A/N: This is a day late, oops. I intend on catching up this weekend, but we'll see how it goes. I have a lot I want to accomplish in a short amount of time.

Day 13 | Max/Mariam | Rated: K

Stars

Mariam couldn't put her problem into words because it didn't make sense.

She didn't know why she was getting snippy with Max all of a sudden when he was the only person she wanted to spend time with, or why his apartment felt cloying when it was one of her favorite places to be. Nothing had changed from her last trip to New York. If anything Max had fewer distractions with his spring semester finished and summer on the horizon. But still, she was frustrated.

Normally getting some fresh air helped, so she spent a few good hours in the park parting overconfident opponents from their cash. She returned at the end of the day, tired and hungry and wanting to scream. The last one wasn't normal and made her feel like a horrible person for souring her time with her boyfriend with a poor attitude.

Max knew her well, so it didn't take him long to pick up on her mood.

"Mariam, is something wrong?" he asked her on a Thursday as she came back to the apartment cussing like a sailor. She'd meant to do it under hear breath, but when she had trouble unlocking his door, it escalated.

"Nothing," she snapped, immediately regretting it when some of the sunshine faded from his face. "I don't know," she tried instead. It felt truer, but no less comforting. "Just tired, I guess."

Later that night, when she should have been sleeping, she climbed to the roof and stared at the sky. What ought to have been a canopy of stars was an unremarkable, inky darkness in the city lights. Whatever comfort she'd been expecting to find there was unavailable.

When she finally returned to bed, she tossed and turned until she fell into an uneasy slumber.

It was after noon by the time she woke up on Friday, and Max was packing a bag.

"What are you doing?" she asked, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "Are you going somewhere?"

"We both are," Max answered cryptically. He zipped his duffel bag shut and hauled it up over his shoulder. "I'm gonna put some things in the car and make a quick stop. Think you can be packed and ready to go by the time I get back?"

"Packed for what and to go where?" Mariam didn't mask her annoyance; she wasn't one for surprises, especially first thing.

Max pondered her for a moment, annoyingly refusing to buckle under her glower. He dropped his bag to the floor to sit on the edge of the bed. His touch was tender when he tucked her hair behind her ear, taming some of her bedhead along the way, and leaned in to kiss the center of her forehead.

"You'll find out," he promised. "Just trust me."

"Max…" she warned. There it was again – the familiar prickle of nameless frustration that she'd been trying to tamp down for the better part of a week. Her fingers were itching for her launcher, even though her days in the park hadn't done the trick so far.

He must have been able to tell she was about to refuse, because he laced his fingers with hers, gave her one of his looks, and said, "Please, Mariam?"

She sighed. The fight was leaving her with every second she stared into his blue eyes and every brush of his thumb over her knuckles.

"What should I pack?"

The only hint he gave her was that they were going to be outside some of the time and that she should dress comfortably. After shoveling some of her own clothes and plenty of his sweatshirts into an overnight bag, she took a quick shower to help her wake up the rest of the way.

When Max came back from wherever he needed to stop off, he carried Mariam's bag to the car for her and tossed it in the backseat. She didn't ask why he wasn't using the trunk. She didn't even ask where they were going, because she knew he wouldn't tell her. She just settled down on the passenger's side and kicked her feet up onto the dash.

"Part of your quick stop better have been for food," she said as he pulled his door shut behind him.

Max's only answer was a laugh. He reached behind her seat and brought forward a bag of miscellaneous snacks. Maybe whatever he had planned wouldn't be so bad, after all.

They drove for hours. With Max's company and the windows down, it wasn't unbearable. Eventually the cityscape melted into miles of forests and hillsides and Mariam began to feel simultaneously lighter and sleepier. Long car rides always did it to her, and the lingering jet lag didn't help.

She nodded off at some point and only woke up when Max was getting out of the car because it triggered the interior lights. And Max, hardwired to notice her every move, quickly apologized for disturbing her.

"I can work on getting set up if you want to rest some more," he offered, as if she had a clue what he was talking about.

Mariam waved him off. She'd rather see what kind of surprise he'd cooked up for her – all she could see from here were lots of trees. Not to mention, she needed to stretch her legs. There was a chill in the air, so she shrugged into a hoodie before stepping out of the car and promptly stopping in her tracks.

They were parked on a patch of gravel, tucked away in a pocket of trees. Straight ahead was a flat stretch of grass, the individual blades swaying in the mountain breeze. When she looked up, the sky was full of as many stars as Max had freckles on his face, plus billions more. It took her breath away.

"Do you like it?" Max's question broke the spell. He had two sleeping bags hugged to his chest and a quizzical expression on his face. He toed the gravel, a bundle of nervous energy. "I followed you to the roof last night. It didn't seem like you found what you were looking for, and I thought–"

She cut him off with a kiss. There weren't words she could find to describe the way her world righted on its axis in that moment, or her gratefulness for him somehow knowing exactly what she needed, even when she didn't.

The sleeping bags hit the ground as she crowded his arms. He didn't seem to spare them a second thought, pulling her into his embrace in a hurry. When she broke the kiss to tuck her head under his chin, she could feel his heart thrumming quickly where her hand lay on his chest.

"Do you want me to set up the tent?" Max asked, pillowing his cheek on top of her head.

"Not yet," she answered, more than content to stargaze from her favorite spot in his arms.

A/N: This isn't my normal style of writing for these two. As a result, I don't know how I feel about it. I don't hate it or anything. It's just different.

I feel like spending so much time in the city would bog Mariam down on occasion. Way different from her village. And it would be hard to pinpoint why you didn't want to be somewhere you actually were looking forward to being. It's a good thing she has Max to help her figure things out and find her a starry sky.

Anyway, thank you for reading! :)