"September twenty-third, journal entry one. I'm Liz Parker and five days ago I died. Then things got really weird," Liz Parker, a small-town sixteen-year-old girl currently attending her sophomore year in high school, writes in her journal. Liz drifts off into her own mind, beginning to muse about the last five days that she has gone through.

  Liz is working in her father's alien-themed restaurant, the Crashdown Café, along with her best friend, Maria DeLuca, also a small-town sophomore in high school. When Liz serves two tourists, Larry Trilling and Jennifer Katler, their burgers, she immediately deduces that they are tourists when they tell her that they are in Roswell for the Crash Festival. Another victim of Liz's attempts to attract tourists, she shows them a fake alien photo. Maria walks by her and sees what Liz is doing, and all she can do is shake her head. Maria walks by two angry customers fighting about a money issue. Liz continues to enchant her fellow victims of her deceit and explain that her grandmother had taken the photo right before the government cleaned up the crash site. She walks away to let them gawk at the photo. Maria scolds her playfully about the photo and then tells Liz that Max, a classmate of hers, is staring at her again. Liz, astonished, looks at the booth where Max and his friend, Michael Guerin is sitting and sees as Max looks down quickly but casually from her direction. Liz, not being able to decipher whether that glance had been nothing more than a glance or a glance of a crush, tells Maria that there is no way that someone like Max Evans would be interested in someone like her, but Maria assures Liz that Max is in fact interested in her. Liz goes on to tell Maria that she is dating Kyle Valenti and describes his normal loyalness to her. Maria, not being able to stand Liz's denial, comments that Liz sounds like she is describing a poodle as she walks away from the kitchen to serve coffee to some customers. Then, one of the men that had been angrily arguing about the money that had to be paid suddenly stands up violently and begins threatening the other. The other man stands up and reveals that he has a gun and they both struggle. Everyone gets down on the floor, except for Liz, who is petrified with fear at the sight of a gun and is unable to recover enough of her senses and get down like everyone else is. A shot rings out and Liz is suddenly on the ground. The two men run from the scene. Max, seeing Liz on the ground, rushes away from the booth, but not without Michael trying to stop him. He brushes Michael off quickly and rushes up to the fallen Liz. When Maria approaches her, Max tells her to call the ambulance. He rips open her waitress uniform, where she had been shot and blood is welling up thickly. When Larry and Jennifer approach her as well, Michael orders them to back away. Max tells Liz to look at him and she faintly opens her eyes. He places his hand over the wound. There is a transition of visions. Max as a kid in elementary school seeing Liz playing with other friends and then little Liz wearing a preposterous cupcake dress and her obviously feeling distressed about it. Max suddenly breathes out heavily a breath he had been holding, pain faintly showing on his face. He lifts up his hand and the wound is closed. He assures her that she is fine. Sirens suddenly ring in the air and Michael demands for the keys to the Jeep. Max throws it to him and he hastily pours ketchup over her wound to hide the blood that had been there before he healed her. He tells her to tell anyone who asks that all she had done was fall and spill ketchup on herself. He runs away from the scene, but not before pleading her to not say anything about the phenomenon that had just occurred.

  Shortly after, Sheriff James Valenti comes to investigate the scene with his deputy, Owen Blackwood. Meanwhile, Maria is trying to describe the two men that had ran away from the scene, but is only able to get as far as calling one a "muscular Beavis" and the other a "beefy Butthead." The sheriff asks Liz how she's doing and she does exactly what Max asks her to do: tell the sheriff that she had only fallen over and spilled ketchup over herself. Larry and Jennifer, the two tourists are nosing around in the back, where Liz had been when she had fallen. Deputy Blackwood tells them that they shouldn't be back there, but Larry advances to tell the sheriff that the bullet hasn't been found yet, and they weren't able to find it in the direction that the bullet was shot, where Liz had been. To cause even more trouble, Larry gives the sheriff the fake alien photo that Liz had given them to see. The sheriff hands it back to Liz's father, Jeffrey. As Liz's father scolds her for showing the alien photo, Valenti comes upon the booth that Max and Michael had been sitting at, noticing the two empty bottles of Tabasco sauce. Jennifer tells the sheriff that there had been two boys Liz's age sitting there. Liz, trying to protect Max even through her confusion about what had happened, tells the sheriff that she thinks that they were tourists, since she didn't recognize them, but Larry pipes in that it looked like she knew them.

