If only it could be that simple in reality. And why not?

*****

Michael was standing in a hallway at school and fighting an inner battle with himself. He knew that he had to step out now or never. He spotted Isabel at her locker talking and laughing with a couple of her girlfriends. He waited for them to leave and then approached her. "Hi."

"Hi, Michael," she said, looking at him friendly. This encouraged him to continue

"Listen, I was wondering if we could maybe, you know, talk somewhere."

She looked a little surprised but quickly gathered herself. "Sure. I mean, Max will be finished with his class in an hour and then we could go -- "

He interrupted her. "No, that's okay. We can come back for Max later. Now it could just be you and me."

She gave him a little smile. "Oh, OK, sure, let's go"

And so they went out of school and away from everyone. They headed for the woods and stopped in a clearing nearby. For a couple of minutes they were just looking at each other, not saying anything. They were both comfortable with the silence, though.

Finally Michael said, "Isabel, look, I want to apologize. I mean, I wasn't fair to either of you. I didn't even give you a chance. I want to give us a chance." His voice kind of broke and Isabel picked up her clue.

"No, Michael, we were expecting too much of you in such a short time. We just thought that you would, you know, jump into our arms and be glad to see us."

"I was. I am glad," he admitted.

"You are?" she asked incredulously.

"More than you can imagine."

"Me, too," she added. "The truth is, we don't know each other. We don't even know ourselves. It takes time."

"Yeah, I know," he said, thinking and then added, "But we have time, right?"

"We do?"

"Sure. I mean, we're almost ten, but we've got our whole lives ahead of us."

They looked at each other again and they were both thinking the same thing.

"Where do you think is home?" asked Isabel.

"I wish I knew," he answered. "I want to know the truth, don't you? I want to know what happened. Why we're here."

She wanted that, too, but she was afraid to find out. Instead of answering directly, she said, "Sometimes I wish we were like everyone else, so we wouldn't have to pretend any more."

He looked at her and it dawned on him that they had a lot in common. More than he could have possibly expected, actually. She was as scared as him and as insecure as him. It was probably the same with Max. The only difference was that Max and Isabel had each other.

"You know, Michael, it's a lot easier if you talk to someone, if you let someone in." It was as if she had been reading his thoughts. He was thinking the same thing at that moment. He wanted to let them in. "I know, it's just that I've never had anyone to talk to before. It's hard for me. But I'm willing to try. I want to trust you. And I want to trust Max." "That's great. We want to trust you, too." She looked away and then back at him. She decided to say something she might regret later. But it was all or nothing now. "Michael, I have something to tell you," she started and he looked at her questioningly. "I have this power. I've just discovered it recently and...Well, I don't know how to put this..."

Maybe she still had time to change her mind. Maybe it was better for him not to find out, she thought.

When Michael saw her hesitating he tried to assure her. "It's OK. You can say anything."

She finally decided to continue. "The thing is that I can get into people's dreams."

He looked at her surprised. That was not what he had expected. He didn't even know what he had expected, but not this. He waited for her to continue.

"You know, I can get into their dreams and I know what they're dreaming about. I can't interfere with their dreams, though, and I'm not a part of it either, unless they're dreaming about me. And..."

"And what?" He was afraid to hear the answer but he had to know.

She took a deep breath and said, "Yesterday I kind of...hmm...went into your dream," she finished.

"You didn't!"

"I wanted to know what was stopping you from trusting us," she said with a broken voice.

"And now you know," he said, like it was a simple statement that meant nothing. But it meant everything to him. He turned away from her for a few moments.

"I wanted you to trust us and I didn't know what else to do. I'm really sorry. I know you must be mad at me and by telling you this, I probably blew all the chances for us to be friends. And I probably even blew Max's chances, too. I'm really sorry, Michael. Please, don't hate us for this. At least try to trust Max!" Her teary eyes were pleading with him for understanding and she was expecting him to go ballistic at any second. But he didn't. He slowly turned around and looked at her.

"You're the first person that understood and stood by me," he finally spoke. She looked up and their eyes met. Both showed emotions beyond control. "I'm so relieved," he said.

"You are?" she asked incredulously.

"Yes. I'm not saying that this was the best way for you to find out and it's certainly not a good thing for you to just go walking around in my dreams, but..."

"But what?" she asked hopefully.

"Isabel, why do you think I dreamt about it? I wanted it to be true. I wanted you to know."

She sighed a sigh of relief. He continued, "Why did you tell me this?"

"Cause I didn't want to keep such a secret from you. Trusting somebody means not keeping secrets and I didn't want to start our friendship that way. This IS a start, right?"

He nodded. "I'm glad you chose to tell me. You risked everything, but you did it anyway. Why?" He wanted to know.

"Because of you," she confessed. They both took a few moments to digest everything that had happened.

Then Isabel said hopefully, "Forgive me?"

"I'll tell you what, let's make a deal. I'll forget about it and you must promise me that you will never, ever try that dream walking thing of yours on me again. OK?"

"I promise."

"Because even if you did it, it's not like I would know and be able to turn it against you, right?"

"Probably not. You can count on me not to do it again to you," she smiled "Thanks, Michael."

"No, thank you. You said you had nothing to do with that dream but the truth is, it made me realize what I wanted. I want your friendship. And Max's.

"Oh, Michael, me too. Max will be so happy to hear that.

They glanced at each other and Michael asked, "Isabel, did you ever wish something so much that you thought even the wish itself was impossible, let alone making it happen?" Michael was going to confess to her that his long wanted wish finally came true, but she somehow managed to confess the same thing to him before he could tell her what he felt.

"Yes," she answered truthfully. "You know what Max and I wished for, every day for the past three years? To find you, so we can be together again. We wanted that so much and it seemed impossible. We had no idea where to even look for you. And now we got our wish. This is more than we could ever hope for."

Michael couldn't believe his ears. They really cared for him. They cared if he was there, they made him feel needed. And he realized he shared those feelings. He decided to show Isabel how he felt, so he stepped towards her, put his arms around her and hugged her tightly. She hugged him back and after a couple of moments they walked back towards school to meet Max.

***** Max was just about to give up on looking for his sister. She was nowhere to be found and he decided to stop looking. She was probably home already, even though they agreed that she would wait for him after school. Then he thought he saw a glimpse of her in the distance. It was her all right. She was coming towards him accompanied by somebody. Max patiently waited for them to come closer. Wait, it was Michael. She was having a conversation with Michael and they seemed to be enjoying each other's company. What was going on? Something must've happened that he had not been aware of. Isabel and him had been trying to figure out what to do with "the Michael situation" two hours ago and now everything seemed to be OK.

Max sat on the bench and waited for them. When they saw him, they almost ran to him and Michael's demeanour was different. He was...relaxed.

He said, "Hi, Max. Isabel and I wanted to ask you if you wanted to grab some lunch with us." Max looked at Isabel questioningly and she gave him the "just go along with it" look.

"Sure," answered Max. "I was gonna go get something to eat anyway. You wanna go to the Crashdown?" They all started laughing at that remark. What an irony. They walked towards the destined direction together, and Max gave Isabel one more "what did you do to him and how did you do it" look and she returned him a "don't ask any questions and just be happy it worked" look and smiled brilliantly.

And he was happy. They all were. No more pretending for them. This was the beginning of something wonderful, they all thought as they opened the door of the diner and walked into their new lives, lives full of promises. And who knows, maybe, someday they would find out who they were, where they were from and how to get back. Maybe, and maybe not. At that moment the only thing important was that they were finally together. At that moment they were only Michael, Isabel and Max, friends for life.

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end"