notes: i love me! and the fact that i get inspiration from myself =) it rocks, believe me. its a foofy, sappy story, and i'm not that good at 'em...but i tried! and its conventional-couple goodness, so fear not. Destiny is just a band and a pretty color of nail polish.

-------------

She stood, her eyes closed and a slight tremor going through her body. Wavering between collapsing and staying as she was. Her mind had already decided, but her body wasn't following through. Only time could tell.

She had come up to this place (this point in the middle of the desert, where so many things had occurred) and waited. Time had passed, and she could have sworn she slowed down while the sun went up and fell down, and seasons changed, and years went by.

The magazine staff had tried to convinced her that her relationship was a dead end. According to the books, if you were with a man who had a higher ambition, an ambition that got in the way and made him go through life with that strong determination to find something, and if he never told you how he cared, it was obvious he didn't. And she should have left him long ago, just like Liz should have fought for her man, and Isabel should have gotten a restraint order taken out on Alex. Logic dictated that she had an inferiority complex, and she clung to a distant man, because her father had left.

Harsh. Michael wasn't distant.

If she could tell them about the whispered words he spoke when she was half-asleep, or the way he could get positively silly when they both woke up, too late to do anything but stay in bed and ignore the ringing of the insistent and irritating phone, then they might have thought differently.

And Liz had told her of the way Max was, of his romance and roses and bubble bath, and she knew they were happy. And Isabel had a content and safe look on her face when her husband was around, confirming that Alex's protectiveness was warranted and necessary, and welcome.

And there he was. In the distance. The sun was behind him, and he was only a black figure on the horizon, but it was definitely him. His stance and posture and build was him, and of course, his hair. It was all him.

Michael caught up to her quickly, and they embraced, reminiscent of an old time movie she used to watch with her mother.

"Hey. What are you doing out here? I said I was gonna be home soon."

She just smiled and hugged him tighter.

"Maria, come on. Let's go home, it's getting dark."

"Guess what."

She smiled and looked up at him. He looked semi-confused, but all of a sudden realization came over him. Alien abilities definitely had a use.

"Oh my God, Maria...you're..."

She smiled and nodded, and he laughed. Laughter that startled and pleased Maria all at once.

"I am spaceboy, I am. You're gonna be a daddy."

He picked her up, and the trip home went by quickly. And out in the desert, the sun went down, proclaiming another life to be brought into the world.

Back to Area 51 (Section II)