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Well that was certainly an enciting update. Thanks for all the passionate feedback. Wow!

jana1977.roswellheaven: I agree. You should never argue the way that they did in front of children.

emadaps: Michael has become a big part of Bailey's life. That would be great wouldn't it?

Lozz83: Children always feel the tension. Especially small children.

RhondaAnn: It would be nice.

ItsMeSila: Nicely put. Maria really is transferring some of her own issues so she's giving Brody alot of room.

flora: Playing catch up has wonderful benefits.

sarammlover: Michael and Maria have to be a little frustrating or they don't work.

blxgyrl18: Maria doesn't fully realize it. Liz is a little easier to take in this part.

augustdestiny: Okay, you have a point. As a mom, it's easy for me to understand Maria's point of view and the need for a Maria/Brody relationship. She also needs to be able to see things from Michael's perspective. This isn't easy for him. He's very attached to Bailey, and he has deep feelings for Maria. This has him feeling a little unsteady. He was way too angry to be sympathetic, but during an argument, people usually are.

Luluzita: He was. He'll calm down.

Valentinebaby: Yeah, but he'll go into that in this part.

April: I wrote the fight, and I'm on the fence.Though, since I'm the author, it's probably best that I don't have a side. Michael hit below the belt when he brought up her father, but he had a really good point. Maria really doesn't wanna think that Brody's using Bailey.
As for the banner, go for it. I have no skill with things like that, so thanks.

Now for a deep breath and a little calm conversation....

Liz tried the doorknob when she got to Maria's apartment and found that it was unlocked. She'd just had a slight run-in with Michael at the elevator. If her nerves weren't already fraught with tension, his presence would have secured it. What did Maria see in that lummox anyway? Liz saw Maria holding Bailey in the living room when she entered the apartment. She may not have made the comment that came out of her mouth if she'd bothered to take a good look at her friend before speaking.

"I just saw king testosterone in the hall, he looks upset. Did he just find out that the world doesn't revolve around him?"

The look that Maria sent her nearly froze her tongue in her mouth.

"How could it? It's obvious that the world revolves around you! Why else would you keep speaking before using what I thought was an operational brain? God, and you're supposed to be the smart one?" Maria left the room before Liz could say anything.

"Bitch." Liz had no idea what had just happened. Sure, maybe she shouldn't have made the comment about Michael, but Maria had been totally severe with her response. "Guess this is a bad time to ask for a loan."

Liz was in the process of going after Maria when there was a knock on the door. She just knew that it was going to be Michael standing there. When he'd seen her getting off the elevator, he'd pushed his way past her nearly knocking her over. She would have said something scathing to the cretin, but he looked ready to kill someone, so she'd wisely stayed silent. Liz opened the front door and felt like she was in a time warp. Brody was standing there. Since when was Brody just dropping by?

"Hello, Liz. I didn't know you were visiting." He walked into the apartment as if it were a common occurrence.

"I could say the same. What are you doing here?" Liz couldn't believe what she was seeing. She wondered if Kyle knew that Brody was coming to see Maria.

"Not that it's any of your concern, but I'm taking Maria and our daughter out for a family dinner." There was a smile in his voice that put Liz even more on edge.

"And will your wife and other daughter be joining you on this family outing?"

"Ooh, claws. Though, I should probably tell you that while a witty woman is very sexy, a bitchy one is not. Is Maria in?"

Liz was about to tell him exactly where he could go with his information when Maria walked into the room.

"I thought I heard you. Just give me a few minutes to pack a diaper bag for Bailey." She gave Liz a look before continuing. "Can you come with me for a minute?"

"Of course." Liz followed Maria into Bailey's room and waited. She thought that she was about to be told to go and stay with Tess and Kyle.

"I'm sorry."

Liz was taken aback by the apology. "For what?"

"I shouldn't have said those things to you out there. Michael and I had an argument, and I needed to yell at someone. It shouldn't have been you. You've been through a lot in the last few weeks and you didn't need that."

Liz felt like crying. "Don't apologize chica. Friends get into fights sometimes. That doesn't mean that they aren't still friends."

Maria hugged her. Michael had said that the other night. God, what was she going to do about Michael?

"Liz, do you think it's a bad idea for me to have a relationship with Brody?"

"What kind of a relationship?" Liz didn't exactly love Michael or anything, but compared to him, Brody was the antichrist.

"Not that kind of relationship. A friendship. It would be impossible to try and raise Bailey with both of her parents in her life if I didn't at least have a friendship with him, right?" Maria knew that a relationship between herself and Brody was necessary. They needed to have a rapport in order to ensure a positive environment for Bailey. It just didn't feel right.

