Those Left behind III:

What Now?

I am still here.

Michael pulled back as her voice sounded in his head. Yes. She was. Time has gone by. Thing had been done, but she was still here. Still in his head the entire time.

“Talk to me.”

Maria framed his face her thumbs rubbing across his cheekbones. “Words? What should I say?”

Michael moaned and lowered his forehead to hers. “Anything. Any old thing. Just talk.” His eyes found hers again. “I’ve missed the sound of your voice. I could hear it in my head, but my ears missed have missed it. So much.”

“Come with me, my love.” Maria took his hand and led him from the sunroom down another hall and up a narrow set of back stairs. At the top of the staircase, she entered a room directly across from the landing. A corner back room, large with a window seat where one could look at the darkness of the wooded area around them.

She sat down there. He could see her sitting there. Her legs hugged to her body and she rested her cheek on her knees. It was where she had dreamt of him.

“Maria, I can’t…”

“Shhh. Tell me later. When it doesn’t bleed.” Her mouth found his again, and it took a few moments before he became aware of her hands unfastening his clothes.

“The baby?”

“Is fine. Amy is fine.”

Michael stopped her hands. “Amy? Are you sure?”

Maria just kissed him again, passionately. All those years of trying to get him to talk, followed by all those weeks of him talking to her in dreams, and now he wanted to talk? God, she hated it when she got what she wanted and found it wasn’t quite what she had in mind! Talk later.

“You talk too much.”

Michael chuckled at that. “Never thought I’d ever hear you tell me that, Maria.”

Desperate. Their bodies felt desperate. For each other.

Maria was frustrated by all his clothes in the way of her hands. She couldn’t get his jacket off because her own mouth got in the way as it kissed him, making her body plaster firmly and hard to his. Her hands moving to remove clothing, but becoming distracted by just the touch of his skin under her fingertips. Starved. She was starved for the taste, smell, sight, touch and sound of him. He was a sensation overload.

“I need...”

“Maria...,” he moaned. She was rocking his control. There were things to say. Her mouth bit the side of his neck and he felt it in his groin. Groaning in the pain of breathing, his hands searched her body. His baby. He could feel the swell of her body pressed into his stomach, skin on skin. He needed that. Now.

Michael took his jacket off and lifted it in the direction of the coat-rack standing beside the door they had entered, not taking his eyes off Maria or her mouth. The jacket missed the hook and slid to the floor. Michael didn't notice.

Maria untangled herself from his arms, and went to stand with her back to him looking out over the wooded area. Her body was shaking, and she couldn’t seem to decide what to do with her hands. It was his voice, a whisper of her name spoken in her mind that had her turning back to him.

Maria took a small step toward him and then Michael was moving forward rapidly, and he had her in his arms, cradled to his chest, and he was caressing the beautiful soft hair, his mouth hungry, starving for her. He kissed whatever flesh, wherever he found her. Maria looked up at him, and then snaked her arms around Michael's neck and bent Michael's head down to kiss her again. Too fast. Too fast. It kept repeating in her head. She needed to savor him just in case it was just another dream and she soon woke up alone and unsatisfied reaching for him in the empty bed next to her.

Don’t be a dream. Don’t be a dream. Don’t be a dream…

I’m not. Feel me.

And then everything began spiraling out of control as they sank to their knees where they stood, lips still pressed together hungrily, hands scrambling at each other's clothes. Fabric ripped, buttons protested and gave way, and then Michael was bent over Maria on the floor, kissing her nipples, rubbing his face into the soft silky skin, working off the small slip of a dress she had been wearing.

Once naked, Maria pushed Michael onto his back and rolled on top of him, grabbing his head and pulling him into a bruising, frenzied kiss. Michael reached into Maria's hair with one hand, tried to pull off his pants with the other. It took too damn much concentration and motor coordination. Michael, abandoning it as hopeless, grabbed a warm full handful of Maria's ass instead. God, she was so damn slim! Too slim to hold a growing child. He pulled Maria's body down hard against his, and Maria lifted her head and moaned, and Michael flipped them over again and got on top.

Pinning Maria beneath him, Michael bent to Maria's throat and sucked furiously.

Take me, claim me!

Michael growled. This time he was going to leave a mark. Maria raised her legs and wrapped them around Michael's waist, rubbing herself wantonly against the bare skin of his body, mating her skin along his in a rasp. The action got Michael's attention.

God, you're a handful! His strong hands moved to grab Maria's thighs, to pry them from his waist, and then he was sliding down her body, intending to taste her…and then he stopped suddenly, and looked at Maria, who was lying on her back, hair spread around her head, breathing hard, nipples red and peaked, body tight, straining, writhing, legs spread wide under the firm pressure of Michael's fingers, and Michael heard the sudden, deafening sound of his own harsh breathing. He extended his right arm towards Maria's face and she took his hand in both of hers, bringing it to her mouth. She sucked Michael's fingers mutely, laving them generously with her tongue, and Michael groaned and nearly came with the image, the sensation, and the pleasure of it.

Finally he pulled his hand away and without losing eye contact with her, slid his finger down her body and into her. Tilting her hips up as Michael gently inserted a finger into the tight, impossibly hot, passage and moved it in and out. Maria's hands clenched into fists and she opened her legs wider to give him better access. He ran his finger over the sensitive bundle of nerves watching as her hips bucked uncontrollably, encouraging more stimulation.

Michael put a firm hand on Maria's abdomen and held her down, his hand moving over the stretched skin. God! His child. The movement under his hand was more than just the straining muscles of her stomach reacting to his touch. It was his baby responding to his touch as well.

Idiot.

He was going to ravish her on the floor? In her condition?

“I’ve got to get you off the floor!” Michael quickly rolled to his feet ignoring her protest at the loss of his hands on her. Picking her up in his arms, he carried her light weight to the bed. She should’ve weighed more. She was pregnant. But it just made her seem even more delicate and fragile.

“Michael.” Her voice drew him back. It was a sexy low sound in her throat, almost a rumbling purr demanding he continue what her body was demanding.

“Yes, honey.” Michael said in an amused voice saying ‘honey’ like he did once long ago in a motel on 285 South just before she kicked him in indignation. Before she could retort, he inserted another finger into her.

Maria gasped and pushed back, reached down to grasp him in her hands. Michael pushed her hand away. Uh uh. Nope. Too much. If she touched him right now, he would be over. She would have to wait until he was ready to yield the floor to her. He stroked his fingers in and out of Maria, stroking her with a steady, solid pressure. Maria whimpered.

"Maria," murmured Michael softly, "you're beautiful, you're so beautiful, you have no idea..." He increased the speed of his strokes in her. "I love you, I want you, always want you..."

Maria tensed beneath him and Michael knew she was close. He wanted to add more to it, needed to add more. He sped his strokes even faster. "Maria," he said raggedly, "you're mine. Come for me," he said quietly, and then he pulled out of Maria suddenly, bent his head, and softly, deeply kissed where his fingers had been.

Maria shuddered furiously and came, her stomach spasming from the release. Michael ran his hands over the underside of Maria's thighs, over her hips, feeling the muscles trembling seductively beneath him. Pulling his hands away gently, he ran lingering fingers over Maria's abdomen, and then down to take himself in hand, he began lubricating his cock with the moisture between her legs, teasing her by just rubbing along the opening. Heart pounding, Michael knelt between Maria's legs and pulled Maria's hips up into his lap. He positioned his cock at the entrance to Maria's body and pressed forward gently.

