Liz and Kyle had been in Roswell for seven years and were set in their lives. Liz had Maria and Alex while Kyle had all of his jock friends and they had just started high school. They were still close but spent less time together, at least publicly. They would sneak over to each other’s houses at night, but they had to be careful. One night Kyle didn’t know that Maria and Alex were staying at Liz’s and they almost saw him on her balcony. They were trying to come up with ideas how they could spend time with each other without raising suspicion but hadn’t figured out anything yet.
Liz felt her brother’s kick to her stomach before she flew backwards. As soon as she hit the ground she was up again. Liz dodged a kick that Kyle had aimed at her head, and grabbed her brother’s leg, flipping him to the ground. Kyle blocked Liz’s flying roundhouse kick, and did a back flip to get up. It was one of their weekly scheduled training sessions where they kept up with their fighting. They were out in the desert right where it met up with Frasier Woods. Things continued like this for a while, with both Kyle and Liz each using their enhanced abilities to their advantage, before calling a truce between them.
They had just broken apart when they heard clapping. Both on alert, scared someone had seen them, they looked to where the sound was coming from and saw a blonde guy a few years older than them leaning against a tree.
“Who are you?” Kyle yelled.
“Always be aware of your surroundings soldier, you never know where the enemy could be hiding.” He said.
Liz’s eyes suddenly burned with recognition, “Zack?” Liz whispered in a strangled voice. The blonde looked over in her direction, and nodded, “It’s me baby sister.”
Memories of the last time she had seen him entered Liz’s thoughts just then, and she let them flash by.
(Flashback)
They could hear the dogs barking, hot on their heals. It wasn’t the only things she heard. She heard gunshots, and Lydecker yelling. They had to make to the fence, it they did they’d be safe. Well safer. Liz saw that Ky was still next to her, a foot away. She looked ahead and saw that Zack, who was leading them, had reached the fence. “"Up!”"He ordered and they all jumped the fence. Once they landed Zack was suddenly next to her. “Everyone go, split up. It’ll make us harder to find.”
She looked up at him, she didn’t want to be separated from all of them, but he said, “Go, run.” Ky grabbed her hand and pulled her away and farther into the woods. The last glimpse she had of any of her siblings was of them running.
(Flashback)
That night still haunted her dreams, sometimes the dream played out exactly the same way other times it was worse. She had had nightmares of the men capturing them and dragging them back inside, or she had one where she was hiding and she had to watch as the men gunned down her brothers and sisters, just like Lydecker had shot Eva.
Letting out a strangled gasp, Liz threw herself into her brother’s arms, and wrapped her own arms around him in a hug. She couldn’t believe that after seven years of being alone, with only Ky out of her siblings for company, her older brother had finally found them. “How did you find us?”
Zack turned away from his sister, and said in a flat tone, “I’ve actually been watching you and Ky for almost six years now, I traced you here.”
Liz took a couple steps back from her brother, and just stared at him. “Why didn’t you tell us who you were sooner, Zack?”
“Why?” Zack turned to face his sister, his face a blank slate, but, his eyes were naked with regret, “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you sooner, baby sister, but, it would’ve been too dangerous for you two and the others. I would have told you if I could’ve, you know that.”
They both nodded. Sure they understood, that didn’t mean they liked it. The Sheriff had helped them search for their other siblings over the years; they had even gotten a few leads but nothing concrete. “So why now?” Kyle asked.
Zack shrugged, “I thought you two were old enough to know.”
“What about the others? I know you can’t tell us where they are but how are they?” Liz asked.
“I’ve found everyone but Maxie. Everyone else is safe, they haven’t found anyone yet.” Zack said. “Most everyone is on the move every year or so. You two are the only ones to stay in one place for so long.”
“Roswell’s safe. There are people we trust here.” Kyle stated.
“And we’re ready if we need to run or if they surprise us.” Liz said as she pulled out her gun to prove her point.
“Yeah, I’ve seen you two train. And although I’m against you staying, for now Roswell is safe.”
“So are you planning on staying for a little while or are you leaving right away?” Liz asked.
“I planned on staying for a day or two.” Zack stated.
“Well then you’ll have to stay with one of us.” Liz said excitedly.
“I don’t know how your parents would feel about that.” Zack said just as they saw the Sheriff’s SUV pull up. Normally Zack would go on the defensive but he knew that the SUV belonged to the man Kyle lived with. The Sheriff got out of his truck cautiously not sure who was with the kids. “Kyle?”
