The Praetorians 1-3

Email: DocPaul2002@yahoo.ca

Rating: NC-17

Summary: M&M AU story with strong ensemble casts. The Praetorians is a cop drama murder mystery that takes place in Roswell , NM . This is the first story in a trilogy. A hard case police detective, Michael Guerin meets Professor Maria DeLuca during a murder case. None of the alien children realize they are aliens. This story is the building of a legend…of a King and his modern Praetorian Guards.

Warning: The Praetorian Universe is a dark one, so the lives of the characters hold some angst.

Timeline: None. All the characters are grownups and professionals in their careers. Only Kyle, Tess, and Liz lived and were raised in Roswell , the other came later. Liz Parker was still shot in the Crashdown at the age of 16, but there was no alien Max there to save her. This is a look at life down an alternate path.

Author’s note/dedication: This story is for Margo, Julia, Mike, and Jackie who had as much to creating it as I did. The Universe is dark at times…darker than it needs to be, but it is all about survival.

Disclaimer: Roswell and its characters belong to Twentieth Century Fox TV and Regency for Roswell and its characters. But the story and Praetorian Universe is my own, and all original characters. Though Michael and Maria do not belong to me, I reserve the right to take them out, give them a real story, because I love them more than their owners.

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THE PRAETORIANS

For Margo and Julia

PART 1

Maria DeLuca rounded the corner of the hall, taking the short flight of stairs down into the converted basement offices. Even the addition of new lighting and carpeting couldn't disguise that it was still a basement. Someday maybe, she would graduate to an upstairs office with a window, but right now the basement office was the place to be.

Stopping on her way to her office at the end of the hall, she opened the TA's lounge to see if her personal assistant was anywhere in sight. Seeing the small blond sitting at a table with a few other graduate students, Maria entered the room and poured herself a cup of the worst coffee that Roswell had to offer.

"Tess, did the shipment arrive yet?" Maria tried not to notice how a few of the students jumped up when she entered and started grabbing their books. This University wasn't a happy one. The departments were fragmented and at war, and the Department Head was a first class jerk.

"Oh no, not yet, Maria...um... Professor DeLuca!" Maria smiled at Tess's lapse in using her name and then calling her professor. It really didn't matter to her, but The Powers That Be had sent out another memo last week reminding all Department Heads that a certain amount of professional decorum needed to be maintained at all times between faculty and staff, the underpaid student workers, and the students themselves.

The University of New Mexico Roswell literally sucked, and that was literally since the dumb-assed Professor of Modern Linguistics, Gerald Tiny was caught with his pants down and his dick doing the happy dance in a co-ed's mouth. Yeah, life really sucked in Roswell. But honestly, Gerald Tiny? The name was it's own disclaimer for a well balanced life. The man was doomed from the getgo. What were his parents thinking? Her friend Dianne in the History Department, told her that the name "tiny" was very appropriate, that the descriptive properties were well deserved. Personally, Maria didn't want to touch that with a ten-foot stick.

Maria quickly thanked Tess and left the room. It didn't seem fair to disrupt the nice haven the TA's had by hanging out in their room. It was hard not to miss the fun of listening to their discussions, and it wasn't like she was so much older than the rest of them. In truth, since most of them were graduate students, and she had just finished her masters degree last Fall before accepting this position as an Assistant Professor while finishing up her PhD, she was actually the same age as some, and even younger than others. But somehow, at twenty-six she felt so much older when around them, and way too young at other times around other professors.

It would've been a nice distraction to discuss Gerald Tiny's tiny member or how it was hardly a mouthful, but no! She was forced to discuss it with the other professors in the staff lounge in a quiet dignified manner. Thank goodness for Dianne! Last night they had gone out for a movie and dinner, and talked about the tiniest endowment in the history of UNM Roswell. Honestly, it must have been a man that said that it wasn't the size that counted, but what they did with it! But if a man thought "making love" was sticking it in, wiggling it all about, doing the hokey pokey and pulling out, then actually a few extraneous inches could go far to smooth some of the insult and injury. Or at the very least give a person something to talk to the girlfriends about on the next girls' night out.

"Oh yeah, he was a speed demon with a three minute record to break, but man you just had to check out the size of his schlong." Maria started to hum to herself, "Where Have all the Real Men Gone?", while stooping to pick up the usual pile of messages shoved under her door from frantic students abound with excuses or requests. She started to toss them on her desk when she noticed the Monster Desk from Hell covered in unfinished work, class notes, grade books, unmarked bluebooks, and unread essays threatening to grow legs and walk away. If she tossed the messages on her desk now in the state it was in, chances to ever find them again was roughly Spring of 2003. Oh well... Maria tossed them anyway because the floor looked just as bad.

"Oh god, this can't be right!" Maria put her head back outside her office and read her name on the door. Dammit, The Project (not to be said with a small case) was an unwieldy, jealous lover sucking up all her free time down a vortex.

"The Project" was her nemesis, the bane of her existence. It was the outfitting and creation of a specialty museum for both the Anthropology Department and History Department to display and manage their growing collections of artifacts. The State Antiquities Board, a subdivision of the Board of Regents, authorized the creation of an Anthropology and Historical Museum and Archaeological Institution at the University, and it was Maria's worst nightmare. As the youngest and newest member to the Anthropology teaching staff, and a doctorial candidate, somehow she found herself volunteered to supervise the creation and outfitting of the new museum.

It had been an eight month nightmare, full of building codes, reconstruction and renovation of a historical building on campus, the fight for office space within the building itself by various departments, the fight for display space, the building of dioramas and interactive displays for the young visitors, and the creation of a research library to house a collection of journal and books. The displays and construction were done, but the arrival of the collections, both artifacts and books, was creating havoc. Maria had a full staff of researchers and students furiously cataloguing and recording all the collections as they were slowly placed in display cases.

The problems started with the decrepit building, the large white elephant, that they tried to tear down to have a bright new shiny building built in its place. But no, the city's largest wacko came with protesters, posters, media coverage and chains and demanded the building be preserved and registered in a historical registry as a preserved building in New Mexico historical registry. Sure, Maria could have cursed the organizer who started all the trouble, or even threaten her with bodily harm, (okay she did threaten her), but it was all in a moment of extreme pressure. The University community looked on in horror as the political warfare raged for months until finally they caved and decided to preserve the fine piece of heritage and give it a new purpose. And Roswell's largest wacko walked away happy, feeling she had accomplished her goal. Of course Maria tended to call the wacko, "Mom", so her dealings with the moral crusader were never over.

Then there were the fights with the building inspectors holding special regulations and codes for historical buildings-- again, Mom's fault. Then, once the building was finally renovated and up to code, the real fun began. Every department with space in the Museum had ideas, endless ideas for displays, interactive educational dioramas, and all those suggestions were deposited on Maria's desk, as the happy requesters walked away knowing they were getting what they wanted, leaving the actually physical work to Maria.

So, looking at her overburdened desk, at the stacks of work, and all of it needing to be done yesterday, Maria psyched herself up for yet another all night session. Sex? Did people still stay up all night having sex, or something even possibly resembling a real life? Maria couldn't say. That seemed like something that happened on television or maybe the movies, but surely not real life? She vaguely remembered staying up all night with a boyfriend engaging not in the best of sex, but what was lacking in quality made up in quantity.

She couldn't even remember her last boyfriend's name. Maybe Wally? No. Walter? No, it was Sam. Okay, how the heck did she go from Wally to Sam? No, that wasn't right either. Surely he had a name, or even a face. Maybe she would someday go home to her apartment, walk in and find her last boyfriend was still there with his new wife and children. He waited so long for her to get back to him that he forgot the place wasn't his. Bastard. Dammit, she was beginning to envy Gerard Tiny with his tiny dick, because at least it was getting some action!

Tess came up behind her boss and friend with a look of concern. The young woman was talking to herself with an occasional "Bastard!" coming out of her mouth. She just stood there in her office door gesticulating wildly and incoherently, making a few obscene gestures to increase the effectiveness of the "Bastards"!

"Maria? Are you okay?"

"No! It's still here! All of it's still here! I've worked every night for the last two weeks to get caught up in my class work, and the pile actually looks bigger!" Maria turned to look at Tess in horror. "I think I'm de-evolving. Someday you'll come in and see a puddle of primordial ooze and say good morning to it." Maria's voice changed to have a perky high squeaky sound to it. "My Professor DeLuca that puke green shade of ooze is so becoming for you. I brought you a cup of complex amino acids." Maria spied a cup in Tess's hand, and a gleam of interest, no lust entered her eyes. "Is that coffee?"

Tess looked down at what she had, quickly putting it behind her back. "No, of course not, it's...um...spit. Nasty, very vile stuff." No way she was going to give the deranged woman in front her more caffeine. No, the only thing that would help her now wasn't more stimulation, but Prozac-a lot of Prozac.

"It's not that bad." Maria turned glassy eyes on Tess, eyes that hadn't seen more than a few hours of sleep in over two weeks, with a look of disbelief.

Tess quickly became silent again. Okay maybe that wasn't the right thing to say. Maria circled the room gesturing to piles of books on the floor reaching upward to the ceiling, the piles of papers covering every available space, and then her desk, The Monster. "Tess, not bad? You're saying this isn't bad?" Maria suddenly spied something against her far wall. Tess almost had a heart attack at the scream coming from Maria's mouth. "What the hell is that?"

Tess followed the pointing finger, and gave a groan. Changing her mind, Tess calmly handing the cup of coffee to Maria, she steered the young woman to her office chair. "It's a few deliveries for the museum. They showed up late Friday." Maria was drinking the coffee like it was a lifeline, holding it cupped in her hands.

"No. No-no. No! NO! I told them! I told the mailroom to send all deliveries to the museum, not here." It took her over two months, and numerous football players from her classes to get all the misdirected deliveries out of her office then. After that, she had to flirt and schmooze the mail coordinator, Dickie with offers of dinner and perhaps numerous acts of fellatio to get the delivery problems fixed. Oh dammit, she must have forgotten to follow through! Sighing, Maria looked down at her daily calendar. Okay, something that would have to be fixed later. "Okay, let's just not worry about it any longer, but any more deliveries come for the museum, refuse them. Send them back to the mailroom and let them sort out the mistakes. Now we're going to need more coffee and some space because today we're going to clear my desk off. I've a class at ten and another at three. So let's get to work."

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It wasn't there. All the packages had been rifled, opened, searched, and it wasn't there. Moving through the dark rooms, the dark figure searched every corner and every office hoping to find it, finally giving up because time was too short. It was the flickering of light down the hall that had the figure move into the shadows. The night guard was too early. Without the formal alarm system in place, the security service was forced to send guards on patrol. Taking the flashlight in hand, and waiting for the guard to come closer, the figure prepared to remove the problem so the rest of the place could be searched without incident.

The older man looked up from his work at the figure in the doorway, startled to be interrupted so late at night. "Oh, it's you." He quickly got up and closed the door behind the figure. "Are you crazy? What if someone saw you? I told you to never come here."

"It wasn't there."

"Yes it is. I saw the invoices." The old man paused, realizing what the missing item meant. "What did you do?"

"I searched for it, and it wasn't there." The figure loomed menacingly over the older man. "I searched everything."

"You only had a ten minute window before security did their rounds." The sweat broke out on his head as the older man reached for his cup of coffee trying to quell the rising fear.

"Things were done. It happened, but I couldn't find it, and I can't go back," the gloved hands came down on the table, "so that leaves you. You've got to find it and bring it to me. If you fail, I can't tell you how unhappy it'll make me." And as the dark figure moved out of the office and merged into the surrounding night, fear was a legacy left behind.

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Maria tried to juggle her coffee, book bag, purse, and an armful of papers while opening the doors to the museum. Today she was blissfully free of classes, and her poor neglected students knew to look for her here. Not that many of them were stupid enough to come to the museum. It was a known fact that entering those hallowed halls might mean being roped into doing some type of manual labor.

