The Rebel

FOUR

"How long have I been gone?" Alex asked as Max pulled out of the driveway and onto the street the next morning.

"Maybe two weeks," Isabel told him.

Two weeks. Only two weeks. He could hardly twist his mind around that.

"I hope someone taped Oprah for me, or I'm going to be seriously pissed," Alex joked. "I'm not going to be able to keep up my rep as a sensitive guy if I don't know what Oprah's doing." Isabel and Max laughed. Alex laughed, too, even though he usually thought it was lame to laugh at your own jokes. He couldn't help it. It just felt too good to be riding down the streets of his dinky little town with two of his best friends. He was home.

"I hope everyone's already at Michael's," Isabel said as Max turned down the road toward the museum. "They can't wait to see you."

"Yeah, and Michael said something about having a big announcement to make," Max added, glancing at Alex in the rearview mirror. "Although I don't know what could be bigger than having you back."

"Yeah, I am pretty huge," Alex joked, stretching out his arms.

Isabel shook her head but giggled. "Looks like Maria's here, at least," she commented as Max pulled into the museum parking lot.

"Get ready for some major squealing," Max told Alex. He pulled to a stop by the stairs leading up to Michael and Adam's apartment.

Almost on cue, the door to the apartment flew open. "Alex!" Maria screeched. She took the stairs three at a time, Liz right behind her.

Alex scrambled out of the Jeep and started to run as soon as his feet touched the pavement. His legs were still a little weak, but running was the only option. He was about a third of the way up the stairs when Liz and Maria reached him. He didn't know whose arms were wrapped around him or who was kissing him, and he didn't care.

"Come on! Come upstairs," Liz exclaimed. She and Maria each took one of his hands, and they all squeezed up the staircase without losing their grips on each other.

"Okay, break it up, break it up," Michael called as they pushed through the front door. He waved them into the living room. When Alex passed by, Michael gave him a fast, hard hug.

"Good to have you back," he said, not quite looking Alex in the eye.

"Thanks," Alex answered. He felt a tentative hand on his shoulder, and then suddenly Adam had him in a half hug, half choke hold.

"We've been trying to get you home," Adam said as he released Alex.

"Yeah, we almost did," Liz added.

"It was so close. We tracked DuPris to the caverns-I figured that part out," Maria jumped in.

"Excuse me. I think I had something to do with it," Isabel said from behind him.

Alex gazed from person to person, soaking up the sight of them. Liz, Maria, Michael, and-some strange guy.

"Clearly I missed something more than a few Oprah eps," he said. "I'm Alex, but I guess you figured that out," he told the guy.

"I'm Trevor, or at least that's close enough to my name," the guy answered after a glance at Michael. He reached out and shook Alex's hand.

Alex got a fuzzy, unpleasant twinge of deja vu. He tried to figure out if he'd ever seen the guy before. There was something familiar about him.

"I'm guessing Trevor is part of this announcement," Max said to Michael.

So the others don't know him, either, Alex realized.

"He's pretty much the whole thing," Michael answered. "I know this is going to sound bizarre. I mean, I know I'm not even supposed to have one. At least that's what-wait, maybe I should start with-see, I could feel what Trevor-" He started laughing, laughing so hard, he started to choke and snort. "I sound like Maria."

This is a change, Alex thought. Michael was acting, well, silly was the only word for it. Alex had seen Michael be sarcastic lots of times. And Michael definitely wasn't a guy to step away from gross-out humor. But silly-that just wasn't him.

"And what's wrong with acting like me?" Maria asked, hands on her hips in mock indignation. Michael laughed harder.

Alex smiled. He felt himself entering the sappy zone again. Maria being Maria was a pretty enjoyable sight. So was Michael being not Michael.

"If you don't stop giggling like you're deranged or something and tell us whatever you dragged us here to tell us right now-" Isabel threatened.

"All right. All right." Michael pulled in a deep breath. "I'll just say it-Trevor is my brother."

