The long hot summer seemed endless. Isabel sat looking outside Michael’s window wishing for winter. She missed Alex, and the rest of the gang. Destiny was such a stupid word if you really looked at it. Michael was once again watching a hockey game and eating a bowl of cereal. Isabel tried to get him to go out or do something other than watch television. He was still working at the CrashDown, but he avoided talking to Maria all summer by working opposite shifts. She used to call, but after he refused to talk to her, she stopped.

Isabel ran into Maria a few times. They talked a little, but Isabel felt weird. They were trying to look into the whole destiny thing, and so Alex and Maria had been left on the wayside. Isabel couldn’t imagine how this whole destiny thing was going to work if she and Michael could barely stand spending time together let alone even try kissing or anything else. Her parents were concerned because of the amount of time they were spending together, and the absence of Alex and the others from the picture. All Max did was work and hang around home. He was suffering from depression from the Pierce thing, Tess thing, and especially the Liz thing. Her and Michael spent most of their time talking about Max. Tess was living with the Valentis and actually enjoying having a real home life.

Michael spent time with Tess working on his powers, but most the time he sat at home, mopping. Isabel knew that he was becoming impatient with trying to find more about their past. The best they had achieved was walking around each other, sort of holding hands, but truthfully, they communicated better as brother and sister. Lovers? It wasn’t going to happen. They both seemed to realize it instinctually, but they felt obligated to try.

God, could her life get any more boring? She was running out of things to do with Tess, and Michael was a lost cause. He didn’t want to go to the movies. He didn’t shop. And his idea of dinner was cold cereal and milk. Isabel thought about their human friends with a great sigh. Alex, he was out there somewhere living his life without her.

Isabel heard from others that Maria and Alex had performed all summer with Alex’s band. A friend told her that Alex was actually singing some of his own songs and that they didn’t totally suck. Actually, if she could believe her friend, Alex and Maria were becoming very popular. Maria was left working at the CrashDown during the day and singing with the band at night. Michael tended to work at night while Maria was not around. And the summer kept getting longer and longer, and hotter and hotter with no relief in sight. And suddenly everything changed. Liz came home.

~~~

Maria slowly pulled herself out of bed. The early shift at the CrashDown was becoming a real drag. They were up so late last night working an out of town gig. The trips home from seemed endless. She hated driving though the desert at night where all she could see was the stars. It made her think of Him, and she promised to not do that anymore. The whole singing thing was getting her so much attention from boys in all shapes and sizes, but she was resisting. It was too soon. If she took the chance and started dating it would be too much like a rebound and she couldn’t afford to take any more chances with her heart.

How tired could one person feel? She got in so late last night, something like four in the morning, and here it was already seven and she was going to be late. A nice long hot shower might shake the cobwebs out of the old brain. Maria moved to the bathroom already counting. If she could finish her shower and morning bathroom run in the count of one thousand, she might make it to work. She couldn’t afford to stand under the spray and space out thinking about Him. She wasn’t going to do that anymore. Maria ran herself straight into Valenti. Looking up in horror, there he was, Sheriff Valenti exiting her bathroom wearing nothing but a towel.

“Oh my God.”

“Oh, morning, um..., Maria.” Jim could feel himself starting to blush, but Maria’s expression couldn’t be mistaken for anything short of horror. Her shock was obviously paralyzing her. “Did you need to use the bathroom?”

“Hmm?” Maria just stood there dumbfounded.

“The bathroom? If you need it, I’m finished.” Maria rushed around him and shut the door quickly breathing quickly. Oh my God, Valenti, in her house at seven in the morning, was wearing no clothes. There should be laws against old people being able to warp young people's vulnerable minds. Maria rushed to the drawers at the sink looking for some kind of herbal relief from stress. Breath, just breath, just breath, oh my God, oh my God. Maria turned on the shower, jumped in and drowned her stress in the spray. Her life couldn’t keep sucking like this. It was going to have to rain sooner or later.

Jim went into Amy’s room and watched her sleep. She was really cute, sexy, funny, and really beautiful. Hating to do it, but having few options, Jim shook Amy awake. She was so cute, so beautiful, and he loved the way the first thing she did was smile when she woke up.

“Hi, handsome. Is it time for you leave already?” Amy stretched in the bed and smiled at him.

“Maria.”

“What about Maria?” Jim watched Amy’s eyes clearing and become more intense.

“I just ran into her on my way out of the bathroom.”

“Oh no. Umm, did she say anything?”

“Oh God and hmm. She looked at me like was her worse nightmare.”

“Uh oh. Is she still in the bathroom?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe you better let me handle this. Do you want to wait until I talk to her first and then come in, or would you rather wait to talk to her later?”

“I really wanted to do this with all the kids present. We’re going to have to talk to both Kyle and Tess later.”

“I know, but I can’t wait. With Maria working all the time and then going to all these gigs at night there hasn’t been the time. We really need to take care of this today.”

“Okay, you go first and I’ll slide in when the screaming starts.” Amy slowly extracted herself from the bed and gave him a quick kiss. Lordy, that man was kissable.

Maria was going to be a problem. She was especially down on men every since the whole Michael thing. Amy didn’t blame her. She never wanted to see her daughter so heart broken. If she could’ve found Michael she would’ve broken his arm or something. She really wished that she hit him harder that morning she found him in Maria’s bed.

Jim stopped her from hunting him down. He told her that Michael wasn’t having an easier time either. According to Jim, Michael had so many issues due to his upbringing and he didn’t feel worthy of Maria, and that he was afraid that he would hurt her. Well, he was right. He did hurt her. Actually, Amy was beginning to wonder if the wounds would ever mend. They were right on top of the wounds left unhealed by her father’s leaving.

“Maria.” Maria started as she entered the kitchen. She was hoping to get out of the house without running into either her mom or Valenti. There was no Liz to talk to and this was just too much on top of everything else. Maria stopped dead in her tracks closing her eyes and groaning. Why did she expect to get out of the house without some kind of confrontation? Her life had sucked since May, so why did she expect it change now?

“Mom.”

“About Jim.” Amy rushed on when Maria looked like she was going to bolt from the house. “Maria, I need to ask you to listen to me, and not to interrupt until I tell you everything.”

“Mom, I’m already late for work. Can’t we do this later?” Desperate? Was her voice really that desperate sounding?

“No, we can’t. Maria, Jim and I are getting married.” Maria fainted.

“Jim!” Valenti entered the kitchen quick. He was listening for the arguing and was surprised at the silence and finally Amy calling him. He tried to enter the kitchen but something was blocking the door. Looking around the door, he saw his future stepdaughter passed out on the floor and his future wife frantically fanning her. Damn.

Jim finally got into the room and picked up Maria to take her into the living room. Amy grabbed a wet towel and followed him. Maria regained consciousness to the dripping of water over her face. Looking up into the worried faces of her mom and Valenti, she had a sneaky suspicion that it wasn’t just a nightmare.

“Married? Did you say, married?”

“Yes. Maria? Are you okay, Honey?”

“This isn’t like a belated April Fool’s joke, right?”

“Sorry, Honey.”

“So Kyle’s going to be my brother?”

“Well, him and Tess are going to join the family. Jim and I were going to look around for a new house. If we both put our houses up for sale, we can afford a much larger place.”

“Tess?” Maria quickly looked at Valenti. He gave her a little nod. She closed her eyes and groaned. Great now she was going to be related to His sort of sister. He was never going to leave her alone.

“I need to get to work. Can we talk about this some more, later?” She watched as Valenti and her mom shared a look. She felt sick. “I guess you don’t want me to mention this to Kyle or Tess?”

“No. We’re hoping to have a family dinner this weekend and tell everyone. So please be home this Saturday, Honey. It’s really important to me.”

“Okay, mom. I’ll try. School starts in three weeks, so when are we talking about?”

“When what?”

“Wedding. When’s the wedding?”

“Oh, we’re thinking about a wedding in October. I know it’s coming up fast, but I wanted something more than a register office or a Reno special which would be quicker, but not as romantic.”

“I really need to go.” Maria slowly got up from the sofa.

Jim reached down to help her. She barely stopped herself from shaking off his hand. It wasn’t his fault that she was losing her mom. It was, but it wasn’t. She wasn’t really losing her mom, but everything was changing too much. It was getting too hard to keep up.

“I’ll give you a ride to work.”

“That’s okay. I’ll take the Jetta.”

“Sorry, Honey. The car is in the shop for new brakes. I won’t get it back until tomorrow. Let Jim give you a ride.”

“Sure, okay, why not?” They both started to leave. Maria left the house without looking back because she didn’t want to see them kissing goodbye. That was just too much right now.

Jim looked over at his future step-daughter. She was plastered against the far door, and purposely staring out the window. Jim took a deep breath and decided to enter the breach. He couldn’t put it off forever.

“Are you okay with this Maria?”

“Is it okay for me to say no?” Maria wasn’t sure how honest he wanted her to be.

“Sure. You can say no. I just want you to know that this isn’t a sudden thing between your mom and me. Believe me when I say that I just want to make her happy.”

Maria climbed out of the truck and shut the door. Looking back at him through the open window Maria hesitated before heading into work. “Thank you, Sheriff. If it makes my mom happy, then thank you. You know she hasn’t ever had it easy, but despite all the hardships, she has always been there for me. I just want her to be okay.”

“She’ll be, Maria. I promise. This is going to be for keeps. If it makes it any easier, just think about how you knew before Kyle. That should keep you going all day.”

Maria actually smiled at that. Jim was right. Kyle was going to be pissed when he found out that Maria was already informed of the engagement.

“Do you’ve got a concert tonight? Will you be home before it gets too late?”

“Hmm, already playing the dad? Yes, we’re playing a private party in town. We should close down no later than two. Is this so you know when I’ll be home, or are you really concerned?”

“If you ever need a ride, you can call, okay? Just arrive safe. Your mom wouldn’t be okay with you out there not being safe. If I even think you’re taking chances I’ll make Kyle become your bodyguard.”

“Chill, daddy Jim! Alex always makes sure I get home. Later.” Maria waved and walked away chuckling at the horror of having Kyle following her everywhere. Oh, the horror that was her life stuck in Roswell. It would almost be worth it to see the expression on Kyle’s face, not to mention everyone else’s.

~~~

Maria worked that morning and it was a day like all others. It was two weeks since her mom and Valenti announced their engagement. This summer has been the worse of her life. Liz was gone over the summer, the aliens were staying away from the CrashDown, except Max, and Alex was becoming lost in music and his computers.

Having to give up Isabel to her destiny really was hard for Alex, but it was almost like he was waiting for it. It was like his thing with Isabel was not real. It was such a dream come true, so that when it ended he acted like he had just awoken from a nice fantasy.

Alex seemed determined to find himself in music. Maria was tired of trying to keep up with his lyrics and musical angst until finally she told him that nobody should sing his songs but him. Now he was turning into a teenage rock star before her eyes. The day he wore leather pants she thought she was having heat stroke. It was a real shock to realize that not only was it leather, but he actually looked good in them. Shocking! Then came a nipple ring, a tattoo, and finally that indescribable scruffy beard that just made you ache to shave it off.

She almost started to give him lectures on trying to change his image to attract Isabel, but stopped herself. Looking into the mirror, Maria could see her own hair and it’s longer length. What was she doing? Trying to have flowing locks like a certain alien bombshell?

She hadn’t seen Him in so long that it really was ridiculous worrying about her looks. The music was really invigorating. It was all the tight skimpy clothes and salivating men that kept her from totally thinking she was a zero. But it really didn’t help that the only person she wanted didn’t want her back.

Time to grow up, face the facts of life and go on. Like Alex, Maria started writing music to express her anger and hurt. It was either that or end up in therapy sharing a couch with Max. No matter how totally fucked up she and Alex was, Max was worse.

Max’s depression hit bottom around mid-summer. He stayed in bed for three days and refused to leave because he was too tired. His parents finally decided that it was too much and dragged him off to see someone. Max finally came and found Maria.

At first she really didn’t want to talk to anyone related or anyway connected to Him. But the state that Max was in was just too hard to ignore. Maria finally took him on a long walk around Roswell. He didn’t say anything. She reached out and held his hand and literally dragged him around the park. When they found a park bench she pushed him into the bench and pulled him into her arms. She let him cry softly for a long time. It was strange to be a female walking a guy home, but after she saw him safely home it occurred to her that he hadn’t said a word. She suspected that he was having nightmares about Pierce and Liz’s absence wasn’t helping.

Max wanted to talk to Liz, try to convince her that he only wanted her, and to assure her that she is his destiny. Tess realized early that Max wouldn’t be able to take much more pushing of the whole destiny thing. He was the leader so she backed off and tried to settle into Roswell and make a place for herself among the others.

Maria was confused by the whole situation. She loved Liz more than a sister, but seeing Max it was hard to understand how her best friend could just walk away. If He would let her, Maria would’ve stayed with Him through thick or thin, but He wouldn’t even talk to her or return her calls. It was time to call it quits. But Max couldn’t do that. He needed the hope that Liz would come to her senses and that they were truly meant to be together.

Three weeks ago Max came to one of their gigs. He walked Maria home afterwards and at her house gave her a medallion from him. It was a symbol of their new friendship and growing love. It was a necklace much like the one found at Atherton’s house, but the symbol was different. She didn’t know what it meant and doubted that Max did either. The thought and gesture was so touching she couldn’t refuse the gift, even though she swore off Czechoslovakians.

Max was fast becoming one of her closest friends. He was the only person she had to talk with about Him, or at least could understand her pain. Max understood her and how hard it was because he was living through the same thing. It was hard not to place blame on Liz, not to see her action as nothing more than His actions. They both seemed to think they were sacrificing their own feelings for the good of Maria and Max, but why were Maria and Max, the ones left destroyed by the summer?

“He still loves you, Maria.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Max.” Maria looked away to avoid Max’s eyes.

“He’s just afraid. Looking for his destiny all his life, and then finding it and it betrayed him. It wasn’t what he expected or even wanted.”

“Max I’ll not talk about this. If he loves me, then why is He with Isabel? I’m sure He doesn’t treat her the way He always treated me. Do you know how hard it was just to keep talking to you? All I wanted to do was slam that door shut, but I couldn’t and sometimes I hate myself for that. I wanted to be stronger.”

“Thank you, Maria.”

“For what?” She finally looked at him as the sincerity of his voice reached her.

“For not closing that door. You saved my life. All the therapist in the world couldn’t make me want to be me, to get up and join the living, but you did.”

“You’re welcome.” Maria took Max’s hand into hers and held it tight. “I love you, Max.”

“I love you too, Maria.”

“It amazes me that when I finally find myself a brother my mom goes and gets me one, too. But I have to tell you, Max. I enjoy having you as a brother more than Kyle. That boy is like having a large sweaty dog in the house. He takes up all the room, dominates the television for stupid sports, and sits around glaring at everyone in his pissed off manner. I dragged his worthless ass home three times last week totally plastered. He even had the nerve to ask me if I wanted to get nasty with him in the back of his car.”

“He didn’t?” Max was trying to decide whether to be outraged or amused.

“Yep, he did and then he just sobered up really quick. Of course that was after I turned the water hose on him. He apologized for being so nasty, and that it was just hard for him. It seemed like he never had time with his dad and now he was gonna have to share the small amount of time he did get with even more people.”

“That’s kind of tough. What did you say?”

“I told him that if it mattered so much I’d happily give him my share of Jim Valenti. The creep grabbed the water hose and wet me down. He’s gone right now. Jim sent him to visit a cousin or aunt of someone for the next week, something about an annual fishing competition that they always enter. I wasn’t paying attention. It sounded too boring. So Big Jim is stuck home babysitting our girl Tessie.”

“Tessie?” Max didn’t even try to keep the amusement out of his voice.

“It’s what Jim calls her. She seems to like it. I guess Nasedo wasn’t big on terms of endearment or even nicknames. I had to take a pie over the other day and found them having a large argument. Something about Tess keeping her room clean and stop changing the color of the furniture every few days. It was actually kind of interesting. Tess seemed to be enjoying herself arguing with him.”

“Remind you of anyone we both know?”

