He slumped his shoulders and looked at Tess, who was standing rather cockily at the side of the road.

"You did this," he snarled, lunging at her.

She dodged him, laughing. "Poor Michael," she smiled, "poor, poor Michael, so easily deceived. You actually believed the lines I fed you, all of you. Weak, pathetic creatures you are," she shook her head, and he glared at her.

"What are you talking about?" he demanded, standing slowly. "You tell me what you mean!"

She laughed, ushering him towards her car.

He followed hesitantly.

"I will not take you to where they are. You have no sibling, so as far as the government is concerned, you are useless."

He sat dejectedly in the passengar seat, looking out at the desret that flew by as they sped back towards Roswell, and everything Michael had every hated. And the only thing he had ever come close to loving.

"You know nothing of your planet, correct?" Tess asked, and she was purely clinical, cold and emotionless.

Michael nodded, not looking at her.

"Then you know nothing of its destruction," she said with a nod, more to herself than to him. "Your planet was destroy shortly before you, your sister, Max and Isabel were sent here."

Michael's head snapped up at the mention of a sister.

"Yes, you do have a sister, and I'm not her. I'm Nasedo's daughter, born on this planet. Most likely the last fully bred alien of our race ever born. I was taken by the FBI when Nasedo left me alone, I was destroying everything I could. They took me to a facility, and they studied me, and they let me go. They told me that if I could find a sibling pair, alive and healthy, the both of them, and brought them back for them to study, that I could leave, and go home if I liked."

"But you said…"

"I know, I said that your planet was destroyed, and that is true, but that world, however intertwined with it I am, has never been home for me. Home is where my heart is, and that place with always be with my father."

"What about my sister?" Michael asked, not having heard much of anything after the mention of another like him.

"From what Nasedo told me, she's dead."

He frowned, trying to hide his disappointment, "How?"

Tess looked at him, surprised. "She was there before I was, they had her. They had done all they could to her, from the moment she emerged from her pod, alone and afraid, and without the only she had ever known to be perfect, and safe, and constant. They brought her to the same facility, and they tore into her, violently, intensity training, stimuli tests, regeneration, gauging her powers, things they didn't even dream of trying twice on a second subject. I suppose I should be grateful to her, and I am, and that's why I'm taking you back." She looked at him and sighed, knowing he still wanted an answer.

"She was mercifully killed when I was brought there, I was seven or eight at the time, almost three years younger than she was, and I was forced to watch as they injected her with a known poison. She grew some sort of spider web cocoon, and slowly she faded within it, until there was nothing, save the webbing. I was allowed to keep some, if you want it." She handed him a small glass jar, no bigger than her little finger, with something that looked like intricately woven silver floss.

He took it and held it to his heart.

"I'm doing you a favor here, Michael, don't make me regret it," she pulled up in front of the Crashdown. "Don't try and track me, and don't try to get them back. If you go, you'll be taken along with anyone with you. Tell them and live your life. There is no home for you now, outside of this place."

Michael left the car, slamming the door and not looking back at the girl who sat there, smirking. He heard her drive off, and he slowly made his way to the door of the Crashdown.

Maria waited for him there, and she let him in. "Where are they?" she asked, taking his arm and leading him to a booth. Alex and Liz hurried in from the back when they heard voices.

"Gone," he murmured, staring at the silver webbing in the glass jar. "Gone for good," he sighed, laying his head in his arms. "Tess too."

"Michael?" Liz asked, sitting next to him, touching his arm, "are you all right?"

"I think so," he murmured, motioning for her to move over. "I need to go…" he looked at Maria, "home, I need to find home…"

He turned and dashed out of the crashdown, clutching the glass jar in his hand. He ran until he reached his apartment. When safely inside the sanctuary of his sparse apartment, nothing anyone could ever think of as home, he sank to his knees, never letting go of the glass jar in his hands.

"Oh god," he murmured, letting tears fall from his eyes. Not for himself, or Max, or Isabel, but for his sister, who he never knew, and who may have never even had a name.

