Liz pushed the ketchup bottle away and turned to face Maria. "What I want to know is why you didn't tell me what was going on," she said, her dark brown eyes serious and watchful.

I really hurt her feelings, Maria realized. Duh. Like I wouldn't have been hurt if I found out Liz had been keeping some big secret from me.

"I wasn't trying to shut you out or anything," Maria explained. "It's just that you weren't doing too well. You were so messed up over the Max sitch. There didn't seem to be a good time to bring it up."

"Maria, no matter what's going on with me, I still want to know what's going on with you," Liz said. "If you'd told me, maybe I could have-"

"Stop," Maria interrupted. "You and Max act like you're responsible for everybody else's problems. It's so not true."

She gave a long sigh. "You know what, if I told you, there is a chance you would have stopped me before…"

"Before you almost died," Liz filled in.

"Yeah. And that's probably why I didn't say anything to you. I didn't want to be stopped. I told myself I wasn't clueing you in to what was going on because you were devastated by the whole Max thing. But that's only partly true. I basically knew I was playing with something dangerous. I kept getting blackouts, even a nasty nosebleed."

Maria heard Liz give a sharp intake of breath, but she didn't stop talking. She had to get this out. "But I didn't want to stop using the powers-or be stopped by you-until I found out where Michael's parents' ship was being kept."

"So this was all about Michael," Liz said.

"I had some stupid idea that if I could do that for him…" Maria shook her head hard. "Forget it. It's too stupid to even say."

"It's not stupid," Liz told her. "Well, okay, it's stupid. But understandable stupid. Not just stupid stupid."

"That makes me feel better," Maria mumbled. Then she met Liz's gaze directly. "It does. It feels good to have told you the total truth."