Liz Parker's fingers were numb as she lifted the receiver of the payphone. She saw her hand drop a dime, then a quarter, into the slot; heard the change jangle down the track. But it all seemed far away, as if it were happening in a dream.

Her fingers punched the numbers by rote, knowledge burned into her mind by years of repitition. The line jangled, and was picked up on the first ring.

"Hello?" Mrs. Deluca's voice was shaky, and Liz knew she hadn't slept. Liz took a deep breath.

"Something happened," she said.

******

Maria couldn't breathe.

This was all too much. She tried to suck in air, but the sobs that shook her shoulders and racked her lungs wouldn't permit her. She gasped between each shuddering sob.

He was gone. Her Michael was dead.

Maria kept his hand pressed against her stomach, unwilling to break that final contact. Then she would have to admit he really was gone. She didn't think she could handle that.

"Michael," she gasped. "Michael!"

Her body bent in two around his hand, the lack of air causing lance after burning lance of pain to rip across her stomach. She rocked back and forth, sobbing even though her tears had long since run dry. His peaceful profile must have looked so odd, juxtaposed against her wild eyes and red cheeks.

"I can't lose you, Michael," she moaned. "God, not again. I can't lose you again!"

Maria barely noticed the tingling sensation against her belly; her pain, physical and emotional, were too great. They blocked out the world.

But soon, she DID become aware of it.

Her eyes, squeezed shut in an effort to block out some part of the pain, snapped open. "What-?" she breathed as she looked down towards her stomach, where his palm still pressed against her through the thin, greenish cloth of her hospital gown.

Michael's hand was glowing.

That same white, heavenly light she remembered from her dreamscape. It pulsed against her abdomen, rising and ebbing with her heartbeat.

Wait a minute. HER heartbeat?

That was when she noticed, Michael wasn't the one glowing. She was.

The light grew brighter, stretching out tendrils that curled up and around Michael's wrist. Maria watched in wonder as the energy emanating from her belly wrapped its way in ever quickening circles around Michael's arm, moving up to his shoulder, and then down his torso, until he was surrounded in a pure glowing nimbus that cast no shadow because it was everywhere.

How could this be happening? Maria's fingers clenched Michael's hand to her with a death-grip, afraid that letting him go would break the spell. Her eyes travelled in amazement from his face, to her stomach, and back again. She felt no different, no weaker. How could this-?

Lightning struck.

The baby.

"Healthy and kicking, isn't that what Michael said?" she thought, excited. "The doctors said it was a miracle, didn't they? That the baby could be this strong?"

The baby HAD been strong. In giving of his strength, Michael had simply made it stronger. And now, it was repaying the favor the only way it could.

By saving the life that had given IT life. Maria's eyes couldn't grow any wider, but her smile made up for it, as the light around her lover grew brighter and brighter still. It's pulsing was more extreme now, fluxing from blinding, to dim, to blinding. She forced herself not to flinch away as its pulsing grew faster and faster and faster.....

There was an explosion of painfully bright light. Maria threw a hand up to shield her eyes from the blast, reeling backwards as though there were an actual concussion.

Then, there was nothing.

She lowered her hand slowly, unsure of what to expect. She half imagined Michael would be little more than a pile of ash. But he wasn't. And he still wasn't moving. The small kernel of hope she'd started to nurture began to wilt again.

Until Michael's eyes snapped open, his back arched away from the floor, and he sucked in a gasping, gargling breath.

Maria's eyes widened again as Michael collapsed back to the speckled tile, wheezing for air, chest rising and falling with his explosive breaths. She almost couldn't believe her own eyes. He was...

He was ALIVE.

His eyes were closed, so he couldn't see her hand as it reached out to touch his cheek. "Michael?" she whispered, new tears, this time of joy, in her eyes. Her free hand went to her throat-- the child in her stomach had given her a gift, too. Her voice no longer rasped.

When his lids flickered open, Maria's breathing sped up. When he smiled, it stopped all together.

"Hello, Maria," he murmured. "This is unexpected."

She gazed down at him for a moment, and he returned the look.

Then he was sitting up, and her arms were wrapping around him, and his around her, and he was ALIVE, oh GOD, he was ALIVE!

"You're back," she cried against his shoulder, holding him so tightly, her arms ached. "Oh, God, Michael, I thought you'd left me! I thought you'd left me again!"

