CHAPTER 10
It took all four of them to pull the shell-shocked alien out of his fetal position next to the bed. Isabel thrust a pillow under his head as Liz reached for the throw at the foot of the bed and spread it gently over him. Max knelt beside him, intent on healing, but Michael reached out and grabbed his arm tightly before he could make a connection. "Max," he panted, barely able to speak. "She's...in there. I saw her. We've got...to get her...out."
"We will, Michael. Just tell us where she is," Max said, gently pushing Michael back into a reclining position. Michael immediately tried to push himself back up.
"She's in...the room. Round room."
"The room from your dream?" Isabel asked sharply.
Michael shook his head and managed to get out, "Not a dream." He forced himself to sit all the way up, swaying a little as he did so.
She exclaimed, "That's right! In the dream you said you weren't in the dream..." Her voice trailed off and she smoothed her fingers over her hair in confusion. "We're back to that again. A round room that's in a dream but not in a dream. If it's not in a dream, then it has to exist somewhere real, right?" she said, trying to reason things out. "So we figure out where and go there and get Maria out."
"Not as easy as it sounds. We still don't have a clue where this room is," Max pointed out.
"It was in Michael's dream. At least access to it was; Maria got in that way."
Alex said, "Well, then, shouldn't he know where it is?" He turned to Michael. "You were there, but you're here now. And Maria is there, instead of here. Hey, maybe you switched places, and she's there alone and you're here with us." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Michael open his mouth, and then close it without speaking. Alex decided to call him on it. "What, Michael?" he asked.
Michael hesitated, then reluctantly said, "She's not alone."
"You saw that in your vision? Well, who's with her then?"
He paused before saying slowly, "She's with...Michael."
Everyone froze. Max stepped protectively in front of the others and demanded, "Then who are you?"
"I'm...Michael. I think."
"This doesn't make any sense!" Alex interjected. "You say Maria's with Michael in the round room, but that you're Michael? Okay, Michael, how is that possible?"
"I'm Michael. He's Michael. I'm here now. I'm there too."
"How can you be in both places?" Liz burst out.
"I don't know. I just know Maria is...there. With me. I saw it." He took in the skeptical faces around him and pushed himself to his feet, saying stiffly, "So read me. Find out for sure." Alex wasn't sure that was such a good idea. The last time someone had connected with Michael, he'd gone all Maria on them. And not in a good way.
Isabel and Max looked at each other, eyes locked in a silent argument; then Max nodded emphatically and took a step towards Michael. Or maybe-Michael. He said tensely to the others, "Keep back," before reaching out and grabbing the arm of the alien--person? being?--in front of him. Closing his eyes, he carefully began to connect.
Alex held his breath as he stood and watched, poised for action. Not that he had any idea of what to do if something went wrong, but maybe if he moved fast enough he could take out the maybe-Michael if need be. Yeah. That was likely. He let out a sigh of relief as Max relaxed. Turning back towards them, Max said, "It's definitely Michael. But he's different, too--more closed off than I've ever seen him."
Michael looked around at the others and asked, "Satisfied?" When they nodded, he moved over to the door and leaned against it, adding in a businesslike tone, "Well, then, let's get on with it."
Max nodded again, before musing, "Maria is with you. So where are the two of you?"
"I don't know. I saw me there, but I can't tell what's going on."
"If you're there, don't you know?"
He shook his head. "I don't see it all the time; I only saw it in the vision."
"The vision," Liz said suddenly. "You're all ignoring something. Michael," she continued gently, "After you saw the vision of Maria, you kept telling us to get her out of your head. What did you mean?"
He considered for a moment and then replied matter-of-factly, "Just what I said."
"Maria is in your head?"
Isabel said under her breath, "Well, that would explain certain non-Michaelish behavior." Michael heard this, but chose to ignore it.
A bizarre idea popped into Alex's brain. Hey, maybe those extra hours of studying with Liz were finally going to pay off. "It's like in math," he said. "You know, if A=B and B=C, then A=C. Maria is in the round room. Maria is in Michael's head. Therefore the round room is in Michael's head."
"That's faulty logic. It doesn't work," protested Liz.
So much for math. "Well, then, maybe it's that Michael's head is in the round room," he shot back.
"Yes," said Michael suddenly.
"Which? The room in your head or your head in the room?"
"I think...both. It feels right."
Alex began to think rapidly. "Wait, this is actually starting to make sense. What if Michael is in a round room that's inside his head?"
"What?" asked Isabel, not following Alex's convoluted logic.
