Oh my god. Literally everyone deserves thank yous and apologies and I feel like I'm one of those Oscar people who didn't write a list and are terrified of forgetting someone so... Here goes.
The resbang mods- literal saints. Figurative saints. Out up with so much angst from me. Deserve better.
Chaotic Livi- also put up with a heck tonne of angst and grumps and made an art and it is spectacular and more then I deserve. She.. Ugh. I want to make her some dinner or something.
kittykatz09- extremely supportive beta. Has gone above and beyond the call of duty. Deserves cake.
spookyscandal-IRL supportive beta. Puts up with my angst from 10 to 5 on weekdays.
ishouldreallygetofftheinternet- writing buddy. Let me live in her house. Paid for froyo and falafel.
indiearrow- all around sweetheart and head cheerleader. Literal star.
'In every generation there is a Chosen One. She alone must battle the vampires, the demons, and the forces of evil. She is the Slayer'
Maka was in a glowering mood. She glowered at her overbearing father, the new school, and the students milling around on the first day. There was a lot of firsts today, the first day of term, the first day of her senior year and her first day of American High School education at the Doctor William Montgomery Academy. She glowered some more for good measure.
She was of a friendly disposition, so she found keeping up the glowering to be hardo, arduous work, but it was necessary. Necessary if you wanted to explicitly avoid making friends and forming close relationships with people. She'd made that mistake and learned that extremely painful lesson. It had forced her to move halfway around the world to live with her ko,remaining parent, Spirit Albarn, in Death City, Nevada. Slayers stood alone.
Death City. Sounded like the kind of omen that was bad, if you believed in that sort of thing. But she doubted that a peaceful life was in line for the Slayer even if she lived somewhere like Happy Town or Sunnydale.
She got out of the car and closed the door on her father's ceaseless declarations of love and apologies for his abysmal style of parenting- thus far, mostly absentee.
She's been worried about blending in, but glaring around; she could see that wouldn't be a problem. People appeared to be wearing whatever the hell they liked with almost no regard for current fashions or trends. She looked down at her short('too short' her father had claimed) tartan skirt, white blouse and slouchy yellow knit sweater that required constant adjustment if she didn't want to look like she was only wearing a jumper. Hair in twin tails, she'd've looked every bit the innocent bookworm she had been before she'd been called if not for the shoes.
Maka'd never admit it aloud, in the same way you'd never admit you were cold to the parent who told you to bring a jacket to whom you had insisted you were fine, but she was starting realise her mother's advice 'you are going to need shoes that aren't boots,' might actually be good advice. So there she was, wishing she maybe had a nice pair of keds or sneakers or anything that wasn't steel toed.
She needed to go to the principal's office, where she would be officially welcomed and introduced to some kind of sponsor student to show her around and help her out.
Probably. That's what happened in Ten Things I Hate About You anyway.
The principal was busy frowning at the transcripts her previous school had sent over when he motioned her to enter through his open door, almost immediately after she knocked. They were all in Japanese, so hopefully he couldn't read that she had fluctuating grades and sketchy attendance and a rather large amount of destroyed property to account for. She especially hoped he couldn't read the recommendation that she be given psychiatric help. After squinting at the papers for several seconds more, he was forced to conclude he could not read Japanese kanji and tucked the pages into a file that had her name written in block capitals on it.
He introduced her to a girl named Tsubaki, who had moved from Japan to Nevada when she was fourteen in order to attend an American school. Maka suspected she'd been selected as her guide incase Maka's English was... Less than desirable.
Tsubaki was quietly helpful, and sweet. By the time lunchtime rolled around, Tsubaki's patience with Maka's monosyllabic replies was still remarkably strong and she asked if Maka wanted to sit with her and her friends at lunch. Maka declined politely, opting instead to go to the library. En route, she cursed her polite response. She was supposed to be being antisocial!
The library was big and smelt of wonderfully familiar - she guessed all libraries must smell the same. The librarian perked up, and before Maka could get lost in the stacks and read recreationally for the first time in ages, he slammed a heavy tome on the counter.
"I have just the book you need!" He declared, looking obnoxiously cheerful.
This had probably looked really cool in his head, and he'd probably waited all day for the Slayer to show up, but mostly she just wanted to slap him.
'Demons' was embossed in the worn, ancient leather of the book.
