Isabel sighed and told Alex and Max to close the blinds. They did so and then she ran her hands over the tables and floor and all of the other dirty things. The place looked cleaner and shinier than it had since Liz's father opened it years ago. It was very impressive.

When she was done, she turned on Michael and said, "Talk, now!"

They heard Maria call from the employee's break room. She and Liz were changing out of their uniforms and into more comfortable clothes. "Don't you dare say anything until I get there Michael!"

Impatiently, Isabel rolled her eyes and called, "Hurry up then!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" she yelled back. To her self she thought *Don't lose your tiara!*

Michael caught this thought and his milk spewed out of his mouth. He couldn't help but laugh. Everyone looked at him questioningly, but he ignored them.

A few seconds later, Maria and Liz appeared from the back. Liz had changed into a pair of shorts and a white t-shirt, and Maria was now wearing a pair of black jeans and a blue tank-top. Liz went and stood next to Alex, but Maria walked over to the counter. She grabbed a plate and cut a huge slice of chocolate cake. She also grabbed two forks and a bottle of Tabasco sauce.

She brought the stuff over to the table that Michael was sitting at and squeezed into the booth next to him. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her on the cheek. "Hey, beautiful," he whispered into her ear. She smiled and leaned in for a kiss.

"Oh my God...hello people! We're waiting!" Isabel screamed impatiently.

"What do you want to know?" Michael asked. Maria picked up the bottle of Tabasco sauce and began to pour it over the chocolate cake. It came out at too slow a drip for her, so she bit off the plastic tip of the bottle with her teeth, and then let the sauce run freely over the cake until a small pool of it formed in the bottom of the dish. She handed Michael one of the forks and then they both dug in.

Maria heard someone suck in a breath and she looked up. Everyone was staring at her in horrified fascination.

"Maria?" Liz gasped, a grimace on her face.

Maria opened her mouth to offer some sort of an explanation but Isabel beat her too it. She pointed frantically to Maria's dish and yelled, "That's what I want to know! I want to know why Maria is eating chocolate cake with more Tabasco sauce than even I could handle?! I want to know why all day you two have been laughing, or nodding, or speaking out of nowhere as if you're having a conversation?!! I want to know where you guys went this weekend and why you come back and we find you two practically diddling each other in the hallway in front of God and everyone and then you didn't even remember it! I want to know how Michael ripped your sweater off with one glance?! And why Michael tried to beat the living shit out of Rory Razak just two hours ago? You could have killed that guy! Most of all I want to know WHAT THE HELL YOU MEANT WHEN YOU SAID YOU HAD THE ANSWERS WE'VE BEEN SEARCHING FOR!!!!!!"

"Me too," Max added.

"Me three," Alex said.

"Ditto," Liz nodded, her eyes still looking at the plate in front of Maria.

"Is that all Iz?" Michael said, narrowing his eyes at the ranting girl.

She cried out in frustration and then moved in after him. "Michael, I'm going to kill you!" she screamed.

Maria stood and held her arms out. "QUIT IT!" she yelled. Isabel gave her a dirty look and Maria told her to back off. She sat back down and looked at Michael. "You better tell them everything. Try not to leave anything out."

Michael sighed and said, "You guys better sit down, this is going to take a while." Everyone found a seat except Isabel who glared. Michael looked at her and more forcefully hissed, "Sit!" She rolled her eyes and lowered herself on a chair.

"It all started on Thursday night when I was looking through Hank's truck for a flashlight. The lamp had burned out in my room and I needed it to find the extra bulbs I had stashed in the top of my closet. So anyways, I'm going through the glove box when I hear a voice coming over the C.B. It's someone talking to Sheriff Valenti and saying that there was a similar sighting to the one we had here, in Sedona, Arizona. I knew that I had to check it out."

He looked wearily at Max and Isabel and said, "I knew I couldn't go to you guys because you would just talk me out of it, so I went to Maria." He smirked at her and said "It took a little persuasion but she decided to come with me. We left at 2:45, early Friday morning and drove straight to Flagstaff, a city just north of Sedona."

"By that time, we were exhausted, so we got a hotel room and went to sleep. After we woke up, some things happened and we..." He didn't get to finish, Maria interrupted him.

"We had sex," she said and then to Michael said, "Let's just leave it at that."

He smiled down into her eyes and said, "Sure. So anyways, after the first time, or actually second time, Maria got ready to leave."

