I was scared. As scared as Liz, yeah. He was forming a cocoon around himself for crying out loud. If that's not scary what is? But I had to help him. I can't bear to think of living one day without seeing him or knowing he's near me. Even if he doesn't speak to me. Because I know somewhere deep down inside of him, he cares about me. He'll never admit it, but I felt it.

I felt it when he held me so close. When he touched my face softly or kissed my breath away. The rest of the group, they don't know what went on that night at the Crashdown. They've only seen us putting on our little flirting/hatred act in public. They don't know how he said things that made my heart race and my insides melt. They don't know that he said I was beautiful, and how his voice had that slight quiver to it when he called me baby.

They don't know. They can't. Because unless you've heard someone say those things to you, look at you in that certain way when you're making love with them, you can't know the connection. Liz and Max have done the breathless anticipation thing and they might understand someday. But right now, I can't begin to explain to Liz why, after all the horrible grief Michael's put me through, why I would watch over him when he was sick. And drag him through the desert to be healed. And hold that stupid rock so tightly in my hands I swear I was squeezing blood from it.

Why, even though he woke up and hugged Max and Izzy, and never thanked us, I would do it again if I had to. I would do it all again to have him look at me the way he did and catch my eye, telling me without speaking how much I meant to him. I would do it all again to hear him say, his gaze still fixed on me, "No more running." I knew what he meant.

I understand him without trying. Without looking, I know when he's nearby. I get goose bumps at the thought of him. There is something about him that I can't explain, but it makes me feel alive. A look or touch from him could set my heart on fire if he wanted it to. And one day he will.

Because now he knows that no matter what he says or does, I'm not leaving him. If he killed someone, if he ran away without saying goodbye, even if he never spoke to me again, I wouldn't stop needing him. Wanting him in my life.

I would do anything for Michael, and now he knows it.

~~~~~

Anything- Third Eye Blind