"Maria! Maria!"

Maria awoke from her daydream and turned to see her best friend Liz heading towards her.

"I’ve been calling from the other end of the corridor. Where were you? Was it worth ignoring your best friend?" Liz’s smile prompted a small laugh and response.

"Stranded on a desert island with David Duchovny." Maria grinned at Liz but she didn’t respond. "What?"

"Please don’t lie to me." Liz looked straight into Maria's eyes. It was one of the curses of their friendship. They couldn’t lie to each other. Sometimes it was a blessing, but mostly a curse.

"All right, all right." Maria fell back against her locker, exasperated.

She wanted to tell Liz, she’d wanted to tell Liz since it had started, but Liz had someone else on her mind. Maria liked it this way. If Liz didn’t like what she heard, Maria could always tell her that she had forced it out of her.

"The past couple of weeks I’ve been having these really vivid dreams," Maria started.

"About?"

"Michael."

"Oh!" Liz’s eyes widened. "What happens?"

"When they first started they were really intense, hot and heavy."

Maria found herself smiling as she realized that just the memories of her dreams were leaving her with that strong electric feeling she normally only felt when Michael had kissed her when she was awake.

"I’d just be pleasantly getting on with my normal dreams and then, there he is. We’d just start..."

Maria stopped and looked around at the anonymous faces walking along the corridor and grabbed Liz’s arm and pulled her into the nearest classroom. Closing the door behind her, she leaned against it. She looked over at Liz, who had positioned herself on a chair and was smiling at Maria and prompting her to finish her story. Obligingly Maria moved over to the seat opposite Liz and leaned in.

"The first couple of dreams were just like memories. Electric kisses and minor groping, y’know stuff we’d done. Never any talking. But then they got really heavy until..." Maria raised her eyebrows and waited a couple of seconds for naive Liz to catch on.

When she did, her eyes widened and she tried to form words but no sound came out.

"It was strange," Maria continued, "Good, but strange."

"What kind of strange?" Liz managed to say.

"Usually in dreams like that you’d expect the guy to be perfect. Know everything you want, do everything you want, but he had to ask. Trust me, that’s not my fantasy. My normal fantasy Michael knows what he’s doing!"

"You have a fantasy Michael?"

"Believe me, it’s better than the real thing, I mean the hair alone..."

Liz couldn’t help but laugh. "Maria!"

"It helps me try and reason out my attraction to Michael. He’s not exactly the stuff dreams are made of. Well, I used to think so."

"I thought you said Dream Michael wasn’t as good as Fantasy Michael?"

"Not technically, but Dream-Bad Hair-Michael was... nice."

"Nice?"

"Nothing like I’d ever thought Michael could be. He asked me if it was okay before we carried on. Asked me if I was all right." Maria lowered her eyes briefly and said quietly, "He even promised not to hurt me again."

Liz looked at her best friend. She had never seen a dream have this kind of effect on anyone, especially not Maria.

"It felt so real," Maria continued. "The last few dreams have been completley different.We’ve just talked."

"Talked?"

"Yeah, just talked. He’ll show up in my dream and we’ll talk. Maybe the odd hug but basically just talking."

"About what?"

"Everything and nothing. Things we saw on television, stupid stuff my mom’s been doing, things Hank has said and done to him. How we feel about everything and everyone. I’ve told him stuff I’ve only ever told you and Alex and would never tell him when I was awake."

"You’re talking as if this was real," the concern in Liz’s voice was as clear as the worry on her face.

"It felt real!"

************

Liz walked down the corridor with a purpose. Her instinct told her that these dreams Maria was having weren’t just what was hanging around in her sub-conscious. Maria had even admitted this Michael she had been seeing in her dreams was different to the one she normally saw when she fantasized about him. She headed outside and saw the two people she was looking for.

Max turned his head away from his sister when he felt Liz’s eyes on him and Isabel. There was something wrong, he didn’t know how but he could just feel it. She was heading straight towards them, despite their strict rule of staying away from each other, unless it was an emergency.

"What’s wrong?" Max asked as soon as Liz was close enough.

"God Max, can’t you just say 'hello' like a normal person? Hi, Liz!" Isabel looked straight at Liz with a smile that told Liz that whatever it was she had to say had better be important.

"I need to talk to you both about Maria... and Michael."

"They’re not at it again, are they?" Isabel wrinkled her nose in disgust.

"No, well... at least I know Maria isn’t." Both Max and Isabel looked her in confustion. "I think Michael’s been going into Maria’s dreams."

"He’s not very good at controlling his powers," Max started. "It’s possible he fell asleep thinking about Maria and found himself in Maria's dream."

"Not possible," Isabel interrupted. "You can barely do it, Max. Michael has troubles getting into our dreams. Maybe it’s just Maria having trouble with the break up."

"No, it’s not that. There’s something about the way she described them that makes me believe that these dreams aren’t coming from her." Max and Isabel looked at her, trying to prompt her to fill in the details. "I can’t tell you the specifics."

"All right, we’ll have a word with Michael." Isabel started to walk off but turned to see that neither Max or Liz were moving, just staring at each other.

"Bye Liz!" Isabel broke their silence more loudly than was really needed but both Max and Liz got the message and mumbled goodbye to each other and turned and walked in opposite directions, trying not to look back.