Michael's arms twined tighter around her waist, making it harder for her to breathe, but she didn't care. She wanted to drown in him. "How?" he murmured into her hair. "How...did it happen?"

She somehow managed to pull back from him without losing contact, her forehead pressing against his. Smiling, she took his hand and moved it back to her stomach.

He looked puzzled for a second, then realization dawned. "You mean...?"

Maria nodded. "They said the baby was strong," she whispered against his lips. "If only they knew."

He smiled, and it felt good against her mouth. Kissable. So she kissed him. And it felt even better.

******

It was the shocked gasp from the doorway that finally pulled them apart.

Maria jerked back from Michael, and looked towards the sound. Liz stood framed in the doorway, frozen, one hand on the doorknob. Her eyes were wide, and her jaw hung slack. "Michael?" she gasped in disbelief.

He raised one hand and twitched it at her. "Hi, Liz."

Her eyes moved to Maria. "Maria?"

She grinned at her friend. "Hi, Liz."

The dark-haired girl gaped at them for a little longer, then shook herself and moved into the room. "But....but...." she stammered.

"It's a long story," Maria explained. "I'll tell you later."

"Maria?"

Her eyes went back to the door, and her smile lit up again. "MOM!"

Mrs. Deluca flew through the door-- Alex immediately behind her-- and wrapped her daughter in a hug, tears streaming down her cheeks. "My baby," she gasped. "My little girl, you're all right! You're awake!"

Maria was finding it even harder to breathe, being squeezed one way by Michael, and the other by her mother. But she never wanted it to end. "I'm okay, Mom," she told her, eyes squeezed shut. "I'm sorry I worried you."

"No, no, don't think about that," her mother chided quietly. "What matters is you're okay. Oh, sweetie, thank God!"

When they finally drew apart, reluctantly, Maria felt Michael begin to move behind her. Before she could ask what he was doing, she felt his arms wrap around her back and under her knees, and felt him swoop her up off the floor. She wrapped her arms around his neck, eyes wide with surprise. "Where are we going?" she asked.

He quirked an eyebrow. "YOU are going back to bed," he told her, setting her down tenderly on the tousled mattress. Pulling the covers up to her waist, he fluffed the pillows behind her back, and pushed her back so that she rested against them. Maria just watched him adoringly-- she couldn't drink in the sight of him enough.

"Comfortable?" he asked softly. Maria nodded, and he bent down to touch his lips gently to her forehead.

Then he turned to stand face to face with her mother.

Maria swallowed. She knew the look on her mother's face. It was the personification of Hell hath no fury. She winced when the older woman lashed out and smacked Michael full-force across the face. "Mom..." she protested, leaning forward.

Michael made no noise as Mrs. Deluca's palm made contact with his cheek. His head snapped to the side, but he didn't so much as flinch.

"You hurt my baby," Mrs. Deluca told him firmly, her eyes flashing. "You will NEVER do that again."

Michael's face turned towards the older woman, and he met her eyes. "Never, ma'am," he replied.

Her face softened. A short pause followed, and then Maria allowed herself a breath of relief as her mother wrapped Michael in a tight embrace. "And thank you," Mrs. Deluca whispered, tears in her voice, "for saving my little girl."

Maria felt her heart warm as Michael returned the hug. "Thank YOU," he replied. "For giving me the little girl to save."

Maria watched the scene unfold, unable to keep the pleased smile off her face. But she didn't have much time for quiet reflection, as she soon found herself wrapped in a two way embrace again. This time, Liz and Alex. She tried her hardest to stretch her arms around them and hug back.

It was then that Dr. Peters chose to walk through the door. Her eyes were met with one of the strangest, if sweetest, sights she'd ever witnessed in her twenty years of practice. A strange young man in black clothing was hugging the mother of one of her patients, who suddenly seemed to no longer be ill, as she was sitting up in bed, having the stuffing hugged out of her by those two nice young people who had accompanied Mrs. Deluca to the hospital in the first place.

Dr. Peters cleared her throat, and all eyes turned to her.

"Excuse me," she said, "but I KNOW I've missed something. Would someone care to explain?"

******

======= For this part, I'm going to assume that if the aliens can get into someone's dream, they can also bring that person into someone ELSE'S dream. ========

They met in a dreamscape of flowers and rolling hills, on the anniversary of The Leaving.

