Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Roswell, Amy, Michael, or Maria. All funds raised through this work were voluntary contributions to the Support Stacie fund, and do not imply any ownership of Fox/Warner Brothers intellectual property
Pairing: Michael and Maria
Rating: Teen
Summary: Maria is surprised when her mother brings Michael home for dinner - and says that he'll be staying with them for a while!
Dreamer insurance free to all. This is much more of an exclusively shipper piece than usual for me - Isabel appears at the beginning a bit, and she'll return with Alex and Michael for cameos at the end. But in general it's all about Max and Liz.
Author's Note: This story is dedicated to girl afraid, who made the opening bid on my Roswell/Crossover entry in the September Support Stacie auction, in the name of CANDY!
She was outbid by Ella1022/fehrfan76, (see the Crossover story 'Arrow through my soul') but I made her a runner up offer, a 5,000 word Candy story if she'd donate her bid.Because of some other things going on in her life girl afraid didn't get an opportunity to suggest anything for this story other than the pairing, but I came up with this idea and wrote it for her, she just told me she liked it and wanted me to post it places, so here it is!
I stared at the half-completed English lit essay for something like the eightieth time, tried to continue a paragraph about the use of allegory in 'Julius Caesar', and stormed out of my room, giving it up for now. I was completely out of sorts, and needed to - what? Just veg out in front of the TV. No - for one thing, Mom would probably be home soon, and she'd give me grief for wasting time when there was so much spring cleaning to be done and homework still unfinished. Also, I didn't really want to just veg - I felt like I needed to do something productive, but not anything too hard - which disqualified at one stroke both homework and cleaning. So what, then?
Out of sheer accident, I stopped when I noticed that I had prowled into the kitchen and started to look around. Hmm - a package of ground chicken in the freezer, plenty of home-stewed tomatoes, and some fresh veggies. Idea! Soon the chicken was thawing in the microwave, and I was hard at work on the other necessities for a DeLuca meat sauce. There'd be more than Mom and I could eat in one sitting, but we had plenty of dry pasta around, and a sauce like this keeps well in the fridge for nearly two weeks.
As I worked on chopping the green peppers and stirring the tomatoes, my thoughts inevitably strayed to other recent events, which given this past week, meant Michael. I hadn't even seen him at all since yesterday, at the Sheriff's station, when Mom and I had gotten him out of jail. Actually, to be quite honest, Mom had gotten Michael out, and I had just really come along for the ride - that had been clear from Jim Valenti's reaction when he'd heard me tell my side of Michael's alibi. It wouldn't have meant much without someone that he trusted more than me to back it up.
I'd thought, while I knew that Michael was still in jail, that getting him out would be the end of the story, what needed to be done to keep him 'safe', but as he left us to go and talk to Max and Isabel Evans, my mind kept going back to what Isabel had said about Michael's foster father, and deciding that he was anything but safe. If there was anything worse than Michael living with someone who would hurt him, it seemed to me that just maybe it was Michael not even having anybody who was officially looking out for him, to be lost in the system and misfiled like that. Max and Isabel would look out for him as best they could, but I could tell from Isabel's frustration that there was only so much anybody could do to help out without Michael's own frustration and restlessness getting in the way.
But surely this wouldn't go on forever, would it? If Hank had just picked up and left Michael for this long, wouldn't that trigger some kind of social services review thingee? I knew Michael well enough to realize that he'd resent some caseworker getting involved in his life and choosing who his next parental figures should be, but wasn't that the best thing for him in the long run??
I kept on going over stuff like this in my mind, not really getting anywhere, until the sauce was all assembled and simmering fairly vigorously. Just then the kitchen door opened, and my mom appeared, taking a good sniff and letting out a sigh as soon as she was inside. "That smells great, honey. I'm really glad that you took the initiative on getting some dinner ready, and that it looks like there'll be plenty to go around."
