Fusion 03: Dreamer

Disclaimer: Post Season 3 finale of BtVS and Post Season 1 Finale of Roswell. Xander and other BtVS associated characters are property of Mutant/Enemy Productions. While Liz, Maria, the Aliens and their abilities from the TV show "Roswell" are property of the WB and was created by Jonathan Dukes. I make no profit from this.

Xander had been in Roswell for nearly two weeks now. Most of that time he'd stayed at Michael's apartment, helping out a little with the rent and groceries and other small stuff like that, all things considered it was the least he could do.

At first, he'd stayed at the motel, if only to keep up appearances, but on the last day of the convention, the girls talked him around. Always the way, he privately mused.

At least, it was private until the next time he Fused with them.

He wasn't sure how they'd talked him into it, but somehow the whole group had gotten behind the idea of helping him learn to control this "power" of his, which meant fusing into Zand again and again.

On the plus side of the equation, he did learn to control his "power", so chances were good that he wouldn't accidentally fuse with random people in the future. Also, by seeing what the Amalgam Zand could do with their powers, each of the aliens were learning how to do the same on their own. They were also learning what the limits of Fusion were. For example, there was a 'minimum time' that the Amalgam needed to exist for. That seemed to be at least ninety to a hundred seconds or more, but it then raised the question of how long a Fusion could last, and they'd been pushing that limit a little more each day. And knowing their limits was most definitely a good thing, because, as Tess was the one to point out, once they knew their limits, then it just became a matter of hard work and effort to push those limits.

They were also discovering whole new abilities that none of them had even imagined before 'Zand' suddenly tried something new and actually succeeded! It actually had happened with each of them. Zand conjured up a 'green' forcefield/shield thing, and the next day, Max did the exact same thing. Zand used a Mindwarp to project a rainstorm over the desert, and it actually rained! That afternoon, Tess conjured an actual fire and made a harmless plant explode. Zand demonstrated his shapeshifting and matter-control abilities, and shortly after Michael was practically a master of disguise, although he still had some temper problems to get over. Isabel learned exactly how Zand had used her Dreamwalking ability to read the soldiers minds the first night he came into existence, after he'd used it a few more times on unknowing subjects, as well as volunteers Liz, Alex and Maria. Another surprising ability Zand demonstrated, which everyone assumed was some combination or highly advanced version of all of their powers, was when he took two separate tools or devices and somehow combined them into an entirely new tool or device that performed all of the same functions as the two individual tools.

On the negative, by fusing so often, they were all learning a lot about one another! A LOT! Things that none of them really wanted to know about each other, and definitely things about themselves that they did not want anyone else to know about!

Not to mention, a primary consequence of the fusion was that when they separated, there was the lingering . . . drive to still be One! As though their very cells were demanding they stay touching or a part of one another, and their minds were still thinking along the same mental paths and thought processes. This translated into the real world as everyone that was a part of the fusion speaking in unison and needing to remain in physical contact for at least twice as long as the fusion itself had lasted.

Needless to say, there were a lot of dirty looks being shot back and forth as they did the hand-holding version of musical chairs on several occasions. For siblings or couples that were involved with one another, it was no big deal. For virtual strangers, romantic rivals, rivals-in-general, and casual friends, it was a bit more… no, make that a great deal more awkward and uncomfortable than any of them were wanting it to be. Nevertheless, for the sake of continued progress, they all dealt with the situation as best as they could.

One such incident, after their longest fusion to date, (two hours), resulted in rather ... unforeseen consequences, which sort of fell in the middle ground as being really terribly awful, and ultimately pretty good for the long run.

"Are you sure about this, Liz?" Zand asked, looking back and forth between the clock and his-well, one of his girlfriends. "The last time, you couldn't even stay in the room, and everyone only had to stay in contact for around forty-five minutes. It has already been two hours since I… manifested. That is going to be four hours."

"I know," the short brunette acknowledged, ducking her head slightly so her hair might mask her expression. It didn't matter anyway, she knew Zand always saw right through her. Sometimes literally. "But… we need to know how long an Amalgam can last, and what might affect those limits. The first time, it was only about ten minutes, but you forcefully separated then. Our other experiments since then, at ten minute increments, have shown that your initial limit seemed to be around a hundred minutes or so. Also, we know that Xander, at least, needs sixty or more minutes rest between initiating fusions. With that in mind, we really need to know…"

"... how long an Amalgam can last," he said in unison with her, smiling that 'Max' smile of his, as she was beginning to think of it. "Yes, I do understand that, Liz. Truly. But the majority of me, right now, is more concerned over how you're going to react when Max and Tess are practically spooning right in front of you."

She bit her lip and refused to speak for several long moments. Finally, feeling the tension in the room skyrocket, she relented and turned to face the fused-being.

"It is going to infuriate me to no end, but there isn't anything that I can do about that," she said. "Why don't we focus on a few of the other factors we have yet to explore? Since we've got so much time to talk, that is?"

"I'm an open book," Zand said, leaning forward and grinning goofily, a trait they'd all come to learn came from the 'Xander' part of the Amalgam's personality.

"How much do you remember?" Liz asked. "I mean, how much do you know about your…?"

"Sources?" he supplied. "Everything. I know and remember everything that they themselves know and remember. Probably a bit more, as I have perfect recall."

"How does that work?" she wanted to know. "Who is that from? Xander?"

"No, Xander does not have perfect recall," Zand answered, laughing. "Farthest thing from it, as a matter of fact. Although, it would be fair to say that, yes, it does come from Xander, seeing as the perfect recall seems to come from my state as an Amalgam, rather than a trait from my sources. In order to know myself and my capabilities, I need to know who and what those abilities originated with, which entails that I be able to recall everything about myself as necessary."

"What is your, er, the… earliest memory that you can access?" she questioned, ready with a tape recorder and pen and paper.

Smiling his 'Max' smile again, he leaned forward to be close to her and whispered his reply. "Chronologically, or biologically?"

"I don't… understand," she gasped slightly, struggling to keep her breathing even.

"Biologically, I can remember Xander's first memories, seeing as he was born before the Four escaped their pods," Zand explained, leaning back slightly to ease Liz's discomfort. "But at the same time, I can access their genetic memories and can tell you what Zan, Vilandra, Rath and… Ava…" he trailed off suddenly, his eyes glazing over slightly.

"Zand? Zand! What is it? What's happening? Is the Fusion breaking?" Liz started to panic.

"Huh? What? Oh, no," the Amalgam shook his head. "Just… unexpected memories came to the surface. What was I saying? Oh, right, I can remember everything about the Royal Four on their home planet. And considering that all happened sometime in the late part of the last century, that would make those memories my earliest chronological memories."

"What… unexpected memories came to the surface?" she asked.

"That… is not for me to decide," Zand remarked, suddenly looking very guilty. "But now that I know about it… they all know about it. When I separate… things are going to get very… heated, Liz. It might be best if you were… out of the line of fire."

"What…" she started to ask, and then her brain kicked into high gear. "You remembered the betrayal."

"And… everything related to it," he admitted, looking down, ashamed. "Everything."

"What is it?" she asked, suddenly really scared for no reason she could explain.

"I… will let Max and the others explain," Zand answered. "I still don't feel any kind of strain or need to separate, but… yeah, this needs to be taken care of. Liz, you should leave. Lock the door behind you too. Although… actually, wait, take Xander with you."

