The old Maria Deluca would have been furious about the entrapment we have found ourselves in. The moment we stepped aboard that grape jelly contraption, as Liz likes to call it, our lives became a living hell. Sure, at first it was all fun, when everyone though we were heroes. But then Michael’s mother came into the picture, and she hated us. Then came all the lies, and all the pain of separation and the knowledge that Michael had to leave Kally and me alone, and *he didn’t even want to*. . .

The thing is, Maria Deluca ceased to be, and Maria Guerin came into being rather spontaneously. And Maria Guerin is quiet. Maria Guerin doesn’t want to lose her husband again.

I’ve heard that Kyle is going to try and convince them to send us home. I hope it works, I sincerely do, but I can’t be Maria Deluca, and I can’t go fight with him. I can’t stand with him and fight for the people I love. Because if the walls fall around our castle, I have to be here to pick up the pieces.

Kally is crying right now. I don’t need to get up, though; Michael will be by her side in a heart beat. He will cradle her, and comfort her, and after she falls asleep he will come to me. He will kiss me and he will love me and he will hold me like he never means to let go. I can’t lose that. I can’t lose him.

See, Maria Guerin sounds so selfish, doesn’t she? I hate being like this. I hate it; not being able to fight back, for fear of what I might lose. Maria Deluca, she was afraid too, but she didn’t let it show. She pounded right into the middle of the fight and swung her fists like she had some idea of what she was doing. But Maria Guerin can’t do that, because she has lost so much already, and if she loses her Michael and her Kally, she might as well die. They are her life, and if the aliens take them away again, she will have no life. I hate it. But sometimes that’s the way it has to be.

Michael understands. He can see my soul, he knows what I have been through these past couple years. And he hates that he wasn’t here when I lost my second baby.

I was going to name him Steven.

The thing is, the thing we both know and are afraid to admit, is that if we had been at home, I wouldn’t have lost my Steven. Our Steven. Because my step-mother wouldn’t have been able to get by him to slip me the poison. She killed my baby. She almost killed me, and what she doesn’t realize is, she would have killed Michael by doing so. We are joined, far more strongly than fate or destiny should allow, and we are joined in a way only the other six can understand. If he dies, I die. If I die, he dies.

Michael understands, and when he comes to sit beside me tonight, he’ll wrap his arms around me, and we will make love. We will try to forget that Kyle is facing them for us all, that he could use our help. We will try, and we will not succeed.

But that is all we can do; forget. Because if we remember, we will realize once again that we have become cowards, shells of our former selves. We must go home to heal, and yet we can not move our feet in the right direction. We have lost so much, and we cannot lose each other. Not again. Never again.