By the time Max returned home, Michael had covered and ripped out half the pages of the spiral notebook. Most were filled with quick slap-dash sketches, but he'd also taken advantage of Isabel's presence and done a fairly detailed drawing of her as she sat on her bed making plans for Christmas. He wasn't entirely happy with it--the blue lines running across the page were distracting, for one thing--but it wasn't horrible.
When he finished it, he gave in to her repeated demands and let her see it. He wasn't expecting much, since neither she nor Max had been that encouraging when he'd started drawing what turned out to be James Atherton's geodesic dome, and since he wasn't all that satisfied with it in the first place. So he was surprised and pleased when her mouth dropped open with a soft, "Oh."
"Michael, this is great."
"It's not that good," he pointed out. "The mouth isn't right, and I couldn't really get your mood."
"Well, I think it's wonderful," she said rather decidedly. "Can I keep it?"
"Uh...if you really want to, I guess so."
She gave him a pleased smile. "I can't wait to show everyone," she said, still studying the sketch. "When did you get this good?"
"I don't know. And don't make a big deal about it, okay?"
"Why not?"
"'Cause I know how you get," he said without thinking.
This got her attention away from the page in her hand. "And what is that supposed to mean?"
Uh-oh. Mistake. Michael turned around and slouched down in the desk chair. "Nothing," he muttered. "Forget it." He should have just kept his mouth shut.
A knock on the door saved him from any further argument. Max. Thank god. "Come in," called Isabel. The door swung open. But instead of Max, like Michael had expected, it was someone quite different.
"Isabel, sweetie, I--" Mrs. Evans began, then halted as she saw Michael. "Oh. Michael."
"Hey," he said uncomfortably, twisting the pencil between his fingers.
"Do you need something, Mom?" Isabel asked, not seeming the least bit bothered by the intrusion. Michael slumped even further into the chair and tried to look invisible.
"It can wait until later," Mrs. Evans said. She hesitated in the doorway. Michael avoided looking at her by staring down at the pile of pages on the desk, but he could practically feel her gaze cut into his back. Then she seemed to change her mind. "Actually, I do need to talk to you for a minute, Isabel."
"Sure, Mom."
"Outside, please."
Isabel gracefully unfolded herself from the bed. "I'll be back in a minute," she said to Michael before following her mother into the hallway.
Michael wasn't trying to eavesdrop, but the door was open and Isabel wasn't making the slightest effort to keep her voice down like Mrs. Evans was. "He's waiting for Max," he heard her say. Her mother murmured something else, and Isabel began to chuckle. "Mom, it's Michael. He's harmless," she laughed. Michael frowned. What the hell did that mean? Isabel knew very well that he was far from harmless. Especially now that he was getting some measure of control over his powers. If he wanted to, he could do real damage.
He was only partially mollified when she continued, "Besides, he's got a girlfriend." Oh. That kind of harmless. He'd though she'd meant--Hey!
There was another murmur from her mother, than an "Okay, okay," from Isabel. A moment later she was back in her bedroom.
"I'm not supposed to have boys in my room with the door shut," she announced as she sat back down on the bed and picked her planner back up. "As if you were any kind of threat," she added.
"Hey," Michael objected, audibly this time. Sure, he wasn't a threat to Isabel--she was like a sister--but she didn't have to say so, did she?
"Oh, please," she said. "I don't care what happened in our previous lives; things are different now. Even if you weren't head over heels for Maria, you wouldn't be after me. Not unless Tess put another mind whammy on us."
He was not 'head over heels' about Maria, for one thing. Yeah, he loved her, he'd even admitted it to Izzy, but she made it sound like he was whipped or something. And even though she had a point about their lack-of-anything-but-sibling relationship, still...Michael ostentatiously turned his back on her, picked up the pencil and began to cover the next page with dark pencil strokes. The point broke. He sighed and wished Max would just show up already.
And for once, his wish came true. "Mom said we had company," Max said from the doorway.
"Where've you been?" Michael demanded. If Max had been drooling over Liz Parker again while he'd been stuck here putting up with Isabel's insults...
"At Maria's."
Immediately Michael's annoyance was forgotten. He bolted upright. "Why? What happened?"
