Summary: Liz did what she came to do; she went back into the past and saved Zan. But Zan is nothing if not dangerous, and every action he makes creates a ripple effect that will change the world Liz knew beyond all recognition. It's a new timeline, but does that really mean it will be a better one?

Disclaimer: I do not own Liz Parker, Zan, or any of the other characters or places of the TV show (and book series) Roswell.

AN: Merry Christmas! Enjoy your holidays, guys, and for those of you that stuck with me all this time despite how hard it is for me to get my lazy butt in gear… thank you. It means more than you know.

Next update will hopefully be within a couple weeks, but as is always the case with me, I offer no guarantees. I definitely won't give up on this thing, I'm just… well, taking the turtle approach instead of the hare's, if you get my drift.

Lonnie had done something to her.

The moment Zan had broken her out of her trance, Liz had been hit with the weirdest sense of vertigo. It wasn't physical, but more the general feeling that she'd taken a step and the ground had shifted just behind her. She felt the same, and yet she was… not. She almost afraid to look any closer. Like if she turned and tried to look she wouldn't like the changes she found.

Although she couldn't completely avoid it, either… no matter how much she tried. The awareness was there, and not acknowledging it was like trying not to think about what was actually inside a coffin or trying not to look at a shadow in the corner of your eye.

Zan had told the truth.

Oh, god…

Liz felt a ball in her throat and almost vomited right there on the floor. She swallowed, but she couldn't quite get rid of the taste. She tried her best to ignore the… the unshakable certainty that Lonnie had prodded into existence at the base of her brain. She couldn't face it now – every horrible thing crowding at the back of her mind like a stadium of unrecognizable faces clamoring for her attention...

It was too much, too… too much.

Her head throbbed and raced the whole way out of the bunker. She didn't really remember where they went or how they got out.

I think I'm going into shock.

She started relying on instinct; checking corners before turning, listening for footsteps, never letting her focus settle too completely on any one thing – she kept her eyes roaming in case someone tried to sneak up on them. At one point she realized she was following instincts she'd never had any reason to form, and her stomach heaved again.

She'd traveled through time.

She couldn't look at it any closer than that. As it was, her vision was throbbing and her thoughts were bizarrely sluggish. The idea of digging into this new, inexplicable conviction made her imagine shoving her fingers into an open wound. She couldn't. She would have to eventually, that much she knew. But not yet. Not… not now.

Liz felt like trying would either turn that wound poisonous, or...

Or open it wide enough for a whole other Liz to claw her way out.

The first thing Lonnie did when she woke was smile.

The Skins who'd reluctantly started to work for her after Nik was killed were all mystified by it – what was there to smile about? The Husks they'd had prepared for the invasion were decimated; there were other storage bases waiting for the order of course, but this had still been a substantial loss. The Skins who would've worn these Husks would've been responsible for taking almost a full fifth of the Americas, and now other arrangements would need to be made.

They were all waiting for the axe to fall. Kivar would have their heads for this, and the fact that the people that had done it had gotten away…?

They didn't bother asking her about it, though. She was Kivar's pet sycophant, and they'd learned better than to expect rational behavior. At this point, they were really just satisfied when she stayed out of the way and didn't maim anybody.

But Lonnie… Lonnie was walking on cloud nine.

How could she not be? She might not have managed to pop the bubble in Liz's mind, but she didn't have to; there was no hurry anyway, since she knew exactly where the three of them were going. Her brother by himself was a wild card, and had he been alone he could've gone anywhere. But he wasn't alone. He was with his precious Beth.

He would go where she went, and seeing as Beth was actually Liz Parker, odds were good they were making a bee-line for that ridiculous little hometown of hers. Granted, there was a chance she was wrong, but it was obvious Parker was involved in some kind of political game. She wouldn't hide forever.

Lonnie made her way to the communications room. It was a small room lined in purple crystalline transmitters, and the first place rigged to blow if the base was ever discovered by humans and – for some unfathomable reason – the Skins on location couldn't handle it. She hit the button to open a direct line to Kivar and stood back to wait.

She already knew it would be a while. She'd made him angry the last time. Kivar was a busy man and she couldn't just call him for no reason – she had to have something solid, something of consequence. And she hadn't always…. Well, followed that particular rule.