It was surprising that Chris, the security guard, wasn't there to open the door for her. He was usually waiting for her, but not today. Entering the building, it felt too quiet, but then again first thing in the morning it frequently did. Taking her stuff slowly to her museum office with the title of curator on the door, Maria was happy to unload her burden. Her office here was almost as bad as her office in the Anthropology building with the saving grace of being large, airy, and having a beautiful window. It seemed messier than usual...
Maria backed out of the room, looking it over with pensive eyes and trying to reconstruct how it looked last time she locked the door. It felt wrong, just wrong. For the first time since entering the building, its silence was causing the hair on her neck to stand up.

Carefully walking down the hall, she slowly looked around corners and down long silent halls into the main cathedral room. Walking to the nearest sectional, the Egyptian Kingdom, Maria stopped in the doorway. It was trashed. All the boxes were opened, contents poured out. Stepping back, Maria slowly moved further down the hall to the next room, the Peruvian Pre-Columbian Textiles. It was equally trashed, too. All the textiles, thousands of years old, were dumped on the floor without care, piles of them discarded. Maria would have had a holy fit, if it weren't for the shoe she saw as she backed out of the room. Swallowing her fear, she slowly walked towards the shoe, and rounding the crates, she found Chris.

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Yeah, come to Roswell, small town with little to no crime! It'll be good for you! Right. Michael Guerin looked around the corner of the building he was leaning up against. There he was. Benny. Looking back beside him at this partner, he smirked to see Max Evans brushing down his immaculate pants. Not so immaculate, now that he got crud off the building on him. If the man would just wear jeans like Michael instead of pressed trousers to look more like a lawyer than a detective, he wouldn't have such a huge cleaning bill.

"That's him. Let's go partner." Michael took off, confident that Max would be right on his heel. They had been partners for two years, but friends for longer than that. Crossing the street, Michael came up fast behind Benny the Snitch, and took him by his left arm while Max took the right one.

"Hey, Benny, thought I told ya to leave the life." Michael smirked as the man looked at him and his eyes widened.

"Guerin, man I swear, I'm clean! So clean! I don't got a scratch on me, not even a sniff!" Benny actually started to sweat in the cool morning air. Max made a sound at his side, a sound of disbelief, like they were going to believe that.

"Benny... Benny... you should know better than to lie to my partner. Guerin hasn't even had his morning coffee and donut, and you know how he gets!" Benny looked at the tall man to his left and moved closer to Max.

"Evans, ya have to square it for me! Tell your partner that I'm so clean. Yeah, like totally pure and razor, Man!" Max just shook his head and tsked at the obvious lie. A reliable source told them that Benny was back on the streets dealing in illegal trade for drops of smack, and he was dealing on the side.

Michael turned and looked at the smaller anorexic looking man, appearing about thirty years older than his twenty-seven years. "Benny, you're going to make me hurt you before breakfast, aren't ya? Get in the damn car!" Michael pushed Benny into the backseat of Max's Black SUV. Getting into the passenger's seat Michael looked at his partner without looking back at Benny. "Maxwell, hit a drive through, I hate doing early morning torture on an empty stomach." Both Max and Michael kept facing forward with smiles on their faces at the gasping from the backseat.

A few hours later, after leaving Benny sweating in the interrogation room, Michael went to report to the Captain. Valenti was a fair man, hard headed and tough, but fair. Michael liked him. Valenti was helping to restore his faith in commanders, after Michael's departure from the Albuquerque PD, a few years ago.

Knocking quickly and then entering, "Hey, Cap, Benny dropped a dime on Pierce!"

Valenti looked up from his manpower reports and looked over the scruffy half of his best detective team. Years ago when his father was Sheriff of Roswell they didn't need a Major Crimes Unit, Vice or any of the other departments. Instead they had a large department that did everything. But times changed, and so did Roswell. The once small town of alien enthusiasts and new age wackos had given over to families and businesses. Roswell was far enough from the rat race of the larger towns of Las Cruces, Albuquerque and Santa Fe to give a warm small town feel, but still was large enough to accommodate crime.

The addition of the University to the city had increased its population a few years back, but with the increase came crime. They were forced to boost the staffing of their departments and recruited detectives from the larger cities. Finding the investigation team of Guerin and Evans was almost a godsend. At first Guerin was a questionable addition, but he proved to be more than just a little astute and effective, and he was Jim's best detective with Evans a close second. The team of Evans and Guerin had the best and cleanest arrest record in the Department. Literally, Michael Guerin, the man, scared the crap out of most people. It wasn't his size or even his demeanor, but a darkness that seemed to live on his face, like a void lacking in emotions that sent criminals and personages of dubious character begging to confess.

"How much did he give us?" Valenti stood to join Michael looking for his prettier half, Evans. "Can we take him out?"

"He gave us the current location and the next meeting time. Tomorrow night, after midnight. Pierce is supposed to be there himself." Michael scratched his eyebrow. "Max is putting Benny on ice. We don't want him to run at the mouth until then."

"Okay, but get a team on Benny. That weasel can slip out of a vice grip if he smells cheese." Michael smiled at that. Benny was nothing if not slippery.

"Can do, Cap." Michael looked around the squad room, his eyes lighting on the Captain's son, Kyle. "How about Kyle and Hanson?"

"Done." Valenti went to the door by Michael and screamed. "Kyle! You and Hanson, NOW!" Michael leaned against the door and smiled to himself. This should be fun. Max came up to Michael following his glance towards Kyle. Poor guy. He was shaping up into a good detective, but he was partnerless so he invariably got stuck with Hanson, who wasn't good in any way shape or form. It was tough being the Captain's son and having his father trying not to show favoritism.

"Michael, was that necessary?" Max asked as he watched Kyle walk towards them with an unhappy scowl on his face.

"Shush! Man, this should be good!"

"You're a cruel bastard." Max smirked and waited for the fun to begin.

"I am." Michael watched Kyle move pass them into Valenti's office. "Hey, Kyle where's your stinky partner?"

"He's not my partner. Man this sucks big..." Kyle knew that as long as he didn't have an assigned partner he would be settled with Hanson. His last partner, Jack Hardy was killed in the line of duty over a year ago, and at first he didn't want a new partner. Now he would settle for anyone, anything, as long as it wasn't Hanson. "Why do I get stuck with him? Man he smells like frozen fish and bacon bits, and the other day he had a overwhelming fume de' odor of pork rinds."

Max joined Michael lounging against the wall. "Kyle, for the good of the department, you're required to get your stinky partner to bathe. We've got a bust tomorrow and at this rate they'll smell us coming. It's your duty to the brotherhood. No wonder they call us Pigs when we have "Pigpen" himself in residence."

"A bust? What's going down?" Kyle quickly looked in at his father reading another report. "Am I in on it?"

"Nope, you and Hanson get to babysit Benny the Snitch. Have fun." Both Michael and Max walked away before Kyle could protest. They lied. They would make sure Kyle was with them for the action, but it was too good watching his crestfallen look, the stream of cussing under his breath, and the pissed off look he gave his duffus sort of partner, Hanson. The entire team took Kyle under their wing when Jack took the fatal bullet. Kyle was lost for almost a year, and was just finally coming out of it. Jack took the bullet to save Kyle's life, because what hit Jack mid-heart would have hit Kyle between the eyes. And for Kyle it was a hard thing to live with.

Max understood more than anyone. When they still lived in Albuquerque and he was a patrolman in blues, Michael had been in undercover Vice. He saved Max's life. They had been friends since an incident involving Max's sister over five years ago, but in truth, from the moment they met, it was like they knew each other. Just knew. After Michael recovered the near fatal injury at a miraculous rate, he was back on the streets, living in the sewers like the street people. It took over three years of friendship and finally getting his golden shield to give Max the leverage to talk Michael in off the streets. It was three years too late. What Michael lived through those three years scarred him for life. It made him. Created him.

"Guerin! Evans!" They both looked back at the Captain's door. "I've got a new one for you. Patrol is already on the scene, so I need you there five minutes ago." Max ran over to grab the report from Jim, scanning it. A murder at the University. Lovely, just lovely. Valenti grabbed Max before he could take off after Michael already at the elevators, "Keep him from killing anyone."

Max smiled knowing that might be impossible, "Aye-aye, Cap!"

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"I don't know why you always get to drive." Michael watched the scenery pass, at a speed far under what he would've driven. He was exercising selective memory because he knew exactly why he couldn't drive, but just wanted to bitch a little. "You drove last week."

"Yeah, and I'm driving next week until you finish those classes," Max spared Michael a quick glance. "plus, I love arriving in one piece." Michael snorted at the criticism to his driving. They got there didn't they, and at a quick pace of time?

"You're just jealous because I hold the fastest time for the obstacle course." Michael didn't mention that he also had the best shooting scores too, because somehow being a crack shot and putting holes in dead center didn't seem like something to brag about.

"Michael, the driving course is supposed to teach you to avoid disaster, not plow through it." Max knew Michael liked driving, and his driving irritated him to no end. "Listen, finish the anger management classes and the PD will okay you to drive again."

"This is bullsh-it, I didn't run the guy over, and I just nudged him."

"Michael!" Max wasn't going to get into the incident again. Michael was caught in a battle of road rage a few month back and the other driver threatened a lawsuit, so the PD legal department demanded that Michael take anger management classes and driving lessons before he could operate a departmental vehicle or even a personal one during working hours. "You only have six more hours. Finish it, and we can close the door on this." Max looked over at the stubborn look on Michael's face, and sighed. The man was an immovable object. Nothing could push him over the edge-that was until they met the irresistible force in the form of Maria DeLuca...

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By the time they hit the scene, patrol cars where already blocking off the front entrance. Max frowned at a uniform officer talking to Campus security. "Officer, what's going on here?" Max looked at the gathering crowd, and campus security walking in and out of the building. "This building should've been shut down. You and your partner move the crowd back another three feet, and shoot anyone trying to enter the building without my permission, unless they've got an official Roswell PD ID. Do I make myself clear?" Max made his voice loud enough to cause the pushing crowd to automatically move back.

Michael looked around, and then at the Campus Security. "Who's this?" His eyes narrowed at the blustering demeanor of the man as he stood in the patrolman's face.

"I'm Chief of Campus Security, and I demand to see the officer in charge. I've got people that need in this building, and your officer is keeping everyone out. I already had five professors complain."

"Only five?" Michael shrugged. That wasn't so bad. Smiling ironically, he bet he could make it a round and even dozen in the next few hours. "No one gets into the building until me, or Detective Evans gives the okay. The only people allowed to pass are support team and the medical examiners office, do I make myself clear, Mr....um, yeah..." Michael waved off the man's name as unimportant.

"Peabody, Officer Peabody." The Man tried to hold his ground and authority. "And you are?"

"Right." Michael moved in closer, getting into the security officer's face. "Detective Michael Guerin, and I'm in charge here, so don't piss in my pond." His voice didn't rise once, just became darker and darker, edged in ice. The patrolman started pulling at his collar and sweating. "If anyone should get in without my okay, I'll hold you personally responsible for contaminating a crime scene, and you won't find being booked by me a pleasant experience. Do I make myself clear?" Michael allowed space for the man to swallow and back up, nodding his understanding. "Now get behind the yellow tape. We'll bring you a report, and find you when we need information, otherwise get off my crime scene." Max followed Michael into the building. As Michael cornered another officer. "Call the station for a damn liaison officer, otherwise I'm going to be taking more anger management classes. And who was the first officer on the scene?" Michael was mentally patting himself on the back. He hadn't raised his voice once so far.

They followed the officer's pointing finger to a young looking patrolman, hardly looked old enough to be out of the academy. Max rushed ahead of Michael to talk to the young man, as Michael started walking the scene, noticing the open crates, the tossed materials, and finally the dead body of the campus security guard. He really couldn't blame the Chief of Campus Security's actions. It was hard to lose one of their own. It became so personal.

