Disclaimer: Michael and Maria aren't mine. The Feng Shui isn't mine. The auras aren't mine (thanks to www.emode.com). But Ian is mine. And Cassie is mine. And the idea…I'm still not sure where the idea came from, but anyone can tell that Michael Guerin would never get along with a roommate.

~*~*~*~*~*~

When Michael heard a key turning the tumblers of the lock, he automatically assumed it was Maria, even if it was the ungodly hour of 8 am. Maria had the only set of keys to his room, so who else would be opening the door?

He peered out from under the comforter as the door opened. "Couldn't you wait another hour, cheesehead?" he whined plaintively. "Or did Amy have Jim over again?"

But the tall, dark figure that entered was anything but a blonde blabber mouth corkscrew curl pixie girl. "Cheesehead?" The guy raised one arched dark eyebrow. "If that's your idea of a nickname, man…"

Michael shot up in bed, clutching the faded comforter to his bare chest. "Who the hell are you?"

The dark boy shut the door, throwing his duffle bag to the floor. "Your new roommate. I'm Ian MacDonald." He held out one short-fingered hand, and from the paint under the fingernails, Michael knew him to be a fellow artist.

"Roommate?" Michael ran one hand through his hair, staring pointedly at the hand that Ian still stubbornly held out. "Housing said I'd have a single again. I don't do roommates."

Ian shrugged. "Sorry, man. Housing said this was the only available double, so…" He waved his hand at the second twin bed which had been pushed up against Michael's. "I'm guessing you'll want to move that. No offense, but you aren't my type."

Michael just glared. "You can't stay here."

"Why, do you have some other roommate you're not telling Housing about?" Ian's hands curled into fists at his hips, taking on a defensive posture. Michael half-expected Ian to ask him if he wanted to making something of it.

And then the tumbler turned in the lock again, and the cheesehead that Michael had thought Ian had been entered. "Sorry I'm so early, Spaceboy, but Jim--" Maria trailed off as soon as she saw Ian. She looked from one boy to the other, and Michael could almost hear the wheels in her head grinding against each other. "Hi, I'm Maria." And she held out one small hand to Ian.

"Ian MacDonald, his new roommate." Ian shook her hand almost gratefully. "I take it you're Cheesehead then?"

Michael smirked when Maria blushed and mumbled something about a long story. At least he could get some pleasure out of this. Maria's skin looked even more golden when she flushed rosy pink. Just like her--

Maria set her courier bag on the ground, then pulled the comforter away from Michael. "The least you could do is get up, Michael. Show him some hospitality until we can get Housing to straighten this out."

Of course Maria would take Ian's side. Michael just rolled his eyes at her, grabbing the nearest t-shirt off the floor and throwing it on over his boxers. On his way to a t-shirt, he grabbed her butt, just because it was handy, and just to hear her give that adorable little indignant snort he loved so much.

Ian still stood next to his duffle bag. "Wait, why do we have to go to Housing to straighten this out? This is the last free room on campus. And since it's technically a double, I'm staying." He looked pointedly at Maria. "And from what I understood, co-ed housing isn't allowed."

Michael made a lunge toward Ian, but Maria stepped in front of him just in time. Leaning her light weight against his body, she smiled that smile that made everyone cave. "I'm sure we can work this out, Ian. Why don't we move the beds for now, so you can put your stuff away?" Looking back over her shoulder, she shot a warning look at Michael, and he couldn't help chuckling. Ian had no idea what he was up against. Michael almost felt sorry for the poor guy.

"You look thrilled," Cassie Burkhalter commented as he thumped down at his wheel beside hers an hour later. "Did your painting not come out or something?"

Michael grunted in response, rubbing his hands through his hair. The painting was going just fine. It was the second body that was constantly in his room, ranking on his Metallica posters and pictures of Maria on his walls that bothered him.

"Fight with Maria?" Cassie's tone sounded hopeful.

He couldn't help laughing. Cassie had witnessed one of his and Maria's now infamous fights the semester before, and Cassie had even offered Michael a place to stay after Maria had thrown all of his clothes out the window onto the front lawn of the dorm. "No fight. Roommate."

