Subject: Michael/Maria

Rating: PG13? Some suggestive moments.

Disclaimer: These characters are not mine o’ course... they belong to the good folks who created the show and also the WB network (and Melinda Metz!). Please don't sue me - I’m a college student - I have no money.

*~*~*

Michael tilted his face up to the night sky, enjoying the vaguely sensuous feeling of the warm breeze rushing across the plains of his face. He swung his feet back and forth, pumping his legs, swinging on the swing like a little kid, going higher and higher. He felt like laughing. He felt good. He felt as free as the wind that bent the blades of grass in the playground sideways and pushed his hair into his eyes. He felt alive.

There was just one thing missing.

He waited until he was at the highest point of the arc, and leapt off the swing, landing with a thump and a cloud of dirt. He hadn’t done that in ages.

He took off in a run down the street towards Maria’s house. She would appreciate the mood he was in tonight.

He hadn’t seen her in a while...not since she and her mom had picked him up from the sheriff’s station the morning after he had spent the night in her room, in her bed. He slowed down. That had probably been a mistake, going to her like that...he didn’t have any right to try and find comfort in her arms, not after everything he’d done...

But he had been desperate to escape the gnawing loneliness and pain that tore up his insides. Something in his ravaged heart knew she was the only one he could go to for help. And he was right. She had been just what he needed to make it through that night. She hadn’t asked him questions, she hadn’t brought up the past, she had forgiven him for all the mistakes he had made and just held him. He hadn’t thanked her for that yet.

Her light was on. She was home.

He trotted up to her window and was about to tap on it before he froze, his fingertips just grazing the cool glass. She was naked. Well topless anyway. She had on the bottom half of a purple bikini and was rummaging around in her drawer for the rest of it.

He knew he should turn around, come back later, but he couldn’t move. He watched her through the strands of beads that dripped down from her window as she found what she was looking for. He watched her tie the strings in a bow at the back of her neck, then smooth the material down over her breasts and bring the bottom strings across her back.

Her fingers deftly knotted another bow just under the elegant slope of her shoulder blades, and she slowly raised her head, starting to turn towards the window as though she could feel his eyes on her.

Michael stepped away from it, pressing his back against the side of her house, out of view, his heart hammering in his chest. He hadn’t been thinking about sex, that hadn’t been his intention in coming. He didn’t want to do anything with her - he had just wanted to see her, to thank her for not telling him to get lost the other night. He had been planning on asking her if she wanted to hang out in the park with him, swing on the swings, do all the things he’d never done in grammar school because he had been too preoccupied with being alone and miserable, too busy saving up the bad things so that when he left it would be this tremendous relief - like starving yourself all day so that when you finally did eat, nothing in the world could compare to it.

Sex was the last thing on his mind.

All right, that was sort of a lie. He was always very aware of the fact that whenever he was alone with her there was the distinct possibility that he would end up kissing her, touching her, leading her on, torturing himself, etc, etc.

He swallowed, trying to erase the image of her from his mind, her smooth skin, golden in the lamplight, the gentle glide of her bare shoulders...

Michael shook his head at himself, disgusted. He wasn’t an animal. He was aware of the concept of self-control, and fully capable of employing it when it was called for.

He heard her lift the window, heard her take a deep breath, and the sweet tinkle of the plastic beads tumbling over each other as she ran her fingers across them. He heard her step away from the window and counted to ten before coming out of the shadows to knock again. He almost ran into her on her way out of it.

She gasped and clasped her fingers over her mouth, one leg over the rim of the window frame, the other still in her room.

"Oh my God, you scared me!" She laughed nervously and slipped the rest of the way out of the window. She looked up at him and shoved a lock of hair behind her ear. "Hi..."

"Hi..."

"Are you okay...?"

"Yeah...yeah...I’m actually good - I’m in a good mood..."

"Wow...I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in one of those before." She smiled at him and he smiled back. She reached out and tentatively touched it with the tips of her fingers. "I don’t think I’ve seen you with one of those either..." she murmured and withdrew her hand, almost embarrassed.

"So...what’s...why are you so happy?"

He shrugged. "I’m free. Hank’s gone - he’s not my guardian anymore. I’m free."

