The three words shattered the peace of the CrashDown after-closing.

And she wasn't sure she'd heard right. "What?" she asked, dropping her pencil...forgetting, for a moment, the unfinished Trig homework in front of her.

"You're. A. Bitch," Maria repeated, emphasizing each word slowly.

Oh.

Was that all? Oooh. Big revelation. Not. She shrugged. "So?" she wondered, getting her composure back as well as her chewed up sparkly pencil with the faded "ABEL" that would be "BEL" with the next sharpening.

"I don't really like you," the other girl informed, candidly, shaking the head full of long golden tresses that she wouldn't HAVE if it weren't for the person she was claiming not to like. "If it weren't for this whole alien thing, we wouldn't be hanging out."

And you wouldn't have blond extensions, Isabel added, cattily and silently. "Like I would be caught dead with *you* otherwise?" she snorted, leaning back against the puffed out seat of their usual booth. "Where exactly is this major insight coming from, Maria?"

"From the silence, I guess." Maria shrugged, reapplying disgusting, thick, goopy, berry gloss with finesse before glancing back down at her own scattered Trig notes. "We're sitting here...totally quiet...like we belong. We hang out. Do stuff together. Like we like each other. And we don't. Not really."

She glanced over to where Liz was still wiping down the counter--the sixth time in a row. Anal much? She rolled her eyes. If only the girl'd had the decency to stay dead. If only her brother wasn't a complete dork about said girl. "Look, I would just as soon never see you, Liz, and your little band of merry humans ever again. And I would love to be prom queen and then get to go back to my home planet and be a REAL queen. But we don't all get what we want. You know what I am...what Max, Michael, and Tess are. And I can't change that. That means I'm stuck with all you Mary Sunshines and your horrible fashion sense until the Skins kill us all or we get to leave."

"I like that second option better," Alex offered, from a stool at the counter.

Ah, her former lapdog's requisite one line for the evening. She filed it away, knowing she would forget about him again in five minutes, and turned her attention back to Maria.

Who was now concentrating on mascara.

"Have you ever thought about the fact that silence is better than yapping away about stupid things? Things we don't have in common?" she demanded, tapping her pencil's knobby eraser rhythmically against her notebook. "We all have to stick together because of what we know. Fine. That doesn't mean we have to make nice all the time and pretend we're something we're not. Liz and Alex are your friends. Michael is my friend. Tess and Kyle have each other. And Max is my brother. We're not all going to holds hands and skip in a circle."

Maybelline's best customer stilled her spiky black brush and chuckled. "Michael would trip. He has NO coordination."

"Very true," Isabel agreed, smiling faintly.

Liz would trip, too, she figured. For such a small girl, she had abnormally large feet. And the counter was on it's ninth scrubbing. She masked a shudder of revulsion behind more rapid pencil tapping--a few more variations and she would have the backbeat to "Hungry Eyes" figured out.

Silence reigned for a few minutes. Thank GOD. And she turned back to the geometric equations at hand. *Ugh*.

But then the grace period was over. And Maria cleared her throat with a loud 'ahem'. "Why don't you care that I called you a bitch?"

Isabel tried her very best not to growl. Growling wasn't attractive, after all. Neither was deep frying your best friend's girlfriend for being annoying. "Because I AM a bitch," she sighed, unconcerned. "We all know this. It's who I am. Isabel the elitist ice bitch. It's nothing new. And you're not exactly the nicest person in the world yourself," she reminded.

The other girl's green eyes seemed to go even greener. "Yeah, but you're better at it," she murmured, with a grimace, throwing her capped mascara into her purse and reaching for the blusher.

"Well, you're better at getting what you want...and at clearing out the Target make-up counter. We all have our strengths."

"Oooh. *Good* one." Admiration quickly replaced jealousy. Just like 'Mauve Madness' replaced the natural peaches 'n' cream of Maria's cheeks.

"I thought so, too. Now can I get back to studying?"

"Go right ahead."

A glance sideways showed that the manic cleaning had stopped...and now two dark heads were bent over Chem folders. Silent. But good silent. She sighed, erasing an incorrect angle and plotting again. One more sharpen. Another letter erased. Another day of life as she knew it just running it's course.

"Isabel?"

"*What*?" she ground out, jerking her head back up.

This time, Maria's perfectly made-up face was almost...content. "Our obvious differences aside..." she laughed, a little nervously, "I'm glad we have this alien thing."

The temptation to insult her was overwhelming. But she couldn't. Even as she looked around at this whole insipid group of human Mary Sunshines--minus Kyle. She couldn't imagine life without them. It took all kinds...it took a village...whatever. It took everybody to make each day what it was.

Life.

She grinned. She couldn't help it. "Yeah, it's not so bad."

Maria grinned back, patting one of her flowing locks. "Saves money on hairstyling, that's for sure."

She arched her eyebrows imperiously. "Well, it's nice that you're willing to take charity from those more fortunate."

"You're a bitch."

The three words didn't shatter the peace of the CrashDown after-closing this time. This time, they were a compliment.

"Thanks," she murmured, dryly.

And two blond heads bent over Trig homework.

Silent. But good silent.