Part 15 - Secrets and Answers

They all started talking at the same time. Finally, they quieted down enough for Max to be heard.

"What do you mean, you're our guardian?"

"I was sent down here to guard and guide you." He gave a quick grimace. "Admittedly, I haven't been the ideal guardian, but you really do have to take into account the fact that we hardly expected the ship to crash and to end up being taken into the custody of this planet's military."

"And we're supposed to just believe you?" Tess asked.

Dagmar looked at her. "I wouldn't expect such suspicion from you, my dear. Didn't your protector tell you about me?"

Tess looked slightly uncomfortable, but shook her head. "No, Nasedo didn't tell me anything about another alien guardian."

"Nasedo?" Dagmar gave a small laugh, but it didn't sound truly amused. "Is that what you called him?" They nodded. "I see." He sighed. "I suppose a demonstration is necessary."

"He's an alien," Michael called out to the group. "Nicholas was here....."

"Nicholas?" Isabel yelled out. Alex moved over to her, and put his arms around her. "He was here?"

"Yeah." Michael rubbed his head where it still hurt from their little reunion. "Dagmar here blasted him away from me." Realizing that Maria was just as afraid as Isabel from this revelation, Michael gave her hand a squeeze. Then he turned his attention back to Dagmar. "Of course, that doesn't exactly tell us what type of alien he is."

Dagmar turned his focus from Max to Michael. "Always the suspicious one, aren't you?" Strangely enough, he didn't seem upset at Michael's doubts, only amused. "Well, that's your way and it's good to see that some things don't change over fifty years and two lifetimes. Here you go." Dagmar held up his hand. Michael stiffened and his own hands started to heat up. He felt Maria drop the hand she had been holding, but he stayed focused on Dagmar. He didn't think Dagmar was a threat, but he wasn't going to take any chances, seeing as how his entire family was out here, vulnerable.

Instead of attacking, Dagmar started to glow. His whole body was washed in an almost blinding blue-white light. Then suddenly, standing in front of them was Dr. Margoles, the man who they had met last year when Agent Topolsky had come into their lives, bringing chaos and fear. Then the light shone around him again, and it was Dagmar once more.

Max broke the silence. "So you're a shapeshifter," he said flatly. "And you claim to have known Michael in his past life, which I assume means you want us to believe you knew all of us in our past lives."

"Oh, yes." He took out some tic tacs and munched on them. Tic tacs? Maria and Liz exchanged surprised glances. "I knew you all quite well. My house isn't far. Why don't we go there and talk?"

Max looked at Michael. Michael nodded, and Max turned to their guardian. "All right then. Where is your house?"

-----------------------------------------------------------

Fifteen minutes later, they were all inside Dagmar's spacious living room. Turned out that Dagmar lived in a ranch house not far from the Roswell city limits. Maria, Liz, and Tess were seated on the couch, with Max in an armchair right next to it. Isabel was seated in the opposite armchair, with Alex perched on the arm. Michael stood protectively behind Maria. Valenti stood along the wall, eyes never leaving Dagmar, who paced in front of the group like a professor about to start the day's lecture.

"Where would you like to start?" he asked agreeably.

"Your name is Dagmar?" Max asked.

"That's as close as you can get to pronouncing it with human vocal cords," he agreed. "I already know all of your names from watching you these last several months."

"Where are we from?" Michael asked.

"Our planet's name is Antar. When you were sent to Earth in your pods, I was sent with three others to help guide and guard you."

"What happened to the others?" asked Liz.

Dagmar stopped pacing and looked at them solemnly. "Apparently, you knew Urza by the name of Nasedo. He's the one who raised you, Tess."

"Urza," Tess whispered. "He never told me his real name. I just called him by whatever name he was using that day."

"Our teela-meis died in the crash."

Maria could sense Michael tensing up behind her, again. "Teela-meis?" he asked. "That sounds familiar. What are they?"

Dagmar looked at Michael with interest. "Life-mates," he answered simply. "Our kind mate for life. You select one other to be your partner for life. They are your teela-mei."

