Part 12 - The Calm Before The Storm

Michael finished cleaning up after his shift at the Crashdown. He looked down at his watch. Good - it was only four in the afternoon. Still plenty of time to go over and see Maria. He was out the door and on his bike before he even stopped to wonder about why he was going to see her.

Simple, he thought to himself. I just want to make sure she's okay. Nothing more than that. I'd be doing the same thing if it was any of the group injured. A little voice in his head laughed at the idea of his rushing over to see Kyle if he was hurt, but he ignored it. The simple fact was, it had been Maria who had gotten in the way of that Skin yesterday, Maria who had been thrown down on the floor so hard that she almost died, Maria who he saw lying there, blood gushing through her blond hair.

Michael sped up his bike, trying to block out that last image. He could still taste his panic as he realized she was dying, and he was the only one available to help her. The fact that he had been able to make the connection was almost enough to make even him believe in a generous God who granted miracles and second chances. He steadily refused to consider what happened after he formed the connection. The images Maria had seen coming from him scared the hell out of him. He didn't even want to think about what all those images of blood and death meant. It didn't help that they'd haunted his nightmares all night. When he woke up, he could just barely remember them. He could remember rushing through strange hallways, hallways he had never been in but which he knew anyway. And somehow he always knew he was going to be too late. Too late for what, was the question Michael didn't know the answer to. Each time the dream ended as he reached a slowly opening door. He awoke before he could see what was waiting for him. Yet, Michael knew that he had been too late. Somehow, he knew that death was waiting for him behind that door, and worse.

Pulling up in front of Maria's house, Michael tried again to figure out what could possibly be worse than death. Despite his certainty in his dreams, he hadn't been able to figure out the answer to that simple question. As he walked up to her door and reached out his hand to ring the doorbell, he suddenly knew the answer. Far worse than dying himself would be losing the people he loved. Losing Maria would be a fate far worse than death.

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The door opened and Amy DeLuca looked at him in surprise. Then she smiled at him.

"Why, hell, Michael. It's always nice to see my favorite little wrestler." Amy moved aside so that Michael could come inside. "And to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?"

Michael looked around. Maria wasn't home. He was sure of it. Which was ridiculous, of course. How could he possibly know whether she was home or not? He decided to see if he was right. "I'm here to see Maria. She didn't have to work today, and I wanted to make sure she was doing okay."

"Well, you know, it takes more than a bump on the head to stop my daughter for long. She's fine. Actually, she's not home." Amy was looking at Michael carefully. "Michael, are you feeling all right?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm fine." Michael pulled himself together. He didn't know how he had known she wasn't there. That scared him, too. He really didn't like feeling this out of control. "Where can I find her?"

"First of all, I want to have your promise that you aren't planning on dragging my daughter and my Jetta off on another one of your glorious lost weekends."

"I have work tomorrow. I promise that I just want to make sure Maria's doing okay."

Amy looked at him closely. Finally, seeming to approve of what she saw, she answered him. "Maria went to the hospital to see Brody." Suddenly, she stepped back from Michael. He hadn't done anything, but his eyes had changed suddenly. So had his body posture. He seemed tense now, ready to attack. Looking at his eyes, Amy remembered a tiger she had seen once when she took Maria to the zoo. Michael looked like that suddenly - ready to spring. She felt the need to calm him down a bit. "She's worried about him. He was hurt worse than she was when the museum was broken into, and she just wanted to make sure that he's okay. That's all, Michael."

Michael realized suddenly that the woman in front of him was slowly backing away. He took a deep breath and tried to relax. It didn't help much. Every instinct he had was telling him to rush over to the hospital and get Maria away from Brody. The intensity of his response scared him even more than his earlier awareness of Maria's absence. He had met Brody several times when he went to the UFO Center to meet Max. The man was weird, yes, and Michael didn't exactly like the way he was always paying so much attention to Maria, but he seemed essentially harmless. So, why did he have this urge all of a sudden to smash his face in? His hands clenched as he almost felt the impact and the feel of shattered bones. Realizing what he was doing, Michael stopped and looked at Amy again.

"Thanks, Mrs. DeLuca. Maybe I'll catch up with Maria at the hospital then." He turned to leave.

Amy had a sudden urge to stop this young man from going near her daughter right then. "Why don't you wait here for her? I'm sure she'll be back soon, and I have some cookies in the oven."

Michael looked back. His eyes traveled across the room, taking in the cookie jar shaped like a green alien head and the stuffed ufos in the corner. "No, thanks." He turned and left, trying to keep from breaking into a run as soon as he was out of the room.

Amy watched him get on his bike and leave. She had known Michael since he started seeing her daughter over a year ago. She liked Michael and for some reason trusted him, despite finding him asleep in her then-sixteen year old daughter's bed and knowing that he was responsible for the various pieces of her car strewn along the highways of at least three states. But for a minute there, the boy she saw in front of her didn't look like the Michael Guerin she knew. He was a stranger. And he terrified her.

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By the time he reached the hospital, Michael had calmed down. Maria was just going to visit an injured friend. It certainly didn't mean she had any romantic-type interest in Brody. She was just like that. She cared about people. Her infinite capacity for forgiveness and love was something that actually awed Michael a little. He couldn't believe that she was able to forgive him for all the times he had hurt her. She always tried to see the good in people. So it made sense that she would worry about Brody, especially since he'd been hurt during one of their alien crises. He didn't know what his problem had been back at the house. What had he been thinking?