"Do you think that you can do that? Have a friendship with him, I mean." Liz looked uncertain.

"I'm not sure. I wanna try. I can't just write him off without trying. He's her father." Lunch hadn't been bad. They'd mostly discussed business, and the different areas of San Francisco. Brody said that he was looking for a home in Pacific Heights.

"Then try. But keep your eyes open. Don't only see what you want to see Maria. If you do, then you'll only end up hurting Bailey in the end." Liz really wished that there was a way to keep Brody out of Maria's life. And that's when she noticed that she was actually caring about someone else for the first time in a long time. It was Wednesday, and she hadn't taken anything since Monday night. Granted that wasn't a long time, but it was something.

"Alright, I'm gonna go. Bailey and I will be back in an hour or two. There's food in the fridge if you're hungry, unless you wanna order a pizza. I could leave some money for you. I know that it'll take a while for an ATM card to come in the mail."

The temptation to take Maria's money and go looking for Tom's apartment was immense. The doctor's words from earlier that day came floating through Liz's mind. I see that you aren't ready to admit you have a problem.

"No thanks. I'm sure I'll be fine with whatever's here. I'll see you when you get back." When Maria left the room with Bailey, Liz became aware of a stinging sensation in her palm. Noticing that her fist was clenched on the hand without the cast, Liz opened it. There was blood gathering in her palm from the small cuts that her nails had made. The pain was welcome. It was distracting her from the nausea that had begun to take hold at the sound of the front door closing. She was alone now. There were no distractions to help her.

Michael got back to his office without breaking anything. Well, that wasn't entirely true. He'd slammed his car door so hard that the window refused to go down. He'd heard Bailey start to cry on the other side of the door when he'd left Maria's apartment and it nearly killed him. He wanted to go back and pick her up and tell her that things were going to be okay, but he couldn't. For one thing, he didn't lie, and he doubted that things would be okay anytime soon. For another, he didn't have the right to console her. He wasn't her father. No matter how much he wanted to be, or how hard he wished that he was. Things would be so much simpler if he was her father. Easier. He understood that Maria wanted Bailey to know dad, but if her dad was a really horrible person, then maybe it would be better if she didn't know him. This was a guy that cheated on his girlfriend with his wife, which was just insane, and then disregarded his child's existence when he learned that she couldn't be used to cure his other daughter. Add to that the fact that Michael was positive that the sleaze ball really just wanted back with Maria, and Brody's character was the level of waste found at the bottom of a fish tank.

He shouldn't have said what he did about her issues with her father. That was uncalled for. It was probably true, but that didn't mean that it should have been said. And then there was the ultimatum. God he was an idiot. Of course Brody has to be in her life. If he's going to be in Bailey's life then she'll have to have some kind of friendship with him or something. Fuck! His tongue should just be taken away from him and only given back in emergency situations. What if she walked away? What if she thought about everything that he'd said, and the way that he'd said it, and she walked away? He couldn't imagine his life without Maria in it. She was…everything. He had gone to her house and blown up at her, and she was about to go and have dinner with that accented douche bag. He needed to call her. He needed to talk to her before she left with that ass clown.

Michael picked up his phone and dialed Maria's house number. It was picked up on the third ring, but not by Maria. The voice was way too whiny. Liz.

"Hey, this is Michael. Is Maria still there?"

"No, she left a few minutes ago. Do you want to leave her a message?"

"No, thanks anyway. I'll call her cell."

"That would be a really good idea if I wasn't looking at her cell sitting on the coffee table."

"She left without her phone?"

"Either that or it sprouted a clone of itself to throw us off."

Michael felt his patience dwindle. "Do you absolutely need to be such a pain in the ass?"

"Only to you. Well, to a few men actually. But most recently only to you."

"I'm flattered. Really. Can you just tell her that I called?"

"Did the two of you fight about Brody?"

Michael blew out a breath. "Yup."

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

He almost laughed. "Nope."

"You should know that you don't have anything to worry about. Maria's over Brody. She wants to try having a friendship with him for Bailey's sake, but I don't think it'll work out. Brody's never been too stable and Maria wants stability for Bailey."

"Okay. Nice talking to you." Michael really didn't know how to feel about what Liz was telling him. He appreciated the reassurance, but he didn't ant her to know that he needed it. "Oh, and you should probably find something long and blunt to stick down that cast. It'll itch like a son of a bitch in about a week. I'd recommend the handle of a metal mixing spoon. They have really good reach and you're less likely to break skin."

"Have you broken a lot of bones?"

"I've played hockey since I could hold a stick. I've broken a few."

