By Emily

Rating: PG

Summary: Michael and Maria dig up a time capsule they buried together years ago and have a little walk down memory lane.

Disclaimer: Yes, a new long rant for you to read! (happy radish dance ensues) I got bored with the other one. So, hmm... Let's see. (steps up to the podium and taps lightly on the microphone) Is this thing on? Okay. In case you haven't figured it out, I don't own anything Roswellian. (sniffles) But hey, Mr. Katims, if you read this and you want to give a slightly offbeat 21 year old a job working on your show, I'm your girl! Well, it was worth a shot, huh? (smile) Please don't sue me. I just like writing Roswell stories 'cause the characters are cool and I love them. You should all be flattered. Really. (nods convincingly and then wanders offstage)

Category: Michael/Maria, of course! J There is no other...

Author's Notes: This story is set in kind of an alternate universe than the current Roswell. Meaning no 'Destiny', no Tess, no evil Michael and Isabel dreams... Just sappy sweet M&M (with a little spicy thrown in for good measure, of course!) in the lusty month of May. (If anybody knows what movie I just alluded to, you get super duper bonus points from me!) Oh yeah, and like most of my other stories, this one alludes to the Roswell Elementary series. Because it's all part of a giant plan by Kara and me to suck you into our universe. Bwah ha ha. We are the black holes of the fanfic world. J

Dedication: To all my fellow M&M 'shippers who will be howling in pain when 'Four Square' airs, my foofy present to you...

Distribution of this story is allowed. Just let me know who, what, when, where, and why.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled fanfic...

***

~*~May 2000 ~*~

Michael Guerin stood in the tree grove behind Roswell Elementary with his hands tucked safely away in his jeans pockets. It was the only way he could be sure that they wouldn't be tapping on something or wringing around each other... Or creeping up to brush their way through silky, freshly shampooed blonde hair. His hands were as uncontrollable and filled with kinetic energy as the rest of him usually was.

He stared at the tree before him almost hypnotically. And one of his hands escaped from his pocket to trace the old initials carved there with a crude childish skill: M.G. + M.D.

*~*May 1995 ~*~

"What the heck are you doing, Wormface?"

He dropped the knife guiltily and turned, his face flaming. "Uhh... nothing." He wiped his sweaty palms on the back of his jeans and glared at the little 11 year old pixie standing there in front of him. "Leave me alone. I didn't say you could come following me here." He stepped back against the tree, blocking her view of what he'd done.

"Liar, liar, pants on fire," she cried. "You carved something into the tree. I saw you!"

"I did not!" he lied.

"Then move your fat butt so I can see for myself!"

"Forget it! I'm comfortable here. So if you want me to move you're just gonna hafta make me." And he crossed his arms, hoping she wouldn't be able to tell how nervous he was about her finding out. But it was like she was a wildcat or something with her green eyes and her bouncing pouncing spring-coiled body. She could probably smell his fear.

She sprung on him then and began wrestling around with him. He had to anchor himself to the tree in order to stay put. She was trying everything humanly possible to get him to move. He was actually kinda glad for once that she wasn't an alien like him with special powers. Because then he'd really be in trouble.

She was all sweaty and panting, but she just wouldn't let up, and he was still hanging on for dear life. Finally she let out an outrageously loud bellow before flinging herself at him like a female battering ram. His grip slipped from the tree upon impact and they both toppled down in a heap. She stood up victoriously almost immediately. She wasn't even acting like she was hurt or anything. Amazing.

He was still crumpled on the ground with a bunch of stinging scratches from where the tree bark had chafed against him. He couldn't even move. He didn't want to anymore. He buried his face against the ground in total humiliation, bracing himself for the second coming of Hurricane DeLuca.

But instead she was quiet for a long time. Too long, as a matter of fact. Especially for her. It was a clinically proven fact that Maria DeLuca couldn't go for longer than five seconds without running her mouth. Well, all right, maybe her record was ten minutes. Ten sweet minutes of sitting side by side in comfortable silence in this same tree grove after the kiss that lit up his whole world. But still. Ten minutes was probably the maximum limit for the little cheesehead blabbermouth.

