She is too tired to cry.

Too old.

Too weary.

And she finally understands.

This time she understands the word "destiny."

She understands the phrase "meant to be."

She stares out the window, at the dark clouds of smoke that hang in the sky, and she wonders why it took her so long. Why didn't she catch on when Lizzie doubled over one day at the free clinic and those clothes, too, were later bundled up in a corner...ready to be whisked away? Why didn't she catch on when the phone rang last year and Michael spoke to Kyle in hushed whispers and the "Tess...? The baby...? Oh GOD" filtered through the thin walls of their apartment? Why didn't she catch on the first time? Or the second?

Three miscarriages in three years for her. Two for Liz. One for Tess.

Only Isabel escapes the curse...but that is because Isabel has never suffered from the same weakness. After finally slamming the door on Vilandra and the echoes of betrayal, she took a vow of celibacy. She wears her virginity like a badge...like armor. It aids her in the fight. She grieves for the losses of the world, instead of her own. And the blood she washes out of her clothes is always someone else's.

Maria curls up, feeling the hollow emptiness in her womb that has begun to become a permanent ache. Would it have been a girl or a boy? She always loses them when it is too early to tell. But she likes to imagine that this one was a boy. That he would've had dark hair and dark eyes and his daddy's crooked smile. She wonders if Michael is making the calls. If across town, at what remains of the Evans' house, Max's voice is hushed and he's saying "Maria...? The baby...? Oh GOD". Or perhaps it's the Valenti house and Kyle's voice.

Shouldn't they all be used to it by now?

Shouldn't they all have understood this a long time ago?

But no...they had just kept trying. Trying to have children. To raise sparks of life in this war-torn world that they barely recognized anymore. To hope that small faces and tiny hands and tiny toes would remind them of a Roswell they had once lived in some six years ago.

But there are only reminders of what *is*. Not what *was*.

And it IS destiny. Destiny's punishment...like a woman scorned.

It is a pain that Nasedo wanted to spare his Royal Four...but three of them did not listen to him. Three of them turned their backs on his warnings, on the message from a long-gone mother. Three of them dared to fall in love with humans and marry them. Three of them tried to create children in the midst of fire and ash and civil war.

Now six of them are paying the price.

So many quarters plugged into the machines at the one working Laundromat in town while someone stands guard outside with a semi-automatic or a charged hand. Hastily rinsed cloth. Overly perfumed detergent covering up the coppery stink of death, scrubbing away the cells that failed to bind together.

She rests her cheek against the glass, feeling the vibration of a mortar shell explosion from somewhere down the street. Michael has come back into the room and he is curved against her on the wide divan, resting his cheek against her shoulder in much the same way. She wonders if he can feel the vibration of what exploded inside her mere hours before.

War. Their bodies, too, are engaged in a civil war.

Incompatible.

Never meant to mingle.

He is too alien. She is too human.

And never the twain shall meet.

Does he think about the sons he and Isabel could have had? Strong, sturdy boys with their mother's blond hair and father's dark brown eyes?

Is *this* why the warrior woman who was once called Vilandra has never taken a man into her body? Because to do so would be to sully the image of a perfect dream?

Does Isabel ever cry for her empty bed, her own empty womb?

She must.

But at least she has the dream.

Maria, Liz, and Tess only know the nightmare.

And they cannot wake up.

"Oh, God," she gasps into her palm. "Oh, God, *why*?"

"I'm so sorry," her husband whispers as they rock back and forth, a mess of dry sobs and tremors. "Oh, Maria, I'm so sorry this keeps happening."

And she realizes he knows.

He knows. Max knows. Tess knows.

They *always* knew.

And they chose love anyway.

She cannot hide the rancor, the grief. Not this time.

Not when her last shred of hope is bundled up in the corner waiting to be cycled down a drain and into oblivion.

"Never again," she hisses. "Never again."

Even as she says it, she knows she is lying. Even as she says it, she thinks of the spark nestled in Liz's belly. Barely a few weeks, but Max feels the glow beneath his hands. And she thinks of the tiny embryo with two hands and two feet that Tess cradles inside her as Kyle cradles her at night.

She knows more phone calls will be made in the weeks ahead.

More loads of laundry will be done.

More explosions will rock their walls and windows and their hearts.

They will *all* understand the meaning of "destiny."

But they will all choose love.

Again and again.

It is not their destiny...it is their Fate.