--Billy Joel, "She's Got A Way".

***

"Stories About Dad Episode 18: Michael

By Maria DeLuca (age 11)

So Dad had me and Mom living on DeLuca Island in our huge beach house. Every day when we woke up we would go out on the beach for our morning swim. Dad would teach me how to do the dead man's float. Mom and Dad would keep kissing each other every five minutes. But I wouldn't mind.

Every weekend I invited Liz and Alex to come over and stay with us. We would play on the beach and camp outside and do all kinds of fun things all day long. During the week I would write postcards to Mr. Raddish's class. Liz and Alex told me everybody was really jealous of me. Not only was Dad a big cheese in the business world, he was also a certified teacher. So I never had to go to school again. Dad taught me everything. And he was way cooler than Mr. Raddish could ever dream. Even though Liz probably doesn't think so.

Anyway, last weekend I had Liz take back a note to Michael for me. This is what the note said:

Dear Michael Cheesehead, Please come to my island next weekend and visit me. From: Maria.

Liz just called me right now and told me that Michael wanted to come!!! Yes!

So Dad picked him up in his airplane because he also is a really great pilot. I waited for them to come on the beach. I was lying down on a beach towel in my bathing suit. It was kind of embarrassing because Michael's never seen me in my bathing suit before. When he came, he was wearing one too. We stared at each other. I like it when Michael stares at me sometimes. He looked cute in his bathing suit too.

He started calling me mean names like always and we chased each other up and down the beach for a long time. It made him so tired that he fell down on the sand! I was pretty tired, but not too tired to bury him in the sand! He said afterwards that it felt really heavy with all the sand on his body.

Then I helped unbury him and that wasn't as much fun. We decided to go swimming. He kept trying to dunk me, but I got to dunk him a couple of times too. We splashed each other a bunch of times too. The water was the perfect temperature so we stayed in for a long time. We swam out really far and we grabbed onto each other, just like I do with Dad sometimes when we swim out like that. Then I kissed him on the cheek and swam away!

We got out of the ocean and dried off in the sun. Then we went to look for shells and stuff together. Michael got bit by a crab and I laughed for a really long time about that. He got mad at me so I made it up to him by giving him a starfish that I found. He gave me a sand dollar. We made a big pile of all of the shells that we found. He said we could come back later and play with them all.

Then we climbed up a coconut tree together. He never did that before but he did a pretty good job. Not as good as me, of course, since I made it up to the top way before he did! He picked a coconut off the tree and cracked it open without any help. I was pretty impressed! Then he handed me my half and we started eating it. He kept calling me cheeseface and barfbrain. I didn't care because he was such a messy eater and it was funny. All of the coconut was dripping out of his mouth. It was really gross! But he said that I had it dripping out too. Yeah right.

Then all of a sudden he leaned over and kissed me on the lips for a long time. It felt really nice too. He tasted like the coconut we were eating. Probably because it was all over his face! Then I kissed him back. Then after I was done I hit him and told him he was a brainless slugface just to drive him crazy. He didn't care because he just hit me back.

Dad came by and saw us sitting up there. He didn't see the kissing part though. He wanted to take Michael fishing. So Michael said okay and we climbed back down. Dad said later that he liked having Michael around so much that he wanted him to stay here forever. I will ask Mom about that tomorrow and see what she says.

Now I'm sitting on the beach and I'm thinking about Michael. Wouldn't it be nice if he could stay on the island with me forever? If we were older, I think Michael would be like my boyfriend. Even if he is mean and smelly sometimes. I still think he's cute! I like kissing him, too. Maybe he'll kiss me for real someday, instead of just in these crazy stories that I write.

The End"

***

Maria DeLuca laughed out loud as she rounded the corner and saw somebody very familiar to her sitting in an eerily reminiscent place. She was playing Little Red Riding Hood today, since she was taking a basket of alien-themed goodies off to her best friend Liz Parker, who wasn't feeling very well. It was always good to spread a little alien cheer, after all.

She had even made Liz her very own alien voodoo doll. Complete with some of those little fancy toothpicks that they stuck in the burgers at the Crashdown. She had filched those from the restaurant, but she was sure Liz wouldn't mind. Maybe she wouldn't even notice, since she was so doped up on cough syrup.