Maybe she'd ran away so he wouldn't have to explain why he had felt the sudden urge to carve their initials together in the tree. Maybe he could tell her that he was channelling spirits or something kooky like that. She might believe that. She believed in all kinds of weird things. Like those freaky little glass vials she was always pulling out and sniffing. Or maybe she wouldn't notice that it was the same tree they'd been sitting against together on that afternoon. Maybe she wouldn't even think the initials had any meaning at all. She could think they were just random initials. He snorted. Yeah, and maybe it was time for him to stop kidding himself so darn much.

He raised his head cautiously. But she was still standing there, staring at him with that open mouthed expression that made her look like she was trying to catch flies or something. "What?" he growled out defensively, sitting up.

She smiled at him. "Nothing, Eraserhead."

He couldn't believe it. She wasn't even going to say anything? After all the work he'd put into carving that and everything! It wasn't easy getting the letters so straight. It was hard. He'd like to see her try and do a better job. Brainless unappreciative girl.

"Don't you like it?" he blurted out, then mentally strangled himself for being so stupid.

"Like what?" she asked innocently.

"Yeah, like you're really that dumb. That!" He pointed towards the tree.

"Oh... That." She blushed, completely tongue-tied for once. "Umm..." She sat down next to him and shoved him playfully, giving him the brightest smile he'd ever seen. "You're a dorkbutt. A stupid boy dorkbutt!" she exclaimed, giggling and shoving him again.

And he knew what she meant. They had a weird little special Michael and Maria code thing going on that was kinda cool. When she shoved him and called him Dorkbutt, that was like her secret way of saying she liked him without actually having to say it. It was like she didn't need to say it anyway because he knew the private code.

And now it was her turn to figure out what he wasn't saying. He shoved her back with a wide teasing grin. "Cheesehead," he replied softly. He tugged at one of her curls and she laughed. "You're just a weirdo cheesehead girl that I can't stand." In other words, he liked her too.

Then he helped her up and they stood in front of the tree together, admiring his work. His larger hand reached for her smaller one. Fingers met with fingers and folded inward. And her free hand reached up to trace the newly carved letters with awe: M.G. + M.D.

~*~May 2000 ~*~

Her still small and delicate hand shot out in front of him. And she joined him, running her fingers over the initials from behind him. M.G. + M.D. carved forever into a tree that they had once sat underneath as children in the throes of their first gradeschool love. "Hey," she whispered, her fingers gently brushing up against his and then capturing them effortlessly in a shiver of warm Maria sparks.

He shook her off and turned around to face her, jamming his hands back into his pockets again where they'd be safe. "Hey," he whispered back, staring hungrily at her.

She now had him effectively pinned up against the tree. And she knew it too, from the way her eyes glinted at him with that little hint of mischief. Her eyes told him that she had him right where she wanted him. And that there was no use even trying to resist.

He was completely thrown off guard when she just grinned at him, laced her arms around him and snuggled up against his chest in a tight hug. Definitely not what he was expecting. But then, it was practically a law of nature that Maria never did anything that he expected. He took his hands out of his pockets and hugged her back, his arms wrapping around her waist and pulling her even closer. Hugging her felt good. Everything involving her body and touching it felt good. And when she began stroking his hair in that maddeningly soft way that she had, he moaned against her shoulder.

She spent a few minutes cuddling up against him and playing with his hair. She was driving him absolutely crazy. Those magical Maria's-touching-me sparky feelings were sweeping over his poor defenseless body in electric shockwaves. Back and forth her fingers went, gently smoothing his wild brown hair like she was comforting an abandoned little puppy dog.

She finally stopped, and he let out a sigh. A few more minutes of that and she might've killed him. That whole tangle of feelings just from her touching his hair and leaning up against him. Now that was power. Maria DeLuca was a mighty powerful girl housed in a terrifyingly small frame. Hurricane DeLuca just didn't do this stonewall-crushing, butt-kicking, sweet-nothing-whispering, hair-stroking girl justice.

She raised her head to look at him. Her green eyes smiled at him. "Hey," she whispered again, her voice sounding a little throatier this time around. Her hands resumed their path through his hair as she stared longingly up at his face, licking her lips in invitation.

He crushed his mouth to hers for a sweet, slow kiss. Hey, he replied in his mind as they melted against each other. Hey, Maria. Hey, stupid cheesehead pixie girl who I can't get out of my head. And I'm not sure I even want to anymore...

