"What?" Liz queried. "When did this happen?"

"A few days ago," Maria responded, slightly embarrassed by her statement.

"How will you tell the others?" Does she ever stop asking questions? Maria asked herself.

"Could you?" The words were weak, and both of them knew it.

"Fine, but you have to tell him yourself. No complaining. I'll tell the others when you have told him."

"Deal. I'm hungry," Maria complained for the umpteenth time.

"I hear that's common for someone of your…illness." Liz jerked her eyes upward before saying the latter word, and Maria got the hint: someone was there.

"What does she have?" Isabel's voice inquired. "Max might be able to heal it."

"I don't think so," Liz stated nonchalantly.

"What do you mean?"

"I can't tell you that yet," Liz said, glancing swiftly at Maria, who was looking around the kitchen for some appetizing food.

"Yet? What kind of secret does she have?" Isabel searched each of their guilty faces, and realized what the problem was. "How on earth are we going to deal with that?"

"Please don't tell any of the others until the time is right," Maria begged.

"Fine. I'll just keep every secret I've ever been told." Isabel was more worried than angry, and she hid both with her degrading sarcasm.

"Here he comes," Liz hissed pointing in the direction of the kitchen door. She left when he came in, leaving Maria in a defeated and very cross mood.

"Is there something going on I don't know about?" Michael asked, getting into the refrigerator and pulling out the carton of milk. He drank straight from the carton, much to Maria's disgust.

"There's a problem." Maria silently coerced him into the living room and onto the couch.

"There always is. Specifically?"

"Remember when we were celebrating your promotion to general manager?"

"Clearly. What about it?"

"Do you remember what happened that night?"

"Get to the point."

"She's pregnant." Isabel's voice came from the doorway. "Sorry, I only wanted to get some water. I didn't mean to interrupt." Isabel gave an arrogant but sympathetic smile.

Michael looked between the two frozen figures of Maria and Isabel to make sure it wasn't true. "Is she right?"

"Yes." Maria only formed her mouth around the words; she never made a sound. Maria could sense that he was thinking of many questions that he would never ask due to his character. He stood up and paced angrily, and Isabel slipped past the pair to get her water and go back to her room.

"What are we going to do?"

"I don't know. We'll figure something out when I get a little farther along.

"You won't be able to help us fight. We will need all the help we can get, too."

"So, it will just be the seven of us, because we don't know who will keep a secret. And I might be able to help for the first few weeks or months, depending on how I feel."

"If you're carrying my child, I don't want you in harm's way. Please, just be surveillance or something out of the way."

"Now, there's a good idea of how I can help."

"There is another concern, though."

"What?"

"There's a small chance it could be part alien. If it is, it might hurt you. The book said that an alien baby from a human could hurt, but not kill, the human. You would have a lot of pain. I don't want you to go through that."

"Thanks for your concern. I really want to have this baby. Like you said, you are aliens and can manipulate molecular structures. Max could decrease the pain slightly before allowing me to wake up again."

"We don't want to have to put this on him. It's our problem. Sure, he needs to know about it, but we can't rely on him for every little thing we do."

"On the subject of your promotion, what is your excuse for not being at work today?"

"I'm sick, of course. That's not even close to my worries about what is going to happen."

"We'll take this a moment at a time, Michael. There's no need for immediate worry. Besides, there are three of you who are aliens, and six of you who are willing to die to keep the secret. Oh, yeah, and I'm fully willing to make sure nothing goes wrong."

"I wish that I have your vitality."

-

"Everyone, I have an announcement," Liz said at the communal lunch table. "Maria's pregnant."

"So that's why she's not eating lunch with us today," Alex remarked.

"In a way," Michael grunted.

"I figured you wouldn't be here if it was your child. And it probably is," Jesse joked.

"It's not funny," Max stated. "There is a possibility it could be part alien, and it will hurt her if it is. We have to fight as soon as we can. We will need all the help we can get. I can also heal her if the pain becomes unbearable."

"We'll see when we get there, Maxwell," Michael interrupted. "We might not need the mighty King's help."

"Okay, who wants dessert," Isabel and Liz offered simultaneously. A few murmurs of positives could be heard. Liz headed for the ice cream while Isabel went for the cake she had made the previous night and the Tabasco sauce. Confirmations of orders were taken before Liz doled out the ice cream and Isabel cut the cake.

Plates were passed around to a silent lunch table, and everyone was interested in their own plate. First done, Liz offered quietly to take lunch to Maria, and she took a sandwich and a slice of cake to her room, but she took two spoons and an ice cream bucket with her.

"They know," Liz told Maria as she offered her the sandwich.

"Did Jesse joke again?" Maria started eating her sandwich rapidly.

"Yes, but Max stood up for you and Michael. Max offered his help to you."

"Next time you see him tell him that I will come to him to help heal me," Maria proclaimed. "Just don't tell Michael and tell Max not to tell Michael, too."

"I will, but you will have to tell Michael the truth eventually."

"You make it sound so cliché, Liz. It's amazingly weird. We all have to keep secrets, but it seems that there are smaller secrets that can't be told. It's all so confusing."

"I know, but some things should not be expressed out in the mutual air."

"Like what?"

"I don't know."

"Liz, we should trust each other enough to talk to one another without setting up walls. I can understand Jesse being a little bit out of the way, but that's because he's only been on the scene for less than a year. For heaven's sake, we need to make sure that everyone knows what's happening so that we can adapt to that without impeding on anyone's feelings."

"Maybe I should have started on the ice cream earlier."

"You brought ice cream?"

"For us to share while talking about things."

"What do you want to talk about?"

"Do you trust Michael completely?"

"He breaks my heart, but he has kept every one of my secrets. Well, you know them, too, I guess."

"Do you really want to have this baby with all of your heart?"

"Yes, I really do. Michael might die out there, and I want to be able to have some memory of him. This sounds really corny."

"But it comes from you, so it doesn't have to be."

"Thanks. How's Alex?"

"Oh, he took the news just as well as everyone else who didn't already know. He looked really concerned about something, though."

"What?"