"I-I can't do that! He'll need to remain in physical contact with at least one of you until four hours from now!" she protested.

Zand's eyes glazed over, and then he seemed to nod to himself. "Isabel will go with you. Max and Michael need to… have a word… with Tess," Zand said.

"Wait!" Liz yelled, holding up her hand. "Just, wait a second, please! What isn't Tess telling us?"

"Nasedo is a traitor," Zand answered, his eyes dark and conflicted. "He raised her to be one too. He's supposed to turn the Royal Four over to Khivar, along with the Granolith. She doesn't know the details, only what he's told her. Also, Liz, you should know, that if Xander were not a part of me right now, I would be evenly divided on what to do about this. Tess is… she's my… I can't really describe it. But Xander, he balances against her influence, allowing me to make my own decision. I can't take away her powers, but I can tell you, she would never hurt Max, and she doesn't want to hurt the others. That… cannot be said for you, or for Xander."

"Wow, OK," Liz was in a bit of shock at the moment, her mind racing. "Right, so, uh, I'll grab Xander and Isabel, and Max and Michael will hold down Tess? What if she, er, what if she uses a Mind Warp on us? She's been getting stronger since, well since you…"

"Started showing her how to use her powers, yeah," Zand nodded. "Michael is going to want to hurt her, but Max…"

"Max will do the right thing," Liz insisted, looking into the Amalgam's swirling rainbow eyes. "I know he will. But… why are you so worried that Tess will try to run, or hurt me and Xander? I mean, she wants Max to like her, and she is part of the Royal Four. Hurting, or even k-killing me and Xander… Max would never trust her again, no matter what kind of Mind Warp she used. And without Xander…"

"She can't fuse into me anymore," Zand concluded. "Well, let's hope that you're right, Liz. Uh… we should probably do this in the basement. Less things to break down there."

"Good point," she agreed and lead the way down the stairs.

A minute later, Liz was blinking away the residue of the blinding flash, and then everything happened very quickly. It was almost like watching one of those nature documentaries where suddenly every one of the animals turns against the single lone troublemaker. Max and Michael grabbed Tess by the arms and practically slammed her against the far wall, keeping her in place, while Xander held Isabel back, although barely. Tess herself, she looked somewhere between terrified and royally pissed off, no pun intended.

The were each speaking only one word, all save for Tess, who was suspiciously silent during the verbal assault.

Max: "IS!", Michael: "IT!", Isabel: "TRUE?!"

Xander's voice as a bit calmer, although no less angry, which somehow, in Liz's eyes, made him even more menacing than a shouting Max.

Xander: "Is…", Max: "NASEDO!", Michael: "A!", Isabel: "Traitor?!", Xander then asked her intently, "Are you?"

Tess looked like she wanted to say something, like she was going to say something, but then the rest of them, save Xander, all screamed at once, "YES!"

"No!" the curly blond cried out instantly, "I'm not…" she winced, physically hurt by having to finish her own sentence, complete her own thoughts. "...not a… a traitor! I'm not!"

"But," Michael and the rest accused, "Nasedo," Max snarled, "Is?" Isabel asked.

Silent, on the verge of tears, Tess nodded her head.

Suddenly they all four stepped back from the young woman. She cried out in pain, curling up in on herself, and while they all looked as though they might rush forward to embrace her, they all held back, fury evident in their features. Liz wasn't sure how much more of this she could watch, and quite obviously nobody was following through on the plan of getting her and Xander out of harm's way.

Speaking of whom, he suddenly perked up and looked down at the cowering alien girl. "Guys, I think that I…" he started to say, but Isabel finished for him. "... A better idea?" she asked, rather than said.

In reply, he merely held out his hands, which the others instinctively took. Liz casually noted that even Tess reached out her own to try and join, but they were now too far away, and apparently the forced separation had weakened her more than anyone had thought. Realizing far too late what was about to happen, the short brunette called out, "No!"

There was another blinding flash of light… less than ninety seconds after the last one!

This was bad, she thought. The earliest that Xander had ever been able to initiate another Fusion was at least sixty minutes after they'd fully separated from one another! And now he was trying it before they'd even finished separating?!

And yet...

Zand was standing there, as though nothing at all had just happened, as though he hadn't even separated. What was going on here?

"Well," he said, stunned. "That happened. Unexpected, but it definitely happened."

Tess cried out in actual physical pain and crumpled to the floor in fetal position. Liz felt there was no longer any need to run away.

"What… is going on?" Liz asked, once she finally found her voice.

Zand blinked slowly, and then replied, looking her in the eye, "We, they, the others… It has been decided to… isolate Tess from, well, from me. I don't think, I didn't think that Xander could have pulled off another fusion so soon, but apparently everyone's emotions were-are running a little high at the moment. I need to restrain her. When I separate once more, she'll no longer be going through the, for lack of a better term, withdrawal symptoms. Call the others. They need to be here to calm my sources down once I'm seperate."

"What are we going to do?" Liz asked, as she watched Zand bodily pick the blond up off the floor and carry her over to a enclosed portion of the basement. He then began to use his powers to fashion restraints and other barriers to keep the insensate young woman in place.

"That is not for me to decide," he answered. "Max gets that particular honor."

"But you are Max!" she pointed out.

"Max may be a part of me, Liz, but Max is still the leader," Zand shook his head. "Michael may whine and complain about the fact, but it is a fact that he and Isabel believe in with every fiber of their being. For the record though, underneath the shock, each of my sources want to give Tess the benefit of the doubt. I cannot speak for the others, however. Which is why you should get them here. Now."

Liz left to make some phone calls.

It was Xander's first clue that whatever "limits" his powers had, or that they'd discovered, they were more self-imposed than anything else. Same as with each of the aliens and their powers. Apparently they could do amazing and 'impossible' things with ease, once they actually tried and didn't hold back.

Isabel thought she had to be touching a picture and sleeping and her target likewise sleeping for her Dreamwalking powers to work. She didn't need a picture, just focus. She didn't need to be sleeping or meditating, and neither did her target. The 'limits' of her powers had been self-enforced, and thanks to Xander and his fusion power, she'd discovered she really didn't have limits.

None of them did. Merely the limitations they placed upon themselves.

Which, they were all beginning to realize, was the whole problem.

Once they'd spent a sufficient amount of time separated, Max declared that they needed rules, needed limitations. Yes, they could all go out and remake reality itself, but that did not mean they should. The new rules were actually quite simple; they were the same as the old ones. Don't use your powers unless it is a matter of life and death, and never in public.

Well, Xander and Michael both complained about that 'life and death' thing, so it was (diplomatically) amended to "...or something just as serious", which gave enough leeway to satisfy the two self-invested slackers.

As for Tess, everyone was super pissed with her, for like two days, during which she remained locked up in Michael's basement while they all took turns 'visiting' her and shaming her with their recriminations. On the third day, Liz's good-nature overrode whatever jealousy and anger she had toward Tess and she went with Isabel and Xander (the only 'neutral' party that they could all agree upon) and sat down and got Tess's side of the story.

The answers were simple, straight-forward, and also pretty much everything they already knew from their last Fusion with the young woman. Nasedo made the deal with Kivar, back in their home system, he'd raised her to be his 'inside-man', and also to carry on when he no longer could at some point. The end goal was the Granolith, and a cessation of power from the 'resurrected' Royals, to stop the Resistance back in their home system, and eventually their 'public' executions, after which they'd probably be resurrected again, but raised on their home planet to be puppets of Kivar.