"Well, he's obviously physically here. But what if he's not all there mentally? No offense," Alex said to the alien in question. "But what if part of you, the part that makes you you, as Maria said, is trapped within your mind?"
"Can that even happen?" wondered Isabel.
"Hey, I don't know. You say you're supposed to be super-advanced-type humans, but that's not to say that you can't have the same old mental hangups as the rest of us. Michael's just got a pesky little case of alien schizophrenia, which is great, because all we need now is an intergalactic shrink and we're in business."
Liz spoke up. "It makes sense, in a bizarre way. But if Michael's in the round room and here, why isn't Maria? Physically, she has to be somewhere."
Michael closed his eyes, trying to focus his mind on what he'd seen in the vision. Then he grimaced and said tautly, "She's not. And it's killing her."
Again, everyone froze. "What?" Liz asked in a whisper.
"Being in there, but not existing in reality--she can't survive it. She'll just fade away and disappear."
Liz clutched Max's shoulder convulsively. Maria was...dying? They had to do something. They had to help her. But how? How? She found herself voicing the thought in a panic. "What can we do? How do we help her?"
Four minds, two human and two alien, raced in a search for an answer--any answer that could possibly help. While they were thus occupied, Michael made a calm, considered decision. Taking a step away from the door, he said resolutely, "In my vision, Maria was asleep. Or unconscious. Isabel is going to dreamwalk Maria. And she's taking me in with her."
"But you're already there. How can you go in again? That would put two of you together in the same place. It's paradoxical," Liz protested.
Alex muttered, "Not to mention frightening."
"I got her into this, and I'll get her out. We're going," Michael said calmly. "Now."
Isabel took a deep breath as she lay down on the bed, trying to clear her mind enough to be able to pull off this dreamwalk. If Maria was really even asleep in the first place. If she didn't exist in reality, would she even be able to dream? All Isabel could do was hope. And take Michael with her. She looked at him as he settled down on the floor beside her. Without discussing it, they'd both avoided Maria's side of the bed. Okay. Time to reach Maria. Reaching over the side, she grabbed Michael's hand and began the connection.
A few moments later, she was in Maria's dream, Michael with her. Surprisingly, it was familiar, a vast expanse of sand under a bright, cloudless sky. "Wait a minute. This isn't Maria's dream, it's yours," she said.
"It can't be mine. I'm not asleep," he reasoned.
"But I recognize it. It's exactly the same. Look," she said, pointing, "there are Maria's footprints." Michael stared at then for a moment in contemplation.
"Maybe she's just having the same dream as I did. So?"
"So, the chances of two people having the exact same dream...no way. It's practically impossible. There's got to be another explanation," she said. An idea struck her. "She's got this...connection to you."
He raised one eyebrow quizzically, so she went on, "She can always feel when you're around. So maybe the connection is making her dream your dream. Or the fact that she's in your head is. I don't know! It doesn't really matter why, does it? What matters is that we find her!"
"All right," he answered. "So I take it we follow the footprints?"
Isabel nodded and began to move across the sand, Michael at her side. After a few paces, she looked back. She still didn't leave any footprints, but Michael...The sand practically flowed away from his feet, leaving deep indentations behind. Isabel shivered.
"What is it?" asked Michael.
This wasn't the time to get into it. She dismissed it, and continued to move along the footprint trail. "Nothing."
They were silent as they marched along across the desert, eventually coming to the circle of prints Maria had left while trying to find a way through the invisible barrier. Isabel broke the silence. "This is it." She led him to the wall and placed her hand against it.
"Michael?" she called loudly.
"You don't have to shout. I'm right next to you."
"Not you, you idiot. The other Michael."
"Oh."
"Michael," she called again. "Are you in there?"
She heard a faint voice. "Isabel?"
The Michael next to her said in a low voice, "That's not me. It doesn't sound a thing like me."
"Yes, it does. It sounds exactly like you," she whispered, before resuming her contact with the Michael inside. "Michael, is Maria in there?"
"Yeah, but something's wrong with her. I can't wake her up," came the frantic voice from inside, louder now. "I don't know what's wrong, and I can't connect with her to find out--I'd probably blow her up."
"It's okay, we'll get her out. We'll get both of you out," Isabel called.
"We? Who's out there with you?" was the quick response. "Max? You have to get in here and see if you can heal her. I can't. My powers keep backfiring on me."
"It's not Max," said Isabel, looking at the Michael next to her. He nodded. "It's you."
"What? What the hell are you talking about, Izzy?"
