AN: Okay, this is a oneshot for Another Artist's challenge, 'The things we do for love'. The rules, which I'm supposed to put in, are here:

Challenge #1

The Things We Do For Love...

INFO: Ian and Amy aren't on the path to love just yet. Way too many distractions are up. So Ian sets out to do things to gain Amy's love.

NEEDED:

- A frog. I don't know why, but let's put a frog in this story : )

- Ian doing at least ONE silly thing to gain Amy's love.

- Amy shooting down Ian's "plan" ONCE.

- Use of the quote "Such sad woe for my toe".

- A thrift store. Haha, maybe they're buying a bag of Cheetos : )

NO-NOs:

- You can't use the quote "I love you."

- You can't let Amy stutter in this one… but maybe Ian can ;)

- Amy cannot shoot down Ian's plans more than once.

- Not all of Ian's plans can be silly.

- No airplanes or jets… and no having a plane spell out in the sky some fluff stuff.

Okay, also, it's not supposed to be too OOC. So, read and review! Also, I don't own the thirty nine clues or any of the characters. And another thing, this is from Ian's POV.

Day of Desperation

I was crossing the street, thinking about how Amy could never love me after what I had done, when suddenly, I heard a very familiar voice say, "Hey Ian."

I jumped. Behind me was Dan Cahill. I was shocked that I hadn't seen him come up behind me, because Natalie had told me that this route was completely free of competition.

As fast as lightening, I turned around, ready to attack. Dan smirked, amused.

I glared at him. That smirk was my signature look. Of course, it looked much better on my face, and not his, which was filled with scars, but I was still annoyed at the little copycat. "What?" I lashed out at him.

That darned smirk grew even larger. My scowl grew more impressive. Then, Dan said, "Okay, I'm not here for a 'who can make a better face' contest. Even though I would obviously win. Seriously, that frown makes your face uglier than a monkey butt."

What? This bratty Cahill thought my face looked uglier than a monkey butt? Ugh! My face did not look ugly! My face was one of the best in the world. Besides, his face looked, well actually it looked a lot like his sister's face, and Amy's face was beautiful.

Dan continued. "But that's not the point," he said. "The point is that I heard that you like Amy."

I was dumbfounded. How did he know that? Apparently, the little pain was more observant than I had acknowledged. "Why do you think that?" I asked. Seriously, had he looked in my diary? I kept it locked with a key! (The diary was not my idea. My mum bought it for me and forced me to write in it. At least it's solid gold.)

Dan looked at me, and laughed. I couldn't fathom why. "You talk in you're sleep," he explained. "I snuck into your room one night when we were in Seoul, to take some cash for a baseball card, and I heard you muttering, 'Oh, Amy, you have such beautiful eyes, like jade.'"

Oh. That's why. Natalie always used to tease me about that, but I thought I had grown out of it. Apparently not. "And now you're going to use it against me?" I asked him, glum.

"No, of course not, why would I do that?" Dan asked, his brow furrowing. He looked shocked. "I'm going to help you win her heart!"

Huh? Dan hated me. This didn't make any sense. "Why?" I asked, warily.

Looking exasperated, Dan said, "Ugh. Amy has been moping and groaning ever since you left us for dead in Korea. She thought you and her were actually starting to become friends... or more," Dan winked. "Her heart was broken after that. It still is. If you win her over, I won't have to listen to her complaining. Her sadness gives me such sad woe for my toe."

Well, that made sense. It was for his own personal gain. I could understand that. Maybe, getting Daniel's advice was not such a bad idea. "What could I do to win her heart?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

The Cahill grinned. "Good, you're in on the plan. So, I was thinking, that maybe you could woo her by doing what she likes. You know, charming her with candy and stuff. Amy doesn't like candy, though, she likes clowns, with red noses and juggling skills. Maybe, you could dress up like a clown, and do some tricks to impress her."

I pondered that for a minute. Amy liked clowns, huh? I could be a clown.... "I'm in," I told Dan. "What exactly do I have to do? Juggle Beanie Babies? Balance a spoon on my nose?"

He nodded. "Juggling the Beanie Babies would be good, and the spoon balancing. Oh, and also, one other thing. Amy prefers when people do stuff in public. It makes her feel more loved, you know?"

