Ok, so this is a nice little (few chapters) romance/friendshipiness which I just wanted to write because I feel that AF doesn't have enough of these. It's a whole different kind of adventure! ;)

I'm not expecting everyone to be like, OMG, I love it. So it's purely for my own enjoyment i.e. you're stuck with it.

One of the best places in every town in England, undoubtedly, is the post office. It's one of the only places where you can see all sorts of people, from all walks of life, from different countries, from different ages, gathered in one room. And it was strangely comforting to see everyone talking with one another with no animosity between people and Hex watched with a small smirk as Anita, the woman at the booth next to him, cursed for the hundredth time that hour. He looked over too her and she roughly pushed aside her dark hair from her face and stared at her computer screen as though her will-power was enough to fix the problem.

"Relax," Hex said quietly to her as his eyes skimmed the screen in front of him, "I'm moving to your desk next." He assured her and typed something in before looking up from the computer and through the plastic screen in front he caught the eye of a girl. She must've been his age and as soon as she had seen him she looked away with a small smile. There was a quiet shyness about her that aroused his curiosity.

"I can't relax- look at the queue!" She sighed and saw that he wasn't paying attention to her anymore. She noticed the lopsided smile as he looked down and Anita laughed. "Where is she?" Anita muttered and looked out into the queue.

"I've got to go." Hex said suddenly and stood up; Anita smirked as she saw the reddening of his cheeks. Hex made his way past the other postal workers sat at their desks and didn't mean to ignore them as they gave him greetings but found that he couldn't quite think straight. He opened the door at the end of the corridor and walked into the staffroom. He was glad no one was there and as he walked past the coffee machine he tapped a button and walked to the sofa. As Hex sat down he retrieved his palmtop from his pocket and turned it back on.

Hex's mother, in one of those meetings between friends that only mothers have, had managed to find Hex a small job at the post office. They were having "technical difficulties" and Mrs Brown had persuaded her friend to let Hex fix the problem, after thoroughly embarrassing him through sentences such as "oh yes, he never leaves his computer for a second, I guess that's why he doesn't have a girlfriend." Hex actually cringed as he remembered hearing her say it. That wasn't the reason he didn't have a girlfriend, there were other, more complex reas- hey, an e-mail from Amber! He hurriedly opened the e-mail and read quickly:

Code-boy,

I'll be flying in at six tomorrow so be at Heathrow to pick me up. Or fear what I'll do to you if you're not there. Sorry for the quick message, I have to get out of the house in three minutes or else my uncle is denying me access to England. Now get off your palmtop and get a life.

Amber

Something Hex didn't know, something that most boys don't know about girls who like them, is the debate that goes on for a good few minutes before they send a message. In this case, Amber took those last three minutes she had, deciding whether or not to put a "x" on the end of the message. It's slightly trivial and generally stupid but it's a very important detail in any message. With Alex and Paulo it was more of a friendly, kind of meaningless showpiece on the end of the text but with Hex she was too concerned about him reading into it. And she didn't even want to consider the question of "how many do I put at the end?" It annoyed her that she thought so much about it but when it came to Hex, nothing was simple.

Alpha Force was gathering again. This time it was in London, to stay at Hex's house while his parents and younger brother, were away visiting family. At first they had encouraged him to go but Alex, who would be here in an hour, had called saying he had free time. And any time spent with Alpha was not worth missing, as far as Hex was concerned. They were all his closest friends and he was more than happy to invite the rest of them over for two weeks. It would be entirely uneventful. For once they didn't have to talk over a log fire, or sleep under the stars, or listen to Alex reminding them of how wonderful the outdoors were. The outdoors were not so wonderful, in Hex's opinion.

Hex lifted his head from the palmtop as the coffee machine beeped to indicate his coffee was ready. As Hex walked to the machine he realised that he didn't really like coffee, but it was the only warm drink they had and the weather was getting colder so it kept him warm. He placed his palmtop in his pocket again and opened the door. He was so surprised to see that the girl he had spied in the queue, was already in front of his desk, waiting to be served by Anita. After an awkward moment of deliberation he walked back to his desk and sat down. The girl looked to him for a moment and they shared a polite exchange of smiles before she looked away. Hex pretended to keep working but out of the corner of his eye he looked her up and down. She had shoulder length blonde hair that was tied up at her neck in a simple ponytail and Hex, who never really paid attention to make-up, realised that she wasn't wearing any. Her warm, hazel eyes caught him looking again and he blushed before ducking behind his screen. She was very pretty but not in an obvious way, in that plain, simple way that made her seem delicate and stunning. Like a snowflake....as he thought about it he cringed- who the heck likens girls to forms of precipitation?!

Anita saw him hiding and excused herself from her desk before pretending to be searching through the files in the drawers next to him. As she knelt down to search, she looked up to him and beckoned Hex with a finger. He leant towards her.