After talking to the young man, and then excusing him to go back to headquarters to file his report, Max went to find Michael. "Michael, the person to find the body is in the back office waiting to be questioned. She found him early this morning, about an hour and a half ago. Campus security was the first called. They sent over a team, and then called the PD."

"Yeah, I got that. There're enough footprints all over the place, and ten bucks if that body wasn't moved. Dammit, we only got the call twenty minutes ago, and you don't drive that slow!"

"Campus Rent-a-Cops called the Chancellor and the Deans of the University, who in turn called the Board of Regents. We didn't figure that high on the list of people needing to know." Max winced at the stream of obscenities coming out of Michael's mouth. Damn he could cuss a blue streak! Max held out his hand, as Michael passed him a few bucks. Michael's campaign to clean up his language was the final task he needed to complete his anger management training, and so far he was failing miserably. Thank god it was a self-assigned task and not part of the course or Michael would never finish the classes.

Finally the lab boys showed up to process the crime scene. Simon, the medical examiner after a quick look around found the detectives. "This site is a sorry one, boys. Who moved the body?" Michael and Max shared a look, both of them had yet to determine that. "Well, we'll do a standard sweep, but there're so many prints all over the place it's going to be hard to determine what was here before, and what was added by people trampling over the crime scene."

"How long Simon?" Michael saw a uniformed officer gesturing for him. Giving him a quick acknowledgement he looked back at the examiner. "When can you tell us the cause of death?"

"Oh, I can tell you that right now, unofficially, of course. Trauma by blunt instrument to the head, and time of death approximately midnight last night, but I'll see if I can pinpoint a more specific time for ya."

"Thanks, Simon. Hey, how is Tara?" Max asked as Michael nodded and walked off to talk to the officer.

"She's fine Evans, not that it's any of your business. Stay away from my sister. You and Guerin are walking nightmares to the female population of Roswell." Simon picked up his equipment. "Half the population are trying to get Guerin's attention, and the other half are chasing after you. Can't figure it out myself, you're both losers."

Max laughed as Simon walked away. Unfortunately it was true. Neither he nor Michael had much luck in relationships. Michael's last one ended over a year ago and he hadn't bother to replace her, couldn't remember her name, and it took over three months before he realized she was gone, along with his entire apartment. Guess she figured he owed her. And as for Max, he didn't know what was wrong with him, but every woman he met he found something wrong with her. It was like he was waiting for someone who never came.

Max looked around for his partner and found him deep in conversation with the officer. Moving towards them, Max went to do damage control. Michael's body was tightening up signaling his irritation. "Hey, what's up?" Max looked at the uncomfortable officer and discretely motioned for him to scram. "What's going on?"

"Our primary witness, the woman who found the body took a powder. She told the officer she needed to go, and just like that, he escorted her out of the building." Michael's jaw clenched. "He walked out my witness before I released her from questioning."

"Calm down Michael. Did she immediately move to another state or something?"

"No, but now we'll haf'ta hunt her down," Michael crushed a paper he held in his hand, "and, it's not like we aren't already busy enough. I've got the uniforms taking down all the names and arranging fingerprinting for all the museum staff, and idiots who crushed my scene."

"So, who are we looking for?"

Michael reluctantly opened the paper he just crushed. The officer walked her out? Walked her out? People were on his crime scene hours before he was called. What the hell was going on? "A Professor Maria DeLuca, and according to this she is an assistant professor with the Anthropology Department." Great. Just great. They'd probably find an old senile woman, half buried under a layer of dust and grime, whose hearing aid needed new batteries. "They store her in the basement!"

The voice that told them to enter was muffled, but hardly old sounding. The room was--well it was hard to call the place a room with every space covered in books and papers. Some of the stacks reached for the ceiling and looked alarmingly unstable and easy to topple. The room also had artifacts, pottery, tapestries, and paintings hanging on the walls or covering even more space. Overall, the room was impressively cluttered and disorganized.

"Can I help you?" The soft voice came behind a stack to their right as they entered the room.

"Professor DeLuca?" Max asked moving forward to let Michael into the room. Michael's large body dominating and looking at the impressive display of disorder, just sucked up what remaining space there was in the room.

"Yes..." Maria moved from behind the stacks to come in view, "I'm Professor DeLuca." The small woman holding her arms wrapped around her body stood behind her desk facing them.

Neither man spoke for a second, letting the shock of seeing her wash over them. She was tiny, delicate, young, beautiful, and her voice was soft. But the eyes held them pinned. Her vivid green eyes with golden flakes flashed across the room, looking more alive and intense than anything Max could remember seeing. In a room covered in dust from dead ancient societies, this woman breathed life. Max felt an overwhelming instinct to protect her, to comfort her, and perhaps maybe help her sit. The soft growl coming from Michael's mouth suggested he was feeling something too, something that irritated him to no end.

"I'm sorry," Maria moved forward frowning at the two men who seemed to take up all the remain air in her office, "did you need something?" Michael casually opened his badge to show her his shield, Max quickly doing the same. "Oh, yes, the Pigs. I was expecting you." Suddenly Maria hand came up to cover her mouth, almost in shock, as both Max and Michael stood straighter at the reference. "Oh god, I said that aloud!" Suddenly the woman started laughing as if her mirth was uncontainable and falling back in her chair with her hand covering her face, her body began to shake.

"If you're through?" Michael irritation was evident in his voice as it raised a level, but it was Max's hand on his arm that made him stop, as he tried to advance into the room.

"Michael," Max warned him as he nodded his head in the young woman's direction, "don't. She's not laughing."

Michael looked closer. No she wasn't. She was crying, her body racked with sobs, and as swiftly as his anger rose, suddenly it changed. Her tearless sobs knocked the wind out of his sails, and suddenly the room was too small, too cluttered, and his feet too big, so he moved uneasily back and forth shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

Max moved towards the woman grabbing a tissue from a box he spied on a shelf. "Ma'am?" He handed her the tissue unsure. There was something about this woman, something that made tears from her seem almost an outrage, a violation.

Maria took the tissue offered and turning her back on them tried to gain some control. She was mortified. Crying never came easy to her over the years, the only tears she could remember were ones of anger, so the wave of remorse and weakness that washed over her body was unwelcome. It was their fault, no doubt about it. She had stood in her office holding herself together just fine until they interrupted. But somehow seeing them so big and silent in front of her, holding their badges up made it all come back. Oh poor Chris, poor gentle Chris! He deserved so much more than that! Taking a deep breath she turned back to them.

"I'm sorry, it's just... Chris... he was a nice man, a nice young man with a wife and small daughter." Maria quickly tossed the tissue and looked at the two men in anger. "I sat there for hours, as people walked in and out, sometimes asking me questions, but no one taking care of Chris. He just lay there like some kind of museum display, to be looked at, poked and prodded, and it seemed..." Maria paused looking at the wall behinds their heads, "disrespectful." Maria finally looked at them directly. "I couldn't stay there any longer. I'm sorry, but the policeman was kind to escort me out."

Michael's eyes narrowed at that. Oh yeah, he had a few choice words for that patrolman later. He finally addressed the woman, and his voice was biting, "don't you mean, Pig?"

Her suddenly laughter and merry mirth actually pissed him off more, not because she was laughing at the reference to calling a police officer a "Pig", but because the sound disturbed him, and he didn't like being disturbed. Max quickly looked at his partner's reaction, confused that he seemed so angry, and yet this woman hardly said a word to them.

"Sorry," her voice having a singsong quality to it, "I can't believe I said that, that I let it slip out like that." Maria wiped her eyes again. "My mother was and is a throwback from the sixties, which is funny considering she never participated in the countercultures, too young. Anyway she's spent her life protesting this and that, 'Those Pigs oppress!' 'Pigs this..Pigs that...', so that must have slipped. Sorry." Maria smiled blaming her mother again. "The strange thing is, and in a fit of supreme justice, she is dating a cop now, actually engaged."

"Professor, we've got a few questions, and need to take a statement from you." Max smiled liking this woman. It was Guerin who bothered him. Michael was shifting on his feet, and Max's partner instincts were cluing him in that his partner was far from happy.

"Of course, please have a seat."

Michael quickly looked around at the chaos, "Where exactly?"

"Oh," Maria looked at the chairs piled with books and paper, "right you are."

She rushed around her desk and cleared a chair for Max, smiling at him to sit as she looked around for a place to put the pile, finally just sitting it on the floor next to his chair. Then clearing one for Michael, she tried to move to put the pile down, but he was standing unmoving in the way, putting her shoulder into him, she tried to shift him back a pace so she could place the pile on the floor. He wouldn't move. Looking up for the first time their eyes met, and Max watched them in shock as the room took on an electrical intensity and a look of stubborn determination moved over the young woman's face, and his partner's face remained closed and unyielding. They were locked in a silent combat too instinctive for Max to understand, but before he could warn his partner off, Maria's face changed as a wicked smile came across her face. She just shrugged and dropped the books on Michael's feet. Ignoring the yelp, she quickly returned to her seat behind the desk and inclined her head towards Max to continue his questioning.

"Detectives?"

"Yes, sorry," Max frowned at his partner and started asking the questions, taking notes, and worried about Michael's uncharacteristic silence. Of the two of them, Michael was the senior partner and senior investigator. He had years of field work beyond Max. But he was--dammit--he was sulking! "If you could just start with the events of the morning leading up to finding the body?"

"Chris." Max looked at her politely, but confused. "He's not 'The Body'--his name was Chris Delaney." Maria shifted in her chair holding onto her emotions. A name was sacred, sometimes all a person had when there was nothing left. She refused to cry again, and the larger man's dark demeanor was helping to not only anger her, but helping her to retain some control.

"I found him this morning around six thirty. Usually I work at the museum on Tuesdays because I'm not scheduled to teach. Anyway, Chris typically is waiting for me at the doors, to open them because I'm generally carrying too much stuff, but this morning he wasn't."

Michael looked at her as she gave her statement. It didn't surprise him, somehow he had no doubt that she had few problems getting men to fetch and carry for her, or even walk her out of a crime scene. Looking at his partner who seemed intent on being gentle and nice to her, Max was falling under the same deadly charm. They were big men, tall and imposing, but somehow, from the moment she stepped out from behind the stacks her small body seemed to take up all the room. She wasn't imposing like them, no she was more deadly than that; she was charismatic.

"I went to my office, but somehow it seemed different. Wrong. Even the building when I entered seemed silent. Which is strange in itself, because I'm usually the first there, so it's often silent. This was different, cold, unyielding, and it made me pause." Max nodded. He knew what she meant. It was the silence of death, a feeling like the very warmth of the air had been sucked from the room, and it was the same silence associated with funerals. "I noticed that my office was wrong, but I couldn't tell why, just that it was. I walked out into the cathedral area and entered the Egyptian room first. Someone had rifled through the crates and boxes, and had tossed priceless artifacts on the ground like they were nothing more than worthless junk. I then proceeded to the Peruvian displays, and when I saw the textiles tossed about, I was angry, but before I could leave the room, I saw Chris's shoe on the floor hidden behind the crate."

"What then Professor?" Max paused from his notes when she stopped telling her story.

"Maria, call me Maria." Maria quickly pressed a number on her phone and talked to a woman's voice. "Cheryl, could you have someone bring three cups of coffee to my office? Have them bring some packs of sugar and cream as well." She looked over at the two. "Sorry, I really need something to fortify me. I saw the shoe and walked around the crate, and there he was, lying on the floor, face down with blood on the back of his skull." There was a knock at the door, and a young pretty blond woman stuck her head in carefully carrying three cups of coffee. Max quickly stood and helped her, by taking two of the cups, and handing one to Michael. "Thank you, Tess." Maria said as Tess quickly handed Max stirring rods, and some packets of cream and sugar shutting the door behind her.

