Disclaimer: Roswell, and its characters do not belong to me. Melinda Metz, Jason Katims and 20th Century Fox have that particular pleasure. I'm simply borrowing them until the Season 2 DVD's get released.

Chapter Seventy – Nine – Intervention

Michael walked through the echoing halls of the palace, ignoring the beautiful artwork that would have, at one time, fascinated him. Instead, he looked blankly ahead, his mind focused completely on the events of the past couple of days.

He continued his journey down the hall, unaware of the footsteps that dogged his every move. He was unaware that is, until two sets of hands reached out and grabbed him and pulled him into an empty room.

"What the hell is you're problem, Guerin?" shouted Alex. "You have personally turned one of my best friends into an emotional wreck."

"Not to mention the pain you are causing my wife you egomaniacal, insufferable bastard!" shouted Kyle, pushing Michael against a wall. "I do not give a rats ass about the emotional pain I'm feeling pouring off of you right now. The only thing I care about is the fact that my wife is in our room, crying her eyes out, afraid to get to know her mother, because she is worried that it will upset you even more!"

"Not to mention your wife. Maria!" shouted Alex. "Yeah, remember her? She's having a total freak fest over the way you're acting. Jesus, Guerin, you've been moaning about your lack of family since you met Maria, and now, when you get a Mother handed to you on a silver platter, you turn your back on her. She's worried that all that crap you gave her about her being your family is just that, a load of crap. You better do something about it, and fast, because Liz and Isabel are totally freaked, trying to keep her and Ava calm!"

"What the hell do you know about any of it!" shouted Michael. "Both of you have had perfect lives. You have no idea of what I went through!"

"Right, because having your mother walk out on you when you're just a kid is perfect," said Kyle in a sarcastic voice. "Oh boo hoo, poor Michael Guerin grew up in foster homes. His life is so tragic, let's have pity party for him."

"Let me go, Kyle, or I will kill you," said Michael, his voice deceptively calm.

"Go ahead, do it," said Kyle, purposely goading Michael. "At least if I'm dead, I'll be spared the pain of watching you wallow in self pity."

Behind Michael, an ornate vase exploded, sending shards of crystal flying across the room.

"What's the matter?" asked Alex, "Is the mighty general losing his cool? Making things go boom. Poor Michael. He can't handle the pressure, can he?"

There was a loud bang as a chair flew across the room and crashed into a wall. The impact was so hard that the chair bounced off the wall and slid several feet back into the center of the room.

"Shut up," Michael ground out between clenched teeth, "Or that's going to be you."

"What?" laughed Alex. "You don't think we're afraid of you, the emotional cripple? Right, because you're so freaking scary. You forget, we can block anything you can throw at us."

"Oh yeah!" shouted Michael, pushing Kyle away and throwing up his arm. "Let's see you block this!"

He fired a bolt of energy at Alex, but it bounced harmlessly off of the shield that Alex had thrown around him.

"That the best you can do?" asked Kyle, purposely taunting him. "Come on, let me have it."

Michael spun around to face Kyle who had moved across the room when his attention was focused on Alex and fired an energy bolt at him. Again, it bounced harmlessly off of the shield that Kyle created with his powers.

"Look Buddha boy, I don't know what the hell your problem is, or yours either Alex, but I want the two of you to leave me the fuck alone," said Michael, clearly enunciating each word so that there would be no doubt that Kyle and Alex understood his meaning. "I want to be alone. Don't you get it?"

"No, it's you that doesn't get it, Michael," said Alex, moving closer to his friend. "You're doing it again, your shutting everybody out, including the three people who love you more than anything else."

"He's right, Michael," said Kyle, his voice calm now. "Maria's falling apart, and so is Ava, and your mother doesn't know what to do. She's planning on leaving the palace so that you won't have to see her again."

"What!" yelled Michael. "The hell she is. There is no way I'm letting her abandon Ava and I again!"

He pushed past Kyle and Alex and stormed out the door and down the hall.

"Wow," said Alex. "That was close. I didn't think it was going to work."

"Of course it was going to work," said Kyle, smiling smugly. "I'm surprised even you couldn't feel the suppressed emotions pouring off of him. He was just waiting to explode."

"So of course, you decided that the best thing to do was get him mad at us and explode and possibly kill us?" asked Alex.

"Well, yeah," said Kyle as the two walked to the door. "I mean, after all, we are perfectly capable of protect…uhhhh!" he said as a fist connected with his chin as he and Alex walked out the door.

"What the?" shouted Alex, only to be punched in the nose by the same fist.

Michael looked down at his two friends, now lying unconscious on the floor.

"Jerks," he said. "I knew what you were doing all along." He turned and jogged down the hall, searching his memory for the location of the rooms his family used when they stayed at the palace.

Michael found the rooms, and pushed the door open without knocking. His mother sat on a chair staring blankly into the empty room.

"So, I hear you're leaving," he said.

"It seems to be the best thing to do," said Dijanya, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "My being here is doing nothing but causing you pain. I don't want that, so it's best that I leave."

"What about Ava?" demanded Michael. "Have you thought about how your leaving will effect her?"

"It might,' said Dijanya, but not as much as the pain you're feeling does.

"You are incredibly selfish," said Michael heatedly. "But then again, so am I," he added, the fight leaving his voice. "Why?" he asked. He moved closer to where his mother sat. "Why didn't you let anyone know you were alive. If you had told Che'koth, I mean Drinian, he could have let us know. Didn't you think we deserved to know?" he asked plaintively, his tone of voice sounding more like a wounded child than that of a mighty warrior.

"Maybe I should have," admitted Dijanya. "But I feared for your lives, as well as my own. Nobody thought I was alive, and I was afraid to confide in anybody. I wasn't certain who I could trust. I didn't even realize that Drinian was Che'koth. You don't understand, my son, what it was like, having to hide who I was for so long."

"You're kidding, right?" Michael asked, incredulously. I have no idea what it's like to hide who you really are? You have got to be kidding me. I spent most of my life hiding who I was, so yeah, I think I have a clue as to how hard you had it."

"You're right," said Dijanya. "I have never been very trusting. I've always held a part of myself back from people. It's funny, you look so much like your father, but you are so similar to me inside. I have no excuse, I can only ask you to forgive me, my son."

Michael knelt down on the floor next to his mother and looked into he face that was so similar to Ava's. He looked into her eyes and saw the pain that she felt. The same pain he saw when he looked at himself in the mirror.

"Maybe we'd better talk," he said.