This time, it was Cassie's turn to grin. Even though he'd been scared out of his mind by her persistent perusals at first, the tall blond eventually grew on him. It especially helped that she'd been friendly to Maria, and actually studied with his girlfriend on occasion, when Michael was busy or working late on a painting. Cassie wasn't a sister, like Isabel or Liz were, but she was definitely almost becoming a friend.

"Housing accepted too many freshman, I guess, if they even gave the Loner of O'Keefe House a roommate." There was a laughing look in Cassie's blue eyes. Michael supposed she was pretty or something. A lot of guys seemed to drool over her in that sappy cow way that Maxwell was always looking at Liz. But Michael was perfectly happy with his cheesehead, even if he wasn't speaking to her half the time, and she'd lock him out of his room on occasion.

"So what's he like?"

"Huh?" It took Michael a moment to realize Cassie had spoken again.

"Your new roommate," she repeated, a 'duh' look on her face. "Earth to Michael--are you there, Michael?"

He grunted.

Cassie rolled her eyes.

"Welcome to Michael-land." And he gave the blonde his trademark smirk.

"So, what's he like?" Cassie persisted, sliding the smooth clay between her fingers. Though Cassie still scared Michael, he had to admit that she was a good potter…ceramicist…good at throwing pots. Somehow, her sculptures seemed alive. He looked at the lump of clay that sat in front of him and tried not to think of how much the wet clay reminded him of mud, because if he started thinking about mud…

A hand snapped in front of his face. "Michael!"

"What?" He turned a dazed face towards Cassie, and she just rolled her eyes and sighed, though not quite as eloquently as Isabel would have done.

"Never mind."

He studied her, hands thrust wrist deep into his lump of clay. "Why do you care about my new roommate?"

Cassie gave him another Look. "A. I'm single. B. You're not single. C. There are few single guys on campus who are cute, available, and not gay. D--"

"Okay, okay," Michael cut in, waving his clay-stained hands at her. "I get the picture. His name is Ian or Ewan or something, and he's got brown hair and brown eyes or something."

"Tall?" Michael grunted, because Ian, in sockfeet, stood a bare inch taller than him.

"Dark?"

He grunted again.

"Handsome?"

"Now, wait a minute--" It was one thing for a chick to admit that another chick was cute or pretty or whatever, but Michael Guerin would never EVER say that another guy looked remotely good looking. Not even his best friends.

Cassie grinned. She was kinda cute when she grinned, because she had dimples. Her face was rounder than Izzy's, but she didn't have the innate pixie cuteness that Maria had. But then, his cheesehead was also one of a kind.

"The guy's okay or whatever, but he wanted to move all the furniture, and then he doesn't want Maria to stay, and he's got this weird Eastern Philosophy thing going…"

"Philosophy?" Cassie's face perked up. "I love a man who can talk Philosophy--one who likes fine wines, dresses in clothes that aren't stained with paint." And she gave Michael a pointed look.

He looked down at his shirt, noticing the rainbow of paint speckled on it. It was probably left over from one of his and Maria's paint fights. Michael had a bad habit of just wiping his paint-y hands on his shirt, or in his hair, or whatever was handy. Like he cared how he looked.

"Maria likes me covered in paint," he protested. That was all that mattered anyway. Maria covered in paint was more fun though, wearing nothing but paint… A clay-stained hand snapped in front of his face again. "Earth to Michael… Now I know why Maria calls you spaceboy." She sighed. "So, can I stop by to meet your tall, dark, and handsome roommate later today?"

He shrugged. "If you really want to. Hey, can you take him out on a date or something? And make sure it lasts for a couple hours?" Just the thought of Maria covered in paint… Mud, he was thinking of mud… He groaned. That was just as bad. "In fact, if you want to stop by right after class and take him bowling or something…" He looked around the classroom, tapping his foot impatiently. Ms. Sato, their ceramics professor, hadn't even shown up yet. Half of the time, she was in the back of the class, helping the potheads sculpt a better bong. But apparently when she was sober, she was a brilliant sculptor… "Sato hasn't shown up yet. What if we go now?"