She understood why he'd been angry. He still was, if she had to guess, and when he saw that she'd put in a call he would very likely ignore it for a while. He may even leave her waiting all day. But it was worth waiting, if she could see him.

And besides… this time she had something he'd like.

The Granolith can be used to time travel. Lonnie practiced, a genuinely happy smile spreading across her face. We need to get it away from my brother – or he'll use it.

If anything would get Kivar to come to Earth – to come to her… this would be it.

Soon after Zan had passed out in the back of the van, Liz climbed into the passenger seat and rolled down the window, letting the cold pre-dawn air drive away a little of her nausea. At her side, Maria gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles, strained gaze locked firmly on the world flying towards her through the windshield.

For a good ten minutes the two of them sat in total silence.

"I think I deserve an explanation."

The way Maria said it made it sound as if it should've been a demand. An accusation, even, spurred on by how truly awful Liz's plan to follow Zan had gone for them. Liz wouldn't have blamed her if it had been; her obsession with her dreams had very nearly gotten both of them killed. It was stupid – beyond stupid; dangerously moronic. She'd let months of spending every night as a spy and underground rebel in some alternative timeline make her forget how powerless they really were.

Yet, that's not what she heard in Maria's voice.

Liz glanced over. At some point while she'd been staring out the window, Maria had started to cry. Liz would never have known except that the tear-tracks still ran down the blondes' splotchy face and her arms were trembling. She could hear an edge of that in Maria's voice, along with hurt and frustration and weary exhaustion.

Liz swallowed and looked at her lap.

"Maria, I'm… I'm sorry."

"No." Maria shook her head and clenched her jaw shut. The trembling got worse and the tears started up anew. When she spoke again, she did so through clenched teeth. "I don't want an apology. I want to know why. Not just some stupid half-assed little story to get me to do what you want – I need the truth. I thought we were friends – "

Liz jerked, eyes immediately snapping toward her friend. "We are –"

"Are we? Because you…" Maria swallowed, the words having turned into a watery moan by the end. Her face screwed up as she visibly pulled herself together. "You told me about Max coming back in time and why you had to do the whole Kyle thing. You trusted me, Liz… And now you're keeping secrets and – and you keep almost getting killed, and every time you act like you don't expect me to go with you, like you think I'd just leave you to die and..."

Liz bit her lip hard enough to leave imprints, feeling tears of her own start to form.

"Liz, you're my best friend. I would die for you. But it's like you don't even know I'm here anymore. Like… you're this totally different person."

Liz flinched.

She's right.

Liz hadn't realized it before... but she had been different lately. She'd never been the kind of person to act on her own when big decisions had to be made. Max and the others had more of a stake in anything to do with aliens. She came up with plans, sometimes, but she never gave herself the pivotal roles – or the final say. She knew she was smart, that she was capable, but… she was still only peripherally involved.

She hadn't thought she had the right to keep secrets like this.

Except that lately, she'd been running on a totally different mindset. She hadn't noticed because she'd been more secretive since the whole Kyle thing, but this was… different. She'd opened up to Maria with that, but since the dreams had started she'd been acting like she was alone. Like she couldn't rely on anyone. Like… it was her problem, and it wasn't anybody else's business unless she needed something from them.

Like she was fighting a war by herself.

Liz winced, feeling those figurative fingers digging deeper into the tear in her mind.

Maybe she was different now than she used to be… but it was time for her to learn to trust someone again. Maria had always had her back, and she would now too.

"I started having these dreams a few months ago. At first they weren't serious – just random dreams of me running around, fighting aliens and trying to build this… this machine."

It was in the early hours of the morning when Max pulled into the gas station Maria had told him about, the stars stretched out above them and nothing but the light inside the building to compete with them. Of course, it'd been almost six hours since the call, and Max had heard absolutely nothing from them since.

They'd called Liz and Maria's phones over and over, but there was still no answer. And now that they'd reached the gas station… they had no idea where to go next.

The others climbed one by one out of the jeep, but Max couldn't bring himself to do it. His hands squeezed the steering wheel harder and harder until the veins bulged and his knuckles shown ash-white through his skin. How was he supposed to be okay with this?

