“Do you think we should wake her?” Isabel asked Liz softly. Maria looked so peaceful snuggled under her blankets, and Isabel really didn’t have the heart to try to wake her up.

“Let’s get ready to go, and if she’s still asleep we can decide what to do then,” Liz suggested.

Isabel headed into the bathroom, but was back out in a moment. “Maria left us a note,” she said to Liz quietly, holding in her hands the small piece of paper she had found taped to the bathroom mirror. “She said that if she was still asleep when we got back to please not wake her up. She’s extremely tired and didn’t get a lot of sleep last night so she wants to try to catch up now so she’s not cranky for the rest of the trip.”

Liz smiled. “Yeah, Maria always needs a lot of sleep or she gets really crabby. I guess we should probably just leave her a note if she’s not awake by the time we leave. Believe me, she’ll appreciate that a lot more than being woken up if she hasn’t gotten her sleep,” she said when Isabel opened her mouth. “Maria hates being woken up, especially from naps. She’ll be in a bad mood and really irritated with us for waking her up. We’ll all be much better off just letting her sleep.”

“Okay,” Isabel said. “If you’re sure. I’m gonna go take a shower so we can get out of here sometime today.”

When the girls had both finished showering and getting changed, they headed out to the living room. There they found Max, Michael, and Alex sprawled out on the furniture watching TV. The guys looked up when Liz and Isabel entered the room, and Michael immediately noticed Maria was not with them. “Where’s Maria?” Alex asked before Michael could even open his mouth.

“She’s still asleep,” Liz answered. “She left us a note and asked us not to wake her. Probably a good idea- you know how she is when she gets up from a nap.”

Alex nodded his agreement. “Letting her sleep was the best idea. So, are we all ready to go, then?”

The others nodded and Max and Alex stood to join the girls, but Michael stayed where he was on the couch. “I’m not gonna go,” he said offhandedly, never taking his eyes off of the TV screen.

Isabel smiled to herself. “Why not, Michael?” she asked sweetly. She knew very well why he was staying behind, but she wanted to see if he would admit it.

“I just don’t really feel like it,” he hedged. Then he sighed. “Besides, somebody should be here when Maria wakes up so she doesn’t think we all abandoned her or something.”

“Oh, well we left her a no-“ Liz began, but Isabel cut her off with an elbow to her side.

“Okay, then,” Isabel said, talking over Liz. “We’ll bring back a couple of pizzas for dinner.” She smiled. “But you don’t get to complain about the video choices,” she teased.

Michael looked up at Alex and Max with a pained expression on his face. “Please, no sappy chick flicks,” he begged.

“We’ll do our best,” Alex said with a smile. The four teens said their goodbyes, then headed out the door to Max’s jeep, leaving Michael sitting on the couch, trying to figure out just what he could do to fix things between himself and Maria.

It was almost a half-hour after Isabel, Alex, Max, and Liz had left the cabin that Maria finally awakened from her nap. She felt rested, but also a little disoriented from having fallen asleep in the middle of the day for such a long period of time. She wandered into the bathroom and splashed water on her face in an effort to feel a little more awake.

While she was drying off her face she noticed a piece of paper stuck to the bathroom mirror. Pulling it from the mirror, she recognized Liz’s handwriting. “Maria,” the note read, “We came back from swimming and you were still asleep, so we thought it would be best not to wake you. We’ve all gone into town to pick up dinner and some movies and just hang out a little, but we should be back pretty soon. Hope you had a good nap. -Lizzie.”

Maria sighed and dropped the note on the counter. While she was glad that they had let her sleep, she wondered what she was going to do with herself until they all returned. A rumbling in her stomach made her realize that she hadn’t eaten in several hours, and she decided to head out to the kitchen to see if she could find something to hold her over until the others got back with dinner.

She walked into the kitchen and after a few moments of scrounging found an apple and some cheddar cheese in the refrigerator. “This oughta do it,” she muttered to herself. She rinsed the apple off in the sink and then pulled a knife from the knife holder on the counter and began slicing the apple.

