A Time to Love

By: Revengest

Summary: What is Nanoha to do when the one she loves might not feel the same way? And just when she decides it's time to confess, Nanoha's love interest disappears. When she comes back she has changed and brings another blue eyed brunette with her. What will Nanoha do?

Normal font = narrator

"Quotation marks" = things said aloud by characters

"Italics font"= the thoughts of characters

*asterisks* = onomatopoeia sounds and such

Disclaimer: I don't own Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, the characters, or any of the places in the story that might be mentioned. All of that belongs to its rightful distributors.

Thanks to all who are reading and reviewing. Thanks Shlabadak for telling me the name of the city. I've gone and fixed that now.

Chapter 10: Just Getting Equipment Or Something Else?

School Time

Hayate was walking down the hallways of TSAB High School, idly playing with a small envelope in her hand. The envelope contained roughly $100. It was given to her by the school expecting her to go and buy items for the sports festival specified by the list in her pocket. Ideally, she was supposed to ask her vice president, Nanoha, to go with her during lunch, but it wasn't mandatory and no one really cared. Besides, she had someone else she wanted to go with. And that she was who Hayate was currently looking for. After a while of fruitless searching, she found the blonde in the hallway holding a stack of papers.

"Fate!" Hayate called out to her friend rushing over to her. "What are you doing?"

A Bit In The Past...

"Fate, could you take these to the office?" Shamal asked fate.

"Yes of course." Fate briskly responded taking the papers from the teachers hands. She exited the room quietly closing the door behind her. She started down the hall to the office.

"Yo Fate." A a tallish boy yelled across the hallway.

Fate turned to see the one who called her. She instantly recognized the boy as one og Jail's subordinates.

"What do you want?" Fate asked glaring at him.

"Woah. Easy, easy. Jail just asked me to give this to you." He tossed a small black bag on top of the stack of papers. "It'll help during our heist."

"Fate!"

"Looks like I've got to go. See ya later." He added before rushing off

"What are you doing." Hayate asked.

Fate looked over to see the brunette running over. "I was taking these papers to the staff room for Shamal-sensei. You want to come?" The blonde finished punctuating her sentence will her signature smile As she tried to forget her previous encounter.

Hayate blushed seeing Fate smile at her like that. "Umm..ah.. yeah, sure." She stuttered looking away to hide her rose coloured cheeks. She followed the taller student in silence as they ventured through the large school. "Hey Fate would you like to go to the mall with me during lunch? I have to go buy some equipment for the sports festival and it's kinda lonely to go alone."

Fate glanced down at the brown haired girl in thought. She didn't have anything else to do during lunch. If anything she'd have to listen to Quattro's taunting about her current situation. It was then she wondered why she hadn't left school grounds to get away from it. They were high school students so there weren't any restrictions against it. 'Cause Nanoha wouldn't leave school grounds. She thought to herself. And it was true. If she had left there'd be no opportunity to see Nanoha at all, even if it was from far off. That being said, she couldn't bring herself to say no to Hayate. It would be lonely to go by yourself.

"Sure! I'd love to come." Fate replied cheerily as she opened the door to the staff room. Entering, she gave the stack of papers to the teacher, remembering to take the black bag with her, and turned around to meet back up with Hayate.

The duo started walking back to class side by side. "We should meet each other at the school gate right after the bell rings, okay?" Hayate looked up at the blonde, confident that her blush had subsided.

"Yup. That's perfect."

Lunch Time

"Finally! Lunch! I thought that math class would never end!" Arisa exclaimed stretching her arms up before sitting down on the grass with her friends.

"It did seem like the longest class yet." Suzuka responded opening her own lunch.

"I didn't think it was that bad. Well most of it." Nanoha added. Hayate had been called down to the office after only after a few minutes of class. At this point anything that didn't include Hayate was a good thing to Nanoha. In fact, she took the opportunity to imagine Fate staring at her ignoring any of Hayate's advances. Although none this was happening since Fate was a diligent student who took notes in class, you can't blame her for imagining. Unfortunately, her imagining was cut short as Shamal had asked Fate to deliver some papers. This didn't majorly dampen her mood. Fate would be back.

Fate did indeed come back. Just not the way Nanoha was expecting, or wanted for that matter. It seemed Fate and Hayate had met up in the hall and decided to come back together. One look at Hayate's face and she knew something had happened. What exactly she couldn't tell, but she was determined to find out…after she finished her shortcake. It wasn't everyday Mrs. Takamachi would allow her daughter to take cake to school.

