Part Nine “Ma’am? Will you accept the charges?” Maria jerked back to reality. “Um, y-yes,” she stammered. Dizzy, she sat down slowly on the bed. There were a few clicks, then she heard the voice that brought tears to her eyes. “Hello?” The tone was terse, surly, generally pissed-off. But it was Michael Guerin’s voice and that was all that mattered to Maria. “Michael?” she choked. She could suddenly feel her heart pounding in her temples. “Of course it’s Michael,” he snapped. “Are you calling from the pr-prison?” “No, I’m calling from the fucking Marriot. Where do you think I’m calling from?” An unfamiliar female voice broke into the conversation. “Sir, please watch your language or your call will be terminated.” Maria’s eyes grew wide. “They’re monitoring your calls?” “Yes,” Michael answered impatiently. “That’s why I need you to come here.” She shook her head. Why was he calling her? He shouldn’t even know who she was. “Maria. Are you listening to me?” His voice virtually hissed through the phone line. “Yes. I’m here.” She held her forehead in her hand. “Come to the prison. Tomorrow.” “Tomorrow?” “Yes. I’m sorry if that doesn’t fit into your schedule, but it took me forever to get you approved as a visitor, no help to your fucking mother who claimed she didn’t know me.” The unfamiliar voice again. “Sir. Final warning.” “Okay,” Maria said. “I’ll be there.” “Good.” The phone went dead abruptly and she had to wonder if Michael had crossed the profanity line again or if his time was just up. Shaking, Maria pushed herself to her feet and immediately sat down again. This wasn’t happening. How could Michael be here? Or did she really have some relationship with the Michael from this world? After all, he hadn’t gone to prison right away and she and Max had only been together for nineteen months, which left plenty of time for Maria and Michael to be together. Tomorrow. She would see him tomorrow and get all of the answers she craved. With a sigh, she realized she stood no chance of getting any sleep that night. *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Maria left before it was daylight, sliding into her mother’s Jetta and letting it roll out of the driveway without starting the engine. During the whole five-hour drive to Santa Fe, all she could think about was seeing Michael again. She’d come to ignore all her nagging questions and just relish in the fact that she would soon be with him again – regardless if he was her Michael or not. At the penitentiary, she found the guards brusque, no-nonsense as they patted her down for weapons or drugs or anything else she might try to slip to the inmates. The admitting guard looked at her curiously and she knew why – she’d stayed up most of the night reading the rest of the newspaper articles on Michael’s case. It hadn’t been the murder itself that had shocked the community – it was the apparent brutality that had been inflicted on the victim. Only a madman or a total monster could have done that much damage. “Guerin, huh?” the guard said. Maria nodded her head silently. “You’re his first,” the man announced as he slid his key into a heavy steel door. Within the door, there was another door, this one of the jail-cell variety. Maria felt somewhat trapped as the guard locked the first door behind them, then reached to unlock the barred door. On the other side of the bars, there was a row of small booths that reminded Maria of those solitary-confinement desks people used during SAT tests so you couldn’t copy off your neighbors. There was another series of desks facing that row of desks and there were sections of glass separating one side from the other. A phone for communicating was mounted on either side of the glass. The guard put a hand under Maria’s elbow and started to lead her down a few chairs. She noticed for the first time how massive the man was – he towered over her, making her feel like a child. “I’ll be right here,” he told her quietly. “By the door. If you need anything, you call me.” He was warning her. About Michael. She nodded solemnly, then stopped when she spotted Michael on the other side of the glass. He already had the two-way phone against his ear, waiting for her. Her heart leapt in her chest and she couldn’t keep the grin from her face. She knew with the way he was looking directly at her that this was Michael, her Michael. Feeling somewhat giddy, she slid into the chair and picked up her phone. From the corner of her eye, she saw the guard turn and put his back against the wall. “What the hell did you do?” Michael hissed into the phone. “What the hell did I do? What the hell did you do?” Maria asked, her joy at seeing him deflating rapidly. Oh, yeah, this was Michael. The insensitive Michael she’d left behind. “You’re the one behind the bars.” “Funny. Now get me the fuck out of here.” Maria glanced at the guard, felt sick that even over this much time and space Michael was willing to be a jerk and even more sick that she couldn’t let it go. “Okay. I’ll just stick you in my purse and walk out the front door and no one will notice. Oops! Forgot – they claimed my purse and the rest of my personal possessions while they were frisking me at the door. Thanks a lot, Michael.” “So, how is he?” Maria’s brow furrowed. “How’s who?” “You know, Max, my best friend. As far as I can tell, you’re boffing him, aren’t you?” Michael’s eyes were hard, challenging, and incredibly jealous. “Oh, screw you!” Maria spat. “I have not boffed Max since I’ve been here. But he is a really, really sweet guy and if I’m stuck here I have no problem staying with him, Michael. Especially if you keep talking to me like that.” Michael drew in a breath, obviously trying to