Liz was in trouble.

And unless something changed, there wasn't a single thing he could do about it.

"Max…" Michael said softly, coming around to Max's side. Then his eyes went wide and his expression energized, one hand coming up to shake Max's shoulder while the other pointed at a block of white metal barely visible behind the gas station. "Max, wait – look! That's them, that's Zan's car!"

Max was out of his seat and running almost before Michael had started talking.

He wasn't sure what Zan was up to, but this had gone way too far. They were human. They were normal teenage girls – they had no way of defending themselves against whatever an alien like Zan might be mixed up in. Involving Maria, involving Liz…

That was totally unforgivable.

As Max rounded the corner, the first thing he noticed was Maria standing next to a guy carrying the body of a girl. Max knew immediately that he was looking at Zan – his clone, his twin, his double. And all that Max could see of the body was girls' legs, shoeless and dangling limp over the crook of Zan's arm.

Liz. Oh god, Liz.

"What did you do?" Max heard himself snarl. He put on even more speed, his heart pounding so hard he felt the throb of his pulse in his ears. He grabbed Zan's shoulder and jerked him around, reaching out to grab the body before he'd even had time to process that it wasn't her.

Ava…

The hair had been blue when he'd last seen it, but the color – or maybe the wig – had come off by now. Instead, she had ash blonde hair nearly to her shoulders, so thick with oil and filth Max could almost feel the slick residue of it just by looking. She was skinnier, too, in clothes both baggy and stained, but what got to Max was the look on her face.

Every muscle in her body was totally slack, and her open eyes stared off at nothing.

Zan twisted, dislodging Max's grip with a venomous glare. "The hell's your problem, man?"

"Max!" Max turned, finally seeing Liz, almost totally shrouded in the shadows on the inside of the van. Zan's body and the general gloom had hidden her from view before, but Max looked her over as thoroughly as he could. A tension he hadn't realized he'd been feeling loosened in his chest when he didn't see any actual injuries.

The tension came right back when he saw her face.

Max had expected to find her in one of two ways. Either she'd be totally okay and she'd rush to explain herself – not because she regretted it, but because despite everything that had happened between them, his opinion still seemed to matter to her – or she'd be terrified, even injured. That's how he'd found her in the past when she'd gotten involved in his problems… when his ridiculous life had put her and every one of their friends in jeopardy.

Max took a hesitant step forward.

"Liz?" He said softly, a world of confusion in his voice.

She stared back at him, dim eyed and unreadable. She didn't look frightened, or angry, or defensive… and she definitely didn't look like she was about to jump to explanations. She just looked… blank. Tired.

After a second she blinked and forced a little smile.

"Max," she repeated, stepping forward once but coming no closer. "It's alright. We're fine."

"Where have you been?" Isabel demanded, and Max flinched in surprise. He'd actually forgotten about the others, but they'd all gathered behind him now. The resulting formation had the feeling of a stand-off, with Max, Michael, Isabel, and Tess standing about six feet away Zan, Liz and Maria.

Max was more than a little disturbed about the placement of the latter two.

Then Maria gave a nervous smile and stepped forward, subtly putting herself between Max and Zan – with her back to the latter.

The movement did not improve the situation, from Max's perspective.

"We're good. We're fine." She said quickly, her nervous little smile growing in both size and awkwardness when the tension didn't ease. "We just… look, we had to help Ava, okay? Zan's psychopath of a sister had been torturing her. "

Somehow, this was the point that it occurred to Max that Ava might not be dead. He glanced down and saw her eyes again, but he forced himself to look closer until he found the tiny, almost invisible movement of her chest.

"What happened to her?" Max asked, tone hushed and horrified. He reached out to touch her but Zan lurched away, pulling her out of Max's reach with a snarl on his face.

Max glared back. "What're you doing? I'm trying to help her!"

"We don't need your fuckin' help." Zan snapped. "I can handle this on my own."

Max was usually known for his lack of temper, but that side of his reputation was a little bit… misrepresented. Max did have a temper, it was just hard to get him angry and most people had to struggle at it for a while before actually getting it to catch fire.

Evidently, Zan and Michael shared a skill for that.

