Max and Isabel arrived a short while later. The four had gathered in Michael's small living room. It seemed as if the room itself had an unconscious force that demanded all supernatural things be dealt with there.

"I think we should stop sitting around and find Liz," Isabel said, getting right down to business. It was late.

"Izzy, how do you propose we do that?" Max countered, exasperated. They had probably had this conversation before.

"By 'Trusting instinct over courage,'" Isabel quoted from the poem as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"What time is it?" Michael asked, yawning slightly. He stood up and crossed to a kitchen drawer.

"You need to get a clock. 8:45. Why?" The drawer slipped open with a slight creak revealing a tattered yellow phone book.

"Then it's not too late to call Dr. Wilkins."

"Michael, don't you think he might find our insistence strange?" Max questioned.

Maria had remained quiet long enough. "Call him," she urged. "Liz's life is on the line here. Who cares what he thinks, do it."

He picked up the phone and dialed the only listed number for a Jeffery Wilkins. After a few quiet moments, he hung up. "I got the answering machine."

The defeated silence that filled the room was deafening.

Suddenly, Maria jumped into motion, grabbing the remote off the coffee table and frantically flipping through the channels. "Maria? Honey, what are you doing?" Isabel and Max turned to stare wide-eyed at Michael at his use of endearments. When did that happen? Maria didn't answer, instead stopping at a news station.

"Maria?" Michael asked again, touching her arm.

"Shh!" she hissed, waving a hand in the air.

"A tragedy has occurred in Roswell today. The bodies of Dr. Jeffery Wilkins and his fiancée, Stephanie Granfors, a teacher at the local high school, were found ravaged by what seem to be wolves in the desert along highway 285…"

Maria shut it off and collapsed weakly onto the couch.

"Can this *get* any worse?" Isabel grumbled.

"This is just *great*!" Michael yelled, picking up a random pillow and tossing it violently to the ground. "How are we going to find out the end of the poem? How do we destroy this son of an alien bitch!"

"We'll worry about that when the time comes," Max stated sadly. "The way I see it, we have a choice. We can either try to sneak into Wilkins' house to look for the poem and risk capture by both this evil alien and Valenti OR we can just go after this guy, hopefully catching him by surprise."

"You guys need to have that edge. You need to go now." The look on Maria's face was more serious than any of them had ever seen.

"Okay, so when do we leave?" Isabel asked, looking at her brothers.

"Now." Michael stood and grabbed his jacket that was conveniently thrown on the floor.

"Where are we going to look?"

"I'm sure we'll know it when we find it."

"I'll know it," Maria said bitterly.

"Too bad you're not coming." Maria snapped her head up to face Michael.

"What? Why?"

"I'm not going to put you in danger. You are too important in all of this," he simply said. Max and Isabel exchanged a look and busied themselves by the door, trying not to look as though they were eavesdropping.

"Is that all? Sorry but that's not a good enough reason for me." She stomped her foot and crossed her arms stubbornly.

"Maria. You can't go. It's not safe!"

"But Isabel's your SISTER and she's going!"

"That's different!"

"How?!"

"I don't love her like I love you!"

Maria had been prepared to scream back but once she registered what he had admitted she looked as though she might faint.

"So you're not going," he said his voice soft in comparison to his earlier yelling. Swiftly he leaned in, pressing his lips gently against hers, startling her even more.

Then he left.

"Boy am I loved or what?" Isabel complained as Max drug her out behind him.

***

The jeep was silent as if wove randomly through the streets of Roswell. No one knew what they were looking for.

Along the way, Michael thought about Maria and calmed down immediately. Since the time he was a young boy, he'd been having a recurring daydream. He's standing alone on a cold, barren planet. It's scary, but more than anything, it's lonely and unsettling. Then a woman comes up to him. They begin to hold hands, to embrace, and then everything is all right. That woman was Maria, and he had no idea how she had gotten out of his dreams and into the real world.

'At least she's safe,' he thought.

***

Maria had found little to occupy herself with in Michael's apartment. But it was imperative because she refused to think about his admission.

First she cleaned out his fridge. It was amazing how much mold an old piece of pizza could accumulate. Then she moved on to straightening his CD collection, which resembled a Metallica shrine. What was it with boys and heavy metal anyway?

She had just found an unused bottle of Windex that, ironically enough was covered in dust, when she heard a singsong voice out in the hall.

"Maria!"

Hands trembling, she peaked out the peephole and saw two "jelly monsters" slithering from door to door. Their bodies seemed to vibrate from one form to another.

"Oh, God!" she cried quietly, leaning her back against the hardwood door and squeezing her eyes shut. Practicing her meditation breathing skills, Maria forced herself to calm down. The last thing she needed was to hyperventilate right now. A scratching noise erupted from the hall. Her eyes snapped open.

She expected the walls to bulge and flow in that amorphous fashion of nightmare places, but they remained solid, fixed, and the colors were too sharp and clear for this to be a dreamscape.

Since when did evil alien- slash - monster things roam Roswell, calling her name?

Maria felt like throwing up.

This couldn't be real. This was, instead, an encounter with the unknown, a breach of reality, a sudden slide-slip out of the normal world and into the uncanny.

'What am I thinking? Since when has anything in Roswell been normal?' She was in love with an alien for gosh sakes!

Wait… did she just think what she thought she thought? (Sorry had to do it) She was in love with Michael.

A screech tore her away from her thoughts and reluctantly Maria peered again through the door. She instantly regretted doing so.

What she assumed had once been a neighbor of Michael's was now splattered messily all over the walls.

She fell to her knees violently trying not to throw up. Maria could feel the bile rise in her throat but she pushed it back down.