Part 8
Michael was aware that the screams came from Maria by the third 'no' and already leaping out of bed by the fifth. He lunged for the door, only marginally escaping an embarrassing situation when he remembered his complete nakedness and ran back for his jeans. Shrugging into them roughly, he stumbled for the door, pulling it open to race across the hallway.
Jim was standing in the darkened opening to Maria's room and Michael pushed past him rudely, falling to his knees beside the bed where Amy sat near the pillows, the crying girl cradled in her arms.
"What happened?" he panted.
"It's just a nightmare," Amy murmured, kissing the sweating forehead of her panicked child gently. "Just a nightmare," she cooed softly.
"Does she scream like that all the time?" he asked, whirling around to face Jim still standing in the doorway.
The older man was obviously shaken and keeping his distance as a preventative measure to avoid further panic within the room. "No… no," he mumbled. "She never… never speaks."
"Except when she's dreaming?" Michael added, certain that his own surprise at hearing her voice could be attributed to one more fact he didn't know about her condition.
"No, never… not since…"
Jim's voice trailed off as Michael turned slowly back to the women on the bed. "Nothing?" he whispered, leaning in to place a tender hand on her leg.
Maria's voice had quieted from her initial screaming but the steady refusals continued to fall from her mouth. Her body was curled securely into the familiar protective ball, her muscles constricted tightly as she fought to hold her universe together. Spasms shuddered through her torso, extending along her legs and arms violently.
"She's not stopping," Amy said quietly. "Jim?"
Jim broke free of the trance he appeared to have fallen into to reach onto Maria's bureau for a rectangular leather case. Unzipping it, he passed it over Michael's head to Amy. She took it from him, flipping it open to reveal five identical syringes nestled inside, each filled with a clear liquid.
"What is that?" Michael asked steadily, his voice trembling with instant anger as he guessed their obvious contents.
"Morphine," Amy responded, ignoring the implied threat in his words as she reached towards one of the needles.
"You're drugging her?" he spewed furiously, snatching the case from her hand as he stood to fling it across the room.
"It's prescribed!" Amy exclaimed.
"Now see here boy…" Jim cautioned heavily.
"I am no one's boy," the incensed alien seethed, standing to face with the supposed caregivers of his former lover.
It was only now, standing in the lone ray of moonlight penetrating the dark room, that Michael's bare chest was exposed for his observers. Amy visibly winced as her gaze traveled along the snaking scar that traversed his upper body, originating near his left shoulder, ending at his right waistline. It wasn't the lone injury, accompanied by a mottled collection of bruises decorating his ribs and an obvious recent knife wound tickling his collar bone.
"No you're not," Jim muttered incomprehensibly, his own stomach churning as he mentally transferred Michael's wounds to his own son.
"I just…" Michael started before realizing that their eyes fell somewhere below his face and looked down at the masterpiece of mutilation he displayed. "It's ancient history," he mumbled, stepping forward to sit on the edge of Maria's bed, concealing his wounded body in darkness once more.
Jim stepped towards the shaking figure, reaching out to place his hand securely on a quivering shoulder. "The drugs are prescribed," he said quietly, signaling that the unspoken wish for the intended conversation not to happen was granted.
Michael breathed deeply for a long moment, each injury reoccurring slowly against his skin as his darkest secrets were illuminated. He didn't want to make this about him, it couldn't be about him; it had to be about her… it was always about her. He turned his head sideways, casting his gaze upon Maria again as he said, "She doesn't need drugs. I'll fix it."
He stretched out along the bed, removing his love from Amy's clutches to wrap his arms around her tightly. "You should get up," he instructed the woman, closing his eyes as he lay down beside the trembling girl.
"I don't…" Amy mumbled, pushing herself away from the bed into Jim's waiting arms.
It took a full hour, but the pair were able to sit quietly in the room and watch as her clenched body slowly released itself, uncurling to lie flat against the one that cradled it. They didn't understand how he was able to do it, but they did accept it and Amy vowed at that moment that there would be a new caregiver in Maria's life from now on.
~~~~~
Michael entered the house through the familiar doorway, surprised to see that darkness had fallen on the imagined world. He walked quickly through the first floor of the house, pausing briefly to look into the gaping hole beneath the stairs before continuing to the second story. Something told him he would find her in the same place he had left her, as if he could sense her presence within the walls, follow her essence to her hiding place.