"Okay, umm - that's a bit cryptic, but thanks for the appreciation," I muttered. "Why will dinner have to go further around than usual?" Suddenly an obvious answer to that question occurred to me. "You - umm, you didn't invite Mister Valenti to a family night, did you?" I still wasn't really wild about the notion that the intimidating Sheriff, Kyle's dad, and my Mom were apparently an item, but if I had to name one saving grace about them being in the moon-eyed dating phase, it was that their time together was alone time and I didn't need to witness much of it directly. If that had changed, and Mom was nesting enough that she wanted the boyfriend and I to spend time nicely together...
"Um, no, actually - I decided that Jim and I need to spend a little time apart, just for the next little while," Mom mumbled. I wondered how he'd taken that decision. "But - well, you're almost right, honey - we are going to have a gentleman guest. For more than just the evening, actually."
"A 'gentleman guest'?" I repeated, heavy on the disbelief this time. Oh, no - had Mom gotten it into her head to try and fix me up with Murray Peterson again? Just then I noticed another set of footsteps coming up the drive toward the door, and braced myself against the stove and the door jamb for the sight of Murray's... somewhat ample figure. But despite all the bracing, I felt like I'd been knocked over by a right hook when I saw the 'gentleman' in question. Maybe that comes from bracing myself in the wrong direction, or something like that.
Because the face, (and the whole person,) that showed up at the door, next to my Mom, was -- Michael!
As soon as I had any kind of physical balance, I instinctively rushed toward him - the intent was probably to throw my arms around him in a wild embrace, but uncertainty and confusion stopped me in my tracks before I got to him. After all, we hadn't really been on very good terms when I'd last seen him, even if I'd been worried and was glad to see him safe and whole. And Michael looked somewhat uncertain about if he really wanted to be here, and probably wouldn't like me making a big deal of him just at this point. That could certainly wait.
So I forced my mouth into second gear and forced out what seemed to be the biggest question weighing on my mind, in the hopes that confusion might in this way be reduced. "What do you mean, for more than just the evening?" After all, even the notion that Mom would invite Michael over for dinner and a game of Scopa seemed reasonably extraordinary, though somewhat believable, if I allowed for the possibility that she had motives that weren't exactly obvious. I wasn't even sure what the phrase I repeated MEANT, though, it was so foreign to what I was expecting.
"Maybe you'd better sit down, honey," Mom prompted. "You too, Michael. Just put your bag down anywhere." I noticed that Michael had been carrying a big, heavy canvas duffel with the strap slung over his shoulder, and he dropped that against the wall before pulling out a chair at the dining table. I followed, noticing that my actions seemed somewhat wooden. Mom spent a little while cleaning up some of the mess that I'd left out from preparations and stirring the sauce before she spoke again.
"Maria, you've obviously heard something about the difficulties Michael's been going through, living with Hank Whitmore up in the trailer park. Valenti filled me in on what he knows about the situation, and - well, I thought about it a lot last night, and decided that this was one of those situations where you need to volunteer for a personal sacrifice, because nothing's ever going to change if somebody doesn't step up and take action for the better."
Uh-oh. I was actually starting to get a glimmer of the situation. "You - you mean, you volunteered to have him live HERE with *us*?"
Mom still wasn't looking directly at either of us, though she could probably see the corner of the table out of her eye at this point. I was pretty sure that she couldn't really see the expressions on Michael's face after I finished speaking my heated reaction: first a wiggle of his eyebrows that was at the same time teasing, provocative, and sly, and then a comically overdone masque of heartbreak and dismay - an unspoken but clearly ironic 'You don't want me here? I'm beyond crushed!'
"Yes, I did exactly that Maria," Mom said in a very stern tone of voice, looking a bit more clearly in my direction. "It's not exactly official at this point, but if things work out then I'm going to be Michael's new foster parent."
"But - but..." I sighed. "It's very noble in a way, Mom, but did you think about what this would be like for me?"
"I guess I hoped that you'd be generous enough to not quibble about sharing your home, Maria," Michael said in a terribly earnest voice. "You're my friend, you want the best for me, and obviously the best thing for me ISN'T to keep living with Hank."
