Chapter Seven

And I actually woke up early, almost giving my parents and Maya heart attacks when I walked into the kitchen at 6.30. My dad even check that he's watch to make sure that it was working properly.

"Ha ha, you're hilarious." I informed him as I grabbed a bowl of cereal and some coffee. Yes, I was awake but that didn't exactly mean I was in a good mood about it.

"And here I was thinking that you were gracing us with a good mood this morning." Dad said, looking mockingly offended at me.

"It's too early to be in a good mood." I grumbled back at him as I took a sip of my coffee.

"And yet you're up?" Dad pointed up.

I scowled at him before thumping my head against the table top. Bloody hell, it was too early to be awake!

"I don't think that classes as being up, dear." I heard Mom comment as she walked behind my chair, running her fingers through my hair, trying to bring some sort of tameness to the chaos that my hair is. She was fighting a losing battle there, there was simply no taming Moscovitz hair, it did what it wanted, when it wanted. But still, even with this knowledge at hand, she still tries.

"You had better brighten up before Mia comes." Dad said, continuing on with his teasing. "Don't want her to know what a grouch you are in the morning."

Maya gave a snort.

"Like she does not know already." She chuckled in her deep, accent voice. "She has known him for long enough."

"Thank you." I said to them all sarcastically, "are you both quite finished?"

"Leave him alone," Mom ordered, "he's nervous enough as it is about seeing Mia after so long, without you two teasing him."

I gave her a deadpanned look.

"Not helping Mom."

"It's Mia. What's he got to be nervous about?" Dad snorted.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.

"It's Mia." Dad said again, "She's seen you good and bad. You've seen her, good and bad. The whole nervous, awkward stage of getting to know someone, the good, the bad and the ugly, neither of you need to worry about it because you already know basically everything there is to know about each other."

This was true. I mean I have known Mia since she was six years old.

"It's still different." I said.

"How?" Dad asked looking amused and interest. As did Mom now. Oh god, I walked right into this one. As a quick look for help in Maya direction quickly informed me.

"Because before I was simply her best friends older brother and now…"

"You're her boyfriend? Honestly Michael, just because you are now her boyfriend, it doesn't mean you have you have change everything about your relationship with Mia. You can keep it exactly the same as before, just with the boyfriend elements thrown in as well."

"Does that work?" I asked doubtfully.

"Just be the person that you are and the person that Mia fell in love with and you should be fine." Mom finished for Dad.

"Ok."

"You don't have anything to be nervous about." Dad added with a smile.

"Ok." I said again trying to keep myself calm as I watched the clock slowly draw nearer and nearer to 7.45.

I fidgeted the whole time, though my parent's words did seem to calm down the worse of my nerves, so that when it came time to head down to the lobby to wait for Mia's limo, I was almost completely calm.

Though that almost completely calm quickly disappeared the moment Mia's limo came around the corner.

"You're pathetic, you know that right?" Lil snorted from beside me. I couldn't even thick how to respond to that jibe, too caught up in the worry of what I was actually going to say to Mia, seeing her face to face after thirty-two days. More than anything I simply wanted to grab her and kiss her but that probably wouldn't go down well.

"Really, really pathetic." I heard Lil saying under her breath as the Limo pulled to stop in front of us. Heart in my throat, which by the way is the strangest feeling ever, it really does feel like some vital organ is stuck half way in your throat, making it hard to breath and speak.

Then she hopped out of the limo and suddenly, I was normal again. I don't know how to explain it, one moment I'm nervous, unable to think straight and breathing had become a challenge and then, there she was and suddenly I was fine. I was calm, thinking with my full capacity and breathing normally.

I felt normal and actually, I don't think I've felt this normal since the last time that I saw her.

"Hi." She said, sounding a tiny bit squeaky and she looked shy, with this pretty pink blush flushing across her cheeks.

She had grown some over the break, not much, but still noticeable. So had her hair, growing still in the triangle shape that she hates so much, but I like because it's unique, like her. She is still as gangly as ever. And she is completely beautiful to me.

"Hi." I could have quite happily just looked at her all day, except of course, annoyingly I couldn't, as made extremely obvious by Lil's annoyed sigh from somewhere nearby.

"Oh for Pete's sake." She complained before storming past both of us and into the limo.

