Here Comes the Rain Again (M&M, Teen, 1/1)

[April]

Title: Here Comes the Rain Again

Author: April

Disclaimer: Characters and show aren’t mine. HUGE surprise. Did anyone else know that? I sure as hell didn’t. Here I’ve had Michael Guerin chained to my bed for all these years and I’ve been saying “You’re mine” over and over again. Well, I guess not. That really sucks. (Was that funny, or should I not try humor?)

Summary: A post-episode tag to Independence Day, written for the Season 1 Deleted Scenes Challenge at Candy Is Dandy. Michael says goodbye to Maria before he tries to take off.

Rating: Teen

Author’s Note: It occurs to me that I've never posted this over here, so I figured I should go ahead and do that while I've got the time. I'm an AU girl, so I kind of suck at Canon writing, but . . . whatev. Enjoy!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Maria lay on her bed, her feet resting up top on her pillows, her history book sprawled open in front of her. She’d been trying to study for the past two hours, but she’d only gotten three pages of reading done. Her mind kept wandering off to different things. Different people. She couldn’t help it. It wasn’t her fault if there were more important things in life than the Cold War. How many times had she learned about that already? Too many to count. How many times had she learned about somebody like Michael Guerin? Never. Until now.

She had learned about him. Last night, when he’d come to her room, when he’d lain down in her bed with her and cried, she’d seen a whole different side of him. She had learned about Michael Guerin the boy. Because he was just still a boy, and he was dealing with too much. He was hurting, and all she wanted to do was help him.

She sighed and turned the page in her book, even though she couldn’t recall any of what she’d read. If she just sat there all night, pretended to read, and thought about Michael the whole time, that was okay with her.

She jerked her head around when she heard a tap on her window, and she smiled when she saw who was tapping. It was him.

She closed her book, got up off her bed, and went over to push the window open.

“Hey,” he said, smiling a little.

“Hey,” she returned, noticing the sadness in his eyes. There were still lots of tears there, tears that could fall as fast as the rain if he allowed them. Speaking of rain . . .

“You gotta stop doing this,” she said.

“What?”

“Walking around outside when it’s raining. I know you guys claim you don’t get sick, but there’s a first time for everything, you know?”

He glanced up at the sky and said, “It’s not raining.”

“Yet,” she added for him. “Trust me, it will.”

He laughed a little. “What, you got, like, a psychic sense or something?”

She shrugged and confessed, “I watched the weather earlier.”

“Oh.” He shrugged. “That’s alright. Special powers aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.”

She studied him for a moment, looking right into his eyes as he looked out at the street. He was a mystery, an enigma. She never knew exactly what was going on with him. He was exasperating. He was thrilling. He was stubborn. He was strong. He was Michael Guerin.

“You wanna come in?” she asked him. She felt weird having a conversation on opposite sides of the window.

“I can’t, really,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Just ‘cause.”

She rolled her eyes. “Michael, contrary to what you might think, my mom is not going to kill you. She might try, but I won’t let her.”

He smiled, looked away from her again, and mumbled, “You’re pretty weird.”

“This coming from you?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, I guess that’s kinda ironic.”

“You think?” she teased. “Why don’t you just come in, Michael?’

“No, I told you, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because I’m leaving.”

The moment he blurted those words out, she felt as though her heart stopped. Leaving? He was coming to say goodbye. This was their farewell, the end to a love story that wasn’t even a love story. At least not to him.

She wasn’t sure what to feel. Sad. Angry. Worried. She felt all three. She didn’t want Michael to see the emotion that swept across her face, so she stood up, turned her back toward him, and walked over to her dresser, pretending to be all interested in rearranging her aromatherapy vials. “Uh, where you are going?” she asked, trying to ease the shakiness of her own voice.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, when are you leaving?”

“Right now.”

“Right now?” She spun around, unable to hide her reaction to that. Right now? “Wow,” she said, trying to keep the tears inside. She could cry when he was gone. Not while he was here. She didn’t want to do that.

“Yeah, I already said goodbye to Max and Isabel,” he said. “Well, Max anyway. And I just figured . . .” He looked at her and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

She’d never felt her heart break. Until now. It was the most horrible feeling she could think of.

“You’ve always been decent to me,” he went on.

“Decent?” she echoed.

“Yeah. You let me drive your car all the way to Texas. You didn’t make me buy you a new cell phone after I tossed your old one.”