For a moment he thought that he hadn't opened Maria enough, hadn't prepared her well enough, but then suddenly, slowly he was moving forward, forward, forward into her beautiful, hot, welcoming body. He exhaled a long breath and looked down into her darkened green eyes that stared up at him, and Michael could see so much in those eyes, could see himself in those eyes.

Lost. He almost lost it. All of it. Her. The feelings she inspired in him, the love. It would have all been snuffed out, had not Amy and the others risked their lives to save his world. They had given her back to him, and all those years he thought them the enemy. Not believing and trusting in unconditional love, and then,  they, in one act of true sacrifice, taught the young what it really meant to be unselfish, noble, and good. None of them had expected rewards, accolades, gratitude, or even their greatest desires. They did it because it was right, and for no other reason. They did it because their child, or children, Jesse and Maria, had been taken from them, and there was no other choice but to take back. With no thought of personal safety, they did the most incredible thing. That was true valor. True honor. Small ordinary people, humans with no powers, no sense of being special, going the extra mile for others. It was humbling.

Thanks to those unsung heroes who had sacrificed so much, Michael and Maria were finally, blissfully united and the moment was impossibly long and incredibly perfect. Then it was over. They held it in awe, in a split moment that ran into forever, but it too had to end. Michael was moving and suddenly, finally, buried deep in Maria's body, he completely, totally and utterly lost control.

Michael thrust into Maria hard, and Maria urged him on with her body and her voice as Michael pounded, sliding out and in of Maria with long, furious strokes. Her voice wrecked what little he had left of anything resembling control. Her begging for him to go faster, hard, deeper. His name. His name on her lips, more a prayer than an oath. And Michael closed his eyes and felt Maria's body contract around him and he was coming and Maria was coming and the world spun and he held onto her warm body as he fell.

There it was. That was what was missing in their dreams. Completion. The overwhelming sense of contentment, and the raging feeling rushing along the body long after the act was finished.

Rolling over onto his back, Michael held her sprawled across his chest, her breathing still harsh. The baby was warm between them as their stomachs mated and the slick wet skin slid together, slowly drying. With one hand holding her to him and soothing the tangled silky strands of golden hair splayed on his chest, his other hand rested on her pregnant stomach in wonder.

“When did we do it?”

Maria made a lazy sound in her throat, a question. Michael smiled and took it as a ‘Do what?’ sound.

“When did we make her?”

Her smile moved along his skin where her mouth rested on his chest. A quick movement of a tongue, and she licked him tasting the salt of his skin.

“The last time, I think.”

That had been just three days before he got on his bike to leave forever, two days after she made him go to the fortune teller’s place, and a day before Liz and Max saved the woman from the purse snatcher, exposing themselves.

They had made love. It started earlier that day, at school. He was walking down the hall trying to remember why the hell he was still going if he wasn’t graduating, when he saw her. She was ahead of him, walking down the hall, when suddenly she raised her arms above her head and stretched try to alleviate the tiredness in her shoulders and back. It was that stretch. The sight of the long lean lines of her back in a skimpy sundress. Her incredibly long thin muscular thighs from behind. That cute tight little ass…well, all of it.

Rushing forward, his arms went around her middle, and before she could protest, he pushed the both of them into a storage closet. It was that quick. That fast. As she turned around, her mouth was already on his. She knew him by touch. And so they touched, and they didn’t stop. Their combined breath came like steam engines struggling to climb a steep grade. Then like that, she was gone. He stood there grasping air. The door was open, and he was too aroused to run after her. Going out in the hall, he looked both ways, but she was already gone.

Frustration. Hate of school. Really needing a cold shower. It all culminated into a perfect reason to get the hell out, so he took off. His place was a quick trip on his bike. Cursing her for leaving him all hot and bothered, the hands that grabbed him when he entered his apartment were a shock, almost as unexpected as the voice and the feel of himself being slammed up hard against the side of the doorjamb, as the door slammed shut.

“What took you so long?”

Maria.

Her mouth. Her hands. Groaning, Michael joined in again, easily. He had never come down from before. It was mid-day. Max was at school. They had the place all to themselves.

It was more than raging hormones. More than sex. He could feel her touch like a cut straight to the center of him. It hurt, and felt good at the same time. The first time up against the kitchen counter he thought, ‘I love you. Miss you.’ And the second time on the sofa he almost said it, but it got stuck in his throat with the sound of her name responding to hers calling his. He never got to say, ‘Come home.’ The final and third, fourth, maybe it was fifth time was in his bed, behind closed doors. It was dark and late. She was sleeping, sprawled naked across his bed with him resting on her back, when he heard the front door open and Max entering his home with Liz’s voice in the background.

They must have seen the state of the room. Clothes everywhere. Maybe they could smell the sex. A few more hushed words, and then it was blissfully quiet once again. Max apparently had gone off to spend the evening studying at the Crashdown while Liz worked.

In the soft candlelight, he whispered ‘I love you,’ aloud just before he finally fell asleep. The next morning, their world exploded. It was time to run.

That had to be when Amy had been conceived. Normally they were pretty careful with protection, but somehow between door and bed, there were many impromptu stops along the way, and protection was their last thought.

"It didn't work very well," he said.

"What didn't?" Maria was having a little trouble concentrating.

"Not being with you."

Oh. Well. All right. Maria nodded at him. She got it. She could relate. "We do better together." Maria watched a light go on in the back of his eyes.

"That's it exactly. We do better together," he said, with this beautiful smile.

Michael was such a quiet man, maybe even more now that they had that mental talking thing going, made strong by distance. He was given to bouts of happiness, but only when he let go. Those times when he forgot that he didn’t have to be dark, brooding and unapproachable, he could smile the most beautiful of smiles, that touched all the way to the soul. Awestruck, it was like looking at an angel. No one told her that a man could look so beautiful.

"So can I kiss you now?" Maria asked him, already leaning in.

She didn’t even wait for him to say yes. Too late now, as she was already rummaging around in his mouth, learning it all again, like it was all new. His teeth are so straight except for that one, and a slight gap that troubled her tongue, his tongue was strong, and it was hot in there. Her mouth fit over his perfectly, like it was made just for doing that. He had some serious stubble action going on too. Scrape, scrape. The redness on her face wasn’t bad skin, it was whisker burns.

They would stay for a few hours, those red marks all around her mouth, and she would feel them tingling. A reminder of being marked.

Marked.

"Michael?" Maria pulled back just far enough to get the word out.

"Yeah?"

"Bite me."

Oh, shit. Michael growled deep in his throat, pushing her over, flat on her back on the bed. Pouncing, pulling her head back by the hair and baring her throat. Oh my God! Maria’s voice sounded in his head. Yes. Yes! He got the edges of his teeth on her neck and he was chewing, not hard, not enough to even scratch, let alone break the skin, but Maria could feel it, the blood rushing to that spot, feel how hot it got. Michael was holding back, worrying about hurting her, marking her too hard in her delicate condition. She pushed him with her mind, with thoughts and images of them, together, hot, sexy, rutting and powerful. Michael had to appreciate the push as he worried the skin, pulling, licking, and pulling some more.

I'm gonna have a hickey for a week. Maybe longer. Turtleneck time.