You were thinking about knocking Brody unconscious and carrying Maria out of there bodily. Michael had to smile at the image as he entered the hospital. Anyone trying to force Maria DeLuca to go anyplace where she didn't want to go had better watch out for a frying pan upside their head. She wasn't exactly the damsel-in-distress type.

Michael entered the hospital and walked straight past the nurses' station, heading unerringly for Brody's room. It didn't even occur to the alien boy to wonder how he knew where Brody's room was. He just headed in Maria's direction. Somehow, he just knew where she was.

As he got close to the open door of Brody's room, he heard laughter. Two people laughing. Brody and Maria. Michael slowed down as he approached the door. He peered inside the room.

Maria was sitting on the edge of Brody's bed. Brody himself was propped up in bed looking at Maria, still laughing. There were cards in their hands and more piled on the bed between them.

"You are such a cheater," Maria insisted with a smile. "There is no way you had that king of hearts."

"I most certainly did."

"You just happened to have the one card you needed to win. Come on."

"Well, how could the king of hearts resist showing up when there's such a beautiful girl sitting there smiling?" Brody never took his eyes off Maria's face as he asked.

Michael stood there, expecting Maria to make some sarcastic comment about the stupid corny line. Instead, she just laughed again as she looked away from Brody. He was shocked to see that she was actually blushing. Blushing!

Several things happened all at once:

Michael felt a burning in his palms. It took every single ounce of willpower he had not to jump across the room and pummel Brody through the wall.

Images flashed through his mind - he saw Pierce flying through the air, felt that energy flowing through his body and out towards his enemy, heard the sound of the body snapping and breaking as it collided with the wall.

He heard his dupe's voice asking, "You want me to kill him for ya?" and remembers how he had turned it into a joke, ignoring the fact that for an instant he had considered the possibility.

He imagined that blinding light again, only this time it was Brody flying through the air instead of Pierce.

Then, all the lights in the hallway exploded and the building went black.

Maria looked up suddenly and saw Michael staring at Brody. His face had a look that she had never seen before. Before she could figure it out, Michael turned and ran away. She got up quickly and went out into the hall. She didn't see him, but she did see nurses and doctors running around, trying to figure out what happened. Realizing that she wasn't going to catch up with Michael if he didn't want to be caught up with, Maria turned to convincing everyone that the hospital had just been the victim of a bizarre power surge.

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Michael's hands were shaking as he got onto his bike. He refused to think about anything at all as he drove away from the hospital, Maria, and Roswell. He drove for half an hour that way, not stopping until he was far away from town out in the desert. Then he got off his bike and fell to the ground.

The shaking had spread to his whole body by that point. He couldn't seem to stop it. He curled up on his side, wrapping his arms around his knees, trying to make himself as small as possible, hoping that would stop the shaking. It didn't. It never helped. It hadn't worked when he was a small boy, hoping that if he made himself really tiny and didn't make any noise, Hank might not notice him and he wouldn't get hit that night. And it didn't work now when the monster he was hiding from was himself. No matter how far he ran, Michael could never escape what he was - what he had become since that day when he killed Pierce.

"I'm not him," Michael whispered in a small voice. "I'm not. I'm not him." He kept repeating that mantra over and over again, not even really noticing that he was, and certainly not considering who he was talking about. The words came from deep inside him, and while they made no sense, they also seemed to make perfect sense. "I'm not him."

Finally, the shaking stopped. Michael lay there quietly, exhausted. Suddenly his eyes sprang open. He could feel someone watching him. Michael jumped up and looked around. He was out in the middle of nowhere. There wasn't much to hide behind out in that desert area, but he didn't see anyone. Still, he had the feeling of eyes watching him. After a few minutes of fruitless searching, he dismissed his feelings. He was probably just jumpy after what happened in the hospital.

Michael walked over to a pile of rocks. This was his favorite place to come and practice his powers, away from everybody. Here he could practice and think. Michael looked at one of the boulders. He studied it, noticing how solid it looked. Then he imagined hundreds of fine lines coursing through the rock, lines that could be used to tear it apart. Picturing those tiny pieces, Michael held up his hand and concentrated. He felt the familiar burning in his hands and then released his energy. The boulder exploded, pieces of rock flying all around. Ignoring the fragments that flew by him, Michael concentrated on the next rock. As he worked, he tried to figure out what had happened.

Be honest with yourself, Michael. You wanted Brody dead came a small voice in his head.

No, I didn't he argued back. I just wanted him away from Maria.

Why?

Because he's way too old, with way too much money, and I don't trust him.

Now the voice sounded amused. You don't trust him? Let's be real. You're just afraid that Maria won't give you a second glance now that she has someone paying attention who knows how to treat her. This has nothing to do with protecting Maria.

Michael stopped blowing up rocks. The voice (himself, he knew) was right. There was no way that he deserved Maria, but he'd been counting on her always being there anyway. Now she had Brody, a man who treated her like she was a princess and who wasn't likely to get her killed. Deep down, Michael knew that if she stayed with him, he would let her down to. He had failed to protect those he loved before and he would do it again. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine a world without Maria. He couldn't do it - the emptiness inside was too much. Why did he have the feeling that he'd experienced that ache before?

While he was considering that, he suddenly found himself flying through the air, straight at one of his giant boulders.

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