He turned to Gavin, questions in his eyes. Gavin sighed and gestured for him to follow him down a long corridor.

The two men came to a large metal door and Gavin stopped and turned to Michael. "Michael, you need to brace yourself for this. It's going to be very hard for you to see, and I just wanted to warn you before we went in there." Michael felt an icy fear settling in his stomach. "What's in there?" he asked in a voice barely above a whisper. But Gavin just shook his head and took Michael's hand, leading him to step right through the closed metal door.

When they were on the other side of the door Gavin led Michael over to a large metal table in the middle of the room. There were several lights set up around it, along with various rolling metal tables covered with medical equipment.

Michael turned to Gavin, who merely gestured for Michael to approach the table by himself.

As Michael got closer to the table he could see that there was someone or something lying on it. It was not until he was directly next to the table, though, that he recognized the person strapped down on the table.

"Max! Oh my God..."

The boy that Michael had once known as Max Evans was strapped down to the examining table. He was completely naked and his still, pale body had been marked into different sections, much like the animals in butcher shops were before the butcher made his cuts of meat.

"God, no," Michael whispered, reaching out to touch Max's bare shoulder. "Max." Max's skin was cold to the touch and Michael backed away from the table, a strong feeling of nausea almost overwhelming him.

"What happened?" he asked Gavin plaintively. "How did Max end up here?" A thought struck him and he looked wildly around the room. "Did they get Isabelle, too? Is she here?"

Gavin nodded somberly and pointed across the room to where a large section of glass took up a good portion of the wall. Michael rushed across the room, stopping short when he saw the occupant of the cell. Isabelle was sitting in the small room on a cot. She was huddled in the corner, her legs pulled up as close to her body as she could get them, looking almost like she was trying to make herself invisible by taking up as little room as possible.

"Oh God, Izzy," Michael breathed. She looked up then, almost as if she had heard him, and the dead hopelessness in her eyes made Michael feel like he'd been punched in the stomach.

He forced himself to turn away and instead faced Gavin instead. "What happened?" he asked again. "How did they end up here? Max wasn't there to save Liz, why would people even suspect them?"

Gavin nodded. "Yes, that's true, but you weren't here either. Once more, Michael, you've overlooked your own importance in the situation. They didn't know that Topolsky was more than just a guidance counselor when she came to school. They didn't know she was working with the FBI and Valenti at the same time. And without you there, Max and Isabelle never knew how much Valenti knew about your kind. No one was there to break into his office and steal the key for the dome. Without you they never knew about Atherton or the dome, and they never even thought there might be more of your kind here on earth. They never found the papers hidden in Atherton's home or the pendant and they never went to the reservation to talk to River Dog. They were left without too many answers without you there, Michael, and they never knew how close Valenti and the others were to catching them until it was too late."

"But it's not too late now!" Michael cried desperately. "We're here now, we can get them out of here before these creeps kill them."

Gavin shook his head. "You're not really here, Michael. Remember, you never landed here with Max and Izzy, you don't have any power to do anything to affect them right now." He gestured to Max. "Besides, it's already too late for Max. And Isabelle only has about another week before the same thing happens to her."

Michael flew at Gavin. "No! Goddamit, I don't believe you. Now use whatever kind of power it is that you have and get them out of here!"

Gavin shook his head. "This isn't up to me, Michael. Besides, we still have one more stop to make. Come on." He took Michael's arm again and suddenly the lab and everything else was gone, and Michael found they were on the street in front of an extremely run down looking apartment building.

"Where are we now?" he asked Gavin. "We need to get back there and save Max and Izzy right now!"

Gavin rolled his eyes. "Do you not listen at all, Michael Guerin? I told you this isn't up to me. I'm just here to guide you on this journey and show you what happens without you. So come along now, follow me." He turned and began to walk into the apartment building.

Michael stood a moment, wondering for the thousandth time that night if he hadn't finally just gone crazy, before he finally decided to follow Gavin once more.

Michael followed Gavin up a flight of rickety stairs to an apartment door on the second floor. Turning to make sure Michael was beside him, Gavin then turned and rapped loudly on the door. "What the hell are you doing?" Michael demanded. "Who lives here?"

Gavin gestured for him to be quiet as the door swung open to reveal the small frame of a young woman. "Can we come in, miss?" Gavin asked kindly.

The young woman shrugged mutely and stepped aside to let them enter. When they were inside the apartment, the woman closed the door and then turned to face them.

"Maria!" Michael gasped when he saw the familiar face in front of him. It was Maria, his Maria, but she looked very different from the way she had looked the last time he had seen her.