That - that was certainly true, and I had to admit that this was an answer to the dilemma that I'd been stewing over before Mom came in - just not the answer that I'd been expecting or really looking for. The fact that Michael and I were involved in some kind of complicated relationship was something that nobody else seemed to be acknowledging so far, and I wasn't at all sure that I wanted to be the first one to bring it up. That intense earnestness of Michael's - was he trying to signal to me 'don't spoil the deal?' As uncertain as he was, I wasn't getting the impression that he didn't want to be here at all, and I think that I could have gotten the signal if that was what he was feeling.
So the question was, if he wanted to be here - did our old heat factor into it, and if so, on what side? (Just remembering last December made me shiver a bit.) I knew that easy access to each other would be superficially tempting, but probably not that satisfying if Mom realized that we liked each other 'that way' and started to be constantly on her guard to keep us from being alone together. Did Michael want to be here to be with me, or was he so eager to be away from his old foster father that he was going along with this in spite of how close it meant being to me?
I looked up at Mom again, and she'd been spooning out a tiny amount of sauce into a little fruit bowl. As she crossed over to the silverware drawer for a clean teaspoon, she mentioned offhandedly, "I know that we don't exactly have loads of space around here, but there's the pull-out couch in the den, and I think that Michael will have all that he needs in there."
Yeah, all that he needs, even... "So he gets to have the TV in his room, essentially?" I blurted out. This time Mom did turn around and give me a severe glare, and I flinched slightly. "Sorry."
"We can move it out into the living room if keeping it in the den doesn't work out for everybody," Michael suggested. "Maybe tomorrow." Mom nodded approvingly at this suggestion.
"And I think that I've got things well in hand here," Mom said, after tasting the sauce. "Dinner should be ready by six - that's three quarters of an hour. Maria, can you help Michael settle in? Grab whatever the two of you will need to make the pull-out bed from the linen closet and the old chest in my room - and make sure that he knows where everything is in the bathroom, that kind of thing. Not that there should be any surprises I imagine."
"Umm, okay," I said, getting to my feet. "Umm - what's he going to use for dresser drawers in the den?"
The question seemed to surprise both of them. "Hey, I don't need anything fancy," Michael quickly protested. "I had some boxes - crates, actually - in the trailer, but I'm quite okay with just living out of the bag for a while." He shot a look over in my Mom's direction. "I don't want you going to any trouble - this is just on a trial basis, right?"
"Yes, but that doesn't mean you should be acting like a transient," my Mom said a bit doubtfully. "What did you have in mind, Maria?"
"Well, my old bureau is still out in the garage, isn't it?" I suggested. Our garage hasn't had room to put a car inside it for years now - it's gradually filled up with old merchandise and castoffs that have congregated there in the hopes of a garage sale that hasn't panned out so far - it kind of looks more like a basement, I think - but not many houses here in Roswell were built with actual basements. "A big strong guy like Michael should be able to lug it back inside - and I'll help steady it if he needs that, or hold doors open for him."
I smirked back at Michael, thinking that he'd be crestfallen at the tough job that I'd just signed up for, but was met with an even more self-satisfied smirk. Huh? Mom agreed immediately that this was a good idea, and I headed outside, immediately struck by the spring chill and the fact that I was still wearing casual 'around the house' type clothes.
I immediately looked down at myself to belatedly see how presentable I was for company. (It probably says how surprised I was at Michael's appearance that I didn't even check until this point.) Plain grey skirt, didn't quite reach to my knees. Hair was probably all right; at least I'd brushed it this morning. And the yellow t-shirt I had on - well, it was big and floppy, with a close neck, but suddenly I realized that I wasn't wearing anything underneath and Michael had almost certainly realized that already. Hoo-boy.
I almost went scurrying back into the house to go to my room and put a bra on, but somehow I didn't really want to explain the necessity to Mom, so I led the way over to the garage door, reached out for the doorknob - and it obviously wouldn't turn.
"Locked?" Michael asked with another wide smile. "Did you happen to remember a key?"
"We don't have a key for this door," I said, and watched Michael's face go all surprised. "Not that it's really locked, it just gets stuck sometimes, and... aha!" With a quick gesture to push the knob in and then turn, (a routine that I had practised long ago but not had to use in months,) I was able to fling the door wide, then stepped inside, switched the light on, and waved Michael along.