"Who're you hiding from?" She asked with a small smile and Hex sighed; the game was up. In fact, he'd been so obvious he doubted he'd even started playing. Anita was the most welcoming of the postal workers; she was only a few years older than him and had taken a liking to him. She introduced him to her family as they entered the post office each day and it seemed she had tons of uncles and aunties and cousins. When he pointed this out, she dismissed the comment with a wave of her hand and said something about it being "an Asian thing." Hex pointed through the plastic screen in front of him. Anita popped her head up to look, caught the girl's eye and smiled before kneeling down again. "I like her." Anita said enthusiastically and patted Hex's shoulder. "Well now that you have my approval, you can ask her out-"

"I don't want to-"

"Next!" Anita shouted and stood up. Hex dragged her back down; Anita really was lovely but she seemed to be on a mission when it came to finding Hex a girl.

"Look, I don't want-"

"Why not?" Anita pressed him, "she's fit." Hex shuddered as she winked at him.

"Never use that word again." He urged and Anita's face fell. "My life is very complicated-"

"Excuse me?" They heard a soft voice ask from above and both looked up to see the girl looking through the plastic sheet, down to them. Hex, who had grabbed Anita's arm, let the woman go and she stood to her full height before shooting him an evil look. Anita straightened her jacket and sat back in her chair.

"How can I help?" Anita asked sweetly and out of the corner of her eyes she spied Hex trying desperately to get her attention. The blonde haired girl took from her bag a letter and slid it to Anita, under the plastic screen.

"I need this delivered by hand." She had a nice voice; not childish and high pitched but soothing and sweet. Hex closed his eyes as though waiting for the explosion; waiting for Anita to say something potentially catastrophic. But nothing happened. Anita said nothing, they simply went through the usual routine with any customer and the girl just walked away. Anita looked over to Hex and rolled her eyes, "there's no need to look so disappointed," she commented on the look on Hex's face.

"I'm not-"

"Because you're going to see her again." Anita said profoundly and Hex had to double take when he realized what she had said. The woman picked up a ring from the desk in front of her; it was a plain silver band and, for some reason, Hex figured this simplicity simply whispered sentimentality. "She fiddled with it and took it off before handing me the letter." She held out the ring to Hex, "go for it, kid." Hex took the ring with a rising sense of self-doubt but stood nonetheless and walked after the girl.

She had not wandered far from the post office and Hex caught sight of her as she walked out of the shopping center and into the oncoming November rain. From her bag she retrieved an umbrella and took a moment to look around herself. Hex ran up to the automatic doors and then felt slightly stupid; as he ran, she had turned to him and the doors had shut, he had to stand for a while for them to open again and she peered at him through the raindrops.

"Hi," Hex said, taking a step forwards before realizing it was raining.

"Oh," she gasped and took a step forwards, holding her umbrella above him. Hex could not feel the coldness of the rain anymore because he found that she was quite close to him. Well, of course she was, seeing as they were under the same umbrella. "Hello," she said to break the awkward silence. "I'm Emma," she smiled at him and Hex blushed under her stare.

"Hex," he said softly and even though it was raining heavily, she could hear him clearly. "You, er," he retrieved the ring from his pocket, "left this in the post office," he said sheepishly and held out the ring.

"Oh no!" She exclaimed and took the ring from his hands, "thank you, so much." Emma said breathlessly and she put the ring on her finger. She looked up to Hex with glittering eyes due to the rain and rosy cheeks because of the harsh, bitter-cold winds. "You work in the post office?" She asked and Hex stole a glance at his watch when she looked away; Alex said he'd meet him at the post office around now.

"I'm just helping them out for a while." He explained and a flutter of butterflies made him aware of one thing; it was now or never. "Hey," he said in a totally cool, breezy, nonchalant kind of way, "I was wondering, if you're around the post office in the next week," as he said it he saw her blush and look down, "we should," think of something adult-ish, sophisticated- "get coffee?" He hated coffee! What was he doing? Too late now. Run with it.

"Hey, Hex!" His heart sank; that was Alex's voice. Emma hadn't heard and so Hex cast a glance past the automatic doors and saw his friend running towards him. In a not so clever action, Hex skillfully, without Emma knowing, hit the emergency close button of the automatic doors. As Alex approached the doors closed suddenly. Emma still had not answered. "Hey, Hex!?" Alex said through the glass doors, "what's going on-"

"I would like that." Emma answered and as she looked at him she looked past him to see a tall blonde boy talking at them through the glass doors. "Erm, is that your friend-"

"Yes, yes I am." Alex said sternly and watched them both eagerly through the glass. Hex, stuck in between the two, walked to the door and stood there to block Alex from Emma's view. "Hey!" Alex protested but Hex ignored him.

"Cool, so I'll see you around." Hex said and Emma nodded and turned to walk away. Leaving Hex standing in the rain, before she vanished from view she turned and waved, Hex held up a hand to her and she turned back and kept walking. Hex leant against the door and sighed. Alex knocked sharply on the glass in front of him and Hex jumped before remembering his friend was there. He turned and pushed the button to open the doors. Alex was not impressed.

Yeah, that's enough for now, just to set the scene, even though it didn't really do that.

This was again inspired by real life events, don't ask which part…

Reviews appreciated.