“Dad, this is Zack. He found us.” Kyle stated. He saw his dad relax and stick out his hand. “Jim Valenti.” Zack took the offered hand and shook it.
“Do you mind if he stays with us tonight? He can have my room, I’ll sleep on the couch.” Kyle offered.
“Sure, we can head back now. I’ve got the night off unless there’s an emergency. We can order pizza and you three can catch up.” The Sheriff said. “Do you need a ride, Zack?”
“No, I have a motorcycle. I’ll meet you there.” He said as he headed off into the woods where he had stashed his bike.
As the other three headed for the SUV the Sheriff asked, “Does he know where he’s going?”
“Yeah, he said he found us about a year after we came here. Been watching us ever since.” Liz explained. “I’m going to call my parents and explain about Zack. I’ll go home after I eat and then sneak back over.” Liz said as she pulled out her cell phone.
“Did he say anything about the others?” The Sheriff asked Kyle.
“Yeah, he knows where everyone is except Max. He won’t tell us where they are but he said they’re safe.” Kyle stated. The three of them spent the next few days together enjoying being a family. When Zack left, Liz and Kyle both had a contact number to reach him with. He visited them as often as he could, giving updates on the rest of their family.
Part 2:
The summer before their sophomore year Zack was in town for a visit and he was the one to come up with the idea for Kyle and Liz to pretend to date so they could spend time together without anyone being suspicious. It weirded them out for awhile but they got used to it. It also kept Maria’s interest about Liz’s crush on Max Evans at a stand still. Early in the summer, shortly after Kyle and Liz officially became a couple, Liz, Maria, and Alex were over at Maria’s house hanging out when Liz’s cell phone rang. “Hello?”
“Lizzie, Kyle’s hurt.” She heard her dad say. “Jim just called me. They were hiking when there was a rockslide and Kyle was caught in it when he pushed Jim out of the way. It’s pretty bad, Jim said it looked like he’s losing blood from a cut on his side and probably has a few broken ribs.”
“Where are they?” Liz asked frantically.
“Heading to their house. Should be there in about ten minutes.”
“Okay, I’ll meet them there.”
“No, stay there. I’m right around the corner.”
“I’ll be waiting outside.” Liz turned off her phone and looked at her confused friends.
“What’s going on?” Alex asked.
“Kyle got hurt in a hiking accident. My dad’s picking me up to go see him.”
“How bad is he?” Maria asked. “Is he going to have to go to the hospital?”
“I don’t know.” Liz said as she grabbed her stuff and headed for the door. “I’ll see you guys later.”
Liz stepped outside just as her dad pulled up. She ran out and jumped into his car. “Go.” Jeff Parker pulled the car away and sped to the Sheriff’s house. It wasn’t far away and they arrived at the same time as the Sheriff and Kyle. She ran up to the tailgate of the SUV and helped him pull her brother out. “I let you out of my site for one minute and look at you.” Liz joked.
“Funny Liz.” Kyle breathed out. They got Kyle onto the couch and Liz started calling out orders. She was the one to do the medical treatment since she had more training then both men although the Sheriff had quite a bit. “Dad, I need our medical kit.” Since they couldn’t go to the hospital they had a lot of equipment in case of emergencies.
“It’s in my closet.” Kyle hissed out. X5s had higher tolerance for pain but he had been jostled around a lot and it hurt.
As her dad went to get the kit, Liz questioned them. “Do you have any idea how much blood you lost?”
“Not sure.” Kyle answered. “But I’m getting dizzy.”
“He soaked the blanket in my truck.” The Sheriff stated. Just then her dad came back.
Liz grabbed the edges of Kyle’s shirt where it was torn and ripped it open. Underneath she saw the damage. He had a large cut about six inches long that had been bleeding heavily but had now lightened up. “Dad, I need the large gauze pads and a couple of the surgical towels.” Her dad handed them to her, and then she handed them to Kyle’s dad. “Sheriff, I need you to stop the bleeding.”
The Sheriff began to apply pressure. While he did that Liz worked around him and found her brother had three bruised ribs and got out what she needed to wrap it before pulling out a transfusion kit out. “Dad, tie off his arm.”
Her dad took the rubber tubing and tied it around Kyle’s arm while she did the same to herself. She inserted the needle on Kyle then the other one into herself. “How it’s doing, Sheriff?”
The Sheriff pulled off a towel and looked at it. “Looks like it stopped.”
“I need to stitch him up.” Her dad got the necessary equipment and handed it to her. With her dad’s help she was able to sew up her brother while she gave him a transfusion. She cut the string and handed the scissors to her dad then looked at the Sheriff. “I’m going to unhook now and I need you to tape him up. He’ll heal fast, but he’ll be sore for a day or so.”