She discreetly walked towards the lone figure who was sitting on the swings of the Roswell Elementary playground in broad daylight. The Big, Bad Wolf himself. That's right, Michael Guerin. But what a fine-looking young wolf he was, she mused to herself.

That last time she had seen Michael Guerin sitting on a swing like that had been one Saturday afternoon when they were both 11 years old. In fact, he had been sitting in the exact same swing. And she had been coming around this very corner on the way to get ice cream, minus the basket of goodies and the voodoo doll of course.

She could still almost see that 11 year old boy inside of him somewhere. When he looked at her a certain way. Or sometimes when he smiled, which wasn't very often. Sometimes his full-grown 16 year old body just seemed to fall away, a dim outline that encased the genuineness of a growing 11 year old boy. A boy who she had somehow forged a delicate bond with that year, in Mr. Raddish's classroom. That vulnerable little boy still existed somewhere, buried deep. But then, all of the treasures inside of Michael Guerin were buried deep.

That day, when she had seen him sitting on the swings... She still remembered it so clearly. It had been only a few days since their first kiss. Kyle had forced Alex into daring them to kiss.

She smiled to herself as she thought of that day and its sheer innocence. Michael's kiss had been all she thought about for a while there. Michael's kiss and Michael himself. How strangely mild and fragile he could be towards her, when nobody else was around. Like a tentative hand, wanting to reach out and connect with another of its kind.

But at first, he had been more like a wild animal who had been left alone, forgotten by everybody for years. One that snarled and lashed out at every kind-hearted soul who dared to come near it and attempt to show it some form of compassion. A beast that scared everybody off, but in reality was too scared of its own shadow to ever want to let another being inside of its closed-off and ruined heart.

They had drifted apart. In middle school, somehow. For some reason that she couldn't quite remember now. Sometimes, in her dreams, she came awake with vague and confused memories of a door, carefully kept under lock and key till the right time. And something inside of her also seemed to awaken whenever she looked at the moon outside her bedroom window on dark and dreary nights. It was like somebody had come along and smashed whatever they'd found together almost as soon as it came to culmination, leaving only broken pieces behind that didn't quite fit. Leaving them with no choice but to start completely over from the beginning.

But now the beast in him was starting to be tamed for the second time. He was starting to let that other part of him show. The part that her mom would call the warm n fuzzy part. The part that he called the confusing part.

She didn't always understand why she even bothered with him at all. He could be cold and callous and extremely rude. Maybe she just felt like she was his only hope for salvation.

And she liked him. She didn't know why, exactly. She had never questioned it much. She just accepted that she had always liked him and that special spark that flared up between them whenever they touched, even when he had pulled her hair and called her a never-ending string of insulting names. But he had also bought her a replacement for her favorite pencil when he had broken it. And she couldn't ever forget the time that he had spent an entire Saturday afternoon with her, playing the cloud game and even the buttercup game on the little patch of grass outside of Mitchell's grocery store. She understood him. She recognized him for what he was, and what he could be, if she was there with him to help him.

And he did look like he needed her help today. He needed somebody to pull him up out of himself and into the world where he belonged. He thought that he didn't belong here, but she didn't believe that for a minute. She and Liz had talked about it during one of their infamous ice cream chats. And they believed that it was fate that Michael and his two other alien counterparts (Isabel and Max Evans) had been hatched when they had. Three humans fated to three aliens. Isabel and Alex. Max and Liz. And Michael and Maria.

Maria finally came in for the approach. Tower, this is ground control. She kneeled down in the dirt in front of a very downcast-looking Michael and waited. He was in Eeyore mode again, she thought with a barely stifled smile. Michael was still very much the gloomy grey donkey who just needed somebody who could be strong enough to love him.

"Hey," he mumbled without looking up.

"Hey," she replied back.

"Sit down," he invited, his eyes briefly touching hers before fleeing back down to the safety of the ground again. Like always, he secretly marvelled to himself at the care and compassion that he saw in hers.

She got up, brushed her knees off, and sat down on the swing beside him. She didn't say anything. She knew him well enough by now to recognize when he needed her to stay silent. And if she pushed him into talking before he was ready, she wouldn't get anywhere. Sometimes Michael was like a ornery old mule. Not that she couldn't be just as stubborn.