Michael groaned. Hearing all of her thoughts could have some detractors. That ‘turtleneck time’ hit him in a singsong lift to her voice, and it almost made him laugh. Almost made him forget what he was doing. Almost. But not quite. While he tore at her neck, he was pushing his hips into her. Finding a place inside again, with a sense of homecoming. Up and back, up and back. Knowing this rhythm. This was his out-of-control rhythm.

I'm lovin' it. Make it last.

"Can't wait," he mutters.

"Wait? Wait? I've waited long enough, man, just do it." What does he need, a written invitation?

“I heard that.”

“Michael!”

“Nag, nag, nag.” God, it was good to be home.

He let go of her neck and raised up. Looking down at this handiwork, the red mark marring the perfect whiteness of her skin. Michael rolled, taking her with him, and he pulled her onto him and watched as she sat up and straddled his hips. Her beautiful honey golden hair swinging free sweeping down to enclose them. She was sitting on him, and he blamed the sight of her beautiful nude, pregnant body for the fact that he was having a little trouble breathing here. She looked wild.

Her hand was down on his crotch, rubbing him, like she couldn't stand it one more minute not to touch him. Michael wasn’t sure she was seeing him anymore. Her eyes were following the movement of her hand, but the small uplift at the corner of her mouth gave her away when she heard his throaty moans. She was more than a little aware of him.

“I'm just trying to help you out. I know that feeling. I've had it for the last six nights as I felt you getting closer. At least now we can both do something about it.”

His Maria. Always so loving and giving to others.

They didn’t have to worry about protection any longer. She was already knocked up. Decidedly so. It looked beautiful on her, but he could see the toll life had recently taken, from the slight darkness under her eyes and a touch of sadness in their depths. That sadness changed when she saw him. It was a strange thing to be something someone wanted to see, a savior from misery.

She was lying down on him, and where their skin touched, it was like fire. So hot. Burning. Branding another piece of each other into their souls. Nothing was supposed to feel like this, but it did. Her hands were in his hair, clutching fistfuls of it. Clench, unclench, clench, and unclench. Like a cat kneading. When he slid into her again, it took a moment to realize what happened. Her body was pushing him deeper into the bed, and her hair, hands, and mouth had him enslaved. Time seemed to move too slowly to keep up with their rhythm. He could feel her trembling, and it was just the best feeling, doing this with her, knowing he made her feel this way.

"Maria...Maria...," Michael got that much out before he seized up and felt himself coming hard, almost convulsing. The last thing he remembered hearing for a while was a giggle. Damn her...

~~~

“Should we check on them?”

Kyle stopped reading the local paper and looked up at Laurie, who was wrecking a perfectly good fingernail.

“Only if you’d like an eyeful. I shared a room with Michael for a couple of weeks. I think I can say that this is going to take some time for them to work being apart out of their systems.”

“Maria needs to eat.”

Kyle had to sympathize. Laurie had assumed the task of watching over Maria and the baby since she left her home. After all this time, they had probably developed a routine. Laurie looked real concerned.

“What is it?”

Laurie looked down at her wrecked nail and frowned. “She’s been sick. Miserable. She almost lost the baby once. It was terrible. So terrible.”

“What happened?” Kyle asked quietly. Michael was going to freak. Majorly. Maria hurt or sick was beyond him right now.

“I don’t know. She was sleeping, and the next thing I knew she was screaming in this loud high pitched screeching sound. It was god awful. I…” Laurie paused, “I didn’t know what to do, so I took her to the hospital. They said it was a panic attack, but she needed to stay calm. She was having really bad cramping, and for an entire day afterwards I couldn’t get her to stop crying.”

Kyle was silent, remembering Michael’s panic attack, and how he said it was Maria. He was joking about the connection, but now it seemed he was more correct then he knew. The dreams, Michael’s panic attack, and how they seemed to find each other. It wasn’t just the clues and the love letters; it was more.

“They’ll be okay. Michael will make sure of it.” Kyle ate some more and checked Laurie out. She wasn’t bad looking. Actually, she was kind of cute. Looked nothing like Michael, which in Kyle’s mind was a blessing. “So, what do you do around here all day long?”

“Mostly watch over Maria, I work part-time at a bookstore, and I'm in college. I'm taking a few small nine week courses at Maria’s encouragement.”

Kyle frowned. “How can you do that?”

Laurie shrugged. “I have all the information in the name of my maid, Jenny. I’m going to school under her name. Before we left, I had an ID made in her name. She didn’t know. As long as I don’t file for financial aid I should be okay.”

Kyle was quiet. A future. Laurie was working towards a future despite the problems of being hunted and on the run. “So what are you studying?”

Oh, the most horrible question ever asked a first year student! What is your major? How the heck was a person supposed to know what they would want to be or do? It was a hard thought, even on a good day. Everything seemed so hard.

“I…” Laurie paused. Great. He was going to think she was a geek, or worse, a freak. Looking at his expectant face, she gave in with a sigh and told him, “Finance. I like numbers and understanding the stock market.” She groaned at the look on his face. He looked like he was going to fall asleep from the boredom. “My grandfather, Charles Dupree was a farmer, actually a rancher until he started investing. His aptitude for numbers and working the stock market led to him amassing a fortune. The very same fortune that is financing and protecting us right now.”

Kyle held up his hand. “I didn’t say anything!” he protested.

Laurie huffed and went over to put together a tray for Michael and Maria. “Sure you didn’t. You didn’t have to.” Laurie went upstairs and Kyle frowned suspecting he heard her call him a ‘jerk’. Well what the hell was her problem?

~~~

Michael stretched along her body, hugging her close to his chest. He rested his head against the crook of her shoulder. She felt tiny under him. Resting his hand on his daughter, Michael smiled to himself, keeping his eyes closed so he could feel her, not just physically moving under his hand, but really feel her. It was alike a flash of light, brilliant and alive. It moved through his head, connecting to his mind in a rush of unity. His life, his past, his heritage, it was all there, ingrained and bred in his daughter. She knew him even before she was born. Strange he hadn’t felt her before, but now he did. He would never not feel her again.

Laurie had forced them to wake up long enough to eat, and afterwards Maria had to have a nap. They slept together, and it felt good. Right. More right than anything he had felt since leaving Roswell. Leaving her behind, now that was wrong. It was so wrong. How could a person be so unaware of themselves? He thought he could survive without her, even for a moment, and he proved himself wrong. From the moment he was separated from her it hurt. He hurt. Not just inside, and not just in his heart. It wasn’t simply that deep longing and emptiness of loneliness eating away at him, but the feel of her fear, her pain, and her resignation to death. The pain was like a rising disease inside, killing him slowly from the inside out.

All of it pulled at him. Closing his eyes was a nightmare. One long, never-ending nightmare that haunted him, circled his awareness, and ate at his resilience. He felt and lived through it with her. The growing fear ate at him, making him surly and angry with the others. How could they understand what he could not name, that nameless creeping despair? It choked him. Watching Max and Liz, laughing, with their sickening simpering smiles was enough to make him lose his stomach. How could they be so happy and mindless without a thought of Maria? What little respect he might have felt for them was lost in that dawning moment of awareness. The realization that for them there was nothing but the other, and all others faded into nothing next to them. His lack of respect and the loss of even an inkling of ‘liking’ them joined his own disgust for himself. What a fine group they were, the alien contingency of Roswell! Purely soulless and unconscionable.

