When Maria awoke it was considerably darker. The sky was pitch black, but the stars still shone bravely down upon the world.

"One of those could be my planet" a deep, gruff voice said.

'Michael's awake' she thought to herself, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

Sitting up, she gave Michael a lazy half-smile. He didn't look at her, just continued staring up into the night sky.

"You wanna talk now?" she offered.

Michael grunted.

Maria yawned and then shook herself a little to wake her up a bit more. "Fine then. I'll start." She switched positions and smoothed down her hair. "We aren't a couple, yes?"

Michael decided to sit up too and rested his hands on his shins. "Well no" he shrugged. "Not really."

"Not really. But we just occasionally end up making out or naked in bed together."

Michael said nothing.

"So," pushed Maria, "we're not exactly 'just friends', are we?"

"Well yeah, but only because you dumped-" he started.

"Michael Michael Michael, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm asking is why we can be neither of the two."

Again he shrugged.

"Help me out here."

Michael clucked his tongue and looked up again at the sky. "We can't because you're not ready to be committed to an alien. Cos... we disagree with each other about a lot of stuff. I don't know. Am I close?"

"Yes, ok, that's good." Maria lowered the tone of her voice ever so slightly. "So why is it that we can't be just friends?"

Michael finally made contact with her eyes. "I think we both know the reason for that."

As soon as he'd said it, he felt sappy and uncomfortable. He looked down at his hands and fidgeted with his fingers.

When he had no response, he glanced up to see Maria smiling, her eyes all pretty and warm. He couldn't help but have his eyes draw slowly down to her lips, and in that moment he forgot all about his awkwardness and couldn't think of anything but wanting to kiss her. She was so beautiful.

Just as he leant in closer, Maria backed off and cleared her throat, coming to her senses. Making out was not why they were here.

Michael sat back on his hands, exhaling deeply, feeling vaguely irritated. He had never been able to empathize with those who got friend-zoned, until now.

Then he felt the lump in his pocket, and suddenly remembered.

"You know" he grumbled, "I'm not always an ass. I can be nice too."

"I know you can" half-smiled Maria, fiddling with her nails.

She turned her head at the sound of Michael's hand rustling deep in his pocket. Finally he found what he was looking for and produced...

...another large wad of greasy tissues.

Maria grimaced. "Ew, not MORE crappy hankies-"

Michael chucked the bundle onto her lap, rolling his eyes at her. "Just look inside, will you?"

Tentatively, she pulled the rag apart with the tips of her fingers, praying this wasn't another of Michael's 'boy' jokes. Then she saw a slip of silver fall to the ground, and her look of disdain turned to one of shock.

"Oh my god..."

A little locket lay on the ground, with the letter 'M' haphazardly scratched on to its surface. Picking it up, she pried the catch apart to show an early pic of Michael and herself in a photobooth, massive grins etched upon both of their faces.

"I did that a while before your bandcamp boyfriend showed up. I never got the chance to give it to you- well, before now."

Closing it again, she traced the tiny scratches that formed an 'M' shape with her thumb. "Did you do this too?"

He grinned in a way that was almost awkward. "Yup."

Maria smiled and, as if she had no control of her own emotions, she felt her eyes begin to fill with tears. She wasn't sad; just everything that had happened this day was proving to be too much. Flinging her arms around his neck, she hugged him as tightly as she could. "Thank you" she mumbled.

"Are you crying?"

Maria sniffed. "Please don't ruin this."

"So you like it?"

"Yes!" She chuckled a little at how dense he could be. Of course she liked it! What girl wouldn't?!

She felt his lips curve up a little on her shoulder. "You probably need to go back" he said.

"I probably do."

In actual fact, they really did. Maria's mum would go insane if her daughter didn't at least call before midnight, and seeing as it was past twelve there was almost bound to be trouble. But right now her mother's safe state of mind wasn't Maria's number one priority.

Michael took the locket from Maria's hand. "Turn round."

Maria did so as the boy behind her fidgeted with the necklace clasp behind her. When he finally got it, her turned her round to assess his work. "Pretty" he commented, and she beamed. But he barely even noticed the necklace. All he saw was the girl he had fallen in love those years ago, grinning up at him, and an unexpected wave of tenderness rushed through him. He realized that it didn't matter what happened after tonight, because nothing was going to change the way he felt about Maria DeLuca.

He was in love with her. And whether they ever became boyfriend and girlfriend again, he was always going to be in love with the ridiculous, gorgeous girl smiling up at him in a way that made him feel almost as if he had a home.

AN: Didn't have time to edit, I've just been so busy recently! Thank you to everyone who has reviewed/followed/favourited- you really don't know how much it means to me! The next chapter will be the final one, and I'll try and get it up soonish. Again, please read and review, thank you so much!