I'm not sure why, but all morning I've had the feeling that today is it. Today is going to be the day. That Michael will come back. As I go into the back of the café and punch out I try to convince myself not to be so hopeful. That I don't want to be let down. Again. Liz comes to the back as I am changing out of my horrendous uniform.

"Got any plans for the rest of the day, Maria?" she asks, with that look still behind her cheerful eyes. I know what she wants me to say. That I've got a date, or plans with my mom. Or even that I'll go to the movies tonight with her and Max. But I tell her the truth, just like I have every Saturday night for the past year.

"Not tonight, hon. Just gonna relax, maybe take a bath, catch Joshua Jackson on SNL." I grin; hopefully she'll lay off me this time.

She does. I'm not sure why. Maybe she's given up on me. "Okay, well have a good night. See you tomorrow." And with that she turns back towards the dining room.

I am really curious at her change in attitude. Usually she pesters me or bugs me about the fact that I haven't had a date in forever. In fact, I haven't had a real date since September of sophomore year. Since the day Max saved her life and Michael started to turn mine upside down. She wants me to move on, I know. But she doesn't understand. Or more importantly, I won't let her understand. Cause I can't tell even her the truth.

I walk out to my mom's car and throw my bag in the backseat. I drive a way and proceed towards the next stop on my Saturday ritual. Every Saturday morning for the past year I have gotten up early to work the breakfast shift at the Crashdown and then after I finish at eleven I make my way down to the bus station to wait for the 11:24 bus into Roswell. It's the only bush that comes to this one Starbucks tourist trap and I know that one of these days he'll be on it. I open the window and hum along with the music on the radio. I am aware that part of my giddiness today has to do with the fact that I had the dream last night. I haven't decided if the dream is just the mental garbage of a lonely girl or not, but I like to think that it is him, dreamwalking. Giving me all the comfort he can spare.

* * * * * * * * * * * * As I stumble out of slumber I feel a slight touch on my cheek. As soft as an angel's kiss and I turn towards it and smile, basking in the light of the tenderness shown to me. I flutter open my eyes and I see him. Not in my dreams or my fantasies, but here, in my room, in all his sarcastic, deliciously rumpled glory. Did he come for a midnight visit? To take more of me than I am willing to give? He already has my heart and I fear that if I give him my body I will be lost. He is smiling. That scares me as it sends my pulse racing. He never smiles. He grimaces, and groans, and definitely smirks, but never a full out smile. Sometimes I see a smile hovering in his eyes, but never obviously on his face, not like this. I am curious, so I ask him.

"Michael?" My voice sounds loud to me in the silence of the night, "Why are you here?" My tone is harsher than I mean it to be and I see his face fall.

Then I realize what is going on. I see the desperation in his eyes and I put two and two together. Why else would he come and visit me when we haven't even talked in days? What else could be so urgent that he couldn't wait for morning? He is leaving. Leaving Roswell. Leaving me.

Leaving Earth?

I sense the surprise on his face as he realizes that I know. That I can read him as well as he can me. I feel the heat in my eyes and the dampness trickling down my cheeks. I voice what we have been saying with our eyes. "You're leaving, aren't you?"

He nods and I feel all the energy draining out of my body. At this he is quick to reassure me. "It's not what you think. I'm not going home, I'm just leaving for a while, to look for Nasedo. To get the answers we need."

Damn his answers. Damn men and their obsessions. Damn his alien parents who dropped him off in my tiny corner of the universe. And into my life. And into my heart. I have to ask. "So you are coming back?" And I cringe at the desperation in my voice. He nods and I feel the anvil resting on my chest lighten slightly. "When?" I ask.

His answer is not what I want, but it'll have to do. "I really don't know. When I find him? When I find out where I'm from?"

He sits down next to me on my bed. Despite my better judgement I collapse into his waiting arms. I let the tears come and cry for him, for me, for us. I remember the other times that we have been this close and it is difficult to choke back the tears. I pull away and he wipes my face in his hands. The look in his eyes is familiar. He is going to kiss me. He does and it is like no other kiss we have shared. It is bittersweet and tender, but I still feel the passion stirring inside me.

As he pulls away I feel lost. I want him back with me, touching me. But I know it is not right tonight. If we made love, I could never let him leave. And eventually he'd hate me for it.

