I'm standin' on the bridge
I'm waitin' in the dark,
I thought that you'd be here,
By now.

Walking on the crackling leaves, he decided that he liked rain. It would have been better if it was a summer rain of course, but even that big cold drops had a relaxing effect on him. He shoved his hands deeper in his pockets to keep them warm, and kept walking through the woods, towards the bridge he knew was there from his earlier exploration of the area.

He knew he never had been a normal person. He was an alien after all. But he couldn’t help but wonder whether he would be walking there if he had been human. Would a human just leave his brother’s family gaping after him and just walk out to a wet cold night? The better question was would any sane creature do that? Human, alien… He wasn’t like any of them…

He had never admitted that out loud, but all he had ever wanted was to feel belonging. He wanted to belong somewhere. His search for his home planet had never been an adventure for him, even though everyone liked to see it that way. It was his only hope at not being the odd one in a crowd. He wished just for once in his life to be in a place where everyone was like him, understood him. But that, of course, was nothing but a dream.

He knew in his heart now, even if he didn’t have a solid proof, that he would always be the odd one, even in his so called home. He had to be a mistake of the nature or something, because his family who shared all his alienness had found a home, right there on Earth. But he on the other hand, only had a dream he hoped would fade away in time.

He walked slowly, taking his time, he had no reason to hurry. Max wouldn’t be worried, he was used to his weird behaviour. Tess and the kids, well they could just go to hell for all he cared.

No, that wasn’t true. He did care. At least enough to not want anything bad to happen to them. Was he capable of caring more? That was a good question. He supposed everyone in his life would say no to that. He wasn’t sure if it was true, if he wanted it to be true.

The cold wind was causing whispers around him, as if the trees were talking to him. In his head they screamed at him that he couldn’t run from himself. He chose to ignore it for the time being. He could at least run from life, right? He could run, and never look back. He could pretend.


There's nothin' but the rain,
No footsteps on the ground,
I'm listening but there's no sound,

He closed his eyes and listened. His footsteps, whistling wind, rain drops… The sounds of autumn. The sad thing was, it was beautiful. He knew life hated him, and there was nothing he could do about it, but he couldn’t help but love it.

Hearing a sound, his eyes snapped open. That wasn’t autumn. No, it didn’t belong there. He walked slowly as to not make a sound and concentrated. A woman’s voice, soft, melodic. She was singing. It sounded like… a lullaby.

He kept walking, and the voice grew stronger. Was he dreaming? Who else –beside him- would be out in a weather like this? But there was a sad tone to the voice that told him he couldn’t be dreaming. It didn’t have the perfect dream-like quality, it held emotion. Too much raw emotion. He could even hear the suppressed sobs. He advanced in a trance, both fearing and anticipating to see the source of it.

When he stepped on the old bridge, he saw her. She was sitting on the edge with her back to him, her legs dangling from the side. Her hair was plastered on her bare shoulders, long and golden. He thought it probably was a lighter colour when it was dry. She was rocking softly as she sang and looking down to the water under the bridge. What the hell was she doing there, she didn’t even have a coat. So there were people out there even more f-ucked up then he was.

Her body slumped forward as he watched, and for a minute he thought she was falling. Then he heard the sobs. He looked around, not knowing what to do, and slowly approached her, cursing his luck. It wasn’t a good time to play psychologist to an insane chick.


I'm lookin' for a place,
I'm searchin' for a face,
Is anybody here I know,
Cause' nothin's goin right,
And everything's a mess,
And no one likes to be alone.

Standing right behind her, he said the first thing that came to him. Not so surprisingly it wasn’t hello. “Thinking about jumping?”

Her body tensed, but she didn’t turn to look at him. “Go away,” she said in a low voice, between her sobs.

“Wish I could…” Michael said with a sigh. “…but, see, if I leave you here, and you jump, then I’ll have to deal with guilt on top of all my other problems.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“Exactly. That’s why you can't jump right now. Go home, and slit your wrists or something.”

She chuckled, “I thought about that, but I hate to see blood. I’d probably pass out before I slit them all the way. And it would suck to survive that…”

So he was having a conversation about suicide technics, with a suicidal and probably insane chick, on a bridge in the middle of nowhere in a freezing weather. Was that weird? No, actually the weird thing was he was enjoying it.


Isn't anyone tryin' to find me?
Won't somebody come take me home.

Stepping closer, he sat next to her. All his muscles were aching from the cold, but he told them to shut up. He noticed her shifting, giving him more place to settle, and smirked. Weird chick. His boots brushed her leg, and he looked down. Her feet were small and bare, he didn’t even want to think how cold she was. Where had she come from, he wondered, half naked with bare feet?

“How would you have done it?” she said, turning her head and meeting his eyes.