“I’ll not talk about Him, Max. Let it go. It’s over.”

Maria wasn’t sure how she was going to take seeing Liz again after this summer from hell. It was just too much having to watch Max suffering. Last year was so much easier for him. He sat and watched Liz from afar, but the last spring he finally was able to actually have his one greatest desire, and then to have that dream torn away by his own nature, his own destiny. It was killing him. All around, it sucked for everyone. No one was getting what he or she wanted and it looked like it was never going to rain. And then everything changed. Liz came home.

~~~

Everything felt different that morning. Maria woke up late for work, again. She was almost happy about school starting in one week. At least the late nights would end and her work schedule at the diner would even out to allow for studying. Max was coming to the diner today for lunch. He made her promise to save him the summer special of watermelon alien blast, which was so disgusting that Maria almost gagged every time she had to make one. But somehow whenever Max put Tabasco in it and drank it with gusto Maria felt the need to flee the room. She was glad that today was the last day that this summer special was being offered. Trust Max to figure out that this was it for his little reign of terror at the CrashDown.

Max went to work earlier than usual. He made Isabel, Michael and Tess promise to meet him at the CrashDown for lunch. Summer was almost over and once they were back at school it was going to be hard for Michael and Isabel to avoid meeting Maria and Alex.

It seemed kind of cruel, but Max needed all his friends back. Michael tried to worm his way out of the meeting, but Max made up a story about finding some stuff at the UFO Center and that he would bring it lunch. It was time for Michael to come back out of his shell. He literally stayed hidden inside for the entire summer. Isabel hated it. She wanted to go places and do things. It was time for Michael to live up to his responsibilities if he wanted to date his sister, then he needed to start treating her like a real person and not a mole.

As he was opening the Center a car drove up to the CrashDown and stopped. There was a young woman getting out of the parked car. She looked familiar to Max. He stared harder. Oh my God, it was Liz. She was back. Max wanted to cross the street, but Liz entered the diner. Lunch, he could wait until lunch to see her. She looked so different from even across the street. Liz was wearing a tailored suit with jacket and she was with an older woman. They had entered the diner together without looking around.

Maria looked up at the new customers entering the CrashDown. An older woman and a younger woman came in and looked around. It actually took Maria a few seconds to recognize Liz. Oh my God, it’s Liz. She looked different, almost grown up. Maria hurried over to her best friend.

“Liz?”

“Maria!” Liz quickly hugged Maria tight and slowly pulled back to take in all the changes. It seemed like a lifetime since she saw her best friend, not just a summer.

“Maria your hair is long. I love it. How are you?”

“Fine. So, the hair, does it work?”

“It’s great. You’re like this total babe. God I missed you. Oh, this is my new boss, Congresswoman Whitaker. I’m doing an internship with her.”

”Please to meet you. So you’re going to be doing work in Roswell? It’s kind of a small town, not much to do. So I’ll just tell you how nice it was to meet you now because after you spent a few days here you’ll start looking for the ways out of town.”

“So you are Maria. I heard so much about you. It’s so nice to finally put a face to the name. Liz? We need to get this paper work done with your parents. The rest of the staff is meeting us here at lunch so let’s get this done so we’re ready for them. Maria, it was a pleasure.” The older woman walked off towards the back room and stopped to wait for Liz.

“Sorry I can’t talk right now Maria. But I need to get all the forms and permission slips done today so I can continue to work for the Congresswoman. Can we get together tonight?”

“Alex and I are playing at a party in an abandon warehouse tonight. I’ll leave directions in your locker if you want to come and see us both. Alex is really getting good and has his own little groupie fans started. And…”

“Maria. I really have to go. I’ll see you tonight, okay?”

“Sure. Later.” Maria watched Liz take the older woman through the back door to meet her parents.

Liz was home and yet Maria still felt alone. She went over to the phone by the cashier’s desk and decided to wake Alex up before his usual noontime-waking hour and give him the skinny on the return of Liz Parker.

~~~

“Michael, we promised that we would meet Max. This is getting ridiculous. You can’t spend your life avoiding Maria.”

“I’m not avoiding Maria. I spend enough time at the CrashDown working there every night. I don’t want to spend my off hours there, too. This isn’t about Maria, okay?”

“No. It’s not okay. I can’t believe that we’ve stayed cooped up in your dirty apartment just because you can’t stand to face your old girlfriend. No one told you to avoid her, not to talk to her. That was your decision.”

”If you don’t like my apartment Isabel you can either clean it to your standards or leave. No one is forcing you to stay.” Michael looked at his..., Isabel critically. He didn’t see her rushing to talk to Alex. This whole summer was a waste, and they were no closer to understanding themselves then before, only difference was they were lonelier.

“Yeah they are. You are. This whole destiny crap is getting on my last nerve. It sucks. You suck, and I suck. We collectively suck. We’ve spent the entire summer staying away from the very people we want to be with, and for what? Tell me Michael, for what?”

“Isabel, you know why. We’re engineered for each other. The book, the dreams, and the message they all tell us what we’re suppose to be together. I waited my whole life to find out why I was here. I can’t throw that away, Isabel. I need to know.”

“Fine. Then let’s just get this knowing out of the way. Kiss me.”

“What?” Michael looked at her in shock. He wasn’t ready for this.

“You heard me. Kiss me right here, right now. Take me in your arms and kiss me, pull me onto the sofa and get at it. I know you can because I’ve witnessed you actually wrap yourself around Maria with her clothes all over the place. So if we’re destined to be together, to make babies, and then let’s get it on. Because I swear Michael if I have to watch another hockey game I’ll kill you in your sleep.”

“Isabel, I can’t.”

“You can’t what? You can’t kiss me, or you can’t throw me down on the sofa and suck face with me with half the passion you’ve got for Maria? What Michael? What can’t you do?”

“Maria has nothing to do with this.” Michael anger was increasing and Isabel wasn’t looking to calm herself with her arms wrapped around her waist and tapping her foot in that annoying manner she had.

“Maria has everything to do with it and you know it. So either admit it or prove me wrong.”

Isabel hardly got the challenge out of her mouth before her mouth was engaged with Michael’s. She could feel his frustration and anger like a wave, and it that split second she felt Maria, everything Maria. It was like Michael’s whole life and feeling were overran and conquered by his love for one little earth girl. As suddenly as he grabbed her, they both pushed away breathing heavy.

Isabel stood still in shock with her hand over her mouth. “Oh my God, Michael?”

Michael moved even further away from her and covered his eyes with his hands. Oh that was bad. Wrong. Weird. It actually made his stomach upset.

“That was just wrong. Oh, yuck, did you have to put your tongue in my mouth. This is going to haunt me for years. Just so my life can really get bad, maybe Max will kiss me too, then I can really be disgusted.”

Michael wasn’t looking at her. He was so quiet, so non-responsive just standing there with his hands shielding his eyes from her. She noticed the tremors in his body. Oh please don’t tell me he felt something from that kiss. Finally a chuckle escaped from behind Michael’s hands and Isabel’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“What’re you laughing at? Michael?”

“God Isabel, no man should have to see his sister’s internal lust for Alex Whitman. That was damn disturbing.”

“Shut up. You’re a fine one to talk, Mr. ‘I feel nothing and Maria has nothing to do with it’. Excuse me for saying, but you’re so full of it. Maria is everything. Everything Michael. There’s so much of her inside you that you can’t even think straight. Why?”

“Why what?” Michael finally looked at Isabel comfortably for the first time this summer.

“Why did we waste this summer staring at each other when we could’ve been having fun with the people we love?”

“I had to know Isabel. I needed to know.”

Isabel could understand that, and she promised to be there for him, but still...“Damn you Michael, did you have to use tongue? That was disgusting.” Isabel was moving around flopping her arms to make a point.

“Spare me, Isabel. It wasn’t a walk in dreamland for me either. What are we gonna do now?”

Isabel threw herself down on the sofa and pulled Michael next to her. They both stared intensely into each other’s eyes. It was there, all of it. Their collective past, the connection they might once had, but it was different almost in a language that was barely recognizable, and the connection they shared now as brother and sister, as family. They both started to laugh at the outrage, the pure ludicrous though of them being together as anything more than family. If they were engineered to mate and be together, their makers made a mistake. Something had gotten lost in the translation.

“It’s so good to hear you laugh again, Michael.”

“I missed you, Iz. I missed my sister. Sitting here all summer trying to think of you in another way wasn’t cutting it. All I could think of was strangling you if you changed your nail polish one more time or rearranged the furniture again.”

“Yeah, and what about you? You weren’t the paragon of my lust either. I was going to strangle you with your own bandana if you ate one more bowl of cereal. I would’ve explained to the authorities that I was saving you from yourself and an endless fascination for fruit loops.”

They rolled around the sofa hitting each other and laughing. Michael finally settled back with Isabel in his arms hugging her close. This felt so much more like home than all the hugs of the last few months. Those hugs were cold and lacked any true connection, but this hug was like coming home. Isabel, his sister was finally back.

“What are we gonna do, Isabel?”

“I’m gonna meet our demented brother Max for lunch, and then I’m gonna go meet my destiny head on.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Alex. I understand that over this summer he’s made a sort of name for himself and his band. I also hear that he has a following of little groupies hanging off his every note. Time to take out the garbage.”

“Think it’s gonna be that easy?”

“No. But maybe I need to prove something to myself and to him. Maybe I need to prove that I choose him and want only him. If I have to crawl, then I will. He’s like my childhood sweetheart, and whether we stay together forever, one year or six months doesn’t matter. I just know that I feel happy, safe, and not alone when he’s near. I want to feel that again. Somehow Alex always made everything feel like it was going to work, that if I could just hold onto him that he would see me home. It’s really dangerous when a woman starts thinking of a man as safe and harmless. Alex is more than that and I think I let myself ignore the parts of him that are masterful and tough. I want to see those other parts of him that he saves for his music.”

“You know Isabel. It’s nice talking to you and all, but please refrain from giving me any real details on the seduction of Alex Whitman. I’m still your brother and I’d hate to hafta beat the man to a bloody pulp especially after what we did to him this summer.”

“Fine. But what are your plans? Involving Maria?”

“I don’t know. She’s not gonna be easy, actually I was thinking about getting some kind of protection before I approached her. Maybe I could find ways of just easing back in under her guard, where one day she opens her eyes and there I am.” Michael was already giving this some thought. Maria had never been easy, and he broke faith with her.

“She was really hurt, Michael. Bad.”

“I know. But, I left her for a real reason Isabel. I can’t live with the fear of something happening to her. I think about alien hunters and evil aliens all the time, and then I think of her. If anyone wanted to break me, she’s my weakness. Harming her would destroy me. I don’t know what to do.”

“She is your weak spot, Michael. But she has also been your strength. When she stands near you, I can feel your focus, your control. The two of you are hotwired together like some kind of primitive team. I think that maybe it’s time to let go of those fears and trust her to make her own decision, and all you’ve got to do is love and protect her with your last dying breath. It’s all anyone could ever do.”

“God I missed you, Isabel.” Michael hugged Isabel so tight she actually squeaked. She pushed hard to escape him.

“I’m out of here, out of the dungeon. I’m almost afraid to walk in the sunlight, maybe I should take it slow and let my eyes adjust.”

“Funny, Isabel, really funny. Where are you going?”

“I’ve errands to run, people to see, places to go, but I’ll see you at noon, at the CrashDown.” Isabel grabbed her light jacket, smoothed the wrinkles out of her clothes, and moved to the door. “By the way Michael. You might want to take a quick shower. You’re about to meet your destiny face to face at lunch and you know how she feels about your personal hygiene. And with the way she feels about you right now, I’d suggest not giving her any fuel for the fire.” And with that Isabel was out the door and walking among the living.

Michael sat on the sofa long after Isabel left. That kiss said it all. How stupid could one person be? Spending an entire summer avoiding the issue of intimacy when all of the confusion could’ve been avoided by just facing it head on.

Kissing Isabel was nothing short of disturbing. It was unmanning, like taking an ice cold shower with all those squiggly feelings included. Isabel was right. They should’ve just got it over with and spent the rest of the summer coming to terms with the others.

Getting up from the sofa, Michael went over to a cabinet and opened it, inside on the shelves where drawings, hundreds of them, all of Maria. He dug through the pile to look at the one picture that kept getting buried deeper and deeper into the stack. Michael knew that he was hiding it from himself because the pain was too great to look at.

The picture of Maria was one done from memory. The memory of how she looked the last time he saw her. He told her that he loved her and then walked away, and kept walking towards what he thought was his destiny. Leaving her behind, she stood devastated. He walked away from her towards his destiny and the slap in her face was that it wasn’t her.

It was that last look on her face that he couldn’t erase or hide from, the look that woke him at nights. He could lie in bed late at night and close his eyes and still see her face and hear her cries as she cried herself to sleep working her way through the pain. It didn’t matter if Maria hated him now because she couldn’t hate him anymore than he hated himself. He spent a lifetime learning the art of self-hate. It was the very reason he found it so hard to understand Maria’s love.

These repressed feeling and fear-motivated responses were a nightmare. He was a walking psychologist dream of passive aggressive behavior with self-inflicted destructive behavior hidden behind anger and pain. All those years of taking the chances and pushing himself closer and closer to the edge, never caring if he fell or stumbled along the way, Michael lived his life on that sharp edge welcoming the pain. The pain was the only way he knew he was alive. It was all he understood, until Maria.

She moved in so easily because he didn’t understand the emotions, he never felt them before. He understood needs, wants, desires, pain, and anger, but love. Michael didn’t know love until one day it slapped him hard in the face. She wouldn’t talk to him, she wouldn’t sit next to him, and she was through with him all because he didn’t thank her for saving his life. He made the napkin holder in retribution, but really, he made it for her.

Waking up one morning and finding that someone has moved into your life, that they filled up all the empty places, and made the pain and anger of living worth working past. Being in love with Maria was too hard. It was filled with all those scary things you fear all your life. It wasn’t the fear of love as much as the fear of losing that consumed him. She made him want to step back from the edge, live a little safer, a lot longer, and with her. When he pushed himself back on the edge to prove that he didn’t need her he turned to find her standing there with him ready to fall if he fell, ready to die with him. He ran.

Damn Max was going to have to move his self-pitying ass over. Michael was going to have to join him on the loser’s sofa at the psych doctor’s office. They could start their own Alien Losers At Love dysfunctional support group. He knew that Max was trying to conquer his issues of torture, losing control of his life, and losing Liz. He could see and feel his friend’s pain.