"I guess you're my new Watcher then," she eyed him suspiciously. He was nothing like Azusa, her old Watcher had been. She'd been hardworking and intense, whereas this librarian guy looked as likely to juggle as hold his own in fight. Azusa had been tough, but that hadn't been enough. This guy looked like a clown in a rubbish disguise, how was he supposed to do any better?
"Deaton Lord," he introduced. "Mr. Lord to you. And you must be Maka!"
He pronounced it wrong like 'May-ka' and she couldn't help but hope this was all some huge joke and her real Watcher would show up, questioning this man's authority and wondering who the hell he was before having him forcefully ejected from the premises. But until that happened, she was stuck with this grossly optimistic fellow, and at the very least she'd like him to know how to say her name properly.
"It's Maka," she said, sliding the book of the counter and tucking it into her bag for some light reading later.
"My apologies," he took a map from beneath the counter, and unfolding it, Maka saw that he'd marked out potential patrol routes running through the numerous cemeteries and crematoriums the city had to offer. Maka took a highlighter from her bag and carefully coloured her father's apartment building in. And then, when they started arguing quietly about patrol routes, for the first time since she'd moved here and left behind a handful of corpses that used to be her friends and family, she felt normal.
After they'd spent half of lunch drawing and redrawing pencil lines on a map, Mr. Lord laid down some ground rules, of which there was really just one with a lot of suggestions by of how to keep it. He lectured her as she whittled.
Her identity as the Slayer was to become the kind of identity many superheroes had had before her, a secret one. His son, who would one day become a Watcher and was certainly aware of the world's supernatural underbelly would be kept in blissful ignorance of her identity as the Slayer. He was to be left out of this perilous lifestyle for as long as possible.
Their meetings would be extra English lessons or just excessive amounts of time spent tucked away in some corner of the library, drinking tea and reading books.
Maka shrugged- avoiding people would be easier if she was one of those pretentious people who prefer the smell of books to human contact. (All cynicism aside, she did like reading musty smelling books and drinking tea). She hadn't read in ages. She listened to audiobooks while whittling stakes and running.
It'd be rude to listen to one now though, while he was in full speech mode. She should probably be taking notes of something, instead of whittling.
If you weren't fast enough, the stake turned to dust with the rest of the vampire. Which was nearly always inconvenient, but in a pinch anything wooden and pointy enough to drive through the flesh of the undead would do. Maka'd used everything from number two pencils and chopsticks to picket fences and tree branches. She preferred stakes though, because she could wrap the non-pointy hilt end in string for grip. That, and splinters were a bitch.
"Hiro,"
"Maka," she helped him up, dusting off her skirt.
She smiled and he smiled back, eyes bright and clear and the bluest blue under the sky. They were the most beautiful eyes she'd ever seen.
Tsubaki was a gentle soul, the kind of accepting person that meant her clique was largely formed of those rejected from other groups of potential peers. She found them at the same table they always sat.
Brian Costello, known to all as Black Star, bounced around more foster homes then he could count in Vegas before being shipped out to Death City. He climbed things that didn't need climbing and could start a bar fight in a church.
Seated opposite was Deaton Lord Jnr. 'Kidd', his dad worked as the school librarian and he himself was obsessive compulsive. The object of his obsession was symmetry and finding perfect balance, which was strange when you considered his dye job and everything.
And two of the scariest people Tsubaki had ever encountered- Liz and Patti Thompson, who'd hitched from Brooklyn to Nevada to escape a past they weren't opening up about and lived with a fictitious parent in the cheapest motel in town. They were tough as nails; the kind of people society warned you would be down dark alleys waiting to beat you up and steal your wallet.
"I hope Maka's going to be okay," Tsubaki said as she sat down, sliding her tray into its customary spot beside Black Star's, where he could steal half her food with ease.
"The new girl? Don't get attached. She looks like a strong breeze could knock her over. I don't peg her to last two weeks before she succumbs to the unnaturally high death rate in this town," Liz barely glanced up from the school newspapers. The weekly rag was poorly written, aggressively unedited and composed almost entirely of drivel, so everyone just skipped straight to the obituaries. "Micheal King, have to go to that one... I would put money on her being here within two weeks," she shook the paper for emphasis.
"She looked kinda tough to me," Black Star started. "Apart from the major nerd alert she set off."
