Annie Montrose had a really foul mouth, Mark had noticed. She and the President's social secretary, Elaine Kohn, had driven out to Langley to meet with him this morning, and were currently picking his brain on the fine details of the state dinner, which was scheduled one week from tomorrow. The current hot topic was the dinner menu.

"No potatoes." Mark smirked. "Oaiea hates them. You don't want to start World War 3, Elaine."

Annie rolled her eyes. "Seriously, though, can you think of anything, anything at all, that we can use, here? Is she a vegetarian? Is there anything that we absolutely shouldn't have?" Traditionally, a state dinner's menu would pay some homage to the guest of honor, but they'd been unable to come up with any workable ideas.

"I really don't think she'll care, Annie. I've never met anyone in my life that cares less about fine dining."

Elaine nodded. It was too late in the game to be changing the menu now, anyway.

"Any progress on finding yourself a date, Mark?" Annie smirked at him. She was merciless.

Mark glared at her, defiantly. "I don't need one." This was bullshit. He looked at them, mutinously. He'd heard it all before. Even his Mom had called him up to tell him about some lovely daughter of some friend, before he'd told her to butt out.

Elaine shook her head, "You really ought to consider it. Nearly everyone attends a state dinner with a date, Mark. It's going to look kind of..." she trailed off. She didn't want to be mean, here.

"Pathetic." finished Annie. "Like our hero can't find a date."

"Fine," he snapped, "I'll ask Oaiea."

The look of abject horror on their faces. Oh, God, this was too good to be true. They thought he was serious.

Elaine coughed delicately, and began, "Mark, I don't know if that would-"

"Are you out of your FUCKING-" Annie saw Mark crack a smile, then. He couldn't help it. He ducked, as Annie smacked him over the head with a folder full of paperwork. "Asshole."

"I try."

"Moving along," Elaine cleared her throat, looking relieved, "What is your physical condition like, these days? Are we looking at you spending most of the evening in a wheelchair? It would be great if you could be standing during at least some of the portraits. Any chance of that?"

Mark thought for a moment. "I'm standing for pretty decent periods of time now, I might be okay with a cane and some frequent breaks. I'll talk with Beck about it."

"You are looking a lot better these days," Annie conceded. "You know, if you're interested, there's a girl over in SatCon that I work with-"

"OUT." Mark pointed to the door.

Enough was enough.

x x x

He was going to regret this. He already regretted it, actually. Dialing Elaine Kohn's number, to merely ask, about this distinctly unlikely possibility, had his hands sweaty, and heart pounding. But it was the best option he'd been able to come up with, even though ordinarily he wouldn't have acted on anything, nearly this quickly. Her secretary answered, who knew that secretaries had secretaries? and transferred him to Elaine.

"Mark, what can I do for you?" Elaine was polite, but inwardly she was smiling. She already thought she knew what this was about.

"Elaine, I was actually... curious, if... you happened to know," he took a deep breath, "whether or not Sophia Roberts already has a plus-one, for the state dinner."

Ha! She was right! "Oh, that's a good idea, Mark. Let me check." She pretended to shuffle things around on her desk for a moment, "Oh, hmm. Yea, it looks like she doesn't. That might work out very well."

"Okay. Well, thanks Elaine," he trailed off awkwardly, "Umm..."

"You know, your tuxedo was delivered here a little while ago, and I'm awfully busy and don't have time to drive it out to you for a couple of days, Mark."

"My... what?"

"You know, I think I'll ask Sophia if she might have time to drive it over to you tonight, how would that be?" Elaine rolled her eyes. Men could be so dense.

"Oh! Yea, that would be great. Thank you, Elaine." He sat staring at the phone, long after the line had gone dead.

Holy hell, what had he gotten himself into?

x x x

Sure enough, Sophia turned up around 9 o'clock that evening, clutching a garment bag. Don't blow this, he told himself sternly.

"Hey! Thanks for dropping that off," he heard himself say, "I hope traffic wasn't too bad?" Traffic?! Shit. Oh my God, I did not just say that.

"Oh, no, it was fine. Rush hour was over hours ago." She gestured to the closet. "In here?" He nodded. He watched, as she stood on tiptoe, hanging up the garment bag. It was a nice view, and he couldn't help letting his eyes take a quick, harmless skim from the ankles, headed up, when she turned back to him, suddenly. She'd totally caught him ogling her ass. He blushed. Good god, never mind. This was hopeless.

She turned to leave, "Okay, see you later, Mark." She was headed to the door, already. Fuck!

"Did you, um, did you manage to help Oaiea find a dress?" he stammered. She took a couple of steps back towards him.

"Oh. Yeah. I think so. She had it narrowed down to a couple of choices."

"That's good. Thanks for helping her."

"It was fun! No problem. Anytime you meet any other aliens that need a designer gown, you call me, okay?" She smiled, and shifted her weight from one leg to the other. Was she leaving again? Shit! He was dying here.

"Have you already got your dress, ready to go?"

"Oh." She paused, and looked at him, quizzically, "Yep, I just so happened, to have a little something laying around that'll probably work, for the occasion." She smiled at him.

"Uh, hey. So I was wondering. Would you be my date? That is, I mean... if you..." he trailed off miserably. Fucking hell.

Sophia turned to stare at him, silently. Appraisingly.

"Like, a real date?" She had a sort of tone to her voice. Was it... sass? He wasn't sure. It sounded promising.

"Yea. Like a real date."

"Okay. You're on." She grinned at him. Now she was the one blushing. He felt a lot better.

"Okay, then." Game on! She said yes!