He took a deep breath and continued. "At any rate, when they died, Urza and I were all that was left. We managed to rescue the pods from the army base." Michael remembered Hal Carver's description of the glowing aliens who came for the pods. Hard to imagine that one of those aliens was now standing in front of him. "One set was for me to watch over, while Urza would watch over the other. Urza planned to take his set to New York, and I placed mine here in Roswell, inside the Granolith Chamber. But things didn't go as planned.

"Urza was captured by the army. I had to take his set to New York." He looked at them. "We figured it would be best to hide the two sets in different locations, you see. There was so much depending on the Royal Four," his voice trailed off. Then he started again.

"When I returned to Roswell to check on my set of pods, I was pursued by the army. I hid the communication pod you and Liz found, Max, and was eventually captured as well."

He looked at Max. "I was very proud to see that you and your teela-mei were able to find the orb."

Liz blushed at hearing herself referred to in that way. She glanced at Max, and saw how uncomfortable he looked. She looked away again, realizing that he didn't want to think of her in that way.

"Can we get back to the point?" Max asked harshly.

"Of course," Dagmar said with some surprise. "I was imprisoned, but Urza managed to escape. I learned later that he arrived too late to be there when you three emerged from your pods, but he was able to be there when Tess came out. He took her with him, and moved around the country, checking in with the children in New York when he could. He dealt with the alien hunters in the FBI as he thought necessary."

"You mean, he killed them," Alex said.

"He killed them," Dagmar agreed. "It was always what he did best." Dagmar looked at Michael as he said this. Michael returned the look steadily. Dagmar was the first to look away. "I'm not saying I approve of his methods, mind you. I think his time in government custody left him a bit unstable."

"You think?" Maria muttered.

"Shush, Maria," Michael said absently. Maria looked guiltily at Tess.

"Sorry, Tess, but the guy did kidnap Liz. He wasn't exactly Mr. Rogers."

"No, I think that was supposed to be my job," Dagmar continued with a smile. "Urza was military. My specialty was education. But, as you say, back to the point. I escaped years later. By the time I caught up with Urza, he had changed so much that I wanted nothing to do with him. We agreed to go our own ways, protecting our charges in the ways we saw fit." Dagmar's voice hardened. "Urza had done many things that I could never accept. You called him Nasedo. That was the name I used while I was living on the Indian Reservation here. I stayed there while hiding from the government. I had a friend, two really, a boy named River Dog and a man named Atherton. When I escaped and found Urza, he told me how he'd killed Atherton using my form. He felt that Atherton was too big a threat, that he knew too much." Dagmar sounded bitter now. "Have any of you read Atherton's book?"

"I have," Max volunteered. "Everything in it was wrong."

"Exactly. Atherton used his book to spread false information about us, to keep the government from knowing the truth. He was a friend. Urza didn't need to kill him." Dagmar shook his head. "I still get angry over that, even after all these years.

"I decided that you three were better off without any alien interference as you were growing up. Less chance of anyone noticing you that way. So, I watched you from a distance. The only reason I've come forward now is because you are, to put it bluntly, screwing everything up." Dagmar looked from Isabel to Max. "You've repeated too many of the same errors."

"What errors?" Max asked.

"The same errors from before. The ones that got you all killed."

There was silence in the room. Maria could tell that the aliens were too afraid to ask any more questions. It's one thing to know in an academic way that you had lived and died before, but quite another to know the details and know that you were doing it all over again.

Valenti pushed away from the wall and walked toward Dagmar. "Tell them."

Dagmar looked the human in the eye. "I'm not sure they're ready for the truth."

Valenti didn't look away or back down. "They need to know if they're going to prevent it from happening again."

Dagmar nodded. "In addition to being a very efficient killer, Urza also knew some mental tricks. He taught me one of them, which was the ability to block off memories. I did that for you. I didn't want you to remember your past lives until you were ready to deal with the memories." He looked directly at Michael again. "Although I suspect some of the memories are starting to come back as you approach the time of your Awakening. At any rate, I can release the block now if you wish. Or you can wait for the blocks to deteriorate on their own. It's your choice."

The four aliens looked at each other. Tess nodded, as did Michael.

"You can do it," Alex whispered to Isabel, who slowly nodded.

"All right," Max said. "What do we need to do?"

"Nothing," Dagmar answered. "Just try to relax, listen to me, and the memories should return."

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | Epilogue | Fic