"Did you move or touch the body?" Maria bristled at Michael's question, abrupt and almost accusatory.

"No, I did not. It hardly seemed necessary. His skull was crushed, and there was no signs of breathing." Maria took a large drink of her coffee. "What I did Detective was back out of the room, and went to call Campus Security."

"Why not 911, and the Police station directly?" Michael was still pissed at how long it took for them to finally be called in.

"Truthfully? I was afraid. The place was too cold, too quiet, and it felt wrong." Maria took another sip of her coffee watching both the detective finally drink some of theirs after doctoring it with cream and sugar. "Campus Security seemed like my best bet to getting someone there immediately. I didn't know if the person who did this was still in the building, but at six thirty in the morning, it's not like the entire campus is bustling with activity, so I went to my office, locked the door, and made the call, and then waited."

Michael nodded, seeing her point, as he took a drink of the hot liquid. Damn, he almost spit the stuff out. Looking at the woman, he could see a gleam of amusement in her eyes. The coffee was awful. Actually awful didn't even come near to what this black sludge was, and since PD coffee was reputed to being the worst ever concocted, this stuff was impressive. And then she took another drink, almost daring him to finish his cup. Max, not involved in the silent pissing match, discreetly looked for a place to put his cup. This crap could burn a hole into a gut.

"Chicory." Both men looked at her in confusion. "The coffee has fresh chicory added, and it's made by one of our Peruvian archaeologists. No one can figure out why he does this to lifesaving coffee beans, but one thing is consistent-- this coffee kills."

"Why drink it then?" Max asked curious why an entire department would continue to drink something so vile.

"Are you kidding?" Maria smiled at him. "One cup of this would fuel the lights of a city for a day. It's a pickmeup better than pure caffeine directly on the tongue. When we want real coffee, the English department is next door, and there they make those gourmet flavored coffees like Crème de Mint or French Vanilla. But this stuff, it's like liquid life." Max had to agree. He only stomached one sip and his head was buzzing, but looking at his partner, he was worried because Michael seemed determined to finish the cup. Great. He was going to have a wired partner for the rest of the day. Maybe they could get a thermos of the stuff for their stakeout tomorrow night.

They continued to question her, until finally there seemed little else to know. Max's beeper went off, looking at the number, he quickly dialed the number on his cell. Michael watched the professor watching him. She wasn't arrogant, rude, or in anyway offensive, but for some reason she put his back up. Her very presence seemed like a challenge, a large one. He watched her hands wrap around the coffee cup, as her eyes stared him down. Those hands, they were long and delicate, yet firm and strong. Shaking himself from groaning, he quickly broke eye contact with her, which pissed him off even more, and looked at Max.

"What's up?"

"Simon is done with the scene, and they're transporting the body. Also our liaison officer is on scene," Max couldn't help but smile, "and Michael, it's Cassie." Max looked down to hide a smile as Michael swore under his breath. Michael calmly reached into his pocket and peeled off a twenty from a small wad of bills and pushed it into Max's pocket. Cassie made him cuss a blue streak so he would be owing this sooner or later.

"Professor, would you accompany us to the crime scene? We had questions about the crates and packaging." Maria nodded and stood to follow the detectives out of her office, to walk across the way to museum. She noticed a small red-headed woman wandering around the scene talking loud and a mile a minute. Next to her, the larger detective, Guerin seemed to bristle. Looking at Max, he just shrugged.

Michael seemed to speed up and confront the woman, as Maria and Max hung back, watching. Finally, curiosity was too great to ignore. "What's the story?" Nodding her head at the two figures exchanging heated words.

"A long sad one. Cassie is a forensic officer with specialties in communication, so she does liaison work, to smooth things over when we've got conflicting departments, or in this case the Campus cops versus City. Basically, her job is to keep the rental cops out of our hair, but Cassie usually takes it a step further. She wanted to be a detective, and she's smart. But she was unable to pass the physical exam, so she was never given the opportunity to become a detective, and had to choose another field."

"I still don't get it. So why are they fighting?" Maria asked watching Guerin clench his fist and leaned down and talked directly into the small woman's face, cold and menacing.

"Well, Cassie has a habit of butting into our investigations, withholding valuable evidence, pursuing the information herself. In the last year we had to save her about eight times," Max winced as the discussion heated enough to reach their ears. "Michael doesn't tolerate interference. Anything that disturbs the investigation bothers him. He is very determined to protect and serve the victim, and sometimes people like Cassie, or Campus Police who trample the scene and destroy the evidence make it harder for him to do his job. To serve those who can no longer take care of themselves."

"I see," Maria frowned, "but their argument seems more personal."

"Oh, it's that all right. When Michael first met Cassie he was sort of attracted to her," Max tried not to notice that Maria's back stiffened at that news. "But it took maybe five minutes for his attraction to change to full scale dislike. Cassie, being a woman, and not too hard on the eyes, recognized the attraction, and basically has been trying to capitalize on it ever since. But she doesn't realize that her hold is gone. She has trapped Michael in elevators, the parking garage, even invaded his home a few times. It's been interesting."

"I can imagine." They watched as the woman stalked away to go talk to the Chief of Campus Security, Peabody. They slowly joined Michael.

"Told her to do her job, huh?" Max asked as Michael nodded, his eyes still slanted and deadly.

"Like it will matter. She'll still be in the thick of it, mucking it up in about two seconds." Michael without thinking reached down and took Maria's arm and to lead her into the museum. He felt her, the feel of her arm, the heat of her body, and his hand tingled almost like an electrical impulse ran from one body to the other. He wanted to move the cloth covering her arm and touch her skin, but before he could, she shook off his hand and preceded in front of them into the museum.

Maria rushed ahead of them, her heart beating hard in her chest, her arm still feeling his touch. Great! Just Great! Sexual awareness of the big mean detective. See? This is what happens when life gets too hectic and sex becomes only a distance memory. Big violent men with pissy attitudes, sexy golden brown eyes, totally kissable lips, and hands that could cause orgasms just by looking at them, actually start to look edible. Outrageous! Totally, unacceptably outrageous!

Maria entered the museum, and then stopped violently, a gasp of anger and dismay escaped her. Dogs and men were all over the place, shifting through the crates, the artifacts. "What the hell is going on?!" Maria advanced on a group of men, her hands clenched. "Stop that, put that down, you idiots!" She grabbed a funeral urn from one man's hand and shoved another officer away from a bundle burial.

"Professor..." Max actually backed up when she turned to face him. The lines of anger on her face, the flashing of her eyes, the coiled tightness of her body made it apparent that confronting her, getting in her way wouldn't be a healthy thing.

"Didn't the murderer do enough damage? Do you feel the need to finish the job?" Maria placed the funeral urn down with extreme care. "Some of these artifacts are over five thousand years old. They can't just be touched, searched and tossed without heed. The collections are in my care. My responsibility!"

"Maria, we've got to search the area. The man who did this was looking for something, and obviously the security guard interrupted him. Now a lot of these crates come from Central and South American countries. The narcotics dogs are merely smelling for hidden stashes."

"Drugs? You think this is about drugs?" Maria looked at the chaos, all the work she and her staff had worked so hard on for months, destroyed. "I understand what you're saying, but it doesn't have to be drugs. Some of these pieces are priceless, or they were until you and your hamhanded thugs tore through them. We've worked hard here, cataloguing all the artifacts, and look at this mess! This museum is scheduled to open in six months," Maria voiced became louder to emphasize the gravity of the situation, "six months, and this puts us behind."

"A man was murdered." Michael said equally loud.

Maria turned on him like a bull terrier, "I know that! I found him! But how do you expect to find drugs in a room full of artifacts from places that used cocoa leaves, opiates, and other natural fibers and plants in their textiles, or residuals in cooking ware? Your dogs are going to sniff out the hemp fibers woven into that blanket, or the opiate paste used to coat the inside of that bag." Maria put her hands on her hips. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"You could chew on some of this crap and get high?" Michael put up his hands defensively at her scream of exasperation. "I know, I know. The stuff will have to be gone over individually, piece by piece, and the dogs are just going to rip apart your artifacts for no reason."

"Yeah." Max cringed at the dripping sarcasm in her tone. "I suggest that you clear my staff to return, to pick up the pieces, and sort through what's here, and what's missing. This might be something more than drugs, and until I can check the invoices against the inventory, I can't tell you if something has been taken."

Max and Michael looked at each other recognizing the reasoning behind her statement. This was going to take time. Max sighed and pulled his phone to walk off a few paces to call the Captain. "Okay, we'll have some officers and forensic lab boys assigned to you, to help your people clear this mess and quickly catalogue the artifacts. That way if there's anything, such as drugs or contraband, they'll be here to take control of it immediately." Maria opened her mouth to comment, but he rudely put up his hand to stop her. "And that's the only way I'll open up this crime scene to let your people back in."

"I was going to say, thank you." Maria said irritably, even more than a little ticked off that his rude, nasty self was even more attractive than his moody, quiet one. God, therapy! Surely her damn insurance plan provided mental care?

"I can help." They both turned to look at the small curly red headed woman that Michael had words with earlier. Michael frowned, but had to admit that Cassie was a perfect choice given that she was already assigned to the case, and her job was to liaison between the PD staff and the University. "I've got to be here anyway, so I might as well lend a hand."

"Okay, Welsh, you stay, but if I suspect you're hindering or in anyway suppressing evidence so you can hot dog it, I'll bury you." Michael could feel Maria's eyes watching him closely, and then moving to Cassie. "Do you understand?"

"Yeah, whatever. I got it." The woman turned and smiled at Maria, shaking her hand. "Cassie Welsh, it's a pleasure to work with you. I love ancient history, it's sort of a hobby of mine."

"Welsh, you'll not be in charge down here," Michael felt it necessary to clarify that since Cassie tended to overstep her authority. "You'll report to the senior forensic staff on site, and otherwise to me or Evans directly." He muffled a nasty remark when she just nodded and rolled her eyes.

Maria quickly stepped in between them and gently tried to remove her hand from the woman's grasp. When Cassie and Detective Guerin started their latest altercation, the young woman's grasp tightened and almost crushed Maria's hand. "Um, could I have my hand back? I sort of need it to do some work." The woman started and quickly released Maria. Michael noticing Maria's grimace straight away snatched her hand to ascertain the damage if any, cussing under his breath.

Maria snatched her hand from his and hid it behind her back giving it a shake to relieve the pain. "It's fine." So turning to Cassie, Maria smiled. "Detective, if you.."

"Officer." Said Michael, and Maria noticed the young woman's face turning red, as anger flushed her cheeks.

"Right, Officer, Cassie? If you would follow me, we'll set up. I'll see if I can locate my staff and get us some food and coffee."

Michael called after them as they walked away, "I would give the coffee a miss." Both women ignored him as Max came up next to him.

"Cap is assigning some team members. He wants us downtown immediately." The two headed out. "Hey, I saw this great film once called 'Curse from the Mummy's Tomb."

"That's a classic."

"I know. And this is kind of like that. Artifacts everywhere, burial urns, dead bodies, and a rampaging Mummy." It had to be one of the best B-rated black and white horror flicks made.

"I'm not putting out an APB on a Mummy." Michael said as he and Max both laughed. "But a rogue Mummy could be cool if it took out Cassie." They both continued to laugh on their way to the car.

It wasn't until they almost back to the precinct that Max felt compelled to ask. "So Michael, what's with all the wood?" He felt his partner going stiff next to him, not that it was a new condition. He had been walking around hard since meeting the lovely Professor.

"No clue." Michael looked out the window hoping Max would drop it, but since part of being a detective was getting to the crux of things, he doubted it.

"Looks like the lady has an effect on you." Max almost bit his lip to keep from laughing at Michael's expression. What the hell was that? Dismay? Denial? Anger? Or just raging lust?