They both finally pulled away. He pressed his lips together, tasting her cherry lip gloss there. He'd always had Maria pegged as a fruity lip gloss flavor girl. And he felt a little shy, kissing her here like he'd wanted to that day after the dare kiss. The tree grove was another one of their special comfort zone places. Kind of like Terabithia. A place of talismanic power. At least it had been when they were both 11.

"Do you remember where it was?" she asked him.

"Yeah." He nodded and pointed towards the large grey rock that they had rolled next to the tree that day to mark the place where it was buried.

~*~ May 1995 ~*~

"Will you be here tomorrow?" she asked uncertainly from where she sat perched beside him, kicking his leg.

"Tomorrow is Saturday, stupid," he replied without looking up from the almost completed drawing of a fairy princess riding along on a butterfly.

"Yeah, so?"

"So are you gonna be here or something?" he asked, feeling all weird and nervous for some reason.

"Maybe I am," she replied with a toss of her curls.

They grinned at each other. "Maybe I will too then," he said, trying his best to keep his voice casual. "After lunch maybe?" He looked intently at her.

"Maybe," she agreed, blushing.

They were quiet for a little while. Each doing their own thing. Him drawing, her scrunched up beside him watching him admiringly. It was kinda cool that he could draw things in front of her like this now. That kiss... it was like it had just changed everything between them. And he didn't have to hide so much anymore. Neither did she.

"Know what would be really cool?" she asked suddenly. "If, like, we could get a box and put a bunch of our stuff in it and then bury it, and then, umm... come back and dig it up together someday. Like, a... a... whatchamacallit... A time capsule, yeah. Me and Lizzie and Alex have one of those. It was Lizzie's idea. It's buried in Alex's backyard. And we're gonna dig it up in five years, right in the year 2000 when we're all 16 years old, and Lizzie says it's gonna be so cool to see how much we've changed and stuff. But... I, um, I kinda wanna have a special one with just you and me, too," she finished softly.

He just stared at her, trying to process everything that had just flown out of her mouth. "A time capsule?" he repeated weakly.

Sometimes Maria's ideas just came right out of left field. It wasn't like he was that attached to her that he'd be around to unbury a stupid time capsule in five years. He could leave any time he wanted to. He looked at her sweet little pixie face, staring up at him with hopeful eyes, and he gulped. Couldn't he?

"Never mind, we don't hafta anyway. It was a dumb idea." She sighed and looked sadly down at her hands, clearly disappointed.

He rolled his eyes and heaved a giant sigh as if he was making some big sacrifice before pulling one of the loose blonde curls spilling down into her face, admiring the never-ceasing soft springiness of them. "So what kind of box are we talking about here anyway, Birdbrain?" he asked, giving her a lopsided smile and nudging her.

And she beamed happily back at him.

~*~ May 2000 ~*~

He crouched down and stared at the rock for a while. Then she was next to him, handing him a shovel. "What the hell's this for?" he asked with an annoyed glance at the shovel he was now holding.

"Oh, I dunno, maybe... digging up the box?" she shot back, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Wait, why do I have to dig it up?" He eyed her warily, crossing his arms. "Why can't you?"

"Because, pally, I hate to break it to you but you are the guy here. And guys generally do all the back-breaking labor while the girl just stands there looking cute and encouraging him onward," she replied, smiling sweetly. "They don't call us the weaker sex for nothing."

"Oh, is that how it works?" he asked sarcastically. "Thanks for clearin' that up."

"No problem." She smiled at him as if she completely didn't notice his tone of voice.

He cursed underneath his breath before saying, "And if you're so weak, how come you used to be able to beat the crap out of every boy in our class?"

"That was a long time ago," she said softly.

"It's convenient," he burst out.

"What's convenient?"

"That you only brought one shovel. That's real convenient."

She only grinned at him. "Bad back," she answered, her eyes twinkling. It was the same lame excuse he had given her all those months ago when she'd wanted him to help her carry some cardboard box filled with those stupid alien things her mom made. The day he'd 'borrowed' her car. The day they'd finally started to find their way back to each other again.

