"Oh and you don't think you do the same to me?" Maria asks.

Maria and Michael are arguing as usual, they are standing by her locker.

"Why does everything have to be a fight with you, can't you just leave well enough alone?" Michael tells her.

"You know what Michael I can't leave it alone, you tell me that you want me to leave you alone, don't bother you, that you don't want to get attached. Well then why do you do nice things? Why did you help my Mom and me with the wrestling two weeks ago? And then you start pulling me into the eraser room again for our little sessions. All I did was mention that my mother was going to be out of town, and that if you wanted I would leave my window open. So either you want to come over or you don't but I can't wait around for you forever."

Michael looks at the ground. "I'm not asking you to wait, you can see whoever you want, I'm not stopping you from doing what you want." You can tell from the tone of his voice that he's not happy with the idea of Maria seeing other guys.

"Why can't you follow your heart about us?" Maria's voice starts raising. "Why can't you just admit that you want to be with me, or are you so caught up in your own obsessions that you can't deal with real emotions? God, why am I even trying" she starts to cry. "YOU COULD CARE LESS ABOUT ME, YOU BARELY EVEN CARE ABOUT YOURSELF!!!" Maria screams.

She turns to walk away, and Michael grabs her by the arm, he half pulls her into the Eraser room.

He looks down at Maria who's leaning against the door. Tears are bright in her eyes, she looks at him. Michael lets out a grown from deep in his throat, and kisses her. He pushes Maria further up against the door, and their tongues weave together. Maria runs her fingers thorough his hair. He licks his way down her throat, and starts nibbling on it. Maria bites her lip, "Mmm Michael." She says.

He looks at her and kisses her again, pulling her bottom lip in between his and sucking on it. Then kisses her deeply. After a few minutes he stops and looks at her.

"See I can follow my heart."

Maria nods at him. And then stares at the ground. "Look Michael, no pressure but if you still want to come over tonight you can."

Michael gets her chin and forces her to look at him. "What time do you want me over?"

It's night Maria is talking on the phone with Liz. "Well I don't know what's going to happen babe, but I'm ready for whatever it is." She laughs, "Well I gotta go, I still have a bath I want to take, and I'm going to use some of my special oil... no not the almond, the carnation, dios mio, haven't I taught you anything?" Maria laughs again. "Okay talk to you tomorrow, and yes I'll give you details." She hangs up the phone and gets in the bathtub.

After a half hour she gets out and goes to her room. She gets somewhat dressed and is sitting on her bed painting her toes.

The phone rings and she picks it up. "Hello?"

"Maria, umm it's me Michael."

"Hey what's going on?"

"Well Hank is umm being difficult, and I'm going to wait till he falls asleep before I come over, but it's going to be a bit late, is that okay?"

"Yeah that's fine."

"Also I don't want to come back here tonight so, can I spend the night" then he rushes "I mean I can go over to Max's but I don't want to disturb them an..."

Maria cuts him off, "Michael, I invited you over hoping that you WOULD spend the night."

Michael grins on his side of the phone. "Oh, so what umm, well okay."

Maria laughs, "Well, I still have some stuff to do, but I'm going to leave my window unlocked, and umm, well if I'm asleep just wake me up when you get here."

"Okay, wait what stuff?"

"Never mind, you'll see soon enough."

Michael chuckles, "Okay, well I'll see you later." He hangs up and Maria smiles.

Maria finishes with her nails, and let's them dry. She then brushes her hair. She puts on her black thong panties that she was saving for just such an occasion. She puts on a black silk camisole. She smells her skin and puts a bit more carnation oil on her wrists, neck, and a couple other strategically placed places. She lights a couple candles. It's about 11:00 by this time, so Maria lays on the bed on her stomach, hoping that when Michael comes in, well hoping the first thing he'll really notice is her thong. She gets her Understanding & Interpreting Dreams by Nerys Dee and starts to read it. She's getting tired, *I'll just take a little nap before he gets here* she thinks.

He comes in her window and sees her sleeping, she looks so beautiful. He watches her for a minute and then goes over to her. He runs his hands down her back and she stirs. He traces his hands over the smooth contours of her ass. Maria stretches, "Mmm Michael." She opens her eyes, and it's not Michael standing over her she doesn't know who it is because he's wearing a mask. She goes to scream and the guy covers her mouth with his hand.