"Yeah, she affects me, or at least part of me." Michael ran his hands over his face in a moment of shocking honesty. "I can't even say why, but there's something about her, something attractive, and something damn annoying too."

Max laughed at the confusion in Michael's voice. This was going to be interesting. Literally in the last two years absolutely nothing or no one had been able to rock Michael's world, that silent dark place he seemed to live in. Vice and living on the street did so much damage, that Michael didn't let people in. Not really. And most of the time, he just ignored them or wrote them off as unimportant. It explained his failed relationships, and the fact that he couldn't even remember his last girlfriend's name. Nothing touched him, nothing but the injustice of the dead and the pain of the victims, otherwise he remained an untouchable.

"Well, hope we don't run into Hanson. I'm sure the man is gay and has a crush on you. He might take what you're sporting as an invitation or a come-on." Max laughed even harder at the nasty look Michael sent his way.

"Chuckles, Maxwell. You're a riot. A real laugh a minute." Michael decided it was time to get some of his own back. "I think we should stop at forensics and see if there's any news from the crime scene materials. Hey, maybe the Mouse is working."

Max squirmed in his seat and shot Michael an equally nasty look. It was hard to defend yourself against men who could read emotions and expressions so easily. "Don't call her that. Liz is a perfectly wonderful woman, and there's hardly anything mouselike about her." Max was irritated that Michael was able to make him defend himself all the time, and defend the Chief Manager of the Forensic Science Labs.

"You mean other than her incredibly brown looks, brown hair, brown eyes, brown, brown, and more brown? Or that she scurries around the precinct like a puff of wind would blow her over, or a harsh word would crush her, hiding in shadows like a timid brown nondescriptive mouse?" Michael asked knowing his description would piss Max off and set him on a tirade effectively making him forget to torment Michael over the pain in the ass professor.

"She is not nondescript. Her hair is lovely, shiny and well--lovely." Max turned in his seat eyes narrowed and nostrils flaring. "So she's a little quiet, and likes to work in the lab, doesn't wear loud and outrageous clothing, what's it to you? What did she ever do to you?" Michael just smirked and tuned Max's rant out as they pulled into the parking garage. The rant continued through the garage, in the elevator, down the hall, and up until the moment they opened the door to the lab. Suddenly Max lost his tongue, his ability to complete a sentence, and barely the ability to say hello.

"Parker, got anything on the morning stiff, Delaney?" Michael put his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on his shoes, as the small young woman looked at him, then looked at his partner, turned red, and then quickly ducked her head to hide her face.

"Not much. The evidence was flimsy, too many feet and hands mucking up the physical. I have over thirty different hair samples and Cap will eat me for breakfast if I run them all. The DNA analysis alone would wipe out my monthly budget." Liz looked up through her lashes, and said in a quiet voice. "Hi, Max."

Max stammered on his feet, shuffled a little and quickly said a hello before looking around the room. Michael just rolled his eyes and prepared his teeth to be set on edge as he asked Parker more questions. It wasn't what she said that irritated him at times, but rather her voice. It was soft and babyish, almost like she tried to keep it monotone modulation as not to disturb the air molecules. Robotic in tone, and lacking in inflections, he wanted to grab her sometimes and shake her demanding she spit it out. The tone wasn't just monotonous, but she used long pauses that left you just hanging. Michael might have shaken her, to wake her up out of what wacko world she lived in if he could find a reason to even care, and since he couldn't, he didn't bother.

"Parker, I think it's time for you to leave the nest. I'm going to request that you be assigned to my team." Michael ignored both Max and Liz's reactions. "I need someone who is fast and efficient, not afraid of working hard to run the crime scene with Professor DeLuca, someone who'll record and document everything. I'm sure you'll find Professor DeLuca interesting, if not colorful. She has a huge deadline, and lost months worth of work today, so I think your cold efficient ways would be a benefit to her." Liz felt anger at his words, but carefully schooled her expression to remain unchanged practically looking right through him. Michael just shrugged and headed for the door with Max following. He could feel the anger coming off his partner in waves, but chose to ignore it. "By the way, one member of your team will be Cassie Welsh, and she's already on site." Michael didn't even bother to wait for Liz's reaction.

"Dammit!" Liz looked at the instrument in her hand and contemplated shoving it up Guerin's ass, but in truth it wouldn't have room with that stick that was permanently lodged there. Cassie? What was worse? Being stuck working shoulder to shoulder with Guerin and Evans, or having to deal with Cassie Welsh? Dammit, could her life get any worse?

"You're a real jerk, Michael! You didn't have to be so mean to her. What did Liz ever do to you except exist?" Michael just shrugged. In his book existing to piss him off was a good enough reason for most things. As they headed up the stairs Michael finally got tired of listening to Max.

"You could try thanking me." Michael didn't bother to look over at the surprised look on Max's face, the look of astonishment. "Yes, I said thanking me. For almost a year, hell more like over a year, you've been mooning over Liz Parker, shuffling your feet like a schoolboy caught in his first crush. Then you pursue and nail every other female in sight, trying to convince yourself that you're not interested, but then what happens, Max? Then you dump them. You dump them because they don't fit or they're not right. So maybe Liz is right? Maybe you'll spend the rest of your life wondering, as you f-uck every table leg that walks by, while she hides in a lab gathering dust with all those little mouselike eggs going to waste. Or maybe this investigation will get her out of the mothballs, give her a taste of real air, and you and she can finally over come the painful shyness, and f-uck like real adults." With that Michael went through the stairwell door into the squad room leaving a quiet, and shocked Max standing in thoughtful silence. Boy, when Guerin wanted to rant, he did a fine job!

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

"Hey, Guerin, I ran the people from the University for ya. A few had records, but nothing interesting, just the usual speeding tickets and moving violations, except one." Hanson was flipping through the file looking for the unusual one. "Yeah, Maria DeLuca-she has an impressive sheet."

Both Michael and Max paused in their tracks. They were so used to ignoring Hanson that it was shocking when he actually had something to contribute to the case. Michael quickly snatched the file from his hand and both he and Max scanned it.

"Hanson, call an officer on the scene at the University and have them transport the Professor here. Put her in interrogation room one when she arrives." Michael looked at Max and grimaced. He missed it. Nothing in her manner, or about her tripped off his usual alert senses that she could be a deviant. Michael cussed under his breath and tossed a dollar at Max. He let his attraction to her blind him. Thinking with his little head obvious left him unaware of her possible personality faults, but he couldn't imagine what Max's excuse was.

She had been in the station for over ten minutes before Michael and Max even bothered to go talk to her. They went into the backroom and observed her from the behind the two way glass. Strange, but the woman actually appeared to be napping. Michael pushed Max aside and left to enter the room slapping the file against his leg.

"Professor?"

Maria looked up at the large irritable one. Lord he looked good enough to lick-- all over. The other was chocolate box pretty, but this one was exotic chocolate, totally f-uckable. Maria shook herself out of her thoughts and reminded herself that she was pissed at them picking her off the street without a word. "Maria. I told you to call me Maria."

"Okay, Maria," Dammit, her eyes darkened when she was tired and angry! Michael cleared his throat. "Perhaps you could talk to us about your record."

"Which record would that be?" Maria sat up straighter in her seat, her eyes becoming weary. "My dental record, academic record, or perhaps my driving record? Could you be more specific, Detective? I'm a busy woman. I've got little to no time to deal with slapstick, paltry Pig tactics, so if you need to pull out the nightstick I suggest you do it now." Maria cocked her head to one side but refused to let her vision waver or back down.

"How about your arrest record?" Michael clenched his hands and cursed his body as it responded to her attitude with a thickening and arousal. Her deep angry voice was making his toes curl.

"Oh, that..." Maria rubbed her forehead. Dammit she was getting a migraine, and this rate she'd have little to no option but to go home and sleep it off. "Who's your commanding officer?" Maria looked at both Max and Michael's frowns as they tried to understand what relevance that had to their questions. "Is it Captain Jim Valenti?" They both reluctantly nodded. "Good, I refuse to answer any questions without your Captain being present, so scurry off and find him." Maria watched as an angry hue moved over Michael's face. "And I take my coffee black!"

Michael leaned up against the wall and watched her. He could see the headache move into her eye, how her forehead wrinkled as she tried to adjust to the light, and part of him felt bad that he was adding to the stress of it, but another part was intrigued to see how far and how much he could affect her. So they remained patient and quiet, staring each other down, until her eyes finally broke. But instead of relief, he felt uncomfortable. He watched her eyes slowly course down his body, occasionally pausing to really take account, and then continue. When she was eye-leveled to his groin, she stopped and just stared. It was like her stare was touching him, stroking his body, slowly and with delicate care. And when he thought he couldn't get more aroused, her tongue came out and licked her lips.

It was Kyle walking down the hall, and looking into the open door of the interrogation room that stopped Michael from losing control, moving across the room, and picking up Maria to push her hard against the wall and crush her under his body. Kyle found a way to throw cold water on the entire situation.

"Maria!" Kyle came into the room and tossed his file on the table, sitting his ass down on the edge next to her, he reached down and kissed her on the lips. "What the hell are you doing hanging out at the PD? Not that Major Crimes couldn't use the decoration." Kyle heard a noise behind him and looked over at Michael. "Hey, Guerin, don't tell me you were keeping this lovely lady to yourself." Kyle ignored the angry explanation from Michael and turned back to Maria. "So Dollface, you coming to Sunday dinner, or do I've got to babysit the old ones alone?"

"Sorry, Kyle, but I think the Detective has plans to tie me up on Sunday." Maria looked pointedly at Michael when she said that. Kyle looked between the two of them, seeing sparks, major sparks, and something else. Before he could comment, Valenti and Max came back into the room, with Max a few steps behind carrying a cup of coffee, black.

"Maria!" Valenti went to the woman, pass his son and picked her up out the chair in a large bear hug. "Hey honey, it's about time you came to see me! You've missed every Sunday dinner for the last two months, and you know that's not allowed."

"Actually Jim, I'm afraid this isn't a social call." Maria motioned towards both Max and Michael. Valenti looked at his two detectives, and then back at Maria. "Oh lord, what now? Where is she? Do they still have her in holding or are they processing her?"

Michael and Max were clueless. Who the hell was 'she" and why did their witness have more friends and acquaintances in the department then they did. "Captain, we brought Professor DeLuca for some standard questioning about her record, and in conjunction with the murder case at the University." Michael handed Valenti Maria's sheet.

"Damn, I forgot I was going to take care of some of this stuff." Valenti looked up at Maria. "Sorry, I meant to have it removed, but somehow I got busy." Jim went down the long list of previous arrest, with no convictions. "Strange, I think you've got a longer sheet than your old man, and almost all of it's because of your mom. So this has nothing to do with her, right?"

"Well, technically, no. Unless you count that the murder of the guard, Chris Delaney, happened in a newly renovated building saved by Amy DeLuca. If I had my new building like I wanted, then my security system would have already been installed and there wouldn't have been any reason to have a night guard patrolling the halls." Maria saw Max slowly put the coffee on the table and smiled her thanks as she picked it up and took a sip. Okay, not as vile as the Anthropology Department's coffee, but coming a close second.

Valenti looked at his men knowing how this looked, how the long report looked, and how it discredited Maria. "I think I can explain most of theses charges." Valenti looked down at the first one listed. "Chicago? Was that during the protest against coloring the water green for St. Patrick's Day or the Haymarket Reunion?"

"I think the first one is probably the Haymarket Massacre Anniversary, and technically all I did was make an overweight Irish Cop run down a street. But of course, mom did more. She locked hands with other protesters and sat down in a wonderful display of civil disobedience, resulting in the lot of us taking a ride in the paddywagons." Maria took another drink. "I think the federal charges for trespassing and destruction of military property, with an intent of treason is the best.” Maria took a sip of coffee and then pointed a finger at Jim in thought. “Though technically they said we had to cross the river before they arrested us, and mom only got to the middle of the river before I caught up with her. I always thought it was the wet t-shirts and the lack of a bras that made them decide to add us the rest. Mom was thrilled."