"They wanna expel me," he finally said in a low, morose-sounding voice. "Or send me to a special school or some crap like that. Just like when we were kids. Do you remember? They were always threatening that we'd have to go to Vista Verde if we didn't watch our step. Told us it was like bootcamp."

"And maybe this is like your wakeup call," she said, her feet tracing restless patterns in the dirt. The last time she had sat in one of these swings, her feet had barely even touched the ground.

"I don't care anyway," he answered dejectedly. "They can do whatever they want."

Her head whipped towards him. "Don't say that," she admonished. "What, you're just gonna give up? Doesn't sound like the cheeseface I remember from way back when. You always found some little way of torturing me, no matter where Mr. Raddish moved your seat."

"Temporarily moved my seat," he corrected with a smirk. "'Cause I'd get even worse when he moved me."

"We both would," she answered with a laugh. "We'd practically pitch fits in the aisle." Like we couldn't bear to be separated, she added silently.

"It's no wonder the guy lost it," Michael replied solemnly.

"Yeah, and don't you think if he had been given a chance to find it again, he'd take it?"

"Who said anything about a chance?" Michael was instantly confused. Well, even more confused than he usually was when he was around her for extended periods of time.

She whacked him smartly across the shoulder. "They did, you halfwit! The people at our school who want to expel you! I mean, don't you think that they told you about it for a reason?"

"Oh yeah, that..." He scratched the back of his head absentmindedly. He'd been so pissed-off about it that he'd forgotten the other part. "They said that if I got better grades this term and a teacher recommendation they might let me stay."

"You should do it, you know." A firm but gentle push.

"I've never been good in school."

"Yeah, but... You're smart, you've read Ulysses and everything."

"Yeah, but do you think I'd enjoy it if some wiseass teacher was cramming it down my throat?"

Maria sighed. Time for a different tactic. He was getting just a tad bit defensive. "Let me ask you something," she began. "Did Hank ever finish high school?"

He hesitated, but finally answered, "No." God, he hated it when she made a point that he couldn't argue.

"I can help you."

"You can't," he replied stubbornly.

"I can... If you'll let me," she returned softly. She lay a gentle, comforting hand on his shoulder and was just as surprised as he was when he didn't shake it off like usual. "Everybody will."

He blinked. "Why would they do that for me?"

"Oh, please, don't go playing the pitiful loner card again. Maybe because we're your friends and we care about you? Come on, think about it. Liz and Max can help you with the dorky science stuff. And Liz is, like, this mathematical genius, no joke. She helps me with all my math woes. Plus, I can help you with the history and english. Oh, and if you take el espaņol I can help you with that, too. Alex can give you pointers on the fine art of dodgeball. And, hey, if you ever take a course on fashion, I'm sure Isabel could be talked into helping you. And I know you don't need any assistance in the arts and crafts department." She paused as she remembered the beautiful drawings he had given her for Valentine's Day. Not to mention that kickass napkin holder he had crafted after he had gotten sick. "You have everything to lose here, Michael. Don't start running away again."

It all sounded so simple, he thought to himself. The way she said it like that. As if it was the easiest thing in the world. "But what if I can't do it?"

He tried to keep his usual impenetrable expression fixed on his face, but it had fallen out of his control once again. And it was no wonder, really. He had just voiced one of his most dreaded and deeply seated fears.

Maria sensed his insecurities and gave his tensed shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "If you never try, then you'll never know if you can or not."

He turned and looked at her, his heart speeding even faster than her mom's Jetta when he had 'abducted' her for a little joyride down 285 South. The trip that had finally started to restore that precariously subtle link that had tied them together when they were younger.

Time to take the plunge now. "I... I want to try," he managed to choke out before his throat constricted.

She squealed and threw her arms around him in a moment of excited abandonment, giving him one of her smacking Maria kisses on the cheek. And he sighed without being aware of it as he felt her warm lips grazing his cheek. Yeah, she still had the spark, he thought to himself with an inward smile that only barely materialized on his face.

She felt her face flushing as she brought her arms awkwardly back down to her sides. "So, um... I'll talk to the others about it and maybe we can--"

"Do you remember that day when we were fighting over at the wall?" he asked suddenly, staring towards the brick wall that stood between the basketball court and the playground.