Opening his eyes, he focused on the other end of the room. It was a small alcove in Maria’s bedroom right next to the window seat. In the alcove was a bassinet. The entire small area was decorated for a baby. Pink. A little girl. And opposite the window seat and off the alcove was a door that was open. It was the nursery. Maria must have planned to keep the baby in her room for the first few months before moving her to the regular bedroom.

Slowly moving away from her, he got out of bed and went over to the small bassinet. It was ready. Everything was ready for Amy. Michael crouched down next to the small bed and tried to imagine something coming from him ever being that small, small enough to comfortably lie in that bed.

Michael walked into the nursery. It wasn’t done yet. There were paint chips, wallpaper samples, and catalogues for bedding, wall dressings, and furniture strewn about the entire room. Michael flipped through a few. Maria had made notes in the margins and over some pictures. Some were notes to him.

Michael, do you think this is too pink? Reminds me of cotton candy.

He smiled. She talked to him even when he wasn’t there. Everything was there to put the nursery together. All the things they needed, but she had stopped working on it.

“I was waiting for you.”

Turning to her voice, he saw her watching him from the doorway. “You did the small alcove.”

Looking at the alcove, Maria smiled. “I did. I didn’t want to do everything alone. The nursery should be both of us, not just one. So I compromised. I did the alcove to prepare for her coming home, and waited on the rest, hoping you'd find us before she was too big and needed a larger bed.”

“How long were you going to give me?”

Maria shrugged. She didn’t have the answer to that. How long? Forever? Until Amy outgrew the bassinet? It was hard to say. “Long enough. Now it doesn’t matter. You’re here.”

“Yeah. I’m here.” Michael said softly, coming towards her. His arms went around her, and he bent and kissed her mouth softly as he backed her up into the bedroom, slowly towards the bed. “So are you. You’re still here.”

“Yes. I am still here.”

~~~

“Okay, read the next one!” Michael cursed at Kyle as he moved the one piece out of the way. Maria frowned at the paper in her hand and turned it around. Around again, and then…. “Maria! Sometime soon?”

“Well…um, just a damn second! I think I flipped to the French instructions.” Maria frowned some more as Laurie joined her, both their blonde heads bent concentrating on the instructions, talking between them. Unseeing, they missed the soft tender looks sent their way by the two men. Observing the look that Kyle gave his ‘sort of sister’, Laurie, Michael snorted and rolled his eyes.

“Okay, um…I think you have to put all the cam bolts in place first.”

Laurie seemed to agree. She said something to Maria and quickly got up from the floor in the nursery to go downstairs to get them all sodas. Kyle watched her longingly, and mere moments later made a lame excuse to quickly follow the girl.

“What? Aw, no! Damn it! Kyle, get your ass…” Michael stopped in mid sentence as Maria looked at him in wonder. Rubbing her stomach absentmindedly, her face had a shocked look on it. Okay. So his language had deteriorated with constant exposure to Kyle. Actually his language had always been pretty foul, just unspoken. And recently, due to his newfound ‘vocalism’, Maria found his language inappropriate for a new father. “Shucks? Shoot? Darn?” Michael tried hopefully.

Maria laughed and kissed him, handing him the instructions to the baby bed they were trying to assemble. Aw, yes, indeed. A Roswell education, and it still took three Roswellian expatriates and a Tucson reject to put together a simple crib.

“What?” Michael asked suspicious that she was finding him more than a little amusing. He and Kyle had found them over three weeks ago. It had been a busy three weeks, what with checking out the area, meeting Maria’s doctor, and actually attending Lamaze classes. Maria was already seven months pregnant. They estimated a mid-February delivery, so that left so little time, with Christmas fast approaching.

Thanksgiving. His first with family. All those years, he rarely had anything resembling a Thanksgiving dinner. A few times the Evans had invited him, but he didn’t want the novelty of feeling it was done out of charity, so he had declined the offer. This year, it hit him hard. Maria was all alone now too. With Amy gone, her entire world had been ripped apart, and literally the baby in her body was the only blood relationship she had, except for Sean DeLuca who was no longer a possibility. They would be watching Sean. Maybe it was the cost she had paid in knowing him, or even his own insufferable grief over the loss of Amy DeLuca, but one thing was certain, he worked hard to make her first Thanksgiving without her mother a little better.

At first he felt he had failed miserably. How was he supposed to even know that a day filled with football games and another male could have such an overwhelming draw? He tried to pay special attention to Maria, honestly he did. Then Kyle turned on the game, out came snacks, cheese whiz and crackers with sausage, and then the fun began. He blamed the popcorn as the final downfall.

Maria and Laurie slaved in the kitchen trying to figure out how to make a stuffed turkey. It seemed that all the cooking genes in Maria’s body had imploded into dust, as she confessed that her mom was the cook, and she usually just burned things. Laurie in a fit of anxiety and broken nails threatened to call the cook at her home in Tucson. Finally it was the neighbor next door who came over and helped them. Yes. Turning on an oven was the first step!

When dinner finally made it to the table, the entire group was in a festive high spirit, and each of them stared at the turkey in amazement. Okay, so it originally had been a little scorched on the outside, and raw in the middle. It took a wave of Michael’s hand to fix that. Now it looked perfect. Wonderful.

“Wait! We can’t just eat!” Maria stopped them and Michael and Kyle were arguing over who carved the turkey. “We have to say what we're thankful for, or at least pray.”

The group looked at each other. Religion. It was never a real issue before, and not that they were atheist or anything…just it hadn’t.

“I’ll start.” Maria said. “I know that I strayed from my upbringing of being Catholic, which I truly regret. In my darkest hours, and when a special friend needed my comfort all I had was vague childhood memories of God, and for that strength hidden inside I can’t thank him enough. I’m thankful that Michael and Kyle found us, and that we are a family now instead of being alone. And I'm thankful for my unborn baby that has saved me in so many ways, I can never recount them. I thank God every day for my mother, and miss her more than I can say. She watches over me, I know. And I miss those friends who are far away from us on this day, those lost, those found, and those searching, may they find a beacon in the dark that will lead them home.”

Michael was silent. He had never thought of life that way. Never looked at it in checks and balances or taking what was given, no matter how small, and be appreciative of it. Perhaps he spent too long seeing big things, the very same things denied him. Home. Family. Social respect. Feeling a sense of belonging. He looked down at the table in silence.

Laurie cleared her throat. “I’m thankful for Maria finding me when she did, and for those who helped her. I’ve been alone a long time, literally since Grandpa died, and for the first time, even though I'm running for my life, I no longer feel alone. I have a sister, a brother,” she said looking at Michael, “a new niece on the way, and a new friend. My life was always full of confusion and pain, and people wanting me under control. For the first time in my life, I have control and I like it.” Laurie had liquidated as many assets as she could, taken the cash, and turned over all her remaining properties to her aunt and uncle. She would never go back, but she had learned that home was a place a person carried inside them.

Michael looked at her and smiled slightly. Laurie. In so many ways they were the same. She had a family that tried to control her or put her away, and he had a family somewhere that had forgotten him. Neither of them had much in the way of happy memories. But suddenly there was a chance, the potential of a life that he once wanted. He wasn’t alone. Not now. Never again. His daughter would never be alone, of that he was certain. Heaven and Earth. He would move them both to give her the closest to normalcy he could find.

“I'm thankful for my father,” said Kyle. “He was always there willing to believe in me, even during those years when I was upset with him for what I considered to be neglect.” Kyle smiled ruefully, glancing down at his father’s flannel shirt he was wearing. “I'm thankful for all of you, my friends, that make living away from my home not such a lonely prospect. And I'm thankful for all those who have risked everything to protect me from harm, especially those who gave their lives...” Kyle stopped. He couldn’t continue. There were too many miles between him and the others, those left behind still fighting a battle of silence, and his father who every day was potentially becoming more alien. “I thank what's inherent in my nature that finds the balance of serenity over hatred, tempering me from the harms of malice.” Maria smiled softly at the rise of Buddha Boy. Perhaps it would be that inner strength and peace that would save Kyle from the pitfalls that Liz fell into in her journey to the alien side.

They were all silent waiting for Michael. He could feel their eyes on him, and in a way, they should’ve all been thanking God for having survived him, or at the very least, his kind. Words. They stuck in his throat, welled up in his body, begging to find a release, but that wasn’t his nature. Michael looked at them, and he turned and left the room.

Maria looked down at her folded hands, and then said to Kyle in a soft kind voice. “Maybe you should carve, Kyle.”

Before the turkey could be cut, or anyone else could comment, Michael came back in the room. Giving Kyle a friendly slap on the back, and pulling Laurie’s hair gently as he walked behind her, he came to stand next to Maria’s chair. Squatting down, he looked at the floor for a moment, and then up at her. Handing her a small stack of envelopes tied in a piece of string, he watched as she untied the string reading her name on the envelopes.

Maria.

She opened the first one, the one on top, pulling it out of the envelope so slowly, with infinitesimal care. It was his writing.

My love,

Will you ever read this? I wonder. Will I ever grow up enough to find you?

I think I understand. Finally. Take the time. Make the journey. You were meant to grow up, to learn to live with regrets, and to go on.

Regrets I have ……

Maria read a few more lines and put it away quickly. Later. She would read them later, when she was alone, or lying next to him, but not now. He had written her love letters to match the ones she penned from her most secret of hearts. Michael Guerin just left her speechless.

“You. I’m thankful for you,” he said softly.

Maria closed her eyes to the tears gathering and quickly hugged him hard, holding the letters clenched to her heart. Hers. They were hers. The only love letters she had ever received, made even more important because they came from him.

Once they started kissing, Kyle had enough. “Are we gonna eat?”

The group laughed and talked their way through the feast, all sitting back in wonder and expectation of their first time together as a real family. They all took a bite together, and sat back savoring the food. Suddenly, all looking at each other, the room exploded!

“Pizza?” Kyle said hopefully. The group agreed. Michael took the offending turkey and calmly dumped it in the garbage. Looking over, he saw Maria watching him.

She just shrugged. “We’ll get it right next year.” Michael smiled at that. Next year. It had a sound of a future to it.