"Nothing, she's fine," his friend hastened to assure him.
"Then why the hell were you there?"
"Maria asked me to fix her mother's broken arm," Max explained patiently. At this news, Michael felt a mix of emotions: relief that there was nothing more to it, jumbled together with annoyance because he couldn't have done it, even if Maria had asked him to. Max could; and now that Mrs. DeLuca was in the know, it made sense that Maria would ask him. No reason to be jealous of his best friend, not for that. But Michael's mood was not improved when Max continued, "And then Mrs. DeLuca kept me for a while to grill me about you."
Michael tensed. He'd known the talk he'd had with Maria's mother earlier that week had gone too well. "Why? What'd you say?"
"Nothing, nothing. I was just kidding, Michael."
He gritted his teeth. "Not funny, Maxwell."
"Come on, you two," Isabel admonished. "If you're going to squabble, please do it someplace else. I've got tons to do."
"Whatever," Michael muttered, backing down.
"What's up, Michael?" Max asked, cutting to the chase.
"Nothing." The look on Max's face said he wasn't buying that. "Well, Iz said we could try to get this stupid brand off my face if you were home, but you had to work, so I was just kinda waiting for you to get here."
"Sure. We can work on that now, if you'd like," Max offered.
Michael nodded brusquely. He needed their help, he knew it. But he didn't have to like being dependent on them yet again. He'd gotten a taste of handling things on his own with Bob, and he didn't relish falling back into his old scapegrace role. He wanted an equal shot at making things work, instead of always causing problems and waiting for Max to clean up after him.
Except this time, there was nothing he could do about it, not by himself. Picking up the pencil, he began to fidget restlessly with it.
"He's been like that all evening," Isabel complained. Sensing the concern in their eyes, Michael dropped the pencil on Isabel's desk and tried to appear more at ease.
"It's just...Nothing's wrong, really," he admitted, trying to reason out what was bothering him. It must be more than just having to ask for their help again. "I don't have anything I have to do. No school for a while, no job. I've got all that cash, so I don't have to find another job right away. No...no big quest to find out who we are and what we're doing here--that's a dead end." He shook his head in frustration. "I don't know. I feel kind of at loose ends, I guess."
"You were never one for a lot of structure in the first place," Isabel reminded him.
"I know. But it's always been there. Even when it sucked or I blew it off..." Michael trailed off. "I don't know," he finally repeated.
"Actually, I'm glad you're here," Max said, pushing himself away from the doorway he'd been leaning against. "I'm not so certain our quest, as you put it, is a dead end. We can't know that, not for sure; there are too many unanswered questions."
"Like what?" Michael asked halfheartedly. He'd known Max would end up reacting like this, trying to make something out of nothing.
"Like the book. I've been trying to decipher the pages we got from Nasedo's room, but I haven't had any luck. Maybe one of you will."
"We'd better do it in your room," Isabel said. Michael noticed that she dropped her beloved Christmas preparations instantly. Come what may, Iz was one of them. She smiled knowingly and added, "I'm not supposed to be entertaining boys in mine."
"So I hear," said Max, leading the way down the hall to his room, where he shut the door safely behind them. "But then again, Mom has no idea of how much time Michael actually spends over here."
That was true. Michael had perfected his window-entry mode for just that reason. Late night visits to Isabel's room aside, Mr. & Mrs. Evans had always been pleasant to Michael. It wasn't that he disliked them; but as lucky as he thought Max and Isabel were to have landed such a family, he'd always found the almost naive perfection of their family dynamics to be unnerving. So any time he could escape their notice, he did. By now it was reflex.
Dropping the pile of sketches on Max's desk, Michael swung the chair around to straddle it. "So Maria was fine?" he asked. He didn't doubt what Max had said earlier, he was just...making sure.
"She was," said Max as he hung up his leather jacket. Michael suppressed a snort at the careful row of unwrinkled garments on hangers that filled the closet. As always, Max's room was neat and organized, with everything in its own place. Not that Michael's own apartment was much more cluttered, but that was only because he had fewer possessions. He would certainly never have Max's natural aptitude for order. Luckily, he didn't want it.