She blew a stray bit of hair off her forehead and heaved a sigh. Michael was always changing the subject right in the middle of things. "Sure, I remember. 'Cause you stole my marker."

"Only because you wrote that you hated me!"

"Let's not start this again," she said, grinning at him.

"I always wondered though. If you really hated me or if... If you were like me."

"What do you mean?"

"I never really hated you," he admitted. "Even though I said I did. Hell, I thought I did most of the time."

"Then I was like you," she replied quietly, a soft smile on her lips. "From the moment you drew that star on my ankle that day... Maybe even before that, but that's the thing I really remember."

He considered that for a moment, immersing himself in the events of that long ago day. The first week of school and they were stuck cleaning off the chalkboards after school. After they were finished, he remembered how their young faces had spread into mischievous grins. How they had dug their hands into the box of art supplies that Mr. Raddish kept in one corner of the classroom. He had picked out all of the markers that screamed out Maria to him. Calm blues and lush greens and bright purples. Not to mention a few dots of fiery red and golden yellow here and there. Because she was a whole spectrum of colors. And then, he had attacked her with them, chasing her all over the classroom.

He still remembered how she had given him one more halfhearted swipe with her red marker before finally giving up because of exhaustion. He remembered he had been too tired himself to do more than reach out and give her a dot of yellow on her right cheek. So they had stood breathlessly in front of each other, and he found himself gazing at the dot on her cheek. It looked like a little star to him.

He had reached out then and taken her soft little hand in his. Almost painfully, he had yanked her down on the floor beside him. She had given out a yelp of surprise. His gaze had been riveted to the bit of yellow on her cheek as he had blindly uncapped the yellow marker he was still holding in one hand. Still not saying a word, he had tentatively grabbed onto her foot, pulled off her shoe and her sock in one swift, fluid motion, and rested her foot on one of his outstretched legs. She had giggled as he drew a little golden star right on her ankle.

He had sat back while she admired his handiwork. She had smiled at him then. A sweet, shy smile that said that she saw right through him. Then she had taken the marker away from him, tore off his shoe and sock, and leaned over his own ankle, drawing her own version of the star on it. Her touch had been light and gentle. The marker had felt wet and exotic as it slid across his bare flesh. And her long blonde curls had been brushing softly against his foot as she worked.

Michael gulped as he remembered all the feelings she was able to evoke in him that day. "Yeah," was all he could think of to say.

Maria laughed and gave him a playful whack on the arm. She secretly loved how she was the only person on this earth who could render Michael Guerin completely speechless. Of course, it did work both ways, she realized with a wry little smile.

"She said that you looked like you walked through a rainbow," he said softly, his eyes, as usual, on the ground.

"What?" she burst out with, unable to quite believe what she was hearing.

"Liz... you know, she said that to you. Afterwards."

She rolled her eyes melodramatically. "I know that! But how did you?"

"I was there," he admitted, shifting uncomfortably in his swing.

"You were watching me?" She grinned, secretly flattered.

"Yeah..." he repeated quietly. He still hadn't looked at her.

That was it for him. When Alex was squirting the water at her from his squirt gun. She had twirled around and around, laughing as the drops of water flew off of her dancing form. And when she had stopped, the marker was dripping down her arms and face, making her look exotically colorful. Like she had been streaked with rainbow. And as she had walked off with her friends, Liz had said that she looked like she had walked through a rainbow. He had never looked at a rainbow in the same way after that.

He got to his feet in one quick, fluid motion. Then he reached down and pulled her out of the swing. Her face creased with confusion lines as he took her by the arm and walked off with her. "Michael... wait. Where are we going? Michael?"

But he just ignored her, his eyes straight ahead. "God, Michael, you can't just drag me along here! What is your problem? God. Are you reverting to the caveman era or what? Knocking me with your club and dragging me by the hair? Do you think I'm just gonna stand for that? Where are you taking me? Okay... Stop the bus now, I'd like to get off, please."

Michael gritted his teeth in annoyance and tried desperately to tune her out. At last they reached his destination and he turned to her and snapped, "Will you shut up already? We're here."

"But, this is just the wall."

"I know it's the wall," Michael grumbled. "That's where I was taking you to."

