Michael Guerin couldn't get the right color to match Maria's skin. Her soft porcelain skin reminded him of those dolls Isabel used to have when she was younger. If you put your fingertip to its surface the illusion would shatter into a thousand pieces in the floor.

Maria wasn't like that. No matter how much he loved to tease her, no matter how much he hated to fall for her he did. In the end Maria was the one to break Michael. What was he left with? This pulsating ache surrounding his body as if his pores were claws grasping the air to find her.

Only he let her go. It was the noble thing to do in his mind. He killed someone. He wanted to kill Pierce as much as he wanted Maria right now.

Almost.

The only time he felt this desperate was when he'd look up at the stars on a solitary night and wish he'd be in a home he couldn't remember.

He had his headphones blasting the only song that could fit his mood right now. He liked to listen to music as he painted. It was only one of the few things he could enjoy.

Those visions Max started having about Tess then spreading like a virus to Isabel and Michael. It wasn't a virus. It was destiny. Michael was finally getting the answers to the questions he'd harbored his entire life.

Except the same time Michael realized his destiny he realized how much he loved Maria the one who choose him. She didn't have to though. She could have just stopped everything as soon as he gave her a kiss to calm down and instead brought his world spinning.

Michael kept putting color upon color together on the canvas: the blonde in her hair with its dark roots, the sea green of her eyes. Whenever Michael thought about her eyes he couldn't help but picture the moon reflected in them. It must have been from all the times he’d snuck into her room at night.

Flashback:

The shock of cotton on skin vibrating with too much energy for one night, the feel of her arms wrapped around his waist snaking up in a gesture of comfort up and down his bicep. The fall of hot tears cruising down his cheeks already damp from the rain.

The taste of her later on that night as she gave him her kiss.

Michael could feel the paint as it splattered carelessly all over his tiny bedroom which was nothing more than a glorified closet. Splotches of her color landing on the walls adorned with Metallica and Stained posters. It even marred a picture he had of her and him taken inside a photo booth. The two of them in a series of goofy faces except for the last one where he looked up at Maria with the eyes of . . .

Michael paused breaking the trance he was in. He was so focused on his thoughts and the music he didn't realize how the painting turned out.

The painting looked exactly like Maria down to the strawberry pout of her lips. He brought his fingertips to them and let it wander across the jaw line and over her hair. He could still feel her presence on his skin as if he'd just seen her within the last hour when it had been a week since they last met.

Michael had to get out of the apartment. It suddenly felt claustrophobic. Everything he gazed at only brought him back to her. He had to let her go. He couldn't risk the inevitable damage he'd cause her.c

He couldn't feel his feet as they flew in quick strides on the ground pulling him farther and farther away from the town he never wanted to be in. He could barely feel his breath as it rushed in quick gasps in and out of his lips. His mind was only set on the one thing he couldn't do. The memories of Maria to disappear.

All his painting and bitching and running couldn't chase his thoughts and feelings of Maria away. He'd even be with someone who was like a sister to him to keep her away. That was a last resort though brought on by twisted fate.

Fate . . .

He knew his compulsive behavior would screw him over big time one of these days. He stopped running letting his lungs regain air. He bent over resting his hands on his knees. His knees felt like they were burning knots like his whole tension filled body. As soon as his heart slowed to a fairly normal rate he stood straight up.

He was by the cliffs. The last time he was here was when the six of them had a meeting to discuss what to do with Tolpolsky. It was then he almost told Maria he loved her. Maybe Michael's instinct wasn't going to screw him this time, because there on the exact spot where he almost admitted the one thing he would never imagine saying stood her.

There was still fear of love that gripped Michael's heart coldly at that second. It brought him back from out rightly running to her. All the old excuses whispered to him again, "No you can't because you'll just hurt her."

"But you know what? She's hurting already without me. The both of us are and one of us is going to do something about this," a stronger voice within him said.

Michael ran up to Maria stopping only a few feet from her. She turned around her mouth hung open in shock at the sight of him as if he were a ghost. He felt his heart break and mend itself at once because nothing could compare to this not the painting in his room or his so-called destiny.

Her eyes held his reflection inside them, she held more than that.

"Maria."

"Michael."

Michael didn't know who ran up first or if they both ran towards each other at once. The just met in an explosive kiss that finally released all the pent up energy, betrayal, and longing they had for each other since they met.

Flash: Michael watching Maria through the Crashdown's front door during a heat wave.

Flash: Maria as a little girl the spots of her Dalmatian were blurred through a veil of tears.

Flash: Maria falling on top of Michael inside a cheap hotel room. The air suddenly becoming electric to Michael he’d never been this close to someone.

Flash: Michael on a rock watching Isabel and Max go with a man and a lady in a yellow sweater. It was as bright as the sun blinding and scaring Michael with its light.

Flash: The moment at the cliffs of unspoken love between them.

Michael: "If anything happens I just want you to know . . ."

Maria: "I know."

