A/N: I liiiiiiiiive! More importantly to you, the story lives. Sorry that it has been *gulp* years since I last updated. I just lost the will to write fan fiction, but tonight I realized how very much I have missed it. This isn't my most popular story by far, but it's my favourite so I've decided to keep working on this. I might get another chapter up before November, but most likely not. I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year, so I won't be updating again until December. I fully intend to finish this off though. As penance for making you good people wait so long, I bring you this near-2000 word chapter. Enjoy!

Marriage Material

A Dearka-Miriallia Story

Chapter Seven: Baby Makes Three

"Obviously you can't just tell her you want to go through with it," Yzak said. "You need to win her over gradually, which means we have to stall her plans to stall the wedding. We need to buy the maximum amount of time possible."

"But what if she never likes me?" Dearka said, sitting up in his bed. "I was such an ass when she first arrived."

"Well you should have thought of that before," Yzak retorted.

"I didn't know that I would fall for her," Dearka said sullenly. He leaned back against the small mountain of pillows and stared up at the unmarred expanse of ceiling.

"At least you got in on her scheming," Yzak said, standing at the window and glaring out with squinted eyes. "Has she come up with any plans yet?"

"No," Dearka said. "We don't know what our parents are arranging. They could announce the wedding is next week or next year for all we know. Right now they are just giving us some time. If I could just..."

"Just what?"

Dearka sighed, a low, tormented sound. "If I could just make her like me enough to go through with it. Then the rest would just happen naturally."

"We can't be sure with these Naturals though," said Yzak. "They don't have as many arranged marriages as we do."

"It worked for my parents," Dearka said. "And they've been together forever."

"It's a long way to the altar, though," Yzak said.

"This is great," Miriallia squealed into the phone. "There's no way that they can make us get married if we're both working against it."

"If you say so," Cagalli sighed.

"What's with the tone?"

"It's no wonder you've been so miserable, with an attitude like this," Cagalli said. "You're letting this talk of marriage completely eclipse who you are."

"The reason that I'm miserable and my attitude is so bad is because this marriage stuff is in my face every day," Miriallia snipped into the phone. "What are you saying, that I should just go through with this?"

"Milly, stop being such a victim," Cagalli chided. "You need to start being proactive. And besides, this may not turn out as bad as you think. If you really don't want to get married from him no one can force you to. But good relationships between Naturals and Coordinators are important to keeping the peace. Even if you don't stay on PLANTS you should try to make a good impression."

Miriallia's voice was growing higher with each frustrating second. Paced from her window to her bed and eventually turned around and collapsed into the fluffy duvet, bouncing twice on the new mattress. "You don't know what it feels like, Cagalli. I'm here all alone with a bunch of strangers. And even if I walk out on this wedding I still have to put up with all of this preparation and then my parents when I walk out."

There was a long pause when neither girl spoke. At last, Cagalli said, "You're never as alone as you think you are."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," Cagalli said, suddenly sounding tired. "Look Mir, it's really late here. I should get going."

They hung up and Miriallia threw her phone on the bed beside her. Her best friend had been no help at all. She had never felt so alone before. Gritting her teeth and getting on with this ridiculous predicament would do nothing to make it better, she knew, but no one else seemed to think so. Of course it was easy for them; all they had to do was dress up and go to that one wedding. But the rest of Miriallia's life hinged upon these decisions.

There was a knock at the bedroom door. Miriallia got up and opened it to find Dearka standing there, alone, squeezing his hands in and out of fists.

"What is it?" she asked, keeping the door open only enough for her body to fit in the gap.

"I was just thinking...that, um," Dearka began, his eyes darting around everywhere except at the girl in front of him.

"Thinking what?" Miriallia sounded more irritated than she intended, but being snubbed by a best friend had that affect upon people.

"I was going to make something," Dearka said, much to quickly for the words to be distinguished from one another. "Are you hungry? I could make you something."

The girl's brows contracted slightly. What was wrong with him? He had never acted like this before.

"No, thanks," she said.

"Oh," Dearka said, a suspicious hint of defeat in his voice. "Well maybe tomorrow."

"Yeah, maybe."

"Well, goodnight, I guess," he finished awkwardly and retreated from the door. Miriallia shrugged her shoulders and closed the door after him.

"Smooth," came Yzak's sarcastic comment.

"Dude, she didn't want anything," Dearka said. They shut themselves in the guest room that Yzak was staying in. It was different shades of yellow, far too cheery for the temperament of its tenant.

Yzak cradled his forehead in his hand. "It wasn't about feeding her, moron. You were supposed to engage her in conversation. Some ladies' man you turned out to be. Since when have you been awkward around girls?"

"I've never liked a girl like this before," Dearka said, feeling stupid as soon as it came out. He looked at Yzak, ready for the taunting to begin.

"Probably because she didn't get in bed right away like your regulars do," Yzak said, a hint of distaste in his voice. "Has it occurred to you that you haven't got bored of her yet and that's why you're acting like this?"

