"Permanently? You mean we're dead - dead ? No chance for escape?" Maria asked.
"Yeah. That's what I mean." Michael said, putting his hands on his hips.
"Oh God! Michael do you realize that no one even knows where we are? I mean, we never left any notes, and I kept meaning to call Liz, but I never did. As far as everyone is concerned, we've just disappeared. How are they going to find out? And my mom can hardly take care of her self. She needs me." She had began to cry again and this time she couldn't stop.
Michael was feeling guilty so he lashed out. "I don't know what you expect me to do, but if you want we can spend a whole lot of time discussing it because we'll be here for oh, I don't know, forever!" It came out sarcastic. Maria's cried even louder and he softened his tone. "Don't worry, I left a note for Max in our secret hiding place to let him know that you and I were coming here. I, uh figured you would say yes when I asked." Much more quietly, he muttered something under his breath.
"What did you say?" Maria asked despite the fact that she knew it was probably some bad remark directed at her.
Michael looked at her square in the face. "I said, this is all my fault. I didn't convince you quick enough. They said I had to convince you to leave and I couldn't get you to just come with me." He walked closer and took her into his arms. "And then I said that I could think of much worse ways to spend my afterlife. I can't believe this. We are dead! We just died and I can't even be upset because I am here with you. It makes no sense."
"Yeah?" she looked at him under hooded eyes.
He nodded and she said "Ditto."
"Which part?"
"Both, I can't be upset because I'm with you. And, I can't think of a better way to spend my afterlife." He smiled and gave her a passionate kiss.
"That was nice," she said, her voice thick with tears, when he removed his lips from hers.
"So," he said, his eyes twinkling mischievously. "What kind of things do you think we can do in here?"
Maria's eyes narrowed and she carefully asked why.
"Well, because baby, "he stepped away and looked her up and down, " I have been having thoughts about you in that outfit all night!"
"Hey, haven't you learned your lesson? Hel-lo! We're dead because of that!" she said it trying to sound shocked. Then an uncontrollable smile broke out on her lips and she added, "but, you know, it would be quite a wonderful way to spend eternity. Besides, we'll need to do something, for entertainment purposes, of course. We will have to fill up time somehow, right?"
"I couldn't agree more, for entertainment purposes only." he smirked.
"Don't look at me like that!"
Michael feigned innocence. "Like what?"
"That look. That one that says your humoring me. God, even in death you can be so aggravating." She said and then she shivered. "Damn, it's cold in here."
"Well, why don't I just warm you up then?" Michael said. Maria nodded and opened her arms, welcoming him.
She closed her eyes and waited for Michael's strong, solid arms to embrace her but they never came. "Michael?" she called.
No answer.
She then opened her eyes to find that she was alone. She turned to see if he was behind her but he was gone. "No. Michael? where did you go?" she shook her head as if waiting to be let in on the joke. But no jokes came. He was truly gone.
"No, Michael don't leave me!" she said to the empty air, her cries ricocheting off of the dark walk. She walked backwards until her back was against the wall. Fresh tears broke out on her face and the sting of loss created a horrid pain that made her double over.
After the pain had subsided, she slid down the wall and sat once again with her arms wrapped around her knees. She said the same phrase over and over again. "Michael, don't leave me alone. Michael, don't leave me alone...."
*****
Michael spread his arms with every intent of wrapping them around Maria, but there was nothing where her body was supposed to be, and his arms ended up wrapping around himself instead. "What the fuck?" he cried, after opening his eyes to discover that Maria was in fact gone.
He looked around to discover that he wasn't even in the same room. He now stood alone in a white room with a green marbled floor. In one corner, there was a very large, very grand chair, made of green velvet and lined with gold. He stood in the center of the room before finally deciding to go sit in it. It was comfortable.
While sitting, he thought about Maria. *Maria? Are you there?* he tried calling with his mind but he knew she wouldn't be. He hasn't sensed her once since he had gotten there. *Wherever you are, remember I love you and I hope you're alright,* he sent with hopes that there might be a slight chance she would hear him.
He still felt nothing and that was when it hit him that he was truly alone and would be forever. He hung his head and began to weep.
"Michael," a voice said. He looked up sharply when he recognized it as none other than his best friend's. Sure enough, Max was there, standing in front of him.
"Max?"
Max smiled and said, "I'm not really Max. I am just using a body form you are familiar with."
"Who are you then? God?"
"Hardly," he said, giving one of Max's amused smirks.