Cassie snorted. "You just want him out of your room so that you and Maria can--"

"So?" Without bothering to wipe his hands, he shoved his wet clay back into the vat and grabbed her by the hand. "If we run, we can probably catch him before he goes off furniture shopping…"

And as they all but ran back to O'Keefe House, Michael couldn't help wondering why Cassie snickered the whole way.

Without bothering to knock, Michael used his power to unlock the door. In his excitement, he almost forgot to use his dummy keys, but luckily, Cassie didn't seem to notice. When the walked in, Michael was momentarily stunned. His room looked--and felt--like a completely different place.

"What the hell happened?" He dropped Cassie's hand, circling around the small room to try and figure out what had happened. The beds were now against one wall, facing the door. Convex mirrors were attached to each computer monitor, so that whoever sat in front could see the door. Michael's desk lamp had been moved to the left side, instead of sitting on the right of his monitor. There was even a small green fichus sitting on the window sill, its leaves rustling in the breeze.

Ian looked up from where he was shifting the bookcase, his dark face unconcerned. "Maria told me that you and I are both of the House of Northeast, since we were both born after February of 1983, so I decided to move the furniture to help promote harmony in our living arrangement."

Michael's jaw dropped. "Why'd you cover the bookcase?" He pointed to the dragon-print cloth that had been draped over his scarred bookcase.

"An open bookshelf is like a knife or a pointed arrow. Since we don't have glass doors for it, we'll keep it covered instead to deflect the negative energy," Ian answered matter-of-factly.

Michael ran his hand through his hair with a sigh. He shot a look at Cassie, who was staring raptly at Ian, like he was some sort of Feng Shui god or something. "Where's Maria?"

Ian shrugged. "She said something about class. You know, Michael, her chi will severely disturb the harmonies, since we are a male house. We can't have a female living here." He gave Michael a stern look. "That, and it's against the rules. And breaking the rules set is like a knife or a pointed--"

"Arrow," Michael finished weakly. "Umm…Ian, have you met Cassie?" He shoved the blond girl towards his roommate. "She's a ceramics major and she lives across campus in Rodin House. Maybe her room can be Feng Shui-ed or something." He pushed the two towards the door. And before either of them could say a word, he shut the door behind them. Running to the phone, he dialed up Maria's cell.

"Mom, I told you to stop calling me at school! I'll be home tomorrow, so don't worry--"

"Yeah, anyway, Maria, I sent him off with Cassie, and Sato never showed for class, so…"

There was a click, and Michael heard the dial tone. With a smirk on his face, he laid back on his bed to wait, so that he could melt his lock shut behind his cheesehead.

"I'll kill him. Sooner or later, I'll kill him." Michael ran his fingers lightly over Maria's spine. For some reason, the delicate bones of her back fascinated him. Of course, her whole body fascinated him, but there was something about her daintiness, and the neat way her body fit together. Humans had their faults, but at least their anatomy wasn't so bad.

"And I'm guessing it's not just because of the wild orgies we can't have anymore, huh, spaceboy?" Maria stretched lazily before rolling over on her back. The sunlight from the window played across her pale stomach, and for a moment, the shadows made it seem rounder than usual. For a minute, Michael allowed himself to imagine what the porcelain skin of her stomach would look like, stretched taut over a belly heavy with child. He didn't know what his obsession was, but for some reason, his best paintings now were portraits. Maybe it was that old dream of a family of his leaking out of his subconscious. But that war had killed off whatever of his family remained… "Spaceboy?" Small hands wrapped themselves around his neck, kneading the tight flesh. "Michael, it's college, remember? None of your flashbacks now." Her soft voice had a hint of teasing in it, but Michael could still hear the concern underneath.

But that was another reason. It wasn't just the powers that he used on an almost regular basis, just because it made painting a hell of a lot easier. It wasn't the fact that he needed Maria next to him so that he could sleep at night without waking up in a cold sweat, screaming. It wasn't the fact that he still had hair-trigger reflexes that could set off his powers at the slightest startling noise. It wasn't that he could kill Ian in an instant if he got really pissed off--which seemed more and more likely to happen. He still didn't have control over his powers, not completely. He was still prone to fits of rage and making things explode. And that would be a little hard to explain to housing. Michael could almost picture himself hauling Ian's sorry ass to the student health center. 'Um, yeah, I kinda fried my roommate when he wouldn't move his easel out of the way…'

"Michael!" Maria's green eyes were staring into his. There was a soft smile on her full lips. "No more daydreams about giving your roommate rashes, spaceboy." She settled under his arm again, her slender body fitting neatly against his on the twin bed. "Do your grants cover housing off-campus, or only dorm?"

