They don’t get it. They just don’t get it.

Max and Isabel have it easy. At the trailer, they had nothing to lose. But it was all I had. Damn it, why couldn’t I have just held back? I know I’m not as strong as Max, or as skilled as Isabel, but it had just been so easy to reach for the power and let it surge, to let my anger and pain make things happen. To let it control me and do what it wanted, and let Hank know that he wasn’t the one with the power. I was.

Ok, let’s face it. I wanted it to happen. I wanted to cut loose. For every time Hank has smacked me around, for every time he’s reminded me that I’m worthless. For every time he treated me like I was his slave, I wanted to cut loose and I wanted to show him just how much less of man he is than me. Someone who is more than a man without having been born on this planet then he will ever hope to be.

A man. What a joke. I’m not even really human, so how the hell can I be a man?

It started to rain. It almost never rains in Roswell, but when it does, it’s a downpour. I walked down the streets, getting soaked and wondering what the hell I was going to do now. I didn’t know if Hank would call the cops, maybe the Feds – wouldn’t Sheriff Valenti love to be proven right about me, about any of us?

I didn’t really have an idea of where I was going. My feet stepped; I followed. I shivered from the cold, and I was soaked to the bone. Even my hair was flat against my head – Maria likes to tease me about how I look like I stuck my finger in an electric socket.

Maria. It’s like that damned song with the nuns all singing about how they’re going to deal with that shorthaired chick that keeps spinning around on mountaintops. I had pushed her away at the soap factory, tried to make up for it later when I put on that stupid costume. And I don’t even know why I bothered. I mean, it’s always been about Max, Isabel, and me – right? I can’t let anything distract me from our goals, not pouty lips, not teasing smiles, not kisses so hot they’re the other thing in my life I indulge in that’s spicy and sweet at the same time.

So naturally, I ended up in front of Maria’s bedroom window. Yeah, I know. I’m an idiot.

I looked up, letting the rain hit my face. I could see her, blurry through the window. She’d showered, and was combing her hair back, a dreamy look on her face. For a minute, I forgot about Hank, forgot about the others, forgot about Nasedo. I just watched Maria. After a minute she snapped out of it and blinked, looking at me. She grabbed something small, like a vial, and raised it to her lips, and then looked over at me again as if she was checking to make sure I was real. After an instant, she raised it to her lips again longer, and then seemed to resign herself to the fact that I was there. As I took in her incredulous expression, it dawned on me then and there that even she didn’t want me around. But then, when had anyone wanted me around besides Max and Isabel? I’d never had parents, even Hank’s only use for me was to get a monthly check from the government. She said something, and I couldn’t tell what it was, except for the last bit. She shook her head over and over, her expression hurt and angry (could I blame her? I’d treated her like shit lately. What right did I have to come to her for comfort?). When she stopped, she looked at me again, as if she saw something that surprised her, and indicated she would open the door.

We snuck past her mom’s bedroom, and stepped inside her bedroom. I was soaked to the bone and shivering, except I hadn’t realized that I wasn’t just shivering from the chill until just then. Just being around Maria was making a small part of me feel safe, and I couldn’t stop tears that I knew were running down my face even after I realized the water streaking my cheeks wasn’t only because of the rain.

Maria left me for a couple of minutes, coming back in and closing the door behind her with her hip. She carried a bunch of towels in her arms, and set them down to the side. Taking the top one, she start to rub me dry, the way Max’s mom used to towel him off when he was little at the community pool. Gruff, but still caring. It was stupid, but as she was berating me about catching pneumonia, I couldn’t help getting choked up. She sounded so concerned, so adamant about how much she cared, that all the crap I’d been holding in just sort of came up, and I couldn’t stop shaking and sobbing.

"Come here. Shh. It’s ok." Maria put her arms around me, her hand gently tugging on my neck to bring my head down to her shoulder. I started to try and speak, to protest that nothing was wrong even though it was a lie, and she cut me off. "You don’t have to tell me, it’s ok," she murmured, pulling me toward her bed. Was this what it was like to have someone care?

I rolled over onto my side once I laid down – I still couldn’t really handle the idea of Maria seeing me crying like some little kid. But she only laid down next to me, leaning over and putting her arms around me. I felt like such a dork, crying there, but her arms around me felt so good, this incredible comfort that I didn’t deserve but was lucky to have.

She held me until we both fell asleep.