"How can that be possible?" Liz asked.

"Your brother?" Isabel exclaimed at the same time. "Your brother?"

"Wait, there are even more of you?" Maria blurted out, her words overlapping with Liz and Isabel's. "Not that that's a bad thing," she added quickly.

"Start at the beginning," Max instructed, his eyes darting between Michael and Trevor. "Tell us everything."

Alex didn't say anything. He was still trying to figure out why Trevor seemed so familiar. Just standing near him was making Alex uneasy, sort of tense and restless.

Michael started explaining, and he was talking so fast, Alex could hardly understand him. Alex wished he had the ability to see auras. He bet at that moment Michael's was awesome, bursting with the colors of absolute joy.

Alex wouldn't mind seeing Trevor's aura right then, too. Maybe if he could see Trevor's aura, it would reassure Alex that the guy was… okay.

"Anyway, they left Trevor with this group called the Kindred," Michael was saying. "Or at least what translates to the Kindred in English. It's a group that believes that people should be able to have as many children as they want."

"They just left you there?" Maria asked Trevor. Her blue eyes were warm with sympathy.

Alex used the interruption to head over to a stack of flattened beanbag chairs along the nearest wall. He sat down, positioning himself so that he still had a clear view of Trevor. The muscles in his stomach relaxed a little now that there was more distance between the two of them.

"Our parents were going to go back and get me once they found a safe place, a place where they wouldn't have to keep one of their kids in hiding," Trevor explained. His eyes were on Alex, even though he was answering Maria's question.

Alex met his gaze as long as possible, but finally he had to look away when he felt hot bile begin to rise up his throat.

Michael reached out and squeezed Trevor's shoulder. "You all know the rest of the story," Michael said.

Michael and Trevor's parents had died in the crash, the crash that had made Roswell the T-shirt-selling, green-food-producing tourist attraction it was today. Sometimes Alex wondered what it would be like to live in a town that made most of its money off your parents' death, practically celebrated it, even.

"So, how did you get here?" Max finally asked after they'd all taken a moment to absorb what Michael had said. Max walked over and sat down next to Alex. The burst of relief that spread through Alex made him feel like a total wimp. What-he didn't feel safe without Max around to protect him?

"I knew that my parents had died on earth and that my brother had survived and was living in Roswell under the name Michael Guerin. Members of the Kindred were able to get me that information," Trevor explained.

"You just got here yesterday?" Liz asked. She plopped down across from Max and Alex and gestured for the others to join them.

"Just off the boat," Trevor joked. He positioned himself on Alex's other side. It took all Alex's self-control not to flinch.

"How do you know English and everything?" Adam asked, plopping down next to Isabel.

"The Kindred also got me the materials I needed to teach myself English and the local behavioral norms," Trevor explained. "I always dreamed about coming here, but I never thought I'd be able to until-"

"Until the collective consciousness opened another wormhole to send Alex back," Michael jumped in. "Trevor basically hitched a ride here."

"Yeah, thanks," Trevor told Alex, giving him another long look.

Alex's stomach cramped until it felt about the size of a postage stamp. It was Trevor behind him in the wormhole. It was Trevor who had wanted something from Alex, something he would have killed Alex to get.

"That's one thing we don't have to worry about, then," Isabel said. "Alex felt something following him home, and we were afraid it might be dangerous."

Everyone laughed. Alex forced himself to laugh, too. But he knew what he felt from the being who followed him, from Trevor. A cold-blooded willingness to murder whatever stood in its-in his-way.

"I wish I could have been there to see you two meet. It must have been like a total soap opera moment," Max said. His tone was casual, but his blue eyes were cool and serious. He turned to Michael. "I'm surprised Trevor even managed to convince you of who he really was."

Max isn't sure Trevor is who he's pretending to be, either, Alex thought hopefully.

