Silver and gold. Green, white, and red. The handprint. Her hair. Her eyes. Her skin. Her blood. Everything mixed together. She didn’t look real. She didn’t look human. She didn’t look like Maria.

Michael didn’t look at her. He couldn’t look at her. He was too busy trying to get help for her. He found Max, Liz, Isabel, and Alex back at the Crashdown. They could help her. They could save her.

Everything was mixed up. He carried Maria into the café. He saw and heard the reactions of those around him. He looked at her for himself. His reaction was the same as everyone else’s. His terror and Max’s were one in the same. His screams were indistinguishable from Liz’s. Only his thoughts were his own.

[Maria... Our baby.... I’ll kill him.] They took his pixie girl to a bed in a back room; same bed he stayed in when he was sick. He wished that he were lying there in her place now.

He couldn’t speak clearly. He repeated himself in his mind. [Maria. The baby. Save Maria. Save the baby.]

He saw her come in out of the corner of his eye. He saw blonde wavy hair and pale skin. He wanted to hurt her. He heard her gasp when she saw Maria. He wished that Tess was in the bed instead of Maria.

He felt Max take his hand. Max said that it would take all of them to heal Maria. He cringed when Tess took his other hand.

***

Maria screamed.

She did not scream when Nacedo took her. She didn’t scream as his knuckles dug into her face and her belly. He called her bitch, whore, mother of a half-breed. He took Michael’s face more than once as he hit her. He attacked her and her baby. She did not beg him for her life. She did not scream in fear or pain. She would not give him the satisfaction.

She wanted to run to Michael when she saw him standing in his doorway. She wanted to cry out when he realized that she was hurt. She called his name softly. She didn’t cry out even though it felt like her insides had been ripped out. She had to be strong for him.

She barely moved when they healed her. Light flooded the room. She watched her cuts and bruises disappear before her eyes. She saw images of all of them: images of her lover, images of her friends, images of Tess. Michael was instantly at her side when the light dissipated. She smiled up at him, to put his mind at ease, but said nothing.

The ache in her belly was still there.

She saw the hurt in Michael’s eyes and the worry in Max’s and screamed.

The pain in her belly worsened and she screamed. She screamed with each contraction. She screamed and knew that her baby was already dead. She screamed as she delivered her daughter.