The more important question, however, was Tess going to follow through with Nasedo's plans, or was she going to stay one of them?

The way Liz phrased the question, it stunned the blond in the alien-powers-proof-cage, and surprised the other two aliens. Xander, he just smirked and elaborated, after catching all the surprise.

"Yeah, Tess," he'd said, "Are you going to stay one of us? Because, believe it or not, you still are. You are one of us. See, you haven't actually done anything yet. Just been raised to do something. The secret is out, people are angry, but after the anger passes… you're still one of us, and we want to help you. So, how about it?"

After that, Tess almost immediately repented, and offered to let them Fuse with her, only to prove it true. A past experiment had proven that any injuries sustained by the Amalgam did not transfer to the sources when separated, so she added that the others could all have shotguns pointed at Zand while he stood in the power-proof cage, to insure their safety. Not that any of them had ever been able to "take over" the Amalgam to this point, but she wanted them to believe her… because they still believed in her.

They Fused and Separated after only a few minutes, that being enough time for Zand to confirm Tess was indeed sincere and just what it would take to keep Nasedo from betraying them further down the line. Apparently Shapeshifters have to obey the orders of the Royal Four. There's a little bit of wiggle-room, and they can have their own interpretation of those orders, but they still have to obey. The catch, simply put, would be to find the right orders that eliminated all of Nasedo's wiggle-room.

Once the major crisis of debunking Tess's future betrayal was out of the way, the group turned its attention back toward abusing the heck out of Xander's powers.

"I'm sorry, you want me to what?!" he screamed at them

"We want you to try and fuse us without being part of the amalgam yourself," Max reiterated.

"That's what they want!" Michael yelled out. "I was against messing with a good thing. But the scientists have to do their little experiments!"

"I… I don't even know how I do this thing in the first place!" Xander protested. "All we do is hold hands and we all think about Zand! That one time that we did it without Tess, which…"

"You've apologized enough for it," the blond interrupted. "And… it was necessary. It is over and behind us now, and things, ultimately, turned out for the best. Besides, Xander, after all that you've done for us, we still have to make good on the promises we made to you, which is to help you better understand your powers. Which is what we're trying to do here and now."

"Also," Liz spoke up, "I've been giving it a lot of thought, and I think I know what your trigger is. The first times that your powers activated, it was in dangerous situations, and it was agreed that everyone involved with the fusion were pretty much thinking the same thoughts; I want to survive, I want to protect, etcetera. Well, what if that is the key?"

"I'm not following," Xander confessed.

"What if," Liz explained, dragging Maria over next to her, "instead of thinking the same thoughts, or focusing on the fusion itself, you just focus on the two people you're trying to fuse together, while they," she physically moved Max and Michael next to each other, "think only of each other. We'll do this with a human only pair, and an alien pair, just to get a baseline. Now, Maria, think only of me, what you know about me, our friendship, and I'll do the same about you. Max, think about Michael, Michael, think about Max. Even if you don't like him, you still know him better than anybody else. And besides, I don't think that we want to start… mixing genders just yet."

Everyone winced at the image that provoked, and privately agreed.

"For the record," Michael spoke up, "I am still against this, but… there is no way I'm willing to see what you and Isabel look like as a single person, Max."

"Let's just do this," Max said, uncomfortable. "Please?"

Sighing, Xander shrugged and decided to follow Liz's advice, seeing as he had little clue what else to try. He reached out and took the girls hands, silently directing them to take each other's hand as well, and focused on the pair of them, trying to picture them as a single girl. He started with them, for the simple fact that if it didn't work, or something went wrong, Max and Michael would still be necessary for the Zand Amalgam in order to fix it.

Ten seconds later, nothing was happening.

"Are you focusing?" Michael asked, impatient.

"You wanna do this?" Xander snapped. "Oh, right, you can't! Now shut up! I'm trying! Liz? Are you thinking about Maria… or Max?"

"Maria," the brunette replied firmly, her eyes closed and cheeks a little bit pink.

"Then maybe you should open your eyes and actually look at her," Xander pointed out. "You're best friends. It isn't like you're getting married or anything. You don't see all of us starting some kind of alien orgy after Zand separates, do you? No, we're just all friends. That's it. Friends. I swear."

"Friends," Liz repeated, letting out a sigh as the tension drained out of her.

Maria snorted, amused. "Yeah," she said. "Friends. Best friends."

Liz smiled and said back, "Best friends."

Xander opened his mouth to say more, but he was interrupted as he felt a shock of power run through him and was blinded by a flash of light going off, literally, right in his face!

At the same time, he was knocked back and fell to the ground. While he'd never experienced it first-hand, some long-not-quite-forgotten soldier memories stirred as he associated the experience with standing right in front of a flashbang grenade going off.

"Ow," he groaned, rolling on the ground, struggling to get back to his feet. He couldn't actually hear anything at the moment, although he did have the ocean screaming in his ears. Which was odd, because the Fusion-Flashes (not the 'official' name by the way) didn't have any sound associated with them. Fortunately, by the time he was standing once more, all his senses were back to normal and his equilibrium to boot.

Looking around, he saw the number of occupants of the room down by one, but minus two familiar faces, plus one unfamiliar face.

"Uh, hello," he greeted the new face.

Speaking of, she was, in every observable way, the epitome of a blending of Liz and Maria. Looking at her face, he could see individual features that belonged to one or the other, but it was more like looking at the results of one of those face fusion photoshop features that people are doing online all the time nowadays. Maria was normally much taller than Liz, but this new girl seemed to be exactly in between their two heights. She had Liz's skin tone, but Maria's hair, her eyes were blue, but with flecks and shades of brown throughout, making them some kind of azure/hazel shade. She was also wearing the same clothes both had been wearing, but that wasn't too surprising seeing as they'd both still been wearing their diner uniforms

"So, uh," Xander spoke up, apparently the only one speaking at the moment, "What's your name? Everything all right?"

"Huh?" the new girl startled and looked up from where she'd been staring at her hands. "Oh, sorry Xander. Sorry, everyone. I was just thinking… are my fingerprints as different as the rest of me? Some kind of mishmash between my sources, or are they wholly unique to me?"

"What is your name?" Max demanded, stepping forward.

The dirty-blond smiled as she looked up at him, before frowning slightly at herself.

"Sorry," she apologized again, her voice similar to Maria's, without the scratchy-throat undertones of Liz's, but still with Liz's inflection. "I keep distracting myself. I am…" she blinked and appeared to think about it. "... I believe I will choose the name Mary Elizabeth for myself. I somehow sense that this is the only moment in time in which I will truly exist. I have no special abilities, and while Liz and Maria are the truest of friends… they are not… fully compatible."

"Fully compatible? What does that mean?" Isabel asked.

"Is something wrong?" Alex asked, concerned for his friends. "Did something happen with the fusion? Are you like… dying? Are Liz and Maria going to be OK?"

"Liz and Maria will be fine," Mary Elizabeth assured them all. "Strange, but… I can now understand what Zand was talking about before. How… a Amalgam must know themselves, inside and out. I will try and explain, but…" she trailed off, looking between Max and Michael all of a sudden. "Perhaps we should continue with the experiment? Another Amalgam to… bounce ideas off of, might allow for this to go smoother."

Xander looked expectantly toward Max and Michael.

Max exchanged looks with Xander and Michael, before merely nodding his head.