"What I don't get is how the consciousness managed to open the hole," Max continued. "I asked if they could open one to get Alex home, and what I got back was that they weren't strong enough and wouldn't be for a long time."

Trevor shrugged. "I just took advantage of it. I don't know how they did it. I'm not connected to the consciousness." He shot a probing glance at Alex.

Alex forced himself to look straight back. But he was the first one to glance away again.

"No idea," Alex said. "I think that my memory got wiped. I remember being sucked up the wormhole instead of DuPris. And I remember flying back through it. But not much in between-just kind of shapes and muffled sounds."

Alex hoped no one could tell he was lying. He did have a pretty good idea how the consciousness had gotten the strength to send him home.

Trying to look casual, he slipped his hand into his pocket and wrapped his fingers around the Stone of Midnight.

When he'd arrived back home, he'd had the Stone-one of the three-with him. He was sure it was the power of the Stone that had opened the hole.

He had intended to give the stone to Max, but he'd passed out last night before he'd had the chance. There was no way he was going to hand it over right now. Not until he was a lot more sure what, exactly, Trevor's deal was.

"Uh, now that I know the boogeyman in the hole with me was only Michael's brother, I guess it's safe to go home and tell my parents I'm still alive," Alex said.

"I'll drive you," Max volunteered.

"I'll go, too," Liz offered. She smiled at Trevor. "I want to hear everything about you later."

Me too, Alex silently added. But first he was going to put the Stone somewhere safe until he could figure out what to do next.

"Alex, there's something you need to know before you go home," Liz said as soon as they were on the road. She turned around so she could look at him, and the worried expression on her face had his stomach going from postage stamp to pea.

"Your dad…" Liz hesitated, and Alex's brain went nuts. His dad what? Had disowned him? Had had a heart attack? Had finally shouted one too many times and spontaneously combusted?

"Tell me," he demanded.

"Your dad is with Project Clean Slate," she blurted out.

Alex felt like he was crashing through another wormhole.

"We found out because he was trying to get you back, too," Max explained, shooting a fast glance over his shoulder.

"Wait. My dad was looking for me?" Alex asked. He found that sort of hard to believe. Maybe the garage needed cleaning or something.

"Yeah," Max answered. "Your dad had tracked down DuPris to try to suck up some power from the Stone with a Clean Slate device, and we'd tracked down DuPris to try to steal the Stone. We sort of ran into each other."

"But he didn't find out the truth, obviously," Alex said. He leaned forward, bracing his hands on the roll bar, and turned to Max. "I mean you, Isabel, Michael, and Adam are all still walking around free."

He couldn't imagine anything worse than his own father holding his friends captive, the way Sheriff Valenti had imprisoned Adam.

"Actually, he does know," Liz replied. "It was pretty much unavoidable. But he helped us escape from DuPris."

"Yeah, you missed out on DuPris's latest attempt to kill us all," Max said as he swung the Jeep onto Alex's street.

"And your dad said we were wrong about what Clean Slate's agenda was," Liz explained.

The shreds of Alex's brain that remained were screaming from information overload. "So, then, what is its agenda?"

Max pulled into Alex's driveway and parked. "We don't know," he admitted.

Great, Alex thought. One more thing to worry about. What a homecoming.

"Doesn't Doug Highsinger realize that he has a better chance of getting his precious Mustang dinged when he takes up two parking places?" Max muttered as he maneuvered the Jeep into a tight space in the school parking lot.

Liz muffled a sigh. Max wasn't in one of his deep connections with the consciousness, but he wasn't exactly focused on her, either. It's not that she expected him to worship her and never think of anything except her. She didn't expect him to be Adam or anything, but-

Whoa. Where did that thought come from?

It comes from the fact that when you're in a room with Adam, you're his whole world, answered the obnoxious little voice that seemed to have taken up residence inside Liz's head.

Liz ignored it. She reached into her backpack, pulled out a brown paper sack, and thrust it into Max's hands..