He moves to leave, but I can't let him. It's too soon; I need just a little while longer. "Stay for a while?" I plead. He does. And we lie down and he holds me and in his arms I forget for a little while. All too soon he gets up and walks away as I feign sleep. I know that if I look at him again it'll hurt too much, so I picture him in my mind, with his spiky hair and his tight jeans. As he exits through my window I hear him solemnly say, "I will come back to you."

So I answer him the only way I know how. "I will wait for you."

And I will.

* * * * * * * * * * * * And I have. I have waited for a whole year, almost despite myself. I, Maria Deluca, who had promised myself that I would never wait for anything, especially not for a man. After waiting, with a child's hope, for so many years for my dad to come back I had thought that I was through with waiting. I've seen what it's done to my mom and I refused to let it happen to me. But Michael changed all that. For him alone I would wait. First, for him to notice me, then to admit that he needed me and now for him to come back to me.

Nobody likes it. My mom thinks that it's just a phase, my disinterest in dating. Although mom has met Michael, and I even think she likes him, she doesn't realize that there is a connection between his disappearance and my apparent change in attitude. Liz, however, does. And she never lets me forget it. Liz, who has been officially dating Max for 6 months now, thinks that I'm being ridiculous. It frustrates me, the way that Liz doesn't make an attempt to understand my feelings, but then, I've never been very open with those feelings. It isn't really Liz's fault. It's just never occurred to her that Michael and I had that kind of a relationship. Liz thinks that it was just some good times, just makeout sessions and fighting. In a way it has been. We never had the kind of discuss-our-issues-till-they've-been-blown-completely-out-of-proportion-and- our-friends-are-sick-of-it kind of relationship like Liz and Max have. It's really been more of a verbal non-verbal. Ever since that trip to Marathon we have been able to speak without speaking. The insignificant things Spaceboy and I have never had trouble talking about, arguing about, but the important things, the way we feel about each other has always been said with our eyes, expressions, gestures, touches, kisses… those important things are too special to say out loud. We have kept them inside, close to our hearts, where they are safe. Where they can't crack into a million pieces or melt like ice cream on a hot New Mexico night.

Speaking of hot, Liz was right about one thing, passion has played a huge role in our relationship. It was impossible for it not too. His touches were like fire and when we came together… it was explosive. I meant it when I told Liz that Michael was the real thing. I couldn't imagine anyone else making me feel this way. He burns me, from the inside out. It's impossible to explain, and in a way I don't want Liz to feel jealous. Jealous, ha! Liz would laugh at that. But I know in my heart that Liz would be. I see her and Max and I know that they are in love, heck they have that whole soulmate thing going one, but they can't be capable of the level of passion that Michael and I felt in our short time together. They are both too clinical and exact to get wrapped up in another person, to be engulfed, to be enflamed.

Max and Isabel don't understand either. You'd think that as the only two other people on the earth that love him they'd be the first, but they don't get it. It's not that they don't think that he is worthy of my love, but I think it is the other way, that they don't think that Michael should let me in. He was never able to show them much affection, even after so many years, so they must think it was as difficult for him to open up to me. In a way it was. Again I can't blame them, cause they don't know the truth. I couldn't tell them.

Max and Isabel don't know. My mom doesn't know. Even Alex and Liz don't know. None of them know about that last night. About the goodbye that I received that was not even bestowed upon Max and Isabel. None of them know that Michael spent his last night in Roswell in my bed. I couldn't bring myself to tell them.

Just like they don't know that even if I wanted to forget I couldn't. He is a part of me. Max and Liz have the deep relationship, Isabel and Alex have the sweet one and Michael and I have the frivolous, meaningless one. They didn't see what was really there. They don't know that I am in this as deeply as they are. That Michael is in my heart, under my skin. That I am branded.

The day after Michael left I received a phone call. I was still lying in my bed, unable to disturb my memories of him. Afraid to move for fear that I would lose the memory of his arms around me, his lips on mine, the smell of him on my pillow. The call was from Isabel, she was frantic. He'd left her a note, she said. That he had gone for who knows how long. She asked me if I had seen him, if I knew where he'd gone. I was stunned. Not that he'd come to me, but that he'd thought I was special enough to receive a goodbye that his surrogate brother and sister didn't. I could hear the pain in Izzy's voice and I couldn't bring myself to hurt her more, so I told her that of course I didn't know. That Michael rarely told me anything. I tried not to let the bittersweet emotions that I was feeling into my voice. When she said goodbye I could hear the pity in her voice. Pity at the emotions that I felt for a man that she believed would never return them. A man that might never return at all.