  Liz comes back home, exhausted from all the interrogation and confusion she experienced that afternoon. She looks in the mirror and pokes her finger through the bullet hole in her dress to reassure herself that what happened really did happen. Realizing that the dress would be evidence against her lies, she takes off the uniform and stuffs it in her backpack. When she walks by her mirror, a silverhandprint is on her stomach, where Max had placed his hand.

  The next day at school, Max arrives tardy to Biology, where he is Liz's lab partner. He puts a pencil in his mouth as he starts arranging his books on the desk, while Liz stares at him for a moment. The Biology teacher announces as part of the lab that day, they were to take their own cheek cells and look at it under the microscope. Max stops what he is doing, puts his pencil down, and asks for a bathroom pass. When he leaves, Liz looks at her own cheek cells and thinks as she stares at the pencil that Max has just put down. She scrapes some of his cheek cells and looks at it under the microscope. The cells, to her astonishment, looks nothing like her own. After class, she takes Max into the bandroom, where it is empty, or so she thinks. On walking in, she realizes that Kyle Valenti, the person she is going out with and the sheriff's son, is fiddling around in there. Kyle makes sure that she is all right and Liz tells him that she and Max are studying for a Bio midterm so that she can evacuate him from the room. Although, it is somewhat of a challenge when Kyle brings up another topic about his costume. When he finally leaves, Liz shows Max the silver handprint on her stomach and then attempts to put her confusion in the right words. She explains that she looked at his cheek cells and tries to convince him to let her see his cheek cells again to see if she had gotten the wrong cells. Hesitantly, he tells her that she didn't get the wrong cells. She asks her where he is from and he points up. On her saying that he was from up north, he points higher. Liz then gets the hint that he is implying that he is actually an alien. She thinks that he is joking, but his seriousness proves that he is not. Suddenly frightened that Max Evans isn't who she always thought he was, she tries to get away. Before she walks out, Max pleads her once again that the truth cannot be revealed, his life in is her hands.

  Maria and Alex Whitman, Liz and Maria's best friend, talk about how changed Liz has been since the shooting in the cafeteria at school. Alex, reading the newspaper about the shooting listens to Maria as she talks about Liz avoiding her. She complains that Liz had sat next to Pam Troy instead of her, and Liz hates Pam Troy. Alex assures Maria that it is nothing; Maria is just being paranoid and Liz is just fine. Meanwhile, Max, Michael, and Isabel, Max's sister, talk about what Max had done. Isabel is complaining that she felt as her life had started getting normal and Max had ruined it by healing Liz. Now, it is obvious that the three of them are all aliens. Isabel goes on to tell Max that they had made rules against exposing their true identity and he had broken them. Isabel then starts to wonder what to tell Liz, and sees the guilty look on Max's face and she realizes that he had told her everything. Isabel tells Max that everything has changed, but Max argues that nothing has changed. Michael takes Isabel's side and tells Max that they have to leave Roswell before they are exposed. When she asks Michael where they could escape to, Roswell has always been their home. Michael goes on to say that Roswell will never be his home. He tells them that it might be home to the Evans because their parents were caring enough to adopt them. Michael's foster father only keeps him around for the monthly check. Meanwhile, Liz walks into the girl's bathroom at school and finds Maria there. When Maria asks her what had happened at the shooting, Liz tells Maria that nothing had happened. Maria pulls out Liz's order book that she had found and shows her the blood on it, which looks nothing like ketchup. Liz avoids her once again, causing a greater gap in their relationship. Max, Michael, and Isabel are driving back home in their Jeep when the sheriff pulls them over. Max assures Isabel and Michael that it's nothing, the sheriff always pulls kids over to make sure that everything is okay. Valenti asks for his license and registration. Max gives it to him and the sheriff tells them to be careful because there had been a shooting at the Crashdown Café the previous day. When the sheriff hands his license and registration back to him, Max kicks an empty bottle of Tabasco slightly. Valenti sees it and tells him to drive safely. When the sheriff drives off, Michael grabs the keys from the Jeep and tells Max and Isabel that they have been exposed and staying in Roswell would only blow their cover. He gets off the Jeep, throws the keys back to Max, and leaves the Evans to ruminate about what he had said.

