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 Max looks down and touches his chest. The wound is gone. As he healed Liz, she healed him.
"I didn't know you could do that," says Max.
"Neither did I," says Liz. She's slightly bewildered. She studies her hands, covered in drying blood. Is this what Ava was referring to -- how she was "different"? Max takes her hands in his. They were quite a sight, covered in their own blood and each other's. But as tired and disheveled as Liz appeared, her beauty stays with her. He loves to look at her and touch her.
"Not exactly the honeymoon I had planned for us," says Max, brushing her cheek with his hand.
Liz smiles.
"I wasn't even expecting one." She kisses Max lightly on the lips. If only they had time, time to rest, time to just lay in each other's arms, just to be ... for more than a few hours here and there. What he would have given to be normal. But he could never have that. If he had been normal, Liz would have died years ago ... in the Cafe.
"It'll be light soon," he says.
"I know," says Liz, looking up at the sky. "We can't go much further looking like this."
"I thought we could find someplace along Lake Mead, somewhere private."
Liz nods and settles back into the driver's seat.
"I'll drive," says Max.
"Are you sure?" Asks Liz, looking warily at Max's pale skin color.
"Yeah," says Max. "You need to rest."
"No more than you. Your color's still off."
"I'll be fine. Besides, it's not far."
"What about the car?"
"I can fix that," says Max.
He gets out of the car and goes to the rear. He changes the UT plates into NM ones, then touches the car. Blue replaces the white.
"Nice," says Liz.
"Move over," says Max.
"The Granilith," says Isabel. "We need to prepare it for Max and Liz."
"To do what?" says Maria.
She looks from Maria, to Kyle, then Michael.
"To go back in time."
"I just knew it!" says Maria. "Didn't I say before? You're going to send Max back again, aren't you ... to ask Liz to save your sorry asses again?"
"No ..." says Isabel, "we're sending Max AND Liz ... together."
"You can do that?" asks Kyle.
"Why Liz?" asks Maria.
"Because there is no one else."
"What do you mean?" asks Michael.
Isabel looks at them all.
"By the time Max and Liz arrive, we'll all be dead."
"Max, there," says Liz as she spots a small isolated trailer. There are no vehicles near it.
Max pulls up next to it.
"Wait here," says Max.
"No, I'm coming with you."
They get out of the car. As Liz scans the area, Max unlocks the door. He enters, then motions Liz in. Liz checks the kitchen tap. A bit of sludge comes out, then nothing.
"No water," says Liz.
She checks the refrigerator as Max checks the dresser drawers.
"Well, no one's been here for a while," says Liz. "The refrigerator's empty and the power's off."
She checks the cupboards. It's stacked with tins of SPAM, tuna and deviled ham.
Max comes in with some clothes and a box.
"Deviled ham or tuna?"
"What's SPAM?" asks Max, looking over her shoulder.
"You don't want to know," says Liz grabbing a couple cans of the tuna and deviled ham. "What's that?" she asks, looking at the box Max has.
"Gas money."
"You're kidding."
"No," he says, opening the box and showing her. It's stashed with crumpled bills. Liz picks up and unfolds a couple of twenties."
"There must be several hundred in here, Max. We can't take it all."
"Liz, it doesn't matter how much we take. Whoever owns this isn't going to be coming back for it."
Liz frowns.
"Because there is no tomorrow, is there?" she says, knowing the answer to her own question.
"We're all going to die?" says Kyle.
"I can't lie to you all," says Isabel. "The biotech is specifically designed to attack and kill human cells. Once it's deployed, it's reacts like a virus. It's airborne. Once you breathe it in, you're infected. Once you're infected you die."
"What about antidotes?" asks Michael.
"If Liz had an antidote, we broke it," says Isabel. "... when we dropped the coffin."
"It's my fault," says Kyle.
"No," says Ava. "It's mine. I shoulda never have gone looking for Liz."
"It wouldn't have mattered," says Isabel. "Kivar would have found someone else."
"I shouldn't have opened the coffin," says Michael, kicking himself. "I wanted to be sure it was safe and I didn't think. It's my fault. Could I be any more stupid?"
