Part 16

Michael pushed open the door to the bedroom he and Maria had taken to sharing in the two days since their reunion. She was curled into a tight ball on the bed, her arms wrapped around his pillow in a pitiful excuse for the warmth of his body. He lowered the over-laden tray of food he carried onto the mattress, sliding carefully into the surface to wake her with a gentle kiss.

"Mmm, morning?" she murmured softly, raising her head from the pillow to chase after his retreating mouth.

"Yes, morning," he replied, turning back to the food before him. "And coffee."

That got her eyes blinking open, the smell of fresh omelets â la Michael suddenly registering in her brain.

"Ohh," she exclaimed, scurrying into a sitting position. "You cooked for me?"

"Well, technically I cooked for me, but you can have some," he teased.

"Jerk," she scolded playfully, punching him in the arm lightly as she reached for the scathing black liquid.

"Hey, watch it," he threw back at her, rubbing his arm in mock pain. "Recovering patient here!"

"Psh," she scoffed. "Recovering my a-ss. You've got the healing juices of a Deluca running through you now buddy. Don't be surprised if you never get sick again!"

Her comments were tossed lightly into the air between them, but the seriousness of their implication settled over them heavily, the sudden silence crackling with tension as Maria fingered the corner of her mug and watched as Michael pushed the steaming food around his plate.

He broke the silence first, knowing that if he didn't she would try to hide the subject beneath layers of mindless conversation again. They had been dancing around the topic of the aftereffects of his visit from the future since they'd shared their stories through the connection she initiated. She was obviously changed as a result of his travels into her mind, and to suddenly just ' be ' a budding hybrid was not something he felt she should be taking so lightly.

"You know, we eventually have to talk about what happened," he started.

"I know," she said softly, shrugging as she physically shied away from his implied question.

"Things are different now… you are different."

"I know I am, and I'm happy for it," she implored, knowing it would take more than her happiness to convince him that her changing was a good thing.

"You have no idea what you are in for, the worry, the pain, the humiliation… always wondering if someone will find out, having to carry this secret around that no one can know." Looking at her sharply with his last words, he emphasized, "No one can know."

"I don't care about that stuff Michael. So I'm different, I'm not alone… I'm like you—special."

"You mean freak, don't you?"

Maria's voice rose an octave as she slammed her coffee mug down on the tray, spilling the liquid over her untouched eggs. "You are not a freak!" she insisted forcefully.

"Oh no?" he challenged. "Can anyone but a freak do this?" Waving his hand over her plate, he vaporized the mess she had made, returning her meal to edible condition, piping rivulets of steam wafting from the freshly heated food.

"But, I…"

"No," he stopped her. "I don't want this life for you. It's that simple. I'm not trying to hurt you," he added, seeing the curtain fall across her eyes as she absorbed his words. "I just don't want you giving up a life of promise for me."

She blinked back the tears threatening to fall, a mixture of anger and anguish welling up behind her eyes, as she leveled her gaze at him. "When are you going to realize that I am not giving up anything to be with you? This is my decision, and I decide to be with you."

"It's not just your decision, what you do affects me."

"And what you do affects me too!" Her voice cried out as the well-constructed damn gave way and her weakness fell from her eyes. Standing from the bed, she faced him defiantly as she gasped her defense through her sobs. "I waited for you Michael; I waited for you for a full year—in that cramped little corner, hiding away from demons that didn't even exist for fear that they'd kill me like they had you. I waited and I waited and every day I prayed that by some miracle… by some divine intervention, you weren't dead and you'd find a way to rescue me." She shook her head as she listened to the words fall from her lips incoherently. She had so much she wanted to say to him, so many phrases running through her mind that would all be perfect to convince him that a life together was right for them—if only she could catch one and form it into a sentence. Swallowing hard, she wiped away the wetness on her cheeks, the clean slate quickly replaced by streams of torment as she saw him turn his head away from her, unable to even watch as she struggled to reclaim the love she wanted so desperately to be hers again.

