“Well you have more patience than me Lizzy-girl. I’m about waited out.” She spoke to the ceiling. *What I need is a nice, hot, long shower and afterwards, masses of chocolate.*

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

As she stood in the shower, her head held back under the hot spray, she couldn’t help thinking.

*What if I’m wrong? What if he doesn’t really have feelings for me? What if I took this whole dream walking thing wrong? He hasn’t been back since that night. And then there is everything he said before: “Not if you were he last woman on earth!” “That was to calm you down.” “I can’t get this involved.” “If anything like that happens to me again…don’t help me.” “Mud. I was thinking about Mud.” …but we have been almost friends lately. He’s probably thinking stupid human girl, look how I’ve got her wrapped around my little finger…*

By the time she turned off the faucet she had worked herself into quite a rage.

She mumbled as she entered her room, wrapped in a towel, “Damn Michael Guerin. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him!”

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

“Well I’m glad to hear you still think so highly of me.” Maria squeaked as she realized the object of her ire was lounging on her bed, quite at home.

“What. Are. You. Doing. Here?” She ground out. He just looked at her and shrugged his shoulders.

He couldn’t say anything. She stood in front of him in a towel, her skin flushed from her anger and the hot shower. He had dreamed of her this way countless times. His dreams hadn’t done her justice. She was so much better in reality. But reality wasn’t safe, dreams were.

“What are you staring at?” Maria questioned angrily, before realizing she stood in front of him clad only in a towel. He simply stared at her. *Serves him right. He can suffer.* She thought.

Michael couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was beautiful. But then she had to go and open her perky little mouth and ruin it. She was grumbling again, cursing him and his alien parentage. Her anger only served to raise his.

“What is your problem?!” He snapped.

“What is my problem?!!” She shouted. She could hardly believe him. “You kiss me, then tell me, and I quote ‘that was to calm you down’. Then you proceed to use me as you own private… Oh, I don’t know…disposable girl-toy, after which you throw me away because you, and let me quote again ‘can’t get involved’. And NOW your asking me what my problem is?!!!”

“Are you back to that again?” His own anger had risen, whether because he was angry at her or himself for dumping her so cruelly, he wasn’t sure. He just knew he was angry. “I’ve told you. I am not normal. I have to be able to leave at a moments notice. I don’t belong here. I AM NOT HUMAN!” He shouted.

She stood there silently looking at him. It felt like she was staring into his soul when she looked at him like that. He wondered what had happened to their understanding of the past few weeks? What had happened to being friends? He had really begun to enjoy their friendship, just hanging out, arguing with her.

“You’re not human?” She asked it quietly, more to herself than to him. She looked up at him again. “You are just as much a human as me or Liz or Alex. Maybe not your genetics, but your feelings, your life, everything else is human. You may have some special alien power, but your still human.”

He knew he didn’t want to know the answer but he asked anyway, “How do you figure?”

“It’s like…it’s like…” She fumbled to find the correct analogy. “…Tarzan!” She was excited now, warming to her train of thought, her whole body getting into her explanation. “Yeah like Tarzan. He was left in the jungle, his family apes, they raised him, he grew up to be one of them. Everything he knew, everything he was, was an ape. His genetics may have been human, but he was still an ape.” She said this last part softly, willing him to understand.

He did, but he didn’t want to admit that to himself and especially not to her. Instead he said sarcastically, “Gee Maria, I think you need to review that movie. Because seems the way I remember it is that his own people, in this case human, found him, they taught him who he was supposed to be. And he left the jungle and went home.”

Maria, still quite, never taking her eyes from him, “Gee Michael, I think you need to review the movie. He was ostracized when he found his ‘home’, he didn’t fit in, didn’t understand why the ‘humans’ lived like they did. So he went back to the jungle, his home, where he was loved and understood by those he had grown up with.”

Silence permeated the room.

“What happens Michael,” she asked, “if you find what you are looking for, your ‘home’, and you are ostracized and don’t fit in. What if your race are killers or their way of life is completely opposite of your beliefs?”

Michael looked up at her angry again, “You can stop now Maria. I get your point. Humans are the ‘apes’ in the story, I’m ‘Tarzan’ the jungle man, and aliens are the ‘humans’. It’s brilliant, everything is clear now, wonder why I didn’t see it before.” He rolled his eyes at her. “The difference is, Maria, I don’t have a loving home, a wonderful childhood, people who want me here.”

“Yes you do Michael. Max, Iz, Liz, and Alex…me, we all love you, we want you here. I understand you, even if no one else does.” She turned from him then. “I sang a song for you at the concert that night. I wish you would have been there to hear me sing.”

*I heard you* Michael’s mind whispered. He wanted to tell her that he had, that he knew she understood. But how could he rid himself of all the fantasies he had held for so many long years? How could he just let those dreams die? It wasn’t that easy to just throw everything he had ever wanted away. He knew she was right, had been questioning his desire for ‘home’ for weeks, but he couldn’t even admit it to himself, how could he admit it to her? How could he let go of the only thing that had kept him going in all his life?

*But, if you leave, how do you let Maria go?* his mind wanted to know.

So he said nothing. Finally he stood and left the way he had come, through the window.

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

Maria let out the breath she had been holding. For a moment she had thought he had understood the message she was trying to convey. But he had left instead, without a word. And as he climbed back out the window, her hope had disappeared with him.