"Cause you've done such a great job so far." Max retorted sharply. He wanted the words to hurt… even though on some level he knew that that was stupid. His goal was to help Ava, and he couldn't do that without Zan's cooperation. Well, not unless he wanted to fight his clone off first, and as tempting as that idea was… fighting now was a waste of time they couldn't afford to lose.

It was a little gratifying to watch Zan go red. It meant that, though Zan could apparently hit all of Max's buttons without even meaning to, Max was more than capable of returning the favor.

Zan opened his mouth to say something – probably something rude – when Liz cut in. "Zan… you should let him help."

The New Yorker turned a vaguely betrayed look her direction. She rolled her eyes, walked over to his side and laid her hand on his shoulder.

Max felt vaguely sick.

"Something's really wrong with Ava. Something you couldn't fix before." Liz glanced at Max and turned back to Zan almost immediately, evidently totally at ease looking the New Yorker in the eye. "You and Max… you can both heal people, right? So, how do you know the two of you together aren't better at it than you are alone?"

Zan hesitated, keeping his eyes locked firmly on Liz. Max fought back the urge to step up and draw his attention away; Liz's approach was obviously working better than his own had been.

Finally, Zan reluctantly nodded, but when Max stepped forward he pivoted away and shook his head.

"Fine." He turned and went back to the van, setting Ava on the floor tenderly. "But this is too public. If we're going to do this, we need a little cover."

"What kind of cover?" Michael immediately retorted, sounding a little suspicious.

"The kind we're best at." Zan muttered. He glanced back toward the gas station, making sure there was no one at the right angle to see the van. It was a mostly pointless gesture, as there was only one car in the parking lot out front, and Max was pretty sure it belonged to the guy behind the counter. "Keep an eye out, would ya Mikey?"

Michael scowled, but moved away from the van so he had a better view of the parking lot. Luckily, there weren't any windows on the back of the gas station and there was nothing but the silhouettes of sage brush and cacti in the other direction; so long as nobody came around the building itself, they should be safe enough.

Max glanced back over just in time to watch the vans windows turn black. They weren't solid – it looked more like someone had painted tar or something over the windows in sloppy black streaks. Still, it was enough to block off all sight from the outside.

Zan glanced back at Max and gestured him inside. Max found himself looking at Liz. He wasn't sure why, really – if anything, he should be looking at Isabel and Michael for support, or Tess if he was looking for assurance. But it was still Liz whose approval he wanted.

She nodded and Max turned toward the van. Zan gestured inside again – a little more impatient, now, although impatience seemed sort of a constant thing with him – and Max stepped through the door.

The minute Zan slid the door shut, the van fell into almost total darkness. Max was glad he'd found a spot quickly, otherwise he knew he'd be afraid of stepping on Ava; he had no idea where either her or Zan were in that moment.

And then, with a casual effortless that Max reluctantly found sort of impressive, little orbs of light appeared, floating up into the air around them. It lit the van with an eerie blue glow and made the sunken hollows of Ava's face look skeletal and gaunt.

Max didn't like the way her pupils never changed.

Zan reached out and put his hand on the side of Ava's face. Max hesitated, reluctant to drop his guard around Zan the way he'd have to in order to heal. But Max had always gotten the impression Ava was a good person, and he couldn't just leave her to whatever she was going through because he wasn't willing to trust Zan not to break his word.

Max reached out and grabbed her hand instead, wrapping both of his own around it. She was cold and totally unresponsive, and if it weren't for the sluggish throb of her pulse in her wrist Max might've been holding the hand of a corpse. He suppressed a wince.

Max wasn't at all sure he could work well with Zan; their whole approach to things was so different, it wouldn't surprise him if their methods of healing clashed. But when he focused on Ava and reluctantly dove into the mental state he used to heal, he found his own energy matched Zan's immediately.

The physical stuff was easy, and it didn't take long for Max to realize there wasn't anything obvious left to fix. It was when they went deeper, down into the insubstantial realms of her psyche, that he saw the problem.

She wasn't there.