If that pain was even one iota of the pain Maria experienced when he walked away, he was dead in the water. Thinking of never seeing her smile again, never kissing her again, touching her, smelling her, holding her close, feeling her skin against his own, and the anguish of losing her to someone else sent Michael rushing for the shower. Isabel was right. Time to meet destiny head on, no more pissing around to let some other person discover the treasure he so carelessly tossed away.

~~~

Maria was in the back room taking a short break before the noon rush hour started. Looking up she saw Isabel watching her from the doorway. “Isabel? Did you need something?”

“Hi Maria. Yes, I need to see you. Can I sit down?”

“Sure. I don’t have long, but what I have you may have. So what do you want to talk about?”

“Michael. Destiny, and all stops in between.” Maria paused and saw her hand actually shook a little at the mention of his name. Her hands clenched in anger.

“There’s nothing to say or talk about Isabel. It’s over. Let’s just leave it alone.” The anger left her voice quiet and cold.

“It’s not over Maria. It’s not over for you, it’s not over for me or Alex, and it’ll never be over for Michael.”

“What is it you want Isabel? Do you want me to be okay with this? Well, fine, then I am okay with it. This is what it looks like me being okay with everything.” Isabel watched Maria flopping her arms around angrily. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”

“Is it okay if I’m not fine, Maria? Is it okay for me to tell you that I miss you? Or how about I mention that I miss Alex so much that I cry myself to sleep sometimes. That if I have to spend another minute locked up in Michael’s disgusting apartment watching him try to lose himself in anything but the thought of you, I’ll start opening up in random firing.”

“What do you mean?” Maria stopped moving at Isabel’s words.

“This destiny thing. It was a mistake, a huge mistake. We finally did it this morning.”

“Okay, that’s it. I am out of here. I can’t, no, I won’t stand here and listen to details about…” Maria headed for the door in a dead run. She could just hardly stomach the thought of them together all summer, alone in His apartment, cuddling, kissing, touching, being a couple, but having intimate details told to her was beyond cruel.

“We finally kissed.” Maria stopped on her way out the door. Turning around she looked at Isabel with confusion.

“You finally kissed each other? This morning?” This was too confusing to walk away from.

“Yes.” Maria puts her hand up in the air to stop Isabel from talking.

“Let me get this straight, you spent the entire summer doing what? Something other than kissing?”

“We were working our way towards it.” Isabel had the foresight to actually be embarrassed about kissing Michael.

”Three months, Isabel? You worked your way towards it over three month?” Maria stared at her like she was insane.

“Pathetic, I know. What can you say when two people are forcing to do what neither of them really want to do. I really pissed him off this morning because he was being a jerk about meeting Max here for lunch. I told him that he was pathetic, that he was only trying to avoid seeing you.”

“And?” Maria could hear that voice in her head telling her to not care, to run away, to not get involved again. She stayed.

“He denied it, of course. So I dared him to kiss me, which he did. It lasted mere seconds before he pushed me away.”

“Seconds? He stopped kissing after just seconds. That doesn’t sound right.” Maria was confused. She spent hours trying to unwrap Michael from around her in the past. He was a sort of get into it guy that liked the sensation so much that gluttony was his middle name. She remember a few times telling him that she needed to go and finally getting out of his apartment a few hours later, not moments.

“Oh, it was right. The kiss was wrong. It was the most disgusting thing I ever did. It was like kissing Max, which would’ve been okay, but the tongue thing just pushed it over the top.” Isabel looked over to see Maria laughing her ass off trying to appear sympathetic.

“Stop laughing Maria. It was gross. I don’t mind the thought of kissing my brother on the mouth in a closed mouth kiss of affection, but no girl should have to even imagine her brother’s tongue. Oh God, I’m going to need therapy to get over this. Great, Max is going to have to move over and share the couch. And as far as Michael goes, that psycho needed therapy a long time ago. It can’t be normal sitting around watching endless hockey on ESPN and eating cold cereal. It’s deranged.”

“This is all amusing Isabel, but why tell me?” Maria wiped the mirth from her eyes, but curiosity was a strange thing.

“Because I missed you, and I wanted you to know that this destiny thing is over. That what was confusing before just took a leap into reality, and the reality was not confusing. Michael and I are family. We’re brother and sister and we’re staying that way. I don’t want there to be any tension or barriers between us.”

“I appreciate that Isabel. I tried to break all my ties with your people, but Max kind of nullified that action. I’ve spent so much time with him that it is silly to even imagine that I can’t and won’t be your friend, too.”

“I know. I saw you walking him home a few times. It’s really great the way you helped him out. I saw you kiss him the other night.”

“It’s not what you think.” Maria was shocked that someone had seen her with Max.

“I know. I asked Max. He says that you gave him the best sisterly pecks on the mouth with a good dose of genuine affection he’s ever felt. You’re helping to mend his broken heart.”

“No, I’m not. I’m just offering him support from a person who understands how he feels. I always knew that your brother was special. Before it was all surface stuff, like he’s so hot, isn’t he dreamy and intense, but now I know that there’s so much more deep inside him worth knowing. I like him. He’s one of the good guys, but he is troubled. I am afraid what this whole destiny thing will cost him.”

“So is Michael, Maria.” Isabel paused for dramatic effect. “He’s one of the good guys, too.”

“Isabel, I won’t discuss Him.” Maria finally gathered her wits and tried to remind herself that she was suppose to be strong.

“Him? You mean Michael when you say, Him?” Isabel felt a sinking feeling in her gut. This was worse than she imagined. Michael and she had left it too long and Maria was already pulled away, and god only knew how far Alex had journeyed away from her.

“Yes. He’s like the devil. If you say his name he may come, so it’s just safer not saying it at all.”

“When I kissed him, I saw you Maria. I saw only you.” Isabel was desperate to impress Maria with how much Michael thought of her, how much she was a part of him.

”You got a vision when you kissed Him?” Maria whole body went into a state of stillness, waiting for the answer.

“Yeah.”

“Oh, that just tears it. He can’t give me a vision, but He can give you one? Maybe you should reconsider this destiny thing. It sounds like a match made in heaven.” Maria turned angrily and headed for the door again.

“It’s not that. I’m like him. He has knows me forever, and he needs no protection, none of his stonewalls. But you, you scare him. His emotions for you run so hot and deep that he forgets to breath sometimes.” Isabel was suddenly realizing her mistake. “He didn’t give me a flash because he wanted to. He gave me one because he’s so emotionally torn by missing you that he can’t control himself.”

“Thanks, Isabel, but you don’t have to try to make me feel better. Would that be the first month when He kept hanging up on me? Or the next month when He refused to even answer the damn phone? Or return my calls? Yeah, I can see how torn He is. I’ve come to terms with this so many months ago. It’s over. End of story.”

“Please don’t say that Maria. It can’t be over. There’s so much left unsaid between you. I know that he was impossible to talk to this summer. But don’t write him off yet, Maria. Give Him a chance to prove himself.” Isabel swore under her breath. Now Maria had her emphasizing personal pronouns.

“I can’t, Isabel. I can’t. He didn’t leave me for his destiny, Isabel. He left me because he was afraid. He was afraid that his out of control powers would hurt me, but he didn’t worry about you. So it must have been just an excuse to get rid of me. So I’m tired of trying. He wins again. It’s always about him, his wants, his needs, and his fears. I’m letting it be about him again and moving on.” Maria dropped the emphasis in the heat of the moment.

“Maybe this’ll convince you.” Isabel grabbed Maria and kissed her on the mouth. Shocked it took Maria a few seconds to realize what Isabel just did, and pull away weary and shocked. “Well did you feel it?”

“Isabel? You just kissed me. What do you mean did I feel it?” Maria had her hand at her mouth staring at Isabel like she was really the alien she was.

“The vision. Did you see and feel the vision of Michael’s, about how he feels and sees you?”

“No.” Finally what Isabel was trying to do made sense. She wanted to pass the vision to Maria. “So the kissing thing was you trying to share Michael’s vision you saw earlier?”

“Sure, what else?” Isabel suddenly saw how it must have looked to Maria, but desperation made her try.

“I was just worried that the long hair was coloring how you saw me.” Maria smiled in relief. “Not that there’s anything wrong with two people sharing a kiss, but I never thought about you that way.”

“Sorry, Maria. I’ve only see flashes when I’m kissing. Maybe it needs to be more intimate than the mouth peck. But to tell the truth, after the whole Michael tongue thing, I don’t think I’m up to it.”

“You know what Isabel, that’s okay with me. You don’t need to share the vision.” Maria had to appreciate what Isabel was trying to do.

“I just wanted you to understand how he feels so you’ll give him another chance.” Isabel finally was seeing what Michael meant about Maria not being easy.

“Thanks, Isabel, but you know what, I don’t want that vision. I definitely don’t want it second hand and through a third party. It was my right to be given insight into him, one on one. He should’ve let me in himself, but he didn’t. Getting it this way is like plagiarism. It feels false. I don’t want any of it. Thank you anyway.”

“I think I understand. Sorry about the kiss thing, but I wanted ask. What’s with the hair anyway? I like it.”

“Oh, I decided I needed a change. So I had hair extensions put on. They’re a pain because I have to keep going back to the salon every once in a while. I’ll have to keep doing it until my real hair grows out. It’s just barely to my shoulders.”

“I could help you.”

“What do you mean? You could grow my hair out?”

“Sure.”

“That is so cool. I really missed you Isabel. Bathroom.” Maria grabbed Isabel by the arm and hustled her into the break bathroom. “You know I was thinking about pink hair for one night while performing. You know, we should have girl’s night with Tessie.”

“Tessie?”

“Sure, I’ll tell you all about it later, but first let’s grow some hair. You’re going save me a fortune at the salon.”

~~~

Tess was the first to arrive for lunch. She saw Isabel immediately and headed for the table. Sliding in across from Isabel she noticed that Isabel seemed different.

“So where’s Michael and Max?”

“Hi, Tess. Max is probably still at work and Michael is more than likely pacing around out front trying to get the nerve to come in and eat.”

“I don’t understand. Why should he need nerve to come in here? He works here and comes in all the time.”

“Not when Maria is working. He has managed to avoid her all summer, so this will the first time either has seen the other since May.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Maria is awesome, but they aren’t together anymore. He’s with you now, and it’s crazy to think that he’s going to be able to avoid her forever. It’s time to get it over with, especially before school starts.”

“I agree that he needs to face her, but you’re wrong about the two of us being together.”

“What? But the two of you’ve been together all summer. You’re fulfilling your destiny; you belong together.”

“I think that’s for me and Michael to decide don’t you? I love him like a brother, Tess and all the destiny in the world doesn’t matter when it comes down to that fact. I know I love him as a brother, but anything else from the past is gone. I can’t explain it, but I just know that whatever love was in our native form, if how we felt was love, it’s very dissimilar, and not what I want to feel. It’s like something is lost in the translation and it becomes very different. Today is a brand new day in a brand new life with a brand new world, and here, Michael Guerin is my brother. Destiny is no longer written. We’re going to determine our own destinies from now on.”

“But, …” Tess wanted Michael and Isabel to work, to maybe make Max understand where they belonged.

“Hey you two, can I get you anything, or are you waiting for others?” Maria interrupted them standing at the table with her order pad poised and ready. Tess could feel her face turning red. She really liked Maria and knew how hard the break up with Michael had been. It felt wrong trying to keep Michael with Isabel at Maria's expense, especially since neither Michael nor Isabel were interested in each other.

“Hi, Maria. We’re waiting for the guys. Can I just get an orange alien blast?”

“Sure, Tessie. Isabel, something for you?” Isabel smiled at Maria’s nickname for Tess. Having the entire group of Valentis and DeLucas in one house with Tess was going to be fun.

“I’m fine for now, Maria. Thanks.”

“I’ll be right back with your drink, Tess.” They watched Maria walk away when Michael finally arrived and slid into the booth next to Isabel. Isabel looked him over. He hadn’t only showered, but he finally changed his clothes.

This summer was almost as bad for him as for Max. Michael was much more repressed and refused to acknowledge his own feelings if they made him uncomfortable. He, like Max, had spent the entire summer depressed over the Pierce thing, the destiny thing, and Maria. Isabel could feel his nervousness.

“Where’s she?” Michael looked around the diner trying to see Maria before she saw him.

“She was getting Tess an alien blast. Will you calm down?”

“I still don’t see her.” Michael noticed the waitress at the soda machine, but Maria was nowhere in sight. Then she turned around, and it was Maria with long hair.

Michael’s breath stopped in his throat along with his heart. The sight of her stopped his heart and then sent it pumping full speed. It’d been so long since he last touched her, seen her, talked to her, and kissed her. He actually felt slightly dizzy and disoriented, and God help him, deeply aroused. He’d almost forgot what that felt like except at night when he dreamed of her.

“My God, what’s wrong with you?” Isabel hissed in his ear angrily. “Will you get yourself under control she’s coming back to take our order. Don’t push her Michael, she’s not ready for that yet.”

“I’m calm. This is what I look like calm.” Isabel stared at him in horror. The man was literally jumping out of his skin clamoring to grab Maria and do unmentionables. She could literally feel the heat along her skin.

“Then put a book in front of it, Michael, or something! The woman is going to have you arrested for sexual assault if you don’t stop looking at her like your next meal.”

Isabel couldn’t believe how distracted and out of control Michael was. It was like all summer he’d been dead, but now he was suddenly animated.

“God, she looks so beautiful. I can’t believe that I almost forgot how she effects me …”

“Shush, she’s coming. Calm, stay calm.”

Michael turned and looked at Isabel like she was crazy. Calm wasn’t a word in his vocabulary. His heart was racing off the chart, the palms of his hands were sweating, his stomach felt hollow and empty, slightly nauseated, and was aroused beyond belief.

Fantasies were running fast and furious through his mind. Fantasies of picking Maria up, laying her down on the diner bar and feasting on her ran hot through his mind followed by the thought of dragging her into the back break room, pushing her up against a wall, lifting her into his arms with her beautiful legs wrapped around him, his tongue down her throat tasting her deeply while he opened her up and plunged deep into her hot core.

Michael was startled out of his sexual fantasy by the hit across the head that Isabel gave him. “Damn, Isabel, what’s wrong with you?”

He looked up to see Maria poised with her order pad waiting for his order. He mumbled something incoherent and stared stupidly after her as she left the table to put in the order. Isabel kicked his foot and Tess was staring at him with horror on her face.

“What’s wrong with you? Grabbing her and doing unmentionable things to her won’t convince her of your sincerity. She already knows that you lust after her, have no problem with using her to slack your sexual appetites, but you need to convince her that your emotions are more involved than that. I swear Michael if you grab the girl, I’ll take you down myself.”

Michael clenched his hands tightly. The things he wanted to do to Maria would send children running crying for their mothers.

Michael groaned deep inside his throat rubbing his hands across his face. His body was super heated from having her near. He could smell her from where she had stood next to the table. My God the table, he could lay her on the table and then… Isabel kicked him again.

“Jesus, Isabel, what’s your problem? That hurts.”

“Will you stop it? How the hell did you ever think for one minute you could pursue a destiny with me, is beyond reason. Any idiot can see the woman drives you nuclear by just being in the same room with her. I spent the whole summer in the same room with you and all you did was watch television and eat Tabasco laced potato chips. Now you need to get yourself under control before you totally blow this.”

Michael had the honesty to actually look embarrassed by Isabel’s words. It was true. He knew it now, and may god have mercy on his wretched soul, he knew it since he walked out on Maria.

What he was offering Isabel all summer was nothing, nothing but being second best and a pale imitation of what Michael really wanted, whom Michael really wanted, Maria. Isabel wasn’t a woman to accept being settled for or second best, and instinctually he knew that, so all summer he avoid the whole issue until this morning, and now finally he was back on track steaming full speed towards his destiny in the form of one smart-mouthed, wisecracking earth girl. God, she looked so beautiful, so kissable, so touchable, so…

“Isabel, Maria is coming back with your drinks. Michael, Isabel is right. Even I can read the passion in your eyes. You need to get some kind of control here before you start blowing up light bulbs or something.”

“Smile, Michael, say thank you.” Michael looks at Isabel in confusion.

“Smile?” He could barely clear his hearing with all the thoughts of kidnapping Maria and making love to her until she accepted him back in her life and forgave him.

“Yes, smile. Now,” Isabel said through clenched teeth.

Maria came with their drinks and put them in front of Isabel and then Michael. Michael looked up at Maria and smiled and quickly said thanks. Maria’s eyes widen with a strange look on her face she stepped back from him running into another customer.

“Oh jeez, Michael, stop smiling. You’re scaring the children, horrified Maria, and are making me and Tess uncomfortable.”

“What? What did I do wrong?”

“Umm, Michael you were smiling like a deranged psycho killer or something. It was scary.” Michael moaned and put his head down on the table. This was too hard.

Max came into the restaurant quickly searching for Liz, seeing his friends he went to join them. Pausing before sitting down his eyebrow lifted at the sight of Michael banging his head on the table. Looking at Isabel he gave a shrug and sat down.

“So what’s with space boy? Does he still have that space bug running mad through his system?” Michael looks up and gives Max a nasty glare.

“Funny, Maxwell, funny. What’s with you? You’re searching the place like you intend to find something.” Michael asked looking up from the table.

“I am. I saw Liz come home this morning.”

“She’s back? Maria didn’t mention it earlier.” Isabel too started looking around the diner. “What are you going to do Max?”

“I’m going to try to talk some sense into her. I’ve missed her. I want her back in my life.”

Tess reached over and gently touched Max’s arm to get his attention, “Max, I hope she’ll listen to you. I really do. I hate seeing you so unhappy these last few months. You know that you can trust all of us to support and back you up, right?”

