Chocolate Kisses

"BOO!"

"ACK!" seven-year-old Rosa Kirkland squeaked and leaped a foot into the air, whipping around to face the boy who had jumped out at her. Ponytails swishing menacingly, she glowered at the threat, fists ready.

"Happy Halloween, Rosa!" Alfred Jones grinned at her. He was proud of himself. He had hidden in that cabinet for what seemed like hours waiting for her to walk by. In truth, it had only been twenty minutes or so, but twenty minutes can seem like an eternity when you're seven years old and so hyped up on sugar that you can barely see straight.

"Shove off, you git," the British girl grumbled, pushing at the American boy's chest.

"Aww, did I scare you?" he asked, tugging on one of her ponytails.

She folded her arms and stuck her nose in the air. "No, you did not."

He grinned slyly. "I so totally scared you. You went all white and jumped like a yard in the air!"

"It's a meter, git." She reminded him.

He looked perplexed, "Why are you still using that weird made-up measuring system, Rosa? The teacher said I was right."

"She said I was scientific," Rosa pointed out.

"Yeah, but I was right." Al grinned cheekily, and, before he lost his nerve, he hugged her tight, ignoring her little fists as they smacked at his back.

"Get off, I don't want to get cooties!" She squeaked.

Al squeezed her extra tight, "But being sick is fun! You get to stay home from school and eat soup and watch TV!"

"You do most of that anyway!" she argued, "Al, I can't breathe!"

"Fine," he grumbled and let go. "I'll see you tonight, right? Your brothers are still taking us trick-or-treating?"

"Yes," Rosa sighed, "Mum and Dad said that it'd be fine as long as we stay with the group."

"Yeah!" Alfred fist-pumped, "I'll go tell Amelia!" and he was off, dashing away to tell his one-year-younger sister about the night's festivities.

"Bye, Al," Rosa muttered to herself, before wandering over to join her twin brother Arthur by the door to wait for their big brother Scott to pick them up. She wondered why she was missing being hugged by Alfred. He was a boy, after all. Weren't they supposed to be gross?

After much consideration she decided that yes, indeed, boys were still gross. Alfred was just a nicer type of gross than most boys. When he wasn't being a total berk and scaring her. Her mind made up, Rosa pushed the thought of Alfred and relative levels of grossness out of her mind and focused on being excited for trick-or-treating that night.

….

Several hours later, they were sitting in Alfred and Amelia's kitchen, counting up their candy. Arthur and Amelia had fallen asleep on the couch, their bags of candy forgotten on the floor. For some reason Alfred's mother kept talking about how 'absolutely adorable' Arthur and Amelia looked. Rosa didn't get it. She and her twin fell asleep like that all the time at home and her mum didn't make a fuss over it. She supposed it was a strange American thing. Mrs. Jones had even gone so far as to take a picture of Arthur and Amelia's snoozing faces, the little girl's head nestled against the British boy's shoulder. Rosa found it all very peculiar.

Alfred, was far too interested in his stash of candy and how 'totally heroic' his costume (Superman, cape and all) was to even notice his mother's odd behavior. Rosa, who had been looking over one of the wings of her angel costume at the strange sight in the living room, was snapped back to attention by Alfred tugging on one of her pigtails. She turned back to him to find his face very close to hers. Giving a little squeak of surprise, she pulled away from him and nearly fell off of her chair. Luckily, Alfred caught her and all that happened was another awkward embrace.

Rosa pulled a face, scrunching up her green eyes in disgust, "Now I'm definitely going to get cooties," she sighed.

Alfred pushed her away, "Yeah, I checked up on that cootie thing, and it sounds pretty bad."

Rosa nodded solemnly. "A horrible way to die," she summarized.

"I bet it's why Yao didn't come back to school this year," Alfred whispered.

"I thought his family moved back to China," Rose said, perplexed.

"Yeah, so did I, but he let Mei, that girl from Taiwan, hug him at the end of last year. I bet he died of cooties!"

They both sat quietly, offering up a small moment of silence to their fallen friend. Al brightened quickly, though.

