Love Remains the Same
a General Hospital fanfiction
by Olivia [xoxobabe]

Chapter One

She had tried ringing him a few times already, but still, Maxie got no answer. Now she was at the point of desperation. It wasn't like she could call Lulu or Dante and ask to speak to Michael. She had given up. She wasn't going to call him one more time. It wasn't like his phone was ringing at all; it always went straight to his voicemail.

But she wasn't giving up entirely. She was going to walk on over there and see him face to face, hoping Lulu or Dante weren't there. Lulu should've been at work, or at least on her way just like she was supposed to be. But it wasn't like Kate was there to know if Maxie showed up on time or not and it wasn't something Lulu would rat on her for.

She finished getting ready, chose the perfect shoes to go along with her light blue dress and left her shared apartment, making sure to lock the door on her way out.

It wasn't long before she was the front door, knocking. Now she only had to wait and see who was home at the present moment this morning.

œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ

Michael awoke to a knocking on the apartment front door. Sitting up, and swinging his legs off of his makeshift bed on the couch, he waited a few seconds before standing up. Both, to prevent getting up too fast and so he could rub the sleep out of his eyes.

When he opened the door, he was surprised to see Maxie standing there. As far as he knew, they hadn't made any plans to spend some time together; at least not this early in the morning.

He stepped aside and let the blonde beauty in, careful not to touch her in any way or act as if he were happy to see her. He had to act normal. As if she were only stopping by to say hello or to talk to Lulu, her friend and roommate.

But when the doors shut, that was a different story. Inside, with the doors closed, they were able to act however they wanted to, without the worry of someone spotting them and their secret romance. Unless, of course, Dante or Lulu came back or had never left in the first place.

Maxie, still unsure as to whether or not they were, in fact, alone, had to be careful and continue on with her plan. "So," she started, as she looked around. "Is Lulu here? I just had to run some work plans with her." So the story was slightly lame. What if Lulu had been there? There wasn't anything Kate Howard had wanted them to accomplish that Lulu didn't already have knowledge of.

Michael laughed. "No," he answered as he stepped closer to her, putting his hands on either side of her waist. "We're all alone." He gave her a quick kiss, and then proceeded to move his arms upward, enveloping her in a hug.

He hadn't been able to see her lately. It had been a few days he spent some quality alone time with her and he missed it.

Maxie ended the hug and moved to sit on the couch, taking Michael's hand and pulling him down to sit next to her. "I tried calling you, you know. I don't know, about many a dozen times but it always went to voicemail. It never even rang." She tried her best to put her on her stern face but she found it hard. Her frustration over not getting in touch with Michael ended when she finally saw him.

He turned around, to where his phone was supposed to be charging. And that's when he remembered why his phone wouldn't and couldn't ring. He looked down. "I forgot to charge it last night." He looked at her and smiled. "I'm sorry. But you know, maybe it's better."

Maxie laughed. "Oh yeah? How so?"

"Because if I picked up, you wouldn't be over here right now."

She shook her head. "Nope. I would've been over here today. I don't see any of your watchers here so that just means I would've been here a couple hours later than I currently am."

Michael nodded. "True. I'm just going to have to make it up to you then, huh?"

Maxie smiled. "You better. Anyway, I've been thinking since you're starting your community work tomorrow, we should spend as much time as we can today."

She scooted over so she was even closer to Michael, and wrapped her arms around Michael. "I think we should have some fun before tomorrow because you start your community service and I won't be able to spend any time with you," she paused to take a breath. "And when you finish or the day, chances are that Lulu, and, or Dante will be here and then I have to resort to only texting you get in touch with you."

"Uh huh." Michael moved his hands so one was on her thigh and the other was on her wasit, a reflexive move to Maxie's move and proceeded to kiss her, moving his hand that was placed on her waist in a soothing massaging motion. She moaned and he took that as his cue to continue what they had started, and begged with his tongue to let him into her mouth, to which she replied without any hesitation.

œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ

"Okay. Well I guess you're already busy at work and have no time to pick up your phone. I will see you in a little bit." Lulu had tried calling Maxie to let her know she was going to be late but she hadn't picked up and was forced to leave a voicemail.

As she neared Dante's door, she took out her set of keys Dante had given her and pushed them through the door lock.

œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ

Maxie pushed Michael away from her, almost concentrating on what was going on around her. After a few seconds of complete silence, she faced back to Michael. "Did you hear something?"

He repositioned himself so he was resting his arms with his hands on either side of Maxie instead of his forearms when they were previously occupied. Somewhere in the middle of their heated make-out session, he had layed her down so he was on top of her, his forearms keeping him up as to not suffocate her, and she had his legs wrapped around his. "You mean other than your phone ringing?"

"It rang?" Before he was able to answer, he heard the door lock click and quickly jumped off of her, sitting on the opposite side of the couch and quickly fixed himself up. Maxie did the same, fixing her dress, and her hair.

Just as she saw Lulu enter the apartment, she found herself asking Michael a set-up question. "So community service. That should be fun, huh?"

Lulu, completely confused to see Maxie and Michael in what appeared to be an actual conversation, didn't find the need to hide her confusion. "What's going on here?"

Thankfully Maxie was back to get on her feet and remembered her cover story from earlier. However, knowing there was nothing Kate had wanted them to finish differently, she had to make something up. "Well I came here looking for you. I don't know, I thought maybe we could do breakfast and catch up on our lives."

"Our lives? I just saw you the other day. What could've changed?"

"Umm," Okay, so Maxie was lost now. What could have happened since then. Nothing.

Michael could see that she ran out of ideas so he decided to step in for her. Afterall, she wasn't the only one that would get caught. "She hasn't had an update on Dante and Jason. Or Franco for that matter."

Lulu still was stumped as to why Maxie had stayed but put it on the backburner. They had to get to work. Kate hated leaving messages at her own office. "I tried calling you. Did you not get my message before?"

Maxie grabbed her phone off of the coffee table and looked at it. So Michael was right. Her phone had rung at least once. She faked a laugh. "Ha. Vibrate."

She stood up and walked towards the exit, "We should go then, huh?"

Lulu nodded. "Yeah. I just left some work here. I brought it home last night since I got a little behind."

After grabbing the papers she had left, Lulu and Maxie left. With Lulu a few paces ahead of her, she decided it was okay to sigh. She hadn't gotten caught, although it was a close one.