Maria jammed her key into the lock and fumed at the world. Liz had all but run her out of the Crashdown after they’d closed tonight so she could get ready for her "not-a-date" with Max. Alex was working on that stupid garage band idea of his again and she simply could *not* sit through another one of his "Roswell could be the next Seattle" speeches. Even her mother had ditched her. Mom was actually out on a date with Public Enemy Number One.

Her hellish week was culminating in a perfectly miserable Saturday night. She muttered a few choice words about boys, men, and the electric bill. Her mom had left the bathroom light on again. She pushed open the half-closed door to flick off the switch and nearly had a heart attack.

"What are you doing here?" she gasped.

Michael Guerin gave her a startled look then turned away. "You’re supposed to be at the Crashdown," he said.

She stared at him. "I don’t know what question you’re answering, buddy, but I don’t think it was the one I asked."

"You aren’t supposed to be home yet," he tried again, still looking away.

"One more time."

He sighed. "You have a mirror."

"You’re insane," she told him. "You know that, don’t you? What are you talking..." Her hand shot out suddenly and she grabbed his chin. He didn’t resist but let her turn his head toward her. "What the..."

"It’s nothing," he said.

"Don’t even try it, spaceboy. That is *not* nothing. You look like somebody tried to bash your head in with a brick." She stared at the bloody gash just below his hairline. "What happened? And why didn’t you go to Max’s? I bet he could..."

He pulled out of her grasp with a sharp jerk. "Do you know how sick I am of running to Max Evans every time I have a problem?" he snapped. "I can fix it myself. I just needed a mirror."

She frowned, trying to understand.

"I have to be able to see it to fix it," he said. "Now, go away."

She started to protest. It was her house, her bathroom. But she saw a strange look in his eyes; he already felt humiliated. He was embarrassed not only that he had been hurt, but that she had seen his injury and caught him trying to mend it. She realized that his ego wouldn’t be able to bear it if he screwed this up while she was watching him. She turned her back but didn’t leave.

"So, are you going to tell me what happened?" she asked as she stared into the hallway.

"Nothing happened."

"Right," she nodded. "It’s just a new alien trick where your brain tries to eat its way out of your skull. Eww..." she said, turning suddenly. "Please tell me that isn’t what this is."

He scowled at her reflection. "Do you have any idea how moronic you sound?"

"About as moronic as you claiming that your head spontaneously decided to split open," she shot back. "If you’re gonna bleed in my bathroom, I think I deserve a..." She paused mid-rant as a more likely scenario occurred to her. "Hank," she said.

"Go away."

She moved closer instead. "Hank did this to you."

"Hank probably never even realized I was there." He angled his shoulders, trying to turn his back on her. "Stupid geometry book," he muttered.

"Geometry book?"

"Nothing. Nevermind. Just..."

She kept moving closer. He kept turning away. Finally she stood between Michael and the mirror. He faced the blank wall. She knew he could stand there ignoring her all night. She was relieved when he sighed in defeat and turned to sit on the edge of the tub. He stared at the bathmat while she leaned against the cabinet.

"I should have just let him spill it," he said. "Bringing a beer-soaked math book to class probably couldn’t do any more damage to my reputation anyway. But no, I had to dive for it." He shook his head slowly. "I meant to catch the bottle, instead..." he gestured at the wound, "I *caught* the bottle. Those things have half an inch of glass in the bottom of them. I don’t think Hank even noticed that he connected."

She watched his head duck even lower as he finished. She knew that he would flinch if she tried to touch him. "How does he get away with that?" she asked.

"He didn’t do it on purpose."

"That’s not the point," she waved her hand dismissively. "How does he get away with treating you like crap all the time? Don’t they have rules about that?"

He shrugged. "It’s my own fault," he said. He shook his head as she opened her mouth to argue. "I put up with it," he continued. "I tell the social worker when she bothers to wander by that everything is fine. In return for assuring that Hank gets his monthly check, he pretty much leaves me alone. Doesn’t rag me about homework or cleaning my room. Doesn’t pitch fits when I stay out all night. Doesn’t complain about my hair or my clothes or my eating habits. It’s a decent deal most of the time."

She stared at him. "What you mean is that he doesn’t care about your education or your future. Doesn’t care about your health or safety. Doesn’t care about..." She stopped short and looked away.

"Doesn’t care about me at all," he finished for her. "It’s okay."

"It’s lousy."

"So? It’s not like I worry about any of those things, either." He shrugged again. "It’s only for two more years anyway."

"You have the days figured out yet, Einstein?"

"Six hundred thirty-seven," he answered promptly. "It’s a Tuesday."

She looked at him thoughtfully. The boy couldn’t plan anything a day in advance but he already had his eighteenth birthday circled on a calendar in his head. In six hundred and thirty-seven days Michael Guerin would be officially on his own. And completely alone. So many things were unfair about the situation that she didn’t know where to begin.

