AN: Pointless one-shot I have discovered on my computer and decided to post after making some adjustments and finishing. It most likely still has got some grammatical errors here and there, so I just ask you to deal with them.

It can be AU, or it cannot. Imagine it on the universe that pleases you the most!

Security Camera

While her legs were running out of instinct – after all, her arm was being dragged, so if she did not run, she would fall – Nanoha tried to comprehend how she was caught up in such a situation.

That being Fate walking to her desk, taking her hand and dragging her through their school's corridors in the exact moment lunchtime began.

If the brunette were able to recollect correctly, they had not had this much skin contact in a long time – since the day she decided to confess to her best friend, she was sure. Nanoha used to think that this action would permanently ruin their relationship, but in the end, it was not a big deal, now that she thought better about it. Fate never looked or talked to her differently after that, nor did she demand they touched each other less in order to maintain her dignity. No, it had been Nanoha's own choice to stop hugging, holding hands and any other kind of physical contact they had while being simply friends, because she felt guilty every time she did so whilst she harbored those feelings for Fate.

And right now, Nanoha was feeling guiltily pleasured. Still confused, but pleasured anyway, for she missed the sensation brought to her body when Fate would simply touch her. Not only this sensation: the merely fact that the blonde was so near to her was truly missed as well. Since her own no-touch policy, Nanoha found herself farther and further from the one she wanted to be the closer to – blame on this fidgeting-self who took her place every time she and Fate talked. It tore her apart, and she knew Fate was hurting too. However, she did not know how to stop this process. Therefore, all she could do was watch her beloved from afar, taking even more notice – in a kind of sick way, she admitted to herself – of every little thing the blonde did and said than before.

Damn it, their relationship was basically ruined and she was in her way to turn into a stalker. It had become a big deal indeed!

However, it was not the point at the moment. Or at least, not entirely. Her new habit of observing almost scientifically her crush made her realize Fate was acting awkwardly on that morning. She had arrived on their classroom with a frown, which would come and go from her beautiful face during classes. In addition, she barely talked to anybody, only answering when necessary. Now that Nanoha was recollecting these facts, she realized that the blonde also did not make any attempt of establishing some eye contact between the two of them as she used to even after Nanoha's confession. Usually, it would be Nanoha herself to avoid such a thing. And it made her very worried.

Had something happened before Fate went to school?

Nanoha turned her attention back to their present situation.

They were going deep and deeper in their school, and the corridors were getting more and more desert. Sometimes, Fate would stop running and look around, but she always got back to running when Nanoha finally caught enough breath to talk. Such hurry and preoccupation the blonde showed only served to confuse her even more. Nanoha could not imagine a good motive for Fate to be doing such a thing. She had told her friend clearly her decision of depriving themselves of touching each other until she had no more of those feelings, and Fate respected that. Therefore, there should be a good reason for Fate to be going against Nanoha's will.

This was just leaving Nanoha more and more puzzled and worried – not to mention, of course, curious.

"Fate-chan," she panted, "where are you taking me?"

"To a place in this school where there are no security cameras pointing at us. Or at least to somewhere which is a blind spot to them," Fate answered mechanically as if this phrase had been in her tongue for a long time.

Nanoha wanted to have reacted to this answer in a better way than simply thinking "Huh?" and being even more puzzled – and did I mention curious before?

"What?" She mildly asked, mildly panted heavily. "Why," she panted, "would you," panted, "like to take me," panted, "to a place," panted, "like that?"

Fate did not promptly answer. She just kept running and taking Nanoha's breath – with a physical activity that did not comprise some dirty thoughts, it was worth stating – until she finally seemed to have found the spot she was looking for and stopped.

The shorter girl was gasping deeply after the unexpected P. E. activity. When she finally collected enough air and courage to look at the blonde, the latter put her two hands in the wall behind Nanoha, pratically leaning herself on them.

With such action, Fate put more items to Nanoha's current 'to-be-worried-of' list, which consisted now of: 'what has made Fate-chan act so differently this morning?', 'Are our faces close or am I going crazy?', 'why did Fate-chan drag me here?', 'OUR FACES ARE SO CLOSE!', 'why is she almost pinning me against the wall?!" and "OMIGAWD, I CAN DIE HAPPILY NOW!"

Nanoha's mouth was motioning a stammer, even though she could not even bring her voice out, feeling her face getting hotter and hotter with that intense and penetrating gaze her long-time crush was giving her. This gaze had a mixture of hesitation and certainty she did not comprehend until Fate's tardily answered her question:

"To do this."

The sensation of Fate's lips on her own were as pleasurable as she had imagined it could be in a remote dimension in which Fate would actually kiss her. In fact, it was so great – albeit too forceful at the beginning, but not that she could complain about such a thing – that her legs were threatening to give in on the moment she closed her eyes to enjoy the sensation before she fell out of her bed or something and woke up.

However, when her lips got suddenly colder with the absence of the other pair of lips above them and she still felt the wall behind her and Fate's erratic breathing close to her face, Nanoha realized that maybe, just maybe, it happened that her best friend just kissed her. She slowly opened her sky-blue eyes, still under the fear of everything disappearing, and saw the beautiful burgundy eyes she loved looking to their shoes.

They stayed like that until Fate's breathing became steadier and Nanoha decided to break the silence by uttering the question which answer she was anxious to know:

"W-why?"

She felt that her friend stopped breathing momentarily after the question. Then, her head lifted up slowly, and their eyes met. The frown from that morning seemed to have come back to Fate's face, but it was quickly replaced by a decided glance that made Nanoha almost lose the control of her legs again.