  Liz and Kyle come back from a date. Kyle is dropping Liz off at her house (also the Crashdown Café), and Liz wonders if he feels things when he sees her. At that awkward moment, Kyle professes that he does feel things, but is unsure what Liz is saying. Liz tells him to forget it and reaches up to the ceiling light to fix something and Kyle sees the silver handprint on her stomach. Liz quickly hides the handprint with her shirt and brushes Kyle off with a good-night, leaving him suspicious. Liz is on her rooftop when Max suddenly calls to her in the front and says that he has to tell her something. They go into the Crashdown to talk. Max tells her that he has always wanted to tell her about his origin and imagined telling her a thousand times. Liz, confused, wonders why. Suddenly, Max tries to hold back a laugh. Liz, even more confused, asks what he is laughing about. Max tells Liz that he can't get the sight of her with the cupcake dress out of his mind. At first, Liz does not know what he is talking about, but soon realizes that he is talking about the time she had to wear a cupcake dress to school when she was in elementary school. She then realizes that she had worn that dress in kindergarten, but she never saw him until the third grade and then concludes that he can read minds as well. Max, trying to assure her, says that he can't read minds. He only saw her in that dress when he made a connection with her while healing her. Not only had he seen her in the dress, though, but he also felt what she had felt wearing the dress. When Liz asks him how she felt about it, Max hits the right chord in telling her that she didn't want to wear it and in wearing it was her greatest embarrassment, but that dress was her mother's pride so Liz had worn it for her mother's sake. Max tells Liz that he wants to make the connection go the other way so that not only does he see the real her, but she gets to see the real him. He tells her that in order for that to work, he has to touch her. When she tacitly assents, he slowly puts his hands on either sides of her face and tells her to let her mind blank out. She starts seeing the real him. Him as a child holding Isabel's hand, both walking in the desert naked. His first day at her elementary school. Max staring at her talking to Maria while he is walking past her in the hallway, bumping into another student. And, "I saw him as he saw me. And the amazing thing was, in his eyes, I was beautiful," Liz thinks to herself.