"I don't know why I needed rescuing, only that I did, and it took you with six years of living, if you could call it that, under your belt to know how to save us both and put us back in each other's arms," she stopped as she suddenly recalled his own words to her when he'd left her in the house for the last time. "You made me promise, remember?" she asked in a whisper. "You made me promise to take care of you, to love you. And you are supposed to love me… I know you remember," she begged.

"Maria," he sighed painfully, raising his head to look straight ahead, avoiding her gaze at all costs. "You can't just base your life on the words of some visitor."

She feared she would lose the already slim hold she held on humanity as she unleashed her fury against him now. "He's not a visitor, Michael. He's you!"

"But…"

"No buts," she said firmly, her tears ceasing to fall as anger swooped in to replace her fear, filling her with a rage born purely of love as she fought to sway his stubborn mind. "You already lived this life once… alone. I saw the product of that living—a shell of a man that harbored deep scars of the loved ones he'd lost along the way. You changed all that; you came back and you changed it all from happening so all of them, so all of us—me and you—could have a chance at a life; a life of happiness… together."

Tiring of the argument she mounted against him, she fell onto the bed again, facing his body as he kept his eyes averted from hers. "Don't you see?" she asked, reaching out a tentative hand to place against his leg. He jerked slightly at her touch and she took the gesture as a sign of indecision, pushing him to follow her on the path she knew was right as she deepened her hold, massaging his leg in gentle circles. "This is the way it was always supposed to be—me and you, together. You were the one that made sure of that, you fixed everything so we could have the life we were destined to."

"You were never destined to be like me," he mumbled slowly.

"Not destined… desired," she said softly, watching as she finally found the words to bring his eyes turning towards her. Catching his gaze securely, she smiled as she affirmed his question, "I always wanted it, the closeness, the connection. We never needed it, I know; we always found our way without it, but I wanted to know you, know what it was like to be you." Now it was her turn to drop her eyes, suddenly nervous as she admitted a secret she had long hid from the boy who once knew her so well. "You just never had anyone… not really, and I always thought that this was something I could do to make you feel at home… with me."

He stared at the broken girl before him, tear tracks glaringly obvious on her face as she kept her head bowed. He remembered every moment of his life as it had once been, living the years of pain on a far away planet, wallowing in his grief at losing her… and he didn't want an existence even remotely resembling that one this time around; he wanted her. Listening to her desire to change her entire being before she ever had the power she now possessed was stilling… he simply didn't know how to comprehend a sacrifice of that magnitude.

But he once had.

Michael smiled softly as he remembered the feelings transferred to him from his future self through the vessel of the girl crying in front of him. He had ached to know that she would be safe, and had been willing to forsake the chance at rescuing himself and the others if it meant a life of normalcy for her. That alone was a large enough offering; but then to somehow have the courage to fight to your own death so the entire destiny could be rewritten? He still couldn't imagine that he would ever have that much strength… but knew that if he once had he would again one day. Reaching out to touch her lowered chin lightly, he pulled her eyes back up to meet his, wordlessly communicating that her trademark argument with him had once again been successful.

Her nervousness glaringly obvious as she sought out the answer to her request for a life together, Maria match his scared smile as she closed the distance between them, leaning in to meet his waiting lips tenderly. The resurging love that had never faded from their hearts presented itself in splendid glory in the crackling air surrounding the destined soul mates. She poured her lingering fears that he wouldn't be returned to her safely into the embrace, her worries that even after his rescue a part of him would still be owned by Kivar, trapped in the agony-enclosed part of his brain that would never forget the journey he had been destined to take. And he matched her kisses with an equal fury, his own reluctance at diving back into the comfortable familiarity of her born only from his desire to see her happy—with or without his face in the picture. Listening to her pleas, he knew that the wisdom his future self had possessed would serve him well now; he wanted to share his life with her, wanted to love her… knowing that in six years he would likely still feel the same way helped to ease any remaining fears that she didn't need him in her life.

Breaking away from him, Maria kept her eyes closed for another minute, reveling in the lasting feel of him on her lips. Feeling his forehead press against hers softly, she peeked out at his face, smiling as she focused on his stare. Raising her hand to lightly touch the corner of his eyes, she mused softly, "You know, in about six years you are going to get the cutest lines right about here."