“Thanks, Tess. I know this hard on you too. Being raised to think and believe in our destiny is a hard thing to overcome, but I really appreciate that you’ve let it go.”

“Oh, I haven’t let it go, Max. I guess I’m just redefining what it means, how much is pre-ordained, and what we control and decide. This has been the strangest time of my life between meeting all of you, and living with the Valentis. It’s been fun being part of a sort of family, even if one of the members is Kyle. Maria and I have spent these last few weeks ganging up on him. I think the poor guy’s terrified what will happen when all of us live in the same house. He thought I was bad, but next to Maria, I’m a walk through a daisy field.”

“Why are all of you gonna share a house?” Michael was confused, but the mention of Maria had pulled him out of his current erotic thoughts and scheming plans.

“God, Michael could you be any more self-involved? Sheriff Valenti and Amy DeLuca are getting married in October and then Tess, Kyle, and Maria are going to become the Valenti Bunch.” Isabel actually started laughing at the thought. “It boggles the mind, law enforcement, bad boy jock, Czechoslovakian girl, and hippy yippy new-agers all living under the same roof. I’m hoping for lots of sleep overs.”

“When did this happen?”

Michael couldn’t believe how out of the loop he was, or how much happened in Maria’s life without him. Looking over at her, the new sexy short hemline and hair, he felt sweat break out on his skin. He was worried about what else Maria experience this summer without him.

“Two weeks ago, Maria found Valenti coming out of their bathroom with nothing on but a towel. They announce their engagement a few days later. I mean Valenti and Maria’s mom announced their engagement and not … oh, never mind.” Isabel gave up. Michael was distracted from the conversation.

Michael looks over and sees Maria having a long friendly conversation with the customer she ran into when she backed away from their table. She was laughing and the customer was a young man only a few years older than them.

“Who the hell is that?” Michael starts to rise and go over and forcefully remove the other young man’s hand from his Maria. Isabel quickly pulled him back down into his seat.

“Will you just cool it? She’s going to really think that you’re a raging beast staring at her like you’re going to feast upon her, smiling at her like some kind of loon, and then charging across the diner to take out an innocent customer. Could you get any more insane?” He was exasperating.

“What’s going on?” Max looked from one to the other.

“Oh, well it seems, Max, that our Isabel and Michael finally decided that following our destiny was a big waste of time, too. They called it off, mutually, and now, now we’ve Michael in the thralls of raging hormones. He just saw Maria again for the first time since May and he’s been trying to get his hands on her every since. It’s actually interesting to watch. Kind of like when a large airline plane crashes and there is all this debris everywhere with mangled dead bodies, it’s this total horror and yet you’re glued to it in fascination.” Tess took a sip of her drink and continued to watch Michael like a bug under a scope. He glared at her, and then with a small smirk actually sticks his tongue out at her. She responded in kind with scrunching up her nose and crossing her eyes.

“When did this happen?” Max looked over at Michael worried.

“This morning. Michael and I finally kissed.” Isabel’s word brought Max’s attentions back to her. What the hell?

“What do you mean you finally kissed? You’ve been hanging out together all summer.”

“So, we were taking it slow, okay? Anyway, this morning we decided it was time to end the misery and really decide whether we could continue. Michael kissed me and it was disgusting.”

“Thanks, Izzy, it wasn’t like I had much pride or male ego left anyway. Would you mind not going on and on about how disgusting the kiss was?” Michael finally decided to finish the discussion. “What it came down to Maxwell is that Isabel and I are family, not mates. It’s not gonna happen, ever. So we decided,” Michael gave Isabel a glare when she snorted, “that we needed to stop hiding from our true feelings and start living.”

“Revisionist history, Michael, but basically true. So anyway, now Michael is going to dedicate himself to the long, hard task of getting Maria back or at least becoming a first rate stalker.”

“Leave her alone.” The three other podsters went still at the deep commanding tone of Max’s voice.

“What? What do you mean leave her alone?” Michael could feel his hackles rising at not only the tone, but also the order. Now Max was going to wake up after a summer of sleeping and weeping over Liz Parker and order him around?

“You heard me. I mean it Michael. She took it really hard. You broke her heart and she’s just now starting to come out of it. It’s not right for you to come in and mess with her when she’s finally finding some balance and peace. She won’t survive much more pain in her life and she can’t trust you.”

“Yes, she can.” Michael clenched his fist under the table and refrained from going across the table and punching the crap out of Max.

“For how long? Until you take off on another destiny hunt, until things become too intense and you feel the need to run? How long, Michael? How long until you hurt her again? I’ll take you on myself before I let you hurt her. She’s had enough of her share of pain, anymore might just break her.”

“It’s none of your damn business Maxwell. I’m not leaving her again. This time it’s forever, forever as in a real commitment.”

“Here’s your order.” They all startled to see Maria standing at their table with their food. “Max, hi. I brought you a watermelon alien blast, may you choke on the disgusting thing. Did you want your usual?”

“Yeah, that would great Maria.” Maria smiled at him and started to leave not even noticing the groups’ embarrassed faces.

“Hey, Maria?” She turned to see what he wanted. “Was that Liz I saw this morning? Is she back?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry Max. I should’ve called you. She came in this morning from Florida with a Congresswoman that she’s going to be working with this year as an intern. They should be down soon. The rest of the Congresswoman’s party is sitting over there at that table eating endless amounts of Saturn rings. I really can’t tell you much since we didn’t get a chance to talk. Liz promised to try to come to watch Alex and me sing tonight. I’ve got to go. I’ll be back with your order.” Maria tried to rattle off as much information as possible in a short time. It was lunch rush hour and she didn’t have time to chitchat.

The group sat silently eating. Max was watching the table of strangers and Michael was brooding. Maria had barely glanced at him let alone talked to him. He needed to corner her in the back room and talk some sense into her. Michael started to rise to go find his wayward girlfriend when Isabel grabbed his arm and pulled him back into his seat.

“No. Stay. There’s a right way, Michael, and a wrong way. And I’d say that you’re heading in the wrong way. Are you trying to destroy any chance with her?”

“I just want to talk to her.”

“I know, but believe me, trapping her during the busy lunch rush is probably not the best time or the smartest move.” Michael had to agree that Isabel was probably right so he sat back down and tried to eat his food. It was the stillness of Max’s demeanor that brought his attention back on line. Following Max’s gaze he found Liz Parker moving across the diner to join the strangers at another table. Max started to get up and go over to see Liz.

“Sit down Max.” Max looked over at Michael. “If it’s a bad idea for me to bug Maria when she’s busy, then I suspect this isn’t the idea time for you to plea your case with Liz. So let’s all just try to eat our lunch and pretend to be normal teenagers.” Michael looked down at his fries. “Someone pass me the Tabasco.”

The group remained talking though the meal, but both Michael and Max continued to track Liz and Maria. Michael was becoming more and more agitated at one of the customers. The young man that she had fallen against seemed way too chummy. Maria was at his table talking to him again. Occasionally he would make eye contact with the man and give him a dark evil glare.

“So, Maria. Who’s the tall Neanderthal that keeps giving me hate stares? Friend of yours?”

Maria looks over to see Michael staring at them. “Nope, old boyfriend. We just broke up before summer started.”

“Looks like he’s not quite over it yet. Some guys can’t figure it out that when a girl tells him it’s over, it’s over.” He let a warm appreciative glance move over her body. “He’s not causing you problems is he?”

“Actually he’s the one who dropped me for the beautiful blond sitting next to him. They sort of have been brother and sister for most of their life and then something happen last spring that made them redefine their relationship. I was just one of the casualties. But now after a summer spent in each other’s company I guess they decided that it wasn’t for them.” Maria shrugged and searched through her order pad for Matt’s bill. “This is the first time I’ve seen him this summer.”

“Harsh.” Matt looked over at Michael. “He doesn’t look all that over you.”

“Well that would be a tough story, then, because we’re through.”

“If that’s the case then how about giving me a chance? I really would love to take you out sometime.” Maria was startled. She liked Matt. He started coming into the diner earlier this summer. He came to Roswell with a group of college student doing research on local lore and mythology. They spent their summer collecting stories from numerous Reservations around the Roswell area, and Matt and a few others were staying an extra six months to finish up a federal grant.

“I can’t.”

“I see. So it’s not really that over, yet?”

“No. Actually, I mean yes. It’s over, but I’m not ready to get involved with someone else. I mean I wouldn’t mind a nice friendly outing that stops with a good night kiss, but I can’t get involved. I’m afraid that I’ll lead someone on and end up hurting someone else when they learn that I can’t commit. I know how much it hurts, and I’m not going to take chances with other people’s hearts.”

“Fair enough. I can respect that. You know, I just want you to know that the guy that left you for someone else is an idiot. I hope to see you tonight. A group of us are hitting the party that you’re playing at. Is it possible for me to get at least a dance?”

“Sure. I’d like that. Is there anything else I can get you?” Maria placed his bill face down on the table.

“No. I’m fine.” Maria smiled and left him to his meal. The lunch hour always seemed the longest. Mr. Parker was trying to hire a few more waitresses since Maria and Liz would soon be back in school, and it looked like Liz’s waitress days were over. Maria kept hoping that the pod squad would vacate soon. It was getting creepy feeling His eyes on her back watching her every move. Maria went to cash out some of the customers. Handing Matt back his change, he grabbed her hand.

“I just wanted you to know that I am not opposed to dates that just end at the door with a good night kiss. I really wish you would consider maybe catching a movie or dinner with me sometime.”

Extracting her hand as politely as possible, Maria smiled at him. “I’ll think about it, and let you know.”

Matt smiled gently and then leaned over the cash register and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before leaving. With out thought, her eyes went straight over to the pod squad table and her eyes met His straight on. He looked furious. Great, this summer kept on adding up those suck points.

It was kind of nice to see Him so out of control and jealous of her for a change, but truthfully, it also hurt. It was like after having her legs crushed. She was just now starting to walk again and every step was painful and full of fear, the fear of falling. She was having a hard enough time trying to take these steps without Him watching every one with that dark scowl on his face.

“Who the hell does that guy think he is kissing her? He asked her out on a date. I should …”

“You should sit down and shut up, is what you should do. Figure it out. Maria’s been a free agent all summer, singing in night clubs, abandon warehouses, parties wearing tight, short, leather outfits with an entire community of hot sweaty teens and early twenties guys salivating all over her. In case you’ve any doubts, I watched her perform and it’s hotter than hell. She doesn’t need your permission to date or see whomever she wishes. You’re the one who left her, not the other way around. What was she suppose to do? Sit on some shelf collecting dust and pinning over you hoping that you would come to your sense and come home? She’s not me, Michael. She’s made of stronger stuff. Her life already taught her the lesson of cutting her loss and moving on. Maybe you should consider doing the same?”

“Leave him alone, Max. It’s not the same. You’re not even trying to understand.” Before Isabel could say anymore Alex came into the CrashDown. She hadn’t seen him all summer, except from afar. He looked so different. He looked so good. Alex looked around frantically, made eye contact with Isabel. Isabel hated the way his eyes seem to see her, and then dismiss her going on until he found her, Maria. She saw him and quickly joined him by the door.

They watched as Alex, obviously in distress pulled Maria into his arms and talked to her in a low tune. The stiffing of her body, a cry of disbelief, and her frantic pulling away from his arms as she ran through the door made the group stand up in concern. Alex cried her name; Maria turned and came up to the front window with tears streaming down her face. Putting her hand on the glass, Alex place his on the glass opposite, and then she was gone, running across the street and down the other side.

Liz saw what happen, but before she could go over, Michael was at Alex’s side along with Max and the others.

“Alex. What happened? What happened to Maria?” Alex looked at them with tears in his eyes. He cleared his throat, but nothing came out. They could see him trying to clear his throat and get himself under control.

“On my way over here I was walking the street over by Maria’s mom’s shop. There was an accident. A car hit Maria’s mom. A child had run into the road, and the car tried to swerve around the child. It hit another car, which hit Amy DeLuca where she stood waiting to cross the street.”

“Oh my God, Alex. Did they take her to the hospital? Is she going to be okay?” Alex looked at Isabel his eyes filling with unshed tears, and placing his hand on his stomach and shook his head. He said it so softly that they almost couldn’t hear. “She was declared dead at the scene.”

Alex turned and left the diner running across the street to find Maria. Without thinking, Michael took off after him. Max looked at Isabel and Tess both upset at the news and seeing Mr. Parker heading towards them, he gave Isabel some money and took off out the door after Michael. Isabel turned to tell Mr. Parker the news and Liz was slowly making her way towards the group, concerned over what was happening.

~~~

When Max rounded the corner onto the street that Amy’s shop was on, he stopped at the chaos. Emergency vehicles were still busy and police cars were trying to redirect traffic. He spotted them up the sidewalk. Michael and Alex were frozen in place a few feet from Maria.

Maria stood at the curb looking down at a stack of spilled magazine, a shoe, and some scattered beads. Slowly crouching down, Maria picked up the wedding and bride magazines into a neat stack, and started putting the scatter beads inside the one solitary shoe. Alex and Michael stood watching her in silent horror.

Valenti saw Maria when she arrived from his position from across the street. When she started picking up beads he moved quickly to her side and crouched down next to her.

“Maria.”

“They’re from her favorite necklace. She said that you bought it for her at the fair on one of your dates earlier this summer. She would hate that it’s broken. I’ll fix it.”

“Maria, baby, look at me.” Maria looked up at Jim with tears in her eyes and no color left in her face. She had that devastated look associated with shock and disbelief. “She’s gone.”

“Jim? Where’s my mother? Where did they take my mom?” Jim was concerned at Maria’s distracted voice and unfocused look.

“They took her to the city morgue, honey. It’s in the basement of the hospital.”

“She can’t stay there. Mom hates hospitals. It’s the smell. We need to go get her. She hates being alone.”

“Ria, she’s already gone.” Jim felt the word catch in his throat as he tried to maintain control.

“I want to see my mom, now, Jim. Take me to my mom.”

Valenti stood up and wiped the tears from her face. Reaching down he offered he his hand. “Come on, I’ll take you to see her.”

Maria placed her small hand in his a stood up careful to keep the magazines and shoe with beads close to her heart. Jim looked down at her small hand in his and his heart broke. She had her mother’s beautiful hands. It looked likes Amy’s.

“Oh God.”

Taking her hand carefully he raised it and placed a kiss on it and pulled Maria’s small body close to him. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the silent three young men watching over her. He nodded at them and led Maria to his car. The others followed and silently got into the back of the Sheriff SUV. Maria sat in the front looking straight-ahead holding what little was left of Amy DeLuca close to her heart. Michael never took his eyes off her trying hard to keep from grabbing her and holding her close.

~~~

They waited outside while Valenti took Maria inside to see her mother. Michael almost took off Max’s arm when they heard her crying from inside the morgue. She sounded like a small wounded animal. Max stopped him from going in there and taking her away.

“She’s crying. Let me go, Max.”

“No.” Max pushed hard against Michael with his back to the door cringing at the sound of her weeping.

“I thought you cared about her.” Michael’s voice rose in anger.

“I do. But she needs to see this. It’s her time to mourn. We can’t change it or stop it, but if she doesn’t complete the process she’ll never heal. Crying is okay, Michael.” Max felt every moment of his seventeen years like they were a thousand.

“I can’t take this, Max. I can’t stand hearing her in so much pain.” Michael looked at the closed door with his heart leaping into his throat. He needed to get to her, needed to protect her.

“Get use to it Michael. Max and I have been wiping away Maria’s tears all summer. I didn’t think there was anything left that could break her. I was wrong. What the hell are you doing here anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be wrapped up in yourself and your big life, pursuing destiny among the stars? This is life for the little human people. If you’re just here as a spectator, then leave. You know how to do that don’t you Michael? If I remember correctly you’ve got lots of experience. Get lost.”

“Shove it, Whitman! I’m not leaving so you can just deal with it.” Michael was more than happy to take some of his dark feelings out on Alex.

“I should break your face, you stupid bastard!” Max grabbed Alex before he jumped Michael.