Both Michael and Max listened to her explain away every charge one by one, with "Mom" being the cause of most the trouble. Both Valenti men just nodded their heads in total understanding. Finally Jim looked over to his two detectives. "You gentlemen probably remember Maria's mother? Amy DeLuca?" Both of them shook their heads no, until Jim decided to remind them. "She's the woman who chained herself to the Sergeant's front desk two months ago to protest prisoner conditions in our hold cells." Both men suddenly remembered the woman, but she hardly looked old enough to have a twenty-six year old University Professor for a daughter.

"Yeah, I remember that head case." Michael barely paused when he saw Kyle giving him a high sign to cut it off, shaking his head violently.

"That would be the one." Valenti helped Maria to stand, putting his arm around her shoulder to lead her out of the interrogation room. "My fiancée." Maria just smirked at Michael and when Valenti wasn't looking, she crossed her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him.

"Wait," Michael grabbed the folder back and scanned the sheet again, "what about this one. Arrested in a raid of a 'house of ill repute' in New Orleans?"

Maria casually looked over his hand to read the sheet too. "Oh, that one is mine." And with a smile she left the room with Jim. They looked at each other as they heard her ask what was on the menu for Sunday dinner. Valenti ordered Max and Michael to give Maria a lift home since she was picked up in a squad car. None of them really talked along the way, but occasionally a moan and groan would come from the back seat.

"Cut it out." Michael said refusing to look back at her. "We're not letting you cop a plea of police brutality."

"Oh bite me, flatfoot. I've got a humdinger of a migraine coming on, my life is too damn stressful, and today I found a dead body, so flip off!" Maria spotted the turn off for her loft apartment. Oh thank god, it had been weeks since she was home, really home. Over the last two weeks the best she did was open the door, walk straight into her bedroom, fall fast asleep, wake up to shower, feed the cat, and rush out the door.

Maria was surprised when the two detectives followed her to her door. Opening it and walking in she started to turn around and thank them for the ride before slamming the door in their faces, but the state of her loft stopped her. There were dishes piled up in the sink, clothes everywhere, empty beer cans, and stacks of empty pizza boxes. She never noticed it last night. It was so late when she came home, and still dark when she left that morning, that she never noticed the state of her home. Picking up a pair of kitchen tongs she walked around the place expressing her displeasure and disbelief.

Michael just assumed that the place was a wreck normally. After seeing her office, both of them, the disaster in the museum, it wasn't hard to imagine that this was her normal mode of housekeeping. It was her cussing that began when she slowly stood up from a crouched position holding a pair of men's underwear in her tongs that clenched it. This wasn't how she left her place. Maria looked over and saw a man's leather jacket draped across the back of the sofa, and a look of horror crossed her face.

Rushing to the phone, she dialed a number and waited. When the person on the other line picked up, Maria began to whine. "No, absolutely not. I won't have it! I won't have him in my house. You've got to take him back."

Both Michael and Max could hear a woman's voice on the other end screeching, "Maria, honey is that you? I can't hear you! It must be the line..." and then the sounds of the other phone being banged hard against something.

"You can't do this to me. I won't allow it." Maria winced at the banging and continued to scream into the phone. "You're not fooling anyone. Now come get him or I'm moving back home!" The phone on the other end went dead, and all they could hear was a dial tone.

All the screaming must have wakened the dead, because the door under the stairs leading up to the loft suddenly opened and out walked a man, a little over six feet tall, medium build with curly golden blond hair. The man was dressed in only a pair of skimpy tiger print briefs scratching his stomach below his belly button, and in his other hand was a gun. It was the gun that alerted Michael and Max. Both of them almost in tandem drew their weapons as the man became aware of them and lifted his to cover them. Maria screamed and stepped back from the three men all facing each other with weapons drawn.

"Wait! Wait, okay? Calm down! Calm down!" Maria slowly insinuated herself between them backing herself up against the naked man, and pushing his gun arm down, while keeping her other hand up looking at both Max and Michael. Michael growled under his breath as the man's other hand, the one that had been scratching his stomach came out to circle around Maria's waist. Michael's eyes narrowed as he targeted a place between the man's beady eyes. "Let's just take a calming breath and release some of the testosterone. It's not going to look good if you shoot my cousin in my apartment just for being a Pig, breaking and entering, and committing an act of fashion death by wearing those briefs."

Both Michael and Max began to relax as the word "cousin" registered. Slowly they lowered their guns, as Maria spun around on her heel, and reached up to slap the man upside his head. "Do you have to act like the pig you are? Look at this place? What were you thinking? How did you get in?" Maria looked at her cousin her hands coming to rest on her hips. "You picked the lock, didn't you? Didn't you?" Sean finally nodded his head in agreement. Yeah, so he picked the lock. "I should have these detectives arrest you for breaking and entering." Maria rushed off up the stairs pointing her finger menacing. "But lucky for you, I'm sick of police and police stations, I've got the monster of all headaches, and I'm going to take a bath. So..." pausing on the steps leading upward to her loft bedroom, "if you know what's good for you, you'll restore some order to my home, take out the garbage, pick up your dirty clothes, and do the damn dishes before I get back." With that Maria went up the stairs and they could hear drawers slamming.

Suddenly she was back by the upper railing, looking down at them wearing nothing but an open robe with only a bra and panties under it. Michael couldn't stop staring at her body as she suddenly pointed a finger at her cousin. "Where the hell is my cat?" And against his will Michael groaned aloud when she gathered her robe and tied the sash. "You better find Mr. Booboo, or there'll be hell to pay!" And she was gone again, with just the sounds of a shower starting.

Max gave a low long whistle under his breath, and Michael could only agree. What a hell of a woman! Pushing his hands through his hair and taking a look at the room around him, Sean had to admit, Maria was right. He had totally trashed her place. Giving the other two men a sheepish grin, he held out his hand. "Sean DeLuca. Vice." Michael knew the name as did Max. They quickly introduced themselves. Neither had ever met the man, but his reputation was well known. They watched him go to the living room and pick up a shirt, smell it and put it on, and then a pair of jeans leaving them unbuttoned and unzipped. Going back into the kitchen Sean looked at the mess and shook his head. Suddenly there was a soft meow, as a skinny calico stripped cat emerged from under the leather sofa.

"Oh, thank god, there you are! One problem solved." Sean took out a can of cat food and looked for a dish to put it in, but everything was dirty and piled up in the sink. Shrugging he opened the can and before Max could stop him, poured the contents out on the countertop as the cat jumped up and began to eat. "So why were you escorting my cousin home?" Sean turned dark serious eyes on them, and just as fast his face shuddered and became even more dangerous, "Did something happen? Did someone hurt my cousin?"

Max quickly intervened. "No, no she's fine."

Sean nodded his head as he grabbed two garbage bags. "So why are you escorting her home?" When suddenly a thought occurred to him. "Oh god, not Aunt Amy again? What did she do this time?"

Max actually laughed at the expression on Sean's face. God, he had to meet this Amy person. "No, the Captain had us bring Maria home. Actually she discovered a dead body in her museum this morning, the security guard, Chris Delaney."

Sean stopped what he was doing. "You're sh-itting me?" Both men remained stony faced, "okay, you talk while I clean."

When Maria finally emerged from the netheregions of the upstairs she was surprised to still see the team of Guerin and Evans in her loft. The place was surprisingly cleaner than before, and Max was finishing the dishes as Michael vacuumed and Sean picked up dirty laundry and trash. Michael plain out and out refused to pick up another man's dirty underwear. Stopping at the foot of the stairs her eyes lit on the cat eating off the countertop, but just sighed. At least he was picking up some of the damage.

"Why are they still here?" The men turned to look at Maria, and Sean's eyes narrowed as he noticed Michael checking out his cousin, and even Max was pretty attentive. His sense of outrage continued when he took in what Maria was wearing. The t-shirt was okay except it was about six years old and about two sizes too small, and she wasn't wearing a bra. The shorts were an old pair of jean cut-offs totally scandalous in that there were more holes than jeans, and the combination left a good portion of her midriff bare.

"We just ordered lunch. Pizza." Michael couldn't take his eyes off her. He frowned when he noticed the pain in her eyes. "You still have the headache? Maybe you should lie down or something. We can call you when the pizza gets here." Max looked at Michael sharply. It wasn't that Michael was hard and uncaring, but he rarely took time to notice anyone except the really young or the very old, and everyone else was pushed into victims or the ignored category.

"I'm fine. A nap can wait until you leave." Maria looked at her cousin. "So how long have I been your hostess?" Sean had the nerve to actually smile at her with a twinkle in his eye. "Sean?"

"About two weeks." Sean laughed at her astonished look as her mouth dropped open. "No, you aren't that unobservant. It's just you've been busy, sleeping in your office most nights, and with me working nights and you at school during the days, we didn't overlap much."

"I should have you arrested, or something." Maria sighed knowing her mom wasn't going to take Sean into her house. "You need to go home to your place. I thought they would fix it."

"Well that's the problem. The owner decided that he would rather tear the place down than put up more slum units. Nowadays you can't even find a good slum landlord." Sean stacked up the last of the garbage bags to be taken out by the door.

Michael heard the doorbell, and passed Max some cash as he went to answer it and get the pizza. "So why did you haf'ta leave, was the place not regulation or something?" Michael looked at Maria as she snorted and went to find paper plates and napkins.

"No, it was blown up." Sean took the pizza box from an astounded Max's hand and opened it to grab a slice. Maria looked over his shoulder and noticed that the pizza was the hearty man's meaty feast. Dammit, what was wrong with a few veggies, or maybe just an olive or two? Taking a slice and pulling the meat off and leaving it in the corner of her plate, she ate the crust and sauce. "My next door neighbor, stupid f*ck, was running a meth lab. Imagine the balls or stupidity a person has to have to run a drug shake and bake factory next door to a cop. A vice cop. The crazy bastard blew himself up and a good portion of the building."

Michael's eyebrow went up at the story. These DeLucas were damn public nuisances. He was busy eating another piece of pizza when Maria got up and went into the kitchen. Retrieving two glasses, a carton of milk, and two beers she came back to sit down. Michael watched her, he couldn't stop. She filled and spilled out of those shorts nicely. Real nicely. The surprise came when she put a glass in front of him and Max and poured them each a glass of milk, and then passed Sean a beer, and opened a beer for herself.

"I wouldn't have minded a beer." Michael said looking down at the glass of milk.

She finally looked at him and smiled. "You're on duty, Detective. Sean has a few hours before he's on the clock." And she picked up her beer and continued to drink it with a small smile around her mouth well aware he was watching her every move. He watched the movement of the golden liquid down the glass as she tipped the bottle, the flexing of her throat as she swallowed, and the moisture left on her upper lip. Studying him closely, she licked her lips and smiled to herself when she could hear him gulp. Looking over, she noticed the amusement in Max's eyes and he actually winked at her.

"Sean, I didn't notice that thing you drive parked outside. What you been doing? Parking around the block?" Maria asked as she finished her meal, ignoring Michael as he reached over and ate the pile of meat off her plate. It was the redness of his face that made Maria nervous. "Sean, where's the beastmobile ?" Sean said something hardly audible, avoiding her eyes. "Sean?"

"It broke down. I took it to Walter's garage to see if he could salvage it." Maria just nodded. Good choice. Walter was an artist. He could make an engine purr no matter how crappy the car, and if he couldn't fix it, then it wasn't worth saving. Walter taught her endless hours of auto mechanics. He was her personal guru.