control his temper. “Please tell me what you did to get us here, Maria,” he said in a strained voice. “I know how I got here – I don’t understand how you got here.” Michael pursed his lips. “I heard this weird humming noise coming from inside my apartment. I opened the door, saw you on the floor and then something knocked me on my ass and I woke up here. Now tell me what you did.” Maria sighed. “I put the cone on top of the microwave. Then I started the microwave and poof here we are – in some alternate universe.” Michael’s brow furrowed. “We’re not in an alternate universe, you nitwit. This is reality. This is the real Roswell. You changed history and now you have to put it back the way it was.” She pushed her full lips into a pout. “Stop talking to me like that, Michael. How was I supposed to know what that thing was? And, God, if you cleaned your apartment once in awhile, I wouldn’t have been picking up after you and I wouldn’t – “ “Stop it. Just stop it.” On the other side of the glass, Michael was holding up one of his hands. “It doesn’t matter now. Look, I can’t do anything in here. This one is up to you.” She shrugged. “What am I supposed to do?” “Get the cone –“ “There is no cone.” Maria glanced at the guard, dropped her voice. “Tess never left the planet, so there is no spaceship. No spaceship – no cone.” Michael sat silently on the other side of the glass, his lips parted in mid-sentence. There was a long period of stillness, then he spoke again and Maria was amazed at how fast his mind worked. “You need the crystal.” “What crystal?” “The one that you, Liz and I retrieved outside of Las Cruces. The one that activates the granilith.” Maria paused, her expression mirroring Michael’s from only a few moments before. “It’s gone,” she finally said. He shook his head. “Not if Tess never left the planet. It’s still there. You need to get the crystal and use it to travel back in time and change what you did differently. You need to let Liz take the bullet.” Maria blinked. Let Liz take the bullet? Is that what had happened? Did Michael remember? “What do you mean?” Maria asked, swallowing past the lump in her throat. “You don’t remember? You stepped in front of Liz, you took the bullet. You can’t let that happen this time.” Maria’s mind went into a tailspin. She’d saved Liz, only to alter history and reality and everything else. She shook her head and forced herself to come back to reality. “How am I going to get into the pod chamber? I need one of the a-“ another glance at the guard “others to open it.” Michael shook his head. “No, you don’t.” “Huh?” “You’re different now, Maria. Max healed you, not Liz.” Maria’s mouth dropped open. She had powers that were lying dormant. That’s what Michael was trying to tell her. Suddenly she was speechless. “Two minutes,” the guard called in his no-nonsense tone. “Go get the fucking crystal,” Michael repeated, leaning close to the glass. “Because if I end up stuck doing 18 to life in this shit hole, you are really going to be sorry the next time I catch up with you.” “I don’t know how to operate the granilith,” Maria blurted, suddenly frantic. “We don’t even know if it can travel in time.” “Max used it to warn Liz about the end of the world,” Michael corrected. “But I don’t know-“ “Then you better fucking figure it out.” “What about that protection device – that landmine thingy that was where we found the crystal?” “You can take care of it. You’re different now.” Maria saw a flash of something – desperation? – in his dark eyes. “You have to do this, Maria. You have to set things straight.” And for the first time ever, he issued a word of confidence. “I know you can do this, Maria. I know it.” The phone went dead and Maria felt her heart sink. That was it? Five hours of driving for five minutes of Michael’s time? She whirled in her seat and looked at the guard with pleading eyes. Behind the glass, two other guards came to pull Michael to his feet. For the first time, Maria realized that his feet were chained and the guards went about chaining his wrists to the constraint around his waist. Michael’s dark eyes were scared as they met Maria’s and she realized that his terse, profanity-filled greeting was only a result of his fear. Silently, he mouthed the word “Please” to her before he was pushed toward a door and disappeared down a hallway. Maria rose shakily to her feet and her guard met her, took her by the elbow again. As she looked up at him, willing the tears away from her eyes, she thought that this man was not a bad person. He seemed unfriendly, sure, but he was just doing his job. So when he deposited her back in the lobby and returned her personal possessions, she mumbled a little “Thanks” to him and he looked momentarily surprised. Maria guessed that he didn’t get much appreciation in his job. “You’re welcome,” he said, then opened the heavy door for her and let her back into the desert heat of mid-day New Mexico. Maria drove out of the penitentiary and only made it a few miles down the road before she pulled over. Dropping her head to the steering wheel, she wept loudly. She couldn’t believe that Michael was here, in this hell, frightened and convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. She couldn’t believe that she’d seen him, been a fraction of an inch away from him and had been unable to touch him. Worst, she’d never told him she loved him. What if she never got another chance? She straightened and wiped her eyes. Now was not the time to fall apart. She’d been issued a mission. And if she failed in her mission, Michael would be stuck behind bars for the rest of his life. And Maria would have to live with knowing she put him there. |
| PART 9 |