Rolling his eyes, Michael said, "Just do it, before I change my mind."

"Oh, and you might want to brace your feet this time," Alex 'helpfully' said from the background, forcing Xander to roll his own eyes.

Rather than take them by the hands, Xander grabbed the two alien men by the shoulder, while the pair did hold hands, looking at each other, trying not to be grossed out. Oddly enough, that seemed to put their thoughts in sync quickly so that the flash of blinding light came after only a few moments. Better prepared for it, not to mention having closed his eyes from the start this time, Xander stayed on his feet and stepped back when he felt the shoulders beneath his grip fall away. Upon opening his eyes, he was greeted by… a familiar/unfamiliar face of a man that could easily be called Max and Michael's "other" brother. Physically, the amalgam was the same as Zand, but that was saying that he was the same as Max, Michael and Xander. He had Michael's long hair, although the color was a consistent black rather than brunette-brown, and the same face-fusion effect that Mary Elizabeth had experienced, just with Max and Michael. As for his clothes, ironically enough, the pair's clothing had shifted into the same black leather bodysuit that Zand always appeared in. They all silently decided it was more due to the yet-to-be-named amalgam's alien powers rather than Xander's fusion powers.

"So," Xander said after no one else spoke for almost half a minute, "What is your name?"

He blinked, slowly, self-reflecting, obviously. Then he looked up and around the room, locked eyes with Mary Elizabeth, did the whole star-crossed-lovers-soulmate-stare that Max and Liz were known for, before finally looking back to Xander and saying, "M."

"Uh, come again?" the super-powered human blurted out.

"My name," he said, speaking with Max's halting, flat tone, but with a voice more like Michael's, "is M. Like James Bond's boss in the novels and early movies. Neither of us were about to mangle our names… sorry. Neither of my sources, wished to try and combine or disassemble their various names, so it was subconsciously decided that I'll just stick with the one part of their names they both like."

"The first letter?!" Isabel blurted out, disgusted.

M shrugged, and crossed his arms, scoffing at Max's sister, displaying mannerisms that were typical of Michael, they all noted.

"It is very nice to meet you, M," Mary Elizabeth said, stepping forward and practically putting herself in M's personal space.

"I really want to kiss you right now," he said without thinking.

"Wouldn't exactly be cheating, seeing as our sources are each other's significant others," she pointed out.

"OK, focus here!" Isabel snapped, physically coming between the couple. "Stop that! We don't have time for that sort of thing! Speaking of… How much time have you got? This isn't exactly a typical fusion here."

"Half an hour," Mary Elizabeth answered automatically, ducking her head in shame.

"Twenty-eight minutes, thirteen seconds and counting," M recited, rather robot-like.

"I blame the alien part for that," Xander couldn't help zinging.

"Why so little time?" Alex questioned.

"Probably because Xander isn't a part of the fusion," Tess pointed out. "Also, there are fewer… sources involved. Including more might increase, or decrease the time they can remain fused. Tell us, M, can you do everything that Zand can?"

"Right off the bat," M replied, "I can say that I cannot. For one thing, Zand can use Mindwarps and invade people's subconscious minds. I've got all of Max's unique talents, but I can also tell I'm a lot stronger than him. Also, I can do this…"

He waved his hand over his face and then across his clothes, and suddenly there were two Xanders standing there. The Xander-that-had-been-M smirked and said, "Michael's been practicing. But as an Amalgam… my focus, my control is a lot greater. I see what you meant, Mary."

"Mary Elizabeth," she snapped, sounding a lot like Maria right then. "And yes. My thoughts are clear and focused, and I just… know myself. Which is why I am equally certain that Maria and Liz will never be fused like this again, so this is the only point in time at which I will exist. I don't know how I know it, but I know it."

M paused and considered, reverting himself back to his original appearance. "Yes, I can feel that too. This is a one time deal, merely meant to test the results of Xander's powers. Quite disappointing, such a brief existence, this."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Xander waved the red flag. "Stop all the existentialist crap, please! Suddenly I'm glad that he didn't talk, the first time this happened. Liz… er, Mary Elizabeth, should we try force-separating you both? Can you separate like Zand can?"

They both shook their heads.

"You can force-separate us, Xander, but we cannot separate ourselves," she answered. "The only reason Zand could at all is because of you. We'll separate on our own, and… if it is all right, we'd both like to enjoy the brief time that we have."

"Yeah, you two are not being left alone," Isabel snapped. "That much I can guarantee already. Michael and Maria are bad enough on their own, but throw in Liz and Max? It'd be Romeo and Juliet all over again! The bad parts, in case anyone was wondering!"

"So what do we do for the next twenty-odd minutes?" Mary Elizabeth challenged her. "We were created for the sole purpose of testing Xander's powers and seeing if we could be made. I don't have any powers, and M already demonstrated what he can do. So what else are we supposed to do, huh?!"

"Well, we could do what you were suggesting earlier," Alex piped up. At everyone's looks, he continued. "You were wondering about your fingerprints? Or at least, that's what you said you were wondering about. How if they're unique to you, or just a mish-mash of Liz's and Maria's. We could take your fingerprints, and other general measurements, and then when you all separate, compare with the… are we really calling them sources? Cause that just makes it sound like we're reporters or tv show cops or something."

"Have you got a better idea?" M snapped, channeling his 'Michael' half at the moment.

"No," Xander interrupted, "but then neither does anybody else. So… Alex, without Liz and Max around, you are our resident nerd-scientist, no offense. You start figuring out what measurements, or whatever, we need to take, and the rest of us will, I don't know, start experimenting. God, that sounds so weird coming out of my mouth."

"Might as well," Mary Elizabeth said to M, who shrugged back, agreeing.

What followed was a rather hectic twenty minutes of rapid testing and measuring. They took fingerprints, hair, blood, and skin samples, mostly to see what would happen after the two Amalgams separated, but also in hopes of getting them forensically analyzed later on. They measured the both of them extensively, though the intimate stuff was done behind closed doors with the girls helping Mary Elizabeth and M getting help from the guys. As it was, they barely had enough time to get the basics, before time was up, and Mary Elizabeth turned back into Liz and Maria, and a few minutes after that, Max and Michael were 'hugging it out'.

"This…" "...is…" "...a…" "...lot…" "...worse…" "...than…" "...you…" "...guys…" "...made…" "...it…" "...out…" both; "...to be!"

The two pair that had been fused couldn't be dragged away from each other for anything. In fact, they were holding one another so close that they each were practically sitting in the other's lap, and if it weren't for Max and Michael being in the same predicament, it might have been OK, and even kind of hot. Worse than that though, when speaking, they could each only say a single word.

"It's…" Max grunted, and Michael finished, "...Not!"

"I think that might be my fault," Xander raised his hand. "Again."

"What do you mean?" Tess asked.

"Mary Elizabeth and M both said it," he pointed out. "Zand can control his fusion because I'm part of the fusion. Chances are pretty good that me being part of it lessens the side-effects too. I mean, look at them! It's already been ten minutes, and they're all still holding onto each other like they're trying to physically fuse themselves back together again. We started a clock when they separated, right?" He looked back at Alex for the answer.

In reply, he held up the stop watches and shrugged. "Ever since we started these experiments, Liz has kept meticulous notes about how long each phase of the fusion can last. They were right, by the way. Each of the fusions lasted thirty minutes, down to the second. If the withdrawal symptoms are the same, this will only last an hour, but we're keeping time all the same."