"Stop it," says Maria. "It isn't anyone's fault. It just is."
"The Granilith needs to be prepared. After we arrived in Roswell, Max and I made the modifications necessary to adapt the Granilith for time travel. I have the key. When Max and Liz arrive, it will be ready to go. But we need to set up a destruct sequence so the Granilith can't fall into Kivar's hands -- just in case. As soon as Max and Liz pass through time, the self-destruct will activate and the Granilith will explode 10 seconds later."
"What happens to Max and Liz?" asks Maria.
"If they're successful, then we get another chance. None of this would have happened. If they're not ..."
"This is the end the world ends ..." says Michael, "not with a whimper, but a bang."
"Wait, isn't that a misquote?" says Maria, scrunching up her face.
Michael shrugs.
"That's the way it is."
Liz strips off the bloody shirt and dives off the end of the small dock. The shock of the cool water re-energizes her senses. As she breaks the surface, Liz looks around for Max and sees him only a few yards away. She swims toward him.
"Nothing like an early morning swim," says Max smiling. He hands Liz the bar of soap.
"I can't even believe we're doing this," says Liz.
"I can," says Max, grabbing playfully at Liz.
"Stop," she laughs, pushing Max's head below the waterline.
He reemerges grinning.
"Too bad we won't remember this," says Max.
"What do you mean?" asks Liz, lathering up the soap.
"Well, if we accomplish we intend to do, this moment won't exist."
Liz stops for a moment and considers. It's true.
"Then we better make the most of this," she says, throwing her arms around Max and passionately kisses Max "... and hope for the best."
"What do you mean they're not dead?" asks Kivar.
Lonnie straightens and watches Kivar's face muscles tighten. He listens for a moment and hangs up the phone.
"Our great king has survived," says Kivar sarcastically.
"What is he? Superman or something?"
"Our friend couldn't get in to finish the job. Seems Max got away and stole an ambulance.
"So he's alive. Where is he now? What about Liz?"
"No idea."
Max smiles at Liz as she copes with the overly large set of clothes on her small frame. The jeans drop preciously low on her hips. The T-shirt was so large, she looks lost in it.
"You didn't think about getting a belt?" she asks, pulling up the jeans where they were supposed to be.
Max shakes his head, stifling a laugh.
"Can you help me out here?" says Liz seriously. "This isn't funny."
Max walks up to Liz and touches the clothes. They begin to reform around Liz until they tighten to fit the contours of her body.
"Thank you," she says, in half-hearted annoyance but with a glint in her eye and the trace of a smile on her lips.
"My pleasure," he says, still amused.
"I bet," says Liz, jabbing him in the ribs. She just couldn't stay mad at Max. He looks too delicious in his white T and camouflage pants.
"Let's go," he says, putting his arm around Liz. "We've got a long drive."
"This is to be a coordinated attack," says Nicholas. "We have several unfolding objectives -- among which are to eliminate Max's inner circle -- namely his sister, his former second in command, and their human allies. We know that Isabel has returned to Roswell, but that Max is not there. We have already released biotech in Boston, where we know Max was headed and in Roswell, where we suspect he is now heading. We believe he may be travelling in the company of his wife ..."
Several members of the team react in surprise.
"Yes, his wife .... The scientist he contacted in Boston is a former girlfriend, and we have discovered that they were married yesterday. The assassination attempt last night failed. We know that both Max and his wife were critically wounded, but that Max escaped in an ambulance that had been transporting the king and his current queen to a local hospital. Max, we know, can't die through normal means; his wife, Liz Parker, may or may not be dead. Our sources have not been able to confirm her status one way or another."
"Isn't Liz Parker ..." begins one of the Nicholas' captains.
"Yes, the same Liz Parker who Max saved in 1999 ... at the Crashdown Cafe incident, the event which revealed the presence of the Royal 4."
"Then she ..."
"Exactly."
A collective buzz goes around the room.
"Our specific goal is ...," says Nicholas, reasserting his authority, "the same, to kill the king and reclaim the Granilith. Anyone or anything who gets in the way of this objective is expendable."
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