"So what you've been driving?" Maria stopped and glanced at her cousin, suspicion narrowing the eyes, and anger flaring the nostrils. "Sean?"

"Jesus, M, it was only for the last two days!" Michael was shocked when Maria gave a scream of rage and disbelief and rushed to a door beside the kitchen. It led to what appeared to be a large garage. Following her, Max and Michael were curious as Sean took off after her assuring her it was unharmed, refueled, and it was none worse for the wear. The two detectives stopped in the door way and gawked at the face of god, a black mint condition GTO with full trim. Maria was checking the outside for scratches, opening the doors to check for spilled food, beer cans, or any other intrusive material. Literally she was hugging the car, talking to it, calling it her baby, when suddenly she turned on Sean and kicked him hard in the shin.

"Dammit, M. That hurt like hell!" Maria just grunted at him and walked over to Michael.

"Arrest him! I want him arrested for grand theft auto!" Maria ignored a pleading Sean. "Well are you going to arrest him or what?"

"No. I'm not getting in the middle of a family dispute. I'll arrest him, your mom calls the Cap and tells him to drop the charges, and all the paper work will be for nothing." Michael looked the car over, understanding her ire. Hell, if it was his, he would have dropped the bastard off a bridge with an engine block tied to his body, but that was only after he kicked him around a bit.

"Okay, then shoot him." Max snorted as Michael looked into her stormy eyes and shook his head no. "If you take out your gun and shoot him between his beady eyes, I'll take you for a ride you'll never forget." Michael caught the double meaning, and fingered his gun. Maria moved in close to him, rubbing her body against him, feeling the hardness against her stomach. "I swallow."

"Okay." Michael unsnapped the safety strap off his gun and was pulling it out when Max stopped him.

"Sorry Maria, you'll have to find another way to get even that doesn't involve my partner rotting in jail for murder."

"It would be justifiable homicide." Max just shook his head no, and with a swear word that made his neck turn red, Maria turned on her heels and stalked off, but not before running her hand up Michael's body.

All Michael said was "Whoa!" And Max echoed the sentiment. Then both men turned back to a more important issue, the GTO. "What a honey, what does she max at?"

"A clean 145 that I've seen, with maximum uptake, on an open road, she guns higher, even the patrol cars can't match her." Max was literally jumping up and down waiting for Sean to pop the hood. All three men groaned almost in orgasmic release when the headers came into view, and all three leaned into the engine resting on their forearms. The GTO was fully geared, a real muscle car. "Maria restored her from the ground up, everything is authentic. It took her three years. It's her baby."

"Does she give it full head?" Michael couldn't stop himself from running his hands over the satin finish. It probably resembled Maria's skin. Somehow talking cars made him think of sex, which in turn made him think of Maria, which in turn caused him to lose all room in his jeans.

"Oh yeah, she likes to run it out in the desert during the weekend sometimes." Sean didn't even try to keep the envy out of his voice. He spent months looking for a good frame of a car he wanted. He was going to convince Walter and Maria to help him restore his own.

Michael considered what he knew from meeting Maria since this morning. That thought shocked him. Had it only been since this morning? Actually only a few hours, but damn it already felt like a lifetime, in a good way. He knew more about her, wanted her more, and now envied her more than his last girlfriend whose name slipped his mind. "Sounds like she needs a speeding ticket."

Sean snorted as he closed the hood, much to the disappointment of both Max and Michael. "Yeah, but you'd have to catch her first, and gentlemen, there hasn't been a man alive that can tame or catch my little cousin."

Michael filed the challenge away for later thought, and asked a real important question. "Think she'd let me drive it?"

Sean looked at Michael closely, feeling a slight fear rising. "The only way a man is getting behind this wheel is if it's true love, because Maria won't give up control to just anyone."

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

After they left the loft, the rest of the day was routine. It was a long and winding road with lab reports, leads to follow, and endless phone calls. All those years ago, Michael used to watch cop shows with his dad, Mikey Guerin, and somehow the action and stories seemed so action filled, so romantic. But police work, or specifically Detective work was almost eighty percent phone calls. It didn't matter, he'd rather do this job than any other, and especially Vice. He didn't envy Sean DeLuca in the least. The man was living a hard life.

Finally getting home well after eleven at night, Michael whole body stiffened at a sound to his right. Quickly drawing his gun, he turned to point it straight into the face of Max's sister, Isabel.

"Dammit, Iz, how many times have I told ya not to sneak up on me?" Michael looked her over and with a sigh opened the door and gestured her inside. The smell of booze and sex hit him as she walked by. Iz went in and looked around his empty apartment. There was hardly any furniture, and the place looked bare.

"I thought you were going to replace some of your stuff." Michael shut the door and stooped down to pick up a shoe Isabel lost.

"I did." Michael moved to the phone and he picked it up to dial Max. "The bed, wardrobe, a sofa, coffee table, first class stereo, all my CDs, large television and VCR, and kitchen crap." The phone rang, but Max hadn't answered it yet. He must still be on his way home. Hanging up, Michael turned to look at Isabel.

"Want to tell me what's going on?" Isabel just shook her head no and leaned back on the sofa with her eyes closed. "You smell like cheap booze, sex, and do I need to check you for tracks?"

Michael sighed and put his head down closing his eyes as the once beautiful woman started to cry. Isabel was still beautiful, but she was choosing a hard road, a hard life, and one that aged a person ten years for every one. "I'll try Max again."

Isabel set up straight at that. "No, please Mikey, don't." Michael winced at the name of Mikey. That was his father's name, his was Michael, and in all these years Isabel couldn't or didn't know the difference or why it was important to him to have his own name. "I just had a bad day, that's all."

"I can understand bad days, Izzy, but weren't you supposed to call someone when these rough spots hit?" Isabel just nodded and looked around the room. "How bad was it, Iz? Do you remember what you did, who you did?"

A sob escaped her as she said no in a dazed voice. "I thought I was getting better, 'ya know? Maybe I was over the worst of it, but then today I met a girl I use to go to school with before "It" happened. She was a doctor. God! A freakin' doctor, and what am I? My whole damn life gone, lost in a bottle, shot up in smack, and I can't remember the last time I dated a man, and I mean really dated. Sure I f-uck them all the time, not for money, sometimes for junk, but mostly just to lose myself."

"Okay, okay, I know." Michael went over and sat on the arm of the sofa and rubbed her shoulder. "I can't help you here, you know that. It's too late for help from either Max or me. You, Isabel, you need to make the decision! Either get up tomorrow and get some help, or die this way!"

"I want to, I really do." Isabel wiped her eyes with her sleeve. Looking down at herself she was appalled at how skanky she was dressed, how low she had sunk. The girl she ran into today reminded her of all she lost, all she let go of over five years ago. Tears filled her eyes as she felt disappointed. It was hard to feel so much hatred for herself, but she did.

Michael looked down at her, and felt that pull, that kinship that was present from the first day he met her, and the same one he felt for Max. Letting rare compassion sweep across his face, he reached down and offered her his hand. "Come on. Let's start by getting you a bath." Isabel silently agreed. She couldn't stand the smell of a stranger on her body, and the sooner she could remove it the better.

"Why do you take care of me, Mikey?" Michael just shook his head. Hell if he knew. While she was in the bath, he sat out a pair of sweats, socks, and a t-shirt that actually belonged to Max. Isabel was a large woman, not fat, but rather large as in statuesque. On a crappy day she could make men salivate, and even looking like a twenty dollar whore on smack, she still carried herself with a sense of dignity. She could wear both his and Max's clothes, so he had no problem getting her something to wear while he burned that dress she had on. Picking up the phone he tried Max again. This time he answered.

"Yeah, your dime."

"Maxwell, I seemed to have found something that belongs to you." Michael heard the silence on the other end, and understood Max's unhappiness.

"She okay?" Michael hated this part the most.

"Yeah, I've got her in the bath right now. I think she'll be out for the count in the next hour." Max's tired voice came over the line with more weariness than Michael could bear.

"How bad?"

Michael took the phone away from his mouth and with clenched jaw closed his eyes for a moment. "The usual. I'll run her by the clinic in the morning, and have them check her over." Michael could tell from the silence that Max was close to breaking, that he wasn't doing well. "Don't worry Maxwell, I've got her covered tonight." Neither said anything for a few moments, but they both knew that Isabel was a sinking ship, she needed to find redemption, a sense of peace before the world swallowed her alive.

"Thanks Michael." And Michael hung up the phone after the click told him Max disconnected.

It was hard, real hard, for both Max and Isabel. They loved their parents, but they were high profile lawyers that crossed the wrong people. All it took was a car bomb one night over six years ago to destroy one life, and alter the other forever. Max had been in law school when it happened, destined to join his parents in their law firm after he passed the bar. He was so close, but after "It" happened he couldn't stomach defending people who were monsters, who preyed on the weak and defenseless, so he quit law school and the next day signed up for the police academy.

Isabel had been at the University studying psychology. Her whole life had been planned out, by her since she was fifteen. She was going to school to become a psychologist, then she was going to marry a rich and successful man being his trophy wife, and after two children, they were going to live out their lives in relative ease. It didn't work out that way. When her parents were killed, Isabel left school, hit the streets, parties, flying high on smack and anything else she could find to dull the pain. Between sex, drugs, and alcohol she was fast becoming a junky so strung out that her life expectancy was only another ten years at best. That was how Michael found her a year after her parents died, strung out in a back alley. She was engaging in sex with a man up against a trash receptacle when suddenly he started beating her. She had no memory of what happened. But Michael who was undercover with Vice saw it, and broke his cover to save her, to take her home.

He called the number in her bag and found Max, a rookie cop still in blues. From the moment he saw her, saw Isabel, it was like he knew her. Then Max came to the door to get his sister, and with one look they knew. It was if the familiarity told them more then their memories could, that somehow they were connected. The three had been together since that day--best friends.

Michael looked up at her as she slowly entered the room, looking younger and even more vulnerable with all the makeup gone, the tiredness lining her face. He poured the soup he made her in a bowl and set it out on the kitchen bar gesturing her to come eat. Isabel sat down and tasted the soup trying not to grimace. Campbell's tomato, she hated it, but smiled when Michael handed her a bottle of Tabasco.

"I f-ucked up again, huh?" Isabel sipped the soup not looking at Michael.

"Yeah, but I'll take you to the clinic tomorrow." Michael hated this, hated seeing her so lost. "Iz, you know unprotected sex is dangerous. Max can't afford to lose you. You're all he's got, and all I've got too."

Isabel looked at him and smiled. "Why do 'ya think we never... you know...got to together or even gave it a try?" Isabel looked him over. He was more than handsome, and sex was something he seemed to carry in his skin, but somehow there was never a spark of interest between them even though both of them felt a connection that was strong and lasting.

Michael sighed and pulled his sweats away from his body and looked down to check out his dick and balls, the full package. "Yeah, they're still there. And that is why we never got together." Isabel looked at him, and then suddenly started laughing. He smiled liking the sound of her laughter, sometimes it seemed that was the part of her that was lost, the part that was buried with her parents. Passing the crackers to her, he poured her a glass of milk.

"You're one mean bastard, Michael Guerin." Michael nodded at that. It was best people knew that from the getgo, just so there wasn't confusion or false expectations.

"One day, I'm going to see you settled, in love and loopy." Michael laughed at the threat to his bachelorhood.

"In the ground, little sister, in the ground, that's the only way." And once again, as watching his surrogate sister finish her soup, he thought about Maria DeLuca.

****************************************************************************
PART 2

Maria thought the day before had to be the worst day of her life, but she was wrong. The next day started sucking immediately when her cat threw up in her bed, and already late for work, she realized that she would have to take the GTO or catch a cab, since a police officer took her to the police station in a squad car, and then Guerin and Evans brought her home.