"Yeah, like carrying two shovels is just such a strain on that bad back of yours," he replied with a smirk.

"Yeah, just like carrying a box with one inflatable alien inside of it would've been a strain on yours." She looked at him smugly.

He shook his head and gaped at her. He didn't know why he even bothered fighting with her anyway. She almost always got the best of him in the end. Weaker sex indeed. "Cheesehead," he grumbled.

"Well, if that's the way you feel..."

He waited for a bit for her to continue. But when she didn't, he was forced to ask, "If that's the way I feel what?"

"Well... I was going to offer a massage session for that bad back with my, uh, magic fingers, but..." she trailed off innocently.

His heart skipped a beat, and he gaped at her. Again. His mouth moved, but no words came out. And a shock of pleasure went shooting through him as he realized what she was implying. He let out a gasping breath and grinned rakishly at her. "Tell you what. I'll dig this stupid box out if you give me a little freebie massage later."

"Deal," she said instantly, grinning at him.

She responded almost too quickly, he mused to himself. And when she settled down on the soft green grass and watched him with those big green secretive cat's eyes as he panted and sweated and dug into the earth, he knew he'd been taken by a master con artist. After all, he was standing here, in the dirt, doing the back-breaking labor while she just sat there looking cute. She was good. Too good.

He took one giant scoop of dirt and flung it in her direction, watching delightedly as she squealed and jumped back. "You know what that was for," he told her with a smirk.

She nodded. She knew. But that didn't stop her from flinging handfuls of dirt right back at him.

He growled at her in disgust. She just didn't know how to quit when she was ahead, that girl. "Later," he warned her. "Later you're gettin' it."

She just made a skeptical 'yeah, yeah, whatever' face at him and waved her hand dismissively. Like she thought he was all talk and no action. That was a laugh. He was the one doing all of the action right now. And she was the one just sitting there running her mouth. What else was new? But he wasn't kidding. He'd get her later. And she'd be sorry.

Finally he struck at the wooden box with his shovel. Instantly, she was beside him, helping him pry it out of the dirt with her hands. "You made this, didn't you?" she asked when it was finally free. "I... I never asked, but I always wondered..."

He nodded. He'd told her that he had a box they could use for the time capsule. And after parting company with her he'd gone to the town dump and scrounged around for some scrap pieces of wood in decent condition. He'd dragged them back to the trailer just in time for 'dinner', which consisted of an orange and a package of Saltine crackers. And later on, after Hank had left him alone for his usual Friday all-night party at one of the local bars, he'd stolen Hank's tools for a few hours to handcraft a small simple wooden box.

"It's good," she praised him, smiling at him. "You're good with your hands."

He decided to take that in the innocent sense. It was safer that way. "It didn't fall apart anyway. That's what matters."

"Nothing you took that much time with could ever fall apart," she said quietly.

He just looked at her. More Michael and Maria secret code. Words hiding behind other words. Words that only they could hear. "Let's open it," was the only thing he could think of to say.

"Right." She nodded, and they both slid off the cover together.

On the top of the pile of things in the box lay two sealed envelopes. They had each written a letter to the other. Michael snatched possessively at Maria's letter. And Maria pounced on Michael's letter, hooting with glee. Both of them couldn't wait to see what the other had written. So they settled down beside each other to find out.

Michael carefully tore open his envelope and began to read.

"Dear Michael Cheesehead,

I know you think this is totally lame, because you told me like fifty million times, but so what? It was my idea and if you don't do what I say you know that I can just walk over there and kick your butt very easily with no problemo. What are you writing over there anyway? You have this weird smile on your face. You better not be writing anything mean! Because I don't care if I am old when I open up your letter. If I find anything mean, I will hurt you anyway.

I just wanted us to write letters so we could kind of say what we feel without it being weird. Even though it's always weird with you. You know what you're like? You're like this chair that my mom found at a garage sale last summer. It was all painted over a bunch of different times, and then the paint was chipped so there were lots of different layers of paint showing through. And it was filthy dirty on top of that. And I said to my mom, "Why do you want that chair? It's so ugly and gross and nobody in their right mind would even want it!"