"It's really good to see you." And it was, it was fantastic!

"It's really good to see you, too." She replied shyly, but she was giving me this beautiful smile that I had prayed and hoped that would be simply mine one day and my heart skipped a beat when she smiled it at me.

"It's really cold out; will you two hurry up and get in here already?" We both heard Lil complain loudly from with the depths of the limo.

Mia's face exploded with colour and she ducked her head to hide that as she mumbled, "I guess we'd better…"

"Yeah." I said, moving forward slightly without thinking, grasping the Limo door to hold it open for her. She shot me her beautiful smile as she moved to step in, which just made the desire to kiss her, in public view be damned, grow even more.

I gently put my hand on her arm as she moved to duck her head into the limo, causing her to turn around to face me, with a mildly curious expression on her face.

"So can you go, on Friday night?" I felt shy again as I asked her, though again that disappeared when she smiled at me again and said, "uh huh."

I couldn't help it then. I mean, she is beautiful, she is my girlfriend and I haven't seen her in thirty-two days, so shoot me for wanting to kiss her.

I gave a gentle pull on her arm, causing her to step back towards me and moving faster than I was actually aware that I could, I bent down and kissed her, right on the mouth.

For a single moment, I thought I might have stuffed up big time due to Mia being, for a moment, unresponsive and stiff to my kiss, but before I could work myself into a state of panic, she started kissing me back and all was pretty much right in the world. Well, mine at least. And hers too.

It took a lot of self-restraint not to just wrap my arms around her and keep kissing her for the rest of the day, which was extremely tempting and I was pretty sure I wasn't going to hear any protests or complaints from the girl in my arms, but rude thoughts involving words like school, first day, people are probably staring at you, you sister is right there, kept invading my head and ruining a perfectly good reunion kiss.

I pulled away from her with a great deal of reluctance, her pouting didn't help either, but somehow I managed to get us both in the limo without falling back to temptation of kissing her again and for the rest of the day.

"Good morning." Lars greeted me as I closed the limo door and we had set off for school.

"Good morning." I said back to him, trying to ignore the fact that he was smirking a knowing, smug smirk from behind his Latte. I simply continued to focus on Mia, which is surprisingly restful now, not like it was before.

When I watched her before, it was from a distance, with longing for something that I thought I would never have, but now, she is my girlfriend and looking at her now is like the most natural thing in the world, like with everything else with her. I don't have to try, I just do.

Lil was on about her letter that she sent to the studio that created the film about Mia's life, annoyed that they haven't sent back a reply to her, even though it's been almost a week since she sent it. She's planning on going to the news media if the studio doesn't reply back to her by tomorrow afternoon.

This caught both mine and Mia's attention. Mia blinked at her in surprise."

"You mean you're going to have a press conference?" Mia asked surprised.

"Why not?" Lilly shrugged. "You did it, and up until recently, you could barely formulate a coherent sentence in front of a camera. So how hard can it be?" Insulting much, Lil?

Mia didn't say anything in reply, her face pulled into a worried expression.

I smiled reassuringly at her. She smiled nervously back.

We arrived at school and it was amusing to see the number of people that had casts on their limbs as we walked up the front steps into school.

I walked by Mia's side ignoring the looks we got because we were holding hands as we walked down the hall for her locker.

"I'll see you later, ok." I said as I quickly kissed her forehead.

She smiled up at me.

"See you."

With a happy sigh I headed for my locker before making my way to my homeroom, ignoring the looks that I received from Richter and his gang.

"So was that just a onetime thing or have you finally gotten your act together and asked her out?" Richter asked me as he came over to my desk.

"What's it to you?" I asked. He shrugged.

"Nothing, really. Simply curious. So, are you? Are you going out with the princess?"

I looked up at him, into his curious blue eyes and at everyone else who was looking at us, waiting for my answer.

"Yes, I am." I watched him blink at that.

"Good for you." He said and went back to his desk with the rest of his cronies.

"Welcome back." Our homeroom teacher, Mr Clarkson greeted us with an expression that spoke he'd much rather be in bed, much like the rest of us.

"Alright so new semester, so you all know what that means," he held up a bunch of papers, "new schedules."

Oh no.

Crap.