Actually, with the windfall from the sale of Bob's car, he could do some pretty serious cluttering if he chose to, but a life of hiding had taught him that the less he had, the easier it would be to pack up and move out when it got too dangerous to stay. Sparseness was ingrained in him now. So much as part of him might prefer disorder, he wasn't likely to relax enough to let himself live in it.
Maybe that was one reason he'd fallen so hard for Maria and the vibrant chaos that she embraced. He envied that in her, but he wasn't capable of it. It had a different feel to it: warmth and color so unlike his own drab, narrowly-focused worldview. He vaguely wondered for the zillionth time how different things might be if he hadn't been an alien-human hybrid, if he'd had a so-called 'normal' life. For one thing, he'd probably skip right past cluttered, through chaotic and land straight in hopelessly messy. Max, on the other hand, would probably be just as orderly as--
Suddenly realizing that Max was staring at him, Michael pulled himself back to the present. They'd been talking about...what? Oh yeah--Maria. Maria, who was fine. "Good," he said, pretending he hadn't zoned out for a moment.
Isabel spoke up from her perch on Max's bed. "Speaking of Maria, guess who has a date with her?" she asked, her tone light.
Max took the time to study him for a moment before replying dryly, "Well, considering that Michael's head hasn't exploded, I'm guessing it's not anyone else."
"Funny," Michael shot out, not particularly amused.
Max dropped the teasing tone. "Really, that's great, Michael."
"It's no big deal," Michael lied, then changed the subject. Even a dead-end quest was more comfortable than dragging his feelings for Maria out for discussion. "So we gonna get a look at the pages or what?"
Waving a hand over one of the desk drawers, Max pulled out the metal sheets and handed them to his sister. "Iz, you take a crack at them while I work on Michael," he instructed.
She shot him an amused look but didn't question his taking charge. "Just let me know if you need my help," she said, then began to peruse the first page.
Meanwhile, Max was studying the mark on Michael's cheek. "So how are you gonna do this?" Michael asked.
"I'm not certain," Max said. "It's not a simple case of healing; we figured that out at the motel."
"Or molecular manipulation," put in Isabel as she examined the metal pages. "I couldn't get it off that way either, remember?"
"Great," Michael muttered. "So what the hell can we do about it?"
"I think the place to start is to try a full scan," Max decided, "to see if we can figure out what's causing it."
Michael hesitated, then began, "Max..."
"What? I've scanned you before, remember? I should be able to tell if something's wrong."
"It's not that, it's just..." Oh, hell. "You might run into some stuff if the connection gets too close."
"What stuff?"
Feeling rather like an interrogation subject in an old prison movie, Michael tried to explain. "One of the things Bob used the mark for was to...kind of tear down this wall in my head. When they cloned us or whatever, they kind of fucked with me. Inside that wall, it's kind of...well, volatile, I guess."
"Volatile?"
"Yeah, the bloodthirsty violent 'let's kill your best friend' part of me, okay? When we were done with Bob, I kind of...shoved all that stuff back behind the wall. But it's there, and I don't think you want to let it out."
There was silence for a moment as the siblings looked at him. He didn't want to talk about it, and the explanation he'd given them was fairly simplistic, but they had needed to know before they went monkeying around in his twisted psyche. He didn't feel like having to wrestle the hidden rage back into submission. Finally Max said, "I'll be careful."
Michael hesitated before acquiescing. "Just be prepared to see yourself in a bloody heap," he cautioned. "'Cause I got a whole bunch of pretty pictures of that floating around in there too."
"Thanks for the warning," Max said before staunchly reaching out to form the connection.
*****
All in all, it was a rather depressing evening. Michael's so-called violent side was still under wraps, but try as he might, Max couldn't find the reason for the mark's imperviousness. Michael was starting to get a horrible feeling that it was going to be permanent.
And they'd had no luck on the alien-symbol decoding front, either. The symbols meant nothing to any of them. Michael was pretty sure that some of them were the same as in the alien book, which lent credence to the idea that they were language rather than random, abstract symbols, but none of them knew what the symbols meant. And Michael hadn't been able to get a single flash from the metal.
"This is hopeless," he complained as he hunched over the back of the desk chair, his arms folded across the top. "A stupid, pointless, fucking waste of time."
"We'll figure it out, Michael."