But she just told me to wait and see. So when we got back home she took the chair out into our driveway and started working on it by putting all this smelly stuff on it like paint thinner and things like that. And it took her a really long time to work on it, too. Like a whole month. Every weekend she was out there with the chair making it look better. But when she was done with it, it was the nicest chair you ever saw! She took off all of the paint and stripped it and restained it. It looked brand new. Mom says it's an antique chair, and it's in her room right now.

And you're kind of like that, because you're not the boy everybody thinks that you are. The boy that everybody sees with their eyes I mean. I know you're not because I know you. It takes a lot of work and time to get past all your surface junk, but underneath it you're... Well, I think you're kinda beautiful underneath that. But if you tell anybody I'll pound you.

From: Maria."

Maria opened Michael's letter at the same time.

"Dear Curly-head,

I still think this is a really lame idea that you had to write letters to each other. I don't know where you come up with most of the things that float around in your airbrain. You're a really weird girl. You make me feel really weird. It's like you have magic up your sleeve or something, because no matter what I do you always get in my head and you won't go away.

I guess it hasn't been so bad being in class with you all year though. I mean, don't get me wrong, you're still just a stupid girl, but maybe you're not such a cheesehead. 'Cause you kinda make me think that I belong here with you. I know that won't make any sense to you probably but it's true.

Anyway, whoever gets to be your boyfriend when we're older really lucked out. Because he'll never have to talk! No, that's not why. Just 'cause you're cool. And you have sparks and light and a rainbow that makes me forget. But just because I think about holding your hand sometimes doesn't mean I still don't want to fight with you and throw things at you and stuff. I'm not that crazy about you to give that up.

Just another dorkbutt boy,
Michael."

They both looked up at the same time, their eyes meeting. "Michael..." Maria said softly, her eyes looking a little misty.

He ducked his head bashfully, a rare shy and unguarded look on his face. "It's all true," he mumbled at the ground, a blush heating his face. He just couldn't look at her. Not after what she'd said. She'd seen through him even then.

She scooched over next to him and tipped his chin up with one hand, forcing him to see her. "Michael... Dorkbutt..." she murmured, a tender look in her eyes. And then she was fiercely hugging him again, pressing tight against him like she never wanted to be anywhere else.

"You know, in your own weird way you're really a surprisingly romantic guy," she said, her voice muffled in his chest. She sighed and raised her head to look at him. "Or maybe I'm just the only one twisted enough to pick up on it."

He smirked. "Probably." And he secretly thrilled inside when she smacked him playfully across the shoulder.

She disentangled herself from him, smoothing the wrinkles from her shirt as she hunched over the box again. She pulled out a folded up piece of paper that looked like it came from Michael's drawing pad. "I think I know what this is," she cried, handing it to him.

He opened it up. It was the drawing of the fairy riding along on the butterfly that he'd been working on the day before they'd buried the time capsule. "I drew lots of fairies that year," he confessed. "And I drew lots of pictures of you."

"You did?" Maria looked surprised.

"Yeah... I got dozens of them at my apartment. In that box that's by the couch. The one I won't let you go through."

She snickered. "You really shouldn't have told me that, you know..."

He shrugged. "I keep it locked."

"Ahhh, but I have two other Czechoslovakian friends to help remedy that," she reminded him.

He ignored her and pulled out a sticker-covered piece of paper. "I never got what this was supposed to be," he said as he looked at it.

"It's a story page from my old sticker set," she explained. "But I made it really complicated so that nobody would get the story unless they were me... This story was about you, and me... and..."

"And...?" he prompted, smirking at her like he couldn't wait to see her paint herself into a corner.

"I dunno, just... what I wished for us at the time, I guess," she replied, looking at the sticker arrangement to avoid his penetrating gaze. She shook herself out of it and pulled out a collection of multi-colored rubber bands. "Look, here's all the rubber bands you used to fling at me."

"Did you ever notice I picked a different color every day?" he asked.

"I noticed," she admitted. "I liked it. It was like having a different piece of the rainbow each day." And she smiled at him.

"Yeah, I figured you would," he agreed. Then he brought out a package of M&M's. "You hungry?" he asked mischievously.

She laughed and shook her head. "You know, I bet that's the only package of M&M's left in the world with light brown instead of blue."

"Weird how stuff like that changes, huh?" he mused, looking down at the package.