~~~

By Christmas, Michigan was already snowed under. It took three tries to start the car, and Kyle bitched the entire time about having to keep shoveling it out of snow banks. Maria just sat and watched the snowflakes. Nature’s perfection. Unique. Soft, yet beautiful beyond belief. Michael stopped what he was doing and watched her for a moment. It couldn’t be healthy how easily she made his heart stop at times.

“You ready?”

Maria nodded and let him take her hand and help her to the car. He was paranoid over the thought of her slipping on ice. They had finished the nursery, and Laurie was out of school. Kyle had found a job, and Michael soon joined him. They were working in a garage repairing cars, doing body work. Kyle was more into car repair, but Michael really liked the hands-on work of restoring and rebuilding cars, the detailing.

Maria had become quiet since Thanksgiving. She talked and laughed like the others and helped around the house, but most days she was found in the window seat in the alcove in their bedroom writing in a journal. For a moment, a second, Michael stood afraid to say anything. Was she writing it down? All of it? Just like Liz had?

Maria saw him, and the frown on his face. It made her hand him what she was working on. It was a book. Or rather a collection of children's stories. Michael sat down next to her and read a few. Maria. A consummate storyteller. She had started by telling Jesse stories late at night in their prison, and later to Michael in his head while he searched for her.

They were about Amy, her mom. Jesse. Alex, stories about little things they did. Amy, the first time she tied herself to a tree to protest its removal. In the fictional small town of her story was a lawyer, a moral crusader who worked with Amy to protect the sleepy town from the rages of progress. His name was Jesse, and he was a tall, dark man, with a large brilliant smile, and a heart of gold. Then there was Alex. A young man in the community who was a genius, who created wonderful things, music and computers. He built a robot that was supposed to do the horrible jobs that men didn’t want to do, but the robot was faulty, and it caused problems, confusion and mayhem. The inhabitants of the sleepy town did not destroy it though, or demand it be terminated. Instead with the help of Amy and Jesse, they made the silly robot part of the community. After all, they were all flawed in some way, and so much the better for it.

Michael laughed and read through a half a dozen of the stories, picking up people he knew caricaturized in comic relief, and safely immortalized in writing and stories so fantastical that one day he could read them to his daughter. They were all there. Sheriff Jumbo, and Whitless Whittie who resembled Alex’s father…all of them. Maria wrote them as a living memory.

“May I do the illustrations?” Michael asked softly. And that was how it began, their life together as author and illustrator of a series of children’s books. It would take another three years before they had amassed enough of them and possessed the courage to find a publisher, but some things were too good to remain hidden. The books were called the Amy of Refuge series. All the books revolved around the adventures of one woman, a social force named Amy, and a group of friends she motivated to embark on numerous adventures of finding lost skate keys, hidden treasures in an old attic, the silliness of putty, and the joy of pennywhistles. Embedded in all the stories were all of them as they were. Hidden messages home to tell those in Roswell that they were remembered, loved, telling them that things were okay.

So on that snowy Christmas morning, after finally getting the car out of the umpteenth snow bank, the four of them drove to a small chapel on the campus in Alma, and there Michael and Maria got married.

That day was a quiet one, full of ice and silence, but the breaking hush of melting snow, and the crystallized snowflakes painted a world of wonder, white and pristine. The air had a crisp quality, biting, and fresh, that dragged to the deep part of the soul. Standing in a small chapel, the bell was rung, and for a moment there was no more coldness. The room warmed as if those they left, loved, and lost were standing with them, no longer in the shadows.

