A/N: This is my favorite chapter so I hope you guys like it too! May or may not have chapter 5 up tomorrow, as I am not totally done with it.

Seven in the evening found Gilbert and Elizabeta standing outside a fancy restaurant in the middle of town. Though neither had been there before, Elizabeta's date had assured her that it was a fine establishment. Really, it was not the type of place either would have visited of their own accord.

"So…," Gilbert said, pulling his coat tighter against himself. Though it was not cold, the brown garment served as sort of a barrier between himself and the oppressive awkwardness.

Elizabeta's eyes darted to her watch and Gilbert did the same, just to have something to do. "They should be here soon."

"Uh, huh." Gilbert's eyes never left the watch. He bored into it, watching the seconds tick by and praying their dates would magically appear. He had not been so awkward around Elizabeta in ages.

"Oh, well there's Eduard."

Gilbert snapped to attention at once, eyes darting about for the man he would automatically despise. A blonde man with glasses melted out of the busy street, arm raised in greeting. He didn't look any better than Gilbert, nor was he any taller. He had better be a damn genius.

Before he knew it, Elizabeta had wandered away from his side to greet the new arrival. "Eduard, hi! So nice to finally meet you in person!"

So she had not known her date beforehand either. Well, it would have saved Gilbert a lot of worrying if he would have admitted that earlier about his own date. Nonetheless, Francis and Antonio had assured him that they would be sending over a ravishing young French woman who would answer to the name Francine.

He only half paid attention as Eduard introduced himself and launched into a rather longwinded discussion about computers. Gilbert kept his gaze to the floor, looking up only when Elizabeta said, "Hey, is that your date, Gilbert?"

He looked up so fast it nearly gave him whiplash and found himself face to face with a tall blonde with soft curls and a low cut red dress. Anyone off the street would have identified the person as a beautiful woman.

Too bad he knew straight off the bat that the "beautiful woman" happened to be his best friend in drag.

"What. Are. You. Doing?" Gilbert hissed through clenched teeth, turning all sorts of red. He could feel the stares of Elizabeta and her date, but did his best to ignore them.

Francis flipped back his hair and grinned. "Oh Gilbert, always a charmer," he tittered, his voice sounding unnaturally high. "Introduce me to your friends here." His hands found their way to Gilbert's arm.

"Well… Francine this is Elizabeta and this is… uh," Gilbert found he couldn't remember the other man's name.

The bespectacled man's eyes rested just a little too long on Francis' "chest" before he said, "Eduard," with a stupid little grin on his face.

"Right, Eduard. And um, this is Francine." Before anyone could say anything else, he added, "Okay now that we all know each other, let's go in."

Every moment Elizabeta and her date looked away, Gilbert attempted to crush Francis' arm against his body. He kept this up until they reached the booth and Francis pulled away to slide in first. Gilbert took a seat next to him, bristling when wandering fingers grazed his thigh. That bastard was pushing it.

Elizabeta, Francis, and Eduard engaged in conversation easily enough, but Gilbert remained silent, burying his face behind the menu. Any moment, someone would see through Francis' disguise and his entire life would be ruined.

Plus, why the hell would he want to know about Eduard's stupid computers?

Another casual brush at his thigh caused him to slam down the menu. Elizabeta raised her eyebrows at his seemingly random outburst, but Eduard and Francis paid him no mind. Francis took this moment of distraction to lean over the table, batting his long eyelashes and giving Eduard the smarmiest smile Gilbert had ever seen.

Well if Francis' plan was to seduce Eduard, he was being far too obvious about it. Gilbert cleared his throat and kicked his friend under the table, which didn't seem to faze him, to Gilbert's disappointment. Fortunately, they were saved from further embarrassment when the waiter sauntered up to their table at that moment.

On a normal day, Gilbert would have just given his order and promptly forgot the waiter's face. Unfortunately it was not a normal day and his waiter happened to have the extremely prominent eyebrows of someone he sort of knew.

Francis' fake nails dug into his arm.

"My name is Arthur and I'll be serving you today," he said mechanically, eyes dully sweeping over the table before stopping on Gilbert.

They had never really been formal acquaintances, Gilbert just knew him as the man Francis had an extremely long running love/hate relationship with. From the way Francis was acting, Gilbert could chance a guess that they were in the hate portion at the moment.

"Can I get you anything to drink?"

"Water, tell him I'll have water," Francis hissed in Gilbert's ear, acrylic claws still buried in his arm.

Though vaguely surprised Francis did not ask for wine, Gilbert complied. "We'll take water."

"Water over here as well," Eduard said.

Arthur tapped his pen against the little notebook in his hand. "Mmn, I'll be right back with that." The iron grip on Gilbert's arm released as Arthur turned to leave.

"Gilbert, I have to leave, I can't let him see me like!" The false highness of his voice faded away as he whispered.

"Something wrong?" Elizabeta asked from across the table.

Yes, something was wrong. Gilbert had possibly the worst luck in the history of the world. "No, no everything is fine!" He kicked Francis hard under the table. It would just be weird for him to leave, and it would leave Gilbert as the third wheel on Elizabeta's date. Totally lame.