"Second time? You mean you did it twice?" Isabel cried and then she put her hands up in front of her. "Never mind, I don't want to know."

Maria sent *Well, actually it was three times, but who is counting?* and Michael laughed.

Everyone looked between the two, confused and Isabel said, "Okay, you two are really starting to creep me out. Just move on. Please."

"Thank you," Michael said. "So anyways, we were hungry, and so Maria went to go get us food. I couldn't go with her because my pants were wet."

"And why was that?" Isabel asked.

Maria fought a losing battle with the smile struggling to appear on her face. "We...shower...nevermind."

Once again, Isabel stood up. "You guys...? Eew!"

"ANYWAYS," Michael yelled, making sure he had everyone's attention. "Maria went to the store to get some..." he bit down on a smile, "things and she got a pizza at a parlor next door. She got jalapenos and pineapples on it, because she knew I liked it, even though she couldn't stand peppers. So anyway, I took a bite of the pizza and it was super spicy. Even a little too spicy for me. But this one," he pointed to Maria, "she devoured the entire slice in no time. And then she ate four more pieces. I was a little curious about it but not really alarmed."

"It wasn't until later that the alarm came. We..." Maria pinched his leg hard and he chuckled before continuing, "...ate sundaes. Maria said hers was missing something. So she got up and..."he was interrupted by Max this time.

"She put Tabasco sauce on it, right?" Max said, knowing the answer.

Michael nodded. "Yes. She put a whole lot of Tabasco sauce on it. So much, that it burned my skin." He heard Maria gasp and then realized what he said.

Isabel's eyes showed white all around and she pounced. "YOUR SKIN? Oh my God! You guys...? You guys are sick! Eeeew! Did you really have to share that?"

Liz on the other hand looked impressed. She giggled and said "Maria, you and I are having a serious talk later, girl!"

Max smirked. "Wow."

"Didn't know you had it in ya, Kid," Alex commented, and punched Maria in the arm.

Maria's humiliation was evident, and she buried her crimson face in her hands. Everyone got a good laugh out of it except for Isabel who was rolling her eyes looking disgusted. "Can we continue?" she cried.

Michael nodded. "That same night, I did some other weird stuff. Like with the tv. She was flipping through channels and she stopped it on a porn channel."

"Do we have to hear this," Isabel groaned.

Michael ignored her. "So she tried to change it and with my mind, I kept putting it back there. I knew I was doing it, but I didn't know how. And then later, when we were...playing, I was thinking how I wanted to take her clothes off and her shirt just flew off. I had her walk across the room, and I tried it again and I was able to take all of her clothes off with just the push of my mind."

Max quickly said, "You'll have to show me how you did that." And then flushed when he saw Liz look at him. "I mean, show me how to push with your mind."

Michael nodded. "The next morning we woke up and found out that we could read each other's thoughts."

"That explains that," Isabel muttered.

"You mean you two are telepathically linked?" Max leaned in closer and narrowed his eyes. "Because of sex?"

Michael was silent for a moment and then he said, "Sorta. Be patient and I'll explain it all." So he continued with the story. He told them about going to Sedona and asking questions, and for the most part coming up with nothing. "The we met this one crazy lady at a crystal shop and she told us about the UFO museum. We weren't going to go but as we were leaving, I got a vision."

Maria nodded, "We both got it. I saw it as well. It was of a older man with white hair and a robe and a symbol like the ones in the cave. He was standing in front of a building called the UFO Emporium."

"Max, it was like there was some stronger force at work. We knew we had to go there. So we went. We looked around and found nothing special, so then we went to the information desk and we saw him. And he knew who I was. He took one look at me and he said I was one of them. I couldn't believe it."

"He told me that he needed to talk to me in private, and I told him no. That Maria knew. He looked at her like she was an insect and it made me mad. Her and I talked back and forth silently and he caught us. He could tell that we were linked, so he closed up the shop and took us back to a house where there were seven other older people there. Total there was four men and four women and they were the elders of their settlement."

"Oh my God, Michael," Isabel said, leaning in forward in excitement. "They were like us?" He grinned and nodded.

"What did they say?" Max asked, his sharp eyes focused on Michael.

He glanced at Maria and then back at Max. "They told me who we were, where we came from," he paused, "and he told me that Maria was going to die."

Everyone flew into a frenzy and cried out.