-Tara McLean
"Holy Tears"

******

The New Mexico desert was cold at night.

A chilly wind brushed across Maria Deluca's bare shoulders, prickling her skin up into goosebumps, but she paid it no mind. To either side of where she stood, the desert stretched on into blue infinity-- silver- and azure-swept sand, painted by moonlight and shadow. Cacti and scrub brush reared up against the starlit sky, straining for heights they could never hope to reach.

Maria barely noticed the raw beauty around her. She had seen it all a hundred times, and she would see it a thousand more in the future. Her eyes were fixated on the black pile of soot and charred wood in front of her. There had been no rain to wash it away, and the wind had only removed the barest top layer of ash. It rested much as it had a week ago, when the flames had died down and the blaze had flickered out.

She understood why a burial had been impossible. If there was a body, then there was a chance that body could be found. It was just too much of a risk to leave any evidence. Too simple for someone to come along and dig him up; test his corpse.

The crassness of the thought made Maria shiver. The reality that it was the truth turned her ice cold.

"Why didn't you take his hand, Michael?" she asked, as she asked every night. "Why didn't you just take Max's hand and come back to us?"

Maria hadn't been there when it happened. She hadn't stood beside Max and Isabel on that boulder in the vision-world, but somehow, she'd seen it all the same. She'd watched as Michael stood-- slowly, carefully-- his face a mix of disbelief and wonder. She'd felt Max's elation as he extended his hand, then confusion as Michael pulled his own hand back an instant before they touched. She'd seen Michael fall backward into the sheltering web of the cocoon, his eyes squeezed shut as he let it swallow him alive.

Then the sky had torn asunder, and the vision-world had shattered, and Maria's real eyes had snapped open to the sound of someone screaming. She discovered later that it was herself.

******

He hadn't trusted them.

That was the only explanation Maria could formulate to describe the empty look in his eyes the instant before he closed them; the instant before he pulled his hand away and fell backwards into his safety net. His chrysalis.

"Why didn't you trust us, Michael?" she whispered. "God, what did we DO?"

******

She remembered that the cave had sounded deathly quiet without the shallow rasp of his breath. Not even Isabel's wrenching sobs, or the soft meter of Alex's comforting voice, could escape the crushing weight of that final silence. It sucked in sound and turned it empty, made it quiet.

No one else seemed to be moving, so it had fallen to Maria to pull away the thready web of the cocoon. She went slowly, putting off the inevitable for as long as she could. Once Michael's face was free, she paused, not really knowing why. There was just something about the sculpted set of his profile-- something hopeful, yet sad. As if he had discovered a long sought after answer, only to discover it wasn't truly what he wanted to hear.

Eventually, his body was cleared of the webbing, and Maria sensed rather than saw the others gather around to say their final goodbyes. When she glanced up, her gaze went immediately to Liz, whose eyes were dead. Not so much for Michael, Maria surmised, but more from her fear that Max might end the same way. For an instant, Maria hated her best friend. Because her Max hadn't ended at all.

A quick glance to the side showed Isabel pressed against Alex. His arm was around the blonde's shoulders, and Max stood next to them, his hand under his sister's arm, holding her up as she sobbed. Maria pitied the other girl-- the emptiness in Isabel's eyes almost mirrored the desolation in Maria's own.

******

Now that she looked back on it, Maria realized that she didn't care how the others were feeling. Not then, not now. Nothing really mattered to her, except understanding WHY. WHY he had refused to take Max's hand. WHY he had fallen away from them so easily. Because, cheesy as it sounded, people like Michael Guerin didn't just die from a chemical imbalance, or whatever the hell it had been. It just didn't happen. There had to be a reason.

Taking a slow step forward, Maria moved to the charred edge of the burned out pyre, and lowered herself to the ground. She sat by the blackened edge and stared.

She hated this place. It was so cold and impersonal. There had been no bones left after the fire, which was a good thing-- no evidence for the hounds-- but the lack of remains left the little group with a sense of open-ended loss. It would have been nice to know there was a grave somewhere-- a place they could visit on holidays and weekends, where they could tell him the names of their children. Yet there was nothing. Only this burned-out pyre in the middle of nowhere, that would become just another memory with the first strong rain or powerful windstorm. As transient as the smoke that had carried her lover back to the heaven's he'd wanted so much to revisit.

Her lover.

When had she started calling him that?