There were scars everywhere. They weren't like scars on skin; they were more like huge rifts in a dried river. Max reached out to bridge the gap – to fill it up, maybe, or draw the edges closed – but it was all too… dry. He had the weirdest feeling that even touching it was dangerous, and trying to move it or shape in any way would only make it crumble.

It honestly reminded him of the way Nasedo had… well, dissolved.

But instead of giving up, Max dove deeper.

In some distant corner of his mind, he was aware of the fact that he'd already surpassed his usual reach. Zan's energy, identical to his own, acted like a kind of boost – or his did to Zan's, he guessed. Somehow the two of them were reaching beyond the shattered walls of Ava's mind into a deeper place.

The wounds were different, here – fresher. Max and Zan did what they could; these weren't like physical wounds and they couldn't heal them with the same ease, but they sent waves of calm and cool over the worst of them and felt something changing for the better.

Still, they found no sign of Ava.

Every dive got harder, and it wasn't long before even their joined efforts couldn't push them far enough. The wounds here still wept and throbbed, the ache so tangible they felt it ricochet inside their skulls. Even to their untrained senses, they could see the signs of battle.

This is Lonnie's work.

Max blinked, for a moment certain the snarled thought had been his own. His confusion rippled, separated, and suddenly there were two of them again… neither of them having noticed until that point that they'd been moving as one.

Disturbed and uncomfortable, Max and Zan focused on keeping each other separate…

… And that was when they noticed it.

A ripple, a… faint heat that stood out in the cool and the barren landscape like distant neon lights on a dark highway. They turned towards the source.

It was a… the term was hard to find, but the closest they could compare it to was a door in the ground. Whatever it was made of was clearly built to weather a storm, and the marks around it proved to the two of them that it had done just that. Lonnie had put all her effort into getting in, and still the door stood strong.

The energy – Ava, they assumed… was beyond that door.

They knocked, they prodded, they pulled, and nothing happened. The door didn't even begin to budge. They worked for what seemed like days trying to get her to let them in – trying to force their way through, if they had to. But it became more and more clear that whatever this was... it was more than they could handle.

As soon as the doors to the van were closed, the people waiting outside fell into an incredibly uncomfortable silence. Liz could tell everyone was waiting for the two of them to say something, and that expectant hush felt a lot like a cage just then. Still, she wasn't at all interested in breaking it; she'd done as much opening up as she was liable to by telling Maria. She didn't feel at all comfortable talking about what was really going on in front of… present company.

Liz looked down at her feet, carefully keeping a head of blonde curls in her periphery.

She didn't want to think about what she was beginning to put together. The pieces of it all still weren't clear, but they were getting there – slowly lining up bit by bit in the back of her mind. She didn't know if the whole picture would ever be there, but what she could see so far…

"What the hell were you two thinking?"

Of course it would be Michael who'd talk first, cutting through the awkward tension as if he didn't notice it at all. And of course he'd pick the least tactful way ever to do it.

Liz took a deep breath and braced herself for an argument. "None of this was Maria's fault. I… I saw Zan back in Roswell and I just… I had to know if he knew anything about Alex. But when I confronted him and found out about Ava, I –"

The sentence stumbled to a halt in her mouth and she couldn't bring herself to finish it. She knew she had to lie. Tess was standing only a few feet away and she couldn't know the truth… at least, not now when Liz had absolutely no control over the situation. When she had no way of keeping Tess from –

You killed Alex!

Liz swallowed and squeezed her eyes shut. She wasn't good at this. Whatever new instincts she had obviously didn't cover lying to her friends while standing within telepathic range of a – of a –

"We had to help her." Maria stepped in, sounding a lot more sincere than Liz would've expected. The gratitude practically made Liz's knees go weak. Too much had happened today - way too much, actually, and Liz was having a hard time holding up a convincing I'm fine face while trying not to pay attention to the thing forming in the back of her mind. "I mean, this is Ava. Her and Liz really bonded, y'know? If he went by himself and he couldn't help her, if he like… died or something, nobody would even know she was in trouble. We had to go with him."

Liz nodded without looking up. She prepared herself for their story to be challenged, but what came next was a simple question... from Tess.

"And did you find any clues about Alex?"

Liz tensed and shook her head, never once looking up at the blonde. Her head throbbed and her skin crawled, but she managed to keep most all of that off her face… she thought. Hopefully they'd assume whatever was showing through had to do with Alex.