Michael's eyes narrowed. "Where the hell is Maria? Why did I get taken away from her?"
"I needed to talk to you, to give you something, " the impostor Max stated, ignoring his first question.
"Give me what?" Michael asked suspiciously, crossing his arms over his chest.
"What do you want more than anything at this moment Michael?"
Michael didn't hesitate. "To be with Maria."
Impostor Max gave him a bewildered look. "To be with Maria? Do you not care at all about your life? Because that is what I am offering you. You stopped the beating of your own heart in order to save Maria. You weren't able to get out in time and you both lost your lives. I'm offering you the chance to go back to the exact moment before you were told that stopping your heart could save her. This time, you just let her go.
The impostor Max smiled and said "So, what do you say?"
"You're joking, right?"
The impostor Max blinked. "No, I'm not joking Michael. I admire your selflessness. You deserve another chance at life. You chanced your own life for someone else's, and it didn't work and you ended up dying yourself."
"And what about Maria?"
"What about her? She did no unselfish acts." Impostor Max looked confused.
"It is my fault she was put in this situation. I didn't do anything selfless, I did what was right!"
"You demonstrated selflessness either way. Will you do it?"
"No! I can't. I don't want to live in the world if Maria isn't with me. It is my fault that she died, and my fault that I couldn't save her. So, no!"
"Very well," Impostor Max said and began to walk away.
"Wait!" Michael's voice stopped him.
*****
"Ashtar, what should we do with their bodies?"
Everyone was looking at him with eager eyes. "Um...yes, well first we need to get them out of the water. Do that while I think about exactly how we should go about this. She has a mother and he has Dilana friends we need to get a hold of. Let me think."
The members of the group nodded and the men moved to remove the lovers' bodies from the waiting bath. They removed Michael's body first, placed it on the floor, and then moved to do the same with Maria's body.
Riorma had just picked up her floating arms when he cried out.
"What is it?" Lena asked, confused.
"She moved!" he said.
"That's not possible, Riorma. She's been dead for ten minutes." Lana spoke as though she were speaking to a child.
Just then, Maria sat up straight and sucked in a lung full of air.
Riorma screamed. He looked at Lana and then they screamed together. Everyone else looked and they screamed. Everyone was screaming with the exception of the panting Maria and the lifeless body of Michael.
"Hello, could you guys shut up! I have a killer headache." Maria said, and finally everyone quieted down and stared at her in shock. "Okay, did I just sprout another head because that's the way your making me feel. Hello? Okay, the staring thing is really bothering me," she added the last part when their wide eyes continued didn't leave.
"But...but...but you were dead! You've been dead for ten minutes!" Lana cried.
"Yeah, but Michael said we could come back. All we had to do was exit the door." Maria said matter-of- factly. "Speaking of Michael, where is he? He said we'd come together."
Ashtar sucked in a deep breath and then pointed to Michael's body. "Maria, he...."
"Oh my...Michael!" Maria jumped out of the bath, her sheer dress dripping water everywhere. She dropped to her knees right at Michael's side. She stared at the shell that was once Michael for several moments before she moved. She let out a choked sob that echoed in the silent room. One of her hands slowly moved to his hair which was matted to his head, and combed her fingers through it. "His hair needs to be spiky, it's always spiky," she said to no on in particular, her voice distorted by sobs. Then she leaned in and kissed his lips. "They're still warm." She then placed her hand over the silver hand-print over his chest.
Lana leaned over to Sintama and whispered in her ear. "Poor thing." There were tears in her eyes.
At that moment, Maria finally let go all the pain, all the hurt, all the anger she had. "WHY?" she screamed, her body racked with hot, soul shaking tears. She looked at the others in the room, her vision clouded by wetness, "Get out. I need to be alone! Please!" They nodded, some of the women openly crying with her, and exited the door.
Maria's rested her head on Michael's chest, her cries having caused herself to double over. Desperately, she tried talking to him. "Michael, wake up. It's time to get up. We have to go back to Roswell. You know, Roswell, New Mexico? Where we live? Our friends are there. Max, Liz, Isabelle, Alex, all of those people. Come on, you need to get up." All of this tumbled out quickly, impatiently, as though he was just sleeping.
Her head fell into her hands and she began to whisper. "Please God, bring him back to me. I can't live without him and I don't want to. I need him." she sobbed quietly to herself for a few moments and then she stood up, an anguished cry escaping her lips.
"NOOOOOO!" She grabbed one of the candles off of the mantle and then threw it across the room. She grabbed another and kept throwing them until her arm went numb, and there were splats of melted wax covering the opposite wall.