He followed, but instead of even letting me point out the bureau, as soon as he was close, Michael's lips and hands were on me, the door swinging closed behind him. For a long first moment, I just let the heat wash back over me, kissing him back for all that I was worth, (which is quite a bit I think,) and running a few fingers through his short hair. Then, through the haze of physical pleasure, a thought emerged, and eventually I managed to mumble it clearly through the smooching. "We - umm, as fun as this is, we can't stay out here for too long. Mom will start to wonder what's keeping us."
"Uh-huh," Michael grunted back, swinging me around so that I was backed up against the very bureau that we'd come for, and realizing an opportunity I lifted myself up on my hands and slid my butt onto the top of the furniture, because that way my face was closer to a level with Michael's, actually slightly higher. He chuckled softly at the different angle that brought to our kiss, and let one of his hands pass between us, running quite gently across the front of my shirt. After just a few seconds of that, the fact that I was poking out the fabric was even more obvious.
And then, just as my motor was really starting to run at full gear and I'd forgotten about the reasons for turning on the red light myself, Michael backed away and muttered, "So, where's this thing that I'm supposed to carry inside?"
"I'm on top of it," I admitted with a short laugh and a long sigh. "Probably would be easier to carry if I got down, huh?"
"Yeah, I'm not strong enough to handle both at once," Michael admitted regretfully. So I hopped back onto my feet, and backed away a bit. Went over to open the door again, and then thought of one thing that I wanted to ask before there was any slightest possible chance of being overheard.
"So, is this how it's going to be? The two of us stealing kisses any chance when we're alone, but acting like just good friends, or almost like brother and sister, in front of my Mom?"
"I - uh, I dunno," Michael admitted, as he hefted up the bureau. "I, um - I jumped at this chance, when your mom offered. Frankly I don't really know why she bothered - I mean, she does understand that we..."
"Yeah, I think so," I agreed. Even before Mom had caught Michael in my bed the other morning, she'd surprised me by interrupting a warning rant about how bad guys could be with 'Michael will come around, honey.' (I really thought I'd been talking about Mister Valenti, but who knows for sure?)
"As far as you and me..." Michael shrugged awkwardly, which made the dresser wobble, and I really thought that that was all the answer I was going to get from him, so I opened the door. But as he passed me, in a low voice Michael whispered, "I - I'm still not sure if we can work. But - but it means a lot to me that you took me in when I kinda needed somebody, and - and you're hotter than the desert. Whatever that's worth."
I wasn't sure what to make of that as I went around to hold the kitchen door for him.
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"Okay, dresser's in the corner." Michael apparently felt the need to punctuate this by pounding on my bedroom door a few times for good measure. "Sofa-bed is pulled out, and your mom mentioned something about me having to make it before dinner, so I need the fixings."
"I'll be out in just a minute," I said, and looked into the mirror, wondering if there was anything that I could do to improve the image I projected in 'just a minute'. Part of the problem was that I still wasn't sure what kind of image I WANTED to project. As an example, I'd come inside determined to put a bra on as soon as I could, but when faced with the choice, immediately chose the Miracle push-up, and then draped my heaviest sweatshirt on top of the t-shirt to make the push effect less obvious.
The skirt was good enough, (or ambiguous enough,) to leave, but I changed my sandals for white sneakers and short pink socks, and sprayed some mousse into my hair. Picking up the brush, I ran it over my head a few more times, and headed out to grab blankets and a quilt from Mom's room. After opening my bedroom door, I immediately wondered if Michael would catch and 'molest' me there, or in the walk-in closet, and if I'd enjoy it as much as I had outside in the garage.
But, (unfortunately?) Michael was very much the polite house guest, following me around as I gathered the soft goods that he'd need, and telling me some story about a monopoly game at the Evans house as he spread the sheets and covers over the sofa mattress with more neatness and experience than I'd expected. He'd gotten on to something about hitching a ride with a soda truck driver, (I didn't really follow when these events had happened,) when Mom called us both back to the kitchen for dinner.