His breath caught in his throat. She was… He tried to find a word for it, but they seemed too artificial, ordinary. Her eyes were the most bright green he'd ever seen, and her lashes curved just perfectly… Her pink lips, small nose… She was perfect. But that wasn’t it. The look in her eyes was so pure and sad. She said everything he had ever wanted –and failed- to voice in just one look.

“I… I… don’t know…” he stammered. He knew he was staring, but he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t tear his eyes away.

“What are you doing out in this weather?” she asked, her curiosity apparent in her eyes.

He shrugged and looked down to their legs. “Just walking… Thinking.”

She looked at him for a moment, and turned away. She somehow suspected that he wouldn’t appreciate her pushing this particular subject. They sat in silence, listening to the rain and finding a little warmth in each other.

“Life sucks,” she muttered under her breath. It felt weird to hear something so negative from her own voice. For years she had played the part of the perky friend so perfectly, it was hard to realize even for herself that she could be so bitter inside.

“No it doesn’t.”

“Yes, it does. At least mine sucks. I don’t know about yours…”

Michael smirked. How could her life –or anyone’s- could suck more than his? It wasn’t possible. “My life sucks too, believe me. But that doesn’t mean life in general sucks. It’s not possible, there are lots of happy people out there…”

“You're not happy?”

He didn’t even have to think to answer. “No, I'm not. I don’t think I've ever been.”

“That is sad. I think I was… once… when I was four or five…”

“That explains it then, I never was four.”

“What?” she asked, laughing.

The words left his lips without hesitation. From the moment he had left Max’s cottage, he knew deep down he had left nothing to lose. “I was six when I hatched from my pod. I'm an alien.” Raising his hand, he sent a wave of energy, and splashed some water around. So it wasn’t the best explanation, but he thought it was a decent one considering that it was his first and only.

After a moment’s silence –which stretched to an eternity for Michael- she turned to face him, and met his eyes with her sad look. “You're not real, are you?”

“I think I am,” Michael said, not quite sure of her mental health. Maybe his declaration had pushed her over the edge and she had lost what was left of her sanity.

“I wanted a saviour, so I subconsciously created you. I should've guessed it. Who would be out here in this weather? I know I've lost it. My sick mind is adding weird things to my fantasy now. And soon I’ll be running around, telling people I've been abducted by aliens. Oh my god, and mom would probably believe it. I may be thinking about jumping right now, but I don’t want to spend my life in an asylum if I choose live. I can't…”

Her voice trailed off as Michael's hand held her chin softly and turned her face towards him. “You're NOT hallucinating.”

She held her breath as she gazed deep in his chocolate brown eyes. His face was so close… Too close… Her eyes studied his face in fascination. He was perfect. How could he be real? Meeting his eyes, she whispered, “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I'm sure…”

“Okay…” she whispered, watching his eyes drop to her lips. She licked her lips, and shivered in anticipation.

But the kiss never came.

Pulling back a little, he took off his coat. “Here…” he said, feeling awkward, and placed the coat on her shoulders.

She pushed his hands away. “I don’t want your coat…” she said in the tone she'd used since her childhood whenever she felt disappointed.

“You're cold!” Michael said, pushing the coat towards her once more. It was the first time in his life he'd ever given a girl his coat, but he knew she wasn’t supposed to act like this.

“No, I'm not!” she insisted, avoiding his eyes and pouting at the water below them.

“TAKE THE DAMN COAT!” He wrapped the coat around her. Much better. “You're annoying, you know that?

“I'm annoying?!? Huh!”

“Yes, you're annoying…” he said, his hand combing his wet hair back.

“So what?” she said looking at him defiantly, “…at least I'm not an alien!”

Michael couldn’t stop the grin that crept up his lips. All his life he had wondered what people’s reactions would be if he'd told them. But that wasn’t one he'd considered. The chick was way too weird. That was probably the reason he was drawn to her so much.

Taking off one of his silver rings, he closed his palm over it and concentrated. When he opened it a moment later, there was a little silver leaf in his palm. He handed it to her triumphantly. “But I get to do cool stuff like that…”

“Wow…” she whispered, looking at the perfect little leaf in her hand, matching the fallen ones around them in detail and beauty. “Do you have a name, or should I call you E.T.?” she asked, without meeting his gaze. There was something about the way he looked at her. She wasn’t sure if she could control herself if she chanced a look.

“Michael Guerin,” he said, extending his hand for her to shake.

She tentatively reached with hers and held his hand, warmth and tingles covering her skin instantly. “Maria DeLuca.”

Her eyes met his involuntarily, and all air left her lungs once again, leaving her slightly panting. The sensible part of her brain screamed at her to turn away, but her body had stopped listening a long time ago. She waited impatiently for him to move, do something, but all he did was to look away again.