He wept like a child, the child he had never been, for the childhood they both had been denied. And slowly, his eyes fell upon the one thing that might bring him some peace.

The blade flashed in the moonlight. It was clear and tempting, beautiful steel in the face of the silvern shroud of midnight.

And he reached out to touch it, brushing his fingers of the coldness of it. He drew it close, but before it could touch the soft flesh of his wrist, he slipped into a strange trance.

In his mind he was somewhere dark, a light shining down on him. He still clutched the knife tightly, afraid to let go. The space before him rippled, and a young woman stepped through, she looked to be his age, and almost his height, her hair was long, falling to her shoulders, or thereabouts, though it was striped, black, and white. Her lips were full and red, and her eyes were a sparkling blue. She smiled at him with perfect, white teeth, and another light surrounded her.

"Michael?" she asked softly, taking a hesitant step towards him. He nodded, dumbly, feeling his heart speed up. "Oh, but I've waited so long…" she reached out to him, but her eyes caught the blade in his hand, and she froze.

"What is that?" she asked, looking at it with fierce terror and fury. He didn't move, or answer. "Tell me what it is!" she demanded firmly, as if she were speaking to a child and not her twin bother.

Again, he neither moved, nor spoke.

"Damn it, Michael, tell me!" she pleaded with him, her eyes trying to convey everything her words couldn't. "I have so much to tell you, tell me this at least…"

He only held out the blade for her to see fully.

She looked at him with doleful eyes and held out her hand. "Give it to me," she said softly, her fingers beckoning to the blade.

"No," he replied, and when she heard his voice she almost crumbled, let herself fall into tears of happiness at finally hearing her brother speak. "It my choice to make, and I choose to leave. Tonight."

She shook her head, "No," she frowned, and her resolve not to sob wore thin, "No, you can't. You're the only thing holding me here. The only thing that keeps light in this darkness. If you leave tonight, you leave me here alone, forever."

He seemed to hesitate, reaching towards her, but her pulled back. "No," he shook his head, looking away from her.

"Michael, give it to me," she said softly, stretching her arm out further. Her palm was spread wide, and her saw a silver star there. "You have so much to live for, so much to love. People need you Michael," she smiled.

"Who?" he asked, almost hopeful.

"Your friends," she smiled, waiting, he didn't move, "do you want their names?" she laughed, "Surely you know who needs you now!"

"Max and Isabel need me, but I can't do anything to help them!" he shouted at her, and she laughed.

"No, they need no help from you, they have all they need within them, if they dare to look. But others, with less strength, need you more."

"Within them," he scoffed, "you couldn't save yourself," he said, and he regretted it the moment the words left his lips. He averted his eyes, so that he wouldn't see her tears.

Tears he caused.

"Michael," she said softly, and he could feel that she was beside him, "I was but a child, alone in a strange world, with strange people. Half of my constant was gone, as far as I knew, long since dead," the hurt in her voice cut through him and he shuddered at the emotions that flew off her. "I had no desire to live. Their torture was nothing compared to the anguish I felt, thinking I had lost you." She tipped his chin so his eyes met hers. "I would rather die than be without you. Do you feel the same?"

All he could do was nod, tears forcing their way down his cheeks.

She smiled, "Then don't do this. Give me the blade, and live in happiness."

"I have nothing to be happy for," he sighed, and she laughed again.

"Do you not see what is right before you?" she smiled, "she loves you with her soul, her life and her heart. Give me the blade, and go to her…"

He sighed, relenting, handing her the knife, though he did not meet her eyes.

She smiled and clutched the blade to her. "Go to her, Michael," she murmured, and turned to leave, but not before her dashed at her, pulling her into his arms. She was alive, and he laughed.

"I love you, brother," she murmured, and slowly she faded away.

Michael sighed and looked up, in his apartment again. It was late, and though the night was waning, he knew that she'd be awake.