"Hey, Rosa, I've got something for you!" he dug around his candy bag excitedly, searching for just the right one.

"Al, I already have candy," Rosa reminded him.

"This is special!" He argued, "Now close your eyes and hold out your hands."

"Al-"

"Just do it!"

Rosa rolled her eyes, but she did as Al instructed and closed her eyes, holding out her hands. They grew heavy as sudden weight filled them.

"Now open them!" Al instructed.

Rosa's eyes snapped open. She looked down to find that her palms were filled with small, individually wrapped Hersey's kisses. They must have been all of the kisses from Alfred's candy bag. She looked up again to find Alfred's blue eyes twinkling at her.

"My mom said that if you really like someone, and if they're really special to you, you give them a kiss. So I gave you lots!" For some reason he face was really pink and he couldn't quite meet her eyes, but Rosa felt her heart warm up anyway.

"Thank you, Al." she whispered, cheeks suddenly warm for some reason. "You can have all my kisses, too."

"I can?" Al's blue eyes brightened. "Cool!" he dragged her candy bag over and sorted out all of the Hersey's kisses he could find. They ate the little chocolates together until Al decided to weaponize the treats and a chocolate war ensued. Unfortunately, Alfred's mother put a stop to it, but for little Rosa, no Halloween could possibly have been any better.

…

And so a tradition began. First every Halloween, then every holiday, including St. Patrick's day, a single Hersey's kiss appeared in Rosa's desk with a silly little note or drawing from Alfred. She thought he might stop when they got into middle school, but instead he got even worse. He would leave Hersey's kisses in her locker on random days. The notes, instead of being doodles or almost-rhyming lines of poetry, became much more simple, just well-wishes for whatever holiday it was. However, as the notes themselves got less complex, the holidays got more bizarre. By the time she graduated from middle school Rosa Kirkland had received over five hundred Hershey's kisses for previously unheard-of holidays. She started saving some of the notes just because their contents were so bizarre.

Happy National Sausage Pizza Day, read one.

Enjoy One-Hit-Wonder Day! Another proclaimed.

She once got seven Hershey's kiss deliveries in a row, all in celebration of "National Juggling Week". When it was "Hug a Cat Day" she found her Hershey's kisses arranged in the shape of a cat face atop one of her binders. "Eat a Donut Day" was celebrated by a Hershey's kiss getting wedged into the hole of a Krispy Kreme donut and placed on a napkin in her locker. "I am Freaking Awesome Day", also known as the Fourth of July and Alfred's birthday was a bit more complicated. Alfred tripped and ran into Rosa at some point during his fourteenth birthday party. A few minutes later she checked her pocket and found a Hershey's kiss and a note wishing her a merry "I am Freaking Awesome Day".

"I am Freaking Awesome Day" was her favorite of Alfred's holidays, but also the most confusing. Late that afternoon Rosa spotted Alfred sitting by the creek that ran behind his house, his feet dangling in the water. She wandered over to him and dropped down next to him on the bank.

"Happy Birthday, Alfred." She said quietly.

He gave a little startled jump and peered at her from the corner of his eye, a blush darkening his cheeks to a deep pink. "Oh, uh, hey, Rosa."

She bumped him with her shoulder in a friendly way, "How does it feel to be fourteen?"

"Oh, um, good, really good," he said.

"Really?" she asked, teasingly, "Any girls you want to notice you now that you're all big and bad and grown up?"

To her surprise, his blush deepened. "Um, well, yeah. There's this girl, she's almost a year older than me… and I don't think she's ever noticed me. But maybe now… I've been working really hard to be her hero, but I don't think it's paid off. I'm pretty sure she still thinks of me as an annoying little kid."

Rosa, "Aw, that's too bad. But don't worry, maybe she'll come around someday."

There was a moment of silence, then Alfred suddenly said, "Hey Rosa?" at the exact same time she turned to him to say something of her own. They bumped noses. Alfred froze and so did Rosa, neither daring to breathe.