Thinking on it, Maria realized that she'd ALWAYS called Michael that. When they were together, when they were apart-- her lover, albeit removed for a time. Even now, he was her second half. The scorched, ashen part of her that had drifted away as she'd pulled aside the webbing to reveal his sad profile and still chest.

The kiss in the vision-world had proven something to her-- she would never stop caring for him.

"God, just say it, Maria," she cursed herself. "Just admit you loved him."

It was uttered so blithely, Maria almost couldn't believe she'd said it at all.

She'd loved him.

She loved him.

The tears that accompanied the admission were to be expected, but she dashed them away angrily. She was so tired of crying. It seemed to be all she did anymore. In quiet corners of West Roswell High; under the stairs in the back of the Crashdown; cold and alone in her bed at night, wondering what it would have been like to have Michael beside her. The thought was all the more painful because she knew, without a doubt, that he would have come willingly. That all she'd needed to do was ask, and he would have been through her window and between her sheets in an instant, their hot bodies pressed together as they ignited.

Funny how her thoughts seemed to run to heat when she thought of Michael.

Reaching out a hand, Maria dragged her fingers through the thick layer of ash. In her mind's eye, she could still see the fire. How it had licked up along the dry desert wood and played around Michael's body as he burned. His placid features had been thrown into stark, flickering relief-- harsh plains of fire orange and shadow black. She'd turned away as the smoke began to rise; but here, in the ash, she could feel him-- that part of him that was left behind as his essence transferred from flesh to fire.

A tear rolled unbidden down her cheek, escaping her angry scrubbing, and fell to the ash beneath her. It made a dark patch against the black. Another one soon followed, and the spot grew bigger. Maria watched it spread, transfixed. Reaching out a delicate hand, she traced a moat around the spot, blocking it off from the rest. In that enclosure, she and Michael were joined. Mingling.

Questions. God, all this place ever gave her were questions! Night after night, dreams of smoke and fire sent her out her bedroom window and into the desert in search of answers. And every night, all she found was more confusion.

Why had he done it? Why had Michael given up like that? What was he afraid of? Max? Valenti? Someone else?

She paused. Had he been afraid of HER?

Or, more to the point, had he been afraid of his FEELINGS for her?

Had Michael Guerin been afraid to be in love?

******

Maria couldn't comprehend it. She didn't want to. The self-loathing that smacked into her at the idea was like a physical blow, and it sent her reeling as she sat back hard on the loose-packed desert sand. "No. God, no," Maria moaned softly. "Please don't say...not because of me. Don't let this have been because of ME!"

Now that it occurred to her, though, Maria realized that it was the perfect explanation. Michael had never really known love. Furthermore, he'd never expected to feel it, and he'd never expected the OTHERS to feel it either.

Then, along came Liz Parker, and everything changed. Max was suddenly losing his control. Then Isabel started to crumble-- first making friends with Liz and Maria, and then starting to be more than friends with Alex. Michael must have seen that not only as foolish, but as betrayal-- leaving him high and dry and alone to fight the wolves.

Then she came along, and his world must have disintegrated.

Maria was almost positive that he had loved her, but she was absolutely sure that he had not WANTED to love her. It must have scared him more than he would ever have admitted. It left him open and vulnerable-- tied him down and roped him in to Roswell, New Mexico. So he had left her, to be alone. Because it was what he knew.

"But you couldn't go back, could you, Michael?" she whispered to the dead pyre. "You couldn't go back, and you couldn't go forward, and it terrified you."

She wondered for a moment what a day in his shoes must have been like. Wake up in the morning, provided he'd gotten any sleep the night before. Shower, dress, and get out early, while Hank snoozed away in front of the test pattern. Meet Max and Isabel, Liz, Alex and herself at school. Watch Max make eyes at Liz. Watch Izzy make eyes at Alex. Studiously avoid her own eyes because he didn't know how to meet them. Play Eeny-Meeney-Miny-Moe to determine which class was graced by his presence that day, then skip out as soon as it was completed. Meet up with Max and Isabel at the Crashdown. Watch Max make eyes at Liz. Watch Izzy make eyes at Alex. Studiously avoid her own eyes because he didn't know how to meet them. Go home, grab a Stouffer's chicken dinner from the freezer and heat it up in the oven. Eat while listening to Hank screech obscenities at the television. Go to his room. Think about doing schoolwork-- decide against it. Think about going out-- decide against it. Finally, strip down to boxers and a t-shirt and go to bed. Wait for Hank to pass out, then drift into a restless sleep. In the morning, wake up and do it all again.