There was always a dangerous degree of chemistry filled with fire intense enough to burn the both of them. More flashes came faster and faster as their kissed deepened. Michael could taste her skin underneath his tongue as her hands raked through his hair frantically. Their bodies were grinding into each other in an desperate attempt to keep the connection going.

It was Maria who pulled away first. Michael felt like he had been drowning and found himself back in the world again. He could hear her trying to catch her breath as he felt his body slowly separating from hers again.

"I thought you never wanted to see me," she was searching for some sense to what they just did.

"I missed you," Michael confessed.

Maria bit her lip.

"Do you love her?"

Her words struck him stronger than any hit he'd taken from Hank. She was deliberately pushing him away now. He felt the same walls he built around him taking shape around her like an armor of ice cold indifference.

"No," Michael had to find the right words for once to tell her.

"I'm with the one I love."

He saw Maria close her etheral eyes.

Say it again," she whispered. Maria seemed as if she wanted to savor his words like chocolate.

"I love you, Maria."

"No, before that."

"I'm with the one." His eyes fell on a star far in the sky. Not just one, but the V-shaped constellation in his dream. The one he vowed afterward he'd never run no matter what.

Now it was time to honor that.

"What I had with Isabel wasn't destiny it was fate."

"Fate and destiny are synonyms Michael," Maria replied sadly.

"In a way Isabel and I were always supposed to be together, but then so we were with Max. It was fate that brought the three of us together."

Michael walked closer to Maria trying to keep her from shutting him out completely.

"Fate can change the way people change. Isabel and I were together in our planet in another life, but when we came here fate changed when we were reborn. Everything was rewritten and I found my real destiny."

Michael ventured a tentative touch at her hand. He clasped her fingers as they interlaced with his own. He felt reassurance in the pressure. He could make out the cracks forming on her walls.

"The four of us were literally made to go with each other back home. We're not home. I don't even know what home is."

Michael licked his dry lips. He drew in a deep breath. He hoped to conjure the words to bring her back.

"I do know you choose me and I choose you. It was destiny that brought me here to you. It's going to be our destiny that will bring us back together because it's stronger than fate."

He saw Maria's lips form in a smile that was only hers. Michael noticed a lot about smiles during all the years he'd watch people. Smiles were telling. They showed whether you were nervous or sarcastic or if you were truly happy which was the smile Maria gave him now.

"I think I should let you be by yourself more. You seem to be more romantic to me after we've been separated for awhile."

"About me acting so cold to you these past few weeks . . ." Michael scoffed his boot into the dirt.

"I know you couldn't get a word in between all my nagging."

Michael gave Maria a tender hug rocking their bodies from left foot to right foot moving as one.

"I'm sorry my honey heart," Michael whispered in her ear.

Maria pulled away from Michael's shoulder and raised her eyebrow at him.

"Aren't we supposed to call each other corny names?" Michael teased.

"Why do you think that?"

"Because I heard Max calling Liz, my dreamgirl." Maria rolled her eyes.

"Don't tell me we'll get as bad as them."

"Isn't that what you wanted?" Michael smirked.

"I just wanted you mud boy."

Maria giggled as Michael groaned at her comment.

"At least I didn't call you the Alienator. You were so cute in that spandex wrestling suit," she gave a mischievous sparkle in her eye.

"Don't make me start on your Crashdown uniforms," he shot back.

They argued back and forth like in the beginning when their feelings of each other were just a discovery. Michael taking full advantage of his height to look down at Maria in mock condescension, Maria tickling Michael in the secret spot on his neck to get him to double down in squeamish laughter. They stood there on the cliff together until they drove back home to Michael's apartment leaving the door to close right behind them.

"Is that for me?" Maria indicated the painting Michael drew of her.

"Yes."

Maria walked up to the painting. She felt a certain uneasiness like looking at pictures of herself she always felt inadequate. She couldn't even describe the painting before her as a painting because every detail about her was mirrored there.

"Wow, that's so good it's scary."

"Thanks, I think." Michael looked proudly at the picture.

"So what song were you listening to when you painted this?" Maria asked Michael slyly putting her arms around his neck.

"Painted On My Heart by The Cult," he answered.

"Can I borrow your tape?"

"Sure."

That was how Michael came to be standing against the back wall of The Cove as he watched Maria perform their song. Of course Maria had to add her own touches to the song by putting in a few of her words.

Maria had a stage presence where it felt like she sang to every person in the room individually at once. Michael was smug in knowing he knew she was singing this song for him. They were separated by a crowd of people, but he could still feel her voice echo every emotion of the song.

Michael walked away from the place safely tucking the cd inside his leather jacket and smiling contently to himself anxious for him and Maria to celebrate back at his apartment.

Maria and Michael were laying on his bed letting the moonlight provide a positive to the shade. Michael turned towards Maria their bare chests brushing against each other.

"Do you believe in destiny?"

Maria stared at Michael for a long time the darkness made her eyes look opaque.

"No, I believe in you and me."

Michael had no words to answer her so instead he gave her a kiss to calm the world.

Hoped you liked it. Please tell me if you did ::gives big puppy dog eyes:: My imagination breathes on feedback so please be gentle.