"Okay." Maria paused to process this information for a moment. "So... why exactly did you take me to the wall?" She spoke slowly, as if addressing a very small and rather stupid young child.

Michael felt his fists clenching involuntarily. The urge to scream at her suddenly washed over him. Resist, he told himself. Resist. He didn't want to get angry with her. He didn't want to hurt her anymore.

The urge passed, his fists slowly unclenched, and he remembered why he had brought her here. "Look." He kneeled down and pointed to something written there. "It's still here. See?"

She kneeled beside him for a closer inspection. Of the wall, of course. Not of him. Nope. She smiled to herself. Still playing those mind games with herself to get herself through the day.

She traced the faded, weathered letters with her long, delicate fingers. "'I hate Michael'," she read to herself. "And it's crossed out. You did that part." She poked him and grinned. "Oh! And here's yours. 'I hate Maria'... God. Who would've thought they would still be here after all these years?"

"Well, it was permanent marker, as Mr. Raddish kept repeating over and over to us," Michael replied. "He kept calling us vandals." He reached into his pocket and brought out a black marker teasingly. "Funny. I'm feeling my old vandal roots coming back to the surface again." His eyes shone with barely held back humor.

She watched as he wrote something on the brick wall, shielding it from her view with his hand. When he pulled his hand away, she growled, "Michael, you... you... Pointy-headed freak!"

On the wall, he had added the word "still" above the "I" and the "hate" in "I hate Maria", making it "I still hate Maria".

He grinned as he watched her face turn red and her eyes get that angry flash that had always captivated him. "Wait," he said, holding up his hands in surrender.

He leaned in and wrote something else quickly below it. "...but I like her sometimes, too."

When he looked back up at her, he knew that he had made it okay again. The way she was looking at him said it all. She was smiling at him warmly, her face all pink and happy.

"Let me see the marker," she pleaded with her most dazzling grin.

He handed it over to her, jumping as always at the electric spark that passed between their fingertips. Then he watched as she leaned down and wrote something, too. She used her body to block what she was writing. Not that he minded the view. She blushed as she pulled back, carefully monitoring his reaction.

"I'm glad he crossed that out," she had written with an arrow pointing towards the "I hate Michael". "It was a lie anyway."

He just stared at her, gape-mouthed. Waves of warmth poured over his human body, crashing over him and finally pulling him under. And he went willingly. His mouth tried to work, but nothing came out. So he grabbed her arm again and pulled her to her feet. He boosted her up to the top of the wall.

"Sit," he instructed as he scrambled up beside her.

"I knew you liked to climb," she said with a laugh.

"What?" he asked as he settled himself in a more comfortable position.

"Nothing." She was blushing again, smiling secretly down at her hands.

He glared at her and crossed his arms to show that he wasn't buying it at all.

"Okay," she relented as she looked at the playground spread out below her. "Do you remember back in the motel room when I told you about how I made up stories about my father?"

"I remember." He reached out and took her hand in his and she squeezed it gratefully.

"Well, one of my favorite ones in fifth grade was about him coming and taking me and my mom to this beautiful tropical island... And sometimes I'd invite Liz and Alex to come and we'd all play together and go swimming and stuff. But... sometimes I would invite you... And we'd chase each other up and down the beach until we were exhausted. Then I'd bury you in the sand. And we'd go swimming in the ocean and try to dunk each other. We'd get out and dry off and walk down the beach together, looking for sand dollars and starfish and pretty shells. Then we'd climb up a coconut tree together and... Oh. That's all I remember," she finished quickly.

He grinned. He couldn't quite believe what he had just heard. She had actually thought of him like that? Whoa. And all of it sounded pretty great to him, too. "You holding out on me?" he asked.

"No," she denied, but she wouldn't look at him. And her face definitely looked a little flushed.

"You are," he accused teasingly. "Don't make me do what you used to do to me."

"Why, whatever do you mean?" she asked, all wide-eyed dewy innocence.

"You know... Hop around singing 'Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me' in the most annoying voice possible till you finally give in and tell me."

"You can't hop around up here," she pointed out. "You'll fall and break your neck."

"Yeah, well, technicalities." He waved that away.

"Do you really wanna know?" She bit her lip nervously.

"Uh huh. Or else I'm gonna risk my neck hopping around."

