Category: M&M, of course!

Rating: PG. Maybe even G.

Summary: Michael and Maria spend their first real Christmas together in front of their Christmas tree.

Spoilers: Small, tiny, miniscule, barely-even-registered-on-the-map "A Roswell Christmas Carol" spoiler. And a couple RE references of course! :)

Disclaimer: Not mine, sadly... Although I will gladly take M&M off of the writers' hands if they're getting to be too much to handle. I think it's about time they had their own spin-off... The Candy Hour has a nice ring to it, don't you think? ;)

Distribution of this story is allowed. Just let me know who, what, when, where, and why. *grins*

We now return you to your regularly scheduled fic...

***

The Christmas tree in the corner of Michael's tiny apartment loomed large and way too bright, partly thanks to the tinsel that was liberally flung over every branch and the multi-colored rainbow lights that glowed in the dimness of the rather gloomy room. Every needle sparkled, thanks to a little special alien glitter power and a lot of coaxing on Maria's part.

The ornaments were simple. A couple of prisms hung from the branches, miraculously unbroken after all of these years. An old sparkly star suncatcher winked from another branch, bringing back memories of Christmas angels and mistletoe. Glass alien heads also loomed from every possible viewpoint, thanks to a rather fumbling but sincere donation from Amy DeLuca that he didn't want to refuse, for fear that she'd come after him with her newspaper of death again. And thanks to Maria's crackpot Craft Night idea she'd come up with this year, there were also lots of home-made ornaments now decorating his Christmas tree. And when Isabel heard that Maria had actually talked Michael into getting a tree, she'd even given him a nice new set of 24 shiny red Christmas ball ornaments to put up too. The Christmas Nazi was still alive and very well.

The popcorn strings made him think of that first kernel that went flying through the air while they sat together on the floor of his apartment, just his little pixie girl and him, and the ensuing popcorn war that had set them back at least another two hours. The star on the top, another thing they'd made together, made him think of tiny chocolate multi-colored goodness just the right size for throwing, of small hands digging into a giant bowl of M&M's. Of flashing green eyes, and little green candies, and how both of them made him feel all funny inside. All ten packs of M&M's they'd bought that day when they made the star were carefully glued to a cardboard star cutout, giving it a mosaic kind of look.

She was curled up next to him now, a grown woman of 20, almost 21. Still stuck here in Roswell, New Mexico. Both of them. He still had that lumpy brown couch, and they both still liked to cuddle on it together. When they weren't doing other things.

She was watching the Christmas tree with all of the pride of a mother watching her firstborn baby. He could understand why. It was the first time he'd really been into Christmas. Other Christmases had been less than ideal for him. First at the orphanage. Then with Hank... Those were the worst, when Hank would just throw him a beer and say, "Merry Christmas, boy." And then even the Christmases when he got away from Hank, when he was living on his own, were never perfect. He didn't have money. He didn't have a clue. And he always had too much other alien crap on his mind to bother with getting all wrapped up in the holiday. She still didn't know that those pearl earrings she often showed off weren't really from him. And he wasn't about to tell her that either, no way. Especially not since they'd just gotten back together before Thanksgiving... For good this time, maybe. He wanted it to be for good anyway. He was tired of having to fight through everything alone.

And that Christmas tree, with all of its lights and sparkle and greeny pureness, it was like her. It was both of them, because they'd bought it together. They'd decorated it together. They'd made it theirs together. And now they lived and loved and fought and made up, all underneath its watch. At least till the end of December anyway. Michael would be sorry to see it go. Sorry to see that vivid green turn lifeless and brown, and watch the ornaments get shoved back into boxes and the colored lights taken down. But he wasn't going to think about that now. Not when the tree was still so alive, so vivid.

Maria finally spoke from where she lay next to him, her head resting by his chest. "I wish you had a fireplace..."

Michael smirked as he took in the rainbow lights they'd strung together around the tree. He'd gotten all tangled up, and she had to come in and rescue him, and then they'd both got stuck there together. Not that he minded. "I got something better than that," he revealed as the lights flashed him an idea. Something he'd been wanting to show her for a while now...

She hooted and immediately went into excitement mode. "What, what?"

Even when she was nearly asleep she had that never-ending enthusiasm for anything new. "Just watch."

He slowly raised the free hand that wasn't holding Maria up into the air, closing his eyes. He concentrated on the colors of the lights, on large boxes of colored pencils flicking in the firelight, on paints dripping off clothes, on pastels smeared on his fingers. On little markered curlgirls twirling around in droplets of water. And prisms, making rainbows on the wall, filtering the white light into colors. He tried to make his hands like those prisms, tried to get that white light he could emit to somehow split into colors for her, and when he opened his eyes...

"Michael..." Maria breathed, her eyes wide with amazement.

Rainbow-colored light was gently shooting out of his fingers, lighting up their faces, and arching over both their heads. He felt a rush of pride. He did it. He actually did it. He used his power without frying anybody. He could do something with it that she liked. It was finally safe again. They could finally... It was safe.

"It's beautiful," Maria murmured drowsily, as her eyes drooped closed. He pulled the quilt up so she'd be warmer and grinned as she nuzzled him a couple of times. "Merry Christmas... Dorkbutt."

"Merry Christmas, Cheesehead," he replied, the rainbow still pouring out and filling up every corner of his apartment with a soft light. A vibrancy that even his Christmas tree couldn't compete with. And he knew that from now on, every Christmas he had would be filled with green, and pixies, and rainbows, and light.

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