I never did tell them. At first I didn't want to increase the pain in the eyes of Max and Isabel, but as time went on I found that I couldn't tell them. There are so few memories of Michael that are mine alone, and I couldn't let this most precious one go.

As I turn into the parking lot of the tiny bus station I shake myself out of my reveille. Ever since he left I find myself doing that more and more. I'll be driving or working or in class or even having a conversation and I'll find myself drifting away. Away from Roswell, away from the present. Back to a time when he was with me, or imagining the places he is now, or forward to when we will be together again.

I feel that time is close. I still feel good, that today is the day. The bus isn't here yet; I am on time, so it must be late. I get out of the car and move towards the curb. My steps are light, as if the weight that has been on my shoulders for the past year has lightened somehow. I feel the tingle in the air and it moves through me. I try to calm down. I don't want to be let down again, but this time everything just feels right.

I see the bus approaching from down the road and I stand, letting my hair blow in the wind. It has gotten longer and I momentarily wonder what he will think.

As the bus approaches I can see that there is someone standing in the front, beside the driver. The tinted windows don't let me see in and I turn away to try to calm myself. I wish I had some cypress oil. The bus stops and I watch as the lone passenger exits. His lanky frame is thinner, more gaunt. His hair is longer but still soft and spiky and I remember the feel of it between my fingers. His face is older, but gentle and the tears on his face match my own. Before I know it I am in his arms. My Michael. I kiss his face, hardly believing that he could be here. He looks at me and wipes my cheek as he sets me down.

"You waited for me." He says with a curious lilt in his voice.

I gulp. "Every week." He must find me pathetic. What if he doesn't want me anymore?

"So, I've heard." And he grins. An honest-to-god Michael grin. I have waited so long for that. But then I remember why he left. Has he returned only to abandon me again?

"Did you find home?" My voice is shaky as I wait for his response.

He shakes his head and I sigh in relief, and sadness. "Czechoslovakia is gone." He tells me and the light momentarily leaves his eyes. I still need to know if he is here for good.

"So, you came back?"

"I came home." Home? Whatever happened to 'something better than Roswell, New Mexico'? He can't mean it.

"I've never heard you call Roswell home before."

"Not home to Roswell, home to you." My heart lifts. I never thought that I could be happier than when he stepped off that bus, but evidently it is possible. I jump onto him, unable to keep away another minute. He kisses me, a hot, sweet kiss and I melt. He can still burn me. A year of waiting and I am no longer empty, I am full of his fire.

I realize that he must want to see Max and Izzy and I pull away and grab his hand, ready to drag him away.

"Where are we going?" There is a joy in his voice that I have missed so desperately.

"To the Crashdown, to see everyone else, of course." I am so excited to show him off, although I wish we had more time while he is just mine.

He stops and I am curious. "Tomorrow, we can see them all tomorrow. Today is all about us. Let's go for a walk in the desert. I need to feel the sun on my face."

He is right, we need to rediscover each other, without interference. It's going to be difficult, but I'm sure we'll have fun trying. He takes my hand and grabs his duffel bag. The pain that he caused me is long forgotten, I could forgive him anything. My wait is over.

*****************************************************

I will wait like nothing I have ever waited for
I will catch your tears from falling
Until from my hands they fall

You can leave me abandoned
Like the year if you are begging
Like the rest I have been branded
Far beneath the skin
So far beneath the skin

Chorus
You shall be... You shall be.... You shall be..... Forgiven....
You shall be... You shall be.... You shall be..... Forgiven....

Here I have been waiting
While the time has come and gone
I tried singing to you
But you turned my words to stone

Here I have been waiting
It seems for quite a while
Changed on my reflections
But inside I'm still just a child
But inside I'm still just a child

These eyes weren't made for crying
This love wasn't made to waste
These arms weren't made for battle
But to share your warm embrace
But to share in your embrace