Pushing himself off of the chair, Michael snapped, "Don't try to patronize me, Max. I'm not a little kid. I don't need to be lied to."
"He's not lying."
"Yeah? And my last name's Jordan."
As always, Max maintained a maddening calm. "Tess has the book," he said. "We'll get it tomorrow and compare the pages. Maybe that will help us understand them."
"What's the point?"
"The point is that you're ready to give up, just because you think something's impossible," Max said. "Well, some people think alien-human hybrids are impossible, but here we are."
"And you yourself would have said that falling in love was impossible, just a year ago," Isabel pointed out. "Time has proven that to be a mistaken assumption, hasn't it?"
"It's not the same thing." But there they were, both looking at him like he was the whole reason they were trying to figure this out in the first place. And that was a load of bull. They had as much invested in it as he did. Hell, Max had more. And if Max wasn't giving up on the save-the-planet mission, he also wasn't going to give up until Michael gave in. No matter how begrudgingly he accepted it. Suddenly Michael was tired of fighting.
"Fine," he said sourly. "I'll go along with this whole stupid scheme. I'll even keep my mouth shut about it being a complete waste of time. But I'm not gonna be all sunshine and puppy dogs about it."
Isabel's eyes danced. "We would never expect that of you, I promise."
"Yeah, fine. Okay. I'm leaving now before you start spouting off about hope and shit." He headed for Max's window, but Isabel's voice stopped him.
"Don't forget your drawings," she said, pointing to the pile of notebook paper he'd abandoned on Max's desk.
Oh, yeah. He had forgotten them. They weren't really good, anyway, mostly quick pencil sketches of various people he'd seen around town. The only half-decent one had been the one of Isabel. But he didn't feel like getting into a discussion about them. He'd just take them home and throw them in a crate with his others. Hopefully that would keep Isabel off his back.
But before he could cross to the desk, Max picked up the pile and started to hand the pages over. Michael tensed as Max's attention was caught by the top sketch.
"Can I look at these?" Max asked.
"I guess." Michael was about to explain that they were just sketches--doodles really--but nothing serious, when Isabel interrupted.
"You should see the one of me. It's great."
Max nodded as he shuffled through the pages, commenting on a few. Michael's portrait of Kyle in his cheerleading costume from earlier in the day elicited a chuckle, and a caricature of Vice Principal Sutter as a prison guard earned a full-on laugh.
About two-thirds of the way through the pile, Max stopped. "Who is this? I know I've seen him before, but I don't know him."
"Who?" asked Isabel.
"Him," her brother responded, handing her the page. "He came into the Crashdown while I was waiting for Maria, but I didn't recognize him."
"I don't know him either," said Isabel, holding the paper out to Michael. "Who is he, Michael?"
Michael glanced down at the page and felt his stomach clench. The sketch in his hand depicted the peeping tom, the guy who'd been peering into the DeLucas' window just two days ago.
CHAPTER 44
"He was at the Crashdown tonight?" Michael blurted, holding up the drawing. "This guy here?"
"I think so," answered a startled Max. "He wasn't wearing the sunglasses, but it looked like him. Who is he?"
Michael's mind was busy trying to figure out the chances of the guy still being at the restaurant. He had a strong urge to find him and pound some information out of him, but he swallowed it. His innate loathing of violence aside, it had been several hours since Max got home, plus however long he'd been at Maria's, healing her mother's arm. The guy, whoever he was, would be long gone. What had he been doing at the Crashdown, anyway? A tourist might stop in for a bite--the kitschy theme seemed to appeal to them for some reason. But a normal tourist wouldn't have been lurking around the DeLucas' house, so Michael doubted he'd just gone to the Crashdown for a Galaxy Melt. The common denominator was Maria. Had the guy been there to find her?
"Did Maria see him?" he asked.
"I doubt it. He came in while she was changing, and we left through the back. Why?"
"It might be nothing," Michael said, trying to get a grip on his churning emotions. "I promised I'd drop it, but if he's still hanging around--"
Isabel sounded exasperated. "Who?"
Michael quickly explained where he'd seen the man before, and how Maria had reacted when he'd told her and Alex about it. "So I promised to forget it," he finished up. "Which was a pretty damn stupid thing to do." Folding the sketch, he shoved it into his pocket and headed for the window.