"Off-campus, why?"

She ran her hands through his hair. "Duh, Michael. Get your own apartment. No more roommate. A place to stay this summer if you don't want to come home to Roswell. More than one set of keys to your door."

Michael continued to stroke her back, tracing the long curve of side from breast to hip. Her curves were subtle, but he didn't mind. Curvy women had always scared Michael, if only because they reminded him of Izzy, and that was a place he didn't want to go for a million dollars and the next ticket out of the Milky Way. "My own place?"

His green-eyed angel sighed. "Your. Own. Place." She rolled on top of him, tracing his cheekbones with one delicate finger. "Y'know, like that rattrap that you had back in Roswell with that really tacky brown couch that's taking up space in my garage? One of those buildings across the street from campus that rents to students? It's still early in the semester. I bet you could still get most of your money back."

No Ian. No weird male-houses and covered bookshelves. Michael was already planning on sleeping on one of the couches in the lounge. If he talked to Housing tomorrow, he could be out by the end of the week. Finding an apartment wasn't that hard…

He jumped off the bed, knocking Maria to the floor. Pulling on a pair of boxers and a an old wifebeater, he began throwing his clothes in the plastic bags he'd saved from the grocery store.

"Michael, you don't have to pack now…" Maria sighed, picking herself up off the floor.

And when Michael only gave her a look in response, she began to carefully roll up his precious Metallica posters on the walls.

"I didn't know I had so much stuff." Michael surveyed his half of the room, now neatly bound in Jiffy-Mart plastic bags. "I never had this much in high school."

His earth girl slipped into his arms, resting her head on his shoulder. Michael couldn't help burying his face in her golden hair for once. It was longer again--naturally grown, not alien-induced. He'd missed her golden curls so much…the way it smelled like sunshine and that wildflower shampoo that Amy sold in her shop. He'd never forget the ripping he got from the guys his first month in the dorm, when the only shampoo he'd brought with him was Maria's wildflower crap. But Michael taught them not to call him a pansy… Hurricane DeLuca had taught him well.

"If you get your own place, you can put all of those drawings you did last summer." Maria leered up at him, kissing the side of his neck. "You know…those drawings…"

"Mmm…the ones that would make Amy hit me with more than just the newspaper?" His hands, with minds of their own, caressed the spot between her shoulder blades, slowly moving lower and lower…

"We're back!" Cassie sang as she opened the door. Her blond hair looked disheveled, and Michael swore her lipstick looked smeared. Maria began to snicker softly.

"Cassie is now the proud owner of a perfectly aligned room," Ian said with satisfaction as he walked in behind the tall blond. "Soon, that artist's block that's keeping her from sculpting should be lifted and--" He stopped suddenly, as if he'd finally noticed the empty half of the room, and the bags on the floor. Ian swallowed noisily. "Michael, what's going on?"

And then Michael felt like the world's biggest ass. "I…" He scratched his face, trying to find the words. But, as was his curse in any matter dealing with another human being, he failed. He looked helplessly at Maria, who gave him a look back that said plainly, it's all yours, spaceboy.

Ian moved about the room slowly, touching a splatter of blue paint between the windows, running his fingers over the dusty top of Michael's bookcase. "Is it something I said?" The dark-haired boy's voice actually trembled. "I can change. Maybe, if we face the desks the against the opposite wall and--"

"Ian…" And to everyone's surprise, even Michael's, his voice was gentle. "Ian, it's not you. It's…" Michael racked his brain, trying to remember anything that Amy DeLuca had ever babbled on the occasions when he'd helped around the house. "It's our auras. Yeah. It's true that we're…that we're of a compatible house, but our auras are just…too different. Mine's…mine's…red. I'm very…" He looked to Maria, who just stepped back, giving him an amused look. What had Amy said? "I'm…earthy. Yeah, earthy. Passionate. Volatile. Ummm…" He heard a snort, and new it had to come from his cheesehead. No, there was no irony there… "And you…you seem very…green? And green auras are kinda…hippies." There was another snort from the cheesehead gallery. "I mean…you're…not earthy…Like idealistic, and…" Michael ran a hand through his hair, as if the spikes would somehow give him inspiration. "We're just not compatible, because we're opposites on the color wheel. We just don't vibrate on the same level." He looked helplessly at Ian.