They all came from different directions, though in this dreamworld, direction was meaningless. But they did it anyway-- it made the coming together all the more powerful. They formed a circle, seven points in a circumference: Max, Liz, Isabelle, Alex, Michael, Maria, and, standing slightly back, Kyle. For a moment, there was silence.

Eventually, Liz broke the stillness. "Is that her?" she cooed, breaking the circle and crossing to Maria, bending down to peer and mew at the tiny pink bundle in her friend's arms.

Maria's smile was more radiant than ever. "Meet Madeleine," she said proudly. "Madeleine, this is your Aunty Liz." The infant gurgled and reached a tiny pink hand up to touch Liz's nose. There was a brief glow, and the baby giggled.

Liz looked at Maria in puzzlement. The blonde girl just laughed. "She does that to get to know people," she explained. "Luckily, she seems to recognize people who do and don't know about her parentage, so she hasn't gone all glowy on some stranger yet. I don't know how she knows, but I'm not going to question."

Michael leaned over from his position beside his petite wife and smiled at his baby daughter. "It's in the genes, isn't it, kiddo?" he said, grinning like any proud father. "You're going to grow up to be a whiz, just like your dad, ain't you?"

Maria elbowed him gently. "If you want her to grow up to be such a 'whiz,' how about you start using proper GRAMMAR in front of her? Like not using 'ain't', for example."

Michael faked a hurt expression. "Are you saying I don't speak good?" he teased, and Maria giggled.

"Michael, Maria, and Madeleine?" Isabelle chimed in as she joined the trio-- or rather, the quartet. "A little 'M' happy, don't you think?" She hugged Michael tightly. "Hey, Michael," she greeted him. "Long time no see."

Michael hugged her back. "Hey, Izzy. Looking good."

"Don't I always?" she replied, straightfaced, as she pulled back and moved to embrace Maria.

Maria let herself be hugged, even though she couldn't embrace the taller girl back due to her precious bundle. "We don't go by Michael and Maria in Denver," she answered Isabelle's earlier question, smiling as the tall blonde bent down to be 'greeted' by Madeleine. "We're Adrian and Gabrielle Smith." She chuckled. "But we figured someone had to carry on the tradition."

Everyone laughed at that, and some unseen wall of tension seemed to collapse amongst the group. They began milling together, each person stopping by to "Oooh" and "Aaah" over little Madeleine, and be summarily Glowed. Maria couldn't stop beaming as each of her friends complimented her on the beautiful baby in her arms. Michael stood behind her, one arm wrapped around her waist, his chin switching from resting on the crown of her head to her shoulder and back again. It felt so right-- as if the past year had all been a fantasy. Except for the conception and birth of the miracle in her arms, of course. That couldn't have been more real.

She tore her eyes from Madeleine's cherubic face and watched her friends interact. Liz and Max stood slightly to one side, chatting softly, closer in proximity than Maria had ever seen them in the true world. Almost as close as she was to Michael. The brunette had told her in a letter to their PO Box in Denver that she was applying to graduate school at Dartmouth in Hanover, New Hampshire-- an hour north of Keene. "It's a really prestigious school," she'd claimed, but Maria knew the real reasoning. The same reasoning that explained why every graduate school her friend had chosen to apply to was in New England.

"Looks like Max and Lizzy are getting closer," she told her husband, tilting her chin slightly up and to the side to look over her shoulder at him.

His eyes watched the couple, and a cheeky smile crossed his face. "Finally," he chuckled. "God, the sexual tension between those two drove me nuts for years. I just kept wanting to grab Max and yell, 'Kiss her! Kiss her, dammit!'"

Maria bumped back against him, and he looked down into her eyes. "Then why'd it take so long for you to follow your own advice?" she teased.

He shrugged and pulled her closer, swinging her gently from side to side as he rested his chin on the crown of her head. Maria let her eyes drift closed as he spoke. "What can I say? I'm a dimwit."

She nodded. "A definite numbskull."

"Total loser."

"Freak beyond belief."

"But you love me anyway."

"Yeah, I guess I have to." He mocked a hurt whimper, and she giggled. "Just kidding, rocket jockey!" she assured him.

Her eyes wandered back to the chatting couples. Alex and Isabelle were talking nearby. Or rather, Isabelle was talking. Alex just watched with rapt attention, his eyes glued to the statuesque blonde before him, as she described her life in New York. Maria pointed them out to Michael. "He's totally stuck on her," she whispered conspiratorily. "She could be talking about the grout in her tile, and he'd be glued there."