Who… she suddenly wasn't very worried about anymore. She glanced up at the van as a suspicion formed about what had happened to her old friend.

After a brief, sad silence, Michael started whispering to Maria, Isabel and Tess started talking about something. Quiet mutterings filled the space, taking away some of the tension. Liz somehow felt separate from it all, though… and her eyes stayed locked on the van.

Are you somewhere safe, Alex?

It shouldn't be taking this long.

Liz took to tapping her fingers on her arm, unnoticed by the others. Liz noticed him pacing anxiously to the corner of the gas station to see if the coast was clear. Maria was biting her lip. Even Tess seemed affected, although Liz could only tell by the way she was obsessively picking at her nails and glancing every few seconds at the van. The only one that wasn't fidgeting was Isabel, who was staring with such an intense focus toward the ground that Liz had to assume she was lost in deep thought.

Liz was worried about Ava, but for some reason it felt… awkward. For all that she and Ava had (as Maria put it) bonded when Ava was in Roswell, Liz still barely knew the alien girl. And yet she had this… it felt like a habit. As if she'd protected Ava a hundred times before, and just couldn't remember doing it. It felt important to do it, or at least to try… because on some level she identified Ava as family.

But Liz couldn't feel it, and that seemed like a betrayal.

Liz reached up and scrubbed her face with her palm. She didn't want to think about this. She didn't want to face that puzzle in the back of her mind, but she couldn't escape it either. Every moment that passed made it stronger, and the influence of that… that presence in the back of her mind was slowly seeping into her thoughts.

She had to face this, and soon, or it would sweep over her when she was least expecting it. But she had to hold it off until she was alone. She couldn't let on what was happening to her in front of Tess.

The doors to the van slid open. The noise was so loud that Liz, Maria and Tess all jumped. Everyone's eyes flew immediately to the van.

Max looked first at Liz. A part of her almost melted. She knew he still had feelings for her, and that the two of them could still have a future together, but...

She crossed her arms and looked away.

He was with Tess. The girl who would've murdered one of her best friends. She'd thrown him at Tess, and now he was with her, kissing her… a bit in love with her, even.

And Liz was hiding more than ever, now.

Zan huffed. "Fuck."

The curse word startled everyone. That was another weird thing, actually; Liz and the others had all been a bit too sheltered to use that kind of language as kids (with the possible exception of Michael, who'd never really talked like that despite his less than ideal environment as a kid). In that other life, Liz had become pretty casual about cursing, but now… it just felt weird.

Apparently the others felt the same, because every eye in the room flew to Max's clone.

Zan was sitting slumped on the floor of the van, his feet brushing the ground and his hands covering his face. There was something about the arch of his shoulders and the tension in his form that screamed defeat. Liz surprised herself and actually took a step toward him before she stopped.

She'd wanted to… to comfort him.

She should've been scared of him. Whatever was bleeding off of that wound in her mind had done nothing to change her feelings about Max, about Alex and Tess and war and shooting people and… everything. She might have… she may have access to the memories, but her feelings hadn't changed.

… Except when it came to him.

Liz froze, but nobody was looking at her and so nobody noticed the shock on her face. It was true. Nothing had carried over from that past life besides her impulses and her feelings about Zan. She felt… protective of him.

God, she… she actually felt closer to him right then than probably anybody else there. How bizarre was that?

"So… what do we do?" Isabel asked weakly, breaking a long moment's silence. Tess and Michael shifted, eyes going back to Max, and Liz dropped her head to keep from meeting anybody's gaze. "I mean, shouldn't we – I don't know, shouldn't we take her to a hospital or something –?"

"No." Max retorted instantly, visions of a padded white room and ice baths probably floating through his mind.

Isabel's fearful expression turned a little exasperated. "What else can we do, Max? What happens if she doesn't wake up? We don't have the equipment for this – we need… we need IV's, catheters… At the very least, we need to find someone who can handle this kind of thing!"

"I agree with Max." Zan said tonelessly.

Max actually seemed a little startled by that.