Yes. I understood that. It made sense. She would want to show me off to the world. Who wouldn't? "Yes, I can do that. Is there anything else?" I pressed him. When I pursued her, I wanted every little detail to be put into effect.

After thinking for a minute, Dan said, "Yes. There's one more thing. Amy's favorite animal is a frog, and she's always wanted one for a pet. So, you could bring a frog for her."

A frog? Kind of a strange favorite animal, but I suppose everyone's different. For example, my favorite animal, a raven, was not exactly a common favorite. "Okay, I can have everything ready by four o' clock, so, could you bring Amy to the kite festival tonight? That way, I can show my affection for her in front of a ton of people."

"Sure thing!" Dan exclaimed. He must be really excited to have his sister back to normal. "I'll see you then! Make sure to make your make-up extra colorful!" And with that, he skipped off.

I sighed. This prepping would be hard to get done in three short hours, but it would have to be done if I ever wanted Amy and I to even be friends again.

***

Over the next few hours, I bought all of my supplies. I bought designer make-up, designer stuffed animals (Beanie Babies just weren't high quality enough), a pure silver spoon, and a fancy frog. The only thing left to get was a clown costume.

I had scoured all of the designer stores in the city, and that was a lot, since this was New York. I had searched them all so thoroughly that I had seen every single item of clothing. But it was no use. There was not one single designer clown costume in New York City!

And, since the kite festival in Central Park was only an hour away, I couldn't have to have one custom designed. And that meant I would have to- gulp- look in a normal store.

I should probably look at a store most likely to have costumes. That would be Target, probably.

Swallowing back disgust, I headed down the block to Target.

On my way, I passed a thrift store. Normally, I wouldn't have given it a second look, but a flash of bright color caught my eye. I stopped and looked in the window again. It was... a clown costume. A very clown-ish clown costume.

I debated. Should I really go inside and buy that costume? From a thrift store? On the other hand, I only had forty five minutes left. Plus, since it was the middle of May, there weren't any Halloween costumes out yet.

I sat there, thinking, for about three minutes. On one hand, I didn't want to be caught dead in a thrift store. On the other side, it was probably the only clown costume I could find.

Finally, I made the decision to buy the costume.

I sighed as I walked through the doors. I hope no one sees me, I thought. If any of my friends from Britain were here, they would be flabbergasted at what I was doing.

Why, they might even faint from the shock of me even thinking of going into this filthy place.

But, I was doing this for Amy, and with great love comes the great need to take risks.

***

About twenty minutes after I had bought the costume, I was prepped and ready to go. My outfit, however embarrassing, looked better on me than anyone else that I'd ever seen a clown costume on. My face looked manly, even if I had a red nose and blue stars around my eyes. My forearms were evenly tan, even if my costume had yarn balls posing as buttons and stripes on the arms. And my colorful afro wig, however itchy, would make Amy notice me.

Tucking my stuffed animals and spoon under one arm and keeping the frog in my hand, I marched towards Central Park to find Amy.

***

When I was in Central Park, there was a perfect setting. Tall trees with green leaves, lush grasses, and the sun, which was warm. People were everywhere. Amy could never refuse me now, could she?

I wandered around blankly, looking for her, when someone ran into me. Apparently, I had been looking so hard for Amy that I hadn't been watching where I was going.

Getting up from where I had fallen, I looked up at the person I had run into, and gasped. In front of me, with her thick reddish brown hair, and jade eyes, was none other than the person I had been looking for. "Amy?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer.

Amy looked confused. "Ian? Why do you have on a clown suit?" She looked at me in shock.

Well, I could hardly start off our conversation with, 'Oh, I heard you like clowns, and your brother told me I should show off some clown skills to you to win your love'. So I settled for, "Uh, I wanted to show you some tricks."

Amy looked around, a little frazzled. "Okay," she said uncertainly.

I started with the animal juggling. The problem was, I had never learned to juggle. Oh well. A Kabra could master anything. And it couldn't be that difficult.

So I started. I threw a pig from my right to my left hand, and caught it! Yes! I thought. Score one for Ian!

Then, I started going faster, more sure of myself. I caught the first two, but then it went downhill from there. I threw the third one too far forward, and outdid myself to catch it. My big clown shoes were lumpy, and I accidentally tripped over my own feet, missing Amy by inches.