Forgiveness was a hard road, not one easily traveled and forged. It took a moment of realization to understand that it wasn’t how fast the journey led, but rather the willingness and determination to continue it that really mattered. Years and regrets would be part of the very fabric of their lives, but they didn’t have to mar a life forever, just enrich it in a grand matrix of living. Those were the lessons they fought so hard to learn.

~~~

“Pig!”

“What?” Kyle said in surprise, turning back to Laurie.

“I saw you!” Kyle feigned innocence. “You were ogling that co-ed’s breasts.”

“Hooters.”

“Pig!”

Kyle swore under his breath. Again. It was always the same. Just when he made ground with her, she cut him to the quick. It was February and still cold. Did she appreciate him driving through the snow and cold to pick her up from her classes at the college? No. Of course not.

“I was just…”

“Checking her out.” Laurie finished.

“I’m a guy! Okay? It’s what guys do.” Laurie just made a snorting sound and headed for the car.

Giving up, Kyle didn’t even bother to open her door for her. She was highly unreasonable. Dating. He tried to date her, but that fell flat fast. Living in the same house was hard. Surprisingly, living with Michael and Maria wasn’t. They both kept to themselves a lot, and spent much of their time preparing for the baby. They argued and made strange conversations over the bizarre and unreal world of their lives, but one thing was certain, living with this couple lacked all the nauseating sweetness of seeing Max and Liz finally married and together. Instead of a smugness and condescending attitude, Michael and Maria remained….well, Michael and Maria. Not much changed except they were married. That and they disappeared a lot together.

After the Thanksgiving fiasco, the entire group had invested in cookbooks and took turns threatening to burn down the kitchen, or kill the others with food poisoning. Michael and Maria’s night was usually accompanied by loud noises, laughter and lots of black smoke.

His and Laurie’s were done in silence. What the heck did he ever do piss her off so much? He was close, this close to demanding that he be able to cook with Michael, and Maria with Laurie, but he was sure how well that would go over. Michael and Maria didn’t have that gooey together crap that Max and Liz had, but they did enjoy each other's company. Kyle noticed that they used the preparing for dinner hours to catch up on the day, Michael telling her about what car he was working on, and Maria outlining a new chapter of a book. It was the one time during the day they reserved for each other, away from Kyle and Laurie, away from watching sports on TV or even Lamaze class.

It was hard to want to break into their little routine. Strange. In Roswell, all those years he knew they were together, but he never knew they were together. Not like this. They talked. Discussed things. Movies. People. Events. It wasn’t all just about them getting hot and bothered together, Maria wanting him to be something else, or Michael pissing her off by his surly quietness. They were normal. Well, sort of.

“She’s impossible!”

Michael put down his magazine. Almost dinner time. That meant Maria would be down to help him cook, and he could get away from a whining Kyle. Damn. He and Laurie were constantly all over each other with stinging barbs and coldness.

“Kyle, I’m not listening.” Michael buried his nose in the magazine again.

“Sure, and why not? You’re on her side.”

Michael tossed down the magazine and getting up, he poked a hard finger in Kyle’s chest, pushing him back a little. “Nope. I’m on my side. Sick of hearing your complaints. If the two of you would stop this frustrated dancing around each other, and just actually calm down enough to talk, you might get somewhere.”

“Her side! I knew it!”

Michael sighed and called up the stairs for Maria. They were cooking now, or he was frying Kyle. “No. My side.” Michael looked at Kyle. “You did this, you know? You know this right?”

“What?”

Michael sighed. He wasn’t getting into this. No frickin’ way in hell. Oh shit. “You asked her out. Told her that you had never dated a heiress before, and lucky her, you had some major alien mojo coming her way…”

“What are you saying?” So what? It was the truth. Laurie was loaded with hot cash, a hot body, and killer legs. And he was an alien rutting machine. Good combo. He didn’t want her to think he wasn’t bringing anything to the table.

“That you came off as an insensitive hound, and she has your number. So either back off, or try to fix it.”

Okay, this was just wrong. Kyle’s mouth hung open. Michael Guerin was giving him advice? No way. Nope. Reality had shifted, but not that much. “Tell me that you wouldn’t have done the same if it had been Maria in Laurie’s position, and you in mine.”

Michael admitted inwardly that he hadn’t found much wrong with Kyle’s approach until Maria educated him, and he did have a bottle of generic shampoo and conditioner to live down, add in having her pay for dinner once or twice…shit, okay a few times, and oh yeah…the bowling date. But hey, he was in the bag! Married. No more romancing necessary. He was guaranteed sex and lots of warm comforting. He had paid his dues.

“Married guys get a lot of wisdom, real quick.” Damn. That sounded good. He’d have to use it again sometime. But it was true. The wisdom was taking the cues from the wife. She gets that look in her eyes, you backpedal real fast like. Mumble a lot. Scrape your feet, then do what she wants. Piece-o-cake.

“Is that why she tossed you out of the bedroom the other night?”

Michael made a face. “That was just a misunderstanding!”

“Uh huh. Sure it was.” Kyle suddenly went quiet seeing Maria watching them with an amused look on her face at the bottom of the stairs. “Um, hi, Maria.”

“Kyle.” Maria turned to her husband and tilted her head. “Did you bellow?”

Thank god! Michael quickly went over to take her arm and lead her to refuge. The kitchen.

“About Laurie again?”

“How did you guess?”

Maria laughed searching for a pan. “She was upstairs bitching about him. Said he made eyes at all the women on campus, and checked out a girl’s ‘hooters’. His word, not hers.”

Michael shrugged. “So he went a little crazy after he found out about the ‘change’, but he seems to be coming out of it.” Finding out that a person was hell on wheels in bed was enough to shake the balance of most men. Made Michael smile and walk a little cocky, add in that his wife was very pregnant, and he was one fertile walking machine of masculinity.

Maria just made a sound in her throat. “Did you even consider that we're talking about this alien rutting machine wanting to do your sister?” Maria looked up from her search for the correct pan when Michael went quiet, and then suddenly headed for the door again. “Where are you going?”

“To beat the crap out of Kyle.”

“Oh great!” said Maria sarcastically. “That will help! Hey, while you’re in there, maybe you boys can piss on the walls too!” Maria began talking to herself under her breath about a testosterone driven penis ruling the world. Scrotum Man. The latest of super heroes. Not.

~~~

“Why are you letting him get to you?” Maria asked as Laurie added the thirteenth box of cereal to the basket. She calmly reached over and put eight of them back. Wincing a little at the pull in her back, she absentmindedly rubbed the spot on small of her back.

“I’m not! He doesn’t affect me in the least,” said Laurie as she rounded the aisle and started to stack jar after jar of sweet gherkins in the basket, tossing in some olives. Pimentos? Maria put those back. What in the sweet love of God were pimentos doing in a small jar alone…without those green olive things?

“Oh, Laurie! No on those peppers! Michael ate an entire jar of those the other night, and I had to kick him out of the bedroom. It was that or die of suffocation. He has no self control.”  Maria quickly put those back too. Leaning on the cart she breathed hard. Her damn back was hurting so bad. So much worse than earlier in the day. Sleeping comfortably was a problem.

As soon as the baby was born, they were going to move again. Somewhere else. Maria suspected that the FBI would be looking at any couple giving birth around her due date, so it was a concern to have the baby and go.

Over a month ago they took care of their identity problem. Maria and Laurie had watched a movie in the hotel a few months back called 'Eraser.'  They made Michael and Kyle watch it too. Michael of course had numerous comments about it.

“You realize I picked this movie to watch on movie night last year, and you turned your nose up at it.”

Maria just patted his arm and passed him the popcorn. “I know. It’s as bad as I feared it would be, but I don’t want you to watch it for that reason.”

So the group of them watched, and afterwards, Michael shut off the television and looked at the two women. “Witness protection?”

Laurie and Maria both nodded. “It’s perfect. Who else is known for making people up in thin air? If our identities were created in the database, all the background information would be put in place, and for agencies outside the Witness Protection Agency there wouldn’t be any traces. They would never look for us there.” Laurie paused and then looked at Maria who made a gesture for her to continue. “We need new identities before the baby is born so Amy can be born as a part of them. That way she will be born human of human parents all her life. They would never think to look for her. She might be able to live a normal life.”