"Okay." She took a deep breath and said in a rush, "We'd sit up in the coconut tree and you'd break open a coconut and we'd eat it together and sometimes afterwards you would kiss me. That's all." She winced as she looked at him, feeling completely exposed now.

He gulped as he squeezed her hand again. So he wasn't the only one who had wondered about what it would be like if they kissed back then. "So that's why you asked me about coconuts that time," he mused.

"Yeah..." she admitted shyly.

He grinned at her, trying to put her at ease again before he hopped off the wall and landed on the ground again. She started to climb down, too. She felt his arms circle around her waist as he lifted her back to the safety of the earth and sighed. She always felt tingly all over whenever they dared to touch.

He smirked as he disentangled himself from her. "Race you back to the swings!" he exclaimed, just like he used to when they were both 11.

She laughed and took off running after him. It was almost like being in a time warp. She absently wished for her long blonde curls to be there, sailing out behind her. She had always loved taunting him with her curls. They belonged only to him. She wondered if he knew that.

He plopped into his swing bare seconds before her. She threw herself backwards into her swing, so they were both facing in opposite directions. They watched each other for a minute as they both caught their breath. Then she brought her legs back and began to swing.

Michael just stared at her for another moment or two. He had always enjoyed watching Maria swing. She always looked so graceful and free, with her head thrown back in a vivacious laugh as she swooshed through the air. He wished she still had those long blonde curls that he had loved to tug at way back when. She had never let anybody else get away with that except for him. It was like he had them on reserve or something. They were his. Did she know that too?

Maria's laughing eyes stayed focused entirely on Michael's awestruck face as she swung back and forth. She felt like a kid again, childishly flirting with her schoolgirl crush. Whenever he looked at her like that, her heart felt like it had just taken an express elevator right down to her stomach. She thought maybe vertigo was the right word for it. A freefalling geronimo.

She held her breath and closed her eyes as she stopped pumping her legs. The whooshing of the breeze past her exposed ears slowly stopped. He found himself holding his breath right along with her. She opened her eyes and found him still watching her. He had the look that she had dubbed 'the enchanted guy look' on his face.

She grinned. "What is your problem?" she asked in mock frustration.

Without any warning whatsoever, he leaned over and briefly captured her lips with his. Another sweet, tender kiss, like the one she had given him that day when he had wrestled at the UFO convention. She wondered if it meant that he was feeling the same way she had been feeling on that day. She felt shivery as he pulled away. He stared into her eyes, stunned, and she let herself believe just a little bit.

He blinked as he came back to himself. "Cheesehead," he murmured hoarsely.

"Monkeyface," she replied softly.

He kicked at the now almost forgotten basket. "What's in this thing anyway?"

She smiled. Maybe it was a little selfish but there was just no way she was going to deliver that basket now. Not with Michael kissing her like that, and looking at her like that, and actually having a conversation with her. It wasn't like Liz was going anywhere anyway. And she'd understand. Probably.

"Oh, it's nothing important," she assured him.

He smirked impishly as he leaned down to peek inside. She whacked his hand away playfully. "Don't even think about it, spaceboy."

Michael looked thoughtful for a moment. "You weren't, uh, going to get ice cream again, were you?" he asked, trying not to look too hopeful.

They had come full circle, she realized with a smile. "Only if you come with me this time and get your own damn ice cream," she shot back.

He pretended to think it over and she thwapped him with the back of her hand. "Deal," he finally replied.

She beamed at him as she bounced out of her swing. She swooped up her basket, her feet dancing beside him to her own inner rhythm.

"Tigger," he mused as she bounced with every step.

"Tigger!" she agreed with a laugh.

"I always kinda liked Eeyore."

She bumped him with her hip. "Me, too," she replied, smiling to herself.

***

Michael let himself smile for a few seconds as he walked towards the petite little pixie girl who was lying on the beach in her bathing suit. He had been hoping she would be dreaming about the island tonight, so he could conveniently drop in. His powers were getting better and better all the time. Maybe it was partly because of her. He waved his hand over his body, changing his t-shirt and boxers into a pair of swimming trunks. Now the illusion was complete.

Maria was lying on a fluffy beach towel. She closed her eyes in perfect contentment, basking in the warmth of the sun's rays. The sound of the ocean always helped to calm her frazzled nerves. She sighed and snuggled back against the towel.