“Try it, you little geek. I’ll…”

“Stop it both of you! In case you’ve forgotten, there’s a dead woman in there and her daughter is someone we love. We’re all she has left in this world. Beating each other up isn’t going to change anything. It’s not going to give Maria back her mother. So stop it.”

They waited outside for what seemed like a lifetime. Valenti came out first. He looked old and lost. They hadn’t seen him this destroyed since the night that Kyle almost died. He looked at them helplessly.

“She won’t leave.”

They walked into the room to retrieve her. She sat quietly crying holding her mother’s hand. Michael closed his eyes at the sight, his jaw clenching. Max went to her and tried to talk to her. Alex joined him, but she seemed unable to hear them. She just sat there weeping.

Michael went over and took the magazines and shoe with the beads from her one arm and shoved them at Max. Reaching down he pried her mother hand from hers. Placing a kiss on Amy’s hand, he laid it across her body. Reaching over her, Michael placed a gentle kiss on Amy’s forehead and whispered his respects to her. “I’ll take care of her. I promise.”

Turning, he reached down and picked Maria up into his arms letting her cry into his chest. “Let’s go home, baby.”

Walking out, he kept her close to his body and ignored the rest. If he left it to Maria to get up and walk away they would have waited forever, because Maria wouldn’t have been able to leave her mother alone and cold in that clinically dead place, so Michael did it for her.

~~~

The house stood muted and silent. And yet they came, the neighbors, the friends, and family bringing casserole upon casserole, looking at the survivor with curiosity and compassion. Maria sat in the dark corner, unmoving, unhearing ignoring the world around her. Isabel stood watching her from the door with a plate of food. She hadn’t eaten in over twenty-four hours.

It was hard to believe that it had only been twenty-four hours since Liz Parker came home, and Amy DeLuca had left forever. Isabel turned as her father and Jim Valenti came through the door. They went over to talk to Maria, but she just kept looking out of the window, not hearing, not wanting to hear. The tears steadily flowed while she sat unmoving.

Michael who stood a few paces behind her leaning against a wall, finally moved away to stand by Maria. He talked to Jim and Philip for a few minutes. Maria moved her head into Michael’s stomach and Isabel watched as his hand went down to smooth her, cup her face and hold her close while he talked. Isabel tried to move closer to see what they were saying, but Michael ended the argument by reaching down and taking Maria’s hand and leading her from the room to her bedroom.

“Dad? What’s wrong?” Isabel looked at her dad in concern.

“Nothing, honey. It’s just that Maria is a minor with no living relatives that we know of and we can’t leave her living here by herself. Jim wants her to come home with him.”

“What did Michael say?” Isabel asked.

“He said that she wasn’t living alone. That she was living with him, here and she wasn’t leaving her mother’s house. This is her home. He told me to have paper fixed for her so she could be emancipated like him.”

“I think he’s right, Dad.” Isabel looked around the house that had been Maria’s home her entire life.

“I’m not sure this is such a good idea. Maria is hardly functioning right now. The funeral is in two days and she seems lethargic. Maybe we should send her to see the psychologist that Max is seeing.”

All Isabel could think was how much money that damn psychologist was going to make having all of them on his couch.

“All she need right now is Michael.”

“I thought you and Michael were, you know, dating.” Isabel smiled at her father’s discomfort.

“Give me a break, dad. You know that Michael has been like a brother to me. It would be like dating Max. Michael and Maria broke up in May. He has so many issues. You know how it is. The first impressions are the most lasting. Michael spent years being abused by Hank and being told that he was worthless. I’m not surprised that he doesn’t think he’s worthy of Maria. He’s so afraid of hurting her that he pushes her away, which of course hurts her.”

“So you kept him company all summer.”

“Well it wasn’t the funfest of the summer. Max may admit that he is depressed, but Michael, he just lets it simmer inside and acts impulsively. It was so much fun keeping an eye on him and watching more hockey games than I ever wanted to see. How was I to know that sport channels re-air games throughout the summer. There are some sick people in this world.”

“You don’t think he’s a danger to himself?” Isabel was shocked at the suggestion that Michael could be suicidal.

“No. Maria gives him control and balance. She’s the rudder beneath his keel steering him toward calm waters. I don’t think he could survive without her. Whatever happens dad, one thing I am sure of is that Michael will die protecting her. He’ll protect her with his last dying breath.”

“What about Maria? Does she feel the same?” Isabel looks at her dad smiled.

“Unfortunately for her, yes she does.”

“Unfortunately? Why unfortunately?” Philip’s interest peaked at that.

“She’s pissed at him. The last thing she wants is to be in love with him, but I suspect that there’s very little she can do about it. Maria will make him jump through hoops before she takes the chance with her heart again. Having her mother die won’t help. She has so little left to lose.”

“So you think she will be okay here by herself with him?”

“Safer than she’s ever been in her entire life. Maria isn’t going to want to leave her childhood home. Michael will make sure that she won’t have to lose anymore than she already has. Can she afford to stay here, dad?”

None of them have thought about money and how Maria would survive without her mom. It was a scary thought. Isabel could imagine trying to go on if her parents were taken from her, even with Max at her side.

“Surprisingly, yes. Amy DeLuca may have been a little strange at times, but she took care of Maria. It must have been important for her to feel that if something happened to her that Maria would be well provided for. She did such a good job at it that Maria owns her business, this house, and a large life insurance policy. She has enough assets to see her through college and then some.”

“Are you going to help her?”

“I think so. Michael seemed very firm about taking care of her. I trust him when he says that she won’t be alone. There’s Michael. I need to talk to him. I’ll see you at home, honey.” Philip kissed Isabel on the cheek and went to join Michael over by the closed door to Maria’s room.

~~~

After everyone left, all that was left were the group of friends. Liz and Isabel were packing away the food and cleaning the kitchen. Tess stayed near Kyle and kept looking at Maria’s closed door. Her eyes were red from crying. Kyle just sat and watched his father finishing up last minute calls for the funeral. Michael was in Maria’s room with her, watching her.

Max and Alex were cleaning the living room trying to keep busy. Max stopped in his tracks when he came across the stack of wedding magazines and the shoe with the beads from Amy’s necklace.

Alex noticed Max’s stare and felt his heart hollow out as a wave of pain hit him. All he could remember was all the times he spent over at Maria’s house and Amy teaching him to dance when he was eleven with a popcorn string necklace around her neck and a daisy chain in her hair. Her laughter when the young Alex, Liz, and Maria refused to learn the funky chicken.

Alex remembered helping Maria cart takeout to the large tree in the center of town when a morally outraged Amy DeLuca had chained herself to the tree. Maria stood nose to nose with a construction man who was threatening to remove Amy by force. Sheriff Valenti had picked up a tiny Maria kicking and sputtering and carted her away. Outraged, Amy unlocked herself and went after her daughter. Alex posted bail for the mother-daughter outlaw team while the Sheriff stalked around the police station literally pulling his hair out. When Alex was short the money for bail, Valenti gave him the difference just to get the two DeLuca women out of his holding cell. They had already started to incite a riot among the other people in the cell. Without realizing it, a deep sob left his throat. He didn’t even realize he was crying until Liz’s arms came around his body holding him close while she cried against his back.

“Daisy chains and popcorn necklaces, Liz.” Alex’s voice broke under the strain. “I almost forgot how wonderful she was when we were kids. Do you remember that one-year when it was so hot? We were about ten and Maria’s mom sweet-talked a construction worker to open a fire hydrant and we danced in the water like ducklings following her splashing the whole time. She came to my first recital because my parents were too busy to attend. She stood up and applauded and threw a rose to me on the stage. Amy DeLuca hit me upside the head the year I let Maria pierce my ears and they got infected because she used a needle and a potato. My ears are still pierced and they’re still crooked.” Alex turned around and leaned into Liz and cried. Liz couldn’t stop crying long enough to even talk.

The Sheriff sat back and pulled Tess close under his arm and began to tell the teens about Amy DeLuca, the moral crusader that plagued his police station for almost twenty years. At times, he cried and times he laughed, but he didn’t stop.

They sat and talked about her until late into the night. Tess cried the whole time. She cried for the woman who would’ve been the first mother and only mother she would’ve ever had. Kyle listened as his father talked remembering his own mother.

She was only a memory now. When she was with them, it was always hard to be at home. His mother hated Roswell and later she learned to hate his father because he wouldn’t leave. He hadn’t heard from his mother in years and in the last two weeks Amy DeLuca spent more time with him then he could remember ever spending with his own mother. He tried to shut her out, but the way she stood up to his father and made him laugh was almost infectious. Kyle wiped the tears from his eyes as the lump in his throat refuse to leave no matter how hard he swallowed. It was impossible to imagine how Maria was going to be able to go on when his grief was choking him, hers must be beyond comprehension.

~~~

She sat in the dark looking out of the window, and Michael leaned up against the wall silent, but ever present. “Would you please leave?” Her voice was so quiet that he had to move away from the wall to hear her.

“No.”

“I’m okay. I just want to go to sleep for a while. I can’t sleep with you standing there watching me.”

“Sleeping would be a good thing, Maria. You sleep and I’ll be here.” Michael moved to stand behind her chair at the window careful not to touch her.

“I don’t need you here. I don’t want you here. I just need to be alone for a while.” Her voice was low and tired, exhausted and rough from crying.

“Too bad, I’m here and I’m not leaving.”

Maria started crying again. She needed him to leave. It was too hard trying to go on and having him there. He wasn’t playing fair. Her head fell to lie against the cold window. Michael reached down and picked her up from the chair and laid down on the bed with her lying on him. She tried to move away, but he kept her locked against his body.

“This isn’t going to work. I’m not letting you back into my life. I can’t afford you. Please let me go and leave me alone.”

Michael’s heart was breaking hearing the tears in her voice. He could hear her voice breaking and becoming softer and softer. It hurt to see her so broken and not fighting back. Holding her close despite her struggles to get free of him, she finally quieted and rested against him.

“Sleep. I’ll let you throw me out later. You rest and I’ll keep watch.” Michael held her as she finally slept. He looked at the door when it opened. Max stood in the doorway looking down at Maria.

“If you hurt her again, I’ll kill you.”

“If I hurt her again there won’t be anything left for you to kill. I’ll kill myself. She’s the one Max. All I want is to take her pain.”

Max looked at Michael and how he held Maria gently against him. There was no denying that Michael’s care for Maria was beyond anyone else’s. For everyone else, she seemed to just tune out, but Michael was impossible for her to ignore. With him, she was on uneven ground always fighting to maintain her balance. It seemed unfair to strike while she was weak, but Max knew Michael.

Despite everything, Michael has a gentle soul that was incapable leaving someone behind. He, better than anyone else could understand Maria’s pain and loss. Michael lived his whole life wrapped in it, the desire for home, and the wish to find his family. In so many ways, they were the perfect compliment for each other, brash and gutsy, gentle and noble, and in love.

Max shut the door softly and returned to the living room where the others were still telling stories, a vigil eulogy to a lost angel, Amy DeLuca. Valenti kept taking with the engagement ring he had given her on his pinkie, twisting it around and around while he built a colorful story of the life and times of Amy.

~~~

Michael woke in the middle of night to the sounds of her crying. Lying still, he held her tight against him letting all the pain and sorrow wash over him. He closed his eyes and tried to absorb as much of her anguish into himself, but there was so much. It was like riding an ocean full of violent waves. You took the brunt from one large swell and then tried to brace yourself for another. Her sorrow was cutting wounds into his heart. It didn’t seem right that one small person could feel so deeply, so intensely. There was too much for one person to withstand.

Kissing the top of her head, he weathered the storm. No matter what the cost, how much it pained and stung, he would never leave her again. The promise he made to Amy DeLuca was more than just a promise; it was a life long commitment. She would never walk alone again, because he would walk at her side whether she wanted him to or not. In the dark, crying with her tears, he waited as they worked so hard to wash away a world of pain, they waited for the dawn and another day.

The day came fast and hot with no air currents and caught in the silence and stillness they waited feeling the high pressure of a violent storm approaching.

~~~

It rained the day they laid Amy to rest. The storm came fast and furious increasing the humidity. Maria stood alone in her grief though friends and love ones circled around her. Standing under the tent looking ahead and barely listening to the words that sent her mother’s memory home, Maria could feel the ever presence behind her. Michael stood behind her, tall and strong, his body absorbing the brunt of the rain and wind, sheltering her smaller frame from abuse. Maria tried to ignore him, but he was so hard to get around. The other mourners tried to offer her comfort, but she seemed lost in her own world.

Philip Evans watched the two of them. Michael surprised him the most. He stood unfaltering and firm refusing to leave her side, and yet not touching her until it became necessary to move her. The party waited for her to place the first flower on the coffin at the grave. Michael gently touched her shoulder. She moved forward hardly moving at all. He stayed two steps behind her the whole time.

Standing at the edge of the grave, she reached out to touch the coffin, her body starting to collapse as the shaking in her hand increased. He stepped closer fitting his body tightly against hers, supporting her frame, putting his arms around her his arm extended along hers intertwining his fingers with hers, he helped her to touch her mother’s coffin one last time and placing the flower on top. His other arm tight around her waist kept her firm against him. Frozen at the graveside, Michael slowly moved her back when she would’ve stayed. Maria’s misery was so strong Michael almost stumbled at the intensity of her emotions while the tears streamed down her face blinding her to the world around her. Michael never felt the tears running down his own face. All he could feel was Maria.

They stood still in front of the grave as the other mourners came to pay their respects. Some stopped to try to offer their heartfelt sympathy to Maria, but she was non-responsive. Her only support was a silent Michael who refused to move. Jim stopped in front of his almost stepdaughter seeing his Amy in her face. Gently wiping her tears away, he place a kiss on her forehead and gave Michael’s shoulder a firm squeeze as he led Tess and Kyle away.

The rest left and Max and the others turned around to look at the two lone figures standing alone at the gravesite. Michael’s head lowered to talk to her, but there was no reaction. They stood in the rain, until finally Michael scooped her up into his arms and carried her away from the grave.

~~~

After the funeral people came to the DeLuca house to offer support. Michael walked in carrying Maria who was soaking wet her head hidden against his chest. Michael took her into her bedroom and shut the door behind him. Max and the others were busy fixing food and passing out drinks. Each of them could hear the voices behind the bedroom door.

Michael and Maria were obviously having words and Maria’s voice was rising in anger. Alex started to go down the hall when Jim reached out and stopped him. One thing he was sure of was that Michael wouldn’t harm Maria for anything in the world, and he was pushing her then it was for a reason. The sound of her voice rising was almost a good sound. It spoke of passion and being alive.

The door opened and Michael came out of her room with her over his shoulder, Maria obviously very pissed and Michael’s face stony. He took her into the bathroom and slammed the door. They heard the shower starting and Maria’s voice growing in anger. Suddenly there was a large yelp and cussing from both Michael and Maria. Then there was silence followed by Maria’s crying. They could hear Michael’s voice low and gentle making soothing noises.

Michael stood in the shower full clothed holding Maria up and slowly removing her clothes. She was shivering and soaked to the bone from standing in the rain. He quickly removed her clothes and his own shirt keeping her under the hot water letting the spray remove some of the tension, but the cold? Michael felt that the cold would take more than hot water to remove.

Maria turned and cried against his bare chest. Michael stood there holding her naked body against his own, letting the warm water take away the chill left by death. She would’ve sat for hours in the dark of her room until she shivered apart or caught her death of cold. Michael refused to let that happen.

Looking down at where her nude body rested against his, he was surprised at how good it looked to have her skin mated with his. Michael could understand raging hormones, sexual desire, but this was something more, much more. It hollowed him out, made him thirst, it was the appetite that could never be appeased even after a lifetime of eating; it was love, unadulterated and unconditional love. It was, the very thing he had never believed in.

When they finally emerged from the bathroom, Michael was wearing the sleeping sweats and t-shirt he wore last night. Maria was wrapped in warm towels and sleeping in Michael’s arms. He took her back into her room and closed the door putting her on bed. Searching through her drawers, he finally gave up and left her room to enter Amy’s. Looking in her drawers Michael found a large comfortable shirt. Taking it, he went back into Maria room and put her into her mom’s shirt. Covering her with a warm blanket, he stood watching her sleep.