"That’s...that’s great!"

She dropped the bag she had been carrying and flung her arms around him. He paused for a moment before hesitantly holding her back, his hands pressed against her, feeling the knot of her bathing suit. He cleared his throat and stepped back, scratching the back of his head and nudging her fallen bag with the toe of his sneaker.

"So...you goin’ somewhere?"

"Yeah...I...it’s kind of this thing I always do once a year. It’s kind of a tradition..."

"Oh..."

"Do you...want to come?"

He shrugged. "If you want me to."

She leaned over and picked up her bag. "I want you to if you want to...do you?"

He laughed despite himself and Maria grinned at him. "Another first. You have a nice laugh...you should do it more often."

She slung the bag over her shoulder and started walking away from him. "Well, I’m going...you are welcome to join me if you so choose..." She stopped and stared down at her flip-flops. "I want you to come."

"Okay."

*~*~*

"So does your mom hate me?"

"Do you care?"

"No. I was just wondering."

"She thinks you’re an evil male out to steal her daughter's innocence." She laughed. "She thought...she thought we were sleeping together..."

"We were."

"No...I know...I mean sleeping together...but y’know, I explained it to her."

"What did you say?" He stopped and turned to her.

"I said that you...that nothing happened...that you just needed a place to stay..."

She took a deep breath and raised her eyes up to his. "Why did you come to me?"

"I don’t know..." He kicked a rock out of the way and started walking again.

"You don’t know." She matched her pace with his.

"I don’t know. Where are we going anyway?"

"The woods."

"What’s in the woods?"

"The pond."

*~*~*

Maria dropped the bag down on her favorite rock, the one that jutted out from the beach and slipped into the water, looking like the sleeping back of the Loch Ness Monster with its head buried under the cool lapping waves. She sat down and kicked off her flip-flops, gazing up at Michael, who was standing above her looking out at the water.

She pulled her shirt up over her head and dropped it next to her shoes, then leaned back on her elbows, staring up at the moon, full and beautiful and gleaming in the darkness, hanging there just for them. She smiled up at it, and closed her eyes as the breeze whispered down the length of her body. It was always so peaceful here. She looked forward to it every year.

She felt Michael sit down beside her, felt the cuff of his shirt graze her wrist. She opened her eyes. He had been looking at her, but now turned his head to stare back out at the calm water, like he was afraid of being caught admiring her.

"Do you want to swim with me?" she asked him softly, standing.

He looked up at her and watched as she hooked her thumbs under the band of her shorts and slid them of her hips. She kicked the material aside and held her hand out to him.

"I don’t know how."

"I’ll show you."

He paused then took her hand, letting her pull him up beside her. She backed away from him, carefully climbing down the side of the rock while he unbuttoned his jeans and stepped out of him. She was already in the water up to her waist when he added his black shirt to their pile of clothes.

It suddenly occurred to her that she had never seen Michael like this, without his clothes on, vulnerable. Despite all the hot make out sessions, they’d never actually seen much of each other’s bodies. He looked good, built. She had been able to tell as much with her hands, but actually seeing the curve of his lean muscles was...different. She sank down lower into the water, beginning to feel a little self-conscious.

He climbed down the side of the rock and slowly walked through the water towards her.

"Are you standing?"

"Yeah...it doesn’t get much deeper than this." She swam up to him and sat back on her heels in the shallow end, the water line grazing her chin. "So you’ve never swum before?"

"No."

"It’s easy" She stood up and took both of his hands leading him deeper into the water. "Don’t worry, " She laughed at his face as the water crept up his stomach. "I won’t let you drown."

*~*~*

"Maybe your planet is made out of water?" She suggested as he floated beside her.

"Maybe you’re just a good teacher."

"Yes, my dunking you was what did it."

She giggled, thinking of him sputtering after coming back up, and lunging at her. He was pretty fast for someone who claimed never to have set foot in any water deeper than a bathtub before. It was only when she expressed her doubts concerning his ever having had any contact of any kind with a bathtub at all that he had finally caught her and dunked her back. They were now basking in the afterglow of their truce, floating on their backs next to each other under the stars.