Just then, a shadow fell over her from above. Maria grumbled to herself in annoyance. What right did anybody have to disturb her peace? Whoever was bugging her right now was really going to get it! Her eyes flew open menacingly, but all of the anger fell away when she saw who it was.

"Hey," Michael Guerin greeted her with his trademark smirk. "Glad you invited me. Hope the invitation still stands."

She was up on her feet in mere seconds. Surely a world record there. "I thought you might show up." She grinned at him, giving him the onceover. "Nice suit, by the way."

He looked down at the little green alien head that was featured on one pocket of the otherwise plain red trunks. "Maybe your mom made it."

"Look, just because my mom makes the occasional alien souvenir doesn't mean--"

"Occasional?" he asked incredulously. "Occasional? They're everywhere in town! It seems like I can't go five minutes without seeing another one of those stupid alien things your mom makes."

She got in his face and poked him right in the chest. Her eyes were laughing as she informed him, "Hey, pally, those 'stupid alien things', as you so quaintly put it, pay the bills for us, okay?"

He grinned. God, he loved it when he could get her all riled up like that. "Tomatoface." He gave her a playful shove.

So he wanted to play like that, huh? "Hash brown brain," she replied as she shoved him back.

He kicked sand at her and stuck around just long enough to watch her squeal with anger. Then he did the smart thing and took off running, while she came charging behind him like an angry bull. He was wearing red swimtrunks, so maybe... He grinned as he dodged her left and right. Just like her daydream. Perfect.

"Faster than a speeding bullet! It's Hurricane DeLuca!" she bellowed as she chased Michael up and down the beach.

"Apparently not fast enough!" Michael shouted behind him.

She let out a scream of rage and sped up, tackling him. He wound up face down in the sand. "What was that, spaceboy? Not fast enough, huh?" she teased from where she sat perched on his back.

He was too tired to argue. He rolled over so she was now sitting on his stomach. She beamed at him, savoring her victory. He just watched her while he caught his breath. It was sort of hard to breathe with her sitting on top of him like that, but he didn't mind.

She finally rolled off his stomach and landed beside him. "I'm gonna bury you in the sand now, while you're all knocked out." She leaned down and whispered in his ear, "Resistance is futile, spaceboy." But he had learned that about her a long time ago.

So she began burying him, ranting about how this hurt her way more than it hurt him. He had to bite back a smile as she chattered on and on about whatever she wanted, just because she could. Since he couldn't move. She didn't think so anyway. He probably could've busted out with his powers or something, but he actually liked listening to her. She told great stories, with the words all falling together in a jumble as her warpspeed brain rushed to get them out of her only slightly slower mouth. He had watched her tell Alex and Liz enough crazy stories over the years to know that Maria DeLuca was a born storyteller, a spinner of magical tales.

She paused in the middle of a very intricate ramble about one of her favorite movies, The Muppet Movie, and stuck her clenched fist in his face, pretending like it was a microphone. Her voice deepened into an announcer's voice as she declared, "Michael Guerin, you've just become the first alien that we know of to successfully be buried in the sand by a human. How do you feel?"

"Well, the sand's getting really heavy..." he managed to say. And it was. It felt like it was crushing his chest in every time he breathed. That's what he got for getting swept away in the force of Hurricane DeLuca.

She sat back on her heels and laughed about that for some reason. Most likely just to annoy him. He felt his powers kick on then. He exploded out of the sandy prison, sand flying in every direction.

Maria laughed even harder, her body now coated in wet sand. "You should've just done that in the first place," she teased. He just growled at her.

She stood up and ran down to the water's edge, diving right in. "You coming?" she asked as she came up for air.

Hmm... He considered for a moment. Swimming on a deserted beach with a beautiful girl in said beautiful girl's crazy dream. Yeah, like he even had to think twice. Almost instantly he was beside her in the water.

They swam together for a while, like playful young otters. They splashed at each other. She dunked him under a couple times and laughed at the havoc the water had wreaked on his spiky hair.

She swam with a natural grace, like a dolphin or a mermaid or something. Like she was just made to be in the water. And he just followed along with her. Wherever she went swimming off to, that was where he wanted to be too.