  The next day, Liz is captivated by what she had just learned about Max. She finds it ironic that when she feels like she has found the love of her life, she found it in an alien. Alex walks into the band room to talk to Liz and walks on her looking around for her backpack. He wants to make sure that she is okay because Maria said something about blood on an order book. Liz tells Alex that Maria is being her typical drama-queen self. Liz tells him that she is fine and that everything is totally okay. Just then, Deputy Blackwood comes in with the principal and asks her to come to the sheriff station to answer some questions for the sheriff. She is at the sheriff's station when he comes in with a folder of a murder case. He shows Liz the murder victim with a silver handprint on his chest, the only apparent cause of death, and asks her if she recognizes the handprint. When she denies that she knows anything about it, the sheriff pushes on to say that Kyle had said he saw a similar handprint, Liz tells the sheriff that Kyle is wrong. She sees the date in which the murder had been documented: November 13, 1959. The sheriff, not believing that Kyle could have been wrong tells Liz that he has to see her stomach himself. Liz tries to convince the sheriff that she had told everyone that she had spilled ketchup, but she finds no way out. She boldly stands up to show the sheriff her stomach, only to realize the handprint is no longer there. Valenti tells her that the mark had disappeared from the murder victim as well and suddenly asks her if she knew Max Evans well. When she tells him that she doesn't know him very well, he asks if he was there at the shooting. She denies that he was there, perhaps too quickly, and asks to go home. Valenti, with one more trick up his sleeve, shows her the backpack she had stuffed her dress with the bullet-hole in. Valenti goes to Agent Stephens, an FBI agent, to report the dress. Although he tells Agent Stephens and argues that she had been shot, Agent Stephens tells him that he will have the uniform checked out in the lab, but he cannot investigate the case further because of its vagueness. He advises that Valenti does not become like his father, James Valenti Sr., put away because of his obsession with finding aliens. Meanwhile, Liz goes to Max during his wrestling class. She demands that Max tell her everything or she would go to Valenti and tell him everything she knew. Max consents quite easily. Liz, trying to collect herself, grabs out a piece of paper that she had written all her questions on. She asks where he had come from and he tells her that he honestly does not know. The ship had crashed before he was born. When she asks that there was really a crash in '47, all he can say is that it wasn't a weather balloon that fell that night. She is still confused that the crash occurred more than 50 years ago, but he is only 16. Max tells Liz that he, Michael, and Isabel had grown as embryos inside incubation pods. Liz moves on to ask what kind of powers he possesses. He tells her that they can connect with people, as she now knows, and they can manipulate molecular structure. He demonstrates it by smoothing out the face of a clay bust and restoring the face back again, explaining that it was the way he was able to heal her. When she asks who else knows about this secret, he tells her that no one, not even his foster parents, know this. She realizes that when he healed her, he risked exposure. When she asks why he had risked so much, he simply tells her, "It was you." Liz smiles, flattered. Then, she tells him that about the photo of the murder victim with the same silver handprint on his chest, marked 1959. She goes on to tell him that Kyle saw the silver handprint on her stomach and that sheriff Valenti suspects him. Max, realizing how close he is to being exposed, tells her that he has to leave. When Liz tries to find out where he is going, she loses him in a crowd of people dressed for the Crash festival that night. Max walks in on Isabel almost done dressing for the festival and tells her that they have to leave.

  Max and Isabel are waiting outside of the trailer park that Michael is living in. When he suddenly jumps in the car with nothing on him, Isabel asks where his things are. He tells her that he is wearing everything he has and Max drives away. Liz is studying in her room when Maria walks in with her costume, ready for the Crash festival. She demands Liz to tell her everything that has been going on, or she would go to Valenti and tell him everything she knew. Caught in a dead end, Liz is forced to tell Maria everything. Maria flips out and Liz follows her to her Jetta, hoping to stop her from telling anyone what Liz had just told her. Meanwhile, Max had just told the both of them about the murder victim in 1959. Michael, excited that there is actually someone else out there, starts to rant about the fact that if they find this person, they can find out everything about themselves. Isabel pessimistically tells him that he might be a potential relative, but this other alien was also a potential killer. Maria, in the Jetta with Liz, is doing a rant of her own. She complains that Liz was on her way to be a valedictorian at W. Roswell High and Maria was going to be her wacky friend, but she can't be a wacky friend to someone who was already wacky. When Liz tries to stop her from babbling, Maria tells her that she has earned the right to babble. Liz then sees Max, Michael, and Isabel driving past them in the opposite lane. Liz forces Maria to follow them and catch up to them. Max, seeing the sheriff's truck, turns to avoid him into a dead-end alley. Maria blocks the opening to the alley and they all get out of their vehicles. Liz tells them that Maria knows the truth now as well. Michael finds this unacceptable and tries to order them to stop blocking the alley. Liz tries to make a compromise by telling them that she had a plan that required everyone to work together. Michael refuses to work with them and tells her that it was their life that is in danger, not hers. Liz goes on to say that if they run, Valenti would know for sure that it was really them. When Max agrees, Isabel argues that she should have known that he would take Liz's side. When Max tells her that he isn't on anyone's side, Isabel commands him to take a side because time was running out. Max takes a side of his own by telling Liz to move the car because he was going to turn himself in to the sheriff, so that Isabel and Michael can escape. Seeing that Max's decision is final unless if they take Liz's plan, Isabel finally asks to hear Liz's plan.

