in touch with someone from Sunnydale all night, but no one is home"
***************
Michael shifted in the back seat uncomfortably, but his feelings of unease didn't come from the fact that the Jetta had less than comfortable seats. It came from the overwhelming silence that reigned in the vehicle. Michael sighed, trying to keep from fidgeting too much as he sat there.
Glancing out the window, Michael saw that they were less than a block from his apartment. Unable to take the tension-filled silence any more, he straightened up and announced, "Why don't you just drop me off here? I want to walk the rest of the way home."
"Are you sure?" Maria pulled the car over and looked back at Michael. "I mean, I know you can take care of yourself, but..." Suddenly she was very glad that Liz was in the car. Having backup helped, especially when she was trying to figure out how to be concerned without sounding like a sappy ex-girlfriend. She was the antithesis of sappy.
When she couldn't think of anything incredibly snappy and witty to say, she gave up and settled for a "Be careful, okay? I'm not gonna be the one who explains things to Max and Isabel if anything happens to you." There. That sounded good. Not sappy, anyway, but not quite the antisappy she was shooting for.
"Watch your back," Liz added, giving Michael a look. She hoped he understood that she had to stay with Maria right now. She'd been there for Michael all summer, and she was still his friend, but Maria was in the process of freaking out and Liz had to stay and comfort her.
Michael nodded. "I will." Opening his door, Michael hopped out of the car and slammed the door shut behind him. Shoving his hands in his jacket pockets, Michael began to walk away from the car, automatically slipping into the shadows as he walked, making sure he wasn't seen. It was an old habit, and one that he sometimes found useful when he didn't feel like having to deal with anyone.
It only took a few minutes for him to reach his slightly run-down, apartment complex. As he headed to his door, he noticed that the apartment two doors down from his had all the lights on. Unable to help himself, Michael glanced through the single window and was surprised to see Xander Harris, his girlfriend, that Jessica girl, the short guy with the odd hair and another guy he didn't recognize standing around inside the apartment. [Who knew that Harris lived in the same complex as me?] Michael thought with a smirk as he passed by Xander's door and kept walking toward his own, darkened apartment.
Pulling out his keys, Michael unlocked his door and slipped inside, closing and locking the door behind him. He didn't even bother to flip on the light as he entered his small living room and collapsed on the couch. Kicking his shoes off, Michael closed his eyes and was asleep in no time.
Maria pulled the car away from the curb a bit slower than was strictly necessary. "This has /so/ not been my day," she muttered. She needed to vent.
No, she didn't. She was a reasonable, rational person and she was going to have an intelligent conversation that didn't involve Michael.
"Liz, what do you do if you can't decide if you want to smack a guy or kiss him?"
"Um... sniff cypress oil?" Liz guessed, giving Maria a sad smile. "Breaking up with an alien sucks, huh?" Her gaze moved out the window as she stared sightlessly at scenery she'd seen a thousand times before over the last 16 years. "Every time."
**************
Xander listened to Aidan speak, cradling the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he started to take off his coat. He had to move the phone from one shoulder to the other during the process but managed to execute it pretty easily. Normal, ordinary things that he used to be kind of clumsy at were now made incredibly easy to accomplish with more than a little bit of grace due in part to his unique, non-human status. It was one of the perks. Just as the occasional, hard to control, bloodlusts was one of the drawbacks.
Another benefit was the ability to see much better in the dark. Xander hadn't even had to turn on the lights in his small, sparsely furnished apartment during his mad dash to the phone. He'd already been able to see just fine, though his eyes did take on a slightly golden glow when he accessed his night vision, which he jokingly dubbed the "Xander-cam." Realizing that not everyone else he was with had the same capabilities as he did, Xander flipped a light switch on the wall next to where he stood with the cordless phone, casting a bit of light around the room.
The light revealed that Xander lived in a small, one-room efficiency, which meant that -aside from the small bathroom and closet that could be reached by opening the various doors - it only had the one room which Xander had converted into a living room which could sub as a bedroom as well since the large, comfy couch pulled out into a bed. It wasn't being used as a bed right now, of course. His apartment was in living room mode, which consisted of the couch, a couple of bean-bag chairs and a small end table on the one side, next to a large bookshelf that was built right into the wall beside the small phone nook. The bookshelf was where he kept the books that Giles had loaned him to use while doing slayer duty over the summer until Aidan got here.