"She sat in front of me in Chemistry, and though she didn't raise her hand to answer any questions, I have a feeling she knew all the answers anyway," Kidd said. "Can I have the newspaper after you, Liz?"
"Sure thing, Kiddo. It's a 'new school, new leaf' thing," Liz said, jabbing her fork in Black Star's direction. She scribbled the details of Micheal King's service down.
"Remember me'n'you sissie?" Patti said, around a mouthful of school dinner. "Sweet as sugar and twice as nice?" She swallowed before cackling.
"That didn't last," Liz passed the newspaper to Kidd. "It's better to be tough in this town. Anyone wanna take fifteen dollars for two weeks?"
Tsubaki nodded firmly.
He was talking animatedly as they walked home, their friends giving them 'space.' Their hands grazed and suddenly working up the nerve she wrapped her calloused hand around his smooth fingers, and he squeezed hers in response.
Tsubaki found her the next day, and the day after that and all the days to the end of the week. Maka was surprised the transformation from sweet, almost boring girl to the aggressively friendly one now dragging her to be part of her basketball team in Gym. She almost forced their names into Maka's memory.
Tsubaki's small, eclectic group of friends looked at her sceptically, then back at Tsubaki like 'Really? This chick? Really?' then resigned themselves to polite conversation.
Oddly enough, none of them had been in Death City born and raised, so they all had something to talk about. When the conversation turned to family, it died soon after Liz told her about her younger sister Patti, who was in her sophomore year.
They were supposed to be playing basketball, but right now they were watching two other teams playing- Maka watched diligently, a look of puzzlement on her face, her brow furrowed. Before she was called, she had never been interested in competitive sports and that certainly hadn't changed after. She'd elected out of Gym at home in an effort to avoid displaying her supernatural Slayer strength, but the only way to get out of gym here was to join the marching band and she didn't have a musical bone anywhere in her body. In short, she had almost no idea how to play basketball.
The whistle blew, signalling the team change over and Maka's expression of concentration changed to one of outright panic. Even with Slayer strength and speed and heightened reflexes she was awful and everyone could see it. In another school in another town the opposing might've taken pity on her, but this school had no time for the weak, or those who were terrible at basketball.
Apart from that, the only person on their team who cared about winning was Black Star and it was his humble opinion that he could do that single-handedly. Tsubaki and the others on her team called out what she was sure they thought was helpful advice, except none of them agreed, so she just ended up confused and flinging the ball away almost as soon as she obtained possession of it.
In the end once they were out in the hallway after they'd all finished showering, despite the fact they'd lost every game bitterly, Liz, Black Star and Kidd had expressions that vaguely resembled triumph mapped into their faces. Tsubaki, who hadn't seemed too focused on the outcome of the matches, looked both disappointed and saddened by the result. Black Star's smug expression changed when he caught sight of Tsubaki's face and he seemed to be briefly torn betwixt some emotion or another before he sighed heavily, softened and wrapped his arm around Maka'a shoulder.
"Listen, kid- no, not you- Death City isn't like whatever rinky-dink Japanese village you came from, or any other town on this world. And the DWMA isn't exactly like other schools either. People who've been here all their lives can't see it, maybe because they don't want to, maybe because they don't really know any better than this whack dump. But as an Outsider-" and he said it like that, like it had a capital, like it was a title "-you're going to see that all is not as it should be in Death City," he made a vast sweeping gesture, referencing the entire city and perhaps it would have been as impressive as he intended if he hadn't been gesturing to a grimy public school corridor.
"Watch it, you blue haired midget!" Liz snapped, ducking away from the motion. "You have to be tough as nails here, or else really lucky," she glared at Black Star, who ignored her and puffed out his chest. He thumped it with his fist.
"Don't worry, little fish, it's a big pond, but I, the great Black Star, will protect you!"
Maka snorted, and the entire group laughed as air hissed out of Black Star's overinflated ego and his indignant expression.
He always called it 'making love' which Maka thought was sweet and old fashioned. He made her feel like a lady, not a predestined killing machine.
'It's a shithole, but they let everyone in,' was not the world's endorsement, but Maka didn't really care. Between patrolling and school work and learning words for a lot of specific terms like 'hypotenuse' she had earned this night out. This, or a really long nap.
