A Christmas Truce

By Lauren

Pairing: M&M
Summary:  Set after graduation.  The gang has settled in a small town for
Christmas, on Isabel’s insistence, after running from the FBI for months. 
Michael and Maria have been fighting for months, and Maria feels that he
doesn’t notice the deterioration of their relationship.
Rating:  NC-17
Feedback:  Yes please!!  This is my first fic, so be kind.

***********************************************

Maria surveyed the extensive array of Christmas trees for sale.  Tall ones,
short ones, skinny ones, fat ones.  Glancing down at the diagram in her
hand, Maria wished someone else had been sent to choose the Christmas tree.

“Having trouble?” came a voice from behind her.

She knew instantly that it was Michael, and cringed inwardly.

They hadn’t been getting along very well lately.  It was more than their
usual bickering, which was in good nature.  This was something new, and
Maria didn’t like it.  Michael hadn’t seemed to notice.

It was so hard, living with him in a tiny van with 4 other people.  They
never got any privacy, and he seemed to be of the opinion that everything
was ok now.  There was no need to work on their relationship at all anymore.

Before she left to get the tree, she had blown up at him, apparently for no
reason.  How could she explain that she was angry and upset because he never
seemed to try, never seemed to care or notice that something was wrong? 
Maria understood that he had a lot on his mind – they were running from the
FBI for God’s sake, but that didn’t mean they could let everything else go
to hell.

“I owe you an apology” Maria stated.

“I see, and what would that be for?”

“I dunno, blowing up at you.  I’m sorry Michael”

“No you’re not” he commented amicably.

“What?  Michael, I said I’m sorry, can’t you just accept that like a normal
person?”

“I’m not a normal person, you know that.  It’s the reason that we’re here in
the first place.  Maria, I know you well enough to know when you’re lying,
or at least when you’re not telling the truth.  And right now, I’m much more
interested in the reason for all the theatrics, than in your apology.”

Maria just stared at him.  When did he get to be so perceptive and
reasonable she wondered?

“Um… I…” She stuttered, still too stunned to speak properly.  “Let’s just
get this tree, we can talk later.”

“Whatever you say Blondie.” He said with a grin.


***


It took them an hour and a half to choose a Christmas tree that they both
agreed fit the description in the diagram.  When they arrived back to the
apartment, Isabel was waiting.

“What took you two so long?” She exclaimed, turning to Maria “you were
taking so long I sent Michael after you… And you” she turned to Michael,
ready to lecture him on the dire consequences of keeping her waiting for
something as important as a Christmas tree, when Max broke in.

“They’re here now Iz, lets just decorate the tree.” Max sounded tired, and
Isabel was worried about him, so she agreed, but not before shooting Michael
a dirty look.  He just winked at Maria, and she couldn’t help smiling back.

They had come to a sort of agreement to just forget about everything that
had happened.  Maria wasn’t exactly happy with it, but she knew Michael
didn’t understand, so she left it.  It wasn’t his fault he didn’t get it. 
She just wasn’t sure it would work particularly well to just pretend
everything was ok.


***


Maria woke on Christmas morning to the sun shinning through the window onto
one of the glass ornaments on the tree.  She rolled over to check on
Michael, but to her dismay, he wasn’t there.

Frowning, she climbed out of bed, grabbed her dressing gown and went to look
for him.  It couldn’t be past 8am.  Michael considered 8 am to be the middle
of the night!

She found him sitting in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee and staring,
with great concentration, out the window.

“Hey,” she whispered softly, “Merry Christmas.”

Michael had heard her approach, and turned when he heard her voice.

“Hey, you too.  There’s coffee.”

“Thanks, what are you doing awake?  It’s only 7:30” Maria remarked glancing
at the clock on the microwave.

“It’s Christmas!” he replied, like that was explanation enough.  He really
was just a little kid sometimes.  It made sense, Maria couldn’t imagine
Michael’s foster father, Hank, ever giving him a ‘real’ Christmas, so this
was probably pretty exciting.

“What are you thinking about?” Michael jolted her out of her reverie.

“Nothing important, so what’d you get me for Christmas?” She asked, changing
the subject.  Michael grinned.  “If I told you that, it wouldn’t be a
surprise!”

“Ok, but when do I get to open it?” Maria whined, “You know I have no
patience for this kind of thing.”

Michael smirked in response, “Yeah, I know.  You can open it when we’re
alone.”

“We’re alone now Michael!”

“No we’re not, the gang is here… I mean when we’re really alone”

“Is this some kind of sex thing?  Are you giving me sex toys?” She asked,
incredulous.

Michael rolled his eyes.  “Maria, if this was a sex thing, I wouldn’t care
who watched.”

“Michael!” Maria squealed.  He grabbed her around her middle and rolled them
onto the floor, tickling her.  His coffee abandoned on the counter.  She
continued to squeal, and Michael silencing her the only way he knew how.  He
captured her mouth with his, coaxing her lips open and sliding in his
tongue.  Maria’s squeal turned into a moan as Michael kissed along her jaw
and then down her neck.  He found that perfect nerve ending where her
shoulder met her neck, and sucked.  Maria slipped her hand into his hair and
held him there, but he had other ideas.