They’d never been together like this before - quiet, just enjoying each other’s company without it involving groping. Not that Maria minded a little contact...in fact, if it involved Michael Guerin she craved it, but it was nice just being with him in the moonlight.

She turned her head just the slightest bit to look at him, intending to gaze at his beautiful profile, and maybe he’d gaze back and just have to kiss her...But he wasn’t there.

Maria shrieked as a pair of hands rose up from the water under her and clamped down on her belly, pulling her under, and into his arms waiting for her below the surface. She slipped around in his grasp, and when they came up for air they were facing each other.

He shook his hair out of his eyes and gazed into hers. Drops of water hung on her lashes like jewels. His arms were still wrapped tightly around her, their chests pressed together, and when she breathed out he breathed in, like they were one body, breathing together.

She looked up at him, her hands slowly sliding up his chest, his neck, to cup the sides of his face in her palms. She leaned forward and gently brushed her lips against the corner of his mouth in barely a kiss, then his chin, his neck, leaving a trail of fire down his chest and stopping at his stomach. He looked down at her through his half-closed eyes and she grinned mischievously up at him from shoulder deep in the water.

You’re killing me...

She swooped back up from the water suddenly, until her nose was touching his. He tilted his head to the side, his lips about to touch hers when...

Squish...

Michael blinked at her as a glob of pond mud slid down the side of his face, leaving a gooey trail down his neck and chest. She grabbed him by the waistband of his boxers, pulling him up against her and whispered in his ear, "Still thinkin’ about mud?"

"You are so dead!" He growled as he sank under the water and came up with a handful of ammunition.

*~*~*

They laid on the beach, on the twigs and sand, under a canopy of trees, as he painted the map to his solar system on her belly with fresh mud. Swirls and circles and squares, his fingers made the patterns on her skin and she closed her eyes as he blew on them to make them dry. She felt the blanket of his shadow lift off her as he finished, and she opened her eyes again and laughed. His crazy hair was sticking up all over the place in hardened mud-coated spikes, his cheeks smeared with more of the stuff.

"You look like GI Joe..."

"So do you, GI Jane," he murmured, his gaze sweeping over her similarly camouflaged body.

They were quiet for a moment, just looking at each other and smiling. Maria laughed again and touched the designs on her belly. "I hate to wash this off, but this is my favorite part..."

"Hmm?"

She rolled over, away from him and got up, brushing dirt and sand off from her backside. She climbed back up on the rock and rummaged around in her bag. She turned around, holding up a bottle of green liquid, triumphant.

Michael sat up. "What is that?"

"Shampoo."

"Girls shampoo?"

"Nooooo...it’s unisex...all natural." She poured some into her hand and started working it through her short hair.

Michael rolled over on his stomach and rested his head on his hands, watching as the green tinted suds slid down her neck and shoulders. She scrubbed at her stomach and arms, loosening the hardened mud and slipped under the water to rinse off.

When she resurfaced she kicked her way through the water back to the rock and sat down with her back against it. She patted the water in front of her.

"What?" Michael asked suspiciously, eyeing the green bottle she was balancing on her palm.

"Your turn. Don’t try to run. I will catch you and hold you down if I have to."

Michael grinned at her, thinking that that might be fun too.

*~*~*

Michael closed his eyes as she ran her fingers through his hair, massaging the shampoo into his scalp. It smelled good - tangy, like aloe, with a sharp citrus-y sent mingled into it.

He leaned back against her chest as her soapy hands slid over his shoulders and across his torso, wiping away the mud. He rested his arms on her knees on either side of him, his head falling back against her shoulder as she cupped water into her hands and poured it over him. He could feel her heart pounding against his back, and shivered as her lips brushed his ears as she whispered, "Okay...dunk."

"I don’t think I want to move..." he mumbled, but obediently swam away from her deeper into the water, and disappeared under it.

Maria bit her lip, missing the warmth of his back pressed against her chest, missing the feeling of his hair between her fingers and his skin under her hands. She took a deep breath. This was getting dangerous.

Think platonic thoughts, Maria...platonic...

He came up beside her and held out his hand. She took it and they climbed back up on the rock. Maria took her towel out of the bag and spread it out. She laid down on it, making room for him, and he joined her.

"Thanks for coming here with me..."