And to his surprise, Ian actually nodded, a relieved look on his face. "You're right. Though we're of the same house, that doesn't mean that our auras will be harmonious enough for us to share close living space." There was a slight smile on his face. "I think Maria's sapphire aura might suit you better. She feels everything as strongly, so somehow I think she vibrates just right for you." An innocent look appeared on his face. "That, and she's probably better for sex than I would be."

Michael stared at his roommate in disbelief. Beside him, Maria was laughing again. "You should tell Max that we finally found a match for his sense of humor, spaceboy," she whispered, sneaking back into his arms.

He leaned down and kissed her lips. They tasted like berry lip gloss, just like they usually did. "He is right about the sex part though, Goldilocks." He nibbled across her cheekbone and nipped at her ear. "We can get that couch out of your garage and--"

"Ummm, Michael, we're going to go get dinner…for a few hours…if you need any help moving later, Ian's got a truck and--" Cassie's voice trailed off in the background. "See, Ian. I told you. Half of the time, it's like talking to a stone wall…"

There was the sound of footsteps, and a door slamming shut. But Michael didn't notice. He was too busy kissing Maria's soft, white neck.

"I can't believe you were actually listening to my mother." Maria moaned slightly as his lips brushed her collarbone. "Not that I usually listen to her, but that you actually listened to her when she was going off on one of her new age tangents, which are almost as bad as her Women Empowerment speeches and--"

He shut her up with a long, slow kiss. Now his lips tasted like berry lip gloss. "Your mom's not too bad, even if she does have a thing for hitting me with a newspaper." Michael tipped Maria's face up, looking into her dark green eyes. He remembered the way her stomach had looked in his vision, porcelain skin pulled tight as a drum-skin over a belly heavy with child. "You'll be a great mother someday. Just like she is."

The smile on her face was brighter than the suns of both his home planets. One small hand reached up to cup his cheek as she gave him that brilliant, demented pixie grin. "And you'll be a great father someday…I know it." And as his lips began to trace their path down her neck again, she gave a small squeak. "Michael, you still need to find an apartment!"

"So that's how you met the guy that married the Cassie lady that made that sculpture of Nikki when she was a baby and it won all those awards and stuff, but she never sold it, even when that guy offered her a million bucks?" Leo Guerin's dark eyes were awed. Michael couldn't help feeling a burst of tenderness as he looked at the family clustered around them, listening to his much abridged story. "But Mr. Ian never sounds that weird in the letters he and Mrs. Cassie send us for Christmas every year."

Nikki snorted from where she was hanging on the back of Michael's chair. "All artists are supposed to be eccentric, Leo." Her nine year old voice was scornful as she tugged on one of her long golden curls. "Cassie MacDonald is one of the best sculptors of the decade. And Ian draws all those really weird Cuban paintings, like Picasso used to do. That's what my art teacher says. But she also fawns over Daddy all the time. Is she like the ladies who send you their underwear, Daddy?"

Maria snorted from where she stood on the other side of the chair, Molly clinging to her hip. "No, Nik, Miss Andrews isn't one of the women who send your Daddy their underwear. I think Cassie did once though." Her green eyes danced, as they had on that day almost fifteen years ago.

Michael couldn't help smirking. Cassie had gotten over her weird little thing for him once she and Ian started going out. They'd married even before he and Maria did. Michael guessed their chi was a lot more compatible or some crap. Looking up at his wife and the mother of his beautiful, loud children, Michael Guerin knew only one thing. There was only one roommate he could ever live with, a woman who just happened to vibrate on the same sparky frequency that he did.

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