He knocked gently on the door as he called to her, the low murmurings from inside confirming that he had located her. "Ria? It's me again. Can you let me in?"
He heard her voice stop instantly, sure that she was naively trying to conceal her location from him. Restraining the urge to break down the door with sheer force of will, he stepped back for a moment, staring at the rusty doorknob resting beneath his hand. The powers he had once used whenever the smallest obstacle got in his way had become a fog-shrouded memory thanks to years of disuse. He closed his eyes now, wondering if they would work within her world, and if he could call upon the right effect to spring the ancient lock.
A sharp click broke the dusty silence in the house and the heavy door swung open slowly, creaking on its hinges as it revealed the unlit room inside. Michael peered into the darkness, the shadowed figure huddled in the middle of the room at once sending his heart soaring to new heights and breaking it into a million pieces. He'd reached her, again, now he just had to hope that she hadn't retreated beyond his grasp.
Crossing the room to her side, he sat beside her on the floor, stretching one leg along her back as he curled the other against her side, gently pulling her to his chest. Her barely audible sobs reached out to wrap around his heart, squeezing it further towards crumbling when he was already on the verge of complete collapse. "Shh," he whispered, his voice trembling as he struggled to funnel what strength he had into her. "I'm here now baby, it's okay. It's all okay."
"Mi… Michael?" she cried softly, lifting her head slowly to stare at him through the tangle of hair hiding her face.
"It's me," he reassured her, smoothing the hair from her eyes as he let himself fall once more into their emerald depths.
"He… he said," she stammered, inhaling a shaky breath as she fought to believe that it really was him holding her tightly. "He said you weren't real," she gasped, pressing her face into his bare chest forcefully. "You're real, right?"
"Yes, yes," he whispered, caressing her curls with one hand while he tried to warm her shivering shoulders with the other. "Who said I wasn't?"
"K… k…" she stammered.
"Kivar?" he asked, his voice losing all sense of realism as he let the offensive word fall from his lips.
Maria nodded her head quickly, unable to meet his eyes as she listened to the chill consume his voice.
"Kivar was…" he started, struggling to comprehend how Kivar could have any effect on the sheltered girl. "Where did you see Kivar?" he finally asked, thinking that she probably dreamt in here as well, it had to be just a nightmare.
"Here… in this room," she mumbled, hiding her face further into his chest. "He said you weren't real."
"God damn," Michael swore beneath his breath. Whether Kivar had actually been inside her head or not, something he was determined to find out for sure in a moment, he felt like killing the alien all over again as he witnessed the torment even the suggestion of him was causing Maria. She was so fragile, surely past the limit of abuse that her fragile psyche could handle; Michael wondered how she was even hanging on at all.
"Tell me what happened?" he prodded her gently, pulling her chin up once more to meet her eyes.
Maria locked onto his gaze, drawing the strength she needed from him to tell her story. Michael was real, he had to be real; the love she felt radiating off of him was too powerful to be her imagination.
"He… he was in here. I left the room, and when I came back he was here. He said I… I let him in, but I didn't," she added quickly, pleading wordlessly with Michael to believe her.
"I know, I know. Just tell me," he reassured her.
"He said that wishing didn't make it real. That just because I saw you didn't mean you were real. You're real, right?" she asked yet again.
"Yes," Michael said smiling down at her. "This is real, right?" He lowered his face to hers, meeting her mouth softly in the whisper of a kiss.
She sighed against him, returning the gesture emphatically as she pulled even greater strength from the act of sharing such intimacy with him. "He was outside before," she continued, her voice no longer trembling as she gained a security from Michael to tell her tale. "He was with the men, he was their leader. His hands were blazing, the sword glinting so brightly. He burned you," she finished, turning her tear-stained gaze towards his worried one.
"What men?" he asked quietly, completely unaware of what she could be talking about.
"That night, when… when you… went away, there were men, everywhere there were men, men with fire and they burned you. I saw them burn you."
"Maria, no one burned us. The van burned, yes, but there were no people there that night. We were just transported away from the scene, Kivar was responsible but he didn't send any people to take us."