On the other side of the little apartment was a bar that separated the living room from the tiny, bachelor-sized kitchenette. Xander had found three funky looking, old bar stools that someone had just left for the garbage man to take and he had brought them in so that he could use the bar as a table. After all, in an apartment this small, he didn't really have room to bring in a big kitchen table to eat at.
He had placed lots of brightly colored rugs of varying sizes and textures all over the floors, mostly to cover the tacky-looking linoleum. But the added bonus was that Xander loved kicking off his shoes and walking around barefoot, savoring the feel of the varied textures on the bottoms of his feet with his enhanced wolfy senses.
His walls were each very different. On the one, was the bookshelf full of old-looking "Giles" books. Another wall had the usual boyish movie posters, such as Jaws, Star Wars, and a couple of Pamela Anderson Lee shots. The walls in the kitchen were covered with different hooks for pots and pans and other kitchen-y stuff, including a rack for his coffee mug collection which consisted of lots of different crazy mugs that he'd gotten over the years and saved. It had been a fun distraction back when he still lived with his father. Though anything that had distracted him from his home life back then was a good thing. His newest mug...? An alien head mug with one of the alien's antennae as the handle. And another new one was a plain white mug that had in dark, block letters the saying, "I lived through the alien invasion in Roswell, but all I got was this lousy mug!" He gotten them both from the local "alien" craftswoman whose name was Amy something or other.
On the wall by the front door, right above his small table which was dubbed "the keys place" since that was where he kept his keys all the time, Xander had hung a large bulletin board that was presently covered by a plethora of newspaper clippings documenting every strange disappearance that had happened in Roswell in the last three months, along with notes scribbled in Xander's nearly unreadable scrawl on yellow post-its that were stuck all around the board. The notes basically filled in what Xander was certain had REALLY happened in each instance. Wild dogs translated into possible werewolf activity. Neck wounds meant vampire bites. And mysterious disappearance usually meant something supernatural was at work.
But along side the normal (at least Hellmouthy-normal) events were clippings about some REALLY bizarre stuff involving silver handprints, flashing lights, corpses from 1959 and gun shot wounds being healed by touch alone. There was also a picture of a high schooler named Max Evens circled in bright read ink with the words "Vampire? Demon? Or something else?" beside it. And there was several articles about the Crashdown Cafe and the weird stuff that seemed to go on there, which was one of the reasons why he'd applied for the job there in the first place... the other being a need of monetary security now that he lived on his own.
" What's the status here? Have we done any recon?"
Xander looked over at his bulletin board. "Oh yeah, and trust me, there is some weird shit going down in Roswell, New Mexico. Stuff that makes Sunnyhell look like normal-ville in comparison. If you want, you could swing by in a bit and I could fill you in with more details. Jessica, Cordelia and Oz are already here with me, so if you stopped by it would just be one less person I have to fill in later."
As an afterthought, he added, "Oh, and I saw Faith out and about earlier. Just F.Y.I."
Jessica gingerly checked her toes - Xander had tread on them during his phone dash - before examining the rest of the apartment. It was, she realized with a slightly guilty start, not nearly as nice as hers was, but she supposed that she should have expected that. Xander probably didn't have the resources that she did.
Not that she could do anything about it right now.
She sat down carefully on one of the chairs and gave Cordelia and Oz quick smiles. "So, where are you guys staying?" Way to be conversationalist there.
"I'm actually staying with some relatives...I sort of forced them to adopt me." Cordelia said to Jessica's question.
"Wow. That's cool. Or not." Jessica had had little (ie, no) encounters with Cordelia's relatives, so she didn't know exactly what to make of that. "Better than going all one-room apartment, I guess. Who are they?"
As Xander waited for Aidan's answer, he motioned at the girls and at Oz to get their attention. "Want anything to drink?" he mouthed with a raised eyebrow.
Even if Xander hadn't mentioned it, Aidan would have known there were other people in his friend's apartment. He could hear the low hum of their voices, though he couldn't distinguish any words.
"It's good to know that someone's seen Faith," Aidan said, a little worry evident in his tone. "She hasn't contacted either Giles or myself since she left Sunnydale. I was beginning to fear she had been possessed again." Aidan's short laugh showed that while he was joking about the possession -- back in Sunnydale the Slayer duo had been second only to Xander and Willow in number of times possessed by evil forces -- Aidan was worried about Faith.