"I wonder what would happen if… somebody else touches them, while they're going through withdrawal?" Tess asked, staring almost hungrily at Max and Michael.

"Oh, we already know that," Alex said, digging through his notes. "The other week, after the hour-long trial with Zand, Max and Liz tried to hold hands, and the whole group flinched away. After the halfway mark of withdrawal, the flinching stopped."

"So, at thirty minutes," Xander said, speaking mostly to the embracing pairs at the moment, "we'll try touch you guys. Just friendly, comforting stuff, OK?"

"... O…" "...K…"

"All…" "...right…"

"Be sure to note when they can start saying more than a single word each," Isabel said to Alex, giving him a sideways hug, before going to get herself a snack.

Unfortunately, the withdrawal symptoms didn't seem to be letting up by the time they got to the half-hour mark since separation. If anything, they actually seemed to be getting worse, as the boys had taken off their shirts and were laying on top of one another, actually holding the other to themselves as hard as they possibly could. The girls had actually been on the verge of taking their dresses off, but to do so would require more distance from one another than they could stand, so they just settled for spooning and entwining their limbs as much as possible.

At forty-five minutes since separation, and with no sign of the symptoms letting up, (they still couldn't say more than one word each), Xander finally suggested, "Maybe I should fuse them again? But this time, make myself part of the fusion? I'd hate to think that I did this to you guys!"

"Don't…" "...blame…" "...yourself…" "...Xander…" Liz and Maria said.

"Not…" "...your…" "...fault…" Max and Michael stuttered.

"Uh, yeah, it kinda is!" he retorted. "I'm the one that fused you together in the first place! Testing my powers or not, I did this to you, and it is up to me to fix it!"

"Just," Isabel physically held Xander back from the pairs, "wait until the cut off time, all right? If they're still this bad after the twice-as-long-time-limit goes by, then we'll start talking about what to do. Until then, no making things worse! Got it?"

Taking a breath, Xander nodded and took a step back. "Got it. But I'm just going to put this out there now; no more fusions where I'm not part of it, got it?"

"Have you thought that maybe you could make the withdrawal less intensive via other means?" Tess proposed.

"What do you mean?" Isabel asked.

"Well," she said, "apparently, Xander's power, whatever it may be, is more varied than we thought. At first, we just thought it fused him with whoever he touched and created a new person from those people. Now, we just found out that he can fuse other people without having to be part of the same Amalgam. And, we found out from those Amalgams that because he's a part of the Amalgam, he can control when they separate, and now, apparently make it so the withdrawal symptoms are not nearly as bad as they could be. So… what if…?" she trailed off, but Xander picked up on her line of thought.

"What if there is something that I can do, to make it not as bad," he said, moving forward again.

"Wait!" Isabel cried out.

"Actually," Alex spoke up suddenly, holding the stopwatch. "Let him try Isabel. Liz and Maria passed the hour mark a full minute ago."

Both pairs groaned in pain and seemed to be trying to hold one another even tighter than before. Max and Michael had a dangerous gleam in their eyes and they all noted their hands lighting up. Afraid that they'd actually try and fuse themselves together with their own alien powers, Isabel did nothing to stop Xander as he rushed forward and grabbed the girls.

Unlike before, when Alex and Isabel and Tess had tried reaching out to the pairs, they did not flinch away from Xander's touch. If anything, they seemed to gravitate toward it, as some part of their bodies and minds knew that his touch could make them one again!

Once in contact, Xander instinctively knew what was going on, and-somehow-what he had to do to fix it. Closing his eyes, he reached out with his mind, with his… energy for lack of a better term, into their bodies, where their cells were still trying to revert back to their fused state. And then he just… soothed them. There was probably a more scientific term for it, but from his perspective that was all he did. He soothed the cells in their bodies the same way he would soothe a wounded animal getting treatment.

Almost instantly, they calmed down and let each other go. In fact, they both stood up and pulled away from him as well as each other. Seeing that it worked, Xander wasted no time and rushed over to the boys and applied the same soothing to them. Just in time too, as they were both on the verge of trying to fuse parts of their body together, although that type of fusion would be more akin to a welding torch.

"That was…" Maria started to say, but couldn't quite get it out. "That was… that was not fun. Or good, or natural, or pretty much anything that I would ever want to do or have happen again. Why did you talk me into this again?"

"It was," Liz slowly admitted, "different. But it was necessary, Maria. We had to know. And now we know more. Thanks, Xander, for… well, for making it stop."

"How do you guys feel?" Isabel asked.

"Almost normal," Maria answered. "Now. Before, it was like… everything that you hear about junkies going through withdrawal, only about a million times worse."

"I'm so sorry guys," Xander apologized yet again.

"For the last time," Michael suddenly snapped at him. "This wasn't your fault. And you made it right in the end. That's all that anyone can do. Besides, Liz is right. We had to know."

"I'm still never doing that again!" Maria insisted.

"Probably why Mary Elizabeth and M both felt that they would never exist again past this point," Tess remarked. "We never really tested M's powers that much, but Max, Michael? Did you learn anything or recall how powerful you were as M?"

Max shook his head. "It was just like with Zand. I'm… aware of what he was thinking, when he was thinking about it, but…"

"Like watching a movie or sitting in one of those action-motion ride things," Michael concluded. "Nothing about how much easier, or not, shapeshifting and our other powers might be. We know he could use Max's green-shield thing, but no chances to heal or blow stuff up or anything."

"I remember having like perfect recall," Maria spoke up. "When she was going through my memories and stuff. It was like… she could remember everything that I ever saw or thought about, but I forgot on my way to school or whatever. Still never doing it again."

"She gave me a few good ideas about future experiments we could try, but beyond having perfect total recall, Mary Elizabeth didn't really stand out. Although, I now know a few things about Maria that she probably wouldn't want spoken out loud. And the same goes for me," said Liz.

"Yeah, that's great and all," Xander interrupted. "But it still isn't helping me with my biggest fear at the moment, which is how to avoid randomly fusing with people! And now, I have the added worry that if I'm touching more than one person like that, instead of fusing with them, I'll just fuse all of them together! And then they'll be in agony if I'm not there to sooth them or reverse whatever side effects there are of being part of an amalgam!"

"And I'm afraid that I'll blow somebody's face off the next time I point at them," Michael heatedly argued.

"And I'm afraid that instead of healing someone, I may end up killing them faster," Max added neutrally.

"You don't know how often I've been tempted," Isabel started to say, but her voice nearly broke, it was so filled with emotion. "None of you have any idea, how… tempting it is. When you find that… perfect dream! To me, they aren't just dreams, they're these, I don't know how else to describe it. These whole other worlds, that I can go in and out of. I could fall asleep one night, and never wake up, because I was living out life in a dream world instead."

Tess stepped forward, looking quite ashamed. "I… know what the consequences are. If I overuse my power. If I keep mindwarping the same person, or if I use a long term mindwarp… I can cause real, actual brain damage to the person. Nasedo… he showed me, made me do it once. So I could know."

She shivered and hugged herself, tears brimming at her eyes. No one else moved to comfort, or reject her. They all merely listened.

"Your power, Xander," Tess said, "It brings people closer together. It tears down the walls and goes right through the lies, straight to the truth. And while there may be some discomfort and pain involved, yours is by far the most beneficial and useful power of everyone here. Of anyone that you could think of. All our powers, there is so much potential for abuse and destruction and… and death. But you…" She trailed off as the tears finally spilled over.

