There was a second candle at the far edge of the room.

There was a bed.

There was the white skin of Michael, who had lain on it, and the coral pink of his mouth on one pillow.

All in the house that his dream built, Maria thought, her nervous laugh breaking the surface of the silence like effervescence in a still pool.

She couldn't be sure there was a house. Outside the window there was dark, with no stars pinning the sky up, no world to run into. There was just the room, and there was him. Nothing, so far, that begged alteration.

A slow burn ran the length of her body, tied to his eyes down her, up and over, while a toe-to-crown blush colored her pink.

"This is your dream?" she asked, out loud.

He had pressed her against the table.

Her skirt, a thin band over his big hands, was shoved, wrinkling, over her hips, and the hiss of metal on denim as he undid his jeans.

So wrong, and so right, the slick, sweet fever that sped through her veins like quicksilver, the hot feeling of him all through her like she had been shot up. The accompanying sensation of risk, of getting caught, of not giving a damn.

It was the best he could do, catching himself with his own built-in safety net before he slid down that dark slide of ecstasy.

The dream-within-a-dream, the blipverts that spoke volumes overwhelmed her, and her mouth went dry, having seen into him for the first time. It was cool there, and tight, and swirling. And there she was, standing in front of him.

Her body was there, sight and touch and hearing, same as, a million miles away, she clutched his arms with cold hands and he touched her forehead, feeding the pictures that kept him alive into her head.

He was scared. She was breathing.

She folded one leg under her on the feather-soft down of the cover, on the edge where it turned back, revealing the snow-white divot underneath. He was propped on one elbow, and she put her hand out, cradling the smooth-prickly edge of his jaw so she could close her eyes and kiss his lips softly, like blowing out the candles on a birthday cake.

His own lashes fell, brushing her eyelid like his fingertips falling to the curve of her waist as she leaned over.

God. She groaned, muffled against the warm underside of his face, having forgotten in scattered few hours the incomprehensible rush she got from kissing him. How she bit her tongue when he mouthed the juncture of her neck, letting the heat soak over her while he brushed the curling tendrils of golden hair at the nape of her neck away.

She slid back on the pillow, and let his eyes hover above hers. He dipped his spiky head and trailed his breath down her cheeks, over her chin, the hollow of her throat where a wispy thread choker strung with tiny amethysts, heralds of Aquarius, trembled with her exhale. At the low neck of her shirt, where he paused, hands cradling her, he called her in a quiet voice.

"Maria."

She opened her eyes, half-afraid that some connection had been lost, that they'd ended up two feet apart on his unmade cot in his foster father's trailer, that he'd gone cold and miserable again, and maybe it was only her, dreaming and lonely on a starless night on a bed made for two. But there was his face again, and his eyes locked hers.

"What are you thinking right now?" His voice cracked.

She was confused.

"You don't know?" she wondered.

"No" he shook his head wryly, quickly. "Like I said before, this is my dream... you can see all of me, but I..."

"You see me" she finished simply. "I'm here, aren't I? And... Michael?"

"Yeah?"

"I think we're sharing this one."

Before that comment had left her lips he had kissed her again, deeper this time, invasively, and her body rose to meet his, the candle flashing suddenly, as if stoked by a brief, lingering breeze.

"You told me" she said, breathless, "That you'd tell me what it was that you loved."

He sighed, burying his head in her neck.

"You" he said, at last. "Damn it to hell, Maria... I can't keep lying to myself. I can't keep lying to you. Haven't you figured it out by now?"

"Why did you... that night, I brought the file to you. What part of you was that that couldn't even wake up enough to kiss me good-bye?"

"I'm so lost" he admitted. "I've got you here, and I don't know what else is out there. Sometimes I can't figure out what end's up, Maria, and there you are, just waiting to get as screwed up as I am. And all I can think is..."

"Is what?" she asked softly, almost scared of what he would answer.

"That if this is falling" he whispered, lowering his body to hers. "Then I don't want to hit the ground."