'Why do I feel all dizzy? I think my heart's going to beat itself out of my chest,' Rosa thought fuzzily as she stared into Alfred's stunning blue eyes. He leaned forward slightly, and so did she, as if pulled by a magnetic force she couldn't resist. When he spoke, she could feel the brush of his breath across her lips.

"Rosa, Rosie, do you think…?"

'Oh, god, I've made him uncomfortable, this is really awkward and here I am making it more awkward and… how does his breath smell so good? How does he smell so good? It shouldn't be possible for eyes to be that blue… I really need to get out of here!' Rosa's thoughts exploded across her brain, scattering like blocks from a fallen Jenga tower. Not knowing what else to do to break the tension and somehow fix this, Rosa jumped straight up, whacking her nose on Alfred's in the process. Holding her aching nose, (it felt like a trickle of blood was escaping her right nostril), Rosa looked down on Al said the first thing that came to mind, all in a rush, "Happy I am Freaking Awesome Day," she gabbled, then turned and bolted back to the safety of the large group of people gathered around the barbeque.

If she had turned back she might have seen the hurt look on Alfred's face. But she didn't. She kept running.

The summer passed with progressively fewer Hershey's kisses, although that was to be expected. The Jones family traveled a lot during the summer and Alfred and Amelia both went to many summer camps. But Rosa still missed finding random Hershey's kisses in bizarre places on a regular basis, with odd little notes about odder holidays taped to the foil wrappers.

And through all of the chocolate deliveries Alfred never once mentioned that it was he who was doing it. Despite the fact that Rosa knew that it was him, he never brought it up. When she confronted him about it he slithered out of the conversation. No matter what she tried, even after seven years of Hershey's kisses and holidays both real, made up, and everywhere in between, Alfred wouldn't own up to his actions.

It was driving Rosa slowly insane.

And she couldn't escape the fact that she liked his slightly twisted way of showing affection. Every morning she opened her locker, wondering if somewhere in Alfred-land it was a holiday worthy of a kiss. And at least once a week she wouldn't be disappointed. When the first day of high school rolled around, Rosa was almost excited. She was starting high school, was going to see all of her old school friends again, and best of all, the first day of school was a big holiday in Alfred's mind. After seven years, it was practically guaranteed that Rosa would get some chocolate in her locker.

Practically, but not quite.

When Rosa opened her locker on the first day of high school, there was nothing there. And when she spotted Alfred he was walking down the hall with the new Russian foreign exchange student on his arm, the tall, beautiful girl hanging on his every word. Trying not to cry over something as silly as chocolate and a seven-year-old promise, Rosa slammed her locker closed and stalked past, heading to her new class.

….

Rosa didn't hate most of high school. She enjoyed her classes and being student council President. She enjoyed all the volunteer work she did around the school. She didn't have many friends, but those few she did have, like Kiku and Sakura and Amelia, were close. And she got to spend a lot of time with her twin (which was both a blessing and a curse) through the student council. She was asked out once or twice by Antonio Carriedo before he met Chiara, the feisty Italian student who was more likely to kill you than kiss you. Antonio and Rosa parted ways amicably, and the painful twist in Rosa's stomach when she saw him with his new girlfriend was more due to her own loneliness than any feelings of jealously. But in truth, that was the heart of the matter. No matter what activities she had, or what she accomplished, she was lonely. There was a huge, Alfred-sized hole in her life and nothing she did was going to change it.

"I messed things up," she told Amelia a year later. She, Sakura and Amelia were sitting in the American girl's bedroom, supposedly working on an Advanced Biology project they had in fact finished hours before.

"Messed what up?" The fourteen-year-old asked her older friend. Amelia and Arthur had been successfully dating since Amelia had entered high school and Rosa was trying her hardest not to be weirded out by the fact that Amelia had picture of Arthur pinned to her bulletin board. It wasn't that the picture itself was creepy or even very large, but Rosa hated feeling like she was being stared at by her twin brother when she was having a girly conversation.

"Things with Alfred," Rosa muttering into the pillow she was hugging to her chest as she leaned against Amelia's bed.

Amelia, who was sprawled out on her back on her bed, dangled her head over the edge and peered at her friend. "How?" she asked.

