The Dinner

Part One

It's starting.

Michael's reflection stared back at him, his face mirroring the fear that he felt inside.

He could hear it starting downstairs. Doors were being opened, people were being greeted, compliments were being bantered around.

His heart was going so fast that it was skipping beats, hammering away so hard that he was sure he could see it through the layer of his clothes.

His clothes.

The face in the mirror grimaced as he surveyed what he'd been forced to wear. A suit. It looked completely out of place on him. He had never worn a suit before, Isabel had forced him to put it on and then she combed his hair down. His reflection looked odd, unreal, alien even. Michael smirked slightly at the thought, he is an alien. He stood up and examined himself even more and decided that he looked like the world's largest penguin. Then he made a very important decision; the hair thing had to go. Michael reached up and ruffled his hair back into it's old spiky look. Isabel be damned, he thought to himself, there's no way on this planet or on any other that she can mess with my hair like that.

Feeling like he had regained a little more of his dignity and manliness, he settled back onto the bed and drummed his fingers. He couldn't stand the waiting around. Patience had never been one of few virtues and knowing that Maria was down there, wearing something formal, waiting for him after their last conversation...well...he didn't think he'd have to explain why Isabel's lamp had a severe crack through it's base. But just a crack, that showed how much he'd managed to control his powers while he had been away, those dedicated years of honing and manipulating and controlling had paid off. The only problem was Maria. Whenever he was around her he felt completely out of control. One look from her and everything wanted to crumble away. Everything he had worked so hard for; the walls, the control, the barriers, the complete seperation from his feelings...everything he lived his life by...threatened to disappear anytime she was around him. Just her presence shook his entire world.

He thought he might have been able to handle it - that eight years of not seeing her, not being in her presence would work in his favour. But it didn't. He was weaker now that he'd ever been before, the seperation had only made her presence seem so much more stronger. He'd seen her twice since he had returned to Roswell and both times his barriers had fled, his self-control had been in shambles and where the first time he was wracked with gult and misery over the bits of information he had found out, the second time he had come close - too close - to being his old self - the one who would have grabbed her and kissed her and never would have wanted to let her go. That Maria was a dangerous woman and even now he was still confounded over the mystery of her power, the one that held him so utterly captive that most of the time he was around her he felt paralysed and terrified. He didn't like feeling that way, being so mixed up between wanting to run from her or wanting to hold her tight against him. It was why he had been so rude to her for most of the time they'd been together in high school, too terrified by the feelings to deal with them, trying desperately to hide behind anything he could.

The strange thing was, Maria had always known what he was doing. Maybe not at first, but after the time he gave her his napkin holder, after he finally managed to spit out a partial piece of his problem with her - that he couldn't be a stonewall - she had known. She saw through every gruff response and cold remark and saw him underneath, the boy who was trying to hide. That had troubled him more back then, he had felt naked and vulnerable. But after eight years of living within those carefully created walls, he had missed that precise feeling. He had missed the frustration and the desire and the tenderness that she invoked in him. He had missed their searing arguments and burning kisses and he had missed her going to sleep in his arms, how he would stay awake for hours delicately holding the only reason he had been given to live, feeling so unworthy to have such a beauty want him. Him. She had wanted him. He'd never managed to make himself quite believe it, even now during those two visits, he had wondered if it was a mistake, if somehow she had been misled or blinded or something to who he really was. Worthless.

Sighing, Michael tore himself from those negative thoughts and listened intently to what was going on downstairs. He could hear children, he wondered whose they were. From the sound of it, Isabel had led the rest to the garden - she and Alex had worked so hard setting it up. It would be starting soon. Michael's hands shook slightly as he realised that in ten or so minutes, everything will change.

tbc...

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I know I promised everyone the proper part and I'm honestly not trying to be cruel here, but I tried all day to get the dinner scene to work in one whole part and it wasn't going very well, so I'm going to zip between different POV's first - Michael's, and Isabel's and etc during the first portion of the party, before the big surprise (aka Michael) shows. I know it's just dragging it out more but there didn't seem to be any other way, though I do promise through the POVs the story will be moving forward.

Magali - Thank you so much for the ever constant feedback and the email before, it really helped to get my bum into gear. I can't tell you how much it means to me to be reminded that they like my story.

AgathaN - Lol wow, I'm still the only Roswell fanfic you read? That is so flattering that I might cry. Thankyou so much for all of the great things you've said. You've made my day over how much you enjoy my writing :D Thank you and yeah I'm glad to be back too - was worried that I'd forgotten how to write!

Hayley - Aw I missed ya too. Yeah my family is okay now, thanks for asking :) lol well i hope i haven't dashed your excitment about the chapter, i know everyone wants to get to the confrontation but because it's so huge to write, im finding it extremely complicated. don't worry though, it will happen. i won't keep you forever waiting lol. thankyou for your feedback and your ever constant support, it really has kept me writing this.