"Yeah..." she replied thoughtfully.

He set the package of M&M's aside after a minute, an idea for revenge finally starting to spring up in his mind. He'd promised her later. Well... it would be later soon enough.

"Next, we have... a sequin from my fairy wings, donated by yours truly," Maria announced, handing it over to Michael.

"I still have the one you gave me on Halloween," he confessed, turning it over and over in his hand and watching how it sparkled in the light. "It's in the box."

"You are aware that now I really want to see what else you have in this box of yours, right?" she asked anxiously.

"It's kinda private," he said quietly. "Would you... wait? Till I can show you. Because there's lots of... lots of you in the box. Your stuff, I mean. Stuff that reminds me of you. And someday you can see it all. I'm just... not ready for that. I mean, it's just so much..."

She put her hand on his shoulder. "I can wait, Michael. I'm not going anywhere."

He nodded gratefully, his mouth feeling dry and fuzzy. "Yeah. Okay."

"Oooh, Michael, look!" She opened up the sheet of wax paper and smiled at him, revealing the perfectly preserved buttercup folded inside. "I couldn't believe it when you brought this."

"From that day at Mitchell's."

"Yeah." She nodded. "I thought it was so incredibly sweet that you saved it."

"Yeah, well, I save lots of stuff like that."

"In your stupid box, I know. Quit reminding me." She hit him playfully.

"I was going to kiss you that day, I think... If Hank hadn't come..." he said quietly, looking down at the ground.

Her eyes widened. "What? I... I mean... what?" she stammered.

"Would you have let me? If I had..."

"I would've let you," she replied, a blush heating her cheeks.

"Yeah?" He grinned that lopsided flirty grin at her. It was good to know... Good to know that she'd thought about those things back then and he wasn't the only one.

"Yeah." She nodded her head and laughed a little self-consciously. She was still blushing a little. And it made her look pretty. "So, all right, your turn to share now. What's our next item, cheesebreath?"

"Well, zipperbrain, our next item is... these." He presented her with two friendship bracelets. "Tada," he said wryly.

"Ohhh," she breathed, her eyes lighting up. "Bravo, bravo," she applauded, giving a wolf whistle and grinning at him.

He hesitated, then took the smaller one and gently slipped it on her wrist again, just as he had on that day five years ago. So she took the larger one and slid it up his wrist too. They stared at each other for a long moment, silently remembering what these bracelets had implied back then. The whole boyfriend-girlfriend, secretly hanging out with each other but pretending they still couldn't stand each other at school bit that they'd somehow fallen into during the last month or so of school.

"God, that was like the biggest deal in the world when we gave each other these," she said, fondly touching the bracelet and smiling up at him. "I had to, like, lie to everybody about where I got it."

"Do you think we fooled anybody?"

"Probably not." She grinned at him. "I don't think anybody knew we were hanging out, but... the friendship bracelet thing? We definitely didn't get away with that one. Even Kyle-- Mr. Oblivious himself-- suspected."

"Guess it was just too public."

"Michael, everything with you is too public," she teased.

He grunted at her with displeasure. The box was empty and it was time for a little game he liked to call revenge. He snatched up the bag of M&M's. "Michael, no!" she exclaimed. But she was laughing.

"Yeah, laugh it up while you still can," he threatened, tearing open the bag and pelting her with the little candies.

She laughed even harder as M&M's struck her on the head, on the arms, on the stomach, everywhere. "That's not fair!" she exclaimed. "At least let me have some!"

So he gave her some. Right in the face. "That's not what I meant!" She reached towards him. "Give me the bag."

He ignored her gleefully, continuing to toss a whole rainbow of candies at her. The commercials said that Skittles made you taste the rainbow, but for him... It would always be M&M's that led to Maria's sweet rainbow. A yellow one bounced off her cheek. A red one pinged on her knee. And a green one... Hmm. He decided to eat the green one, smirking at her. Just 'cause they were old M&M's didn't mean they weren't still good.

"I mean it!" She chose that moment to ram right into him, causing him to spill the rest of the bag onto the ground.

Then there was a great free-for-all when they both dove for the fallen candies, fighting each other for them. She rolled all over him, snatching up as many as she possibly could and relishing all of the contact. It was different now that they were 16 instead of 11, but it was also still a little bit the same. Maybe whoever said "The more things change, the more they stay the same" really wasn't kidding.

