Ending One, Part 11 (or Part 73)

"Isabel, damn it!" Kyle yelled when she threw the door open before the truck had come to a complete stop. He knew she was impatient but jumping out of a moving vehicle wasn't the smartest thing to do. He threw the truck into gear, and jerked the key out of the ignition as he jumped out and rounded the front of the vehicle. "I realize you're in a hurry to find out what's goin' on, but this – "

Isabel rounded on him, dark eyes blazing. "Kyle, do not start with me," she warned before turning on her heel and running up to the front of the house.

He had no choice but to follow her as she literally barreled through the front door without bothering to pause long enough to knock or otherwise announce their arrival. He pushed the door shut behind them and caught up with her just as she reached the living room, her steps not faltering for a moment when she saw the man standing in the middle of the room.

She ran to Michael and threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly and running on about how she was so glad that he was back. He walked into the room, his pace more sedate than Isabel's as he approached the other man. He slapped Michael on the back and grinned up at the taller man. "Welcome back, man. Boy, am I glad you're back. Maybe now we can go back to somethin' resembling normal!" He shook his head when he was pinned by a pair of dark eyes and for just a moment he wondered why Michael wasn't hugging Isabel back. "Kinda been a serious lack of testosterone since you… well, ya know, since you died." He slapped him on the back again. "You damn aliens just don't know how to stay dead though, do you? You've gotta tell me how you do that, man."

Michael was trying to take it all in while wondering how he could get rid of the woman clinging to him like a second skin. He wasn't used to people who were so demonstrative and he didn't think he was ever going to reach a place where he was comfortable with it. He felt Maria's presence before he saw her and when her hand settled on the small of his back he knew she would handle the situation.

"Isabel," Maria said quietly as she reached up to touch the tall blonde's shoulder. "Let him breathe, Isabel." She felt herself relax slightly when the other woman finally took a step back even though her hands remained on Michael's upper arms. "We need to talk to you," she insisted as she glanced at Max, silently asking him for help. She knew how protective of Michael Isabel had always been and she also remembered her legendary temper quite well.

"Isabel, Kyle, I see you got the message as well," Liz said as she joined them, drying her hands on a dishtowel. "I thought you'd be here hours ago."

"We would've been but – "

"Please don't get her started on this again," Kyle begged. He had listened to Isabel rant about that stupid train and his choice of routes for several hours and he wasn't interested in listening to it any longer.

"Well, you guys are just in time for dinner, so why don't we all go in the kitchen and sit down? We can talk about what's happened while we eat."

"I'm not hungry," Isabel denied.

"You might not be, but the rest of us are, Princess," Kyle muttered as he brushed past her on his way into the kitchen. "C'mon, Guerin, get a move on, man. I'll bet I can still eat more than you."

"This isn't an eating contest, Kyle," Liz said as she followed him.

He snorted as he pulled one of the chairs out and sat down. "Maybe not for you." He looked up when the others came into the kitchen and his curiosity spiked when he noticed the way that Max was constantly watching Michael as he shadowed his every move. His attention was pulled away when Liz placed a serving dish on the table and uncovered it and his mouth watered at the smell. "Uh-oh, what'd you make?" he asked, already grabbing one of the plates from the stack she had placed at one end of the table.

"Grilled barbeque chicken wraps with cheese. There's also rice and beans to go with it. This pan has the hot and spicy wraps… you'll probably want the ones in the other pan."

He grimaced. "Thanks for the warning."

For the next few minutes talking was forgotten as plates were filled and they settled down to eat. Isabel declined every offer of food as she studied the man sitting across from her and she watched his expressions as he bit into the food and found it too bland for his tastes.

"I thought this was supposed to be hot?" he muttered.

Liz' eyebrows lifted in surprise. The dish he had been served from was so hot she wouldn't dare eat it and he didn't even seem to be phased by it. "It's not hot enough?"

"It's not hot at all."

"Oh, well… I'm sure I can…"

"I've got this," Maria assured Liz, shaking her hand when the other woman started to get up.