Immediately, I got back up. "Sorry," I told her sheepishly. "I guess I'm not as good at that as I thought."

"Um, that's okay...." she replied.

"I do have another talent though! Watch this!" I said quickly. I took out the spoon.

Before I could read her expression to see if she liked what I was doing, I put the spoon on my nose. It wobbled a little, and then balanced out.

It stayed balanced for a few seconds, and then, feeling confident, a starting jumping, and trying to bounce the spoon up and down on my nose.

That was not a smart idea. For one thing, the spoon hurt when it hit my nose, and for a second thing, I didn't notice what way I was jumping. I was jumping forward.

I heard Amy say, "Ian, look out!" And I slipped up. I jumped badly, and the spoon landed badly. Very badly. The spoon had landed on Amy's head.

My eyes widened. That was so embarrassing! It couldn't have hurt, that much, but it certainly showed off how klutzy I was with the spoon! My face felt hot. It must have been bright red.

"Uhhh..." I said, oh so coherently. "Sorry about that," I mumbled.

Then, I remembered the frog. "Here," I said, holding out the slimy green amphibian.

Amy jumped back, looking disgusted. "Why did you buy me a frog?" She sounded revolted.

"I thought you like frogs," I said, chagrined.

Amy looked up at me, with a look on her face that said, 'are you kidding me?' "Frogs are my least favorite animal, you weirdo."

"Oh," I said lamely. Well, at this point I had nothing to lose, so I asked, "Will you go on a date with me?"

Amy looked stunned and disgusted at the same time. "Are you kidding me? You run into me, dressed as a clown, you show off your 'skills'," Amy sounded sarcastic when she said skills. "And you buy me a frog? Seriously, what is wrong with you? There's no way I'm going on a date with you! You'd probably do something even more embarrassing than this, like wear a dress or something!"

Then, Amy stormed off. Why hadn't she fallen for me? I'd done every single thing Dan had told me to!

Suddenly, something clicked inside my head. Of course she'd said no to me. She hated the stuff I'd done. Dan had made sure she'd say no.

That conniving little monster had told me all the wrong things! He'd plotted the whole thing out, and now I was standing here, in a clown costume, feeling like a complete idiot.

Great. Now what was I going to do?

Maybe I could go talk to her. Explain the whole thing. I could take her out to dinner to make up for it....

A plan started forming in my head. A plan that could win Amy back...

***

Two hours later, when I was out of my awful clown costume, I had on a nice white button down shirt, khakis, and nice shoes. I was going to try and ask Amy out again.

I was about to dial Amy's number, to see where she was staying, but I saw her through the window of the hotel. She was walking towards Central Park.

Without thinking about what I was going to say, I ran out the door, chasing after her. "Amy!" I called. "Wait! Wait!"

She turned around, her long hair swinging over her shoulder. "Ian?" She said.

"Yes, it's me. Let me explain myself, and why I acted so strange earlier. Please, let me," I pleaded.

"Okay," Amy said. She seemed more at ease. Probably because I was out of my ridiculous costume.

I took a deep breath. "Well, Dan came to me earlier and told me I should find you and do all of that stuff that I did to impress you, and so I did. He told me everything; to dress up like a clown and do tricks and give you the frog! All I wanted was for you to like me for it, and everything went wrong. Every single thing. I'm so sorry."

Amy's eyes widened. "So that's why Dan was laughing all day..." she said quietly. "So then, you're not crazy? You didn't go insane?" She asked me.

I laughed at that. Insane? Well, maybe insane with wanting to be with her. "No, I'm not insane," I told her. "But I would like to ask one thing- will you go out on a date with me?"

She smiled. "Yes," Amy said.

Smiling back, I said, "Then come on. I have a table reserved at the Rosemary Steak and Grill House."

Amy's eyes lit up. "Really?" She asked in awe. "I've never been there."

"Really," I told her. "It's my treat."

"Thank you, Ian. You know," Amy said, "I'm really starting to like you, when you're not leaving me for dead or dressing up like a clown."

Excitement flooded through me. "Does that mean you like me?" I asked her anxiously.

To answer the question, Amy stood on her tip toes and kissed me on the cheek.

This was officially the best night of my life.