  Liz goes to Kyle's house dressed up in leather for the Crash festival. Kyle tells her that he waited for her at the festival for an hour and a half. Liz apologizes to him for being a jerk, making sure to give him a puppy-eyed look. Maria is walking with Isabel through the festival to carry out the plan that Liz has set forth. They see Alex on the way and he finds it odd that Maria would be walking with someone that she did not know very well. Back at Kyle's house, Liz tells him that she will meet him at the festival at the podium in half an hour. She walks away from the house and when she is behind the bush, she pulls out her cell phone and calls Max, informing him that they have half an hour. Michael, sitting next to Max as he is driving the Jeep tells him that her plan is not going to work. Valenti arrives at the Crash festival and Deputy Blackwood points out where Max is, wearing a simple tux as a costume and eating a corn dog. When the deputy asks Valenti why he is after Max, the sheriff brushes him off quickly as he approaches Max. Isabel is telling Maria to roll on the floor to get her costume dirty. Maria hands Isabel the keys to her Jetta, warning her that the Jetta could not get harmed in any way. Isabel takes the keys and Maria lies back on the ground. Max is throwing away the stick for his corn dog when the sheriff suddenly approaches him. Valenti asks what he did to Liz at the shooting and Max denies doing anything to her. Valenti cuffs him, telling Max that he doesn't believe that. When Max asks why Valenti isn't reading his rights, the sheriff asks him, "Do you have any?" Liz is walking through the festival when she accidentally bumps into the two tourists in their costumes, Larry and Jennifer. They follow her, when they all suddenly hear something crashing. Isabel has pretended to have run over Maria and runs away. Suddenly, someone in an alien costume runs up to Maria and places his hand on her chest. Alex comes up to the figure for fear that he is harming Maria. The person in the costume pushes Alex down and runs away. The sheriff approaches the unconscious Maria and she suddenly wakes up. He sees a silver handprint on her chest and Larry spots the figure running in the direction of the podium. He orders Deputy Owen to watch over Max as he chases the figure in the alien costume. He finally spots person in the crowd in front of the podium, standing around casually, perhaps impatiently. When the sheriff grabs him, he suddenly turns around and takes off his mask to reveal--his own son. Kyle asks his father if he had seen Liz. Sheriff Valenti, baffled beyond words, tells him that he hasn't. Valenti looks at his fingers where he had touched the silver handprint on Maria's chest and realizes that it is only silver paint. In a portable lavatory, Michael takes off the same costume that Kyle is wearing and throws it into the toilet.

  Valenti, frustrated, throws Max against a trailer. He tells Max that the material on his hand is paint. Max tells the sheriff that he was only in the diner to eat and he ran away when the gun went off. Valenti, seeing that he has no evidence for Max's arrest, releases him, vowing that he would find out the truth. In front of the podium, Jonathon Frakes is counting down until a simulation of the crash of '47 would drop the alien spaceship. When the alien spaceship crashes to the ground, Isabel and Michael, later joined by Max, watches dismally as three alien bodies lie on the ground, burning after falling from the spacecraft. Max sees Liz on top of the hill, also watching, and makes his way to her. He puts a stray piece of hair behind of hair, telling her that she had a hair-thing as a pretext. He tells her that it's not safe for them to have a normal relationship, but Liz tells him that she doesn't care about the complications. Max confesses that he wishes for something between them that could mean something, but it couldn't be. They were just different. She realizes that she had never thanked Max for saving her life that day. On telling him her thanks, he thanks her instead. "It's September 24th, I'm Liz Parker and five days ago I died. But then the really amazing thing happened. I came to life," Liz ends her journal entry.