Platonic...

"Thanks for inviting me..." He turned on his side, and rested his head on his arm, looking at her. "This place is special to you..."

"Yeah... umm, my dad...he used to take me here once a year...It was like our special thing...just us. Mom never knew about it. We’d just come out here and talk and look at the stars. Neither of us knew the names...we just made up our own. He taught me how to swim. The last time, umm, before he left...I didn’t go. He asked and I said I didn’t feel like it. I didn’t know it was going to be my last chance..." Maria took a deep shaky breath. "He left the next morning. I still come here. I sneak out. Mom wouldn’t understand why I...I need to come here. She wants to forget about him. She wants me to forget about him...but I can’t, y’know? He’s...he’s my dad..."

She turned on her side to face him. "This is the first time I haven’t been sad here. The first time I haven’t cried. It’s too beautiful here to be sad...he wanted this place to be an escape for me...he wanted me to be happy here...and I am..with you."

He reached out and smoothed her damp hair away from her face. She echoed his caress with her own fingers. "I love this...your hair..." She murmured.

He leaned forward, gently pressing his forehead against hers, their hands still cradling each other’s faces. She opened her eyes and lightly brushed her lips against his. She held her breath, afraid he’d let go, afraid he’d turn into the Michael she was used to...the one who didn’t want her. The one who would barely let himself be her friend.

He opened his eyes. His breath left him as he closed the space between them and kissed her back, just as softly, quietly passionate, a slow burn instead of a wildfire, honest, sweet.

"I’ve wanted to kiss you so many times tonight..." he whispered against her lips. "Every night..." His kisses dripped down to her throat as she ran her fingers through his hair.

"Michael..." She cupped his face in her hands, making him look at her. "I love you."

He stared at her, silent. Her heart stopped beating, but she said it again, because she believed it, knew it was true. "I love you."

He stared at her, then slowly buried his face in her neck, not saying anything until she heard him whisper brokenly, "Don’t say that...Maria, please don’t say that..."

She stared up at the stars. Suddenly they seemed cold, and her eyes stung, and she couldn’t see them anymore because she was crying. Just like she always did when she was here.

"Get off me."

"Maria..."

"Get off me!"

He rolled over on his back, his eyes clenched shut, and she sat up, pulling on her T-shirt, then her shorts. "I shouldn’t have said that...I ruined it...We were friends tonight...really friends...and I messed it up because I felt like I had to be honest with you. I should have known better."

She was about to stand when he grabbed her wrist, stopping her.

"Maria, you know I can’t...you know I..." he broke off, staring at her "You know what? Fuck it."

He pulled her to him and kissed her, a kiss that reminded her of their first one at the café...unexpected, and intense. He pulled back before she did, breathing hard. "I love you too..."

"That’s not why I said..."

"I know. That’s not why I’m saying it. I’m saying it because it’s true." He swallowed, still breathing hard. "I’ve never said that before...not to anyone. I’ve never...felt that before."

He looked scared. She understood. She was scared too. Maria took his hand in hers, held it to her lips and kissed his knuckles. "I won’t let you drown."

He paused, then nodded slowly before wrapping his arms around her. She rested her head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat, and closed her eyes at the glowing warmth of his skin beneath her cheek. His voice was soft when he finally spoke.

"Can I take you somewhere?"

*~*~*

They swung beside each other on the swing set in the Roswell Elementary playground, tilting their heads back and tasting the wind in their smiles. He loved the sound of her laugh. He wanted to listen to it forever.

Maria dragged her feet, slowing the swing to a stop. He grabbed onto her chain to stop his swing, and their knees bumped together.

"Is this your...place?"

"I don’t know...maybe..." He kicked at the dirt with his sneaker and squinted at the old red brick building squatting before them in the darkness. "This is where Max and Is and I saw each other again for the first time after we were separated."

"Here?"