Well, she'd earned something, so after a quick sweep (Mr. Lord, despite being obnoxiously cheery and grossly optimistic, was super strict about patrols) she was headed towards the local nightspot- the Bronze. So she needed to wear something both patrol friendly and suitable for clubbing.
The lines between her Slayer wear and civvies had become blurred in the last year before she'd left Japan, but since arriving in Death City she'd reorganized her wardrobe, separating the two parts of her life. Studious nerd and vengeful Slayer were two very different looks.
She wanted to keep them separate, but for a little while, she didn't have any choice tonight. In the end she'd worn a halter top she'd gotten as a present and one of her leather jackets zipped over it. Her skirt was short, like all her skirts. She liked the freedom of movement that gave her, as long as she remained unconcerned with someone seeing her multipack underwear.
She grabbed a stake, and slung a cross around her neck. Her father had been confused when he'd knocked her jewellery box over and it had burst open revealing dozens of crucifixes and rosary beads wound together in a formidable clump. She'd since untangled them, so extracting tonight's pretty, yet practical accessory had taken less time than usual.
Her dad didn't pay much attention to her leaving, or rather he acknowledged her leaving but didn't question it. Maka had made it clear that after half a lifetime of virtually no contact, he was not exactly entitled to lay down the law. In Japan, Kami had been extremely strict. Before she found out about Maka's sacred duty, it had been all sneaking out of windows and then 'you're grounded' and more sneaking out of windows and the painful 'I'm disappointed in you' and still more sneaking out of windows and finally that distressing kind of sad apathy and leaving through the front door. Things did get much better after the truth about why all the late nights were so crucial came out, though.
The graveyards were completely empty of the undead that night, which was strange, but she retained stubborn optimism and made her way cautiously to the Bronze. She was optimistic, not stupid, and the Bronze was in a bad part of town. It was something she was apprehensive about; dimly lit popular nightclubs in bad areas of town were like all you can eat buffets to vampires. She dusted more vampires in that kind of situation then she wanted to recall.
She was only about a half block away from the Bronze, at least, that's what her smartphone was telling her, when she got jumped. Eight fresh vamps, still warm and muddy, hands still healing from clawing their way out of their graves.
They came at her all at once, faces twisted into ugly vampiric snarls and eyes yellow and feral. Maka never understood why vampires had two faces, but she was grateful. Quite frankly, it was a hell of a lot easier to stake something that didn't look human.
She staked one quickly, before he noticed he was dust and she drove the stake into a second just as two others grabbed her. The staked one, aware that her seconds were numbered swung at Maka, exploding into dust just as she made contact with her face. Maka inhaled the ashes of the vamp, choking and blinded and feeling quite thoroughly 'ick'. She swung blindly, her fist cracking off something's jaw, a something that yelped before she drove her elbow into the gut of one of the vampires holding her. He released his hold, winded.
She grabbed the arm the other and dropped to one knee to flip him over her shoulder. He flipped spectacularly and she closed her streaming, irritated eyes on focusing on her sense of hearing. She quietly thanked Azusa for making her train blindfolded with alarming regularity.
She was also grateful that these guys were so fresh- they still had humanity's noisy way of moving, not the also imperceptible way that older vampires did. She ducked an undisciplined swipe and snapped a high kick in the direction of its origin. Her foot made contact with his shoulder, so he went stumbling but not flying as she might've hoped.
She didn't have a stake, didn't know where she could get something impromptu. Any Watcher would be right to scold her for not having a spare, she lamented as she did her level best to keep them at bay. There was a familiar sort of thud.
It was the sort of thud one could expect to result from a well executed punch, but she certainly hadn't accomplished that. Her fist went through one of the vampires as they turned to a soft cloud of ash and she opened her eyes a fraction.
"Here!" The stranger, male tall with ridiculous white hair, tossed her a stake. She wrapped her gloved hand around it, and drove it quickly through the nearest vamp's heart. Of course the freelance hunter had a stake, and she, the Actual Slayer, did not.
They quickly dispatched the remaining vampires and Maka looked down at herself, blinking away the remaining ash, and sighed. She was coated in a thick layer of vampire corpse and her makeup was probably ruined. This was made all the more obvious and obnoxious because of the fact that the stranger who had quite possibly saved her life looked fantastic.
He was standing all dramatic in an ankle length leather coat that billowed slightly despite the stillness of the night, his white hair spike and eyes that were a dark burgundy she was too polite to call red.
