Maria stood shivering in the back alley to the Crashdown. Drawing her thin jacket round her shaking shoulders, she cursed under her breath at Michael's tardiness. Where was he? Why was he taking so much time? Just as she was about to stride in and bust his ass for taking so long, the door swung in her face and hit her hard on the nose.

"Jeez, Michael!" She covered her nose with a hand to find a warm trickle of blood running down her face. "Fantastic. A nosebleed. My day just keeps on improving in twists and bounds."

"Oh, god, Maria, are you alright?" he reached out a hand only to have Maria to swat it away. She sighed. "I'm fine. Have you got any tissues?"

"Uh, yeah." Michael reached into his pocket to produce a bundle of crusty tissues.

Maria wrinkled up her inconveniently pouring-with-blood nose and pushed his wrist away from her. "Ew, Michael, they're used!"

Looking down at his hand he realized what she was saying was true. "Oh" he said, ungracefully stuffing them back into his pocket.

"It doesn't matter, I think I've got some in my car anyway." As she walked over to her car, Michael jogged up behind her.

"Hey, I was just wondering if I could maybe borrow your car?"

She raised an eyebrow before tossing him the keys. "Whatever" she said, walking off. On a scale of one to ten, she thought to herself, that was pretty lame. He wanted to meet me so that he could borrow my car? Wow. Just wow.

She felt his hand clamp down on her shoulder, and she spun on her heel. "What now?! The mints are in the tray, and you have to push the key in if you want the car to start-"

"No, no, it's not that. I want YOU to come with ME. In the car. It won't be long, I promise."

Gross, she thought. He couldn't at least have phrased that a little better? "I thought we agreed to no more one-time stands-"

"No, Maria, no!" He laid both hands on Maria's shoulders. "I want to take you someplace, but I don't have a car to take you with. But we have to go more or less now."

A deep pink colour flooded Maria's cheeks as she realized what he meant. "Oh. Alright. Let's go."

Maria kept quiet after that. She didn't even complain when Michael partly melted her steering wheel with his anxiousness about getting to wherever he was taking her. She was perfectly silent, in fact, until Michael's reckless driving almost knocked over a lady in crutches crossing the road.

"Whoa there kid, who even taught you to drive?" she exclaimed. "Bear in mind that if you get locked up for homicide you can probably just click your heels and fly off back home. But not me, no."

"Look, can you just calm down already? I know what I'm doing." He lifted a hand with the intention of soothing Maria and then but it back down at her violent reaction.

By the end of the journey Maria had a very strong reason to question whether or not Michael had really passed his driving test, but thankfully they arrived without any casualties. It took a moment for Maria to work out why they were stopping because their destination looked near identical to every other dried-up field of land they'd been driving past for the last half hour. Only when Michael got out and opened the door for her did she realize.

He held out a hand. "Thanks" said Maria cautiously, letting him help her out of her seat. She couldn't recall him ever offering a hand to her... well, ever. "Where are we?"

"We're at the place I come to whenever I'm angry with you, Max, Isabel, or anyone else."

"Huh. You must come here a lot then."

He grinned. "That's my point."

They leant against the fence together, looking out onto the ever-fading twilight. Dry desert land stretched out for maybe a mile, before dramatically steepening into a large rocky cliff. The whole piece of land resembled a shallow bowl, with dusty sand covering all sides. A few various shrubs sprouted from the dead earth, but overall there was no green life in sight. A cold breeze ruffled Maria's hair and she shivered a little at the winds icy touch.

Michael glanced over and began to take off his coat. "Here, take this" he said, passing her his massive brown overcoat.

"You sure?" asked Maria with already one arm in the jacket. It completely swamped her but it was at least warm and smelt strongly of Michael- Snapple and too much discount cologne.

Maria was forced to notice how tightly fitted Michael's top was. He caught her staring but she tried to distract the obvious admiring of Michael's well toned body with concern for his well being. "Won't you get cold?"

"Nah, magic alien powers I guess." He winked and Maria was forced to smile.

Maria's expression turned coy as she turned to face him. The hill was so steep that it gave her an idea.

"Race you to the bottom."

The corner of his mouth turned up a little and a competitive glint flashed in his eye. "You're on."

They held each other's gazes for a few heartbeats longer, before leaping over the fence and beginning to run. They giggled and shrieked the whole way down the hill before collapsing into a heap at the bottom. Michael wrapped an arm around Maria as they both tried to get their breath back.

The stars were becoming more and more apparent as the night fell deeper and deeper. They twinkled like large silvery eyes, billions of them, dotted all over the deepening blue sky.

"It's so pretty" murmured Maria.

Michael gave no reply, just brushed a small strand of hair behind her ear.

"Are we gonna talk?" Maria felt his chest hum whenever he spoke. She nuzzled her face deeper into his neck and closed her eyes.

"Later."

And so they lay, two small figures beneath a galaxy of stars.

AN: Sorry for any mistakes, if there are any that I missed just comment in the reviews section. Please R&R, thank you