A/N: Back in Nancy's POV, the next day. :)

Disclaimer: Me no own.

11

I woke up way too early for it to be a normal day. I stretched, looked around and realized that Helena was already gone, and then marched into the bathroom. I found my Aerie perfume bottle empty and a pink stain on the white marble countertop. I didn't bother to wonder about it before quickly changing out of my pajamas.

After I had washed my face, straightened my hair, and did all that other stuff, I meandered out onto the balcony. Nico was still deep in slumber, curled up in a tight ball in the same corner. I could've sworn I heard a faint snore. I would've been laughing at that, but as I opened my mouth to giggle, I caught a glimpse of my missing detective book.

Grumbling angrily to myself, I snatched it away from Nico, ripping it out of his fingers. That was what woke him up.

I could see in his face that he wanted very badly to say something mean, but he didn't. Instead, he scratched the back of his neck, took a deep breath, and said, "I think I shall leave today."

I felt like screaming "THANK YOU GOD!" to the skies, but I refrained. He hadn't been that bad of a tenant, besides the fact that he was a criminal. "Cool," I said in response to his random statement.

Nico blinked. He must've been expecting the screaming to the skies. "So…you are not going to call the GdiF on me?"

I shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not." At the look on his face, I snickered. "I'm just joking. Gosh."

I turned as if to walk back into the Ca', but Nico stopped me. A smirk tugged at the corners of my lips. My ploy had worked.

"Sorry," said Nico quickly, crinkling his nose as if it was hard to apologize, "I am very stressed."

"No worries," I said with a shrug, plopping down across from him. "I'm like that most days. I can see how you, of all people, are stressed."

Nico gave me a rueful half-smile. It was sort of sad to see. He shifted around and stood up, stretching his arms out. "Well," he said slowly, "I'm going to leave." He made as if to leap over the balcony edge, and it seemed to be on second thought that he added, "And thanks for, you know...saving me."

I shrugged again. "No problemo, senor."

He snorted and was gone.

I scratched the back of my head, wondering what to do. With Nico gone, there was a lot less stress in my life. Less exciting action. I meandered slowly into the room where Colin was oh-so-carefully lowering a chunk of tesserae to another chunk of tesserae. "Hiya," I blurted.

Colin let out a girly shriek and dropped the slice of tesserae to the floor. "Nancy!" he gasped, bringing a hand to his heart, "how dare you! Now I have to start all over again!"

"Oops," I said, covering my mouth in a futile attempt to hide my giggle. He shot me a glare and bent over to sweep the pieces into his hand. I suddenly felt kinda bad. "...how can I make it up to you?"

I was expecting him to say something like, 'Look at more tesserae with me!' or 'Re-do this tesserae yourself!' or even 'Break up with locket boy!' although I sort of already had. I certainly didn't expect the words, "Come with me to a masquerade dance tomorrow night" to pop out of his mouth.

"Uh...what?" I asked, even though I had caught it all.

Colin blinked innocently, dropping the tesserae pieces back onto the table. "I asked you to go with me to a masquerade dance tomorrow night at the dance club. It's not too far away."

Ugh. So he really had said that.

"I, um, have something to do," I spluttered, speed-walking into my room. Colin laughed.

"Nice try, Nancy," he called. "Please?"

Oh, no. Not the puppy-dog eyes! "Okay, Colin," I said, rolling my eyes, "I'll go with you." And suddenly, I realized that I had to ask Joe and Ned to go with us. Just to make it a more enjoyable event.

I almost laughed aloud. Colin? Dancing? Date? Enjoyable?

Less painful. Yeah, that described it much better.