Max pulled the jeep into the parking lot of the local park, and turned to face Liz, stroking her hair comfortingly.

"You did what you needed to do, Liz. Nothing more. You need some time away from them to calm down. They owe you that much. You don't need to go back there until you're good and ready, okay?"

"But where am I going to go in the meantime? I didn't plan for any of this. It just happened."

"You can stay with me." Max told her.

"With you?" Liz couldn't help letting a smile flicker across her face. "Max, that would be a dream come true, but your parents will never agree to it."

"They can't agree to something they don't know about."

"Are you sure?"

"We can pull it off. They won't even know you're there. Liz, I already feel like you're my wife in here." Max took Liz's hand and placed it over his heart. "Even if we're not married in name. I want to be able to support you right now…I need to. If you go somewhere else, wherever it may be, I'll still be by your side constantly. But I want to give you a home right now. Please come home with me."

"Okay."

"Okay?" Max asked, barely believing his ears.

"Okay. There's nowhere else that I would rather be."

The jeep's engine roared back to life, and Max drove them home. They sighed with relief that no one was home…it would make getting Liz moved in a little easier. Max took her suitcase inside, and hid it in the back of his closet.

"So…" He started uncertainly, turning to face where Liz stood awkwardly in the center of the room, shifting her weight back and forth. "Now what?"

"Now…I want to find out as much as I can." Liz stated, a firm look entering her eyes.

"About what?"

"About everything…my past life, our destiny…everything."

"What about…"

"The adoption?" Liz finished his question for him. "I don't want to think about that right now. I'll never be able to accept all of that if I don't even know who I really am."

Max nodded. "Let's go to the pod chamber. That's the only place on earth that we'll find the answers."

They turned to head out to the jeep, when Liz suddenly pulled Max to a stop.

"Max..."

"Yeah?"

"I want to do the memory retrieval."

"What?"

"Your mother…in her message to us…she said that using the pods we can retrieve all of our memories from our past life. I want to do it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes…it's the only way to get all the answers I'm looking for."

Max nodded in agreement. "We'll do it together." He promised, cupping Liz's face in his hands, and rubbing his thumbs over her cheeks in a loving caress. "Let's go."

They drove straight out to the desert under the warm, late morning sun, on the now familiar route to the pod chamber. And then they were there, standing before the pods, clutching each other's hands, drawing strength from their love.

"Are you ready?" Liz asked him softly.

"Yes." Max responded quietly. "Are you scared?"

"Yes." Liz admitted. "Are you?"

"Yes. But I'm ready to know the truth. I've heard so many different versions of my destiny now, I don't know which ones are real. I think I need to remember what really happened, what I'm really here to do. What about you?"

"I'm so confused, and it's scaring me so much, but I need these answers. I think that they'll bring me peace, to know where I really stand in the world. I'm ready for this, Max. Let's do it."

Together they stepped forward until they were directly in front of their pods, and Liz couldn't help reaching her hand out and running it over the now latent and broken pod, which glowed to life beneath her touch.

"I can't believe that this is where I was born." Liz marveled, as her eyes took in the glowing pod.

"Where we were born." Max corrected her. "Both of us."

Liz looked up and met Max's loving eyes. "It's time." She whispered.

Still holding each other's hands for strength, Max and Liz both placed their free hands flat on the sensor panel beside their pods, and concentrated their attention where their hands met the metal.

The panel flickered to life beneath their touch, and began to glow brightly. The light spread into their hands, and soon it engulfed both Max and Liz's bodies in a bright, blinding glow.

Liz gasped loudly as images began to enter her mind.

It started out slowly first, with images of their far off home, and faces of her loved ones, mixed with the emotions that came with each image, as if introducing Liz to each person and place for the first time. Suddenly, quick flashes exploded into Liz's mind so quickly that Liz was almost unable to register each one from the next.

Images of playing in her childhood home flashed into Liz's mind first, and then suddenly she was an adult, being courted for the first time by Max. And then it was their wedding day, and Liz felt all the joy and love within her as they swore their undying love to one another, while she was crowned as Max's queen. She experienced their wedding night, when they truly made love for the first time, and pleasure swarmed through Liz's blood, as if she was in the act of love at that moment.

Pain ripped through the pleasure suddenly, and she was experiencing the process of childbirth. Liz could almost feel the tears dripping down her cheeks, as she first laid her eyes on Max and Liz's beautiful twins, one boy and one girl.

Then the skins came…and their beautiful, happy world fell to pieces.