“Hey, you’re awake,” Michael said, walking into the kitchen.

Maria screamed and jumped back from the counter at the sound of his voice. “Michael, what the hell?” she gasped.

“God, relax!” he exclaimed. “It’s just me. What the hell are you screaming for?”

“I didn’t think anyone was HERE!” she yelled back at him. She put her hand up against her racing heart as she tried to calm her breathing.

“They always talk about the intelligence levels of blondes. I guess powers of observation would fall under that heading, too,” Michael said with a smirk. Then his expression turned to one of concern. “Hey, what happened to your hand?” he asked, stepping closer to Maria.

She looked down at her hands and noticed that her left one was now bleeding from an open cut on her palm. “I must have cut it when you decided to play psycho killer and sneak up on me,” she snapped, bringing her hand closer to her face to examine the wound.

He was about to make a sharp retort, but stopped when he saw her wince in pain as she experimentally flexed her hand. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to sneak up on you; I had no idea you didn’t know I was here.”

Maria looked at him suspiciously for a moment before deciding that he was being sincere. “Yeah, well, anyway, now I have a gaping flesh wound. Think there’s any peroxide in the bathroom? God, I hope I don’t need stitches.”

“Here, let me see,” Michael said, moving toward her again. “Maybe I can help.”

“Uh-uh, no way,” Maria said, backing away from him until her body encountered the kitchen wall. “I remember what you did to my mother’s car. I prefer to go through life with both of my hands, thank you very much.”

Michael rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Maria, that was ages ago, all right? I think I can fix a simple cut.” He reached forward and gently held her injured hand in his own. Maria tried to tug her hand away, but Michael refused to let go, and after a moment Maria stopped struggling with a resigned sigh. Michael closed his eyes and focused all of his energies on Maria’s wound. After a moment a glow emanated between their hands as the connection was made. However, as Michael was still relatively new at using his powers, he was too busy concentrating on Maria to realize that he had left his own subconscious open to be transferred to Maria.

Pictures began flashing in Maria’s mind from Michael’s brain. She saw herself in her uniform at The Crash Down before Max had saved Liz, she saw herself in the hallways at school with Liz, in the nookie motel on 285 South with Michael, in the eraser room with Michael, herself walking away from Michael the night of the rave. Along with the pictures that sped through her mind, she could also feel what Michael was feeling with each scene.

The rush of images and the intensity of feelings invading her mind caused Maria to pull away from Michael with a startled cry. “Maria, what’s wrong?” he asked. “I’m not finished.” He pointed to her hand, which, though not completely healed, now had only a small scratch across the surface of the skin. “Here, let me-“ he began, reaching for her hand again.

“No!” Maria cried, quickly brushing past him and moving toward the kitchen door. “It, it’s fine. I’m fine,” she said, walking into the living room.

Michael followed Maria into the living room and found Maria walking towards the door. “Maria, where are you going?”

“I’m just going to go for a walk,” she said, not meeting his eye. She desperately wanted to get out of there so she could sort through the images and feelings she had just received from Michael in her own mind.

“I think it’s gonna rain,” Michael said, looking out the living room window at the ominous clouds that hung in the sky. “Besides,” he added quietly, “I think we need to talk about what just happened.” He was aware that something had happened during the healing process that was probably not supposed to have happened, and he could see that Maria was shaken up by it. Freaking her out like that was probably not the best way for him to try to fix things between them, and he really wanted to talk things out with her right now so he could find out exactly what had happened. Ironically, however, it seemed that now that he wanted to talk about something Maria was the one who was ready to bolt.

“Maybe later,” she said, her hand turning the doorknob. “I really just want to go for a walk right now.”

“Maria-“

“I’ll be fine,” she said, yanking open the door. “And I’ll be back by the time they get back with dinner,” she added hurriedly. Then she stepped out onto the porch and pulled the door shut behind her.