Ending 1 – Part 9 (or Part 71)

Max sat at the kitchen table watching Liz as she moved around the room making lunch. The kitchen was one of the few rooms in the house he was anywhere close to being comfortable. It was one of the places Michael's presence wasn't so strong and it made it a little more tolerable to be there.

After the accident and Maria's trip through the Granolith to God only knew where, Liz had insisted that they move into the house and wait for their friends' return. For nearly eight months they had been living in the space that Michael and Maria had occupied before the hybrid's death and he wondered how long he should entertain his wife's notion that Maria would return. With Michael.

What they were doing was risky. Staying in one place for so long was dangerous and losing Michael and Maria had somehow caused the four of them to fall into a pattern that was too predictable. Isabel and Kyle hadn't moved to another location either, choosing to stay where they had resided before the accident.

He worried about Liz a little more with each passing day. She had never fully recovered from losing Alex, but with the loss of Maria she had been left with reason to hope for her friend to return. Liz had been adamant in her refusal to leave the one place Maria would come back to and he didn't have the heart to deny her wishes. She and Maria had a bond, a special relationship that was unbreakable, and he knew she equated leaving the house with abandoning Maria.

Living in their house comforted Liz and it made her feel closer to Maria. He didn't feel the same way; for him living in Michael's house was a constant reminder of what he had lost. He still couldn't accept that his brother, his best friend, his second in command, and the only other hybrid like him was dead. They hadn't been in the house long before he had boxed up everything of Michael's and stored all of it in one of the back rooms. He couldn't deal with seeing the other man's things surrounding him, reminding him of the loss on a constant basis.

He looked up when Liz called his name and he nodded in response to her question. She smiled and nodded as she finished preparing a couple of plates and carried them over to the table. They were in the middle of lunch when the mail truck stopped at the end of the driveway to deposit the mail in the box and he knew she would run out to get the daily newspaper before eating another bite.

She stood and glanced out through the window as she moved to the front door and for a moment she froze in place. "Max… Max, look!"

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Kyle threw himself down on the couch as he pulled the rubber band off of the newspaper he had picked up on his way back to the apartment after his morning run. He barely glanced up when Isabel walked in and shoved his feet off of the coffee table and snatched the middle section out of his hands.

"You're all sweaty, Valenti," she griped as she sat down at the opposite end.

"Get over it," he muttered as he scanned over the baseball scores. "I'm at my end of the couch."

She rolled her eyes and snapped the paper open, eyes scanning over the ads listed in the classified section. For a little over eight months now she had searched the ads every single day, searching for the one that would tell her Maria had been successful in her mission to bring Michael back home to them.

Her eyes widened in shock when she read the tiny ad. Six little words and a phone number. She sat up suddenly and her left hand shot out, smacking Kyle in the chest and making him jump in surprise.

"Damn it, Isabel, I'm tryin' to read the…" he trailed off when his gaze met hers and his eyes dropped to the paper she held. "No way." He grabbed the paper from her and he quickly read the ad she pointed out.

"252-9866… that's Clayton." She paused for the slightest of moments. "We need to go. Get packed and get the truck ready."

Kyle knew better than to question her or get in her way when she was like this. It was best to just stay back and do whatever she said to do. In the end it just saved time and any suffering on his part because she was unbearable when she was trying to organize something and it didn't go the way she wanted it to go.

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Michael glanced around their surroundings as they walked along the outskirts of Clayton, New Mexico. The town wasn't large with a population of barely more than 2,000 residents and law enforcement was minimal. Maria had told him where she and his counterpart had lived and after their last ride had dropped them off at the edge of town they had started to walk in that direction.

The house was several miles outside of town with a view of Rabbit Ear Mountain in the distance and he could feel her excitement building as they drew closer to the single driveway in the distance. He wasn't holding out any hope that her friends were waiting for her in the house she and Michael had lived in before the accident. It had been eight months and he was certain that even with the emotional attachments these people had to each other they had to have moved on by now.

"Look, you can see it," Maria said as her pace picked up.

Michael looked up ahead as he shifted his duffel bag higher on his shoulder. They were on an old county road that had seen better days but it wasn't well-traveled and he could understand why his counterpart had chosen the area. It was early afternoon and the sun was high enough that it was beating down on them but thankfully it wasn't so hot that it made walking miserable.

At the sound of a vehicle approaching his hand shifted to the small of his back where he had hidden the weapon he had purchased from some small-time criminal in a back alley in Santa Fe. He relaxed when he realized it was just a mail truck and he muttered under his breath when Maria raised a hand to wave at the driver.