"Thanks Michael."

"No problem. Don't forget to tell Maria I called." Michael hung up before they could have anymore of a moment. The momentary cease fire had been enough.

Michael worked for an hour before his phone started to ring. He would have been embarrassed at how quickly he answered if he weren't the only person in the building.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Michael. Is this a bad time? You sound anxious."

"Maxwell." Michael's entire body deflated at the identity of the caller. "What's up?"

"I need to talk to you."

"Again? Didn't we just have a quaint chat this afternoon? Is there something else in my life you wanna throw a little shade on?" that was unfair. It wasn't Max's fault that Maria had been out with Brody. He was just being a concerned friend.

"Michael, come on. I didn't know that that was gonna happen." That, at least, was true. Max had been feeling like a complete tool for the rest of the day. He'd never seen Michael look lost, until this afternoon. There was a part of him that reveled in that look on Michael's face. The confident and cocky Michael Guerin looking like he was unsure of himself. But a bigger part of Max had felt…traitorous. Like he was suddenly Brutus in this play, ramming the knife into Caesar's back with as much stealth and force as he could.

"Fair enough. So what's going on?"

"What do you mean?" Max's voice became suspicious.

"I mean, why are you calling me?"

"Oh. Oh, well I need to talk to you about something."

"Yeah, we covered that. What did you want to talk about?"

"Um…you're my best friend."

"We covered this on Saturday Max. You're started to seem a lot like a high school English class. How many times did they make us read Oedipus? Probably every year from the ninth grade onward? Let's kill the déjà vu please."

"Right. Would you ever tell someone something about me that could be used to take something away from me that I really wanted?"

"Maxwell, what the hell are you talking about?" Michael was trying to follow the conversation, but his attention was being split between Max's words, the design on his computer, and his argument with Maria.

"Like, if I got a job that someone else had before me, and they wanted it back, and you didn't think that the job was really the right fit for me, would you tell the person that used to have the job things about me that could get me fired to help them get the job back?"

"Max…" Michael's cell phone started to ring and he saw Maria's number on the screen. "Max I gotta go. I'll call you later."

Michael answered his cell phone before he'd even fully hung up the phone in his office.

"Hey."

"Hi. Liz said that you called so I thought that I should call you back. How are you?" Liz had been sitting on the couch eating a container of fudge frosting when she'd gotten home, and the first words out of her mouth had been, 'Michael called. Call him back, now.'

Michael though about that question before answering. "I'm trying to stop being jealous and see things from your point of view, and I'm sorry for bringing up whatever your issues with your father are."

"You don't have to apologize for the way you feel Michael."

"Yeah, I do. Cause it's my problem, not yours, and I shouldn't have gotten angry with you, and I especially shouldn't have yelled at you or argued with you in front of Bailey. I didn't mean to upset her." His parents had never argued in front of him and Isabel. Michael understood why now.

"I was yelling too, so you can't take all the blame for that. I didn't mean to make you think that you're feelings don't matter in this situation; this is just really hard for me. I'll understand if you want to walk away." Maria held her breath. She'd understand if he needed to end things, but she wouldn't be okay with it.

"You think I want to end this?" How could she think that? Maybe because that's what it sounded like earlier, you idiot.

"I think that I might be asking for too much from you."

"No you aren't. You're doing what you think you need to do for Bailey, and I need to respect that. I'm still not okay with you having lunch and working with Brody, but if you say that the two of you are over, then I'll try to deal."

"I just wanna give him the chance to do what's right. I need to believe that he wants to know her." Maria felt like an idiot for saying what she was feeling about Brody. It was selfish and she knew it. Tonight's dinner had proven that. He'd asked questions about Bailey, and smiled at her a few times, but he wouldn't hold her. He'd gotten angry when she'd made a mess of her food. He'd taken them to a Japanese restaurant. Maria had explained to him that just because a restaurant offered high chairs, that didn't make it an ideal place for a child.

"Okay. If that's what you need, then fine. I can accept that."

"I know it's stupid…"

"It's not stupid. Maria, you try to see something good in everyone, and I love that about you. I just want you to be honest with yourself, and I want you to promise that you'll be honest with me too."

"I can make that promise. Everyone seems to be giving me the same advice." She would have laughed if the situation wasn't so serious.

"Then it must be good advice."

"It is. So, I know that you're working. I'll let you get back to it now. I'll see you Friday?"

"You will absolutely see me Friday."

"Bye, Michael."

"Bye." Michael hung up the phone feeling like a hundred pounds had been lifted off of his chest. He wondered how long he and Maria could continue to solve these arguments quickly with Brody coming back into the picture.