"But I… I saw them. I can show you," she insisted.
Turning away from Michael, she clambered to her feet, hurrying to the lone window in the room. "Look," she said, pointing through the parted curtains.
Michael followed behind her, pushing aside the thin fabric to look upon the pristine surroundings of her house. The moon was the sole light in the sky, casting a silvery glow upon the slight sprinkling of trees dotting the landscape. The river next to the road glistened like a strip of navy satin, rippling in a light breeze that tickled its surface. It was beautiful, exquisite… and there were no men.
"I don't see…" he murmured.
"But they…" she mumbled, pressing her face to the window as she peered out at the empty scene. "But I saw them."
"Ria," Michael said softly, suddenly piecing together this latest information with the ramblings she had thrown at him in his earlier visits to gain a complete picture of what had caused her to retreat into this place. "That night… Jim, the Sheriff, was right behind you when the accident happened. He found you on the ground, you were… you were already in the house. Do you understand me?"
"I… how could I be on the ground if I was in the house?"
"Right now, in your bedroom at home, we are both lying on your bed. This house is inside of you baby. The men, Kivar, it's all this scary place that you've imagined to explain what happened that night. There was a fire, you saw it, but as soon as you did, you went… well you sort of went to sleep. Everything else – the men, the swords… this house, it's all made up… it's not real."
Maria's lower lip quivered as she listened to the one person she trusted in this universe tell her the truth that she had known since the day she arrived here – it wasn't a real place, she knew in her heart that she had somehow made this place be a safety for her, but the time she spent here had left her weak rather than allowing her to get stronger. Now, she depended more on the sanctity of the four walls to protect her than she ever had before – and he was reminding her that it wasn't real?
She closed her eyes as her knees gave out from beneath her and she started to slide to the floor. Michael grasped her tightly, bending to lift her into his arms. He carried her to the bed in the room, laying her delicately on the spongy surface.
Maria sank back into the pillows, opening her eyes to stare up at him. "You come," she mumbled, holding out her hand to beckon him. All color drained from her face as she stared up at the man leaning over her, his appearance suddenly displaying secrets she knew he never wanted her to see. For the first time since she had entered the house, she wasn't afraid for herself, but for someone else. "Did he… did he do that to you?" she asked softly.
Michael was lowering himself beside her, supporting his weight on his forearms as he displayed the full extent of his injuries clearly, when he heard her words. He stopped, sitting on the bed instead, turning his torso away from her while he kept his gaze locked securely on hers. "It's nothing, really," he said emptily.
She stared into his eyes steadily, her tears evaporating as life gave her a reason to transfer her concern to someone else for a moment. She sat up slowly on the bed, sliding towards his body to place a tender hand against his back.
Michael turned his head from her, lowering it slightly as memories he desired to banish from his mind permanently crept back into his conscious thought for the second time that night. If he thought he was losing his grip on the situation with his own thoughts, his ability to even separate reason from hope vanished when she pressed her lips against his neck.
"Baby," she murmured softly, her breath teasing just one of the areas that had been neglected for far too long.
Unable to stand even a few seconds of her caresses, he groaned as he turned to face her. Her eyes lit with anticipation, she ran her fingers lightly over his more recent wound, bending to place an array of kisses along its edge. Satisfied that she had given it the only cure she knew how, she pulled him closer to her body, sliding to the side to force him to lie back on the bed. As she traced the scar that did little to portray the depths of agony he had suffered, she let fresh tears fall from her eyes.
"Don't," he mumbled, his own voice on the verge of collapse as he reached up to dry her cheek with his hand.
"No, it's okay," she said softly, smiling angelically at him. "I thought you were taken from me, gone forever, but you came back. You found me," she paused to shake her head slightly. "I always knew you'd find me."
Michael placed his hands firmly on either side of her face, half-lifting himself, half pulling her down as he tangled with her crimson tinged lips passionately. "I'm never going to lose you again," he murmured against her mouth, rolling over to press his body upon hers.
"Promise?" she whispered softly, knowing already that he was lying to her. He wouldn't stay here with her, couldn't stay in this world. The only way for them to be together was for her to leave this place and face the full force of reality, something she had no intention of doing just yet.