"So, now you know," he said, interrupting her train of thought. "Now would you go away?"

She nodded silently and left the tiny bathroom. The window in her bedroom was still halfway open. The curtain fluttered slightly in the night breeze. She sat down on her bed and pulled a stuffed green alien doll with big dark eyes into her embrace. Several minutes later a tall, spiky-haired alien with big dark eyes stood in her doorway.

Michael’s gaze flickered between the girl and the window. Maria gently patted a spot beside her. Slowly, as if regretting every step, he moved to sit on the edge of the bed. She lifted her hand to touch the unbroken skin above his eye. He winced.

"I only healed the surface," he said. "Deeper is too much trouble."

"Try again. I know you can heal all of it."

He pulled away. "You’re not my magic talisman. You don’t make me better when you’re with me. You don’t do anything for me."

She would have been hurt if his words held any conviction. But they didn’t. And the expression in his eyes told her that he wished he could take them back as soon as he’d said them.

To her astonishment, he tried.

"I’m sorry," he said softly. Then he looked at her as if she was the one who was completely unfathomable. "Why?" he asked. "Why do you believe in me?"

She could hear both questions in his inquiry. What is it that you see in me? Why can’t anyone else see it?

"I know you," she said simply.

"You’ve known me since the fourth grade," he reminded her. "You never cared one way or the other before. What’s different now?"

She knew that he probably expected her to say that it was finding out he wasn’t exactly a "local boy" that had changed her opinion of him. But they had already gone past the point where easy half-truths would suffice.

"I... I’ve always liked you." She could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks but she continued. "I’ve always thought that you were cute... interesting in an offbeat, not quite normal way. But you’ve never made it easy. You’ve always made a point of pushing everybody away; picking fights, terrorizing anyone who tried to be nice to you, never letting anybody close. Then Liz and Max dragged us all into this together and now..."

"Now...?"

"Now you’ve stopped pushing everybody away." She paused at his frown. "Okay, maybe not... but you aren’t pushing as hard. In your own inept little way, you’re trying. You’re still offbeat and definitely not quite normal, but every once in a while I see parts of you that I understand, parts that I can relate to. Some of the things that you feel or things that you think, I recognize them because I feel them and think them, too. We aren’t really all that different, you and me."

She stopped then, hoping that she hadn’t made a complete fool of herself. Maybe she had just been kidding herself that she understood him. Maybe it had just been wishful thinking on her part. Maybe he really was so alien that his brain didn’t even work the same way that hers did and she’d read everything completely wrong.

But she didn’t think so. She *had* known him since the fourth grade. She’d felt a kinship with him from the first time she saw him, a scrappy ten-year-old with a chip on his shoulder the size of Colorado. She had empathized with him when they both sat alone on "Parent Lunch Day" or missed fieldtrips because they hadn’t been able to scrape up the money to go. She had understood how sarcasm and insults could express feelings and emotions that couldn’t be dealt with in any other way and had always been able to communicate with him in that bizarre manner. They spoke the same language.

"All I’ve ever had is Max and Isabel," he said as he looked down at his hands. "But sometimes I felt like I didn’t even have them." He paused as if trying to decide whether or not to go on. "They had things, still have things, that I could never have," he continued at last. "I knew that they didn’t really understand everything that I felt. They tried, but some things..." He shrugged. "And then there was you. I knew you only had half a home. You’d come to school almost as scruffy as me some days back in elementary school. Your life wasn’t a whole lot better than mine, but your world still always seemed so much brighter. There was... is something about you, the way you see things. I always thought that if I could ever figure out how to really talk to you that you might be able to understand. I never knew how to do it, though."

"Figured it out yet, spaceboy?" she asked lightly.

"Not quite," he shook his head. "But I’m working on it."

They sat silently, shoulder to shoulder.

"So, now what?"

He looked up at her blankly.

"I’m guessing you won’t be going back to Hank’s tonight," she said. "And if you were going to Max’s you would have already gone. So... you’re welcome to stay here."

"Here?"

"If I lock my door Mom’ll never know you were here," she said. "I don’t have a sleeping bag like Max, but I can scrounge you up an extra blanket." She realized her mistake as soon as she saw his frown.

"How did you..." he began, then shook his head. "Max," he said. "Max tells Liz. Liz tells you."

"So what?" she asked. "Does it matter that I knew? This isn’t charity or pity or anything. I want you to stay."

"Really?"

She smiled at the hopefulness that was clear in his voice although he tried to hide it. "Any time you don’t want to stay at Hank’s and don’t want to go to the Evanses, you’re welcome here," she said firmly.

He studied her carefully for a moment as if trying to determine how seriously she meant those words. Finally he nodded. "So are you going to reconsider that sharing thing?" he asked, looking down at her bed.

"In your dreams, spaceboy." Her smile broadened as they slipped back into familiar territory.

He grinned in return. "That can be arranged."

"That was not an invitation."

* * * * *

Back to Area 51 (Section III)