"Where are you going?" Isabel demanded. "To try and find him?"
"The Crashdown closed hours ago. He won't be there, Michael," Max put in.
"I know that. Besides, I promised I wouldn't go after him."
"Then what are you going to do?"
Michael gave Isabel a scathing glance. Wasn't it obvious? "Talk to Maria."
*****
When he arrived at the DeLucas' house, he automatically started for Maria's window. There was still a light on, even though it was pretty late. But before he could cross the small courtyard, he changed his mind.
A minute later, he was knocking on the kitchen door. He waited tensely until the light flickered on inside and Mrs. DeLuca came to the door.
"Michael?" she said in some surprise. "It's late."
Even if he hadn't already known that, the bathrobe and slippers she wore would have been a good hint. She looked tired, too. Max's healing her arm shouldn't have wiped her out--something else was going on. Was it related to the peeping tom? Suddenly he was even more determined to get to the bottom of things. "Yeah, I know. I need to talk to Maria. It's important."
"It's not another alien, is it?"
"No," Michael hastened to reassure her. "Nothing to do with that."
She accepted this with a relieved breath. "Oh, good. But I'm not sure she's still up."
"Light's on in her room."
She fixed her eyes on him. "So why didn't you knock on her window? That's how you got in the time I found you in her bed, isn't it?"
Michael, to his horror, could feel the heat rise in his cheeks. He'd never stopped to consider what Maria had told her mother about that night. Too much had been going on at the time to worry about what some human woman thought. Nothing had happened anyway. At least nothing like Mrs. DeLuca was thinking. For the first time, he'd let out all of his closely-hidden emotions in front of someone else. For one short night, he wasn't lost, and his hurt and anger didn't seem as overwhelming. Maria had made him feel like he belonged. And that had been far more frightening that what Mrs. DeLuca feared. "Uh...yeah. It is."
"Then why not this time?"
Surprisingly, she didn't look angry, just like she really wanted to know. Problem was, he didn't really know. The window would have been easier, there was no doubt. He could have bypassed all this questioning and gotten straight to getting some answers of his own. But it had seemed like this was the right thing to do.
And the fact that he was even considering what was right or wrong to do kind of freaked him out.
Enough of that. "It's important," he repeated, not really answering her question.
Someone spoke from the hall. "I heard voices. Mom, who--" Entering the kitchen, Maria stopped in the doorway. "Oh. Michael," she said, sounding oddly relieved. Then her forehead wrinkled and she looked a little more suspicious. "Why are you here?"
"I need to talk to you."
"Oh. Okay," she said without hesitation, not seeming the least bit startled that he had shown up on her doorstep wanting to talk. "What's going on?"
Before he could even begin to open his mouth, Mrs. DeLuca spoke up. "I'll leave you two to talk. But Maria--don't be too long. It's late."
"I won't."
"Goodnight, Michael." And with that, Mrs. DeLuca swept out of the room. Part of him, still stung by Mrs. Evans' implied accusation earlier that evening, was surprised.
"So what's going on?" Maria asked, sitting at the kitchen table. Michael had a sudden unpleasant image of tying her to that very chair, under Bob's command, but he shook off the memory and took the seat across from her. He sat for a moment, then shucked off his jacket and tossed it across the back of the chair next to him.
His delay didn't escape her attention. "I don't think you came around at this time of night just to sit in our kitchen and chat, so what's going on, Michael?" Maria demanded. She sounded cranky. Michael had a feeling she was going to sound crankier before long.
"It's about the guy I saw looking in your windows the other day," he said, getting straight to the point. She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off. "I know, I promised to drop it. And I did. No following him, no trying to figure out what he was doing at your house."
If he hadn't been watching her carefully, he might have missed the way her shoulders relaxed at that piece of news. Certainly it wasn't reflected in her voice. "And you came over to tell me that? Congratulations, Michael, you kept a promise. Are you expecting some sort of prize or something?"
"What? No!" he burst out. "What the hell's wrong with you, Maria?"
"Nothing, except I don't know what you're doing here."
