"Maybe. Or maybe it's like the multiverse movies, where there's different versions of me. Either way, I don't remember it. So it wasn't THIS me." The little nudge drew an answering smile, but it was small and bittersweet. "Not all things."

He doesn't know what to make of the declarations. Obviously things changed from what he knows, but how? Another cycle of together before tearing apart? Or did they figure something out that lasted? Or had Alex just remembered further forward, but not far enough to see whenever Michael screwed it up. He didn't have answers, and part of him didn't want to ask because whatever happens there isn't HERE either. "Alien melodrama and multiple abductions?"

"Indulge," Michael's mouth twists. "Eating isn't exactly indulging. And they provide all the food for us slobs, right?" Maybe they could set up a lab and test the food, figure out what they use and develop something that would nullify it ahead of time.

Not exactly his line of work, Liz could probably manage it better than him. But it'd be something to work on.

"If you came back, how do you know you were really dead and it wasn't all some screwed up stage play they make you go through?" Michael asked. "How did you come back?" He paused, and then asked, carefully neutral. "The hot chocolate guy - Valenti?"