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 "I still don't understand how I came to you," says Liz, pulling on Max white shirt, sitting on the edge of the bed. "I mean, if you came to me and I changed the timeline, then everything would be different, wouldn't it? How could this version of me find you in this changed timeline?" Max leans on his elbow, watching Liz.
Liz gets up and pulls out her laptop and the disk Max had downloaded in Boston and brings it back to the bed. She climbs back into bed, under the covers and curls up next to Max who is now sitting. She turns on the computer and inserts the CD into the drive as Max continues to talk.
"Minutes after I left you in that other timeline in 2014, you followed. But you couldn't go back to the same moment in time. You arrived later ..."
"When? Where?"
"The bombardment damaged the Granilith settings for the time machine. Instead of arriving in Roswell in 2001, you arrived in Antar in 2011."
"With the diary."
"You were afraid I wouldn't listen to you, so you let your diary speak for you. ... I wish you had told me, Liz."
"I couldn't," says Liz. I made a promise to you ... and there was too much at stake."
"There still is."
"I think I need a drink," says Kyle, staring at this perfect dupe of Tess.
""Somebody want to tell me what's up," says Ava.
"Actually, we were hoping you could tell us," says Maria.
"Hey, all I know, is I was in Boston ..."
"Boston?" says Maria.
"Yeah, you know, land of liberty ... "
"What were you doing in Boston," asks Michael.
"I was on my way to see Liz," says Ava.
"Liz?" says a surprised Maria. "How did you know Liz was in Boston?"
"I seen some TV interview," says Ava nervously. "They said she worked that posh school ..."
"Harvard," says Isabel.
So ... you were on your way to see Liz and ...," prods Maria.
"Somebody pushed me in the river."
"You didn't see who?" asks Kyle who is slightly disturbed by the fact he finds Ava oddly attractive in spite of her over the top dress.
Ava shakes her glass.
"He just bashed my head and gave me a quick shove."
"Why didn't you just use your powers?" asks Isabel.
"I ain't got powers," says Ava, a bit ashamed.
"What do you mean, you have no powers?" asks Michael.
"I don't know why," says Ava, biting her lip.
"The pods," says Michael, realizing was happened. "One was leaking."
"What?" says Isabel.
"Remember that old geezer -- that was in Roswell when the ship crashed. He said that one of the pods was leaking."
"So what happened next?" asks Maria.
"I don't remember anything else," says Ava.
"You never saw Liz?" quizzes Isabel.
Ava shakes her head.
"Then Liz found you."
"Why did you want to talk to Liz?" asks Maria.
"I'm sick," says Ava. "Lonnie said Liz could probably help me."
"There isn't any other way, is there?" asks Liz, already resigned to the answer. She had been reading the biotech files Ethan had. It took warfare to a new level, a level which solved all the problems that had made biological warfare so ineffectual. Unless there was some way that this alien biotech could mutate into a harmless biological form, it's incredibly debilitating, even lethal. With no time to find an antidote, the population would be easily exposed to any invader, especially an alien one.
"No," says Max.
Liz ejects the CD, then shuts off the computer.
"What do you want to do with this?" she asks, holding up the CD.
Max takes the CD. He looks at it a moment, then places it on the table.
"Enough of this for today," he says. He grabs the laptop and puts in on the floor.
"What are you doing?" asks Liz.
"Well, there's nothing we can do until we get to Roswell tomorrow, so I thought we could concentrate on something else."
"And what would that be?"
"What do you mean, you're sick?" asks Michael.
"I ain't never been sick like this before," says Ava.
"You look perfectly alive to me," says Kyle.
"Yeah, well, that's because it's time released."
"I don't get it," says Maria.
"They done something to me."
"They?"
"Kivar and Rath."
"What did they do?" asks Maria.
"They put something in my body."
"Injected?"
"No," says Ava.
"If they didn't inject it, it has to be an implant," says Michael. "Maybe we can get it out."
"That's why you went to Liz," says Isabel.
"Yeah, her being a doctor, I figured she .. ya know, she had the smarts to get it out."
"You said it was time-released?" asks Maria.
"Yeah," says Ava. "But I think it's too late."
"What do you mean?"
"I think Rath stopped me from getting to Liz."
"Why would he do that?"
"Liz coulda helped me," says Ava, "but now there's no time."
"Liz will be here tomorrow," says Maria.
"Tomorrow's too late."
"Maybe we could use the healing stones," says Isabel.
Ava shakes her head.
"They won't work," says Ava.
"But you were dead," says Kyle. "So how come you're alive now?"
"Our bodies don't work like normal humans," says Ava. "Normally, when we get hurt, we can heal ourselves," says Ava.
"Yeah, we know that," says Michael. "We can change molecular structure."
"No," says Ava, "that's not what I mean."
Isabel and Michael exchange looks.
"When we get seriously hurt, we go into a death-like state. It gives our bodies time to repair itself."
"I don't get," says Kyle.
"Are you saying our bodies regenerate themselves?" asks Isabel.
"Yeah, that's it. Regenerate."
"Maria, isn't that the kind of research Liz does?"
Maria nods.
"How would that help?" asks Michael.
"All I knows is that Lonnie says she can fix it."
"OMG," says Maria, "they're going to kill Liz!"
Max and Liz sleep soundly. Neither has a history of sleeping well, but together, they feel safe, feel they are where they belong. Nothing else matters. In this lifetime, they have just a few hours to live and history again would change and they would be nothing but air. So deep is there sleep, they don't hear hotel door open, nor the many footsteps creep across the room into their bedroom.
Liz wakes, but lazily keeps her eyes shut as she shifts position. She brings her arm until her hand slips under the pillow. There is a loud explosion, a flash of light. Liz feels the burning steel cut through her, shocked. Max wakes to the sound and a startling pain searing his body. He feels the pool of liquid build around him.
"Max," says Liz, lifting herself slightly up to see his face. She looks into his startled, sleepy eyes before collapsing back in his arms.
The lights go on and the room fills with police, FBI and SWAT team members. There are guns trained on them. Max lifts his arm from Liz's back. Blood runs freely down his arm.
"No!" he shouts in an agony that even horrifies the most hardened of these law professionals. Max stares at them, not feeling the bullet that has left Liz's body and settled in his. He grabs and holds Liz closer to him.
Liz's cell phone begins to ring.
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