She started brushing herself down, too stubborn to ask the question that burned at the tip of her tongue- 'who are you?' -because she could tell he really wanted her to ask it. Then perhaps swoon.
Vampire dust rose in great clouds and she sneezed. Mr. Tall, Dark and Mysterious chuckled then stifled the sound.
"Excuse me, but what's so funny?" She asked, indignantly.
"Sorry Slayer, but you sneeze like a kitten," he shrugged, "it's adorable,"
"I don't- how do you know who I am?"
"Small girl in pigtails goes around staking vamps and yelling 'fear me, I am the Slayer! Going to dust you to pieces!' It gets around, love. Came to see for myself. Lucky for you, it seems,"
Maka wanted to protest, she had the situation under control, but honestly she would probably be a little more dead if it wasn't for him. He looked at her again, expecting some kind of gratitude.
"Thanks, I've got to go, I'm meeting some friends,"
"Like that?" He raised an eyebrow sceptically.
"Occupational hazard, unfortunately. I'll clean up properly when I get there,"
"Where are you going?"
"The Bronze,"
He winced, then rummaged in his pockets to pull out a neatly folded monogrammed handkerchief that seemed completely at odds with his 'bad boy' look. He licked the corner of the handkerchief, tongue darted out from between dangerous, inhuman looking fangs. Before she could flinch away from this complete strangers spit, he started to rub at the ashes/mascara that remained on her face.
She snatched the handkerchief away, perturbed by the extreme momishness of the gesture. He took a step back, hands raised in surrender, his lips twisted into a smirk. She smudged away the ashes and mascara.
"Did I get it all?"
He took the handkerchief gently and dampened the remaining clean corner, before wiping away the remaining ash and mascara. He tugged the ties out of her hair and ruffled it with a strange kind of practised ease. It felt nice, a different set of calloused hands running through her hair. Hiro's hands had always been so soft, she'd been jealous.
"I have to go," she said.
He pressed the grubby handkerchief into Maka's hand.
"Keep it, Slayer," he grinned, and displayed a mouthful of pointed teeth. "You might need it,"
"I have to go," she repeated, staring at the 'S.E.' embroidered in dark red, almost like dried blood, thread on the corner of the handkerchief. The stranger started walking off, and Maka yelled after her.
"Who are you anyway?"
"A friend." He called back.
Maka made a quiet noise of frustration and stalked off in the direction of the Bronze, stuffing the once pristine handkerchief into her pocket.
"By the way," He said. "I'm pretty sure those guys were just cannon fodder for the Slayer. You might want to hurry to the Bronze. It's a big night."
He was headed, unhelpfully, in the opposite direction to the local club. Maka broke into a run, heavy boots thudding against the ground. The stranger peeked out from behind the corner he'd turned, at the tiny frustrated blonde and grinned. He'd been pretty cool, if he had to say so himself.
She could handle herself, but just to be on the safe side, he'd hang around the entrance to catch any escapees.
Patrolling with Hiro was fun. He was fast enough to hold his own and it was nice, to spend the evening alone with her boyfriend, even if they weren't very traditional dates.
There were no bouncers at the door to the Bronze. Well, strictly speaking, that was inaccurate. There was a single bouncer, but he was dead, tossed aside like so much rubbish after he'd been drained of his blood. One vamp was perched in his chair, focused on a crossword in the Death City Times , spectacles perched comically on his game face. She staked him just as he asked about four across. She grabbed the paper and scanned it.
"Bludgeon," she said to herself. Before she could get distracted she entered the club, stake at the ready.
Liz was right. It was a shithole. Its status as such was perhaps heightened by the fact that the humans were grouped together and seated on the middle of the dance floor, glancing fearfully at the vampires circling them. There were others, standing guard at what mystery be the exits. There was another, some kind of ring leader, on the dark, dingy stage she assumed to be normally inhabited by local bands and bad DJ's.
He was going off on some sort of tangent about crossing over to the dark spaces and being a creature of the night and what a gift the bite was. It'd be at least another ten minutes before anyone was in any real danger.
She could see the way Tsubaki gripped Black Star's arm, preventing him from doing anything stupid as he was wont to do. Liz and Patti were muttering to each other, dark looks on their faces. And Kidd, Mr. Lord's poor 'don't get him involved just yet' son, was clutching something, a crucifix, holy water? Something useful hopefully.