"No," Dearka said, his voice hard. "That's not true."

Julie had a surprise for the teenagers at breakfast the next morning.

"My friend Cassendra and I are going out today and I volunteered you to look after her son," she announced at the table.

"What?" Dearka groaned. He slumped down in his chair and threw his fork onto his plate with a loud clatter.

"How old is he?" Miriallia asked.

"Eighteen months," Julie chimed, positively beaming.

"A baby?" Dearka whined.

"A toddler, actually," Miriallia corrected.

Dearka rolled his eyes but stopped halfway when Yzak's boot caught him under the table.

"Cassendra will be over soon," Julie said and flitted out of the room to get made up.

The three crunched away on their cereal for a few moments before Miriallia spoke up. "This could be fun," she said. "Someone to liven things up."

"Such a pain," Dearka said and then grunted with another kick.

"I'm going to shower before they get here," Miriallia said and took her bowl out of the dining room.

"What are you doing?" Yzak hissed at his friend.

"What are you doing?" Dearka winced, rubbing the welt on his shin.

"Stop being so thick-headed and think about this," Yzak commanded. "What do girls love?"

"Um..." Dearka stumbled, only absently massaging his wound. "Jewellery, clothes, expensive cars...?"

"Kids, you moron." Yzak seemed to be making a habit of rubbing his temples. "They like kids. More importantly, they like guys who like kids. Stupid fantasies about have babies and good fathers and crap like that."

"Dude, where do you get this stuff from?"

Yzak narrowed his eyes. "I have my sources," he said simply. "If you can impress Miriallia by showing that you are good with kids—"

"Then I'll score a ton of points!" Dearka finished, a triumphant smile on his face. It dropped just as quickly as it appeared. "But I can't stand kids."

When Miriallia was ready she went down the stairs to find Dearka and Julie standing at the door with a tall woman holding a toddler.

Julie waved Miriallia over and introduced her. "Miriallia, dear, this is my friend Cassendra and her son Octavian. Cassendra, this is Dearka's fiancée."

Miriallia shook hands with the woman, her grip unusually hard. Miriallia pulled away as quickly as she could and massaged her knuckles discretely.

"Well, shall we be off?" Julie said.

With much fussing and kissing Octavian goodbye, the two women left the boy in Miriallia's arms, shutting the door with an eerie sound of silence.

"Hey little guy," Dearka said to the kid, bending down to his level. The toddler started to cry. Yzak raised an eyebrow behind Miriallia's back. Dearka shrugged. "So, what do we do with him now?" he asked Miriallia.

"I don't know," she replied. A lock of her hair was twisted about in the child's pudgy fist as he wailed. She winced and tried to ease her hair away from his grip. "We could take him outside, I guess."

Yzak opened the front door.

"Where are you going?" Dearka asked, panicing.

Yzak snorted. "Like I'm going to stay here. I hate kids." The door closed and a car engine revved a few seconds later.

Miriallia frowned. "Kids aren't that bad," she said and started towards the back door.

"I love kids," Dearka called after her.

The sun did little for Octavian's disposition. He screamed and threw the toys that his mother had left in his diaper bag around the yard.

Dearka picked up a plush giraffe and took it back to where Miriallia sat on the grass, foiling Octavian's attempts to crawl away. "This kid should play baseball with a throw like that," he said. He knelt down and waggled the toy in front of the boy's face. The child reach up to take the animal and Dearka smiled triumphantly at Miriallia. The giraffe pinged off of his head.

Miriallia laughed. "I don't know how you can have so much patience," she said. "I don't know if I'm going to last with this kid."

Dearka left the toy up for dead and sat beside Miriallia. "He's a brat, isn't he?" He extended his foot to block Octavian's latest escape route.

"At least we are alone now," Miriallia said. "Relatively, anyway." Dearka didn't look up; she didn't mean what he wished she did. "I've been thinking about ways to get out of this marriage thing without putting a bad face on it."

Dearka grunted in response. A part of him had hoped that if he didn't mention it, Miriallia would forget. Of course she wouldn't. He couldn't just blow her off though; it might make her suspicious. "What were you thinking?" he asked, picking at the grass at his feet.

"We can't make it seem like the engagement was called off because we didn't get along," Miriallia said, staring up at the artificial clouds as she spoke. "That's supposedly the point of this whole travesty. Cooperation. I was thinking, what if we go along for a while, but play the just friends card?"

"How do you mean?"

"I mean, we'll make public appearances, be seen and all that, but we'll act like best friends. After a while we'll announce the end of our engagement because we're too much like brother and sister to ever marry each other. What do you think?"

"I think it might just work," Dearka said slowly, staring up at the sky as well. It just might work. A couple of months of being friends with her could change her mind about him. What did he need Yzak for? There was no way that sourpuss could have orchestrated something as perfect as this.

Octavian crawled up to Dearka, using his shoulders as leverage. "What's wrong, kid?" he asked. Octavian opened his mouth and vomited on the blond Coordinator. "Oh, my God," Dearka gagged.