“I’m already feeling better.” Kyle threw in as the Sheriff began bandaging the wound and taping up his ribs.
“Well Manticore did something good when they made us all universal donors or we might have had a problem.” Liz stated as she unhooked the tubing. This was the worst either of them had been hurt since they left Manticore, they had been lucky. The differences in their blood would be detected, if the hospital screened it. The two of them could go to the doctor for small things as long as their blood or other bodily fluids weren’t involved.
“Liz, do you need anything else?” Her dad asked.
“It would probably be a good idea if we both had a dose of Trytophan. The loss of blood might trigger a seizure. And a glass of milk?” Liz asked. Her dad went to get what she asked for as she brushed Kyle’s hair out of his eyes. It was getting so long; she kept teasing him about it. “You gave me a scare Ky.” She said reverting to his original name that only her or Zack called him. “I freaked when my dad called and said you were hurt.”
“Sorry. It was instinct, I couldn’t let him get hurt.”
“I’m not mad, I would have done the same thing.” Her dad came back then with their pills and milk. They gulped it down and Liz waited until Kyle fell asleep before heading for home. She called Maria and Alex and told them that Kyle only had some bruising, nothing bad. She could tell them how serious it had been because they would wonder why he wasn’t in the hospital. She updated her mom on what was going on then once it was late enough she snuck back over to her brothers and watched over him.
The rest of the summer was uneventful for the two. They continued to ‘date’ and hung out a lot. Maria and Alex even joined them a couple times in the Crashdown.
Part 3:
The X5’s stood silently, side by side, as one, by one; dressed in fatigues, hands on their rifles. Lydecker walked along their straight rows. Suddenly he stopped, and bent down to meet Liz’s eyes. She looked straight ahead, and refused to even blink in Lydecker’s presence. “"Remember this, soldier,"” he whispered. “"Show your weakness, and the enemy will destroy you. Understand?”"
Turning her head, Liz said emotionlessly, “"Sir, yes, sir!"” Executing a perfect salute, and about-face.
“"Good."” Lydecker smirked; he stood back up and faced the unit. “"Your orders for the next training exercise are as followed. Each team has a target; said target was released into the woods in the assigned areas 30 minutes ago. Track down the target and eliminate it."” He motioned to the other regular soldiers who showed each team a picture of their assigned target. Liz and Ky memorized the picture before being dismissed.
The two of them made their way through the woods, they had done similar assignments before but it had involved the whole unit and tracking one prisoner. Lydecker knew that it affected her doing this that was why he had said what he did to her.
Silently moving next to her brother, working together like they had been trained since they were in the nursery together. The two of them found a fresh set of tracks and followed them. Ky and Liz approached an area where a few trees had fallen. They scanned the area and they spotted their target trying to catch his breath. From Liz position she had the best lineup for a shot and Ky motioned with his hands for her to take the prisoner out. Liz knew if she resisted then it would mean punishment, a '‘lesson'’ as Lydecker called it and he would know. The woods were watched to make sure the kids did as they were ordered. She lined up the shot at the prisoner’s head, knowing he wouldn’t suffer as much and squeezed the trigger. The shot was good and the prisoner fell dead to the ground. Liz wiped a tear from her eye and went with Ky to report the success of the mission.
Liz woke up suddenly and sat up. Her sudden movement woke Maria, “Lizzie? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing Maria, just a bad dream. Go back to sleep.” Liz said as she threw back the covers and climbed out of her bed. It was a good thing she didn’t wake up screaming this time like she had in the past since Maria and Alex had spent the night. Maria was next to her and Alex was asleep on her floor. Liz wondered what they would think if they had knew that Liz had killed people. Hunted and gunned down men who had no way of defending themselves.
She shut the bathroom door and went to splash cold water on her face. She hated having those dreams, those memories. Or nightmares if you got down to it. Sometimes they came months in between but other times they came frequently. Liz knew she would never be rid of them. She turned off the bathroom light and went to lay back down. When she did she felt Maria curl towards her, “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s probably just stress from starting school and work.” Liz lied.
“Well after the Crash Festival next week, things will settle down.” Maria yawned out. Liz nodded and tried to go back to sleep.
Part 4
Pilot Scenes:
September 23rd. Journal entry one. I'm Liz Parker and five days ago I died. After that, things got really weird....