"Shh...this can be easy or hard. But it don't matter to me, I like a girl who struggles.

Maria looks at him with tears in her eyes. She shakes her head.

"If I take my hand away are you going to scream? Wait that's a dumb question, you never shut up." He pulls out some duct tape from his pocket. "Luckily I came prepared." He tapes her mouth shut, and then winds tape around her wrists in front of her. Tears are streaming down Maria's face. And she looks at him pleadingly. The guy looks at her and then without warning he rips her top in half. Maria struggles against the wrist restraints. He then pulls her panties down and throws them on the floor.

"Well Maria, you're even more beautiful with your clothes off." He sheds his pants and climbs on the bed next to her. He bends his head and bites her nipple hard. Maria screams thru the duct tape, but the real torture is just beginning.

After he's done he gets dressed. He takes her panties and puts them in his pocket. "Now I'm not going to take the tape off, well because I don't want you to get any ideas." With one last look at her he heads out of her room, and into the other parts of the house. Maria lays on the bed still crying. After a few minutes she hears the front door open and close. She lays there for a long time, she tries to rip the tape off her mouth, but can't get a grasp on it. So she continues to lay there.

A while later Maria hears something in the window, she feels the fear bubbling in her throat, she wants to scream but she knows she can't. She looks at the window and sees Michael's head pop through.

It's fairly dark and Michael can't see all that well, he hears strange mumbling. His eyes adjust and he sees Maria lying on the bed, naked, at first he's surprised and thinks *wow what a way to greet me* but then he senses something isn't right. He turns on the light and the site that he sees brings him to his knees.

Michael takes the duct tape off her mouth and wrists, and Maria starts sobbing. Michael holds her, "Maria what happened?"

Still sobbing, "I don't know I fell asleep, and I woke up, because someone was touching me, and I thought it was you, but it wasn't."

Michael's body has become tense, he feels such rage right now, all he wants to do is find who did this and kill him. "We need to call the sheriff." He says.

"NO," Maria shouts. "I don't want him involved, I just want this to be over with, can you use your powers to fix, me?"

Michael wants to cry, knowing that he can't fix her. "No, but Max and Isabel can."

Michael calls Max and Isabel and tells them to get over to Maria's and to bring Liz and Alex, he doesn't tell them what happened yet. Even though Max and Liz aren't really talking, Maria wants her there. Michael gets Maria her robe, and helps her put it on. She stands to do so and almost collapses. Michael puts it on her as quickly as possible, the doorbell rings and Michael goes to answer it, but Maria doesn't want him to go.

"I'll be right back," he tells her.

"No please I don't want to be alone." She says, she gets up to start walking and almost falls. Michael picks her up, and carries her with him to the front door. He goes to open it but can't quite do it with Maria in his arms. So he tells them to come in since the door is unlocked.

Isabel is the first to come in and is quickly followed by the others. "Michael, if you invited me over to see you with Maria I'm going to be pissed." Isabel says.

"Damnit Isabel this isn't anything to joke about." He yells at her.

Isabel winces, Michael never yells at her. "What happened?" Liz asks.

Maria starts crying again. And Michael looks at them, "Someone broke in here tonight." Liz rushes forward at this, "Oh Maria are you okay? Did they take anything?"

Michael looks at Liz. "She was raped Liz."

All of them gasp at this.

After much pleading by Maria, they all agree to not tell anyone. Later as Alex and Liz are cleaning up Maria's room and burning the sheets as she begged them to. Max and Isabel are with Maria and Michael in Amy's room. They work like doctors, even though this is Max's first time looking at a female body it doesn't even register. He just does his job healing her with Isabel. Michael talks to her the whole time this is going on. Isabel looks at Max and whispers, "Max she has a lot of internal damage, I need your help." Isabel looks about ready to cry for what Maria is going through. Isabel places her hands close to the opening of Maria, and Maria cries out at first. Michael glares at them. Max averts his eyes and places his hands over Isabel's, a bright light forms over Maria, and with in a matter of seconds it's healed, at least physically.