She was tired. She wasn't mad at him, she was just tired. He'd make an unaccustomed effort and ignore it. Or at least he'd try. Gritting his teeth, he hissed, "Look, I came to tell you to be careful. The guy's still around. Max said he was at the Crashdown tonight."
Some of the color went out of her cheeks. "Lots of people go to the Crashdown. It probably wasn't even the same man," she said.
Was she trying to convince him or herself? With an exasperated growl, Michael pulled out the sketch from his pocket, unfolded it, and slammed it down onto the table.
"It was the same man. This man," he said, jabbing a finger at the piece of notebook paper. "He came into the Crashdown while Max was waiting for you."
Maria looked down at the page, her face expressionless, then looked back up at Michael. "So?" she said evenly.
"So what the hell am I supposed to do, Maria?" he snapped. "Something's wrong about the guy, and you're ignoring it. So am I just supposed to ignore it too, and watch you wind up getting hurt? Or am I supposed to break my promise and piss you off and maybe wreck what's left of our relationship? You tell me. Tell me what I'm supposed to do!" He stared at her, eyes blazing; then, deflating, he propped his elbows on the table and rested his head in his hands.
She was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "Feel better now?"
"No," he said sourly. He didn't feel better. He felt frustrated.
Finally, she said, "You used the word 'relationship', Michael."
He lifted his head. "So? I thought we were trying to have one. But then again, what do I know about anything?" Back his head went into his hands.
"He's my uncle."
"Huh?"
"The man in the drawing. He's my uncle. You know, my mother's brother?"
Michael looked up again. Why had she suddenly made a U-turn and told him? And if all this was about her uncle, what was the big deal?
"You mean your--" He racked his brain for the name. "--your Uncle Teddy?"
"How did you know his name?" she asked, stiffening.
"Your mother."
She stilled. "You talked to my mom about him?"
"Yeah."
"So much for keeping promises, huh?"
"What? I didn't know he was the peeping tom," Michael sputtered. "And besides, this was before that, when I was...it was a while ago."
"Uh-huh. And you just happened to be talking about my uncle?"
He closed his eyes. How had this gotten all turned around? He'd come over to warn her to be careful and to get some questions answered. Why was he suddenly on the wrong end of the microscope? "Look, it was back when I found out I'd had a sister before. I just...I wanted to know what it was like, okay?"
Understanding dawned on her face. "And you didn't want to ask Max or Isabel, and you couldn't ask me or Liz or Alex 'cause we're all only children."
He nodded, meeting her eyes.
"Did it help?"
"Not really." It had made the sister-shaped hole in his heart seem even bigger, but he wasn't going to tell Maria that. Somehow, he suspected, she knew anyway.
"I heard about your sister," she said, her voice soft. "About the earthquake, and how she died." How he'd killed her, she meant, but was too nice to say it. "Isabel told us."
Oh. Well, that was great. Why did everyone always have to know his personal business? He should have expected it, though.
"I wanted to tell you, but it never seemed to be the right time," Maria continued. "I mean, I didn't think you'd want to bring it out for discussion in the middle of the cafeteria, you know?"
She was right about that. He didn't even like to think about it, much less to have everyone else's sympathetic reaction batter against his emotional shields. He wasn't really ready to talk about it with Maria, either. He wasn't sure he would ever be.
"I'm not here about that," he said gruffly. "We were talking about your relative, remember?"
"Oh. I was kind of hoping you'd forgotten that," Maria admitted. "Well, yeah, he's my uncle."
Michael waited a minute. "Yeah, and...?"
"And what?"
What did she mean, 'And what?' Was she determined to drive him insane, because she was doing a good job at it. "And why haven't you mentioned him before? Would it have been so hard to tell me that when I saw him at your house? Did you want me to be freaking worried about you? All you had to say was 'No big deal, Michael. It's just my uncle.' Would that have been so hard?"
"Yes!"
"For god's sake, why?"
"Because I hate him! You're not the only one to get landed with a horrible uncle, okay?"
Michael didn't know what he'd been expecting, but he hadn't been prepared for that. "What did he do to you?" he bit out.
"Nothing."
"He had to do something, Maria. I know you. You don't hate people, not without a good reason."