At that, the more empathic of their group stopped holding themselves back and rushed forward to embrace the young blond alien girl.

"But your power, Xander," she gasped out through the tears, "it creates. It doesn't destroy. I've felt it, every time that I have been apart of Avilzandrath, at the core is you. Your… light. You're a hero, Xander. Don't ever doubt that. Please."

It turned out to be a very emotional night.

The experiments continued. Everybody that was a part of the group got to experience Fusion and being part of an Amalgam at least once. True to her word, Maria never fused with Liz again, and although they were closer friends than they'd ever been before, there was some unspoken agreement that the reason they'd had such intense withdrawal symptoms had more to do than Xander not being part of the fusion. They couldn't explain it, but some instinct told them that they weren't truly compatible with one another.

That did nothing to stop the others in the group from trying it out. The next test was in seeing if a human and an alien could fuse, and to see what amalgam came out of that. And of course, Max and Liz were first among the volunteers, but nobody was willing to risk seeing what a male/female fusion would create, not without tipping the balance in one direction over the other.

So, eager to take part, Alex volunteered to be fused with Michael. Isabel was understandably reluctant to allow that, seeing as Alex was her sort-of-boyfriend/love interest, and Michael and she had literally been made for each other on the genetic level. And yet, a part of her was intrigued by what Amalgam would be created, containing the two men that she was most interested in.

Malex existed for thirty minutes, and as with Mary Elizabeth, confirmed that he would never exist again. Unlike the others, however, that somehow tried to strike a balance between the sources, Malex was as tall as Alex, yet seemed to have all of Michael's features stretched to fit that frame. When tested, they also discovered that his powers were actually somewhat weaker than Michael's, even though he had the same perfect total recall of all other Amalgams.

When Xander tried to fuse Liz and Tess together, he was shocked to discover that he couldn't. When he tried to fuse with them, he somehow sensed that he was missing something, that at least one other would be necessary to make the fusion work. Trying again with Isabel and Maria, over Maria's protests and Xander's assurances that he would ensure the withdrawal lasted as little as possible, there were no issues.

Vilaria openly admitted to being Michael's wet dream made flesh, and was constantly teasing and toying with the poor boy, but it finally confirmed that there was nothing detrimental about fusing humans and aliens, it was all about the people. Alex and Michael were not entirely complimentary to one another, so Malex was weak. Isabel and Maria were at least friends, though certainly not best friends, and the one thing they had in common was their feelings for Michael, which apparently made them fairly compatible. Vilaria, therefore, was almost as strong as Zand or M proved to be, just limited to Isabel's skill set, though with Maria's wicked tongue it made for a volatile package.

Having exhausted all other avenues of research, everyone finally relented and allowed Xander to Fuse Max and Liz. He didn't talk much. His eyes were glazed over pretty much from the moment the light faded from his initial appearance, to when he finally separated thirty minutes later. Because of that (and for no other reason), that Amalgam was dubbed, by Michael, as The Dreamer.

Afterwards, it was all Xander could do to get close enough to sooth the couple's withdrawal symptoms, and even then they were intent on being as close to one another as they could, and kept giving each other longing looks and lovesick smiles. It was similar enough to how Buffy and Angel kept acting for the past year that Xander was very nearly made sick from it. It was only his experiences as part of Zand, allowing him a highly unique perspective on the truth behind Max Evans, which kept him from saying anything at all.

The experiments and testing of powers finally came to a close two days after the Dreamer's second appearance. Liz… something happened to Liz, which brought everything into question, and ultimately forced Xander to say goodbye to his new friends. Besides, he'd stayed in Roswell for almost three full weeks. It was time he moved on in his road trip.

"Something is wrong with Liz," Alex declared, walking into the Crashdown and sitting at table where Xander, Max, Michael, Isabel and Maria were already congregated. "She is sick or something. And… you all already know this, don't you?"

Maria raised her hand and smiled prettily. "Just filled them in and gave them the Four-One-One. I was there when it happened, by the way. And, so was Max."

"And according to Maria," Michael snarkily pointed out, "Max seems to be the cause of Liz's sudden illness." It was clear from his tone, posture, expression, pretty much everything that he firmly disagreed with his girlfriend and was saying this only to get her riled up.

"Believe me or not," she said, shooting her boyfriend a mild glare, but keeping her own voice as serious as possible, "Whenever Max got close to her, these bolts of green electricity, or something began dancing across her skin. Closer he got, the worse it got, and… she was in real pain, guys."

"When I got further away from Liz," Max mournfully admitted, "she got better. Maria said the displays of… power stopped, and Liz said she felt better, but still… sick."

"Like PMS sick, or flu sick?" Michael thoughtlessly questioned.

"Like," Max glanced around and leaned forward to whisper, "withdrawal sick. I think… I think Maria is right. Somehow… fusing with me did something to Liz and…"

"Why just you?" Xander interrupted that line of thought.

"What?" they all asked together.

"Liz has been fused with Maria, you, and me and Alex with Maria to try that fully human counterpart to Zand," Xander pointed out. "First time the Dreamer, as Michael calls that particular Amalgam, came about, you and Liz were both fine. We've all formed Zand more than two dozen times now, and nothing has happened to me, or any of the other humans that have been part of the fusion. So why would Liz be affected like this-if she were going to be affected by fusing at all-when only in proximity to you, Max? Michael, Isabel, have you seen Liz recently?"

"Yeah," Isabel admitted. "She seemed a little under the weather, but nothing as bad as what you guys are describing. I tried to see if I could help, but she said she was fine. There wasn't any kind of… reaction to me touching or getting close to her though."

"I helped Maria get her upstairs," Michael told them.

"And I just came from there," Alex said. "And Tess is there right now, helping take care of her, and… come to think of it, probably keeping her parents from seeing the green lightning on her skin."

"Also…" Maria started to say, but trailed off.

"What?" Xander asked, insistent. "What is it, Maria?"

"If it were just some alien sickness, we wouldn't be so confused," she admitted. "We'd just have Max heal her or give her a bunch of antibiotics or something. There's… more."

"Care to clue us in?" Michael wanted to know.

"Liz… set her textbook on fire," Max confessed.

"And she kind of turned on a broken radio that I was tinkering with," Alex added.

"And she's melted four or five different plates," Maria added.

"She… has powers?" Isabel choked out the question.

"It appears so," Max said in that halting-manner of his.

"So," Xander reiterated, now glaring at the tall lanky alien leader, "Back to the main question; Why just you, Max? You've fused with Liz more than five times now. You literally know her inside and out, and now officially better than even Maria can claim, as she's only fused with Liz once. Now she has powers on top of being sick with some kind of green energy virus. What is going on?"

"I'm… not sure," Max reluctantly confessed. "It isn't anything that I'm doing, but…" He trailed off and guiltily looked over toward the back corner of the restaurant.

Michael's face lit up with inspiration, when he glanced over to where Max had been looking, and then his own face mirrored his friend's guilty look. "But it might be something that you did," he finished for the other alien hybrid.

Everyone, except Xander, all had a sudden 'Aha!' moment and look on their faces, but it was Maria who put a voice to what they were all thinking.

"When you healed her," she said. "You think that you might have… changed her, or something? Made her…?"

"An alien?" Xander concluded. "Would that even be possible?"