Living that life must have been a nightmare. Knowing he couldn't escape must have been hell.

And her. The person he most wanted to be with, but who had to be kept always beyond his fingertips. His hell's seventh ring.

"You were afraid to feel," Maria said softly, awestruck, tears welling quietly in her eyes. "You were afraid of what those feelings might mean; what they could do to you. They could have made you vulnerable, and you couldn't bear that."

She swallowed, but kept talking. "You saw Max and Izzy moving on, and that scared you even more. Because you knew how...easy it would be for you to fall, too." The lump in her throat was painful, and she was finding it hard to talk around it. "And if you fell, then everything would have been over, wouldn't it? You'd have had to face the fact...that...that you were more human than you wanted to admit."

Her muscles began to fail her, and Maria found herself slipping forward. She didn't fight, but let gravity take her slowly to the ground, her cheek resting against his cold ash. She pulled her knees up against her chest, and curled into a tight ball.

Because of her. It was all because of her.

Her sobs weren't loud and violent-- they came soft and quiet. She let a tear fall for every moment she had spent with him, taunting him-- testing his willpower and not even knowing it. Killing him, and never understanding how.

"You were so scared I'd tell you...that I loved you," she whispered, "even though that was all you ever wanted to hear."

That was her Michael. An infinity of paradoxes.

******

The tears rolled silently down her cheeks and over the bridge of her nose, but Maria made no move to brush them away. The ash beneath her absorbed the moisture greedily, and she felt it grow damp beneath her cheek.

She lay there for a long time, unmoving, unthinking, letting her guilt wash away with her tears. It would take an ocean to assuage it completely.

Eventually, she sat up-- slow and careful, her head spinning from the emotion, her muscles weak and shaky. The ash clung to her pale blue tank top, and one whole side of her face was dusted black by the stuff, but she ignored it. Blinking a couple of times to clear her vision, she brushed away her remaining tears, cleaning away some of the soot as she did so.

One hand went to her jeans' pocket, and she withdrew a slim glass vial. Normally, it would have held her cyprus oil, but she'd washed it out that morning, not really understanding why. Now, her hands shook as she unscrewed the cap and lowered the small container to the ash. Tenderly, she swept some of the black powder into the vial; just enough to fill it to the top. Twisting the cap back on, she raised the glass container and peered at its dark contents.

Part of him was hers now. Part of him had always been hers, but this made it more real somehow. She liked to imagine that somewhere in that ash was his heart.

She couldn't stay here. She would get no more answers tonight, and she didn't think she could handle sitting there any longer. Moving slowly, Maria uncurled herself and stood up, still clutching the slim vial. But she didn't turn away yet.

He'd loved her. He'd loved her, and it killed him.

"How do you always manage to do that to me, Michael?" she asked the silent pyre. "How do you always manage to make me feel wonderful and terrible, all in the same breath?"

She paused, then sighed. "Sorry," she apologized. "I forgot. You don't breathe anymore."

She wondered absently if Michael was cold, out here in the desert, all alone. But then she remembered smoke, and flame, and black, black ash, and she knew he wasn't.

Her gaze lifted then, and she looked to the sky. The stars were twinkling merrily at her, grinning as if they had never done wrong. The smoke and fire a week ago had obscured their light, as Michael drifted towards them. They were where he'd always wanted to be-- it was fitting that they were where he ended up.

Some people called them diamonds, or angels, or unfulfilled wishes, but Maria knew the stars for what they really were-- white hot balls of fire. At least she knew he was warm.

She lowered her eyes even as she turned around, and began the slow walk back to the road and her car. After a few steps, she paused, and reached into her pocket again. This time, she withdrew a small, translucent stone-- almost a crystal. It was smooth and warm, like supple quartz.

Maria ran her thumb over its soft curves. River Dog hadn't tried to take it away after the ceremony in the cave. Perhaps he'd known that she would never let it go; that she would sleep with it under her pillow at night. It was, after all, part of Michael's home. Part, in essence, of Michael himself.

She brought her hands together and stared at their contents. Ash and crystal. Body and soul.

Bringing both hands together under her chin, she clutched her fingers tightly around the stone and the vial of ash. Tilting her chin down, as if to pray, she whispered quietly, "Goodnight, Michael. I'll see you tomorrow."

She started walking again, and the stars watched her go.