Rosa muttered vaguely into her pillow, wishing she hadn't brought it up.

"I agree with Amelia-chan," Sakura supplied helpfully. The Japanese girl was perched on the desk chair, legs tucked underneath herself. "While you and Alfred do not seem to be as close as you were, you do not seem to have 'messed it up' as you say."

"But I have" Rosa sighed, pulling her face away from the pillow. And, almost unbidden, the entire story of Alfred and the Hershey's kisses came flooding out, even the part about their almost-whatever-the-heck-it-was by the creek. She finished morosely about how she hadn't found a chocolate in her locker when school started and how ever since they had seemed to only grow farther and farther apart until now they almost never saw each other unless it was in passing at Amelia's house.

"I miss him, the bloody git," Rosa concluded. "I see him smiling when he reads something and I want to know what made him smile. I hear him whistling and I want to know what song he has stuck in his head. And I HATE whistling! I can't eat cheeseburgers anymore because I always end up wondering if he would like it! And forget about chocolate. It's a mess."

There was a moment of silence as the girls thought about Rosa's predicament. Finally, Amelia spoke up. "I know what you did wrong," she said, just as Sakura said, "I know how to fix it."

Rose blinked and looked at both of them. "You do?" She had not expected this conversation to go in a useful direction.

"Yep," Amelia said confidently, "When you two were by the creek, I'll bet you a lifetime supply of MacDonald's milkshakes that he was going to fess up to the fact that he's been in love with you since first grade. Instead, you two BOTH being total DORKS kept that from happening. Now he thinks you're not interested and you think that you aren't friends anymore. Well, I say that you're both idiots who took one too many soccer balls to the head. I think he still cares. And that thing with the Russian chick never worked out. Her brother started hitting one me, like, all the time. I beat him up and then Al and Arthur got in trouble because the principal thought they were 'defending my honor' and all that jazz. So, Al is single! You definitely have a chance."

Sakura cleared her throat, "And I have the perfect plan."

Amelia grinned and cheered, "Commence Operation Get Alfred!"

The girls stayed up late working on Rosa's attack strategy, only coming down for dinner when they were sure they had a working battle plan. Step one would be buying a big bag of Hershey's kisses.

…

Rosa Kirkland spent the next year of high school stalking Alfred Jones. There was no other way to put it. By Christmas break she knew his schedule better than she knew her own. The fact that it was all for the noble purpose of putting candy in his locker when he wasn't around to catch her did not make her feel any less like she deserved a restraining order. But this was war, and she was going to win it.

And each candy corresponded to a real holiday, just not always a mainstream one. She gave him a chocolate for Guy Fawkes Day and for St. George's day. Instead of the whacky made-in-American holidays that he had been subjecting her to over the years, Rosa counterattacked with a series of increasingly obscure British holidays, some of which she had to Google to figure out the dates. And so a year slipped by and she and Alfred started talking more. At first it was stilted and awkward but soon it became a more casual friendship. Nothing like what they had, and every time she saw him her heart still threatened to beat itself out of her chest, but Rosa thought she might be able to be content with their current blasé friendship. But then again, what friend made your pulse race and your cheeks heat up until you are sure that astronauts on the moon could see them like some sort of homing beacon of embarrassment?

And so Rosa continued to put chocolates in Alfred's locker for over a year. And she continued to hope. Until Amelia (or possibly Sakura) double-crossed her, and Alfred returned to his locker just as she was leaving it.

...

"Boo." Alfred said quietly.

"ACK!" Rosa squeaked, jumping nearly a foot in the air and slamming the locker shut. It was the last few minutes of school before the bell rang. The halls were empty. It was just to the two of them.

"Happy Halloween, Rosa," Alfred said. When Rosa looked at him, she found that he was staring fixedly at a spot just above her head. His cheeks were flushed pink.

"Shove off, git," Rosa growled; feeling defensive, having been caught in a very shady act, as well as having completely forgotten that it was Halloween. She was seventeen years old, after all, she reasoned, trying to excuse the lapse, it wasn't as if she were trick-or-treating.

