**Saying the Right Thing. 20 AF**

Fang awoke with a dizzying headache. Her temples pounded against her skull almost rhythmically and she rolled her eyes back into her head, trying to ignore it. She let her head spin for a moment before opening her eyes to gather her surrounding. Her vision slowly came into focus and she recognized the ceiling above her, letting out a soft moan of approval. She'd somehow made it home after drinking herself stupid at Lebreau's bar the night before. Half the time she'd pass out in the front yard after failing to get her key in the door. She would sometimes try knocking but Lightning refused to get up to let her in if she was too inebriated to get into the house herself, and Vanille would usually sleep through the noise.

Thinking on Lightning, Fang smiled and reached an arm out beside her, searching for the familiar warmth but frowned when she came up with nothing. She furrowed her brow and painstakingly turned to her side, only to see Lightning's side of the bed empty. Fang moaned slightly in confusion, noting a small pink rose on Lightning's pillow. Fang reached for it and inspected it, wondering where it had come from or what it was doing on Lightning's pillow.

After a moment she simply pinched the bridge of her nose and gave up, setting the rose back onto the pillow and rolling back over, considering a couple more hours of sleep to work off her hangover. Before she closed her eyes though, she noticed a tall glass of water set on her bedside table. She arched a brow and wondered if that was her own doing or Lightning's. Either way, it was a godsend. Seeing the glass of water made her realize just how parched she was and so she reached for the glass and downed the liquid within seconds. She was almost certain in that moment that it was the best glass of water she had ever drank.

She went to set the glass back down but stopped, noticing a small note that had been anchored by the glass earlier. She knitted her eyebrows in confusion before plucking it up and setting down the glass.

Fang,

I've gone to the market to pick up ingredients for your favourite breakfast. Be back soon.

Love Light.

Fang sat dumbfounded for a moment, feeling a panic settling in. What was the date? Was it their anniversary? Had she forgotten it? She tried to recall the day before in order to sort it out. "Okay... Thursday I went to see one of those... blockbuster things Snow wont shut up about... it came out on the... 19th?" Fang murmured aloud to herself. "That makes today the 21st... Our anniversary isn't for another 2 weeks... That can't be it." Fang made a face. What was she missing?

Lightning had left her a rose, and water. She'd left the house early to pick up bacon and hash browns just for her... She had to be missing something. Normally when Fang would come home plastered, Lightning would give her the silent treatment for a few hours, knowing how Fang used to get drunk and bring home girls before the two of them had gotten together. Lightning hated knowing that her girlfriend was out, assuredly getting drinks from other women... Lightning would try not to let her jealousy show, but it was clear how she felt about Fang's weekend benders. "The hell is going on?"

Determined to figure out her little mystery, Fang pulled herself from her covers and made her way into the bathroom to take a quick shower, hoping it would help her pretend like she wasn't dying from an overdose. She quickly hopped into the hot water, as she tried to remember just what had happened the night before but only small flashes returned to her.

Vanille had been the one to open the door after Fang had started ringing the door bell incessantly, yelling about how she was about to piss herself, loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear. Fang grimaced... surely Lightning hadn't missed that, so why the kindness from the soldier when she would usually be so mad she'd refuse to make eye contact for hours with her?

Fang shook her head and continued to wash herself when she felt a sharp stinging along her arm. She adjusted to inspect it and found a long cut running along the back of her arm. A few butterfly bandages had been applied to it in order to keep the cut closed but Fang had no recollection of how she'd gained the cut. She sighed, the mystery only growing. She popped back out of the shower and started to dry off before noticing something on the mirror. She cocked her face to the side, noticing a message that had been written on the mirror prior to her shower that now showed up in the steam.

A simple "I love you" written in Lightning's hand writing. Now Fang was really starting to worry. It wasn't like Lightning to leave little surprises. Lightning hated surprises... and she certainly wasn't the corny romantic type.

She inspected the little message a moment longer like it would reveal some great secret to her, and it did. As the steam started to fade, she realized she had a deep black eye. She touched it gently and flinched at the pain. "Where the hell did that come from?"

Fang quickly got dressed, hoping to talk to Vanille before Lightning got back, and figure out just what had happened. She made her way down the stairs and through the living room, stopping upon seeing the glass from their fancy coffee table missing. "... What?" Fang arched a brow. Suddenly a memory came back to her.

She'd been stumbling through the living room, drunk off her ass, trying to get upstairs to bed when she'd stumbled right into the table. She winced at the memory, and felt her arm pang lightly in response. She remembered now. The glass had broken from her fall and cut her arm up pretty good... she'd left a bloody mess all over the hardwood as she crawled up the stairs but now, the floors were clean and not a trace of glass or blood was to be found. Surely, Lightning's handiwork.

"But... Lightning loved that table..." Fang pressed a hand to her forehead, "This has to be a trap. She's going to poison me, isn't she?"

"What's that, Fang?"

Fang straightened at the sound of Vanille's voice coming from the kitchen. "Right!" Fang headed to the kitchen, hoping Vanille could tell her what was going on. The small red head sat at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of sugary cereal in her PJs. "Vanille! What the hell is going on?"

Vanille cocked a questioning eyebrow at Fang's clear distress. "What do you mean?"

Fang motioned in the air vaguely. "Is Lightning going to try to murder me, or what? What the hell happened last night?"

Vanille chuckled softly, food still in her cheeks. "You came home at 3AM, out of your damn mind. You broke the coffee table and bled all over the place... then you crawled up the stairs... trailing more blood around the house... on the floors the walls... Everywhere. Then you stumbled into the doorknob and gave yourself a black eye. Lightning was so mad that she had to patch you up so early in the morning."

Fang knitted her eyebrows even more. "But she left me little love notes... and a rose..."

"Oh, that! She was going to kill you last night, but after she patched you up she went to put you to bed... She tried to take off your pants and you started screaming at her 'Leave me alone! I have a girlfriend!'"

AN: Just a short little story based off of a joke I heard years ago. Thought it would work well on these two :P