"Max," Isabel called to him, "You’re going in the wrong direction."

***********

It was evening by the time Max and Isabel were able to find Michael. Sightings of Michael within school were becoming rarer with time. He stood in a darkened doorway, staring across the street at the lit-up windows of the Crashdown Cafe. As they got closer they could see what he was looking at, Maria DeLuca laughing with a couple of customers as she delivered their alien themed meals.

"Well, it’s nice to see obsession doesn’t die!"

Michael turned at the sound of Isabel's voice. "I was just waiting for you."

Michael knew that they knew he was lying but he would be on his death bed before he would openly admit what they all knew. He was crazy about Maria. He couldn’t figure out why. She was beautiful, but so were half the girls at school. If anything she annoyed him, she was ditzy and, well, weird.

However, she was the only person, except Max and Isabel, who actually understood him. She knew him and yet still cared about him.

"We need to talk to you." Max’s voice cut into Michael's thoughts.

"About what?"

"Maria." Michael looked at Isabel and could see the worry in her face.

"What about her?"

"Have you been wandering about in her dreams?" Isabel asked.

Michael looked straight at her. "No."

"Liz came to see us," Max added. "She seems really worried about Maria and is positive it has something to do with you."

He waited for Michael to argue with him, to tell him that he trusted Liz more than him. He was used to Michael's outbursts about Liz and he prepared himself. Instead he stood shocked as Michael lowered his head and started to walk away.

"Max, what was that?" He turned to face his sister who had the same shocked expression on her face.

"He’s definitely doing it, going into Maria's dreams. I just don’t think he can control it," Max said.

Isabel just stared at her brother.

"What?"

"I was just wondering if every guy from, wherever it is we’re from, is like you two."

Max looked questioningly at her.

"Do they all fall in love and lose all sense of self preservation?"

***********

Michael walked into his trailer 'home' and quietly stepped over Hank, who had passed out on the floor again. He made his way to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. He didn’t recognize the person he saw. The person in the mirror was lying to the only people he considered family and letting his mind be plagued with thoughts of some ditzy schoolgirl.

He didn’t know really how he’d managed to do it, enter Maria's dreams. Yet every night, there he was. He thought he was just using her dreams to get her out of his system. Completing what they’d started without commitment. However, he kept finding himself back there just talking to her, telling her stuff he would never tell when they were awake.

He couldn’t let her close. He’d convinced himself that loving her in their dreams would get her out of his system for when he was awake. It didn’t work like that. If it was possible, he wanted her more, and not just for making-out with. She was easy to talk to, and she knew how to smile at him to make this planet seem more like home.

He went into his room and climbed into bed. He tried not to, but he turned to look at the picture of Maria he had stolen from Liz’s locker. She was smiling at him, which helped him relax as he drifted off to sleep.

**********

"You must know how to dance like a penguin!" Alex, dressed in a penguin suit complete with beak, told Maria as she tried to serve David Duchovny his 'Mulder' sea-food platter while wearing an elegant red ballgown. She was in the Crashdown, yet there was only one table in there.

Michael laughed to himself as he observed Maria's increasingly weird dream. He stopped when he saw himself enter. He was wearing a tux and his hair was slicked down. He touched his own hair, felt how unruly it was, and felt a pang. Was that how Maria wanted him?

Maria turned to see Fantasy-Michael enter. "Go away," she found herself saying. "I want the real thing, not some made up character in my head." She watched as he vanished, taking Alex and David along with him.

Michael stepped out from behind the counter. "Do you really mean that?"

"I don’t know. This is my dream. My sub-conscious, so I must." She saw a smile form on his lips. "Doesn’t mean I have to like it."

With that Michaels smile widened. He stood close to her and could feel her hands becoming entangled with his. He bent down and she let their lips meet. She reached her hands up and, placing them at the back of his neck, pulled him closer to her as their kiss deepened. He slid his hands up and down her back, trying to get her as close to him as he could.

As his lips left hers and traveled to her neck Maria finally had the courage to say, "You’re not really a part of my dream, are you?"

Michael stopped and looked at her. She knew and he couldn’t lie to her. "No."

"Why are you here?"

"’Cause there’s nowhere else I want to be."

"I’m guessing this is all it could ever be. A dream relationship, never anything real."

Maria sat at the lone table and looked up at him, wishing he would respond in the way she wanted. But knew he wouldn’t.

"We can’t, it’s too dangerous." Michael knelt before her and placed his hand on the side of her face and used his thumb to stroke her cheek. "Look at everything that’s happened since Max let his feelings get the better of him."

They both knew he was right, but Maria wasn’t ready to give up that easy. "What about if we keep our relationship here?"

"Wouldn’t work."

"Not even now that we both know? When it comes down to it you want this too. It’ll just mean making sure we both get to bed early." She smiled.

"What?" Michael almost couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

"Who has found his way here every night? Don’t tell me you couldn’t do it again. I mean, it’s not like we’re breaking the rules, not technically."

"That’s true, ‘cause physically we are apart right now." Michael stood up as he realized what Maria was proposing.

Maria stood to join him and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Now you’re catching on," she said as Michael wrapped his arms around her waist.

"I nap a lot during school as well."

Maria smiled as he said this and realized she was going to have to start sleeping during class as well.

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