“I’ve been meaning to get around to that,” she assured him.

“You stayed in the nookie motel with me.”

“Not by choice.”

“You didn’t make me ask for help last night. You just helped me.” He looked down at his feet and muttered, “Thanks.” The fact that he was obviously unaccustomed to saying the word made it all the more meaningful.

“You’re welcome,” she said. “Michael, can you just tell me one thing?” She went to stand at the window again, needing to be close to him. “Why are you leaving? Is it ‘cause of Nasedo? Are you gonna go try to find him? ‘Cause—and this is just my own personal, awesome opinion, which you should definitely listen to—I don’t think he sounds like a very nice guy.”

Michael shrugged, kicking at something on the ground. “Well, I’m not a very nice guy, either,” he reminded her.

She gave him a look. “Okay, not like a Max nice guy, but you’re not a bad guy, either, Michael. I mean, sure, you’re weird, and annoying, but . . . I can tolerate you.”

“I can tolerate you, too,” he said. “Barely.”

She rolled her eyes. She was going to miss this.

He cleared his throat quietly and asked, “Can I come in?”

“I thought you said--”

“I lied.”

She sighed and took a step back from her window, allowing him room to climb inside and set his bag down on the floor.

“Okay, we should probably talk quietly,” she said, glancing at her door, “‘cause if my mom does hear you up here, she’ll probably--” She turned back to face him but was immediately silenced when his lips met hers. He always did that, kissed her when she was least expecting it. And it never took her long to kiss him back. It was so fluid and incredible, and it had been too long since the last time they’d made contact this way.

It was a gentle kiss this time, soft but insistent, slow but exhilarating. She smoothed her hands up his chest as he placed hers in the small of her back and pressed her closer to him. The warmth of his body seeped into her, and all she wanted to do was be closer. There was no such thing as close enough.

His lips caressed hers for only a few moments longer. Then, he slowly pulled away and pressed his forehead against hers. “Sorry about that,” he said.

She shook her head. “Don’t be.” There were many things Michael could apologize for—namely the aforementioned wrecked cell phone—but his kisses were not on that list. She turned her head to the side and pressed it against his chest. She wrapped her arms around him, hugging him, and much to her surprise, he hugged her right back. He had a warm embrace, and he probably didn’t even know it.

“Don’t go, Michael,” she came right out instead.

“I have to.”

“But I don’t want you to.” She felt a tear leak out of her right eye and spill down her cheek. He must have noticed it leaking onto his shirt, but he didn’t say anything.

“I can’t stay,” he said.

“Why not? ‘Cause of Hank?” she bravely asked.

“No, not ‘cause of him. Because of me. I don’t belong here, Maria.”

“So?”

“I don’t have anything to stay for.”

“Well . . .” She was grasping at straws, but she didn’t want him to leave. “What about Max and Isabel?”

“No.”

“Well, what about . . .” Me, she thought. What about me? He could deny it all he wanted, but what they had was definitely more than the usual teenage relationship. They had something . . . she wasn’t quite sure what it was, but it was something unique, something good.

“Okay,” she said, forcing herself to pull away from him. She released her arms around him, and he did the same to her. “Okay, well, then you better go, ‘cause, like I said, it’s gonna rain again,” she told him.

“Right.”

“Right, so . . .”

“Alright.” He picked up his bag, let out a heavy breath, and turned to face the window. He seemed reluctant at least, but still very determined. He swung one leg up and over the windowsill and was about to do the same with the other when she stopped him.

“Michael?

Their eyes met one last time.

“Will you be careful?” she practically whispered. She didn’t want him to leave, but more so than that, she didn’t want anything bad to happen to him.

“Probably not,” he answered honestly.

She sighed, unable to suppress a small smile. He was . . . incredibly ridiculous. “Bye, Michael,” she said. Her jaw quivered as she spoke the words and fought to keep the tears inside.

He nodded and said, “I’ll see you around.”

Around, she thought. Yeah, right. She probably wouldn’t ever see him again.

Watching him climb out the window and make his way through her front yard and out onto the sidewalk was without a doubt the hardest thing she had to do. He didn’t look back. Not once. She slowly closed the window, hoping that he might change his mind at last minute and come running back to her window, but of course he didn’t. He was too stubborn.

“Goodbye, Michael,” she said again, to herself this time. She watched as he turned the street corner and disappeared from her sight, and then she saw the first rain droplets hit the window.







THE END