New time schedules, meaning all my classes may have been changed around, which is fine in one way, I might get out of having Richter in a couple of classes, but what about G&T and Lunch? What about if I get different times for those to Mia?

Crap.

When Clarkson called my name, I moved stiffly to his desk, my fingers crossed in my pants pocket. Please, please.

My time table was much the same as it was, except that now PE and French had swapped places, meaning I know had PE last thing for the day… wonderful. And my Multimedia class was now sixth period instead of fourth.

But lunch and G&T were at the same times as before. Thank god. But there was still the problem of whether or not Mia's schedule has remained more or less the same as last semester.

As I made my way to English, an idea suddenly occurred to me. Mia's algebra classroom is only just down the hall, so… I just hoped she still had Algebra this period.

A quick look into the classroom quickly soothed my worry because there she was, sitting behind Weinberger and getting her books out.

I knocked on the door, causing Mr G looked away from sorting out his notes on his desk to me, his eyes widening in surprise before he rolled them at me and nodded in Mia's direction, telling me to make it quick. I gave him a grateful smile before heading over to Mia's desk, my schedule in my hand, ignoring all the curious eyes that were following me in disbelief.

"Hey." I said when I came to stand by her desk. She looked up from her books to me, her eyes wide with surprise before smiling.

"Hi."

"What lunch have you got?" I asked. Please lunch A, please.

"A." I grinned.

"Same as me. You have G and T after?"

"Yes."

I grinned wider at her.

"Cool, see you at lunch." I said. I gave her the quickest of pecks on her cheek before I made my way out of the classroom.

"Hey, Mr G." I said as I walked past his desk, who just looked back at me with raised eyebrows and an amused look.

As soon as I walked into English I was immediately tackled by Judith and Felix, who both dragged me to the three empty desks at the back of the room.

"Please tell us that you and the princess are actually together now." Felix more or less begged me.

I grinned at him.

"Oh thank god." Felix said, flopping into the chair on one side of me while Judith took the other side.

"You two haven't gone out yet though?" Felix asked.

I shook my head.

"No, not yet. Friday we will though."

"Really?" Judith smiled at me. "What are you going to do?"

"Um, you know the Screening room?" they both nodded. "Well it's showing the first Star Wars movie, the original, this Friday and I thought I'd take Mia to it."

"Told you." Felix said around me to Judith. "Told you it would be something like that for their first date." Judith pulled a face back at him and handing him ten dollars.

I rolled my eyes at the pair of them.


The day dragged and it seemed like forever before lunch finally came around.

"You're not sitting with us today, are you?" Paul asked as the four of us walked into the caff together.

"Nope." I said with a grin, I headed over to where I could see Mia (and Lars) walking over to the salad bar.

With a quick grin to Lars, I darted around him and wrapped an arm around Mia's waist. She jumped before calming when she realised it was me.

"Hello." I said, smiling warmly at her.

"Hi." She said brightly.

"How's your day been?" I asked as we got our food and headed over to her table.

"Ok. You know, I'm not flunking Algebra." I grinned at her as we sat down at the table.

It was a little strange to be sitting at a table with a group of freshman, but overall, it wasn't all that bad.

They were a funny group of kids; each one of them having their own specific quirk that made them unique and stand out from the mundane sheep crowd that walked the corridors of AEHS. But of course, this meant that they were outcasts from the mundane sheep crowd, usually teased and bullied by the larger crowd of boring sheep. And because of this, they tended to force themselves to disappear, so you simply overlook them in the corridors, not realising that they really were unique, interesting people with their own ideas that they followed instead of following a trend like the rest of the flock.

So, even though for a while there they talked about Charmed, (which I simply can't stand mainly because the whole show is facile. It could be a great show, with some great story lines, but it doesn't because they always take the simplistic and superficial approach with every episode. The show has no depth), they actually made some interesting points besides Leo being hot and that they want the clothes that the girls in the show wear.

But anyway, they are interesting bunch of kids, because someone, I think Boris, brought up cloning. Like if you could clone anyone, who would it be and the answers that these kids gave were actually pretty good.

Several of them said they would clone Albert Einstein and Jonas Salk. Boris said he would clone Mozart so that he could finish his last requiem. We all groaned at him before we kept talking. Mia and Lil's friend Tina said she would clone, if she could, Madame Pompadour so that she could get some tips from her about romance. Beside me I heard Mia mutter something about Madam de Pompadour being famous for other things besides sleeping with a king.