"Right here." He pushed off and started up the swing again. "We weren’t in the same homeroom but I could feel them...the second I stepped through those doors...I spent the whole day looking for them...and then they found me. I was sitting here alone. There was a ladybug on the ground. I picked it up and I watched it climb up my arm. It flew away. It flew to you." He looked over at her and shrugged. "You were sitting with Liz in the grass under that tree over there. It landed on your hand and you held it up to the sky and you said that ladybugs were good luck. I remember wondering if it was true. I almost asked you. I stood up and then I saw them. Max and Is. They were holding hands and walking towards me. We just stood there. The three of us. We didn’t say a word. We’ve been together ever since. This is the place where I found myself. I found myself in Max and Isabel. I wasn’t alone anymore. Well, not as much as before anyway..."

He stopped the swing again and turned to her. "I never got to ask you if it was true..."

"About ladybugs?"

"Yeah..."

"I don’t know...it should be..."

"I’d like to think it is."

She took his hand. "Me too." She shivered and he put his arm around her, concerned.

"Are you cold?"

"A little...I’m not completely dry yet."

He sighed and smiled almost wistfully. "I guess it’s time to go."

"I don’t want to leave..."

"Me neither..."

Maria stood from the swing and pulled him up after her. "Then let’s stay, just for tonight..." She led him to the tree, and they spread the damp towel on the ground.

"Won’t you be cold?" he asked her as they laid down together, and she rested her head on his shoulder.

"Not if you’re here," she whispered as he wrapped his arms around her.

They were quiet for a while, listening to the wind that rustled through the leaves overhead, as Michael ran his fingers through her hair, urging her to give in to sleep.

But she didn’t want to sleep. She was afraid that if she did when she woke up this would be over. It was similar to the feeling she had experienced the first night they had spent together. She had been touched that he had come to her when he had been in pain...that he had trusted her enough to let her be there for him. She had laid there beside him, listening to his breath broken with tears, stroking his back, his hair, like her mother had done for her when she was a child.

She had been afraid that in the morning he would pretend like nothing had happened. She had been afraid she was going to have to file the night away in her heart along with all the other things that had ever happened between them and try not to be affected by it, try not to think about it and want it so much.

And she had done that. She had accepted his silence at the police station when they had gotten him out. Because that was how Michael dealt with things...he opened up and then he shut down to make up for it.

And he had opened up a lot tonight.

He had said he loved her. He sounded like he meant it, but things between them had never been stable and probably never would be. Hot and cold, Michael and Maria. That was how it was between them.

Tonight they had gone farther with each other than they ever had before...but what happened when the magic wore off, when Michael came to his senses and he realized what she had said, what he had said? Lying there in his arms under the moonlight that filtered through the parted leaves, throwing delicate patterns across their bodies, she realized she was waiting for the shut down.

Maria sat up. She didn’t want to ruin this, but she had to ask him. She couldn’t lie here pretending everything was perfect in the world, everything was perfect with them, when there was the very real possibility that when the moonlight turned to sunlight he would be gone and she would end up having to convince herself that it had all been a dream.

"What is it?"

"Things aren’t...they aren’t going to change are they? In the morning? I mean, this isn’t going to be 'just a night we had' and then leave it at that, is it? Because if it is just...please tell me now - I need to know what to expect...in the morning..."

He leaned forward and kissed her, whispering against her lips. "It’s after midnight." Another kiss. "Good morning..."

"Is it?"

He stared at her, then pulled back slightly. "What do you want from me?"

"I just...I just want to make sure we’re both...on the same page...I just want to know if this is real...I want to make sure you’re not going to change your mind on me."

"Maria, I told you I...loved you... Do you think I just toss that word around? That it doesn’t mean anything to me?"

"No I know -"

"It’s because it’s coming from me, right? Because I’m not capable of being honest with you? Because all I care about is getting you into bed? Fine... you caught me. I knew if I said it I’d get into your pants faster." He sat up, trying to get as far away from her as possible.

"Michael, I know you...I know that’s not true..." She grabbed onto his arm, trying to stop him from leaving.

"Do you?"

Silence.

He shook free of her grasp. "You don’t know me."

His face was hard as he got to his feet and stalked out of the playground, kicking angrily at the ground.

Maria sat there alone under the tree, wrapping the towel around her shoulders, watching him go. She shouldn’t have questioned him. She should have believed him. She did believe him.

Maria shoved her stuff into her bag and took off after him, but when she reached the street he was gone. She felt the warmth of the rising sun on her back and shivered.

It was morning.

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