"At least we had it in the morning." Arisa returned starting to eat her lunch.

As the trio ate their lunch in relative silence, Nanoha spotted her rival, out of the corner of her eye, waiting by the entrance gate. The brunette found this quite odd since Hayate was always with friends. She continued to watch her rival who was leaning against the railing. And that's when she saw it. Beautiful flowing hair, long legs, attentive, deep wine-coloured eyes, and a figure unmatched by any. Fate Testarossa was running across the field in all her glory. Nanoha couldn't help but gape.

Unfortunately, the blonde was not coming towards Nanoha. Instead she turned to the awaiting Hayate. The two greeted each other before walking through the gates. But not before Hayate stole a glance back at Nanoha. Nanoha didn't need a second to understand what it meant. "2-1 Nanoha."

Our brunette didn't waste a minute. The shortcake could wait. She packed up her lunch, eyes never leaving the direction of Hayate, and hurried towards the gate, leaving her eating mates behind (though they already knew what she was most likely going to do). On her way over, she ran into a boy.

"Oh, Nanoha. What are you doing here?" He asked.

"Well…I was eating my lunch till a minute ago." She replied not sure if she fully understood the kid's question.

"No I mean shouldn't you be with Yagami-san? She's already gone to get stuff for the sports festival."

"I'm supposed to go with her?"

"Well that's what normally happens, but it isn't required." The boy answered with a shrug before walking off to catch up with his friends. "See ya then!"

"Bye." "Well that explains a lot." Nanoha thought. She had to admit, it was a good disguise for asking Fate out. Fate was just a helpful person at heart.

The brunette ran the rest of the way to make up for lost time. Since they had to buy things, it was obvious they were going to the nearby mall. Knowing this, Nanoha followed the path. Once she caught up, she was careful to be sneaky. After all, if Hayate could spot her from across a field, then there was no doubt she could catch sight of her here.

Fate and Hayate…

"So…what do we need to buy?" Fate asked breaking the silence. The two had been walking in a comfortable quiet, both not knowing what to say.

"I haven't really looked at the list yet." Hayate fished around her pocket for the paper she'd been given. I have to do this right. We only have a little over an hour. Should we buy the items first or have fun first? Since I don't know how long it'll take, we should buy stuff first, then on our way back we could stop at various shops. After finishing her train of thought, Hayate brought out the small slip of paper. Luckily for her and her plans, all the items were small and able to fit in one shopping bag, two at most.

"Streamers, tape, poster paper… (etc.)" Fate listed out loud. "How much do we have?"

"100 exactly, so we don't have to buy the cheap types." Hayate chose this time to move a little closer to the blonde. She glanced up and saw the blonde didn't mind. Taking this as a good sign, she took it a little further…well maybe a lot. She openly grabbed fate's right arm and pulled it closer to herself. Since Fate was taller Hayate's head only reached the shoulder of Fate's jacket. "*Aaahhh* It's getting chillier now that fall's almost ending. I'm lucky Fate's really warm." She announced hiding the true intention of her actions.

"Yeah winter's just around the corner isn't it." Fate replied awkwardly blushing madly. "Good thing the sports festival is sooner than later." She didn't know what to say or think about Hayate's actions. She wasn't an overly 'touchy feely' person. Before she met Nanoha, Arisa and Suzuka she was completely uncomfortable around people. But she couldn't really say no to Hayate's hug. Hayate was probably just a 'touchy feely' type of person.

"Yes. She doesn't seem to mind. But I can't take it too fast. If she really does like Nanoha she'll just push me away once I go too far."

The two ventured into the mall buying all the stuff on the list, a furious Nanoha not far behind. She wanted so badly to just walk in front of the two and make it seem like it was coincidence, but she knew that Fate and Hayate both knew that she wasn't the type of person to leave school property. Both would know that she was following them. She didn't want to seem like a stalker, although it's too late. She'd have to settle with observing to make sure Hayate didn't cross the line. Grabbing hold of Fate's arm was already a major violation.

"Hmm. Strange. You'd think it'd be in this aisle." Hayate thought aloud walking up and down the lane.

"I'll go check the next aisle over." Fate announced making her way over.

