There's a lot of what she says there that he wants to come back to - chief among it, that he made her happy. It sounds entirely serious, and yet there's sadness in her face, in the way she talks. Frowning, he moves instinctively closer to her.

The story about her abilities takes precedence, then, and he thinks about her mom. Is that what's in Maria's future, if she uses her powers?

"So you...don't want to dampen your powers, even if using them hurts you?"

It worries him now. It must have worried him then, especially if they were closer, if they were together. His brow knits and he looks away. When Michael was young, he'd thought his powers were amazing. He'd wanted to play with them. He'd wanted Max and Isobel to discover theirs, feeling like it was some exciting secret between them.

Except that he got older, and better understood why they had to hide. He was exorcised because of his abilities. They've been his secret for a very, very long time, and it's only here in Duplicity that he's started to be more open with them at all. He thinks about how he's trained them with Dick, how he's gotten better at fine control. He understands Maria wanting to accept what she is.

But he's worried about what that means. If the cost would be worth what she gets for it.

"It's your choice," he says. "I hope I always knew that. I don't want you to get sick, I don't want you to get hurt. But having special powers that no one else has? I get that, DeLuca, you know I do. What is it you can do?"