She was smaller than he remembered, thinner, and her eyes looked tired and almost... scared? She reached up a hand to push her short hair back from her face and Michael saw that there were several ugly bruises and welts on her wrist and upper arm and a bruise around her left eye that was just beginning to fade He could also faintly make out track marks around the inside of her elbow and the knowledge that Maria had been doing drugs nearly knocked him over. She looked world weary and he sadly realized then that life had not been kind to his Maria.

"Do I know you?" she asked warily, stepping back from them. "Who are you guys? Did Brad send you?" she asked, her eyes darting between the two of them nervously. "I don't want anything to do with that, he knows that, and you can tell him that again for me."

"But Maria, it's me, Michael, don't you remember me? All that time we all spent together? We hung out at The Crashdown a lot?"

Maria's eyes hardened. "The Crashdown closed years ago, after Lizzie died. And I have never seen you before in my life. Now I think you need to get the hell outta here before I make you leave."

"But Maria-" Michael reached out for her desperately, grabbing her arm. She cried out in surprise as he pulled her to him. "You've got to help me out, please! Everything's all wrong. Liz is dead, Alex is alone, and Max and Isabelle are trapped in a lab for experiments!"

She tried vainly to push away from him. "Get away from me!" she cried. "Let go of my arm! I don't know you and I have no idea what the hell you're talking about! Let me go!" she cried, trying now to hit his face so he'd release her.

Instead Michael grabbed both of her wrists in his hands. "Maria, please baby, you've got to remember me! We were so good together until I screwed everything up!"

In a final desperate attempt to make her remember him, Michael pulled her closer to him, claiming her lips in a passionate kiss reminiscent of their night at The Crashdown. Maria had just stopped trying to fight him and succumbed to the pressure of Michael's lips on her own when they were stopped by a booming voice. "What the fuck is going on here?" a man's voice screamed from the other end of the room.

Maria jumped away from Michael and turned to the man. "Please, Duke, it's not what you think it is," she whimpered. "He thought he knew me, but-"

"Shut up, bitch," he growled. He crossed the room to her and slapped her across the face with the back of his hand, knocking her to her knees.

"Hey!" Michael launched himself at the man, knocking him to the ground. They wrestled across the floor until the much larger man had Michael pinned to the floor. Then he reached into the back waistband of his dirty jeans and pulled out a gun. "Stupid move, boy," he said, waving the gun in Michael's face. "Now you're gonna d-" He was cut off by his own groan of pain as Gavin came up behind him and struck him over the head with a large boot he had found lying on the floor.

"Not on my watch," Gavin grumbled, pushing Duke aside and helping Michael to his feet. "Come on, Mr. Guerin, I think we've seen enough here."

"But Maria," Michael said, trying to make his way to the girl who was still on her knees on the floor, crying quietly. "I can't just leave her here with this monster."

Gavin groaned. "How many times must I say it to get this concept through your extraordinarily thick head, Michael? You have no say in any of these people's lives anymore. That's the trade-off you made for never landing here in the first place. This is how their lives turn out without you there to influence their lives."

By now Gavin had managed to pull Michael out of the apartment and down the stairs of the building. "But what happened to Maria?" Michael asked. "I mean, why is she living like that with that man?"

"After Liz was killed in the shooting at The Crashdown, Maria became extremely withdrawn. She felt she had no one to turn to and nowhere to go, and she fell into a depression. Eventually, after she had finished high school, she got involved with a man who ran drugs. She stayed with him for awhile, but it didn't last very long and was by no means a happy relationship. Since then she's moved from abusive relationship to abusive relationship, trying to numb the pain by using as many drugs as possible. You see, Michael," Gavin said, turning to face him squarely. "Without you in her life, Maria never knew what real love was. Though you refuse to see it, the two of you belong together. As it stands now, Maria goes from man to man, taking the abuse and the forced sex-"

Michael winced at this, his hands tightening into angry fists at his sides. "-as long as she can get the drugs, too, so she doesn't have to deal with any of the pain. Her body can't hold out against any of it much longer. And with her life as it is right now, she's lucky she only has another few weeks to live."

"A few weeks? Maria!? No, that can't happen! I won't let it!" Michael cried, turning to the apartment again. A bullet whizzing by his ear stopped him dead in his tracks.

"Oh dear," Gavin muttered. "Looks like Sleeping Beauty has awakened a little sooner than I thought he would. We need to get out of here right now."

He grabbed Michael's hand and began to run, pulling Michael along with him. They heard Duke yelling at them as he began to thunder down the stairs to chase after them.

"Is it finally starting to sink in, there, Michael?" Gavin asked as the two men raced down the sidewalk. "You see how much you actually do have to do with people's lives? Especially the lives of those that you love?"

Michael nodded. "I think I'm beginning to," he panted as they turned a corner in an effort to lose their pursuer. "I can't let any of this happen to them."

"Good," Gavin said. "Quickly, in here," he said, giving Michael a mighty shove into an alley.