"Yeah, I'll check here again." The brunette responded turning around only to run into something. Or rather someone.

"What do you think you're doing?" Nanoha grilled staring straight at her classmate.

Hayate was surprised Nanoha had followed her all the way here. Though somewhere inside her she kind of knew she would. She gathered herself together to respond to Nanoha's question. "I'm looking for tape. You know the transparent type, though at this point any type of tape would be great." She replied evenly, going back to searching the racks.

"That's not what I mean! Why are you here with Fate?!" She screamed careful not to attract the attention of the blonde nearby.

"Like I said before, looking for tape."

"You're supposed to ask the vice president to go with you."

"Supposed to, not have to. I wanted to go with Fate, so I asked her. What's so bad about that?"

"I do not permit you to ask my Fate-chan those types of questions!" She shouted back unaware of her possessiveness of fate.

"Your Fate? Fate doesn't belong to anyone. Especially not you. How could she belong to someone she hates?"

"She doesn't hate me. She's just in a hard place right now…" Nanoha trailed off thinking of the past few days.

"What kind of a hard place?" Hayate questioned Nanoha disbelievingly.

"It's not my place to say right now." She had told Arisa and Suzuka some details, but that was before it became more complicated. Even her best friends didn't know about Lindy's call the other day.

"Of course it isn't your place to say." Hayate rolled her eyes with her response turning back to look for the tape again.

Nanoha wanted to say something to prove to Hayate that she was right, but she couldn't.

"Found it!" Nanoha froze in her steps. Hayate silently scolded herself for forgetting about the consequences of this happening. It was the worst case scenario for Hayate for Fate to see Nanoha here.

"…Nanoha?..." Fate asked astonished. "What are you doing here?" "Doesn't she only stay at school?"

"Hey Fate-chan…I was just um… just…" Nanoha looked around quickly searching for an excuse. She grabbed the first thing she could. "Lead…I ran out? I guess…*Nyahaha*" Her hand instinctively moved to the back of her head rubbing it in an embarrassed fashion. "I just happened to meet Hayate here." "I didn't want this type of coincidence to happen. I hope Fate doesn't think badly of me."

"Oh I see." Fate said dropping the tape in the basket Hayate was carrying.

"Are you done too? We could go back to school together." Nanoha added. "Nice one Nanoha. This'll stop Hayate and Fate-chan from going anywhere. Plus Fate doesn't seem weirded out by me." She glanced over at Hayate and knew the other brunette knew her intentions. If Fate wasn't standing there, she would've stuck her tongue out at Hayate.

"Yeah, that was the last thing on the list."

The trio made their way to the check-out line and paid for their possessions. After the man bagged them Fate took the bags to carry back to school, leaving Hayate's hands free and Nanoha with a single packet of lead to put in her pocket.

As if the two were twins, the brunettes both asked to hold the bags for their blonde friend. Fate politely declined their offers no matter how persistent they got. From then on the whole walk back to school was made in complete silence with two fiery aura's competing from opposite sides of their affection.

Hayate did notice that Fate didn't seem particularly upset to have Nanoha with her. I'll just have to step up my game.

Meanwhile…

"That's the third robbery this week and still no evidence!" A clearly exasperated police admiral yelled. "Are you sure there is no camera footage?"

"Well we found this…" an intimidated police officer offered posting it up on the screen. It showed a black figure holding a can of spray paint. The figure spray painted the words 'BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME ADMIRAL' on the wall.

Admiral Lindy knew for a fact it was Jail's group. No other criminal group had such a deep rivalry with the admiral ranked officer. But the cloaked figure was not enough to go by. It could be anyone. A boy or girl between the ages of 15-25 with an average body build. She wanted to relate it to one of Fate's classmates, but the robbery was done during school hours and they were recorded as being present during class. Besides this footage, there was no other evidence of the robbery. If only she could ask Fate where Jail's hideout was, but since Nanoha was being used against her, it was unlikely Fate would reveal anything. Even if she gave Nanoha police protection, Fate would get blamed by Jail for the police finding out about someone watching Nanoha. She was so close to getting Fate out of her situation, yet so far.

"Just you wait Jail Scaglietti."

A/N: Another chapter and within the same month too. I'm proud of myself for getting this done and it's over 2000 words. Again thanks for all the reviews. I'm happy to have reached 50. Please continue to review please.