Both of them eyed the last M&M, an orange one sitting a few feet away. Maria crawled frantically towards it, while Michael slithered past her. He reached for it, but Maria barrelled herself ahead of him with a great flying leap and pounced on it eagerly a mere second before his hand would've closed over it. "Mine," she said victoriously, grinning at him.

And was she a sight to behold. She was a pink-cheeked heavy breathing vision, with her golden hair all tousled, her dirty white t-shirt, and her wide green eyes. And with that bright, sunny Maria smile on her shining face... He forgot all about the M&M's in an instant. They dropped to the ground, discarded there.

"My back's startin' to hurt," he complained, a suggestive look haunting his eyes as one hand dropped to his lower back in feigned pain.

She laughed and tossed the orange M&M at him. "Oh really? And what do you propose we do about that, huh, Spaceboy?"

"Well, how about that freebie massage?" he suggested, as if it was just now occurring to him.

She knelt down behind him, looping her arms around him and leaning around to give him a gentle kiss on the cheek. "Cheesehead," she whispered in his ear, tickling him with her breath and making Maria sparks travel straight down his spinal cord and beyond. Maria always knew what to do to make him crazy.

She settled in to kneading his shoulders and upper back, enjoying the soft moans escaping from his lips as she worked her magic on him. She really did have a few magic tricks up her sleeves. And Michael Guerin was about to have a first-hand experience with them.

~*~ May 1995 ~*~

They both solemnly covered back up the hole they had left in the ground, then rolled over the large grey rock to mark the place where the time capsule was buried. "Think we'll still know each other in five years so we can come and find it again?" Maria asked as they stared down at the newly covered hole.

"I dunno... I have a feeling we'll always kinda know each other," he replied. "Maybe we won't always be friends, but we'll know each other."

"It makes me sorta sad to think about not knowing you," she said, biting her lip.

"Like I could ever forget you. You're just about the weirdest girl on earth, and that's saying something." He gave her a little shove and tugged at her hair, smirking at her.

"Maybe in five years something will just wake up inside of us, like a radar or something, and we'll hear the time capsule calling to us and find each other here again and have, like, a big reunion or something."

"Yeah, maybe." Or maybe she was absolutely wacko. That was more likely.

"So what do you wanna do now?" she asked him.

He shrugged. "Don't care, Baloneyface."

"Toothbrush head." She took his hand and pulled him over to their tree. The tree he'd carved their initials into yesterday. "We could take a nap."

"A nap? I don't want to take a stupid nap, you dumboheaded girl," he complained as she tugged him down next to her, her hand still folded up in his.

"See, you're all cranky. You definitely need a nap," she proclaimed. "Then again, you're always like that." She giggled and nudged him, squeezing his hand. "Maybe you're one of those weird people who needs a nap all the time. Like every hour."

"And you're one of those weird girls who needs duct tape for your big fat mouth. Every second!" he exclaimed. "Stupid buttface girl."

But when she slid down even lower and curled up against him, he didn't complain. He yawned and brought his arm around her, sliding down into a more comfortable napping position too. "I don't need a nap," he informed her as she shifted even closer to him for warmth.

His arm tightened around her instinctively. He could smell the apple-scented shampoo in her hair. That must've been what was making him so tired all of a sudden. Maybe apple was a natural sedative or something, just like turkey was. One of her arms slid across his chest, hugging him like he was her own personal teddy bear, and her eyelids dropped shut.

"Good night, Dorkbutt," she mumbled sleepily from against him.

He gulped, caught up in her embrace and liking every minute of it. "Yeah, good night, Cheesehead." And then he brought his lips down to barely graze the top of her head, practically knocked over by that strong, sweet, September apple scent. She probably didn't even notice anyway, he thought to himself as his eyes slid closed.

And just before Maria finally drifted off to her sweet and happy sparkling Maria dreams, she smiled to herself, because she'd felt the intense sparkiness of Michael's lips touching her hair. And she snuggled up even closer to him, lulling herself to sleep with the in and out rhythm of his breathing chest.

I'll always know you, Michael. There's no way I could forget for very long.