"Have to get away. Have to get away. I can't take this anymore." It played over and over again in my mind.

All I could hear was the sound of my breath come in ragged beats and my body move faster and faster away from that shithole.

"It's where I live," I told Liz Parker awhile ago. But not home. That place would never be my home. Home was somwhere out there now. The possibility so close it felt like someone was watching Max, Isabel, and me . . . waiting for the right moment.

Pure adrenaline was the only thing that was keeping Michael Guerin from collasping onto the ground. The burning sensation wouldn't let go of Michael's skin. His whole body was still throbbing from the beating Hank gave him.

Michael was suddenly illuminated within the darkness. The flood light cast a blinding ray making him blink. Blinking just made his eye hurt more.

"Argghhh!!" The flood light burst sending sparks into the street.

What's the point of runnning away if you have nowhere to go.

And then Michael knew where to go.

Of course her bedroom had to be on the second floor.

Michael climbed the tree that led to her bedroom window. Maria was hanging out a lot with the drummer from Alex's band.

"It's always the drummer," Michael thought sardonically as he tried to keep his balance on the tree.

Michael didn't know what to think of it except everytime Maria eyes lit up at him Michael felt like punching the dude.

In Maria's dream she could hear someone.

"Michael?"

"Maria I need you," Michael was looking through her bedroom window.

"Michael," Maria repeated before she was awaken to the real image of Michael outside her window. She couldn't remember a time when Michael actually used the front door. Maria groggily got up. She pulled up the window yawning.

"Oh God!" Maria exclaimed helping Michael inside.

"No, it's only me," he retorted.

Maria didn't say a word as she helped Michael to the bed. After Maria got Michael settled she went out of her room to get the medical kit they kept in the house. When she returned Michael was lying on the bed. His energy from running away was gone replaced by a growing feeling emptiness.

"Tired," Michael's voice croaked.

"Shh," Maria ordered him to be quiet."I have to take your shirt off it's all bloody."

Michael got up with a grunt of effort. Maria bit her lip at the bruises she saw on Michael. They weren't boody red, but purple, green, and black clouds that seemed alien on his skin. He looked pale in the melancholy moonlight.

Michael winced in pain as Maria tended to them.

"Sorry."

When Maria was done she looked down at Michael laying on her bed. His body was still shaking, apparently Hank's job. Maria felt an impulse to kill Hank, but it faded away as she heard Michael shiver. Maria searched for one of her big T-shirts, but all she found was an over-sized lavender tank top.

"Put this on," Michael obeyed Maria slipping it on. It was like a forcefield emanating around Michael. His eyes were far away remembering violent memories. His body rocked back and forth. He seemed to be humming a familiar tune. Maria only heard that tune once before.

"No, don't Michael!" Maria rushed to the bed and put her arms around him from behind. Michael's skin burned her own skin at contact. Maria only tightened her embrace around Michael.

"I'm here, Michael. Maria's here for you." Maria soothed Michael.

Suddenly Maria felt Michael's body collapse. His breath exhaled all the tension of the past week, but a new feeling grew. Maria felt tears one by one stain her fingers as she held onto Michael.

::Flash:: Death's cold metal against skin. A gun.
::Flash:: Fists beaten in drunken rage as if Michael was nothing more than a rag doll.
::Flash:: The iron taste of blood inside your mouth.
::Flash:: "If you want to get out then go!!" Hank's voice boomed in Michael's ears.
"See if you can survive without me," he sneered with drunken venom.
Hank's words suddenly gave Michael strength to get up from his fetal position on the ground and punch Hank right in the eye.
"Thanks for all the shitty years," Michael grunted at the unconcious body on the ground.

Maria felt Michael's pain to the core and couldn't stop her tears anymore than Michael could at this moment.

There were no words to say as the melancholy moonlight watched over them through the stars.

The scene goes in slow motion as we see Michael crying in Maria's arms. "Color Blind" by Counting Crows plays in the background.

Maria watches Michael still sleep in the same position she held him from before. She brushed a lock of his hair away from his eyes. Mihcael's hair was getting long now. Not the old spiky look anymore. He wore it now in a slicked back style.

Maria let her fingers run through Michael's dark hair absentmindedly.He was sleeping deeply. The tears had dried after awhile.

Like the old Michael would never come to a human, much less to Maria for help. The stonewall barrior everyone knew and never broke.

But this wasn't the old Michael that now lay in Maria's arms. He wasn't someone on the outside just observing others. Never letting himself be taken in. This was a side of Michael no one ever knew . . . as vulnerable as a single tear.

Maria stared at Michael again feeling the familiar pang of . . . Maria didn't know how to describe all the emotions she felt when she was with Michael.

"So this is what it's like," Maria thought ruefully.

Michael stirred in his sleep grimacing in pain. "Maria, don't go," he called out hoarsely.

"There never has been anyone else but you," Maria quiet voice confessed to Michael. Michael's face relaxed as if he heard what Maria said. She stroked his jawline with her fingertip.

And in that one moment Michael was the only real thing in the world to Maria.