Elizabeta just shrugged and turned to Francis. "So I hear you're visiting from France. How do you like it here so far?"

"Oh, um it's very… interesting." The girlish voice returned at once, though now sounding fairly distracted. "Excuse me for a moment, will you?" He turned to slide out of the booth, but Gilbert didn't move. "Excuse me Gilbert."

With a long, hard look that clearly stated come-back-or-I-will-kill-you, Gilbert got to his feet and allowed Francis to pass. He settled back into the booth, looking surlier than ever.

After an awkward silence passed over the table, Eduard shifted and said, "Excuse me as well."

Gilbert watched him leave, secretly glad to be rid of him. Unfortunately that left him alone, with Elizabeta, in a fancy restaurant.

But did he not live with her now? Well, temporarily, but he still saw her daily and, might he add, without any make-up on. Seeing her all dressed up should not have had any effect on him. Too bad it rendered him speechless.

"So… nice place." Elizabeta was the first to break the silence. She folded her hands over the table and looked in the direction their dates had gone.

"Yep… fancy." Gilbert found himself looking for their dates as well.

"So Francine seems… nice."

"Yeah so does Eduard. I mean if you're into super nerds married to their computers." Though the statement would no doubt get him in trouble, he at least prided himself for keeping the bitterness out of his voice.

To his surprise, Elizabeta laughed, covering her mouth with her hands in an attempt to hold it in. She leaned forward across the table conspiratorially, beckoning Gilbert to do the same. "Oh gosh did you see his face when he talked about his laptop? It was almost indecent!"

Though Gilbert had probably been hiding behind the menu at the time, he laughed all the same. "Well I think Francine kind of likes him, maybe we should just let them get married and have computer babies."

A laugh far too loud for such a fancy restaurant erupted from Elizabeta's throat. She leaned further across the table, trying to compose herself. "Hey, want to just ditch them?" A little smirk played on her lips and all at once Gilbert was reminded of the days they used to play in the sandbox. Elizabeta had been different then: aggressive, overbearing, and, not to mention, convinced she was a boy.

If Elizabeta had proposed they ditched any other dates, Gilbert would have jumped at the chance. Well, he almost did just then. But the moment he opened his mouth, he remembered just who his date was. Francis would have been happy to let Gilbert ditch him… if he had not run into Arthur.

As he sat there, staring across the table at Elizabeta, he wondered if he could, in good conscious, leave one of his best friends alone, in drag, in a restaurant his ex-whatever happened to work at.

"Yeah let's get out of here."

The devilish grin on her lips grew wider. "You up for drinks?"

Gilbert nodded, feeling his mouth go dry. "Yeah… Uh, go get the car, I'll just be a moment…"

Though Elizabeta raised her eyebrows, she nodded and stood up. "Alright then, don't take too long or I'll leave without you."

After she had walked away, Gilbert sprang to his feet and scrambled towards the restrooms. In the little hallway between the two lavatories, he found Eduard looking sheepish.

"Sorry… I don't know what came over me," he muttered, toying with his glasses.

Gilbert glanced desperately back towards the door where Elizabeta had disappeared through just moments earlier. "What are you talking about? Where's Francine?"

A long, drawn out sigh, escaped Eduard's lips. "Elizabeta is a beautiful girl… but that Francine…" Gilbert found himself moderately creeped out by the faraway look on the other man's face. "Anyway, I thought Francine was flirting with me and you kind of seemed like you preferred Elizabeta… so I followed Francine over here." He gestured listlessly to the door to the woman's restroom. "But I must have scared her, because she hasn't come out."

Though the thought of someone falling for Francis in drag struck Gilbert as hilarious, he didn't have the time to laugh. "Its fine, she's just playing hard to get. Let me go get her, alright? You just wait here."

A horrified expression stole over Eduard's face. "You're going into the women's restroom?"

"Yeah. Wait here."

Without another word, Gilbert turned and pushed open the door. There stood Francis, adjusting himself nervously in the mirror. He turned to Gilbert with wide eyes and clasped a hand over his heart. "What are you doing in the women's restroom?"

Gilbert could have screamed. "You're not a woman either! Now stop playing around and get the hell out of here! Lizzy asked me for drinks and she's going to get suspicious if I take too long."

Nervous eyes looked to the door. "But Arthur's out there! I think I would die if he saw me like this." Francis crossed his arms over his chest and shifted nervously before perking up again. "Gilbert, give me your coat."

He balked. "What? Hell no! What is she gonna say when I go out there without my coat?"

But Francis snatched for it all the same. "She won't even notice!" he insisted, attempting to wrestle the garment away.

"No, dammit!"

Unfortunately, Francis was unrelenting. The two stumbled about the bathroom until Gilbert finally managed to pin Francis against the sink. As they stood there, red and panting, the bathroom door opened once more.

Of course it was Elizabeta. It was just Gilbert's luck that Elizabeta had come back to look for him and found him in a compromising position with what looked to be another woman.

"Wait! Lizzy! It's not what it looks like!"

The door closed as quickly as it had opened.