“How are we going to be able to do this? Maria, there are security levels that I’m sure Hollywood don’t even know about.”

Maria moved closer to Michael. “You can do it Michael. I know you can. You changed your fingerprints to get Max out of the White Room.” Maria’s voice lowered when she mentioned the white room. It wasn’t her favorite topic. “If we could find a way into their system, create new identities, ones that wouldn’t be questioned, we can possibly live free from fear, just wary.”

Michael looked at Kyle and shrugged. “Let me think about it. Maybe we can. At least we’re closer to where we need to be. I think Witness Protection is through the Treasury Department.” Michael ran a hand up her arm. “We’re talking getting into secured computers, and having pictures of us placed in the proper documents. That’s a lot of work. I could just alter our documents.”

“It’s not the same, Michael. Altered documents can get us by, but not under close scrutiny. They’re not going to be able to run a check on a license that says, ‘Dr. Love’ or ‘Margarita Salt’ and find a real background, credit lines and work history. No social security numbers or anything. Nothing. Someday we’re going to need to put Amy into school. What then?”

Okay. They were right. They needed real lives with real backgrounds, and the Witness Protection Agency was the only thing that really created that level of manufactured identity. It took work, and it wasn’t as polished and sexy as Hollywood made it out to be. The Federal Protection Agency ran state ones as well, and the nearest established one they could find was in New Jersey. Armed with pictures of all of them, and a weekend road trip, Michael and Kyle took off to look into breaking into the Federal offices with a computer uplink and scanner.

It actually didn’t take as much work as they feared. Michael, at Laurie’s suggestion, discovered that his alien brain came with some added perks. Not only could he scan material, but he was able to work through computer blocks like candy. So he and Kyle broke into a lower office connected to the mainframe, but below security. It took them about three hours of work, but they finally accessed the area and blew past firewalls and security protection. It took some effort, and they had to change computers three times when Michael blew out the first two, sending an energy surge through the computer uplink to help open locked virtual doors. It was the same principle as opening a real lock. It took concentration.

First he found all their records listed in a Federal database and DMV. Locating four dead individuals and their social security numbers, he moved their faces in place of him and the others, so those four deceased individuals would now be them. Scanning all their pictures, he replaced their pictures in the dead files, and reactivated the social security numbers and placed the individual back into the living. Then for the next hour, they rewrote living histories. The first names were all changed to their own since it was easier to not make a mistake if called by their real first names, and all their names were common enough.

Maria was Maria Nichols, born in Rochester, NY. The only child of two elderly parents now deceased. She attended high school in that city, and left to go to college where she met her now husband, Michael Garrett. Michael was one of four boys and a sister born to a Canadian couple outside of Burnaby. He came to the US to go to school and met his wife their first year. Both left school and married when they discovered themselves pregnant. They both planned to return to school once their child was old enough. Until then they worked jobs. His sister, Laurie came to visit when she found out he was married, and never returned home. While in the US, she met Michael’s old college roommate and best friend, Kyle Richardson, whom she is currently engaged to and plans to marry in the coming summer.

They quickly created green cards and school permits. Using the background from those four deceased people, Kyle scanned the pictures as Michael sent them. He then requested a change of address on the social security card and green card, with requests for new ones to be sent. Going into the Michigan database, he altered driver licenses to their names, numbers, and street address. He could alter their current driver license to match, and once they renewed them, it would be as if they always held the authentic ones.

“Michael, check out my credit limit! Give me some major buying power.”

“Shut up and watch the door.” Michael frowned. DMV, birth, removed death records, new histories entered, slightly altering the histories of the dead identities they borrowed. It was his luck to find a young brother and sister, twins, who had died in a car accident while returning to college last Spring. Kyle took over the identity of a young man whose parents were still living, but very old. Their son, Richard died of a congenital heart disease. “I should have made you keep his name. Dick.”

“Penis.”

“Prick.”

Using the printer, he printed out everything he could find on the identities they were assuming, including their last tax returns. He went into the tax database and zero’d out their last year's returns that were listed as deceased, and instead put their income as too low to file a return. Changing the address there he was pretty much done.

“You think they'll find it? Trace the changes?”

Michael followed a list of key strokes that Laurie had written out for him so as to remove his work out of the individual machine he used. Once all the information was saved, he put his hand on an electrical access panel and blew the electrical unit in the building. The computer he used was wiped clean and the two he destroyed would be explained by a power surge. Now he just had to hope he hadn’t blown the computer mainframe and cleaned out all the changes he made.

“Let’s go. Either it works or it doesn’t. Time will tell.” Michael locked the door behind him. They shouldn’t have to worry about security cameras. He had blown the electricity. “It’s in a system that works above the other agencies, designed to make fake people and not leave noticeable traces. Hopefully that much is true, and not a Hollywood fabrication.”

That was almost eight weeks ago, and Maria Nichols and Michael Garrett had applied for a marriage license and had their driver’s licenses changed to their new married name and address. They were in the system. It shocked Maria to see her name listed with her strange new identity in a computer.

“You’ll need a blood test, pay the fee, and a three day wait for the license to come through.”

“What does that blood test paper look like?” Michael asked. The woman behind the counter handed him a blank one, and he showed it to Maria. “Honey, did we get one of these?”

Maria smiled and handed him a blank piece of paper. “Got it done at my last baby check up. They just drew blood.” Michael smiled as Maria distracted the woman with talk about babies and her pregnancy. Moving his hand over the blank paper, he made a replicate of the blank form given him. He quickly moved his hand over it again to add Maria’s name, blood type and her doctor’s name, and below that his own, blood type 0+ and signed also by her doctor. Michael waited until the two women paused and passed over the paper he made and the blank form the woman had handed him.

None of them had much in the way of work, tax, or financial histories since the people they chose to take over were young when they died. So their new lives were a blank slate ready to be created by them. None of them could say that their new identities would hold, but at least they didn’t just appear in the system. They looked to have been there since birth, with real families, parents and histories. It was a chance that their children would be able to integrate into mainstream society without appearing too unusual. It was a chance that Michael never had.

“He is just so irritating. I mean first he makes me his ‘fiancée’ and then he ogles and sleeps around like some damn dog in heat.” Laurie shook a jar of pickles at Maria. “He slept with that last bottle job blonde he dated. What was her frickin’ name?”

“Naomi.”

“Nancy or something,” continued Laurie not really hearing Maria’s comments. “She had a damn boob job! Honestly! He sees a pair of breasts and starts salivating. It’s disgusting!” Laurie looked down at her not so ample chest in depression. “Do you think I need to consider some cosmetic surgery? I could…”

“Absolutely not!” Maria looked at the other woman in sympathy. “You are perfectly built. Lean. Tall. I think you’re gorgeous. Don’t let anyone, and especially not a man, make you feel unsightly. There is wonder in diversity.”

Laurie covered her eyes and moaned. “God! I never thought I would be cursed with the ‘She’s got a great personality!’ or ‘What a sweet kid!’ syndrome. I don’t want to be sexy and daring, except to one man. This is insane. I’m insane. He drives me insane. His fault. That’s it! I’m washing this man out of my hair and thoughts. I wouldn’t walk a foot for Kyle Valent….” Laurie saw Maria’s face and quickly covered up her mistake. Kyle Richardson, loser!”