When Michael left the room everyone in the living room tried not to appear to be watching him, but they were. Jim went to intercept him before anyone else could. Valenti led Michael into the kitchen and pushed him into a chair. The young man was exhausted and almost on his last leg. Supporting Maria and him unwaveringly for the last few days was starting to take its toll on his energy reserves. Jim placed a plate of food in front of him and offered him a bottle of Tabasco. Michael ate without tasting or noticing what he was eating. His thoughts were still in the back room with Maria.

“Is she going to be alright, Michael?” Jim was having a hard time himself and he wanted to help Maria, but it felt too fresh, too biting right now. Maybe tomorrow he would be stronger, but Amy, her ghost visited him in his dreams both waking and asleep, and all he knew was, he lost something immeasurable.

“No. Not for a long time. None of us are.” Michael voice scared Jim. It was so deep, so intense in grief.

“Maybe she should eat? When was the last time she ate anything?”

“I fed her breakfast before the funeral. After she wakes up I’ll see that she eats something.”

“Son, I know that you’re the only one she seems to respond to right now, but you can’t do this alone. Maybe we should take Philip Evans up on his offer to arrange for her to see someone.”

“No. I’ll take care of it.”

Michael looked up at Valenti for the first time. Jim stepped back from the raw pain in the young man’s eyes. It was dark, cutting, and spoke of a private hell that no man should live in.

“This is my fault, my mistake, and I’ll fix it.”

Max and the rest were standing in the doorway listening. They looked at each other in confusion. How was Amy’s dying Michael’s fault?

“If I had stayed with her, not run away and hid from her all summer, we would’ve been together when this happened. She would’ve turned to me. But we weren’t. I left her all alone and that’s the place she’s trapped in right now. I don’t care how long it takes or how many sacrifices; I won’t leave her there in that place. I put her there and I’m getting her out.”

Michael put down his fork and started to leave the room. Stopping when he was abreast Liz, he looked at her directly in the eyes.

“If I’ve learned one thing this summer, the hard way, it’s that love isn’t selfish, it can’t be. I ran away because I was afraid and I didn’t think about the consequences that my leaving had on Maria. I couldn’t think that far ahead, with that much insight. Loving someone is about putting his or her needs before your own. I know that now. She taught me that, over and over. I just wasn’t listening. The only time Maria ever put herself ahead of me was when she tried to get me to treat her more like Max treats you. I asked her why she wanted to be with me if I was such a jerk. Maria was startled to realize that she was putting me down, making me feel inadequate, which I was. But you don’t do that to someone you love. You don’t leave them bleeding, alone, ever, Liz. Never.”

Michael left the room to go watch over Maria. Liz felt her heart stop as the full meaning of Michael’s words sunk in. Looking at Max, she saw the anguish and pain, and all the sorrow marked on his face from his summer left alone. Her eyes filled with tears and she had to leave the room. Liz needed time to really look at what happened, to process the guilt. Somehow through this whole destiny thing she put herself in the role of victim, and she spent the summer punishing Max for being different, for having lived a past life with a wife, and for having a destiny she felt apart from, unable join.

~~~

Maria and Michael didn’t return to school the first week. Philip Evans arranged everything for them so they could take the time to settle matters with Amy’s estate. Finding a day manager to run the shop and getting the bank accounts unfrozen so bills could be paid, only played a second seat to Maria’s emancipation. Michael sat in the judge’s chamber this time with Mr. Evans and Maria waiting the judge’s decision.

“Ms. DeLuca, I am always sorry to see a child left in their minority alone in this world. I realize that things are changing fast in your life, so I feel it is this courts obligation to help you find an even ground. I can find no benefit from making you leave your home, the only home you’ve ever known. Losing your mother was enough. I am awarding you emancipation with the stipulation that the counselor, Mr. Evan remains your financial advisor and family lawyer until you reach majority or until a time that he deems you capable of running your own affairs. This stipulation is more to protect you during this time of grief. Once again, I am sorry for your great loss. Your mother,” The judge paused to get control over his own emotions, “was a frequent participant in my court and I shall miss her passion and conviction.”

The judge signed the papers and passed them to Maria to sign. She sat there looking at them for a moment ignoring the pen until Michael came up behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders. Picking up the pen, Maria signed her name and turned to thank Mr. Evans for his help.

“Mr. Guerin?” Michael looked over to see the judge watching him. It was the same judge that only months ago granted him his own freedom. “May I have a word?”

Michael followed the judge to the other end of the room. Looking over his shoulder, Michael checked to make sure that Maria was being taken care of by Philip. They were deep in discussion over legal matters. Michael turned to see the judge watching him closely.

“At first I was afraid that this petition was a way of letting two teenagers legally set up house together.” He motioned for Michael to remain quiet until he finished. “But I am happy to see I was wrong. Mr. Guerin, I want you to know that I have been keeping tabs on you. You’ve done admirable. Your spotty academic record could improve, but you’ve kept true to your word. You held down a job, went to school, paid your bills, and the Sheriff has nothing but praise for you. I wanted to thank you for making my decision to give you your emancipation a good one. I am very proud of you, and your support of Ms. DeLuca was a big part of my decision to grant her emancipation, too.”

The judge shook Michael’s hand and left for his private chambers. Philip watched the chasing emotions run across Michael’s face. This was probably the first time in his young life that anyone was ever proud of him.

~~~

Over the next few months, Michael’s stuff found its way into the DeLuca house. He finally released his apartment. Both he and Maria no longer worked at the CrashDown. They now both worked at her mother’s shop after school letting the day manager go home. Michael was actually getting into designing new alien souvenirs. It was kind of fun, in a demented way. Maria and Mr. Evans originally found a buyer for the shop, but when Maria was supposed to sign the final paper, she broke down. It was too much like losing Amy all over again. She refused to sale because it was all she had left.

Everyday was another fight between them. Michael followed her and she ignored him. They lived in the house going about their everyday life, waiting for the other to break. Maria went to the store alone one day and returned home to find Michael outside shirtless scraping the house. On the front stoop was a stack of paint chips. Maria sat down and flipped through them. Amy had wanted to repaint the house for the last year, but they seemed never to get around to it.

A few days later Sheriff Valenti drove by and found both of them busy scraping the house. The next day he showed up after work with both Kyle and Tess. A day later, Max and the rest arrived and they all scraped.

“Well, maybe we can find a really long ladder?” Alex said looking up at the highest point of the house.

“I don’t know Alex, the eave is really up there. Maybe I could get on the roof and reach over and scrape it that way.” Michael was trying to imagine how far he could reach over to scrape.

“Yeah, great idea Michael, and the rest of us will stand under you to break the fall.” Alex already suspected if Michael fell from the roof that it would be his body that broke the fall. Nope, not going to happen.

“I could call the fire department and see if they will bring one of their large ladders over.” The group looked at him in horror. Valenti was wrecking the whole adventure and Kyle just looked at his dad and rolled his eyes. That’s what you get when you let these grownup types in on the fun.

The girls were sitting on the lawn looking at the highest point of the house. It was the only spot left to scrape and then they could start painting. Maria kept looking through the color charts. The final decision for the paint was going to have to be made soon.

“This is stupid. Whoever heard of a house with a steep roof like this anyway in New Mexico? The reason for steep roofs is for runoff of water and snow. It almost never rains here.” Michael squatted beside Maria his hand absently rubbing her shoulder looking up at the evil eave.

“Okay, I’ve got it. We need an extension to the scraper. If we take a long pole and attach the scraper we will be able to reach the highest point.” Michael said keeping his hands on Maria.

“Okay, that’s a possibility, but how do we keep the scraper from falling off when we add force?” Max asked closely watching Michael and Maria. Neither seemed to notice how much they occupied the other’s space, how often they unconsciously touched, and how they seemed to look for each other when they were apart too long.

“Super glue and duct tape.” Everyone turned to look at Kyle. “What? Duct tape it’s like a man thing. We’ve to use it or we let our sex down.”

The guys all stood rubbing their jaws and nodding their heads in agreement, even Jim. Maria ignored them and kept looking at the colors rolling her eyes at Isabel who snorted. Liz and Tess sat next to each other discussing the feasibility of the guys plan. They seemed to feel the duct tape was a bad idea.

The guys took off to collect the material they needed. Amy had some extremely good super glue that was used in making supplies for the shop. They found two long poles sort of borrowed from two shop brooms that they duct taped together into one large pole. Max and Jim super glued the scraper to one end using liberal amounts of glue. Michael picked up the pole to test it for reach. It worked.

They were all busy congratulating themselves on a job well done when Michael started cussing. They all looked over to notice that Michael’s hand was super glued to the pole. The excess glue had run down the pole and glued his hand to it. Michael stood there trying to shake the pole off his hand looking ridiculous. The rest were watching him with amusement on their faces. It was the chuckle from Maria that drew everyone’s attention. It was the first time anyone remembered her laughing since Amy died. It was the most beautiful sound.

Jim rubbed his hands together and looked at the house with a sense of satisfaction. They were finally ready to paint. All that was needed was to get the paint, supplies, and he was personally going to get a ladder to paint the eave. Using the extended broomstick method probably wouldn’t cut it.

“Okay, Ria, what’s the verdict? Are you ready to wow us with the color selections?”

“I think this for the house, and this for the trim.” Maria showed them the two colors that she had selected. “They were mom’s favorite colors, and I think that she would’ve picked them herself.” Maria’s voice cracked as she quickly ran into the house letting the door slam behind her. Michael started after her.

“Sheriff, if you wouldn’t mind picking up the paint she selected and supplies we need? I’ll settle with you later.” With that, Michael went through the door to find her. The rest suddenly more subdue than before they piled into Valenti’s truck to make a trip to the store. Everyone’s thoughts were on the two missing friends.

~~~

“Maria? Maria let me in.” He could hear her crying through the door. The door was locked, but he could open the lock easy.

“No.”

“Don’t make me use my powers on this lock. I’d hate to have to replace it because I melted it.”

Maria opened the door standing in the threshold with tear lines on her face and an angry look. “Why won’t you just leave me alone? I can be alone for a little while you know, without falling apart.”

“You’re alone too much. Even when there are people here, you’re still alone. I already told you that I’m not leaving. When are you gonna accept that?” Michael could feel his own anger rising. He was becoming very frustrated with the state of their affair.

“I don’t want you here. I can’t afford you, anymore. I can’t afford to take compassion and pity for love, because when it’s over, I’ll have nothing left. When you finally leave there’ll be nothing left, because it will all be gone.” Maria tried to brush past him, but he caught her arm and held her firm.

“Is this what you think this is, pity and compassion? Tell me Maria. Give me some clues here on how I am supposed to convince you? What do I need to do to get you to trust me when I tell you that I love you? That I love only you, now and forever? What?” Michael ran his hand through his hair in irritation. She was so exasperating.

“I don’t know anymore. There was a time when I would’ve died from happiness to have you so near, so close and attentive and telling me the things you’re telling me, but now I feel nothing.” Maria looked at him emotionless and with flat tone. “I haven’t felt anything in so long that I don’t think I’ll ever feel again.”

“I’m not gonna leave.” Michael said gripping her arm hard.

“Grow up. Everyone always leaves.” Maria said shaking his hand off her as she went past him into the bathroom shutting and locking the door.

He stood outside listening to the water run. She was crying in the shower, again. She was wrong. Maria still felt, but it was just bad feelings. The pain and sorrow had become so unbearable that they overshadowed all other emotions, drowning them out. Her misery was pulling her down where she couldn’t even fight.

“She’s wrong you know.” Michael looked over to see Isabel standing against a wall.

“How so?”

“She does love you, but she’s closed off, hiding from those feelings. I see it in her every time you enter the room. If you’re away from her too long she unconsciously looks for you and takes deep breathes when you finally reappear. The only smile I really ever see in her anymore is for you, and you alone. You’re are mending her heart Michael, but it’s a slow process. Her wounds are deep. She lets her own insecurities and fears keep them open and painful. I think she’s afraid of letting go of the pain because it’s all she’s feeling and she doesn’t trust in love anymore.”

“Sometimes living in the pain is the only way to feel alive and fighting, Isabel.” Michael knew this all too well.

“So, give her something else to fight.” Michael looked at Isabel hard and long.

“I am afraid that she’s too fragile.”

“Life is for the living, Michael. Letting her throw herself into her mom’s grave is a betrayal of Amy’s memory. She spent her entire short life struggling to take care of Maria, and she did a great job. Letting all that sacrifice be for nothing is one of the worse possible sins.”

“How do I convince her?” Michael could feel more discouraged if it took up a home in his soul and renamed itself, Michael. “How do I make her care enough to fight, to live?”

“Let her see you. Let her past all that reserve and walls. Expose yourself to her so that you’re as vulnerable to her as she has always been to you. You’re sleeping with her aren’t you?”

“Not the way you mean. I share her bed. I hold her through the night to make sure she’s not alone. She still cries herself to sleep, and then she cries in her sleep.”

“I know.” Isabel’s eyes held unshed tears. She knew exactly how Maria was feeling because she invaded her dreams and got more sorrow than she could ever forget.

“What do you mean, you know? Isabel?” Michael’s eyes narrowed as he waited her answer, because he already knew.

“Okay, okay, so maybe I was a little concerned about her. I sort of dream walked one night.”

“Isabel.”

“I know it’s an invasion of privacy.” Michael closed his eyes and leaned up against the wall. The shower was still running. “Don’t you want to know what I saw?”

“Tell me.” Michael ran his hand over his face. Weary, the very lines of being weary marred his face. When was the last time he really rested?

“It was a dark place, almost like black and white antique pictures. She was sitting on a hillside beneath a large dead tree crying. She just sat there hugging her knees and sobbing. It was like she knew I was there and all she said was to get out. The strange thing is that her tears were streams of red blood and on the shoes on her feet were red sneakers with a Kermit patch. That’s all the color that was in the dream.”

“Oh my God. The red sneakers.” Michael just closed his eyes. Those damn red sneakers, and another parent lost.

“I take it that you understand the meaning of all this?” Isabel was curious about what it meant, but a part of her knew Michael wouldn’t say, that he would hold the knowledge because it was private to him and Maria.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Good, then fix it.”

“Fix it? How Isabel? How?”

For the first time in his life, Michael really missed having a parent, a father figure that could guide him. He was running scared, so scared that he would stumble, and fall and Maria would pay the price.

“Well, I don’t know. But I think I’d start with the mausoleum.” Isabel pointed at Amy bedroom. She left to go join the other back from the store. It was time for them to put everything away and come back another day.

Michael stood looking at the now empty room. Isabel was right. It was time. He had been avoiding it trying to keep some peace, but if life is for the living then it was time to rejoin the breathing, and for them both to learn to do more than just exist. Michael went to talk to Valenti and find some boxes.

~~~

Maria stayed in the shower for as long as she could, but the hot water ran out long before she wanted to leave. He was probably still camped outside the door waiting for her. She had really expected him to just open the door in come in, so when he didn’t she was curious. He wasn’t waiting. Where did he go?

The sounds from her mom’s room drew her like a moth to a flame. Standing in the door, she watched him packing books and stuff into boxes. The closet was open with her mother’s dresses and stuff just hanging there untouched.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Anger and sadness raged inside, the sadness of what was lost, and the anger that Michael would dare to violate her mother’s things. But in truth, he was violating her, Maria. He was making her look where she didn’t want to look, to face the reality that Amy wasn’t coming home, ever.

“What’s it look like, honey?” Michael asked not even bothering to look at Maria but kept to his task. He couldn’t take a chance that he would let her devastation stop him. It was time and this was the first step.

“Don’t call me that. Put that back, and I mean right now. You’ve no right, no right.” She advanced into the room with her hands in fists at her side, her voice rose in anger. This was the first time she entered the room since Amy left.

“Your mother was a good woman. She would hate having all her stuff sitting here like a shrine when it could be donated to help the living. It’s time, Maria. It’s time to rejoin the world and learn to go on.”

“I said to stop it.”