He opened the top and gave a long sniff. "Blueberry and jalapeno. You made them just for me?" Max said, sounding like it was this big deal.

Liz got an unexpected burst of what-an-excellent-girlfriend-I-am pleasure. It was only marred by the fact that she knew she'd made the muffins as soon as she got home from visiting Adam yesterday, in a session of somewhat guilt-induced baking. "You're pretty much the only one who'd eat them," she reminded him.

Max wrapped her ponytail around his fist and gently urged her head back. Then he leaned over and kissed her, kissed her in a way that made her feel like she was his whole universe.

Now that Alex is back, everything's going to be different, Liz thought when Max lifted his lips from hers. Max wouldn't have to connect in that deep way anymore.

"I always thought that saying 'the way to a man's heart is through his stomach' was sexist propaganda," she said, still a little breathless from that amazing kiss. "But I guess not."

"I do love the taste of those muffins," he teased. He paused, then added, "But I love the taste of you more."

Liz grabbed Max's T-shirt and pulled him back toward her, and they were kissing again. It felt so good. So right. As if some missing piece of herself had miraculously been found.

Liz slipped one hand around to the sweet spot at the back of Max's neck. He gave her bottom lip a playful nibble.

Then his lips went slack.

Liz pulled away slowly. When she looked into Max's eyes, they were blank. Her stomach dropped down to her toes, a wave of revulsion sweeping through her.

He'd gone into a deep connection right in the middle of kissing her. Had the beings been able to feel the kiss? Feel the sensation of her lips and tongue?

Liz yanked the neck of her T-shirt up until it covered her mouth, then she scrubbed, and scrubbed, and scrubbed. When she finished, the top of the T-shirt was stained with plum lipstick, and her lips felt raw.

She shot a glance at Max. At the Max thing. Because it definitely wasn't Max over there, not entirely, at least. It wasn't the guy who'd just made her feel like they were the only two people alive, living in their own Garden of Eden.

Liz reached for the door handle, then hesitated. "I can't just leave him here like this," she muttered. "There might be something really wrong."

She'd never seen Max have quite that reaction to connecting before, not that sudden clicking off. She forced herself to watch him until she could see his awareness of his surroundings, of her, return.

That little episode had nothing to do with Alex, Liz told herself. She had to accept that Max had changed after he went through his akino. His connection to the consciousness was the most powerful, intense thing in his life now.

"Sorry," he said. "I just got this massive flood of… of emotion, basically, from the consciousness. I couldn't control it at all. It just took me over."

"Are you okay?" Liz made herself ask.

Just say yes so I can get out of here, she thought, shocking herself with the strength of her desire to get away from Max.

"Yeah," he answered, his voice a little thick, as if he'd been asleep. "I wish I knew what was going on. I think maybe it has something to do with one of the Stones of Midnight. But that's all I got. None of the beings have really taken the time to explain things to me." He angled his head so he could see her watch. "Was I out long?"

"Less than a minute," Liz said. She smoothed a stray section of hair back into her ponytail and reached for the door handle again.

"So we still have a little time to…" Max smiled as he slid one arm around her shoulders.

Another wave of revulsion rose up inside her, and Liz gave an involuntary shudder. "Actually, I have to go to the library before class." She climbed out of the Jeep, gave Max a quick wave, and bolted.

It wasn't that she didn't want to kiss Max again. Kissing Max was what she wanted more than anything.

But it hadn't been Max sitting next to her. Not really.

Alex heard a key turn in the lock. A moment later he heard the sound of his parents' voices, and something inside him twisted.

He stood up from the kitchen table. Before he could reach the kitchen door, his parents walked in, each carrying a couple of bags of groceries.

His mother looked up, and both bags slipped out of her hands. "Alex?" His name came out in a long quaver.

"It's me, Mom," he answered, his own voice not completely steady.