Michael pulled away from her quickly, widening his mouth into mock horror at her declaration. "Oh yeah," he threatened, semi-menacingly. "Well while I look distinguished, you are going to start looking like you mother."

She screamed, as she punched him hard on the arm. "My mother is beautiful, buddy!"

He pushed towards her again, taking her body with his to the bed as he muffled her objection with kisses, murmuring between his lips, "I never said she wasn't."

She smiled against his attack, resolving not to let his earlier comment go unchallenged that easily as she lost herself in his embrace. For now, she was content to enjoy the feel of his body atop hers, the heady euphoria that came from just being in his presence, in his arms, in his life—again.

~~~~~

Maria tipped her head back as the wind whipped across the open roof of the speeding convertible, the steaming blacktop stretching out before them as they raced along the winding California highway. They were six months removed from the tiny cabin in the woods of Arizona where they had rediscovered each other and the love that endured between them. It had taken more than a little convincing to make Max see that time apart was what all six of them needed, time to rebuild their own sanities before they jumped into the escapism they had always planned as a group.

As far as she knew Kyle and Isabel had traveled to Boston—she wanting to see her former husband once again, if only to let him know that she was alive, and happy; Kyle to accompany the woman he had finally confessed his love for—without being disappointed in the returned emotions.

Max and Liz were in Canada—the land deemed the "best-place-to-live-close-to-but-not-in-the-United-States" by their still self-proclaimed leader. She had told him Michael's message for letting them make their own decisions sometimes, her words the deciding factor in gaining their freedom for a while, if only a short one. Max just didn't have it in him to let his charges run rampant without direction, but she had squeezed six months of freedom out of him and now they were headed north for their planned reunion in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Maria looked over at her fiancé as he focused on the road before him—Michael had proposed the night before, wanting to "make-an-honest-woman-out-of-her" he said. She had thought she would pass out when he kneeled before her nervously in the tiny motel room last night, and feared he would do the same as he stammered to get the words out.

"I feel like I've lived a lifetime without you already… I want to live this one with you in it…"

She smiled as she remembered his words, glancing down at the glistening diamond he had embedded in the simple silver band he always wore, shrinking it to fit her much smaller finger. It meant so much more to her than an extended engagement and expensive wedding ever could, she even contemplated pushing him to find a justice of the peace this morning, but stopped—she wanted her friends standing beside her when she promised the life she had already given fully to the man beside her.

"I love you babe," she said softly, her voice floating away on the wind as Michael caught only a fragment of her words and smiled slightly.

Turning his attention back to the road before him, he concentrated on keeping his eyes on the journey ahead and not the temptation sitting beside him. He was so crazily in love with her that at times he thought the rush would destroy the slim hold he held on his senses. Lying in her arms had become the safe-haven it once was again, the only place he felt safe from the demons that still plagued his dreams on occasion. Reliving the horror of years that had never happened would send him screaming from the depths of sleep, his tears dripping onto her chest as she soothed him into a restful slumber was the only relief he had found successful. She had always known exactly how to make the worst evil vanish from his mind, and he loved her even more for doing that now even while she battled her own troubled memories.

He smiled as he remembered the joy on her face when he had surprised her with the ring last night; he had worked for a month to get the diamond just right, cursing each time it turned out too big or too small, threatening to weigh down her fragile finger or not brilliant enough to be displayed by such a beauty. He'd never felt more sure about a decision that he made completely on his own before kneeling by her feet and proposing with as much courage as he could muster. He didn't even need the wedding that she was sure to want, he just needed to know that she wanted to share in his life as much as he did hers; needed to know that the new life they were creating together was one they both wanted with equal ferocity.

He reached out to lay a hand on her leg, turning his head in surprise as she pulled it onto her lap, raising it just slightly to rest on her stomach. The pulse emanating from deep within her body caused him to jerk the wheel of the car violently, slamming on the brakes as he squealed to a stop on the deserted highway.

"Really?" he said numbly, taking his other hand from the wheel to place it atop hers.

She nodded, tears welling in her eyes as she silently communicated the truth he already knew into his eyes. On the sun-scorched pacific coast highway of northern California, the tiny Guerin family began anew, the three of them—together.

The End