Part 7
"Oh sweetie," Amy murmured, placing her hand gently on Michael's arm as she moved past him into the bedroom. She rounded the bed, righting the chair Michael had toppled out of to take a seat. "She's not coming back, not yet. She's just sleeping."
"What?" Michael asked, staring at the strange calmness surrounding a woman who should have been exalted with surprise right now. "No, you said she doesn't so this. She doesn't move!" he exclaimed, desperate for her shaking to mean something other than it did.
"She doesn't," Jim offered gently, stepping up to the taller man. "Except when she's asleep, then it's just like you or me, she moves when she dreams."
"It is not dreams," Michael insisted.
"Son…"
"Listen to me," he continued, staring Jim into an instant silence. Turning to look at Amy, he muttered, "She is not dreaming. I was just talking to her and that," he pointed at Maria's now still body, "is not a dream."
"Michael, you can talk to her, but she probably doesn't hear you. She's just asleep, it's normal," Amy explained, her face still so calm that Michael wanted to scream at her that she didn't have the faintest clue about what Maria was going through at that very moment.
"It is not a dream, I was just in there, and she doesn't dream, she…"
"You were in there?" Amy whispered quietly, furrowing her brow at him.
Michael lowered his head as he realized that he had yet to explain that, as promised, he had indeed found her daughter. He knew he had to, he just didn't think he had the words to do it. "We… I can do this thing. We always called it connecting…"
~~~~~
Michael explained how he was able to connect with another person as best he could to Jim and Amy. Even the man who had known about their alien heritage for three years had a tough time accepting that particular ability.
"So you can read people's minds?" he asked.
"More like take a look inside," Michael explained. He rubbed his face in exhaustion; apparently instantaneous time travel didn't excuse you from jet lag, he thought grimly.
He sighed as he looked up at the confused parents sitting across from him. "She lives in this house," he explained. "She created it from somewhere, probably some memory she has of a place that feels safe. She's scared… she thinks we are all dead and that whoever did it is trying to kill her as well." He hesitated, wishing he didn't have to tell a mother that her daughter had no interest in living in the real world. "She doesn't want to come back," he added softly.
"And you can… go there? To this house?" Amy asked.
"Yeah," Michael said, shrugging his shoulders to signal that he didn't completely understand it himself. "I couldn't do much before… when we were here. But on Antar," he paused, thinking that the time to explain his past life as a general in the Antarian army was definitely not now. "Well, let's just say that I picked up a few new skills."
"So you saw her? You spoke to her?" Amy asked, her voice tear-filled as she struggled with the concept that Maria was living a life inside her head, that she was choosing not to walk among the living.
Jim reached out to squeeze her hand gently, sending his strength into her. He recognized her need for answers, wanted them just as badly himself, but he also saw Michael's obvious suffering and knew the boy needed some time.
"It's late," he suggested softly. "Why don't we sleep and then tomorrow…"
Amy whipped her head around to face him, her objection already falling from her lips when she met his eyes. "No, I have to… of course," she finished with a whisper, seeing the reasoning in her partner's eyes.
Michael couldn't lift his head to face her, he remained silent as Jim led Amy from the room, returning a few minutes later to direct Michael to the spare room. He rose and traced the familiar steps down the hallway towards the bedrooms. He saw Maria's door lying half open and heard Amy's voice floating out from inside.
"It's okay baby girl," she was saying softly. "Michael's going to help you."
In the hall, the weary traveler stopped, eavesdropping on a conversation he had no right to hear but could not deny himself.
"You always trusted him, didn't you? I thought he was trouble from day one, but you were so persistent. If he'd never…"
Michael pressed his hands tightly to his ears, blocking out the sudden roar rushing through his brain. He didn't need to hear Amy's words to know what she wanted to say, if he'd never met Maria this never would have happened. She'd be living her life in complete oblivion to the struggle that was life as an alien's girlfriend.
He stepped quickly into the spare room that Jim had indicated, closing the door quietly behind him. Turning out the light, he crossed the room to take a seat on the lumpy mattress, the memory of making out in here when her Mom was already asleep in the room next to hers flashing back to him violently.
"I never should have loved you," he whispered into the darkness, cursing the very heritage that he now relied on to save her. "If I get you back, I'm leaving. I'm going back to stop it all, stop the shooting, stop Max, stop you from ever laying eyes on me. If I can do one thing right in this world, it's give you back the life you should have had; one without a worthless alien."
Michael lay his head down on the pillow that smelled so much like her it brought tears to his eyes and fought to find some peace through the voices screaming in his head. His hasty exit from the hallway had left him unaware of the true words Amy spoke to her daughter. The phrase, "If he'd never loved you he wouldn't have come back, right?" died in the stale bedroom air, unheard by the girl lying motionless on the bed and the boy across the hall who was her only hope.
~~~~~
Maria slowly unfurled herself from her protective position in the corner of the bedroom she had chosen to hide in and crept across the room to the door. Pressing her ear against the wood, she listened for sounds of anyone lingering in the hallway outside. She knew Michael was gone, she'd sensed his departure the moment his spirit had left the dimension she now called home. Still, fearing attack by some unknown enemy, she opened the door soundlessly, peering out to verify that she was the lone occupant of the house.
Satisfied that she was, she hurried down the stairs, grabbing her prized picture frame off the bookshelf before rushing back upstairs. She whirled into the bedroom again, turning to slamming the door forcefully. The lock clicked into place loudly, bringing a satisfied smile to her face as she secured her sanctuary once more.
Pushing off from the door, she turned around to head back across the room. The instant terror of seeing his boots before her caused her to drop the picture, the glass shattering as the frame bounced on the slatted floor.
"What… how…" she whispered at the figure.
The cloaked figure tilted his head at her menacingly, stepping forward to wave his hand around her face threateningly. "Why, you let me in of course? All you had to do was recognize who I was."
"No, no I never… I wouldn't," she gasped, feeling her throat constrict as the fear she had been running from for a full year was realized. "No, it's daylight, it's daylight!" she screamed, pointing at the sun streaming in through the window behind the man.
As she pointed, the imaginary universe rotated, sending the sun to its bed while the moon lit a starless sky.
"No," she moaned, choking as her lungs forgot to take in the next mouthful of air.
Kivar stepped ever closer to the tiny girl, sending her collapsing into a heap on the floor as she wished away his advances. "Wishing doesn't make it real," he hissed into her ear, his breath tickling her skin in a vicious rash of bristling skin. "Just because you see him doesn't make him real."
With those final words, the nightmare her tortured brain had conjured vanished. In the resulting devastation, the sobbing girl curled tightly around herself, wishing for all the world that she was back in her dark corner. The enemy had entered her safe haven, bringing with him sadistic words to test her fragile belief that Michael hadn't really died. Was is possible that it was all a joke? That he hadn't returned for her? That she hero she had waited on for so long had not finally arrived?
Unable to process the idea that she did indeed live a cursed existence, Maria began chanting to block out the evil ideas marching around her brain. "No, no, no, no, no," she whispered, her voice gaining speed along with strength as she fought against the notion that he was dead all over again. "No, no, no, no, NO!" she screamed, her arms shaking as she struggled to keep them wrapped tightly around her ravished body.
From within the darkness that was the Deluca household, three people awoke at the same time, each wondering which of the other had spoken the words aloud, neither believing that it was actually the fourth.