Liz stood in the café trying to figure out what had happened to her. She knew she had been shot, she had felt the bullet hit her stomach and the burning pain that had always accompanied a bullet wound but then suddenly it was gone. And Max Evans was standing over looking scared. “You're all right now. You're all right.” She heard him say. She watched him throw his keys to his friend Michael then grabbed a ketchup bottle. He broke it and dumped the contents on her. “You broke a bottle when you fell, spilled ketchup on yourself. Don't say anything please.” And then he was gone.
She had rubbed the smooth skin of her stomach; there was no evidence of the bullet. She didn’t know what to think sure her and Kyle were fast healers but that was a little overboard. What had Max done? Had he healed her? How could he do that? The sound of her dad’s frantic voice pulled her back to what was going on.
“Lizzie. Oh my God!!”
“No, dad, dad look, look at this.” She said pointing to her uniform. “See, I'm fine, I-I just spilled ketchup, I'm really, I'm okay.”
Jeff Parker knew that if Liz was hurt she wouldn’t want to taken to the hospital so he had to make sure in case he needed to get her ‘alternative’ medical care. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah” She answered. It was then that Sheriff Valenti walked up. Liz saw the flash of worry cross his face, and heard him ask; “You okay?”
“Yeah thanks. I-I'm just a little shaken up.” She lied. She didn’t want to talk to anyone about what had happened until she talked to Max. He nodded and went to get his report from his deputy. Once that was done, Liz noticed the two tourists from earlier talking to him. That made her worry. Then she heard her dad yelling at her for the showing her fake photo around. While she did she saw the tourist, Jennifer, telling the Sheriff about Max and Michael sitting at the booth.
“There were two kids sitting over here when it happened, two boys about her age. And then one of them went”
Liz interrupted her. “Uh yea, that's right there were. You know that I didn't recognize them, so they must have just been tourists.” She could tell that the Sheriff believed her, why wouldn’t he? This was the first time she had lied to him. But then the other tourist, Larry, butted in. “No, no it sure looked like that she knew them to me.”
She just looked at the Sheriff and shrugged her shoulders trying to make it look like she didn’t know what he was talking about. Her dad came to the rescue so she didn’t have to say anything. “Jim, I really want to get Lizzie upstairs. She’s shaken up with the shot going off. She’s not real comfortable around guns.” Of course the three of them knew that was a lie. She happened to have several guns hidden in her room as well as one in her locker in the back room.
The Sheriff nodded and Jeff steered her to the back. Once they were through the door Jeff asked, “What happened? It wasn’t Manticore was it?”
“No. I saw them struggling for the gun and it went off. I dodged the bullet but hit the counter, knocking over the ketchup. I slipped in it and got it on me. That’s it. I don’t know what those people were talking about. Max just helped me up.”
“Stupid tourists.” Her dad grumbled. “Go on upstairs and get cleaned up. I’ll see you later.”
Liz ran upstairs fast and into her room. She stripped out of her uniform when she saw it. A glowing silver handprint. What the hell was going on? What had Max did to her?
She started thinking about what she knew about Max. She knew he wasn’t from Manticore. He didn’t have a barcode. She had checked along time ago, when she had noticed he watched her.
Flashback
It was Liz'’s first day of school and her mom had dropped her as well as Maria and Kyle off early. Liz was nervous about it but she felt better knowing her brother and Maria were close. Liz and Maria were playing when she felt someone’'s eyes on her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a little dark haired boy staring at her. The way he looked at her made her wonder if he knew her from Manticore. Not one of her siblings but maybe one of the other kids in the other units. Before she could walk over to talk to him the little blonde girl next to him dragged him away. Later she noticed the two of them hanging around Michael Guerin, a boy that Maria had told her about.
After that she never saw him alone, he was always with the girl, who Liz found out was his sister Isabel, and Michael. She bided her time and eventually was able to check the back his neck, nothing. Over the years, he continued to watch her and Liz kept an eye on him.
Flashback end
Liz dressed quickly and decided that tomorrow her and Max needed to have a talk.
Part 5
The next day Liz was sitting in her biology class listening as the teacher droned on and on, waiting for Max to show up. She noticed Max walk in just as she heard the teacher say, “For today's experiment you'll be working in teams of two.”
She watched as Max sat down next to her and stuck a pencil in his mouth. “Mr. Evans, so nice of you to join us. Okay, everyone on the right prepare a slide with the vegetable sampling, everyone on the left, take a toothpick and get a sample from your cheek.”
She noticed Max pull the pencil out of his mouth, as he started to fidget. She was about to ask what was wrong when he raised his hand. “Mr. Evans?”
“Could I get a bathroom pass?” He asked.