She'd made a salad and garlic bread as well as finishing up the sauce, boiling a big pot full of fusilli, and preparing the 'secret family recipe' mix of five different kinds of grated cheese - which all suggested that she was making a big deal of Michael's first night living here. Michael's table manners as we started to pass around the food were better than I'd expected - which suggested that maybe he knew a lot about etiquette, but just couldn't usually be bothered about how he acted. For some reason, my mom rated a big deal from him too.
And then, Mom started to lay down the law as we ate. She started off very casually, just saying that she wanted to establish a few ground rules as soon as possible, but quickly, as usual, my Mom got on a roll - explaining in great detail the kind of consideration and respect she expected from Michael toward both of us as long as he was living here, the chores he'd be responsible for, and (most unbelievably,) how much effort she expected him to put into school, how seriously she wanted him to take West Roswell High, and that kind of thing. Just as unbelievably, Michael took it in stride, nodding his head and saying "Yes, ma'am" at the appropriate points. Finally, it was just too much to sit back and watch as I cleaned off my plate.
"Okay, enough!" I screamed. Mom paused with a spoonful of noodles halfway to her mouth, and then calmly put it back onto her plate. "I - I'm not sure what's going on here, but there's SOMETHING that neither of you are telling me, and I will... I don't know what I'll do if somebody doesn't start explaining, but it's definitely not going to be pretty for anyone. You - you're not really coming to live here, Michael, are you? I - I don't think that you'd be accepting everything so calmly if you thought you were going to have to live up to it all. It's not like you."
My ranting kind of gave out at that point, and I just sat there, looking between the two of them. Michael wasn't looking in my direction at all, but instead kept shooting an oddly intent stare at my mom, and I followed that gaze just in time to catch her shoot him back a wink! Then Michael did favour me with a cool regard, and he sort of made a gesture that was partly a bow and mostly a nod.
"I... I'm glad that you spoke up right then, Maria, because I wasn't going to be able to hold the laughter in for much longer," he said, indulging in a soft and hearty chuckle. "You're right; I won't be living in that spare room. It - well, it was your mother's idea to play that joke on you in the first place."
"Mom?" I whirled around to face my betrayer.
"Yes, it was my scheme," she admitted. "Partly a bit of payback for yesterday morning, and partly just to keep you on your toes a little, my lovable but often exasperating daughter."
I didn't want to face the notion of what my mother wanted to keep me on my toes FOR, if that involved teaching the lesson that I couldn't always trust what she was telling me. So instead I focused on Michael. "And you went along with it - what, because you thought it'd be fun to fool me?"
"Well, partly," Michael allowed. "Also, I didn't really want to piss your mom off. She can be scary when she wants to."
I thought of several flip remarks I could make about the scariness of parental figures, but didn't bother saying any of them. "So - what's the truth, then? Are you going back to Hank's?" He was silent for a longish pause, and so was Mom. "I don't believe that him abusing you was part of the 'gag' - Isabel told me so, before any of this thing started, and..."
I realized then that I shouldn't have said that part out loud - it was just making Michael shut down even further. "No, umm - I'm not going back to Hank's trailer," Michael admitted. "Among the other good reasons why not - he doesn't even want me anymore. Skipping town, and flying solo. I could almost respect that part."
"Of course you would," I muttered. Okay, well, it sounded like Hank had at least showed up. I'd forgotten the part about him being missing when I talked about Michael going back to him. "So, umm - what? Do you go to a new foster situation, that just isn't with us?"
Now Michael actually smiled a little. "No, no more foster situations. As of today, I'm an emancipated minor, so ordered by the court and everything. I'd have been out looking for apartments this evening, except that SOMEBODY decided that I had better things to do right here." He even shot a mock-angry look over at Mom. (I wouldn't have been surprised by real anger, but not that kind of fake anger that hides a little bit of affection, not too well.)
"Oh, Michael, I'm sorry!" Amy exclaimed. "I - well, I didn't realize, and I admit that I didn't exactly give you much chance to raise an objection like that." She sighed. "Do you need to actually stay over here tonight?"