He eased open her dressing gown, and rolled her nipple with his fingers,
before taking it with his mouth.  Maria moaned louder this time, as he
nipped and sucked her left nipple before repeating the process with her
right one.

It was inevitable that someone would be woken up due to all the squealing
and moaning, and eventually Max wondered in looking very annoyed.

Michael quickly shielded Maria, but Max wasn’t interested.  He muttered
something about them “getting a room” and proceeded to make his coffee
around them.

“Maxwell, didn’t your mother ever teach you not to go interrupt where you’re
obviously intruding?”

“Michael, didn’t your father ever teach you not to grope your girlfriend on
the kitchen floor at 8am on Christmas morning in a small apartment you share
with four other people?”

“The man’s got a point” Maria agreed, and was punished in the form of more
tickling.
But Michael soon adjusted Maria’s dressing gown, and they helped Max start
breakfast.  Michael scowled the whole time.  He didn’t like being
interrupted.


***


It was 8 pm and Michael and Maria were finally alone in the apartment.  Max
and Liz had gone ice skating, while Isabel and Kyle went for a post
Christmas Dinner walk (“more like a waddle after all I ate!”).

Maria had continued to follow her way of thinking from yesterday, and so far
it had been going pretty well.  Michael had been wonderful all day, granted,
a little grumpy after being interrupted by Max that morning, but she was
sure they would soon make up for the interruption.  For the first time in
months, she really felt like Michael’s girlfriend.  She knew she couldn’t
just forget about how she’d been feeling, but they both deserved a nice
Christmas, and the fighting could wait until December 27th.

“Maria,” Michael called, exasperated “I thought you were desperate to open
your present!”

She looked up to see him sitting on the couch with a package in his hand. 
Grinning Maria skipped over to the couch, and sat down on his lap.  He
handed her the package with a smirk on his face.

“Confident are we?” she asked him.

“Just open it” he replied.

Maria tore the Christmas paper off the present to find a largish box. 
Giving Michael a curious look, she lifted the lid off the box to find
another, much smaller box.  Giving him an odd look, Maria opened this box to
find a set of keys.  She looked at Michael quizzically.

“Michael?”

“It’s the keys to an apartment, just for us, for the next week.  I checked
with Max, he said we’ll be staying here another week, so I got us our own
apartment.  I know you’ve been feeling frustrated with our situation lately,
so I thought it might help for us to have some privacy.  Maria?  Say
something.”

“Oh Michael!”  Maria gave him a watery smile before she threw her arms
around his neck and hugged him tightly.  “Thank you Michael.  I love you.”

Michael smiled and whispered “I love you too” into her hair.


***


Maria gasped when she opened the door to their new apartment half an hour
later.  Rose petals covered the floor and scented candles occupied every
available surface.  There was champagne on ice and two flutes on the table.

Maria looked at Michael in shock; she had been with him all day. “But how
did you…?”

“Gotta love those alien powers huh babe?” he replied with a wink.

“Wow” she smiled.

Michael poured champagne into the two flutes and handed one to Maria.

“A toast” he said softly “to us.”  The soft clink of glass could be heard,
and they each took a sip.

“It’s lovely Michael, thank you.”

“I hate to ruin the moment” he answered, “but there’s something I want to
say”

“Go on Michael, anything.”

“I know it’s been really hard living as we have the past months.  Hard for
everyone, but especially for us.  We had only just gotten back together when
we were thrown into this situation where we’re together all day every day,
in a van, no less.  We have no privacy, and we’ve been fighting a lot. 
Basically, it sucks, but we couldn’t even talk, because someone was always
there with us.”

“Michael, I didn’t think you had even noticed!”

“Of course I noticed, but there was nothing we could do until we got some
space.  We needed to talk about what it all means.  Being back together, the
idea that we’ll probably be running forever, which means you can’t exactly
get away from me.”  Michael winked at her.

“You do understand” she breathed.

“Yeah, I could see it in your eyes every time I looked at you.  You were
suffocating.  We still need to talk about the big picture, but I think we
can put it off for now and just enjoy tonight.  We do have this place for a
week.  What do you think?”

“I think you’re wonderful, and I’m sorry I doubted you.”  Maria exclaimed
earnestly, putting her champagne on the table and hugging him tightly.

“So Spaceboy, you got anything planned for the rest of the evening?” Maria
asked.

“Well, I was thinking something along the lines of you, me and the hockey
game.  They have 150 channels here you know.”

Maria laughed and pushed him into the bedroom.  “You had better be kidding,
Michael”

He answered by lifting her up in his arms and carrying her to the bed. 
Kissing her gently at first, but then more passionately, Michael started
undoing the buttons of her shirt.

“What about the rest of the champagne?” Maria whispered

“Later” he murmured in reply.  “This now, I’ve waited so long to get you
alone.”