The New Yorker reached up to rub his hand through his hair, drawing the sweaty tufts into spikes. Something about the look brought out the bags under his eyes and the general air of exhaustion. Liz bit her lip wordlessly.

"… But –"

"She doesn't need any of that yet, and if she stays under long enough to get that bad we're totally fucked anyway." Zan continued. He pushed himself to his feet and glared venomously at the floor. "What we need is somebody more experienced with this mental shit."

Michael snorted. "And you just have people like that lying around, waiting on your beck and call?"

If anything, Zan's glare grew darker. In a sudden explosion of motion, he reached up and clenched both fists in front of him as if he was squeezing the handle of a broom, and something crunched ominously in one of the dumpsters behind the building. Everyone jumped, and a little squeaking sound came from the direction Liz had last seen Maria.

Before Michael's sputters could turn into actual protests, Zan laid his head against the van's door frame with a sigh.

"I know one."

They hit a snag in the plan when they started to get everyone arranged for the trip back to Roswell. Max wanted as few people as possible driving with Zan, in case the New Yorker decided to pull something.

Unfortunately, there were only five seats in the jeep.

At least one person would have to ride with Zan regardless, and to be on the safe side it shouldn't be a human or Isabel, who had no real offensive strengths. Michael would be Max's first choice, except that he wasn't at all sure Michael could beat Zan in a fight. He had a bit more faith in Tess's abilities, but again, no guarantees… and he was more than a little uncomfortable telling his girlfriend to guard the potentially hostile clone.

Eventually, Max tossed his keys to Isabel and ignored the grumblings of a reluctant Zan.

At this point, things really should've gone smoothly. Except…

"I'll ride with you two." Liz proclaimed.

Zan just shrugged, but Max frowned heavily. "What? No. Liz –"

"Don't give me that." Liz snapped with uncharacteristic impatience. "You two are going to do that territorial guy thing in the front seat, and somebody needs to actually watch Ava."

"Liz…"

"Max." Liz glared. "I'm going with you two."

Max blinked and briefly considered asking what was going on with her. Even ignoring the totally bizarre decision she'd made about following Zan into the middle of nowhere for a rescue mission she knew nothing about, she was still acting nothing like herself. Liz had always been gently honest, but now she was being snippy and abrupt. Weirdest of all, she was almost unilaterally refusing to look anyone in the eye. It wasn't like her.

But that was a conversation to be had in private, not here with Zan listening in. So Max reluctantly nodded and gestured at the others to pile into the jeep.

The couple hours were spent in antagonistic silence. Max glanced back at Liz regularly in the breaching light of dawn, but she'd propped herself up against the back of his seat and he couldn't see her face clearly. From the sound of her nearly silent breathing, he assumed she'd fallen asleep.

He couldn't blame her. They had driven all night and the lack of sleep was finally starting to catch up with him… he had no idea how Zan was ignoring it.

Just as the thought crossed his mind, he saw Zan let go of the wheel and – using the friction of his palms to steer – stretch his hands out before curling his fingers again. Max let himself look at Zan's face; his clone was blinking rapidly… apparently just as exhausted as Max himself was.

"We should take a few hours to sleep before we do this." Max muttered. "Everyone could use it."

Zan glanced over but kept silent.

"Are you… are you two seriously still ignoring each other?" Liz suddenly groaned from the backseat. Max jumped and Zan visibly flinched. Evidently Max wasn't the only one who thought she'd been sleeping. "Are you guys going to get over this sometime soon, or are you going to have to mark a few fire hydrants before you stop comparing territories?"

Max gaped at the windshield. Zan choked on nothing in the driver's seat.

Liz huffed. "What is it about guys and…"

Max waited uncomfortably for her to finish the sentence, but the silence stretched. He heard something… a muted sort of shuffle and moan from the backseat. The tone of it was off -and people didn't make sounds like that for no reason. A little shiver ran up his spine and made all the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Max tensed and started to turn around just as Zan glanced up at the rear view mirror.

"What the –" the van swerved. Max – totally unprepared for the motion – was forced to turn even faster, his shoulder slamming flat into the seat and his cheek hitting the head-rest. After a split second of confusion, his eyes focused.

Liz was on top of Ava, pinning her down… shaking her – ?