Aidan decided to quit with the small talk. They could catch up on details in person. To Xander, he said, "I'll be over there in a minute. I remember the address from when you called me in Sunnydale. It shouldn't take me too long to find it." Aidan had been studying up on his Roswell geography ever since learning he was to head the team there. With that, he hung up the phone, grabbed his keys and his briefcase full of Roswell-related information, left his new apartment, locked the door, went to his new dark green Dodge Intrepid and drove away.
Jessica shook her head. She had spotted what she had labeled Xander's Oddity Spot. Although she wasn't one to prod into other people's stuff - or abandon a conversation - she held up her hand to forstall more comments about Cordelia's relatives and stepped over to the board.
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously as soon as she saw the article about the healed gunshot wound. She had a very good idea that the Elizabeth Parker, waitress at the Crashdown, in the article was the selfsame Liz she had met earlier. But Liz was normal as far as Jessica had been able to tell; she doubted Faith would have missed a demon standing right in front of her and from what little Jessica knew about Slayers, two were a bit much. Three was pretty impossible. So either Liz was something they had never heard of, or she had had serious help.
The glowing handprints made no sense at all. They had been found in apparently random places and - according to one tabloid - on dead people. This was getting really weird.
And what about the boy? Xander seemed to think he was a vampire or demon, but there was no indication why. He looked perfectly normal, but then again, that wasn't saying much. After all, that Michael creep had been completely antisocial and he was perfectly...normal...
Wait a minute.
Faith had reacted to someone in the Crashdown. Xander's fellow waiter. And as much as she disliked the Slayer, she was willing to trust her instincts.
"Hey, Xander?" she called, pointing to the picture of Max Evans. "Tell Aidan to get his butt down here. I think I found something."
****************
"Yeah, well, it's only gonna happen once," Maria muttered. "I'm so through with aliens. There's other guys out there." Not like Michael, but that was beside the point. She wasn't going to think about Michael.
[Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.]
"Ready to head home?" she asked as a change of subject.
Liz nodded. She tucked a strand of dark hair behind her left ear and sighed. "Yeah. Gotta get sleep before school tomorrow." School where there would be Max, larger than life... She'd been avoiding the thought of this all summer. Her heart began to beat more rapidly. "Maria!" she exclaimed suddenly. "Let's get out of here. Let's go to... um... California or Peru or somewhere. Finish school there!"
"That'd be nice," Maria admitted, only half-joking. "Can't, though. I don't think my mom would like me driving her car to Peru. And I want to keep an eye on things here. I know..." Ooh, boy. Back to the oh-so-pleasant extraterrestrial topic. "I know that we're not even supposed to be involved in the whole alien thing, but we kinda are. I don't want anything happening to Roswell while I'm off studying abroad."
They'd been driving all during the conversation, and soon enough the Jetta pulled into the driveway behind the Crashdown -- the area in back where the family and the staff parked their cars. Liz's dad didn't like taking up valuable parking places in the parking lot for non-customer vehicles.
"Yeah, I agree," Liz told Maria. As the car pulled to a stop, Liz reached out and gave Maria a fierce hug. "I'm so glad you're back, Maria. I missed you a lot." Then she pulled back and darted a glance toward the upstairs part of the building. The light was still on in the living room. Her parents were waiting up, no doubt, to tuck her into bed on the night before school started. "I guess I'd better go. Wouldn't want Dad getting crazed."
"Yeah. I should probably get home before my mom freaks." Maria leaned over and gave Liz another quick hug. "I really missed you, too."
She started to open the door and then paused. "Want to meet out front tomorrow morning? Face the new day together?"
"I could use the support." Maria waited until Liz had climbed out, then gave her a big movie star wave. "G'night."
"See you there, then," Liz replied. "About 7:50."
Liz slammed the door to Maria's mom's Jetta, gave one last wave and then headed inside. She got inside and up to her room with no incidents. She told her parents -- still waiting up in the living room -- that she'd run into Maria and done some catching up with her, and her parents were cool. Her dad, especially, was glad Maria was back, so she could come back to work.
Liz gave both parents a kiss and then went to her room. She changed into a comfy, yellow, cotton nightshirt that skimmed her knees, washed her face and brushed her teeth. She paused by her dresser, something catching her eye. It was a picture of her, Alex and Maria taken at the Crashdown a couple of years ago. Before the shooting and subsequent healing that had forever changed all their lives. It was an old, comfortable picture. One that was just part of the landscape of her room by now. She didn't have to look at it closely to know what it was a picture of. In fact, she couldn't remember the last time she picked it up. But she did tonight. And gasped.