She walked back over to Michael's body and kneeled down once again. Her body was exhausted so she just sat there, her eyes closed, cradling one of his hands in hers. Very quietly, she sang a song she had written about him after he had broken her heart at the old soap factory. The words weren't really appropriate anymore but she sang it anyways, it was the only song she had written about him.
One day, your holding me close the next day, your pushing me away Who ever said you could play with my heart? Hold it in your hands and tear it apart?
And Whatever made you think you had the right To just show up here like you did last night? You wanted to hold me, I should have pushed you away and told you there was no way you could stay
Instead I let you touch me, and whisper my name I knew that my life would never be the same And now you say that I'm holding on too tight but who was holding who so tightly last night?
I just cant play your games anymore It's getting too hard to scrape my heart off the floor How long will it be untill you finally see That you and I are meant to be
"You have such a beautiful voice." Maria heard Michael say it but was sure that she was just hallucinating. Then she felt him squeeze her hand and she opened her eyes.
"Michael?" She saw him still lying on his back, his eyes barely open. But she refused to believe it was really him. "You're not really here, are you? Your dead. You didn't wake up." she said is simply, softly.
He sat up quickly, and put his arms around her. "Oh my God, Maria! I never thought I would ever see you again. And yes, it's really me."
She jumped when she felt his arms embrace her, but she didn't hold him back right away. That would only mean she was accepting that she was crazy. "Prove it!"
Michael sat grasping for a way to prove it to her when he bent over and grasped her face in his hands. "Look into my eyes."
***Flash***
Michael and Maria inside of the black room, just discovering that the door was locked.
***Flash***
Michael going into the white room
***Flash***
The impostor Max offering Michael his life back.
***Flash***
Michael refusing and the impostor Max walking away. Michael calling him back and begging that he spare Maria's life instead.
***Flash***
Impostor Max agreeing and running his hand over one wall, a screen appearing. Michael watching Maria as she wakes up in the bath and the Dilana leaders shock at seeing her alive.
***Flash***
Impostor Max noticing the tears in Michael's eyes as he watches Maria.
***Flash***
Impostor Max saying once again that he is impressed.
***Flash***
Impostor Max saying he will send Michael back as well.
***Flash***
Michael waking up to hear Maria singing.
"Oh my god, Michael! It's really, really you!" Maria thrust her arms around his neck and knocked him backwards as her body slammed into his. "Don't you ever, EVER, leave me again, okay?"
Michael weaved his hands through her hair and before kissing her said, "Never."
"Wha..." Michael and Maria looked up to see Lana's head poking around the door, her eyes bugged and her mouth gaping.
The others walked in at sensing her alarm and they too looked amazed. "I never thought I'd say this," Ashtar said, "but I need a drink. Anyone else?"
Every hand in the room went up.
*****
Later that night, or rather extremely early the next morning, Michael told the story of what happened to the group. He held Maria in his arms as he told of the black room, and of being separated, and of the Impostor Max, and the pleading for Maria's life.
The group sat transfixed by his every word. It was as though they were waiting to be let in on the joke anytime soon.
Eventually, they decided that Michael should wait and come back with Max and Isabelle to get answers to the questions he had yet to ask. And of course, he had to bring his bride.
*****
"Stop the car!" Maria called, just two-hundred feet away from Roswell city limits. Michael pulled the car over to the side of the road and looked at her questioningly.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"Michael, we don't know what's going to happen when we get into town, so I think we need to talk about what we're going to say. Now."
"Say to who? Valenti? Your mom? Just say that we left town to be alone. It may get you grounded but at least it will shut them up. As for Max and the rest, we're going to tell them the truth."
"Everything?" Maria asked skeptically.
"Why not?"
"Michael, just think. Over the last seventy-two hours, we have run away together to Sedona, Arizona, we've had sex several times, you grew new powers and I love sweet and spicy, we found a settlement of your people, we found out that we are the first Dilana-human soulmates ever, we found out that your sperm could kill me, we had an alien marriage, I died, you stopped your own heart to save me, we were both dead for ten minutes before we came back to life, and to top it off, we still don't know if I'm pregnant!" Maria stopped and thought about it for a moment before she shrugged. "What am I worried about? They'll never believe it."
Michael laughed softly to himself. "No, you're probably right." And then, before taking her lips in a soul-searing kiss, he added, "But you know what? It will be one helluva story!"
THE END
(To be continued in A Few Degrees Shy of Heaven)