"Aww, did I scare you?" Alfred asked teasingly, his cheeks still flushed slightly.

"No." Rosa denied; her own face coloring.

There was a moment of silence. Alfred broke it. "You know, I think we had a conversation very similar to this a long time ago."

"We did." Rose acknowledged.

Silence fell again. Neihter of them moved. Alfred let out a big fake laugh. It hurt Rosa to hear it. She wanted his real laugh more than anything in the world. She hated his fake one. But still he laughed, and said, "Well, I better get to practice. Where would the team be without the hero?"

Rosa nodded mutely, watching as Alfred began to walk away. Abruptly, he stopped and turned around. "Hey, Rosa, I… Uh, never mind." He started to stride away again.

Rosa suddenly knew that if she didn't stop him now she'd never have him again. She had to stop him. "Alfred!" she called out.

He whipped around, blue eyes big and puppy-dogish and hopeful.

Rosa stared at her toes, trying not to choke on the words coming out of her mouth, "Someone told me a long time ago that if you really like someone, and if they're really special to you, you give them a kiss. So here," she held out her hand, revealing the single red-wrappered Hershey's kiss on her palm.

Alfred stared at it for several seconds, before reaching forward, toward her palm as if to take the chocolate. Instead, he wrapped his fingers around her hand and pulled her toward him. His lips met hers and something in Rosa's chest exploded; a simmering mess of emotions and longing that had been left to sit unattended for far too long. In that single moment she was perfectly, incandescently, happy. And nothing had ever been better.

They broke apart and Alfred rested his forehead against hers. At some point during the kiss his arm, the one not bearing the hand tangled up in her own chocolate-holding fingers, had wrapped around her waist holding her tight against his chest. Rosa snuggled into him, reveling in the warmth and life that was Alfred F. Jones.

"I missed you so much," Alfred murmured.

"I never left," Rosa reminded him.

"May I have this kiss?" Alfred asked, and somehow Rosa didn't think he meant the chocolate slowly melting between their palms.

"You can have all my kisses," Rosa echoed her seven-year old self before Alfred cut her off with another hungry kiss.

…..

Many years later, after college, when Rosa was working as a magazine editor and Alfred as a Doctor of Sports Medicine, Hershey's kisses made one more appearance in the young Englishwoman's life. After a long meeting with the chief editor, she made her weary way back to her office. Sitting down at her desk she discovered that someone had left an unsaved word document open on her computer. Typed into it in various fonts were the words: 'Happy Halloween. Check your pencil drawer.'

Perplexed, Rosa eased the pencil drawer open. Someone had removed all the pencils and taped Hershey's kisses onto the bottom of the drawer instead. They spelled out the words 'will you marry me?' A soft knock sounded on her office door. When it opened to reveal Alfred, a goofy, hopeful smile on his face as he walked over to kiss her lightly on the lips, Rosa knew exactly what she was going to say.

After all, who could possibly say no to such a sweet kiss?

Author's Note: I did not originally intend to write this fic, or for it to be so long! But, the idea wouldn't leave me alone, so here I am, posting this little story. I am a huge fan of both Hershey's kisses and the adorableness that is Alfred Jones and Rosa Kirkland's relationship, so here we have a little after-Halloween US x Fem!UK fun.

Weird fact: most of the holidays used in this fic are real holidays. St. George's Day is an important English holiday and is both the birthday and death-date of William Shakespeare according to many historians. Guy Fawkes Day is also a real celebration in England. The weirder holidays that Alfred uses are mostly true as well. National Sausage Pizza Day, National Hug a Cat Day, and One-Hit-Wonder Day are all real holidays. I believe Eat a Donut Day is also a real American celebration as well as Juggling Week. I Am Freaking Awesome Day, however, is just Alfred's ego getting the better of him. However, it could be a holiday in the near future, as, according to American law, it only takes a small fee to register a national holiday. While you will not be able to close the banks or get yourself out of work for your new festival, it will be at least mentioned in some obscure website listing all the random American holidays.

I hope you enjoyed this little drabble, and please review! Feedback is always loved and appreciated!