“High maintenance today aren't we?” Max took the pass and left as the teacher continued to talk. “It's very easy to look on the outside and say what differentiates humans from other species. But what about what's on the inside, everyone, look at the human cells and describe everything you see on your lab sheet.”
Liz scraped the inside of her cheek and started to prepare the slide. She knew her cells would look a little different, since her DNA were mixed with animal but she also knew what normal human cells looked like. Since she knew that she could just draw them. But she wanted to see what hers looked like. Once she was done she sat back and started to get rid of her slide. She couldn’t leave evidence lying around. As she did she saw Max’s pencil, the one he had been chewing on. She quickly made a slide of it and looked at them. They were green, and not normal! She needed to talk to Max.
After class she ran after Max. “ Max! Max! Excuse me, excuse me. Max, I have to talk to you.”
She pulled him into the band room. It was then that she realized they weren’t alone. Kyle was there beating on a drum. “Kyle!”
“Hey!” Kyle said greeting his sister. He was glad to see her; he had something to tell her.
“Hey!” She said too excitedly.
It was then that Kyle noticed who she was with. The guy his sister had had a crush on for the last year. “Hey Max.”
“Hey.” Max said quietly.
“Did you get my message?” He asked Liz still eyeing Max.
Liz knew that Kyle had called her several times and was glad they hadn’t had a training session schedule last night or she wouldn’t have been able to avoid him. “Yeah, I did. I was just little…”
“Shaken up.” Kyle offered looking over at Max, knowing she wasn’t scared of a gun.
Grateful that Kyle had come up with an answer for her, she said. “That’s what it was.”
“Yeah, I know my dad told me about the gun going off. You okay?” Kyle asked still careful of his words around Max.
“Yeah, I am. It was just loud then it was over.”
“So you guys are?” Kyle asked wondering why his sister had drug a guy into an empty room. Especially this guy. He hoped it wasn’t for what he normally dragged girls into empty rooms for. His sister was too young for that, even if she was only six months younger than he was. He had always been protective of her, more so now that Zack warned them that Liz was old enough that she could go into heat.
“Looking for a place to…” Liz tried to come up with something. “Study for our biology midterm.”
“Right. Biology.” Kyle looked from Liz to Max; they looked too serious to be studying but why would Liz lie? “All right. I was leaving anyway.” Kyle hadn’t been about to leave, he was actually waiting for someone but he could see that Liz wanted him to leave. He would just wait for her.
“Great.. Um, that’s good.” Liz said trying to rush him out of the room but Kyle stopped. “Ooh, I got my costume for the Crash…”
Liz was about to scream in frustration. “Kyle. We've gotta study. Sorry.”
Kyle looked at his sister; she was up to something. “Right. See ya Max.”
“So...you're going out with the Sheriff's son?” Max asked her sounding almost disappointed.
“Um, yeah. Well, it's kind of like this, this casual...okay, Max. Can we just focus here for one minute please?” She said as she lifted up her shirt.
“Wow.” He said as he looked at her stomach.
“Um, I-I scraped some cells from your pencil. This is really hard to say, I'm trying to keep from blacking out here. Um, the cells weren't normal.” Of course neither were hers. “So, Max, what I'm going to suggest to you is that we just go back to the bio lab now, so that I can take a sample so that I can see what I'm thinking is wrong, you know? That I got the wrong cells...”
“You didn't.” He said flatly.
“Okay, um.” Liz said trying to figure out what was going on. “So help me out here Max. I mean, what are you?”
Max’s eyes flitted around the room. “Well I'm not from around here.”
“Where you from?” Liz asked. Max pointed up with his index finger. “Up north?” He just pointed higher. “You're not an, an alien, I mean. Are you?”
“Well I prefer the term not of this earth.” He said smiling. “Sorry, it's not a good time to joke. Yea, I am. Wow, it's weird to actually say it.”
Liz couldn’t take it. It was too much. Her logical mind could grasp the concept of aliens. She turned to leave and got as far as the door before Max grabbed her. “Liz.... “
“Um, Max, you know, I have, I'm gonna be late for my US Government class, so I'm just gonna—“
“Liz, listen to me. You can't talk to anyone about this. Not your parents, not Maria. No one. You don't understand what'll happen if you do.” She looked up into his eyes, he had no idea how much she did understand it. “Liz please? Now my life is in your hands.”
Liz nodded before heading out the door. She had just gotten out into the hallway when someone grabbed her arm and pulled her into a closet. She turned to look right into the eyes of Kyle, who happened to be standing next to her other brother Zack.
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