I almost choked on my food as I tried to keep myself from laughing.

Lilly, and this surprise me some, wanted to clone Jane Austen, so that she could write a scathing novel about current day social mores and that we could all benefit from cutting wit. I've read Mansfield Park, last year for English, and it was long and it was boring. I didn't find it overly scathing or witty at all, just a book that with almost every single chapter spent at least five pages describing either a house or the dresses that the girls in the book were wearing. It was a dull book and Edmund was a complete idiot!

I have never met someone so blind as him. I mean, it was so flipping obvious to almost everyone else that Fanny had a thing for him, but he was completely blind to it… Oh, wait, I have met someone as blind as him and he happens to be sitting in my chair… face palm.

Anyway, when I was asked who I would clone, I said Kurt Cobain, and as I expected I would, I received a lot of weird, confused looks from all the kids sitting around the table. Not that I blame them, though, since it understandable that they wouldn't know who he is/was since they were only little kids when he died. But anyway, besides that, I explained that my reason for cloning him was because he was a musical genius who died way too young.

I didn't go into too much detail about him though, like for example, how he died. Drug abuse and suicide isn't exactly a topic you talk about at lunch, especially not in your school were those very words can have you dragged off to the principals office then off to the counsellor's room.

I then asked Mia who she would clone, though I actually had a pretty good idea who she was going to say.

She thought for a little while, probably trying to come up with someone other than who I was predicting she was going to say in the end anyway.

Somewhat red in the face she finally mumbled out Fat Louie, as I knew she would eventually. When she got even weirder looks than me for my choice of who I would clone, she explained that she loved him and that she wouldn't mind having two of him around.

Yeah, more people that I'd have to compete with for her attention. She loves that cat more than anything in the world.

"That's nice." I said because seriously it was. I mean, we had all chosen people from whom we'd have something to gain from, but Mia, Mia chose to clone someone, or rather her pet simply because she loves him, more than anything in the world, which is shows just how sweet and loving she is.

She ducked her head, embarrassed, and the conversation kept going.


The rest of the day was pretty boring and dragged out, that by the time it came to going home I felt dead on my feet, though Mia probably beat me with that feeling, because she actually looked dead on her feet.

She looked so exhausted when walking for her limo that I was actually worried that she might fall over because her eyes kept dropping close with each step she took.

Jet lag, I suddenly realised, she only flew in from Genovia last night and they were several hours in front of us, so no wonder she was so quiet and out of it today.

I tried to ring her later that night only to be told by her mom that she had literally pass out and that it wasn't likely for her to wake up anytime sooner than tomorrow morning. I said thanks before hanging up, worry for her making my stomach coil.

Why didn't she just stay home today? Or why couldn't she have been flown back Sunday, so that she could have had yesterday to recover from her trip?

Biting my lip I headed back for my room, trying to force my brain to focus on other things, because worrying about her won't do anything, I know, but I can't help it.

So while I tried out some of my new songs out of my guitar (which I had had to leave here because Mom and Dad wouldn't let me take to the Grandma's and Pop's condo, saying that we had enough luggage (and Pavlov) as it was without the add addition of my guitar. Which I guess I can understand, it isn't exactly the lightest of things on the face of the planet.), as well as trying to come up with a band name (Felix and Paul, while eager to give the whole band thing a try, were as clueless as I was as to what to name ourselves. Felix had teasing suggest Flypaper as a name, but I promptly turned down the idea by thumping him in the shoulder, hard.), I continued to silently worry about her.

She'll be fine, I kept telling myself, she's simply tired. She'll be fine tomorrow.

I kept telling myself this all night until I finally fell asleep.


Author's Note: So M&M are finally reunited! YAY!
And guess what I've more or less finished writing today. That's right, I have more or less finished writing this fic. YAY! I'm pretty happy about that. I think this is the quickiest I have ever written a fic, I'm quite proud. I've been bored and have been on grandmother sitting duty, and what else is there better to do between get thousands of cups of tea and making sure she is eating her food at the right times, but write! So that's what I've been doing.
Now on to book five! YAY!
Thanks for reading and comments are much loved!