She sighed as Michael’s hand covered her breast.  Reaching around to undo
the clasp of Maria’s bra, one handed of course, he sucked gently on the
nerve ending at her shoulder.  He does that so well, she thought.  She felt
as though she was in a dream, he was so gentle, so slow.  Matching his pace,
Maria pulled Michael’s shirt up over his head, and hugged him to her, skin
to skin.

Michael kissed down her collarbone to lick the valley between her breasts
and finally to take her nipple into his mouth.  He rolled it with his
tongue, and nipped at it with his teeth, making Maria gasp.  As he moved to
her other nipple, he whispered “this is about where we were last time isn’t
it?”

Maria giggled in response, but her giggle quickly turned to a moan when he
took her other nipple into his mouth, rolling the first with his fingers.

Michael continued further down her body with his mouth, licking her belly
button, and kissing it gently.  He licked a trail from there to the soft
curls at the apex of her thighs.  Kissing her inner thigh, he sucked the
soft skin into his mouth and drew sighs of pleasure from Maria.  He then
eased her legs apart, and slowly slid his finger slickly inside her, while
stroking her clit with the other hand.  “Michael…”

“Shhh baby, just relax.”

He bent his head and took her clit fully into his mouth as he eased a second
finger inside her. “Mich… ohhh.”

Michael began to thrust his fingers in and out, while tracing Maria’s name
on her clit.  He took his fingers out, continuing to stroke her clit now
with his finger, and slid his tongue inside her to replace his fingers.  “Oh
god…yes, Michael!”  Maria moaned.  She arched off the bed, her hands in his
hair, holding him against her.

He thrust his tongue inside her twice more before Maria screamed “yes,
Michael” and collapsed back onto the bed.  He continued to stroke her while
she rode out the aftershocks of her orgasm.  When she had stopped
shuddering, Michael moved back up the bed to cuddle her.  She moved into his
arms and relaxed onto his chest.  “Hi.”

“Hey Maria… miss me?”

She just smiled and reached up to kiss him.  She tasted herself in his
mouth, and shivered with the reminder of where he had just been.

“I think we broke the apartment in quite well” Michael commented.

“We haven’t finished breaking it in yet Spaceboy” she replied, climbing on
top.

“Oh yeah,” he agreed.

Maria took his penis in her hand, and rubbed it against her entrance. 
Michael sighed, but Maria decided she wanted to have some fun first.  She
slithered down his perfect body to kiss his rock hard penis.  She trailed
her tongue along the vein from the base to the tip, before taking the tip in
her mouth and swirling her tongue around it.  Michael slid his hands into
her hair; he loved her long silky hair, “Mariaaaaaa…”

“Yes?” she asked innocently.

“If you keep doing that, this is going to be over a lot sooner than we’d
like!”

“Come on Spaceboy, you can hold on.”

“Don’t be so sure” he muttered.

She took his whole penis into her mouth then and he moaned with pleasure. 
Sucking gently and then harder, she bobbed her head up and down.  She sensed
that neither of them could hold on much longer, so she climbed up his body
and impaled herself on his penis, sliding down to rest on top of him.

Michael grabbed her hips and helped her to move slowly up and down on him,
making them both moan.  They had always been very vocal about sex.

On each down stroke, Maria ground her clit on his public bone, bringing her
closer and closer to orgasm.  Then Michael flipped them, needing to be on
top, to take control.  He kissed her with fiery passion, and whispered “I
love you” into her mouth.  She somehow understood and repeated it out loud.

He thrust inside her again and Maria cried out his name as she reached her
climax.  One more thrust and Michael followed her off the edge.  Clinging to
each other they rode out the wave, and slowly caught their breath.  Maria
moaned in complaint as he eased out of her, but Michael just kissed her
temple and held her close.  They drifted into sleep entwined with each
other.

***

When Maria woke the next morning, she knew she felt incredibly content. 
Slowly the reason for this seeped into her sleep fogged brain.  Michael
understood!  He did care and he did try.  Plus, they’d had amazingly hot
alien sex after way too long a wait.  She opened her eyes smiling to find
Michael watching her.

“Hi,” she murmured “have you been awake long?”

“Long enough to know you look beautiful when you sleep… come to think of it,
you look beautiful when you do pretty much anything, but especially when you
sleep.  So peaceful.”

Maria smiled, and snuggled closer to him.  Michael reached down to kiss her
gently on the lips and then on the forehead.

“Thank you” Maria whispered.

“It really was my pleasure” he returned with a wink.

“Well, thank you for that too, but for understanding me when I thought you
didn’t.  For still caring and persisting when I was being a bitch.  Thank
you for being you Michael, and for loving me.”

“You’re welcome” he replied sincerely.  “Stay right here, I’m going to go
make you breakfast.”

“You can bring the champagne when you come back Spaceboy!” Maria called with
a smile as she snuggled back down under the covers.  Life running from the
FBI wasn’t half bad.

The End.