Disclaimer: Roswell belongs to Melinda Metz, Jason Katims, and UPN. No copyright infringements were intended. This story was written for entertainment and not for profit.

From his perch on a tree, the teenager approached the window and peered inside. He gazed into a bedroom and knew he was at the right place.

He tested the window and snickered when he discovered it wasn't even locked. Rich people think they're so secure in their big estates.

He slipped inside and went over to a vanity. He opened a booksack he brought with him and dumped all the jewelry inside. Then he moved to the bedside table, disconnected the phone, and dumped it into the bag.

He was about to move on to the other rooms were he heard the front door open downstairs. He pulled out his gun and walked over to the window.

A girl and an older man were getting groceries out of a car. Downstairs, he heard two more people talking. He'd be spotted if he tried to leave.

He took up a position behind the door. If any of them tried to come in here, he'd be ready for them.

Max Evans and his mother, Diane, stepped into the house holding grocery bags. They brought them to the kitchen, set them down, and started unpacking them.

Diane pulled out the object of her desire, a cord phone. "I'm so glad I bought this. I'm so tired of the cordless one in our bedroom. We could never keep track of it because it always seemed to disappear." She looked pointedly at her son.

"Hey, don't look at me," Max protested, trying to look innocent.

Diane just raised her eyebrows. She walked out of the kitchen with the phone. "I think I'll leave you, Isabel, and your father to put away the groceries. I have a phone to install before the cordless disappears again."

Her heard her footsteps on the stairs a minute or so before his sister, Isabel, and his father walked through the door holding more groceries.

"You know, Max," Isabel began, "it would be nice if you gave us a hand. These bags way a ton."

"You could handle it," he answered. She set the bags down and glared at him.

"Kids," their father warned.

He never got the chance to finish.

A scream came from upstairs. A shot followed it.

They froze, staring in horror at the hall where the staircase was. They knew only one member of their family could have made that scream.

"Mom!" Max called. He remembered that day in the Crashdown when Liz Parker, the love of his life, almost died from a gunshot wound. Please let her be safe.

His heart pumping, he ran into the hall and up the stairs. Behind him were Philip and Isabel. "Diane!" Phillip called, but no one answered.

They ran into the master bedroom. The window stood open. Diane Evans lay in a pool of blood on the floor. She wasn't breathing.

Philip fell to the ground next to his wife. He tried to shake her awake. "Diane! Diane, please. Oh God, please, no." He started to sob.

Isabel and Max couldn't move as they stared down in shock at their dead mother. No, Isabel thought firmly. She can't die. She won't.

She looked at her brother. "Max." He looked up, and she saw the naked pain and terror inside them. "Max, you have to help her. Please."

Max didn't argue with her. He didn't care about the consequences. He just wanted his mother back.

He knelt on Diane's other side and started pulling up her shirt.

"What are you doing?" Philip demanded, trying to stop him. What did his son think he was doing? She was dead. Looking at the wound wouldn't help them.

Isabel put a hand on his shoulder. "Dad, please. He can help mom."

He looked at them in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"Please, dad," Max said. "Just trust us."

Philip had always known there was something different about his adopted children. He had a feeling they knew what they were doing. He trusted them.

Max pulled Diane's blouse up until the bullet wound was visible. So much blood covered the wound that it was hard to see. Max put his palm above it and closed his eyes.

He made the connection instantly and concentrated on healing the wound. He made the bullet dissolve until it was okay to send the particles into her bloodstream. Then he pushed the cells around the wound together until it was whole again.

He opened his eyes. He wiped the blood away from his palm and his mom's stomach and found unblemished skin.

A minute later, they heard Diane moan. Philip stared down at her as joy and disbelief filled him.

"What happened?" Diane asked, glancing around at all of them.

Philip enveloped her in a hug. "You're alive! Thank God, you're alive!"

Diane returned the hug, confused as she started to remember. She pulled back and gazed down at her stomach. A silver handprint began to form on her healed stomach. "I-I was shot," she said, confused. "How?"

Philip looked over at Max. "Max healed you somehow."

"What?" Diane asked, more shocked than ever.

Max and Isabel exchanged looks. "I guess we have a lot of explaining to do."

They moved to the living room. Diane and Philip sat down on the couch. Philip didn't want to leave his wife's side. Isabel and Max sat in two armchairs opposite their parents.

Max and Isabel exchanged looks. "Where do we start?" Max asked her. She shrugged, unsure.

"It's like what you did to that bird," Diane said. Max and Isabel looked at her, surprised. She didn't sound at all shocked.

"Yea," Max said.

Isabel shifted, uncomfortable. She'd always hated lying to her parents. Now she had to tell them the truth, and it was more difficult that lying. "We never have told you much about our lives before we you found us."

"You said you didn't remember any of it," Philip reminded her. Had they lied to them?

"We don't. Not much of it, anyway."

"We've pieced it all together since then," Max said. "There were some things we could remember, but they were flashes, not full memories."

"We know we aren't from around here," Isabel continued. "We aren't even from this planet."

"What?" Diane asked. Philip wasn't sure what to make of that statement, either.

"We're aliens," Max finished.

To be continued