Instead of Alex and Maria's smiling faces on either side of her own she saw Max's smiling head on Alex and Maria's bodies. It was like PhotoShop run amok, but she knew instantly that it wasn't. An alien had done this. And it wasn't anything Isabel or Michel would ever do.
Max wasn't the type to use his powers so carelessly, or so cavalierly. Only once, in the whole time Liz had known him, had Max let down the barriers of secrets and responsibility. The night Kyle had gotten him drunk on a sip of alcohol, the night of the Blind Date Valentine's Day dance, Max had stolen her away from the date picked for her by the radio station and taken her on a drunken, romantic walk. He'd made car alarms play soft music for her. He'd made street lights into spinning strobe lights. He'd made parking meters into sparklers to declare his love for her. And when she'd found him in her room, he'd written M.E. + L.P. on her balcony wall surrounded in a heart. Just graffiti to some, but when he'd made it glow, she'd thought her heart would burst.
Two tears crept out of the edges of Liz's eyes as she stared down at the ridiculous picture. He must have done it then, and forgotten about it when the alcohol wore off. He'd remembered to fix the wall -- Liz had never told him that she'd been sad to come home from the dance and find his declaration erased -- but the small detail of the picture must have slipped his mind.
And she hadn't noticed until now. Now that things were over between them forever. Now that Max had his destiny with Tess. An important destiny to eventually leave earth with Tess, Michael and Isabel and lead their people to freedom. Now that Liz could never have him.
Liz had been avoiding this all summer. With Max gone, she hadn't had to think about him too much, and when she did, she could do it academically, lock her emotions up behind the wall of her practical nature. But tonight, she knew, he had to be back home from his trip, getting ready for bed, probably. It made what she had lost so much more real -- the thought of seeing him every day was excruciating. All of a sudden, Liz couldn't imagine how she was going to do this. Even with Maria and Alex their to help, and Michael, too, to an extent, she still didn't know what she was going to do.
She could feel the sobs that she hadn't given way to since that day at the cave tightening in her chest. Liz ran over to her stereo and flipped on the radio. The soothing nighttime voice of the DJ made good background noise. Her parents would never hear her sobbing and come in to try and talk about it. They could never understand. Then Liz threw herself down on the bed, buried her face in her pillow, pulled her covers over her head and let loose all the tears she had been holding back for so long. She cried for a long time, until the oblivion of sleep finally caught up with her. Then she finally escaped from her pain, curled in a little ball with the mutated picture of Max pressed against her stomach.
****************
Aidan decided to quit with the small talk. They could catch up on details in person. To Xander, he said, "I'll be over there in a minute. I remember the address from when you called me in Sunnydale. It shouldn't take me too long to find it." Aidan had been studying up on his Roswell geography ever since learning he was to head the team there. With that, he hung up the phone, grabbed his keys and his briefcase full of Roswell-related information, left his new apartment, locked the door, went to his new dark green Dodge Intrepid and drove away.
Xander hung up the phone and walked over to stand beside Jessica, who was now looking at his bulletin board.
"He's already on his way," Xander informed her. "Why? Did you find something?"
"First off, there's this." Jessica pointed to the article about the waitress surviving the gunshot wound. "Unless there's a lot of waitresses named Elizabeth at the Crashdown, your boss was the one who survived a gunshot wound."
Xander nodded. "Yeah, I figured that out by asking around town. I even ran into these two ex-tourist kooks who saw the whole thing. Most people think they're just crazy, but I think there may be something to their story. I just don't know what."
Shrugging, Xander said, "So that's why I got the job at the Crashdown. Aside from needing some cash, I figured I might be able to find out some more info about some of the weird stuff that's going on in this town."
She moved on to her other discovery. "I think I found another person or two to stick with this guy," she said, jabbing a manicured nail at the picture of Max Evans. "You know that guy you work with? Michael the Antisocial Poster Child? Faith was acting kinda weird around him. Well, weirder than usual."
"Michael? Really?" Xander asked, raising any eyebrow. Sure, the guy was anti-social, but did that make him a baddie?
"And we are /so/putting that Tess brat up here," she added. "Just so I can use her face as a dartboard when I'm over here."
Xander chuckled. "I'll see what I can do, Jess."
***************