She glanced up, dark eyes wide with panic. "Max, she's seizing!"

Max froze, the scene he was looking at suddenly making total sense. Ava was still thrashing, her eyes rolled up behind her eyelids and foam or maybe vomit leaking from the side of her mouth. Liz had her hands on the other girls shoulders, arms straining as she tried to keep the smaller girl from hurting herself.

Liz looked up at him again, annoyance joining with the fear. "Max!"

Instantly, he was moving. He wasn't sure if he'd unbuckled himself by hand or just vanished it entirely, but in a heartbeat he was back there with her, holding the blond girl to the floor and reaching deep into her mind for whatever he could actually heal. Liz moved out of his way, glancing toward the front –

Again, her eyes went wide… but this time they were fixed firmly on the windshield.

"Zan!"

Max turned his head in time to see Zan's turn back toward the road. Only, the empty stretch of asphalt they'd been staring at for a quarter of an hour wasn't so empty anymore.

Zan swerved to miss the car, but he was a second too late. The screeching impact sent all of them into the side of the van – not hard enough to hurt, but definately hard enough to daze. Max barely managed to get himself between Ava and the metal, terrified of what a little blunt force trauma would do to the wounds already in her mind.

When the van finally settled, Max immediately checked to make sure Liz was okay. She was; her hair was disheveled and she was rubbing at her shoulder, but she looked fine. Ava, though… Ava was still seizing. Max put his hand underneath her head and tried to move around her, but the space was cramped and Max was afraid of jostling her too much.

The door to the van flew open, and before Max could say anything Zan had his arms under Ava and he was dragging her out into the sunlight. Max scrambled after, wondering if Zan knew something about this that he didn't and pissed off regardless, because of course the other hybrid wouldn't take a second to bother explaining whatever it was he knew first.

Zan laid her out on her side atop rugged dessert plant life and knelt down next to her, jamming a finger between her teeth. Her jaw clenched hard, Zan wincing in pain, and all of Max's anger with his clone vanished. Zan didn't want her to drown in the vomit, but turning her on her side meant she would risk biting off her tongue every time her jaw clenched.

Max leaned over her and went back to what he was doing before. He put one hand on her forehead and one on her shoulder, closing his eyes and reaching for his healing ability as quickly as he could.

It wasn't like the wounds he and Zan had tried to heal that morning. Those had been deep… a matter of the mind more than actual brain tissue. This was pressure – a pinch on something delicate and complicated. Max reached inside, found the spot and eased it… widening the passage and getting things to flow smoothly again.

The whole process only took a few seconds, and by the time he'd finished the jeep had rolled up and parked behind them. Everyone spilled out of the jeep and came running.

"What happened?" Tess demanded.

Isabel's breathless voice followed immediately. "Are you guys okay?"

Max shook his head. "We're fine now. Ava had a seizure –"

Max stopped, distracted by Zan's muttering. He blinked and focused on his clone, noticing for the first time that the New Yorker was still hovering over Ava, running one bleeding hand down over her face with an intense focus of his own.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit…" Zan muttered, running one hand over Ava's temple and making her eyebrows slide up, angle at the edges, and shift from blonde to a dark red. Max gaped.

Zan was changing her face.

"What the hell are you doing?" Max hissed, leaning forward to stop him, but Zan jerked his wrist away and buried his hand into Ava's hair. Instantly, the filthy, thin blonde strands went coarse and slick and auburn. When Zan finally pulled his hand back, she looked like a whole different person.

Max couldn't even form the words to ask again.

Fortunately, that was the moment the balding officer stepped around the van.

"… Of course." Maria grumbled, turning and dropping her head on Michael's shoulder.

Max looked up and locked eyes with his clone, realizing for the first time that they'd hit a police car while Ava was seizing. And now they were parked on the side of the road… two human teenage girls and six aliens, four of whom were clones and one who was currently catatonic.

"We are so screwed." Michael muttered, wide eyed and too shocked even to sound angry.

And for the first time in a while… Max agreed with him completely.

AN: Sorry - changed a lot of this last minute, so it's a little sketchy, but I wanted to get it out before Christmas. And since we all know how well my plans work out, that meant Christmas day exactly.