Maria threw herself at Michael, both angry and terrified. Terrified that he was right, and terrified that if she gave in to this then it would be time to wake up and learn to go on without Amy.

“Stop it!”

Maria wasn’t sure she was ready for that. Her fist fit him hard while she struggled against him. His occasional grunt when one of her blows made contact gave her pause. She wanted to hurt him, to hurt him as bad as she hurt, but she also wanted to hide from him. He saw too much, understood too much, and sometimes the knowledge in his eyes made her sad to think of how he came about that knowledge, the lessons he had to learn.

“Let me go. Let me go you, you Czechoslovakian. I hate you. I hate you!” She was asking for him to release her in more ways than just physically. She wanted him to release her heart, to let her die.

Michael looked deep into her stormy eyes as he pinned her arms to her side. “I know. I love you, too.”

Sometimes you want something so much, so deeply that it almost consumes you, the wanting. Michael had spent the last few months wanting nothing more than to have her in his arms, to touch her, smell her, and kiss her. When want and reality collided, he was left stunned and surprised.

Maria grabbed him in anger, pulled him into her and kissed him. Her mouth ravished his, cutting his lip on his own teeth. The taste of his blood only seemed to inflame her to a higher level of passion. Michael couldn’t stop the groan from leaving his body. She tasted so good. He forgot how good it felt to just kiss her. He didn’t know if he pushed her down or she pushed him, but they struggled against each other. Their clothes almost melted under the heat of anger and passion, and pent up frustration.

They ended up on Amy’s bed, and their skin kissing each other. When and how their clothes were lost would always remain a mystery, but each other’s body became pure discovery.

Maria’s skin was so silky and soft under his hands; so much emotion and want hit him hard. He needed this, really needed this. He wanted to melt his skin to hers so they could never be parted. His mouth found hers over and over again as he moved over her body, but coming back to taste her, keep her with him.

She was soft where he was hard. He liked the difference. It touched him that she was so much his opposite, and yet so much the same. The rage inside her spoke to the anger he carried inside for years. He could understand this, the driving need. And as they moved together, joined together, moving hard and furious, her voice demanded more and more, and his tried to gentle and calm. But he couldn’t calm her. She didn’t want that.

It was a taste of anger, fear and even violence that consumed them more than the gentleness. Michael came to realize that she was afraid of the tenderness he wanted to show her; it was too involving and would rob her of control. Her darkness awoke his own. It was residing hidden inside, but she fired it in his blood, gave it purchase, a place to live, and his hands on her body marked her, his mouth and teeth, and nothing, nothing was going to take her from him until he was ready to release her. It was more than sex. It was a possession created out of a darkness he had no name, but Maria seemed to understand. That darkness was all she saw, all she felt, and if he wouldn’t walk away then he was damn well going to join her in hell.

The part of him he kept hidden understood her more than he realized. It was a deep well bordered on pain and despair, lacking in warmth or any human emotion other than the darkest most violent ones. He didn’t know if it was a legacy from Hank or his alien nature, but in truth it scared him at times. It was what allowed him to kill Pierce and what he had tried to protect her from. It was blinding to wake up to realize that the very nature inside him, the part he was afraid to reveal actually was in her too.

They didn’t stop once or even twice, but pushed each other to the edge. Her nails leaving marks on his back, her teeth nipping him, biting and drawing blood. And the more she demanded, the more he gave, and wanted to give, until finally almost spent she tried to move away. But he wouldn’t let her. He pulled her back into his arms and took her again, hard and furious, and the only real word spoken was no, when she tried to leave him. What she unleashed in him was something he had no name for, but pounding into her body, manipulating her and pushing her, reaching down to harshly pull her into his arms as he took her. He felt the need inside, rising, refusing to abate. Looking at her smaller body being abused by his large one, he smiled, but when he looked in her eyes the smiled left his face.

Her damn eyes, they looked at him with a smile of their own knowing she had pushed him beyond his control, and though he was winning battles, she had won the war. And with a move of her body against his, a touch of her hand on his skin, she pulled herself deeper into him, ignoring all his boundaries, taking him even harder and deeper inside, and when he didn’t think they could go any further, that they lacked any more energy, she demanded more. Maria didn’t lack verbal skills to describe and demand what she wanted and the only word that remained silent from her mouth was his name.

After the storm, she tried to push him away, to ignore him, but he refused. She had already won so much of the battle that to give her this was too much. It made him nothing but an object to be used, and once he let her assign that word property to his body and soul, he would have lost all hope of bringing her back from the living hell they were residing. He pulled her back hard up against his chest and wrapped his arms around her until she finally found rest. The first real peace and quietness since Amy died. She finally slept too tired to dream.

As far as first times went, this was a big one. It was earth shattering. Michael held her close from behind as she slept in her mother’s bed. He never suspected that when he and Maria finally made love it would be in Amy’s bed. Somehow, it seemed to add to the whole adventure.

He couldn’t stop feeling her body, touching her, and wanting her again and again. The demon in his soul watched his hands on her body, tempting him to wake her and start it again. It was hard to ignore the instinct that urged him to put his mark on her, to claim her as his territory yet again. So he held her as she slept and let some of the light back inside until he felt the peace, too.

He knew when she was awake. He felt her startled movement when she realized that not only was she nude and in bed with him, but she remembered what they did. As suddenly as she startled, she relaxed because it felt good, the first good she has felt since last May. He could almost feel her gaze looking at the boxes on the floor, some spilling out Amy’s life belongings.

“It’s time you know. Time to heal and go on.”

His voice held the softness and tenderness that she denied him when they mated, had sex, fucked. He wanted to call it making love, but somehow it didn’t quite ring true. They used each other’s bodies, and though he felt love for her, he suspected that she wanted nothing of it. Making love was going to have to become something else they would need to learn. They were going to have to temper the violence and darkness with the gentleness and calm, but that lesson looked to be its own long journey and he could only hope they survived it.

“I know. Will you help me?” Her voice was small and quiet, holding back the sounds of being broken.

“Always. She’s not here anymore Maria. Her spirit has left this room, but she remains waiting. You’ll see her again many times.” Michael had to believe that. He needed to believe that Amy would survive somewhere inside Maria, because that meant Maria would survive, too.

“Where? Where is she waiting? How will I see her?” She turned in his arms to look into his face to see the truth in it that she could hear in the conviction of his voice. “How?”

“She’s inside you waiting to be born in our children. You’ll see her in the faces of our daughters, in the mischief laughter of our sons. Nothing is ever destroyed, it comes back in cycles. She is waiting here, Maria, here.” Michael’s hand moved to rest low on Maria abdomen cover her womb. Maria’s small hand came to rest on top of his as she turned fully in his arms to really see him.

“I never said I was going to have babies with you.”

“I know. But, you will. I promise you.” He let her see his inner self, the dark one, and the one that considered her his mate, his territory. “You will.”

He held her close in his arms, kissing the side of her neck gently. His hand remained resting over the place that would hold his unborn children until they could safely be born into this world, this planet. It would be their home as it was the home of their mother, and now Michael’s home. Destinies and world far away just lost a native son. He chose his destiny, and he would die fighting to save this world and those whom he loved, for if home was were the heart is then he need stop looking, because he was already holding it in his arms.

“I didn’t get to say goodbye.”

“What?” Michael stopped rubbing his face in her hair and kissing her skin behind her ear. His gentle touch paused.

“That morning. I over slept again and was in such a rush. She wanted to show me her wedding gown that came in the other day, but I was too busy. I just waved and was out the door, even without kissing her goodbye. I never even spoke the words. It’s not fair.” Michael closed his eyes and held her tighter as her voice broke into a sob. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know that it was going to be the last time.” Her voice was so thick with tears and the pain echoed in the room. “I never said goodbye, or told her I loved her, or just said thank you for being my mother.”

So much of her misery became clear to Michael. She felt guilty and incomplete. That last glance before leaving the house that morning was the only memory that Maria could seem to recall.

It was like the picture of Maria that he painted from memory of her face as he told her he loved her and then walked away. Kissing her head and holding her really tight, refusing to be another person who left her, because he already did that once, Michael let her cry. It felt like his imagination, but somehow for a few hours in time, it felt like Amy was there with them, holding them both close while Maria took her first real steps toward mending.

~~~

Later they sat in the room sorting through all the stuff trying to decide what would be kept and what would be given away. Michael worked on Amy’s books and papers. The pictures he put aside until later. He recognized some pictures of Maria as a young girl. She looked just like he remembered her from all the visions he received from kissing her. She was such a happy baby full of smiles and missing teeth.

Holding a picture of her and Amy together, he felt a flash, a flash of Maria holding a baby and breast-feeding with him holding her close watching. Taking that picture, he slid it into his shirt pocket. He was claiming this one for his own collection; reaching into the box, he took the one of her as a smiling missing toothed brat, too. Somehow, he just knew that he was looking at a future picture of his own daughter years before she was born or conceived.

Maria sat on the floor sorting through the clothes, crying softly. She sat for a long time staring at one sweater, holding it in her hands. Michael watched her for a few minutes until finally he moved in behind her sitting on the floor and putting his legs along the outside of hers. Pulling her into him, he moved his arms to follow along hers and placed his hands over hers where they held the sweater. Reaching forward he placed a kiss along her neck and whispered in her ear.

“Tell me. Tell me the story.”

They sat together sorting the clothes the next few hours with Michael holding her and letting her tell him about her mother’s favorite sweater, why she picked a ugly pumpkin color shirt, or the Hawaiian shirt that looked ready for the rag bag. Maria’s memories of Amy were vivid and alive, some sad but so many happy and funny. She told the stories as she decided which garment would stay, to whom certain ones would go to, and which ones would be given to charity.

“Whoa, not that one.” Michael intercepted Maria tossing a cute little red silk dress into the toss away pile. He quickly put it in the to keep pile for Maria.

“No, really. It can go.” Maria looked back at him where he rested along her back.

“Oh, I wasn’t thinking about you. I was keeping it for me.”

“You?”

Maria’s one eyebrow went up as she gave him a quick once over and cocked her head to the side. He watched her tongue come to rest in her cheek as she regarded him with amusement.

“Okay, maybe you could kind of look cute in it, but I’m not sure if you’ve the legs to carry it off.”

“Not for me to wear, DeLuca.” He reached around her tickling her gently liking the soft sound of her once lost laughter. “I’ll take my pleasure from watching you wear it. I’d give you anything if you wore that small scrap of silk.” Michael ran his hands over her body along her front to move upward and palmed her small breast in his large hands, squeezing gently and running his thumbs over her nipples.

“Anything?” Maria looked at him curiously. Her voice stuck in her throat as she felt the need to push him down and move over him, take him, kiss him until he didn’t even know his own name. Dammit, he was doing it again; making her lose control and making her want the tenderness.

“Anything within my power.” His honest answer made her look at him hard and with thought.

“But not my mom. You can’t give her to me, can you?” Tears filled her eyes again, and slowly journeyed down her cheeks.

“No. No, I can’t. If I could, I would’ve already.”

Michael leaned in and kissed her, gently cupping her beautiful sad face in his hands and rubbing the tears away. The only way he could give her back Amy was in a form of a child, but they were years away from being ready for that. With all the alien powers in the world, he couldn’t change the natural events of things; he wasn’t god.

“I know. I’m learning to live with it.”

He kissed her temple and rubbed his hands up her arms while she pick up the next garment and continued sorting. These tears were different. They were sad, but for the first time, they weren’t deep and full of anguish. These tears flowed strong and cleansing; washing away some of the overwhelming sorrow and bring the healing power of acceptance and learning to go on.

Neither noticed Valenti when he had come to stand in the doorway. He had returned just to check on them after Michael had told him that he was going to make her pack up Amy’s possessions. It had literally been hours and he unknowingly had spent the entire time waiting for Michael’s call, until finally he went to make sure they were okay.

Max joined him in the doorway after he had been there for almost ten minutes. It was hard to miss the state of the unmade bed, or notice that Maria was only wearing Michael’s shirt and Michael was only wearing boxers and a t-shirt.

Jim actually blushed when he noticed a dark mark on Maria’s naked leg, or the violent looking bite mark on Michael’s neck. It was hard to determine whether the couple had actually made love to each other or just worked each other over, but the room and the closeness of them sitting on the floor suggested it was perhaps a combination of the two.

Despite the obvious bruises and marks along their skin, neither seemed any worse for the wear. They stood watching for a while, but neither wanted to interrupt as Maria cried and Michael held her letting her grief wash away. He seemed unaware that he was crying too. Grief was a bond they shared. As if by agreement, both Max and Valenti walked away as quietly as they came. They weren’t needed. Everything was going to be fine.

~~~

Winter broke and Spring roared in along with the battle among wills. Since that day they sorted Amy’s clothes, Michael pulled back from Maria giving her space. She really appreciated how insightful he really was. When the pain and grief was so strong and violent, he refused to give her any space almost like he knew that he was the only thing keeping her from collapsing. Once she passed that stage of grief and was starting to accept the loss, he back off a few steps to give her room to breath, to collect her self, and try to rediscover the old Maria.

They remained lovers since that day, but their relationship began to change. Michael needed her to give him proof that she had forgiven him, that she trusted him. Maria held back. She stayed behind those high protective walls. The battle was being fought sexually fast, hard, and furious as he tried to make her say his name and tell him that she loved him, and she countered by taking everything he had to give to regain her own balance, to forget, and to feel alive. He would fall back into bed at night exhausted, feeling his bones to the very core, hurting in places he didn’t know exist and he would look at her just as wasted at his side.

How one tiny delicate body could take so much abuse and activity was beyond him, but she did and remaining strong and stalwart, they battled. When he felt that he finally tired her enough to sleep she would grip him hard and they would start over, both to determine not to surrender. They were both bent on breaking the other. They were both running hard unwilling to yield, afraid to lose.

~~~

“You look like crap, Michael.” Isabel frowned at him in concern. He really looked tired.

“Thanks, Izzy. Don’t hold back, just tell me how you feel.” Alex was listening with a smirk on his face. But under his lashes he looked Michael over. Isabel was right he looked tired, drawn, and almost gray.

“Aren’t you sleeping?”

“Some.”

“Some?” Isabel asked.

Michael just shrugged and continued to look at his sandwich. Damn, he knew better than to let Maria pack their lunches. It looked like fresh tomato with goat milk cheese and sprouts on whole wheat bread. Figures she would ignore the pound of fresh pastrami in the refrigerator and fix him something inedible.

“Look Isabel, what do you want to know? Do you want a blow by blow account of all the things that Maria and I do to each other until the wee hours of the morning until we pass out in exhaustion only to wake a few hours later and start a new day? How much detail would you like to know?”

It wasn’t fair to take the lack of meat on his sandwich on Isabel, but what the hell? He wasn’t feeling that amiable right now. Last week, Maria packed him a peanut butter sandwich with brewers yeast. This was at least a slight improvement. Michael continued to look at the goat cheese and wondered if he could use his powers to alter it into pastrami.

Alex perked up at the moment that sex was mentioned. “You’re sleeping with her? What the hell? I thought you were staying there to protect her, take care of her, not take advantage of her weaken state.”

“Calm down, Alex. Get the record straight before you blow a gasket. I’m not using her to slack my insatiable sexual appetites.” Michael actually winced at that. Actually, he and Maria were both using each other’s bodies, and insatiable didn’t even touch on the place they were at. “I don’t bilk widows out of their dead husband’s pension. And I don’t steal candy from little girl scouts.” Michael paused, and in truth at least what he took and gave to Maria was with love. “Maria is using me to slack her insatiable appetites, not the other way around. She’s using me.”

“What are you talking about?” Alex couldn’t see how one small helpless girl could take advantage of the much larger, more powerful Michael Guerin.

“I tell her, show her all the time how much I love her, but she doesn’t return the sentiment. She hasn’t even said my name since last May. No matter how hard I push, even in the thralls of passion, she doesn’t say my name. I could be anyone. Someone to take away the pain, make her forget for just a short period of time, to exhaust her to the point that she can finally rest.” Michael rubbed his hands over his face. “I’m the object here, so get it straight.”

“Have you let her see you, try to give her a flash? Maybe then she would understand and start trusting you again.” Isabel asked. She was starting to worry about the couple. This degree of passion and involvement had to end or learn to include something more, soon.

“I can’t do it.”

“Michael, you’ve got to if you want her.” Michael laughs with almost a touch of bitterness. Isabel was the queen of understatement.

“Want her? Need her? She’s everything, everything. But the vision thing isn’t because of me this time. It’s Maria. She’s the one that’s closed down, hiding behind a wall that no matter how hard I try, I can’t breach.”

“You built that wall yourself, Michael.”

“Thanks, Alex. Do I look stupid? I know that it’s a wall I forged myself. I built it with my own ignorance and fears, one fucking brick at a time using extra mortar just to cement it into place.” Michael reached over and dumped his sandwich in the trash. “God, I’m so tired.”

“Are you going to give up?” Isabel looked at Alex in fear. What would Maria do if she succeeded in breaking Michael?

“No. The only way I’ll ever leave her again is if I die.” Both Alex and Isabel were alarmed at the conviction in Michael’s voice.

“You need to let her see you, Michael.” Alex was finally cluing in on how important this was, how volatile.

“I already told you Alex, she is closed down.”

“Get a clue, Einstein. If the alien cheating, oh look into my soul, method doesn’t work then try the human method.”

“Human method?” Looking at his friend, a man that taught him so much about honor and friendship over the past year. Alex could just be damn so confusing at times.

“Sure. We men have been using it for years to teach the women we love who we are.” Alex got up and dusted crumbs from his lunch from his clothes and picking up his backpack to leave. “Talk to her.”

With that Alex gave Isabel a wave and he was off to his next class. Isabel wished that Alex had kissed her goodbye or something, but he was still reserved since last summer. She was working hard to get him back, but he wasn’t that much under her spell this time.

This time he wanted to meet her on even grounds. He asked her out, took her places, kissed her until she begged him for more, and then took her home. If sexual frustration could kill she was soon to be a victim. All his new female groupies were sending her into a jealous rage. Michael’s words finally drew her attention back to him.

“Talk? About myself?” His look of horror was so adorable that Isabel could really understand why someone would work so hard to keep him close.

“Yep, talk.” Isabel could help but laugh as her brother walked away in a daze. Michael and Maria’s relationship had never been easy.