She had the stranger's stake, and considering herself to woefully under-armed, strolled nonchalantly into the centre of the room. The monologuing cut off, and for that at least she was thankful. The head honcho looked mighty offended.
"Don't let me interrupt, I'm just here to kill you," she said. "It wasn't part of my plans for tonight, but you had to be difficult."
"Slayer, it's your night to die," he growled. Vampires were so predictable, she didn't have that many one-liners. She used the same five jokes over and over again, despite knowing at least eight more. "Seize her! Hers is the first blood upon which I shall feast tonight!"
They charged.
She adopted a fighting stance, staking one immediately. She attacked the others with a combination of moves she didn't know the English for. Black Star did, and his eager commentary distracted the rest of the group from their fear and him from Tsubaki's slowly loosening grip.
"Spinning kick, undercut, right cross, palm shot, back kick, holy fuck she turned into dust, roundhouse-" they huddled crowd ducked as the vamp flew over them to smash into the speech giver. He was so caught up in relaying her every move and wincing sympathetically whenever she got hit, that what Tsubaki did next escaped his notice.
She let go of his arm, and breathing evenly she melted into darkness. She slipped intangible as a shadow across the room. Maka wasn't faring well, Black Star could tell, but when he moved to pry Tsubaki's hand from his arm to help she wasn't there. He looked around, fearfully, just in time to see her appearing across the room wrapped in tendrils of darkness. Tsubaki reached out her hands in a move hug at seemed tender until she snapped the vampire's neck. Black Star stared in shock at both Tsubaki and the vampire, who seemed merely mildly inconvenienced by his broken neck.
Black Star, encouraged by his desire to achieve greatness, sprang over the heads of the mostly cowering crowd to join the fray. Partially; he intended to come to Tsubaki's and Maka's aid, mostly; he didn't want to be upstaged by the girls. And that one, vaguely familiar guy who seemed to be fighting what appeared to be the good fight. Despite the fact that he looked like an evil villain from a cartoon.
"Need a hand, Slayer?" the stranger, who'd doubled back to the Bronze and seemed eager for a good brawl(which this was shaping up to be), said. "You seem a little swamped."
Maka grunted in response- according to Azusa, who'd seemed surprised at the question, mid-fight banter would become natural and easy with time but thus far she was discovering it was not her forte. She heard a sickeningly familiar snap, and hesitated, just a split second.
She spun around to see a vamp with its neck at an angle clearly marked 'broken' and an equal parts irritated and confused Tsubaki. In a fight like this she didn't have time to ponder the questions that flowed to the forefront of her mind, so she packed them all away in a file marked 'Tsubaki- Actually a Badass Motherfucker?'
Black Star had joined the fight if the loud ''YAHOO!'' was any indication, but he appeared to be utilising martial arts skills and strength within human capabilities. As a vamp crumbled to dust, she could see Liz and Patti(with a disturbing hungry look in her eyes) and Kidd who was warding off vampires with a small crucifix while the sisters ushered the crowd out the door.
Maka bent back to avoid what looked like a black lance ripping through a vamp. He groaned but didn't die, the weapon retracting. Tsubaki gestured, puzzled, with the very hand that had been a dark lance.
"I thought... A stab through the heart?"
"Has to be wood, not... Darkness," Maka demonstrated on the pitiful creature of the night writhing in agony on the floor. With the last of the vamps the cleaning lady's problem the next morning, Maka groaned and rolled her shoulders.
Liz, Patti and Kidd were waiting outside for them.
"Care to explain what the actual fuck just happened?" Liz asked, itching for a cigarette to soothe her ragged nerves. She'd given them up to save money, but she didn't really care too much about the family finances right now.
"It's long and complicated and can it please wait until morning?" Maka replied. "Meet me in the school library? First thing? It'll be open." She had training with Mr. Lord.
"Seriously, Slayer?" Mr. Tall, Dark and Mysterious said. "Cliffnotes Version: Vampire Slayer-" he pointed at Maka,"- those piles of dust? Vampires."
He left, stalking away quickly.
"Who are you?" Maka yelled, frustrated.
He didn't answer.
"Asshole!"
She could see his shoulders shake as he laughed to himself. She didn't see the knowing looks exchanged between Patti and Liz, but if she had she most certainly would've smacked them.