"Just believe me when I say you are out here." There was silence from inside the barrier.
Michael moved closer to the barrier, next to Isabel. "Maybe I can reach him," he said. Placing both hands on the smooth surface, he closed his eyes and tried to focus on the wall. On Maria inside the wall. On himself next to Maria inside the wall. Isabel gasped as a glow of light began to glimmer underneath his hands and quickly spread across the surface. She couldn't see the enclosure, but she could see the bluish-tinged light emanating from it. It covered the wall and gleamed so brightly she had to look away. "What's going on?" she asked the intensely concentrating Michael, who didn't answer but instead remained focused on the wall in front of him. On Maria. On himself.
Michael placed Maria's hand gently back at her side and approached the curved metal wall of his prison. "What? What the hell are you talking about, Izzy?" he called. When her response came, he leaned against the wall in disbelief. He was out there? How could he be in two places at once? But he already had been, according to Maria. He'd been in Roswell making her life miserable, like always, at the same time that he knew he'd been here. Moving his hands up the metal, he wearily rested his forehead against them and tried to understand.
Who'd have thought that his life would get even more screwed up? Well, it was only fair. He'd messed up everyone else's, ruined Maria's, and then got her stuck here. Now she was sick, and he couldn't wake her up, and then, as if one fuckup wasn't enough to have around, now there were two of him? How many more lives could he destroy now? Line up, folks--two assholes, no waiting.
He came out of his abstraction to notice that the metal surface of the wall he was leaning against was shifting, changing beneath his fingers. For the second time that evening, it began to roughen and grow warmer. He looked up and saw the already polished metal begin to shine even more brightly, until he almost had to shield his eyes from the brilliance. Then the light began to fade, and through the now transparent barrier he could see...
Himself.
Himself, dressed in jeans and a pullover shirt, his denim jacket topping it off. Michael stared for a moment at his mirror image before starting at the sound of Isabel's voice.
"Michael," she said in relief, her voice full of hope and anxiety at the same time, "I can see you. Where's Maria?"
He gestured behind him and pleaded, "You've got to get her out of here. She's unconscious and I can't wake her up."
"It's a good thing you can't," Isabel said firmly. "We're dreamwalking her, and if she wakes up, we might lose her forever. Michael, the two of you are trapped inside your mind. You aren't physically there."
"No," he argued, shaking his head in disbelief. "We're here. I can feel the walls, I can feel Maria. This exists. It's a real place."
"No, it's not," claimed his look-alike. "None of it is real, outside of your head. You trapped yourself in there, and now you can't get out." Michael stared at him. Was this who Maria had seen, in Roswell? Was it really him? Did he really seem so...cold? So remote? This Michael didn't just have a stone wall. He was one. But, after all, isn't that what he wanted, what he needed to keep her safe? Maybe this was how it needed to be.
"Michael," Isabel said, "Maria's in there with you, isn't she? Well, when she joined you, she disappeared from reality. She doesn't exist right now outside your head."
"What?" he shouted, panicked. "Of course she exists! She has to. She's...she's Maria." Was everything he had put himself--and her--through all in vain? It was one thing to live without Maria to save her life. But to live without her because she didn't exist...He swallowed, suddenly feeling sick to his stomach. No. That wasn't acceptable. He had to get her out, keep her safe.
"How do we get her out?" he shouted through the barrier.
"How did Maria get through?" demanded Isabel. "Or her shoe, for that matter?"
"I don't know. She was just there all of a sudden."
"Try using your powers to knock a hole in the wall," Isabel dictated.
"Don't you think I tried that already?" he shouted, yanking up what remained of his shirtsleeve. "See what happens?" He got bitter satisfaction at the white look on her face as she took in the bruised and seared flesh.
The other Michael, the one across the barrier from him, didn't so much as blink, the cold bastard. He did however, begin to speak. "Try it again. Put your hands on the wall and concentrate on moving the molecules in it to create an opening. I'll do the same from this side. Together we may be able to break through it."
"Are you fucking insane? The last time, I was the only one in here. Do you think I would do something that might backfire and hurt Maria?" If this really was him, how could he be so careless? Oh. Maybe that wasn't such an unfamiliar trait. But to take a chance with Maria...No way.
Isabel called again, exasperated. "It's not like we have a giant can opener out here with us, Michael. God, what do you--" She stopped as a sudden breeze blew out of nowhere, tugging at her clothing and hair before it faded away. "What was that?" she asked the alien beside her.
He looked around cautiously. "I don't know."