~~~

That was the day that Michael began to talk, and talk, and talk. Maria didn’t really notice at first, but suddenly she did. He told her everything. All about Hank, the first time Hank hurt him, and how he use to hide from Hank by going to sleep on Max’s floor. He told her about emerging from the pod, from leaving the cave, and why he became separated from Max and Isabel.

At first, Maria tried not to listen, but she couldn’t help it. It was everything she had wanted to know for so long. She asked him questions and he told her. He talked so much that he was slowly driving her insane. She liked this new version of him, but she also missed her old Michael. The more he talked about himself the less she thought about herself. He was no longer silent, and at times, she would’ve given him the world just for a moment of silence. Michael talked some more.

“Would you please be quiet?” Maria almost begged him.

“What? What did I do?” Michael was just barely able to keep from smiling at her tone.

“Your constant talking is driving me crazy.”

“I thought you wanted me to let you in, let you get to know me.” Michael paused for dramatic effect, and then let his voice change to express his hurt. “You don’t want to know me?”

“Yes. I mean, no. I don’t know what I mean. Your constant bantering is driving me insane.”

Michael smiled to himself and continued to talk, to tell her about why he was talking, to explain how he just wanted her to know him. Maria, in a fit of frustration threw her bowl of oatmeal at his head. It barely missed. Seconds later, he found himself on the floor with a very out of control Maria removing his clothes, kissing his body, and Lord have mercy, biting him. The whole time he kept up a steady flow of dialog to tell her how much he like what she was doing, detailed descriptions of how turned on she made him, what he would like to do to her, and then he started working on sexual fantasies.

Maria grabbed his head and looked deep in his eyes. Her eyes were wild and furious. “Shut up. Just shut up.” Michael finally stopped talking as her mouth plunged his drawing the kiss deeper and deeper. Michael was anything but stupid, sometimes a man just had to know when to stop talking and start kissing.

~~~

“You look a lot perkier today. Where were you and Maria yesterday? You both missed school.” Isabel caught up with him between classes. Both her and Alex were curious to the missing couple the other day.

“We took the day off.”

“Oh, one of those days.” Isabel could feel a blush moving over her skin and actually was mad for reacting like that. “Spare me the details. So, is the talking to let her get to know you campaign working?”

“Absolutely, she threw her bowl of oatmeal at my head yesterday.”

“And that’s a good sign, how?” Obviously there were some special techniques involved in the Guerin-DeLuca mating rituals best left unknown or at least untried.

“A fighting Maria, is a living Maria. She missed. But Maria has other ways of taking me down and those techniques are tested and true.”

“Well, that will explain the bite mark on your neck.” Michael’s hand quickly went to his neck as Isabel handed him her compact mirror.

“Damn, she got me good. It would seem I owe her a large, not to be covered by turtleneck, love bite.”

“Want me to fix it?” Michael gave her a look of horror at the thought of removing his well-earned battle scar. “Never mind, I think I’ve got the message.” Isabel moved away from him quickly heading for her next class. “Jesus, Michael, could the two of you pretend to be a little less kinked.”

~~~

Maria and Michael worked hard over the summer in the shop. The tourist season was a really big time for them not only keeping customers happy, but supplying all the shops, gas stations, and restaurants with memorabilia. They were making candles for the third time that week. Michael’s sense of the artistic created colorful and artistic beautiful candles. They couldn’t keep them in stock; besides, the ones he made for their own personal use.

Their love affair, that at one time seemed like a battle, had changed without her really being aware of it until one day she was wrapped up in a really deep loving relationship.

Earlier that summer, Michael insisted that they renovated the bathroom to make it more two-occupant friendly. Now the new luxury size bath with jet sprays was residing in a small addition that they had added to the house with the old bath and shower renovated into a huge shower. The bathroom was fast becoming her favorite room of the house. They spent hours taking long hot baths with perfumed bubbles and candlelight.

Her mother’s old room was now theirs and Maria’s old room was waiting for a purpose. Currently, it was a guest room and place to get away from Michael and study while he watched hockey or some other sports with the guys. They had put a daybed in there and a large sturdy table like the ones found in the library along with comfortable chairs and bookcases. This summer they used the room to assemble new stock for the shop and to store back stock.

Maria lay in bed with him early one morning waiting for the new day. The early morning light was strong enough that they could see each other. They were both lying on their sides facing each other while his fingers gently tracing her features. She held her breath when he leaned over and gently kissed her mouth slowly deepening the kiss. A world of information rushed by as she saw herself, the past year, the bleeding of his own heart while he watched her in so much pain; mostly she saw the love and his desire for children with her. The desire was so deep inside him. It spoke to her. She saw the vision of her nursing their child.

Pulling back from him, she noticed the tears in his eyes, not realizing that her own eyes were also filled. She didn’t need the vision to tell her how deeply he loved her, he had already told her and shown her in every way imaginable. Moving slowly forward, she kissed his tear-filled eyes, then his forehead, and finally his mouth. After she pulled back, she pulled his head to her breast to let him finally rest and take comfort from her. It had been so long since he had been on the receiving end.

~~~

Michael had finally finished the last batch of candles and left them drying in the back workroom. Candle making was necessary, but in the summer, it was a real pain because of the heat. Even the air conditioner wasn’t cutting it.

Michael’s newest project was blowing glass and stain glass making. It just seemed wrong that all his new projects involved heating up glass to the point of melting. The stain glass wasn’t that bad since he used his powers to melt the glass after shaping the lead frames. He used his powers to pull the colors in the glass into patterns and shapes. He already had commission orders for eighteen window panels from customers.

It took them and Philip Evans a few weeks of fieldwork to determine how to price the new items since they were actually art and not souvenirs. Philip was amazed at the profits from the store. The added talent of Michael had changed the merchandise to more than plastic collectibles and new age oils and aromatics. His paintings, stain glass, hand-blown crystal, and candles were putting them into an entirely into a different genre. They were becoming a local artist shop. Philip had sat outside with Michael and watched him fashion a crystal vase for his wife for their anniversary. Diane Evans reaction was utter surprise and disbelief when she saw the card with the logo, Handmade by Michael.

The blown glass was a whole other field. Michael had set up a smelting furnace in the outside storage area. There was no air conditioning, only fans. People were so curious when he started working that they came to watch him blow glass into these delicate forms with swirls of color. Maria was amazed that he learned to do it so fast, but it was like the images drove him to bring them to life.

She was happy, he wasn’t working with it today. Last week, he had a real bad accident and dropped a punt of molten glass on his own arm. The burn was severe and in the time it took Max to get to the shop, Maria was hysterical watching his pain. They had to close shop early that day so Michael could sit holding her after she lost her stomach. It felt like she couldn’t breath.

Maria looked up from her book when he came into the shop from the backroom. Putting down a stack of newly made dried candles by her for pricing, he went to the cash register. Watching him take out a ten-dollar bill her curiosity was peaked.

Over the last six months, their money had become combined. She didn’t pay him to work and they just shared everything equally, never squabbling over who owned what or who paid. Philip Evans tried to set them up accounts separate and show them how to split the household bills, but it was beyond the two of them to even care. They just kept track of the money they used out of the register so the account balanced and didn’t really worry about where it was coming from.

Philip finally gave up. He and his wife had combined accounts and finances and if they wanted to run their lives more like a marriage then he really couldn’t see why anyone should care. They were both emancipated, living together, and very obviously in love. All they lacked was the legal document, but for all practical purposes, they were already married. He tried to release Maria’s monies to them and let them handle their own affairs, but the couple looked at him in horror at the thought of having to manage so many details. So it looked like he was the family lawyer and advisor for the DeLuca-Guerin family.

“What are you doing?” Michael smiled at her voice. He loved her voice and the softness to it.

”I’m gonna get us some ice cream from the dairy barn across the street.” Michael wiped his face on his sleeve. “God, it’s hot in here. Do you think we need to get a stronger air conditioner?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe we should talk to Philip and have a heat and air contractor come and look into it.”

“It’ll be expensive.”

“I know. But maybe we can move the old unit into the outside work shed and cut down the crushing heat from when you’re smelting.” Michael went over and kissed her quickly with a quick smirk.

“You’re always so good to me, baby.” He smiled even more at her expression. He knew she hated him calling her honey or baby, and it made him use them even more. “You’re usual? Or do you want the Liz Parker special?”

“Liz Parker special?” Maria was confused.

“You know, vanilla.” Michael moved his eyebrows up and down.

Maria smiled and pushed him away. “I’ll take my usual. Oh, and sweetie?” Michael couldn’t stop the laugh that came from him at the word “sweetie” in that special tone of humor and sarcasm. “Hurry back I have a special treat for you.” Maria waved a bottle of Tabasco at him. “New bottle.”

“God, I love you.” And with that Michael was out the door.

Maria was chuckling as she reached for a labeling gun to mark the candles. Absently looking up at the calendar she was amazed that it was almost a year ago that her mother had stood at the intersection outside waiting to cross the street so she could join Jim for lunch when she was hit by the car. It seemed a lifetime ago, and yet, only like yesterday. Looking through the store window she saw Michael standing on the curb in the exact position her mother must have stood waiting to cross the street. Oh my God. Maria was out of her chair and running for the door.

“Michael!”

Michael heard his name called, but the shock of actually hearing Maria say his name stunned him. It had been over a year since he had heard it. His heart sped up as he turned to look at her. She stood in the doorway, her whole body shaking with her hand held out to him.

“Maria, honey what is it?” Michael was concerned. Her whole body was trembling and she was whiter than a sheet looking ready to collapse.

“Michael, come away from the curb.”

Michael looked down at where he stood remembering the scattered magazines, that one solitary shoe and beads. Moving back towards her quickly, he took her into the shop shutting the door and turning the close sign over. Maria whole body shook and she held him tight almost in desperation.

“I don’t need ice cream, just you, Michael. Just you. Don’t leave me.” She clawed at him desperately and her voice was thick and harsh, but barely above a whisper.

“Never.” He reached down and gently kissed her. “Say my name again.”

“Michael.”

He groaned and pulled her down on the floor behind the cash register. Her fear of losing him like her mother was what held her isolated behind that wall. But Michael had slowly broke holes in her defenses until she realized that holding him apart was the same as losing him.

“Again. Say it again.” He could believe how much he needed to hear it. Over and over again. It had been a long hard year for them both.

“Michael.” Her voice was so strong and clear.

“Thank you, God.” He held her like he would never let her go.

~~~

Four days later he stood under a tree by Amy’s grave watching Maria. It was the anniversary of her death a year ago. It was softly raining like it did a year ago when they buried Amy, but this time the rain was gentle and mist like, last year it was violent and fierce.

It took almost a whole year for him to find his way back to the even ground where he should’ve started with her. But somehow working through the anger and pain allowed him to come to peace over his own life and Hank. It gave him a chance to understand the parts of his dark nature that use to scare him, once made him afraid. Together they grew up to accept that sometimes things happen a certain way for no reason and the true test was learning to grow stronger, surviving, and loving through it all.

Valenti came up behind him also watching his daughter by an almost marriage. He held in his hands a bouquet of flowers the exact replica of the ones that Amy had picked for their wedding. Among the perfect miniature roses white and sterling were forget-me-not that he had added for her. Michael reached out and touched Jim’s shoulder and in a flash, he saw the older man’s greatest regrets.

It was Amy in her beautiful wedding gown with Valenti holding her from behind in his arms trying to eat the cake she was feeding him over her shoulder, and Amy and him in a larger house with the three kids Kyle, Tess and Maria playing basketball in the driveway while Amy held a newborn child in her arms.

Michael pulled away from all the sorrow of lost dreams, could’ve been, and should’ve been that was coloring Valenti’s life. He understood how long regrets could pain a person, how they became the demons that ravaged a life away.

“Go ahead, she won’t mind.” Michael stood there as Jim went to join Maria at the graveside.

“Wait.” Michael reached out and touched Jim’s face looking deep inside.

Valenti saw it like a flash, the children walking in the desert, Hank, Maria, and finally Maria wearing Amy’s dress walking down the aisle with Jim towards Michael, the wedding. Michael, Kyle, and him washing his truck and getting in a water fight, the group of them gathered for Thanksgiving dinner watching football and getting loud, and finally Maria and Michael letting him hold his newborn granddaughter with Amy’s beautiful hands and smile. Tears gathered in his eyes as he pulled Michael into his arms and gave him a strong hug. Sometimes the best way to let go of past regrets was to replace them with new dreams.

Michael watched the two of them say goodbye yet again to a very important person in their lives. Maria held Jim’s hand as he placed the bouquet in front of the tombstone next to the lilies that Maria had placed there. Both were crying, but it was finally okay, because missing Amy was something that would never change. Michael slowly moved to join them as they started to leave.

“Just a moment. This won’t take long.” Michael moved closed to the grave and took out a panel of stain glass that he made as a replica of the picture he had of Maria with Amy. Leaning it against the headstone, he added a delicate crystal angel that he had hand blown using Amy’s favorite colors. Using his powers, he melted it to the stone on top and reaching into his pocket, he took out a string of beads, the very beads that Maria had picked up that day. He had re-strung them. Taking the strand, he looped it around the angel and let it hang down by Amy’s name. Finally he placed his hand on the actual headstone itself and using his powers again he burnt his handprint into the stone.

“I promise you, I’ll always take care of her for you. I’ll always love her.”

Standing he turned to see Maria crying and Valenti looking equally touched. Moving to her side, Michael pulled the last thing from his pocket. And taking her left hand he placed a ring on her finger.

“Say yes?” Maria looked down at the engagement ring, at Valenti, then her mom’s grave, and finally at Michael.

“Yes, Michael. Yes.”

Pulling her into an embrace and closing his eyes, he lifted his face upward towards the sky to let the gentle rains wash away all their tears and a lifetime of anguish. Reaching over, he pulled Jim into their collective hug, the three of them finally coming to a sense of peace and balance. Family, it was all he really ever wanted.

The End