Michael hushed them and spoke in harsh quiet tones, "Nasedo explained to me, when we were getting Max out of the White Room, our powers aren't alien, they're human. We can do things that apparently anybody could, provided they could use the brain's full potential without frying their own skulls. Maybe…" he shrugged.

"Maybe instead of like you," Xander leaned back, in awe of his own words, "when you healed her, you made Liz like me. Or others like me. Just… modeled after your own abilities. And this… this is her powers evolving, changing her. Anyone noticed the drop in intensity of the withdrawal symptoms, even if the length is the same?"

"I thought that was just us getting used to it," Isabel remarked. "Maybe it's your powers developing, making it so there soon won't be any pain involved, just a… lingering connection?"

"And whatever," Alex said, shrugging, "process that was started by Max healing her, it got, I don't know, accelerated whenever she and Max were part of the same Amalgam?"

"Is there any way to reverse it?" Maria asked, looking pensive.

"Whoa," Xander held up his hands and slammed the brakes on this conversation. "Before any of that kind of talk is discussed, we need to bring Liz in on this. With… sufficient distance between Max and her, of course. Maria, Alex, want to head on up and the rest of us will find a way up to the balcony? Talk with Liz about what we've said here, get her opinion. Give us a call on Isabel's phone when she's ready for us to come up. If this is something that can be reversed, I'm pretty sure the only one able to do anything about it is the same person that can't even touch her right now."

They nodded and the two childhood friends of Liz Parker immediately charged up the stairs to their friend's room, leaving Xander with the three aliens. Half an hour later, Isabel got a text, and they made their way up to the back side of the building and from there up the fire escape to the balcony outside Liz's window, which was left open. Still, to be on the safe side, Max was made to sit on the ledge of the balcony, at the furthest point from where Liz was seated in her bed. Xander made sure to stay outside the window, but still close enough to participate in the conversation.

"Look, I appreciate you all being here for me and all," Liz moaned from her place on the bed, "but I'm fine. I'll be fine. This is… nothing, it's just…"

"Yeah, try and sell that to the guy that didn't already give the school nurse every excuse in the book, and then some," Xander interrupted her. "Liz, I need you to tell me exactly what you're feeling here. It could be important."

"Why?" she blurted out. "Why do my feelings, all of a sudden, matter to everybody? So I've got a flu, or something…"

"An alien flu!" Maria interjected.

"So what?" Liz hoarsely screamed at them. "It doesn't change anything, does it?"

"Safe to say she's feeling the same symptoms most women do when they're PMS'ing," Michael rudely commented.

Turning to look at the trailer-park-raised alien boy, Xander replied, "I'd slap you on the head right now, but it really isn't my place to do so." Turning back toward the bedroom, he continued. "No, Liz, I mean do you feel like you are going through withdrawal, or something else. Be as specific as you can. I… have an idea about this, but, I need to be sure."

"What's your idea?" Tess asked.

He looked back at her, pausing to give each of them the same look before finally repeating to Liz, "I need to be sure."

They all looked back and forth between the adamant stranger and the bed-ridden sick girl, before finally settling on Liz to see what she would do. Rolling her eyes at the behavior of her friends, she ultimately relented.

"Fine," she grumbled. "I guess, I feel… out of place in my own skin. Like… I'm not myself. I've… had a couple of hallucinations. I saw myself in the mirror, only I didn't have a face. Or like my food all turned white and tasted like rice cakes or something. So, no it doesn't feel like withdrawal. That was… different. This is like… like, like I don't know what."

"Headaches?" Xander asked.

"A few, but not all the time," Liz answered.

"Migraine, sinus, stress, or injury?" he clarified.

Shrugging again, she replied, "Stress, I guess. Nothing like when I had that concussion last year, and I wouldn't be sitting here with the lights turned on talking to you all if it was like a migraine."

"Any achiness? Swollen joints? Inflammation?" Now they began to suspect he was just throwing out words from medicine commercials.

"Uh, no, no, and… not really," Liz answered anyway. "It… stings and almost burns when the sparks get really bad, but nothing itching or hurting or anything like that. Why? What are you thinking, Xander?"

"Can I come in?" he asked, if only to be polite.

Recalling his warnings about inviting just anybody into her home, (and they were all grateful that they only had to deal with alien and government crap rather than vampires or demons), Liz merely nodded her head once, not actually saying anything or offering an actual invitation. Xander had assured them (after a phone call to a non-FBI-friend he called G-Man) that so long as there was an actual barrier, like a door or doorway, between the public and private areas of the building, it didn't matter that the ground floor of her home was a public restaurant. No vampire could cross that threshold without an invitation, even if they were already in the restaurant.

Climbing through the window and moving to stand beside her bed, he reached for and took her arm, pulling back the long sleeved sweater so he could see the small bolts of green electricity dance across her skin. He could feel the static electricity that she was generating. And yet, he wasn't stung.

"Max," he called. "Come to the window, please?"

Liz's breath hitched a little, but Xander smiled reassuringly and patted her shoulder. "I just need to be sure," he repeated.

"Sure about what?" Max asked, already at the window.

As everyone had been saying, in response to the alien leader's proximity, the energy running just beneath the girl's skin noticeably increased. She gasped as the pain increased, and yet… Xander still wasn't stung.

Looking around the room, he quickly found an unlit candle set on a nearby table.

Bringing one over to the bed and holding it in front of Liz, he said, "Touch the wick with one finger. Think of it already being lit. Don't ask why. Just… think of a lit candle, and touch the wick, Liz."

Frowning and doing as she was told, Liz touched the candle. It burst into flame with a small flare, but was soon controlled and doing what candles were meant to do. Xander blew out the candle.

"I didn't do that!" all of the aliens said in a unison rarely seen outside of withdrawal times.

"No," Xander confirmed. "Liz did. I think we need Zand to confirm, but…"

"But what?!" half the room practically screamed at him.

"But I think that it is pretty obvious," he finally shared his theory, "that while this all started when Max first healed Liz and opened this… connection between the two of them, fusing and being a part of the same Amalgam has greatly accelerated the process."

"What are you saying?" Max asked, everyone having a bit of trouble processing what the Sunnydalian was telling them.

"Michael already said it, didn't he?" Xander said. "Your 'powers' are just fully-evolved human powers, if our brains and bodies were developed enough. Case in point, me and those other… evolved humans that I met on my way here. It is just that Liz's powers will probably be modeled after yours, Max. She won't be an alien or have alien DNA or anything, but she'll have the same powers as the rest of you, and maybe even her own unique gifts as each of you have your own gifts."

"What about all the other people that Max has healed, or may one day heal?" Isabel questioned.

Xander shrugged. "Don't know, but I wouldn't worry about it so much. What makes Liz so unique isn't that she was healed by Max, but that they have a connection. Everyone here has seen their Amalgam. He's not mute or dumb or autistic or anything. He's…"
"He's what?" Michael interrupted.

"He's self-involved," Xander stressed. "He's literally in love with himself, but not in the way that most people are. Is this making any sense?"

"No," they all said.

"Look, the… Dreamer doesn't talk because he's too focused on the connection that Max and Liz have with each other," he tried again. "I mean, think about it. All that the two of them focus on or think about is their connection to one another. And if they aren't thinking about each other, than they're angsting over the consequences of their connection to one another and other teen drama stuff like that! So maybe each time they formed the Dreamer, said Dreamer wasn't talking because he was too busy hastening this transformation Liz is undergoing, a consequence of her connection to Max. Get it now?"