The breeze came again, stronger this time, picking up the desert floor and tossing it gently around. With it came a slow darkening of the bright sky, although there were no clouds in sight. Isabel looked around her to see Maria's footprints and the marks in the sand left by Michael's passage begin to disappear as the blowing sand washed over them. "Oh god," she whispered, then shouted through the barrier. "Michael! Check on Maria!"
He rushed to do so, almost tripping over his own feet in his haste. She was once again twitching on the floor, her sleep troubled. And then for a moment it seemed as if she would startle herself out of her own sleep. Remembering Isabel's words, he took her hand and began to stroke it, whispering harshly, "Shhh. It's okay, Maria. Don't wake up. It's okay." He touched her cheek, trying not to let his inner panic communicate itself to her unconscious mind.
From the outside, his own voice pulled his attention away from her. "We're running out of time. We need to break through. Now."
Torn, he remained kneeling by Maria's side. How could he risk her getting hurt from his powers? But how could he risk not getting her out, and having her die? Shit. There wasn't really a choice. He reached over and took her face gently between his hands, staring at is as if to commit it to memory. Even though her image was already burned into his mind. Huh, maybe even literally, considering the events of the evening. He stroked her cheek one last time before leaning over and pressing his lips against hers in an uncharacteristically tender kiss. With his eyes closed as if to hold in her image for one last moment, he pushed himself to his feet and away from her, opening them to lock gazes through the clear wall with his mirror image.
"Okay, let's do it. Now." Planting his hands firmly against the strangely rough surface, he closed his eyes in concentration. Okay. Don't go blowing up or anything now, not like last time. Well, maybe brute force wasn't the answer. Concentrating, he tried to picture small bits of clear glass, breaking down into even smaller bits, into tiny grains, specks, molecules of nothing, and mentally commanded them to move. Go there. Out of the way. Goddammit, move! And in his frenzied imagination they actually began to obey him. They shifted away, flowing faster and faster in response to his silent commands. He was actually doing it. He had control over this. He...
...felt a stranger's hands against his.
Jerking his eyelids open, he found himself staring once more into his look-alike's eyes. Into his eyes. They stood, palm against palm on opposite sides of a window-like opening in the invisible wall. Wait--how could he see a window in an invisible wall? Never mind, it wasn't important. What was important was that he knew it was there. A window to Maria's safety. A window to freedom. He gave a tiny quarter-smile, thinking of how many times he'd used this particular means of entry. Yeah, he could deal with windows.
"Hurry!" he heard Isabel shout through the growing sandstorm. He rushed back to Maria's side and carefully lifted her into his arms before carrying her quickly across the small space to the opening where Michael--the other Michael--stood. "Take her!" he commanded, holding her up to the opening in the wall. The other-him nodded and reached through the window for her, not hesitating, even when she began to moan and toss in their arms. Michael's hands tightened on her one last time before he drew them away from her, watching as the other-him clutched her to his chest and backed a few steps away from the wall.
"Now you!" shouted Isabel, rushing over to the opening. He nodded and put his hands on either side of the opening to pull himself through. Time to go.
Maria woke with a sudden jerk and lay still for a moment, breathing heavily. Where was she? Oh yeah, she thought, smiling. She was with Michael. Her Michael. The prickly, stubborn, infuriating, gorgeous, alive Michael. She smiled one more time and snuggled deeper into his arms, only to realize suddenly that she wasn't leaning up against the hard muscles of his chest. The surface against her back was far too soft. And cushiony. Michael was never that yielding.
Opening her eyes, she found herself back where it had all started, hours ago. Lying on the bed in Isabel's room. Liz was hovering over her, tears in her eyes. "You're back, Maria!" her friend whispered, and gave her a blinding smile. Maria looked further around the room, to see Max holding tightly to Liz's shoulder and a grinning Alex standing at the foot of the bed. Turning her head, she found Isabel, a warm smile lighting her face, sitting up on the bed next to her. But where was--?
There he was, on his feet on the other side of Isabel. In a bound Maria was up off the bed and flying towards him. "Michael!" she cried in joy, throwing her arms around his neck and clutching him tightly, her cheek pressed to his chest. "It's you! You made it out of there!" When he made no movement, she faltered, "Michael? You did, didn't you?" and raised her head.
He looked her straight in the eye, and she slowly removed her arms from around him. He finally spoke, very calmly, very coolly. "No. I didn't. Michael is still in there." Leaving her standing there, stricken, he walked out, quietly shutting Isabel's door behind him.
TBC...