They approached the driveway just as the mail truck pulled away from the mailbox at the end of the driveway and she paused just a moment with her hand on the plain box with the red flag standing up to indicate they had mail. His head shot up when he heard a screen door shut with a bang followed by a woman's voice screaming Maria's name.

"Liz," she whispered.

He lengthened his stride to keep up with her when she suddenly turned and started to run up the driveway toward a petite brunette woman. He watched them as they ran to each other, their voices screaming over each other, and tears streaming down their faces as they embraced in the middle of the driveway. He couldn't understand a thing they were saying as they talked and cried at the same time.

He approached them slowly, almost warily, feeling out of his element with two crying women and no idea what to do with them.

Max was standing on the porch, his shocked gaze locked on the man standing near Maria and Liz. Somehow, some way, she had managed to do the impossible and Michael was back. His brain suddenly kicked into gear at that realization and before he could think twice he was running down the driveway.

Michael wasn't expecting it when a dark-haired guy suddenly ran up to him and threw his arms around him, hugging him tightly. He frowned as he tried to pry the guy off of him, just barely registering the relieved words pouring from the man's mouth.

Max couldn't believe it. Michael was real. He was solid, alive, breathing, and squirming uncomfortably in his old friend's embrace. "Welcome home, Michael," he choked out. "God, welcome back home."

Maria was pulled out of her own reunion when the sound of Max's relieved voice broke through the fog she was in and she turned her head to look at the men. Michael looked annoyed and irritable as he tried his best to get away from the man hugging the stuffing out of him. She reached out to rest her hand on Max's shoulder. "Max, we should talk," she said quietly.

Max finally let go of Michael to look at Maria. "You really did it," he said hoarsely. "You brought him back home."

"He's Michael, but he's not… he's not exactly the same Michael."

"What? No, Maria, I can see him. God," he turned to look at the other man, "he's standin' right here. I don't know how you did it, but…"

"I'd advise you to listen to her," Michael said.

"You'd advise…" Max looked at the other man closely, his eyes narrowing as he took in the differences that were obvious now that he was really looking at him.

Liz was watching everything with undisguised interest and she reached out to touch her husband's arm when she saw the confusion and suspicion etched on his face. "Max, we should go inside."

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Isabel's fingernails were tapping out an annoyed rhythm on the window frame of the passengers' side door as she stared at the line of cars ahead of them. After an hour of driving traffic had backed up because of a train stalled on the tracks in one of the small towns they had to pass through on their way into New Mexico.

"Isn't there another way around this?"

Kyle was slouched down behind the steering wheel, sunglasses covering his closed eyes and his arms crossed over his chest. "We'd just be runnin' in circles, Isabel," he muttered. "We don't know how long this train is so if we try to go around and run into it someplace else all we're gonna do is lose even more time."

"This's ridiculous. We could've been there by now."

"Yeah, we could've been, but we're not. Would you just let it go?" He shoved himself up slightly and turned to look at her. "How certain are you that the message was from Maria? I mean, Max and Liz have been stayin' there, what if they placed the ad?"

She shook her head. "No, if they had placed the ad they would've used the number for the town they were staying in when they were in Colorado."

"What do you think happened?"

"Well, obviously they're back otherwise there wouldn't be an ad."

"But how? If she was able to convince the Granolith to change the past, to prevent the accident from happening… we wouldn't even know about it, right?" He checked his watch. "The date would be eight months ago and we wouldn't have any memory of the accident because it wouldn't have happened yet."

"Okay, I don't know how she's accomplished her goal, but the fact is she placed the ad and that means that they're back. I don't care how it happened. All that matters is that she found a way to bring Michael back."

Kyle bit his bottom lip as he reached up to rub his forehead and he decided to drop the subject. His next question would only infuriate her and he didn't feel like putting up with her wrath for the next few hours. He wondered how she would react if they got to Clayton and found only Maria. What if Maria had returned but she hadn't been able to find a way to save Michael? Would Isabel be able to deal with that? He didn't know the answer to that but he hoped if that was what they were going to be faced with she could handle it.

"This's ridiculous," she muttered once again.

"You really oughta let me teach you to meditate," he said as he resumed his slouched down position.

"If you make that recommendation one more time I'm gonna shove that stupid little Buddha statue down your throat," she threatened, motioning to the figurine that resided on the dashboard.

"Hey, hey, hey, there's no need to be rude."

Isabel sighed in irritation and slumped against the door. Nothing she could do was going to make this go any faster and as much as she enjoyed arguing with Kyle, that wasn't helping either. Once the train situation was taken care of they were still looking at another three hours of driving. She shot one more glare at her friend, roommate, and confidant before settling down for the wait ahead of them.