HER

One of my favorite things is to be inside when it’s raining really, really hard, and I can stare out the window and let myself get mesmerized by the sound of the rain drops hitting the glass. It’s a comforting sound, you know? I ran a comb through my hair kind of absently, and basically was zoning and trying not to think about Michael. Which wasn’t easy, because as my Mom used to tell me, if you tell someone to think of anything but pandas, pandas are all they think about. And that’s kind of how it was when I was sitting there, thinking about not thinking about Michael, and failing miserably.

Of course, when I /saw/ Michael standing outside my window, I thought, ‘Ok, Maria. You have officially lost it. You are so obsessed with that alien sonuvabitch, you’re so desperate that your knees go weak at the mere thought of him kissing you, that now you’re hallucinating.’ So I took a tiny sip of Grief Relief from the little bottle I’d tried to foist off on Liz. It’s this nasty tasting herbal syrup I’d gotten it from my mom’s store, and it was supposed to knock you back into reality if you’d gone into some kind of weird shock. The label said it was totally herbal, and had been used on wild animals to calm them down. Maybe the taste just made the poor things drop, stop, and want to do nothing but gag. It definitely tasted nasty enough to snap you out of hysteria. Anyway, thank God she hadn’t taken it, because when I looked back and he was still there. I think I chugged at least half the vial right then and there. And when I looked again, he was still standing there, and I knew it was actually Michael, and not some fantasy my brain had cooked up.

He walked forward, his hair flattened by the rain, and it was only then that I could see his features. He looked…lost. Like one of those little kid in velvet portrait paintings, with eyes so dark and large they could swallow you up. His spiky hair had flattened down on his head, and he was drenched. He stood there, with his hands in his pockets and looked at me. Is it possible for your heart to leap into your throat and fall to your feet at the same time?

I took a breath. "What are you doing out here?" I called, not sure if he heard me. He didn’t say anything. Lost. Lonely. "No, you can’t come in." I could feel my jaw setting as I tried not to get caught up in those eyes. "No!" I said insistently, trying not to look at him. "I know why you’re here, all right? I know what your plan is, I know what you want, but it’s not going to work this time, mister, no matter what you say!" I had to remain firm, and steeled myself against Michael Guerrin with all the resentment and anger I could muster for the way he’d treated me ever since the rave at the soap factory. I looked him right in the eye. "My answer is no. No, no, no, no, no."

So naturally, I let him in. Yeah, I know. I’m an idiot.

When he came in, I snuck him past my mom’s room and into mine. He didn’t say a word, but proceeded to drip all over the carpet. I knew Mom was going to kill me, and this thought distracted me from the expression on Michael’s face while I crept back to the bathroom and snagged some towels, then tiptoed my way back into my room. I tossed one and he caught it, lifting it up to dubiously rub his hair. With an annoyed sigh, I took the towel from him and started rubbing his head like he was a little kid who’d just taken a bath. And that’s when I noticed he was shivering. What was wrong with me? Just because it’s New Mexico doesn’t mean it doesn’t get cold at night! Worriedly I left the first towel I gave him so he could keep drying off his hair, and stepped to the side to get another towel. "God, you could get pneumonia." I commented, eyeing how his tee shirt was soaking wet. "Here, take your shirt off." I helped him get it off, absently noticing how he hadn't said a word – and how nice his chest was. Down, girl. "Hold on…" I reached around, and then draped the second towel over his shoulders, trying to rub him down without thinking about how it might look, or how it might feel. "You’re shivering…" I said, finally finding the courage to look into his eyes.

Michael was crying.

It could have been the rain, but I knew it wasn’t. Michael Guerrin, Michael the alien, Michael the prick who’d made me feel so good when he’d kissed me and like crap when he’d shut me out, was crying and shaking like his heart had broken. Had it? He brought those haunted eyes up to mine, and I forgot all about what he’d done. His eyes said he needed me. Needed /me/, and not just for some shallow groping and kissing in the eraser room, or because he wanted my car, or because of his search for who and what he really was.

Michael was crying silently, tears sliding down his cheeks. I couldn’t resist; I reached up and gently brushed one of them away. I hugged him gently, and slowly guided him to the bed. "Come here," I said, letting him lay down. He turned away from me, on his side. I think it was because he didn’t want me to see him like that. And then I realized I didn’t care. I lay down next to him, on my side, spooning and gently stroking his hair. I could hear his strangled sobs, like he couldn’t find words, or like maybe he’d rather choke on his pain then admit to it.