Michael chuckled. "And where'd you learn this bit of juicy gossip?"

"When you're friends with someone for as long as I've been with Alex, you get to the point where you know EVERYTHING about them. Up to the point that you know the color of the socks they're going to wear the next day."

"Oh? And what shade of footwear does this intuition tell you he's going to wear tomorrow?"

"Blue."

"Blue?"

"Yep."

"Maybe they'll be black." Michael and Maria turned as one to acknowledge the voice at their shoulder. Michael held out his hand to Kyle.

"Kyle," he greeted the other young man.

The football player accepted his hand with a firm grip. "Michael," he said, smiling.

"Hey, Kyle," Maria added on, grinning. She'd never expected to see the brooding man behind her ever become friends with the 'jock' next to her. Wonders really DID seem to never cease.

There was a brief silence between the three adults, before Michael began again. "Kyle," he said, "I..I never got to thank you. For...you know, for giving Liz my address." His arm tightened around Maria's waist again, and she felt that familiar warm glow that always accompanied his touch flow through her. "I mean, if you hadn't...." He trailed off.

Kyle shook his head. "Don't worry about it, buddy," he told Michael honestly. "I wanted to help. If she hadn't come to me, I would have gone to her. Or straight to you."

Michael smiled.

"Everyone!"

Maria looked back to the center of their little gathering and towards the sound of the voice. Max stood beside a small table loaded down with crackers, cheese, chocolate, and a bottle of champagne in an ice-filled silver serving bowl. Seven tulip glasses of the sparkling beverage lined the edge of the table. "Ah, the wonders of Dreamland," she thought happily.

"I'd like to propose a toast," Max continued, picking up two of the wine glasses and handing one to Liz. The others gathered around and took up their respective glasses, Maria balancing Madeleine tenderly against her body with one arm. "To friendship," Max finished, raising his glass.

The others did likewise. "To friendship!" they chimed in unison. The musical sound of crystal meeting crystal followed. Maria only took a sip of her champagne-- she didn't like to drink now that she had Madeleine to take care of. But it was the ceremony that mattered. So she sipped.

"I must admit I feel a bit left out," Kyle told the group as his eyes scanned the three couples around him. "I see four fellas and three ladies, and little ole me all left alone." He shook his head. "I would never live this down at Notre Dame."

Maria chuckled. "You're NOT alone, Kyle!" she replied. Slipping from Michael's hold, she turned to face the broad-shouldered young man, and held Madeleine out to him. "There are FOUR 'ladies' here, in case you hadn't noticed," she said with a little smile.

The others laughed at Kyle's obvious discomfort. "Umm, I'd better not, Maria," he protested. "I might, I dunno, drop her."

"That's what HE said," Maria said, jerking her head back to indicate Michael. "But he didn't. And you won't either. Madeleine won't let you."

Shushing his further protests, she laid the tiny infant in his arms. He stood stiff and unmoving for a moment; then, his shoulders began to loosen, and a foolish grin spread across his face. He glanced around the group. "I think she likes me," he said happily, before looking back to the tiny baby. "Don't you, Maddy?" he asked. "Don't you like your Uncle Kyle? Huh? Don't you, you wittle schmoosie-woosie baby sweetie?"

He seemed oblivious to everyone's laughter as the King of Manliness degenerated into baby talk. Maria felt Michael pull her back into his arms, and she leaned against his chest, folding her hands over his on her stomach. "I think she's just been adopted," she told him.

She could hear the smile on his face when he replied, "Well, then we'll just have to get another one."

Maria cocked an eyebrow, and looked over her shoulder at him. "Is that implying something, Mr. Guerin?" she asked, grinning impishly.

His smile was just as cocky. "Hell yes."

"Perhaps we ought to wake up then?"

"I'm ready when you are."

She chuckled and looked back to her friends. Kyle was still cooing over Madeleine. Liz and Max were holding hands and staring deeply into one another's eyes, neither one speaking. Isabelle was now the quiet one of her duet. She wore a broad smile on her face, as Alex gestured and leapt around wildly, presumably telling some terribly amusing story. Maria couldn't resist a pleased sigh.

"Let's wait a bit," she told Michael. "I think I want to dream a little longer."

The End