"Alex?" she repeated. She stumbled toward him, her heel catching on a box of cookies that had fallen out of one of the bags. Alex reached out and grabbed her by the elbows to steady her, and her hands locked on his arms as if she never planned to let him go.

"I'm okay. Don't worry. I'm fine," he told her.

"Where were you?" she cried. Her fingers dug so deeply into his skin that Alex was sure they'd leave bruises. But he didn't try to pull away.

"I… I took a hike into the desert, and, I don't know, I think I got lost," Alex said, his explanation sounding even more lame than it had when he'd made it up. "I came to this cave. I don't even remember going in there."

"Heatstroke," his father said in his most authoritative I-am-the-Major tone.

"Yeah, maybe," Alex agreed, glancing at his father. "I don't think I brought enough water. Stupid, I know. And… and it took me a while to find my way back."

"Do you want something to eat?" his mom asked. "Or do you want to take a nap? You must be exhausted."

To Alex's horror, tears were spilling down his mother's face. In the Manes family, you were supposed to pretty much pretend that nothing got to you. The Major was the champion of that, and he expected them all to follow his example.

His father set his bags on the table, then took Alex's mom by the shoulders and gently pulled her away from Alex.

"Why don't you go freshen up?" he said. "I'll make scrambled eggs for all of us."

"I… all right." His mother snagged a paper towel off the roll over the sink and swabbed at her eyes as she hurried out of the room.

"Grab that stuff off the floor and stick some bread in the toaster, would you?" the Major asked.

Good to see you, too, Alex thought as he crouched down and picked up the bags of groceries and the cookies. He dropped everything on the table, then started rooting around in the closest bag for bread.

What the hell am I doing?

Alex let his hands fall to his sides. "I know that you know where I really was," he told his father. "I know you're Clean Slate."

The Major nodded. He stepped around Alex and pulled a carton of eggs out of the fridge, then he strode to the stove and pulled a frying pan out of the cabinet underneath it.

"I assume your memory was cleaned before you were sent back," he said. He cracked an egg into the pan, then another.

"You assume correctly," Alex muttered. His father didn't tell him to speak up the way he usually did.

"I want you to get yourself checked out by a doctor. Just a precaution." His father cracked two more eggs, studied the pan, and then added three more. "Get me a fork."

Alex handed him a wooden spoon. "You don't want to burn your fingers."

"Thanks." The Major began to stir the eggs vigorously. "I've been thinking about the ROTC."

I haven't been home even half an hour, and he's already ragging on me, Alex thought. He doesn't care what happened to me. All he cares about is getting the bragging rights to having four sons in the military.

"You're old enough to take care of yourself," his father continued. He reached for the pepper with his free hand, still stirring with the other. "If you don't want to go into the program, it's your call."

Alex held very still. He wasn't sure, but he thought the Major had just told Alex that he missed him or that he was proud of him. Or maybe even that he loved him.

"That means a lot to me," Alex finally answered. It seemed like the right coded response to his father's coded message.

Alex turned around and pulled the bread out of one of the grocery bags. He took out six pieces and stuck four in the toaster.

"Dad, before Mom comes back, I need you to tell me what the story is with Clean Slate," Alex said, staring down at the coils in the toaster as they turned from black to orange. "I mean, will you be going after my friends now?"

"Project Clean Slate is classified to the highest level," the Major answered. "But I will tell you that your friends have nothing to fear from us."

"And that's all you can say-even to me?" Alex challenged.

"Yes," his father said evenly. "Hand me some plates."

Alex pulled three plates out of the cabinet and passed them over. The toast popped up, and he added slices next to the eggs his father was dishing out. A moment later he heard his mothers heels clicking toward them. He didn't have much more time alone with his dad.

"I just want to say thanks for trying to get me back," he blurted out.

The Major turned to Alex and waited until Alex met his gaze. "I would do anything to keep you safe," his father answered, his voice coming out choked and harsh. "Anything. Don't you know that?"

I do now, Alex thought.