They suddenly found themselves out so far that the beach was just a little line in the distance. Not that he was tired. Neither was she. She just laughed about it and thought about how easy it was to drift out too far. She swam over beside him and they treaded water together.

Now was his opportunity to get her back, and he was gonna seize it! He grabbed her by the shoulders and dunked her underneath. Minutes passed and she didn't come up. He looked all around, starting to feel a little panicked. But then she burst up from behind him with a "Boo!" and dunked him under again before falling back under the water herself.

They both emerged at the same instant, their arms twining around each other in the liquid warmth of the ocean. She shook her head, sending hundreds of loose droplets of water arching into the air. And somehow, every one was a different color of the rainbow.

He watched, mesmerized. She had walked through a rainbow again. His arms tightened around her, drawing her even closer. She reached up and stroked the damp hair on the back of his neck and he shivered. His lips started homing in towards hers...

Her hand quickly flew up between them in a 'halt' gesture. Her ocean eyes gleamed as she said, "Save it for the tree, spaceboy."

Then, with a kick of her legs she was swimming away from him, towards the far off shore. He cursed to himself as he watched her go. She was teasing him, tormenting him. And the only thing that it did was make him want her even more. So he eagerly trailed after her.

They lay together on dry land at last, two extra large beach towels mysteriously laid out on the beach for them. They were sprawled out on their backs, drying off in the warmth of the sun. It wasn't long before they were completely dry.

Michael sat up and ran his fingers through his hair experimentally. It was a mess, he could tell. Maria could have told him that it always looked like a mess, he thought to himself, amused. She was always ragging him about his hair, even though he knew that she loved to run her fingers through it.

Maria sat up too. She noticed the little smirk playing across his lips. "Whatcha thinking about in that spiky little head of yours, huh?"

He turned to look at her. "Nothing," he lied.

She cocked her head disbelievingly. What was she, born yesterday? But she decided to drop it anyway. She stood up, smoothing her hair back from her pixie face. Then she helped him up to his feet.

They walked off down the beach, leaving two pairs of footprints behind them in the sand. He paused to pick up a starfish that had washed up on the beach. He silently handed it to her. It was a golden color, like the star he had drawn on her ankle years ago.

They came to the tree then. A huge, towering coconut tree. Their eyes met for a long aching moment. Maria wrapped her arms around the trunk and began to climb, shimmying up efficiently, as if she'd done it thousands of times. She probably had, Michael realized. This island had been her dream sanctuary for years. Someday maybe they'd get to go to a real island together.

He began his climb, too. He worked much slower than she did, but he never faltered. And soon he was at the top, nestled onto a branch beside her.

She looked expectantly at him. So he pointed to a coconut. "This one?" he asked uncertainly. He knew next to nothing about how to pick out a good coconut.

"Yeah." She shrugged almost impatiently. She didn't care so much about this part. She just wanted to get to the kissing already.

He grinned. Sometimes she sent out signals to him loud and clear. Instead of picking the coconut, he slid up next to her. He took in how her breath caught at their sudden closeness. He leaned in, and she leaned in...

And their lips met somewhere in the middle. He didn't taste like coconut the way she used to daydream, but that was all right. She was getting used to his special Tabasco taste. At first it was a deep, hungry kiss that consumed them both. Passionate sparks flared between them, and she could swear that she felt the tree shaking and the wind that was blowing lazily across the beach beginning to pick up speed. Then he pulled briefly away before bringing his lips back for a few more of those sweet and tender kisses that he only rarely bestowed. Somehow, one single kiss like that meant even more to her than fifty raw, urgent kisses.

As they pulled away, Michael could swear that he heard the laughter of children somewhere below. And a young boy's voice faintly called out, "Boogerbreath!"

"Diaper Rash!" a young girl's voice returned.

Michael and Maria carefully leaned out a little so they could see what was going on down there. But there was nothing anywhere. Except, way far away, so far up the beach that Michael's eyes were straining to see, he swore that he saw a flash of a little girl with long blonde curls darting away, and a spiky-haired young ghost boy scampering mischievously behind her. Childish laughter filled his ears again and then slowly faded away.

Maria stared at Michael, her eyes wide. Had she just seen what she thought that she had seen? And below them, Michael could clearly see that two smaller pairs of footprints had also made their impressions on the beach.