He rose and left, breaking into a run as he left to building. Running to where she was, running to the only thing that kept him there, the only thing he wanted.

He reached her house breathless, and looked in her window. She stared out blankly at him, her eyes sad and empty. She opened the window and beckoned to him, when he was within arms reach she murmured to him, her words soft, like feathers, brushing against his senses.

"Michael," she whispered, looking at him without expression. Her voice told all, everything she felt and knew laid out for him to see.

He looked at her sadly, silently asking for her to let him in. She held out her hand to him, and he took it, climbing into the room, remembering every detail from his last visit.

"Should I even ask?" she murmured, looking up at him. He looked at her quizzically, and she laughed, though it was hollow and empty.

"They won't come back," he said eventually, and she sighed, taking his hand.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice full of honesty.

"Don't be, someone gave me something today that I could never be sorry for."

"What's that?" she asked, wonderingly.

"This," he said, his mouth quirked into his trademark grin. His lips touched hers, loving her with his tongue.

She moaned and fell into him, his arms wrapping around her tightly. She saw everything that was within him in that moment, and as his soul poured out for her to see, hers did the same, flowing out of her for him to touch and feel and cherish.

They were one being, neither of them consciously ending, nor beginning.

He felt every passion she'd ever experienced, saw every tear and felt his own tears brewing at the things she had seen.

He saw himself through her eyes, and pulled her closer to him, kissing her far more deeply than possible. He felt her love for him, and he needed to show her he felt the same.

He opened his soul for her, and she saw his sister, her sparkly blue eyes laughing in the sunlight, her shoulder length striped hair tossing in a light breeze. She smiled and blew a kiss, before fading, and then she saw Michael, alone and frightened, she pulled him closer, needing to comfort him.

She saw him and Isabel and Max, he was always on the outskirts, before she saw herself through his eyes.

She was smiling, she was laughing with her eyes alight. She felt her heart warm as she felt every emotion he felt coupled with the image. Love, passion, desire, comfort, understanding…

So many things, some so beautiful she couldn't describe it.

Eventually she pulled back, unable to breathe.

"Oh god," she whispered, and she didn't realize that she was crying. He was terrified that he had done something wrong…

"What did I do?" he asked, worriedly. "Oh god, did I hurt you?" he touched her cheek, smoothing away her tears.

She held his hand tightly in hers. Shaking her head she drew a shaky breath.

"No," she smiled, reaching up and kissing him lightly, reluctant to pull away from the sweetness of him. But she wanted to show him what she felt, wanted to share herself with him in the only way she hadn't yet.

Tugging on his hand, she pulled him over to the bed and sat down on the end, looking up at him with wide, childlike eyes.

"I love you, Michael," she whispered, dropping his hand. He didn't move, only watched as she moved, carefully pulling off the silk tank top. It fell away from her and onto the floor.

He stood, staring at her as if she were the sky to a man who had never seen the stars.

Perfect.

It was all he could think, all he wanted to think, the only thing that came close to describing her.

She smirked up at him with a wicked mischief in her eyes. She lay back on the covers of her bed and stared up at the ceiling, running her fingers over her stomach.

Michael finally came alive, leaning over her and stilling her hands, his mouth taking their place.

He kissed and licked at her flesh, leaving no place untouched. He touched her as if she were made of glass, frightened that he would shatter her.

"Oh god," she whispered, her stomach twisting in agonizing pleasure, "oh god," she babbled on and on, her pleasure rising, before everything stopped. She froze as he hovered above her, his face only seconds away from hers, his body touching hers, scorching her everywhere.

"I love you Maria…" he murmured, before both of them shattered and recollected themselves.

She lay in his arms, and all he could think was how beautiful she was, how everything blurred when she was there, in his arms.

And how much he liked it that way.

She mumbled something in her sleep and nuzzled his neck, drinking in everything that was him. Even though she knew her friends were breaking, she was happier than she ever had been in her life.

She rested her fingers on his chest, feeling his heartbeat, the steady rhythm of life that defined who he was.