She felt her cheeks blush from… anger? Frustration? Irritation? Pure hatred?

Pushing the coat down from her shoulders, she pulled her legs up. She wasn’t going to sit there, and let a guy, an alien, whatever, screw up her mind even more. His hand on her arm stopped her as she tried to get up.

“Where are you going?”

“I… have somewhere to be…”

“Really? I somehow doubt that…”

She pulled her arm out of his grasp. “I have to go, okay? Nice meeting you, bye!”

His heart was pounding in his ears as he tried to find a reason to ask her to stay. “I thought you were going to jump?” he asked, and knew it was the wrong thing to say the moment he said it.

“You want me to jump? Okay, I’ll jump,” she said in irritation and let her body fall forward without even thinking.

Michael’s arms grabbed her waist from behind, and she heard his muffled curse as he pulled her against his body. “I don’t want you to jump!” he said to her hair.

“Why not?” she shrugged, her body slumping on his chest.

“Cause… life’s beautiful…” he said in desperation. “And you're beautiful…” he added softly. “…even more than life. So don’t…”


Oh, why is everything so confusing,
Maybe I'm just out of my mind,

Her head dropped to rest on his shoulder, her shaking hands gripping his arms around her waist. They sat in silence till Michael remembered that she had dropped the coat. “You're going to catch your death…” he whispered, not ready to let her go, but also not wanting to let her catch cold.

She chuckled. “That was kinda the point…”

He reached for the wet coat and turned her body a little to place it on her shoulders again. He was painfully aware of her body’s every little movement against his. A part of his brain was telling him that he needed to take her somewhere warm and dry, but that meant letting her go and maybe not seeing her again. And that just sucked.

He held her close, as she sat on his lap, her cheek resting on his chest. He was really content in that position, and didn’t give a damn about the cold. But when she started to shiver in his arms, he knew they had to get up.

“Maria?”

“Hmmm…”

“Do you live around here?”

“No.”

“How did you get here then?”

“I drove.”

“Okay, where’s your car?”

She pointed the other end of the bridge, away from Max’s cottage.

“Let’s go,” he said, waiting for her to get up. But she didn’t move.

“Maria?”

“What?”

“We gotta go.”

“I don’t think I can move… I can't feel my feet…”

“Sure you can,” Michael said, trying to convince himself. One of his hands trailed down her naked calf to her foot and started to rub it to bring some warmth. She was cold, cold as ice, cold as dead. He shivered at the thought and started rubbing faster.

Tilting her head up, she watched his face as he concentrated on her feet. What was that she was feeling? A crush? Infatuation? She knew how those felt; butterflies in the stomach and all. This wasn’t like that. Her heart was constricting when she looked at his face. He was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. Not just his hands, or his lips, or his voice… Everything about him, all of him… Beautiful.

She inhaled his scent deeply and sighed. “You smell like rain…”

He smirked down at her. “I wonder why?” he said sarcastically.

He was annoying, sexy, irritating, gorgeous… Her hands reached to cup his face as he was turning it back towards her feet, and she felt grateful that she had at least had some feeling left in them. Her fingertips were numb, but she could feel his stubble under her palms.

He looked at her; surprised, and a little hopeful. All she could do was pull him closer and catch his cold lips with hers.

Michael hesitated only one second, then tightening his arms around her, he pulled her body closer and met her tongue with his. He caressed her lips and tried to warm them. Her arms wrapped around his neck, and he felt her pull even closer to him, plastering her body against his. He forgot for a moment where they were, and just enjoyed the feeling.

They pulled back, breathless. Michael opened his eyes and studied her face with interest. She kept her eyes closed, and placed soft kisses along his chin and down his neck. Michael moaned when her lips touched his cold skin and set it on fire.

“Maria?”

She pulled back reluctantly to look at his face, and Michael shivered with the loss of her lips.

“You're freezing.”

She gave him a dazzling smile and nodded. “I know.”

She looked so… beautiful, innocent, honest; he had to kiss her again. Their lips met, and he swore that this was the last kiss. When he felt her smile against his lips, his mouth curved up a little too. It was weird, but somehow he felt good that she had lost the sadness in her and was smiling.

Forcing himself to pull back and get up, he pulled her carefully up with him. She winced when her feet touched the ground, but she was smiling again when he met her eyes. “You okay?” he asked, feeling an unfamiliar protectiveness towards her.

“Never been better…”

He held her hand tightly and pulled her in the direction of her car. “We should go, and… you know…”

“Live?” she offered with the smile he began to love.

“Yeah…” he said, and started to walk towards the rest of his life.

It's a damn cold night
Tryin to figure out this life
Won't you take me by the hand
Take me somewhere new
I don't know who you are but I,
I'm with you.

The End