"Umm, thanks for the offer, but I think I'll go over to the Evanses instead. They've been great about this whole thing."
"Wait, wait, wait..." I shook my head. "Michael, you're going to be living by yourself?"
"Yeah," he agreed. "That's what 'emancipated' boils down to, more or less. Nobody to boss me around, nobody else to blame for how screwed up I am, just me to succeed or fail on my own." He stopped and reconsidered. "Except for my friends, I suppose."
"Umm, well, cool I guess. You'll have to... um, to invite me over, once you've found a place."
Michael smiled. "Sure, I guess."
"Now, that's something that we're really are going to have to lay down ground rules for," Mom chimed in, right on cue. "I know that I can't keep you from seeing Michael if you're bound and determined to, but I'm not at all comfortable with the idea of long unsupervised stretches of time spent together in..."
"Hey, no regulating the apartment before I've even found it," Michael protested. "Now that the jig is up and all, can I use your phone to call Max and ask him for a ride?"
"Oh, come on, no need to impose on him too much," Mom shot back. "Let him know that you're coming - but Maria can drive you over and back. Can't you dear?"
"Umm, sure I guess, yeah," I said, starting to smile myself as Michael got up to make his call.
But once dinner was done and the table cleared, driving Michael over to Max and Isabel's house wasn't as fun as I'd hoped it might be. For one thing, the 'affectionate and fun boyfriend' behaviour that Michael had been indulging in all day - it was like that was something that he'd only allowed himself because it was part of 'the big joke on Maria.' Now that the joke was up, he was starting to become Mister Stonewall again - the boy who liked me, but could never really make up his mind how much he was supposed to show it. I tried flirting a bit, but either I was doing remarkably badly at it or he wasn't in the mood, because he hardly even acknowledged my presence all the way over.
Once I parked in front of the Evans house, he kind of sat up straighter, like he'd been dozing off and had just woken up. Heck, maybe he was short on sleep too - he'd never really explained where he'd spent last night. Or maybe I'd tuned that part out. "Umm, sorry I haven't been very good company for you," he mumbled.
"That's okay," I said for some reason, though it wasn't really what I felt. He opened the door and got out, and I was about to turn the ignition back on when Michael waved that I should come out too. So I did stand up and walk around the car, though again I couldn't really say why. If Michael thought that he was going to get a kiss goodnight after giving me the cold shoulder, he had another think coming... except that my lips seemed to like the idea of kissing him, now that it had occurred to me. Damn them!
But he didn't make a move right away, as we wandered slowly up the Evans front walk. The lights were on, but when I checked I didn't see anybody obviously looking out toward us. "So," Michael suddenly said. "Do you have any plans for tomorrow?"
"Well, I'm working the early shift at the Cafe," I told him. "Seven to one."
"Right, yeah. Anything else, later on?" Not caring much, I just shrugged at him. "So if I go apartment hunting in the afternoon, would you want to come with?"
"Me?" Every so often, Michael can completely blow me away with just a little gesture, which is probably just because he keeps them so rare and in short supply, the bastard. "You'd want me to come along and look at apartments with you?"
"Umm - yeah. I'll probably ask Max or Isabel too," he said, looking at his feet. "But what the hell - no matter what laws your mom tries to lay down, I figure you'll probably be spending some time whatever place I end up with. It's not going to be anything great, considering what my independent finances look like, but..." He trailed off as his eyes lifted to meet mine.
"Yeah, I understand," I told him, "and I'd love to come. Thank you for asking me."
"Whatever, you know." Michael shrugs awkwardly. "Do you want me to call you or something?"
"You could just drop by the Crashdown for lunch," I suggested. "Why not? We'll figure it out from there."
He grinned, and shot me that lusty look that I'd been expecting. But knowing that there'd be another time, I could salvage a bit of pride and overrule my lips' objections. "See you tomorrow Michael." And with a too-cheerful wave, I walked back to the car.
Shaking my bootie just a little bit, knowing that he was watching with his mouth hanging open.
THE END.