“Ice cream?” Maria suggested helpfully.

Laurie nodded morosely. “And a box of candy. Large box. Think we can find some Godiva?”

“We’ll look,” Maria said kindly. She took a small step and then bent over in pain.

“Maria!” Laurie was at her side. “Oh god! Are you okay?”

“Do I look okay?” Maria said not a little huffily, the pain pulling in her lower back and pelvis. “God, Laurie. I think my water just broke.”

Laurie noticed the water on the floor around Maria’s feet. A touch of hysteria hit her hard, and for a moment, she was stunned, uncertain what to do. Help? Michael? Kyle? Oh damn!

“Oh, I am going to die of humiliation from this.” Maria said realizing that a grocery worker would have to clean up the mess. Laurie reached up on the shelf above them and purposely knocked a jar of pickles off the shelf. It hit the floor in a large crashing noise, the pickle juice blending in with Maria’s water.

“Oh!” Maria doubled over in pain again. Holding her up, Laurie left their grocery cart and helped her to the front of the store. A cashier saw them and came to assist.

“Is she okay?”

Laurie shook her head. “I’m terribly sorry. She had a really bad contraction and dropped a jar of pickles on aisle four. We had to leave our groceries. I’m terribly sorry about the mess.” Laurie shoved a ten dollar bill at the woman. “I hope that covers everything. I have to get her to the hospital before she has the baby right here!”

That got the woman and other people moving in store. They watched as Laurie sped away with Maria in the passenger seat in labor.

“Oh god!” Maria panted harder. That was it! It wasn’t working. The damn breathing wasn’t helping. Whoever created Lamaze was a jackass!

Laurie violated every traffic law designed by man, and spent the entire time cussing under her breath. Trying to keep her eyes on the road, avoid putting them into a snow bank and calling Michael, she gave up. The garage was only two blocks over. Change of plan.

“Breathe, Maria. Find your focus.”

“Fuck my damn focus!” Maria fell to the side as another contraction hit her hard. “This baby is in a damn hurry to be born.” Maria hee'd and haw'd her way through another contraction that felt like a vice grip on her lower body. She was sweating and through clenched teeth, she looked over at Laurie. Smiling slightly she laughed a little. “The pickle jar was ingenious. Thank you.”

Laurie laughed as she pulled up to the garage. “Just hold on a second. I’ll get Michael.”

Maria breathed hard and panted some more and Laurie ran from the car. Someone should have mentioned it was painful. Sure. Sure. They say it hurts and it's hard, and damn it, she wasn’t even in hard labor yet. But they could have mentioned that having your brains scrambled and pulled out of your body through your nose was less painful. Screaming, Maria clenched her stomach as another contraction ripped through her lower back to her front, her hand reaching for the dash, holding it hard.

Okay. No more children. This was it.

Laurie skidded into the garage literally running straight into Kyle, who quickly righted her. He started to chew her out when he saw her face. “What? Is it Maria?” Kyle was already frantic. About ten minutes before, Michael dropped his tools and doubled over in pain. He barely made it to the bathroom before he threw up, and he was struggling from spots behind his eyes.

“Baby!” Laurie said in between pants, and she tried to draw air into her lungs. “Car. Baby. Labor. Michael.”

Kyle took all the words and figured something out that made sense. “Michael! Maria went into labor!” No shit! That explained it.

Michael who was under a car, trying to concentrate and work through the confusing feelings. He had called Maria at home with no answer. Suddenly he swore as his head hit the car when he tried to sit up. Sliding out with a hand on his head he looked at both Kyle and Laurie. In a moment of time, they all stood still and then suddenly they moved, all rushing at once.

Michael climbed into the passenger side with Maria pulling her body on his, holding her tight, and talking low and soothingly in her ear. Wiping the sweat from her face, he cursed at Kyle who was standing at the driver side arguing with Laurie over who should drive.

“Kyle, get in the goddamn car! Or we’re delivering a baby right here!” Maria cried again as another contraction hit her. Kyle quickly climbed in the driver’s seat as Laurie spilled into the back.

“Too close. Michael, the contractions are too close.” Maria said fretfully between pants.

“It’s okay. It’ll be okay.” Michael looked over at Kyle in fear. She was right. She was having a contraction every few minutes. They were told that contractions would start erratically, further apart and then even out and get closer together. Hers went straight to closer together. “It is just Amy, baby. She's ready to be born. Just like your mom, she's impatient.” Michael looked over at Kyle again. “Kyle!”

“I’m going. We’re almost there!”

Kyle paced the waiting room for what felt like hours. Once they arrived, Maria was taken into Delivery and Michael with her. There was nothing left for him and Laurie to do except wait. And what felt like what should have been done in moments actually took hours. Kyle paced and stared at the door, then paced some more. He was never going to have any kids. Too much trouble. Too much worry.

Laurie read a book and frowned up at him from time to time. “Can’t you just sit down and read or something?”

“Maybe I should go in there? I mean it's been forever and…”

Laurie rolled her eyes and went back to reading. “God, you’re going to be a nightmare when we finally have a baby.”

“That’s not true! I’m calm. Buddha says that even a flea can hear the whisper of…” Kyle stopped talking for a moment. What she had said finally trickled into his brain as it permeated and soaked into gray matter. “What…” Kyle stopped to clear his throat to rid himself of the high squeak. “What did you say? Us? You? Me? Babies?”

Laurie just shrugged and kept on reading.

“Oh no you don’t!” Kyle forced her to look at him. “Are you planning to have babies with me someday? Truth.”

Laurie sighed and put her book down. “No. Yes. Maybe. If you ever stop walking around like a large hard-on, and stop fucking table legs…perhaps.” Laurie went back to her book. It was only fair to warn him. “Of course, I have an estimated time of possibility in about ten years.”

Kyle sat back in amazement. His legs stretched out in front of him. “That means you and I will have to fu…do it. You know that right?”

Laurie rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well I’ve got ten years, so maybe in a year or two I’ll pick up an informational video or have a frontal lobotomy to cure me of my stupid tendencies.”

Kyle smiled smugly and smiled at a nurse walking by. Gesturing at Laurie, he winked at the nurse. “She likes me!”

“In your delusional dreams,” said Laurie out of the side of her mouth.

“She thinks I’m sexy, and too hot to handle.”

“I think you’re diseased.”

“She wants to have my baby!”

Laurie looked at the amused woman. “We don’t even know what species he is.”

“Hey, I bathe! What else is there to know?”

~~~

“Okay Maria, just one more push!”

Michael winced as she tightened her grip on his hand, and after almost five hours of labor, their daughter was born. He watched it happen from the position of the mirror, and for a moment he actually felt a little queasy and kept telling himself over and over that he was never going to touch Maria again. Damn. She had been in a lot of pain. They offered her an epidural, but she refused. Alien physiology didn’t respond well to certain things, like alcohol, and they were uncertain of other drugs.

For two hours they were stuck at eight centimeters, and the contractions weren’t abating. Michael walked her around the maternity ward. Maria had been tired, and almost ready to beg them to just take the baby. Michael fed her ice chips and his stomach felt sick watching her in so much pain. During a quiet period, he was wiping her forehead, telling her she was doing great when she looked at him. She was afraid.