#marichael

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Maria DeLuca/Michael Guerin Characters: Maria DeLuca, Michael Guerin Additional Tags: Wax Play, Oral Sex, Light Dom/sub, Established Relationship, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot Summary:

Maria has a lot of candles and puts them to good use.

when he contemplates something happening to her she doesn’t say “i’ll be fine” or “i’ll be careful” or some other statement that centers her wellbeing, the topic at hand.

she says “i promise i’m not going to leave you alone.”

she promises not to leave him. she promises not to leave him alone because she KNOWS how deep that wound is for him.

she won’t leave him. she won’t abandon him.

he’s safe in needing and relying and loving her because she’s not going to disappear like everyone else.

this is what michael needs, what he’s always needed.

♫ I Could Use A Love Song | a country/folk playlist for Maria and Michael

I know I don't say it enough I've been down on my luck, my love But I'll be fine in the morning Next to you

(Listen on spotify)

But something familiar about it is Maria DeLuca.

I can relate very personally to her story as a black woman who grew up in a white neighborhood and her speech to Liz and story with Michael make sense. Maybe I’m just missing it (as a new fan to the show) but I don’t think people realize how hard it probably was for her to even believe in the idea that she would find love in her racist town or ever feel safe with someone else.

When she confronted Liz, she revealed so much about her experience in Roswell and her headspace and I’m living for it! I think it also revealed the differences that can exist between different people of color. While Liz and Maria are both WOC in the world of Roswell, but their experiences are still vastly different. As much as Maria would expect Liz to understand her perspective and her fears, the truth is that she doesn’t because she’s never had to face it in the same way as Maria. Yes, she’s a minority, but she wasn’t always “other” in her town. It’s New Mexico, there is a healthy Latinx presence and according to her “everyone speaks Spanish.” Liz’s feared for the safety of her parents because they are undocumented, but she herself made it clear that she wasn’t a target until the town thought Rosa recklessly killed those other girls. Only then did her position change because only then did people view them as a threat. From her high school romance with Kyle, to Max’s crush, to excelling at school, you can see that she had a pretty ideal high school experience until the end when it all changed. Even Rosa said Wyatt Long was a nice guy, but he changed after he started viewing all Mexicans as a threat when his sister died because of one. This lie changed the entire dynamic of the town so Liz leaves.

Meanwhile, you have Maria and her family whose skin is too dark to blend in like the Ortechos. Maria who as a child thought her and her family were the only black people that existed! She has always been separate from the norm and she never feels safe. Did she even go to prom? I see no signs of that which tells me even before Rosa’s death, she was on the outside. It’s obvious that Rosa was her best friend. Yes, Alex and Liz are some of her best friends as well, but you can tell that Maria had a different relationship with Rosa. Part of that (I think) is because Maria was in love with Rosa but never told her. That tracks because if Maria was in love with Rosa, that would be another thing about her that separated her from being “normal.” It makes sense that she wouldn’t confront those feelings because she wouldn’t want to risk losing that friendship and she wouldn’t want to admit to another thing in her that would be viewed as wrong in her town. She sees how Alex is treated. So now we have Maria, a young black girl in Roswell with unrequited feelings for her female best friend that she’ll never bring up to her other best friends because one is her sister and the other is out and not afraid to show it despite the harm it brings him. Neither of them could really relate to her situation or see of depth of why she would want to keep something like that a secret. Then Rosa dies, the town splits, and Maria’s world crumbles. She makes the choice to stay in town for her mother while the other people that she cares about leave her behind.

Maria stays alone for ten years.

In those years, the guard she always had up around her gets thicker. She uses her natural gifts to create a mystical character for herself that people can turn to for guidance in their lives. She runs the bar and settles for being useful. Her mom starts deteriorating mentally but no doctors believe her. She hates Isobel Evans for no other reason than to respect Rosa’s memory. She visits Rosa’s grave once a month to clean it and talk to her and have some connection with her past. It wasn’t a great time, but it was a simpler one. She probably only keeps up with Liz and Alex via Facebook to stay updated on their lives. They don’t call or ask about hers. She’s keeps everyone else at a distance because getting close to people is dangerous. She tries to be her own best friend and smile and laugh and sing when she can. But at the end of the day, she’s still alone.

Until suddenly, people come back. Alex and Liz return and they fall back into their easy friendship. She tries to stay a little closer to Liz to protect her and support her the way Rosa would have wanted. Alex starts coming by the bar more and they talk and get closer again. He’s the first one to see her mom and get a glimpse of what she must be struggling with. He calls Liz and they show up for her because they know she shouldn’t be alone. She’s not used to it, but she lets her guard come down some to accept that they love her and care about what happens to her mom too. Slowly, she opens herself up to be a little vulnerable. She realizes it’s time to make the choice to put her mother in assisted living. She accepts that there’s something she cannot handle. Then, her relationship with Michael Guerin starts to shift to something beyond banter. She was at her wits end and broke down and he sat in silence with her and let her. Finally, she gets to cry on someone else’s shoulder. Feelings she hasn’t felt for someone in years rise up. They never talk about it, but they are closer than before. They get drunk and complicate things faster than she was ready for. She tells herself that it was just a drunken mistake—denying what she knows in her heart. Until she’s confronted with the information that Guerin is Alex’s museum guy and once again, she’s in a position where her feelings are wrong and don’t matter. She tries to shut him out but she also shuts Alex out too. There are walls around their friendship now that didn’t use to exist. Only some conversations are safe. Any talks about her mom are fine but they can’t talk about relationships anymore. They can’t talk about the elephant in the room. Liz is knee deep in her own drama and Maria goes back to being her support and falls to the background. Except when it comes to Guerin. Despite what she does to keep him away, Michael is there for her – a foreign concept in her eyes. He comes to her at the end of season one and it’s as if he’s decided he’s choosing her and he’s going to fight for her and it’s exhilarating.

Until he doesn’t. And that also tracks for Maria. Noah dies, Max leaves (as far as she knows), Liz is leaving and Alex reenlists in the Air Force. Just when Maria finally started living after ten years, history starts to repeat itself and Michael can’t handle it. So, she tries to do something different. She makes the choice to be there for Michael because once again, they’re the ones staying. She’s willing to fight for something that she thinks could be good and she calls him out when he tries to ruin it.

Then her mom goes missing and it’s not a priority anymore. She leans on her friends for support in this area because it’s the only thing that she can talk about with both of them. When she finally sees Michael again after a couple of weeks, they bond talking about their mothers. Then he fights Wyatt Long to defend her and her mom and he parks his home outside of her bar to protect her. He takes a big step to be a support for her and she can’t help but accept it because it’s so much more than she’s gotten in the past. Michael makes her feel safe and it’s something she never anticipated out of this town. Everything else around her is a mess but at least she’s got someone who prioritizes her and her safety. She’s still worried about her mom but she’s hopeful for a different area of her life.