She began to fidget with the edge of her sleeve. "It doesn't really matter. I haven't seen him in years, and if I'm lucky he'll go away soon. Then this will all be over, and we can all go back to normal. Well, as normal as we get."
Michael stared at her. Her hair was pulled back from her face by a wide band; her face was clean, her cheeks pale. Sucking in her lower lip, she huddled down into the kitchen chair like she'd be glad if it swallowed her up.
He opened his mouth, then closed it as realization struck him.
"What?" she demanded.
"You're...you're hiding," he said slowly. "I've never seen you hide from anything. No matter how scared you are, you go right ahead and do what you need to do. But you're hiding from this." He hesitated, then added, "Hiding doesn't help anything, Maria."
"And you're some sort of expert?"
"Well...yeah." He'd spent his whole life trying to hide who he was, how he felt, even from himself. And one thing he knew for sure: no matter how hard you tried, sooner or later you found out it didn't work.
She let out a sigh. "I can't talk about it, Michael. Not here."
"Fine. We'll go somewhere else, then," he said, rising from his chair.
"I'm not going anywhere, Michael. I mean, I'm wearing pajamas, in case you didn't notice." He hadn't, actually. Her outfit looked more like sweats than pajamas; it certainly wasn't the sleepwear he was used to seeing her in, the pajamas with the sheep all over them. Maria continued, "I'm tired, and I have a double shift tomorrow. So now that you know there's no big deal, can we talk about this some other time? I need some sleep."
"When?"
"God, you have a one-track mind," she complained. "I don't know when. I have work tomorrow and the Whits gig Sunday. Sometime."
Michael settled back in the chair. "Then until you're ready, you won't mind if I talk to someone else."
Her eyes narrowed. "Like who? You seem to be getting along awfully well with my mother," she said pointedly.
"Right," he said with a snort. "You said you couldn't talk about it here. I'm guessing she's the reason why. No, I thought I'd go straight to the source."
"What--my uncle? You can't talk to him, Michael," she said in alarm.
"Why not? He doesn't speak English?"
"Michael!"
"You said yourself he was no big deal. If he's not dangerous, there shouldn't be any problem talking to him, should there?"
"I don't know why he's here. And I don't want to know," she protested.
"Well, I do."
"Michael, please."
Dammit! Why did she have to look at him like that? He didn't think she was trying to wheedle a concession out of him, but her look of honest entreaty had the same effect. "Tell you what," he said slowly. "I won't go hunting him down." He could see the relief in her eyes. "But if I happen to see him, I'm making no promises."
"Thank you."
"Whatever." He'd bet she'd put all her concentration into hoping that her uncle's path wouldn't cross his. He grabbed his jacket and stood. "So. I'm gonna go then."
Rising from her chair, she said, "Okay. Goodnight." After a moment, he gave his head a small shake and headed out the door, pulling the jacket on as he went. He was several steps away from the house when he heard, "Michael?"
He turned around. Maria was standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the light from the kitchen. "Yeah?"
"What you did tonight...it means a lot," she said as she crossed to him. "Thank you, Michael." And reaching up, she pulled his head down to cover his lips with hers.
Michael's arms went around her without having to think twice, and he gave himself enthusiastically to the kiss. He'd missed this, missed the way she could make him feel. Sure, it had only been yesterday that he'd kissed her outside the Crashdown, but a day was too long to go between times. Hell, five minutes was too long.
It was all too soon when she pulled away, rather reluctantly, he thought. She skittered to the door, and into the house, only stopping to smile and call a low "Good night."
His pulse still racing, Michael began the walk back to his apartment in far better spirits. He didn't know the whole story, and he suspected there was more to it than Maria had let on, but he didn't feel like she was in imminent danger. And the kiss had kind of knocked all rational thought from his head anyway.
Odd, though. She'd said that what he'd done meant a lot. And all he'd done was what he always did: take steps to make sure that she was safe. Well, safe within reason. The safest place for her would be far away from him and all the unavoidable alien issues, and he wasn't willing to go that route any more. But what had she meant by her comment? Shoving his hands into his jacket pockets to warm them from the cool night air, he shook his head. One thing was for sure. He might love her--he did love her--but he was never going to be able to figure her out.
TBC...
continue to chapters 45 and 46
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