Isabel's gaze switched to Maria when she put her hand on his shoulder and stood up, moving around the kitchen as she mixed several ingredients together to make a hot sauce. When she was finished she carried it over to the table and handed it to Michael, watching him as he unwrapped the flour tortilla and poured the sauce over the chicken. He put it all back together and took another bite, nodding as he reached over to rest his hand on her thigh for a moment.

"That's more like it," he mumbled.

"Okay, I've been patient long enough," Isabel said. "What happened?"

Michael paused, mid-chew to glance at the woman who had spoken and his eyes narrowed as he tried to decipher her tone. He started to speak up when Maria nudged him with her knee, silently letting him know she would handle things for now. He let it go, focusing on his food while she started the tale all over again. He was on his third chicken wrap, drenched in hot sauce, when Isabel suddenly shoved back away from the table.

"He's not Michael then," she said loudly. "He's an imposter!"

"No, Isabel, he's not an imposter," Maria tried to explain. "He's still Michael, just – "

"No!" Isabel stood up and paced back and forth for several minutes before she stopped and turned to face Maria across the table. "All you did was use the Granolith to travel to another universe so you could replace Michael with some… some copy of him! If that's all you were gonna do you might as well have gone to New York and hooked up with Rath!" She was angry about this turn of events. "How could you just do that to Michael? Replace him after just a matter of months? Did he mean that little to you that you'll just settle for any version of him?" She waved a hand in the imposter's direction, dismissing him as nothing more than an imperfect copy. "Michael dies and you find a lookalike who is nothing like our Michael!" Her gaze slid over him dismissively as if he weren't worth the time or effort it took to look at him.

Maria swallowed hard as she faced Isabel. She had been feeling a little better after a long hot shower, but Isabel's accusations were striking too close to home after her earlier conversation with Liz. Every word the other woman hurled at her picked at the doubts and guilt that had plagued her for so long.

"Isabel, you need to calm down," Liz said, standing up and moving closer to Maria, placing her arm around her friend's shoulders protectively.

"Eight months," Isabel shouted. "He's been gone eight months! And you come back with some dupe, some copy, of him. How long have you been sleeping with him? How long did you wait before you simply replaced him as if he never existed?"

Michael had started bristling as soon as the tall blonde had started her rant and Maria had done her best to explain the situation but when the woman turned it into a personal attack he shook off the calming hand Maria had placed on his shoulder, dropped his fork to clatter noisily against his plate, and shoved his chair back as he shot to his feet.

"You need time to get a handle on this situation then take some time, but don't take your fuckin' attitude out on Maria," he snarled.

Isabel took a step back at his crass words and she glared at his audacity. "You have no right to talk to me like that."

"But you have the right to talk to Maria the way you've been talkin' to her? Huh-uh, no way, sister. Don't think she made a single decision or choice she's made since leavin' here blindly or without careful thought, Iz. It was remarkably easy for you to move on after Alex was killed… how long did you wait before turnin' to that moron Jesse? Huh? Maybe you'd better take a hard look at your own choices before you start condemning her for the ones she's made."

Isabel turned sharply to look at Maria. "How could you tell him such personal things?" she screamed angrily.

Maria shook her head slowly. "I didn't… I never went into any detail about you and Alex or you and Jesse when we talked." She looked at Michael, trying to make sense of the fact that he had knowledge of events they had never talked about.

Silence fell over the room for several short moments. Isabel looked between Maria and the imposter, Michael, trying to figure out what was going on. How could he know these things if Maria had never mentioned them? He wasn't Michael no matter how much he might look like him.

Kyle sat back in his chair, stunned by the turn of events. He had known something was going on because of the way Max was acting and the changes evident in Michael. After the last half hour it was apparent that it wasn't a matter of changes so much as this man was not the Michael Maria had gone in search of.

Max was unconsciously cutting his chicken up into miniscule bits and pieces as he watched the others, his brain processing the information faster than the others'. This man wasn't their Michael, but only their Michael would know the things that he had talked about. By Maria's own admission she had never shared those things with him and he would have no other way of knowing about them… unless somehow, some way, some part of their Michael really did reside in this man.