"How do we stop it?" Maria was the first to ask.

Xander shrugged helplessly. "Dunno. That's for Zand to figure out," he said.

The four Aliens all nodded and stepped to the center of the room, still making sure to keep Max as far away from Liz as they feasibly could. Xander joined them, and then they all put their hands together as one, having done this so many times by now that it was an ingrained habit. Likewise, all the remaining humans in the room knew to shield their eyes an instant beforehand as the blinding flash came and left behind the first Amalgam they'd come to know.

Zand looked down at himself and frowned. Parts… some very diminished part of him somehow knew that this was the last time he'd be formed… as he was. And yet, there was also an impression that he would continue to exist at several points in the future. The feeling of those future moments were similar to the time when he'd been formed without Ava, aka Tess. If he had to guess, though he hardly had the time to do a great deal of introspection at the moment, he'd say that Xander would no longer be a part of the fusion process, if Avilzandrath was ever to be summoned again. But that was the future. Right now, he had to deal with the present.

"The situation is exactly as Xander explained it," were his first words. "When he healed you, Max created a… connection between the two of you, Liz. That connection went both ways, unfortunately, but in order for it to… complete the connection, you had to be made… more compatible."

"I don't understand," Liz was shaking her head. "Can you fix this," she held up her sparking hand, "or not?!"

"If I were to try, it would hurt you, and I never want to hurt you, Liz," said Zand.

"Well, maybe this will hurt me more if you do nothing!" she shouted, getting angry for no reason it would seem.

There was a brief interruption when Liz's parents tried to come in, but Zand merely used his powers to disregard the interruption, making them think that the movie all the kids were watching had just been turned up too loud.

"Just so you know, this is more the Xander and Isabel side than the Max side," Zand said as disclaimer. "Liz, when I say this would hurt you, if I tried to stop or even reverse this… this change that you are going through, I mean that it would physically hurt you. As in lobotomy, slash, amputation, slash, organ removal, slash, chemotherapy kind of hurt you. This isn't dangerous to you, Liz. In fact, it will enable you to be stronger than you can possibly know."

"Would," Alex started to say, "Would Max be able to, uh, change the rest of us? If he heals us? Give us powers, I mean? Would what is happening to Liz happen to everyone that Max ultimately heals?"

Zand thought about it. As in, he really thought about it.

After ten or fifteen seconds of tense silence, he answered, "No. It happened to Liz because of hers and Max's connection, not because he healed her. It was accelerated because of the Dreamer Amalgam. Left on its own, Liz still would have developed these powers, undergone this change, but not for years. And that would be dependant upon her connection with Max remaining consistent. If anything ever threatened their connection, then it possibly could have accelerated on its own, but…"

"So it's Max's fault," Maria summarized.

Zand shrugged and agreed, "It's Max's fault. Once the sparks disappear, have Xander recreate the Dreamer one final time, and make sure that he uses his powers. That will teach Liz how to use her new powers with the minimal amount of difficulty."

"How do you know so much about this, anyway?" Maria asked the Amalgam.

"Most of it is instinctive," Zand confessed. "The rest, I get from liberal use of my own, unique powers, which allow me to gather information rather quickly."

"What kind of… unique powers?" Liz questioned. "You've never mentioned that before."

"That is because it was obvious," he shrugged in reply. "I have all of my sources' individual powers and talents and skills, and I have them at their full potential. Individually, my sources are still learning about their powers, about the limits of their powers. I already know everything about my limits. Furthermore, I can combine and simultaneously use multiple powers at once. Michael's newfound shapeshifting power gives me unprecedented knowledge and insight into human biology, combined with Isabel's mental abilities, Max's healing skills, not to mention Tess's latent Projection powers and I can know everything about what is happening to your cells with just one look. And, for the record, yes, I could also change you back to normal. But, like I said; lobotomy/amputation/chemotherapy/etc/etc/etc…"

"So... " Alex looked back and forth between the girls and the male amalgam in the uncomfortable silence to follow. "About how long are we looking at? A day or two? A few weeks? A month?"

"The sparks should fade away by tonight," Zand answered. "Wait until the day after tomorrow, at the earliest, to try and reform the Dreamer. I'll head to the town outskirts, maybe visit the Granolith before I separate. That'll give you some distance from Max, give you some space to think about things, Liz."

"Are… am I… are Max and I…?" she rambled, but trailed off.

Zand, who was now by the window, glanced back and patiently waited for her to get her thoughts in order.

"What is going to happen to me and Max?" she finally asked. "After all this, I mean? Are we like… bonded for life? Did I marry an alien when he saved my life? Are we soulmates, or am I just Max's 'human' wife while Tess becomes his 'alien' wife? I… I need some answers here, Zand. Please?"

"Well," he answered, entirely a hundred plus percent all Max in that moment, "until you say otherwise, Liz, you're his girlfriend and he's your boyfriend. As for Tess, she doesn't swing that way, but you're all still in high school. Best wait until college before you try those kind of alien experiments."

He climbed out the window and then knelt back down so he was looking through. "As for anything else, you have a connection. What all that means is only what you make of it Liz. I'll let you get some rest now." With that said, he vanished into the fading dusk, leaving Liz, Maria and Alex alone in the girl's bedroom.

Three days later, Liz started working on her own 'powers-training' boot camp alongside the others. By the end of that week, Xander felt that he'd done all the he could, probably even more than he should have done in Roswell.

He'd only gotten through two states on his national road trip as it was, and staying in town for much longer would ruin the whole point of his road trip anyway. Besides, he did kind of want to be back in Sunnydale before the others started college, if only to be on hand. Then again, he also needed to get a firm grip on these new powers of his, and he had a feeling that he needed to go elsewhere to explore that.

So, he called the gang together, bought them breakfast, (with liberal use of Liz, Maria and Michael's employee discount) and told them goodbye. There were tears, there were shouts of recrimination, there were manly hugs and handshakes, but goodbyes were said and he was on the road north before ten o'clock. He really didn't want to try and wrestle with the Texan desert, so rather than tempt fate by heading to Dallas, and eventually New Orleans, and maybe Miami, he went north toward Colorado, specifically Colorado Springs, and maybe Denver.

A month and a half later, Max, Michael, Isabel, Tess and their friends uncovered and stopped the plot by the Skins. Half a month before that, a Max from the future came to the past, trying to convince Liz that she needed to break up with his past self so that Tess wouldn't leave. Rather than blindly listen to him, which she would've done before getting powers of her own (not to mention a random and uncontrollable ability to get visions of the future), Liz turned the plot around and became the reason Tess would stick around. They occasionally let Max watch, when he was a good boy.

As for Tess, rather than do everything herself and mindwarp Alex into translating the book for her, she and Liz worked with Alex and Max in deciphering it, between classes and stopping alien invasion plots. Max got a new boss at the Area 51 Museum, who just so happened to have been abducted by aliens and captured the signal the four sent out at the beginning of summer, but he was harmless and turned out to be a true ally in the end.

Then the Duplicates showed up, or three of them anyway, talking about some Alien Conference or meeting or something in New York that the "Royal Four" were invited to. Now knowing the lengths their enemies had gone to, thanks to Tess turning around and revealing the deal Nasedo had made with Kivar, Max knew better than to trust the duplicates outright.

Around the same time, they got a message from their friend Xander, who needed their help in Sunnydale. But that is a story for later.

END Fusion 03