"Because... I wanted to confirm something."

Nanoha gulped.

"And... did it work?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

The long pause after her answer – and the fact that Fate was staring at Nanoha during this whole time – only made the brunette more apprehensive.

All those feelings she had in this little time since Fate took her from the classroom were definitely not good for her heart, Nanoha made a mental note.

"I confirmed I've been a big idiot all this time."

Instinctively, Nanoha's heart skipped a beat. And how could it not? After this sequence of happenings, it was obvious that her dumb heart would cogitate that Fate simply woke up on that morning and suddenly realized she reciprocated her best friend's feelings for her. But Nanoha's rational side knew better than that. There was no way things could be so convenient, although she could not think of another explanation. Still, what else could it be? It was a confusing, and somewhat saddening situation, for she created unwanted expectations which she was sure that would disappoint her.

"What do you mean?" She maintained a straight face.

And did she see Fate gulp?

"I... had never thought about considering better your feelings after you confessed to me. Neither had I tried to analyze my own for you. And it would be like this forever if..." Fate hesitated and broke the contact of their eyes. Nanoha could feel the cold sweat on her hands increase when the blonde bit her own lip. But then, Fate looked at Nanoha again and resumed. "If... Yuuno hadn't told me he intended to confess to you after school today."

Nanoha was sure her face showed at least shock because of such an information – Fate was concerned with Yuuno's intention?

Could it be that...?

"I... was deeply bothered when he told me that. In my mind, I couldn't accept the possibility of you somehow accepting his confession. Because, if that happened, we would be even more apart then we already are, right? It wouldn't be fair! He having you so close when I wanted to be close to you again..."

Fate's speech was getting faster, showing her nervousness.

"So, I thought... We haven't had a decent talk for so long that I didn't even know how you presently feel about him! But the chances of you accepting are high, for he's a great guy and you two have known each other for a long time and all, right? So, how could I prevent you from accepting? I could not come with a good answer for that, until a remembered that you said yourself that you loved me in a romantically way. Then, all I should do was to answer to your feelings; however, I could not do such a thing if I didn't really feel the same way, because it wouldn't be fair to you. But how could I know if I felt the same about you too? My knowledge about feelings is scarce. I can't differentiate some from another, that's why I could not respond to your feelings after you confessed to me. All I know and always knew is that my feelings for Nanoha are huge, but I don't know exactly what kind of feeling it is. Then I recalled I heard once that, to confirm your feelings for someone, you should kiss them. I got so attached to this idea, since I wanted to confirm my feelings as soon as I could, that I didn't even pay attention to my surroundings and to important details, such as if you still liked me that way. So in the end, yeah, I'm a big, big and selfish idiot, b-but I could not help it, I-"

"Fate-chan, breath!"

Fate was startled with the sudden interruption, but she was glad Nanoha reminded her of this vital action she should perform from time to time. She closed her eyes as she grasped and exhaled a lot of air until she felt her nervousness dissipate slowly. There was no way back from what she have done and said, and it made her fearful of the outcome.

She opened her eyes and saw Nanoha's serious and not-so-pleased face.

Damn.

"I'm seriously disappointed on you, Fate-chan," she began, crossing her arms.

Damn damn damn.

Fate took her arms from the wall and lowered her head. Her hands formed a strong fist.

"To think you thought I could stop liking you AND start liking another person after, what, three months? How can you take my feelings so lightly? I thought you knew me better."

When Fate fully understood the meaning of Nanoha's words, her head suddenly lifted up, and she saw a big and beautiful smile on her friend's face, one she probably would engrave on her mind eternally, and could not help but smile as well when a hand cupped her right cheek.

"I could never think of accepting Yuuno-kun's confession at the moment. He's a great friend, but that's all."

"I... get it," Fate answered automatically, dazed by the look of Nanoha's eyes and her touch on her face.

"So, Fate-chan, after everything you said..."

"Hm?"

"Besides being a "big, big and selfish idiot"," Nanoha made quote marks with her free hand and got closer to Fate, "what else did you confirm?"

It reminded Fate that she herself said the motive for their kiss was to confirm her feelings for Nanoha. And, to be precise, she didn't know the answer quite yet.

"I... don't think I feel anything different from before after kissing you. Nanoha is still Nanoha," the brunette's face got pale quickly, and Fate held her right hand, "Tt's just that I did not know before that kissing you would bring such… happiness inside me. Is this… love?"

Nanoha could not contain her grateful smile hearing that. With their eyes locked on each other, she gently and slowly drew Fate closer to her using their now intertwined hands and her hand on the blonde's cheek. Both of them instinctively began to close their eyes, and a bit before their lips met each other again, she whispered:

"I don't know, what about testing it again to confirm?"

Fate felt Nanoha's mischievous smile on her happy one as she drew her beloved even closer by putting her free hand on her friend's (?) waist. Then, she understood why you are supposed to kiss someone to confirm your feelings: that funny sensation on her mouth; the blissful grip on her hand; the electricity traveling through her skin when Nanoha would caress her cheek and neck; the place on the brunette's waist that looked like it perfectly fit in her hand; their synchronized breathing and heartbeat. Words could not completely convey all these little happiness.

Nor should security cameras spy on such heavenly moment of theirs.

The End

AN 2: So, that's it. It was hard to come up with an ending, since it was - I admmit - based on a dream I had, and I don't recall how such a dream ended, haha. Also, I don't know if there are a lot of security cameras on Japan's schools as there are around here; if not, let's just pretend there is, right?

I hope it was of your liking!