The headache from the previous day was still hanging on behind her right eye threatening to re-emerge. As soon as she hit her department, and was trying to make it to her office and coffee so sludgelike it could wake the dead, her Department Head, Kenneth Price, otherwise christened, "Large Fat Toady Jerk" by Maria, stopped her in the hall to encourage her to kill herself.

Tess saw her coming, and looked down the hall to make sure his royal toad was gone. "How bad was it?"

"Bad," Maria rubbed her eyes and refused to cry reminding herself that she didn't cry. Seeing a cup of swamp sludge waving before her face, she smiled at Tess and took the cup, sipping, and then closing her eyes to savor the buzz running over her body to give her another chance of living through the day. "According to Kenny boy, I'm stupid, lazy, inept, lacking in any redeeming qualities, responsible for the mess the museum is in now, responsible for Chris Delaney being murdered in the Peruvian room, and the Antichrist. Oh, and my next chapter draft of my thesis is due at the end of next week, no excuses."

"Jerk."

"Yeah, that's about the half of it." Maria downed the rest of the coffee. "Okay, back to bigger and better things. Did you check out 'The Guerin Body'?"

"I did. But I think cheesecake boy Evans, has a better body." Tess smiled as Maria sorted through her stack of material getting ready for her first class.

"Hellooo!! Ears!! If a large wind came he would flap away, though I thought he was very nice." Maria grabbed a stack of finished exams relieved to be getting rid of them, and another stack of finished essays. "Now 'The Guerin Body', that's another story. There's nothing, and I mean nothing wrong with that tall drink of cool water. Delicious! I could start at one end and kiss my way up his entire body, stopping to savor some choice juicy spots along the way." Maria smiled as Tess laughed herself sick. It was good to hear her laugh. Tess had few reasons to laugh or even to enjoy life. A year ago her young husband, Jack Hardy took a bullet in the line of duty. He never made it out of surgery, so Tess at twenty-five was widowed.

"Did you notice those eyes? Those lips, oh yeah, those lips are totally suck and nibbleworthy." Maria was just warming on her subject. "But I think it's his hands. My god, I think I had a wet dream last night just about his hands!" Maria kept organizing her stacks as she talked, never noticing someone coming to stand at the door. Tess just shook her head at Maria. After the last year she was used to Maria's brash and outspoken manner over anything that came into her head. It was freeing to see someone so comfortable with themselves to be so forthright. "Geez, do you think it's true about a man's hands being indicative of his size? I sort of brushed up against it yesterday, and it wasn't a Gerald Tiny, no sir! It had discernible ridges and everything even through two layers of denim. I think..." Maria was interrupted by a small cough from the door.

"Excuse me?" Maria turned quickly and looked at the figure in the door. The young girl in the doorway looked lost and very embarrassed. At first Maria thought it was one of her undergrads, but looking closely she noticed that despite slimness and looking young, the woman was just that, a woman. "I was looking for a Professor DeLuca."

"That would be me," Maria came around the desk and offered the woman her hand, "and you would be...?"

"Liz Parker, I'm affiliated...I mean the Department...um...the Police Department sent me to help with the artifacts." Maria's head was starting to hurt again just from trying to wait for the girl to spit it out.

"Okay, cool, the more the merrier. I've got a full crew, but I know the PD wanted their people on hand in case we found anything illegal. Right now we're trying to get everything catalogued and checked against inventory to see if anything is missing." Maria worried about the young woman. She seemed so timid, so ready to fade into the wallpaper. There were undergrads in her class that had more confidence. "Okay, so let me drop you there on my way to my first class. This is my assistant, Tess Hardy."

Liz smiled at the other young woman with pretty blond hair, and colorful clothes wishing she could dare to wear anything that bold. Suddenly her faced clouded as she recognized the name. "You didn't know a Jack Hardy, did you?"

Maria quickly looked at Tess and then Liz. It was hard to see the smile leave Tess's face and a wash of paleness followed by sadness take over her usually animated face. "He was my husband." Maria felt moisture behind her eyes, knowing Tess must be feeling worse, she quickly asked Tess to get Liz a cup of coffee.

"I'm sorry. I didn't think." Liz watched the other girl flee and felt her ineptness at social settings painfully. "He was a nice man, always friendly."

"Yes. Yes he was." Maria didn't know who to feel sorriest for, Tess or this poor timid creature. It wasn't hard really since she knew Tess longer, and her loyalties had to go to friends first. But to ease the awkwardness, Maria smiled and suggested they head over to the library and get Liz settled.

The day was busy and the museum was filled with people lending a helping hand. Maria had moved in and out of the chaos to make her classes and run around, go to meetings, and talk to students. It was a relief after her last class was taught for the day, she could dedicate herself to the museum.

The Liz Parker woman was interesting, smart, but all so reserved. Maria noticed that she tended to isolate herself from the others, only smiling at the antics of the others, but never really joining in. So Maria took it upon herself to draw the woman out as her personal mission in life, very much like the one she assigned herself when Tess's husband died.

"What is this?" Liz asked Maria who was working next to her. It surprised her when Maria had set up her work station next to Liz, and with her the entire room shifted bringing everyone closer until Liz found herself working in the middle of the group. Maria laughed at the gourd.

"That's a penis gourd," Maria tried not to laugh at the confusion on Liz's face. "It's a decorative piece. Some tribes use these gourds, dry them, decorate them, and then slide them on a man's penis instead of pants or a cog piece."

"You mean they used it to cover their...thing?" Maria looked at Liz in concern. Okay, no one on her staff called a man's penis a 'thing' or a "sausage' or any other euphemistic term that was sophomoric and juvenile. They were all adults, penis, dick, c-ock, or even a few other words were acceptable to correctly refer to the male genitals, but 'thing' was not. "But, it's so long and big?" Maria laughed as did the rest of the group at the embarrassment poor Liz was suffering.

"Well, the bigger, the better, the more prestigious." Maria tried to take pity on Liz. It was tough being in a room of crass anthropologists, geologists, and a historian more than happy to be descriptive in a manner that was unsuitable for genteel society. "See the top of the pointy gourd has a braided string that is worn around the neck to keep it from bobbing all about the place, and the base of the gourd slipped over a man's penis with these braided strings looping around their legs and waist and between their ass cheeks to hold it in place." Maria stopped when it looked like Liz was going to faint dead away. "Oh hell, let's just get," Maria looked around and spotted one her best friends and a graduate student, "Eddie to demonstrate it."

The whole group exploded in laughter and catcalls as Eddie stood up and started unzipping his jeans. Some where chanting for him to take it off, real slow, while others were whistling and stomping feet and beating out a primitive beat. Liz looked at the group, and couldn't help but smile. They were so loud, so alive, undisciplined and happy. "Okay, okay, let's put it away Eddie. We've got no time to play. We'll continue this at my place this weekend at group review."

The group continued to laugh and joke making rude comments as they went back to work. Cassie Welsh was working hard with the group, laughing and having a good time, but still she was held off from the rest. It wasn't anything that she did, but something about her personality had the group politely letting her join in, but yet keeping her at a distance. Strangely enough they had no problem with Liz Parker. It was like they found her timid demeanor endearing, almost needing protection, so they gently tried to include her in their shenanigans.

Dianne wandered in and plopped herself down next to Maria and Liz. She was carrying her usual bag of toasted almonds. Maria reached in popped a few in her mouth, munching away as Dianne went into great detail all the gossip of the day. Liz even broke in to ask a few questions, so Dianne finally turned the subject to Gerald Tiny and his mini-me making Liz laugh with color staining her cheeks. That was how the detective team of Guerin and Evans found them. Both were bowled over at the difference in Liz Parker in just a few hours of exposure to Maria DeLuca and her crazy life. The mousy brown woman had color in her cheeks, a twinkle in her eyes, and she was laughing a fun range laugh with her voice altering to make a funny squeaky sounds as she mimicked other members of the group.

Michael turned to make a comment to Max and just gave up rolling his eyes. Max was thunderstruck, practically paralyzed by the Parker beast. Figures. This had to be DeLuca's fault. She found Parker a personality, or at least lent her one for a while, and now Max was lovestruck, practically mooing with big cow eyes. Michael swore under his breath when Liz looked up and her eyes met Max's and they stared across the room at each other oozing sickly sweet looks that had Michael icking under his breath.

Maria looked up and saw something she wanted. Oh, the Guerin He-Body was in her house, on her turf. Yum. Seeing the looks between Liz and Max, Maria decided to give it a helping hand. "Detective Evans, could I trouble you for a little assistance?" Max tore his glance away from Liz to see a smiling Maria, and without realizing he was doing it, he smiled back. What was it with this woman? Drawn like a moth to a flame, he went to stand by her, waiting for her to command him to her will. "Could you finish helping Liz here with this while I talk to your partner? It should only take a few moments, and Liz will show you what to do." Max took Maria's spot and Maria caught Dianne's look and they both shared a private communication over the couple's heads.

Maria slowly made her way to Michael, stopping to answer questions along the way. By the time she made it to his side, Michael was feeling a slight impatience. "Detective? Could I see you in my office for a second."

Michael looked over at his partner, shook his head in disbelief and then nodded to Maria following her into her office. As soon as the door shut he found himself pushed up against it, and his mouth engaged in a fullblown kiss with Maria DeLuca. He had spent most of the night in his bed and most of the day trying to think of ways to get in this very position with her, and here she was doing all the work for him! Maria DeLuca was definitely his kind of woman. For a man that liked to dominate, to be the controller in everything, her aggressive brash treatment of him and her refusal to shrink from his obvious sexual desire for her licked rivers of molten fire down his body, into places he never felt before. And if he wasn't enjoying it so much, he would have been appalled at how much he liked her messing him up. Pushing him.

The energy burst through them, a shock of pure feeling, intense and powerfully overwhelming. Maria's fingers locked onto Michael's biceps, clinging when their lips met and devoured each other's mouths. Heat rose between them, surrounding and saturating them with this need that was building since the day before. Michael moved his mouth away from Maria's, roaming down the curve of her neck, not so gently sucking the skin between his teeth. Maria breathed in gasps of air as if she was a drowning victim, but she didn't resist what was happening, caught up like Michael in the moment, her body rubbing hard against the obvious stiffness pressing into her.

The surge subsided momentarily and they pulled back, practically shoving away from each other, to stare again at one another in shocked surprise and near panic. Maria didn't know it would take off that fast, that hard. Clearing her throat she tried to smile, but couldn't, so instead she pushed her hair off her hot skin. "I'm sorry. Okay, I'm not sorry, but I promised myself that I would do that the next time I saw you." A spark of interest and mischief entered her eyes. "You want to file assault charges and handcuff me, Detective? Maybe frisk me?"

"It was wrong. This is wrong." Maria just shrugged as Michael tried to make that point clear. She liked the sound of his voice, so much deeper than usual, the halfclosed heavy look to his eyes, and the redness of his lips from where she sucked them into her mouth. He looked...mussed up.

"Why? Because I'm a witness or a suspect in your investigation?" Maria was feeling a little pissed. Why did everything have to be so complicated? Why couldn't they just go with what they were feeling?

"No, because you're a pain in the ass." Maria shrugged again, like that was a bad thing. Michael stopped her from making a smart remark with another quick kiss. "I don't have time to do this correctly, at this moment... Max and I are on a stakeout tonight. As it is, I was just checking in before I left, and then you do "this"...Michael pulled her hard up against his body so she could feel and know what the hell "this" was. Damn he was hard! All pokey against her stomach... Maria's eyes half closed and she moved her mouth a whisper's breath from his and moaned. With a growl of frustration, Michael grabbed her and moved her back into the room, up against her desk, and lifted her to sit on it with him between her legs, pushing her short skirt higher up on her thighs. Leaning her back on the desk so she was forced to put her hands behind her to brace herself against him. Papers and books were knocked to the floor.

Michael invaded the junction between her legs, leaning into her to push his hard erection against the soft mound, fee