~ Faking It ~

Written by: Jennifer Crusie

Re-written by: Pandora Rose

Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Basicly and utmost the point is that I basicly almost don't own -any- of this, other then some made up characters for the use of this to base into the plot of the all-knowing Jennifer Crusie, the real author of the story. The characters of 'Mars' do not belong to me nethier.This is all for your enjoyment. And how everyone should know the amazing wonders of the all knowing Romance Queen, known as Jennifer Crusie. So basicly the only thing that belongs to me is this computer... wait, a minute... no, no.. this is mummy's computer... . damn.

This is almost based on word for word, I am just warning you now. Some situations may be added by my own hand, but that is the only difference.

"Talking, talking, talking"

'Thinking, thinking, thinking'

-exagerattion-

A/N: Read and Review, pwease?

Enjoy!

***

Kira Aso bit down on her lip and stood away from the painted wall, her long, bright, red locks braided and shoved aside her shoulder, soft blue eyes scanning it. Suddenley eyeing the huge Mona Lisa she had created as a mural, she had this horrid, squirmy feeling at the pit of her stomach. A feeling that told her that this foot-to-cieling painting of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa painted on Mildred Cassing's bedroom wall was what would send her to hell.

God may had forgiven her for the Van Gogh painting in the living room in Tokyo, and for Casset's mural in a bathroom in England, and if she was really lucky she got off easy for the Degas in a Billiard in Philadelphia.

But this was His last straw. "I gave you such a talent!" He'll scold her upon her death bed. "--and look! Look, what you did with it!" Kira could just see God's cringing and wincings already.

Kira eyed it and went for her butterfly charm and shoved it in her mouth, gnawing on it all to nervously. Being on God's last nerves wasn't the least bit comforting. She could only thank Him that she had blinded her client into thinking it was a masterpiece and be getting paid for it.

"Oh...! It's just like that!" Mildred squealed, pulling her stinky cigarette from her plastic-induced lips and squinted at the tall, menacing woman known as Mona Lisa. "It's just... so... mysterious... what is she smirking at, anyways?"

Kira sighed with heavy regret and dropped her paintbrush. "Well... no one knows. He was a little out there" she insisted closing her paintbox. Mildred brought the cigarette back with a huff and knodded in agreement. "Didn't he, like, use to steal little boys and, like, mess with them?"

Kira raised a thin eyebrow for a moment, before she pulled off her paint shirt. "Uh... not that I know of... so my check--?" Mildred stopped, her smoke midway. "Did you sign it? I need this signed. I want everyone to know this is a authenthic Kira Rose Aso mural"

"It's signed" Kira promised, pointing the toe of her old, ratted Converse sneakers at the bottom where her scrawled signature lay. "Over here... now that check--???" Mildred breathed out the smoke, liesurely, clouding the room and her face. "You didn't sign it Da Vinci, did you? Wouldn't that be considered, like, forgery or whatever?" Kira pursed her lips, shaking her head. "Not unless he had a Otake Mural period we haven't heard of..." she took a deep breath. "So that check...?"

"I want that name bigger" Mildred declared confindently. "I want everyone to know you painted this. I'm even going to keep your brochure right here.." she pointed to the tiny table pulled next to the living room wall, to Kira's gleaming mural brochure. "So everyone will know it was you.. and that I have a true Kira Rose Aso"

Kira resisted on rolling her eyes, and choose to sigh instead. Milded's enthusiasm for her brand name flattered her the first few days, but from then on Kira began to get more and more agitated and annoyed by her client's rambling which was new since Kira was usually sweet tempered and let people boss her around. Changing the subject, she rubbed her paint-littered hands and said "Well, Cocoa sure was a sport through the whole thing"

The red-head grinned lightly at Mildred's trembling tiny, long-haired chiuahahua puppy, a rich tint of cocoa brown fur littered over her, relying on her theory that people adored talking about their pets.

"Her ears are almost covering your name" was Mildred's cold and disgusted answer and blew Kira's theory out the window.

Kira sighed once more and peered at the shuddering Cocoa at her feet. She had done some exageratting to the puppy's apple-sized face making it leaner in the portrait, and had added a slight orangish tint to the chocolate brown fur that fluttered over her curling like chiuahahua fur would. Cocoa looked rather like a sophistacated dog in the painting, then the fat, curly cotton ball-like dog before her.

"Sign it again" Mildred complained. "Sign it up at the tippy top with your ladder thing..." Kira already began to shake her head instantly, her long braid hitting her shoulders. "No. I promise you, they'll see it. They'll look at Cocoa and compare it to the painting. People do it all the time, look at the dog, then the picture"

Mildred gave the artist a odd look. "No, they won't" she said almost triumphantly. "She goes back to the pound today" . Kira folded the paint shirt, a feeling of foreboding following, as Cocoa pressed against her old sneakers, brown fur contrasting on her white peasent skirt.

"Cocoa- your dog- is going back to the pound?" Cocoa trembled at her name. "She's not my dog." Mildred masked a disgusted face. "You alway have puppies in your murals--"

"No, I don't"

"-- it said so in your brochure from the musuem, so I had to have one too, or people would think I'm a fake so I went and got the only purebred they had"

"Cocoa's a purebred?" Kira peered down once again at the puppy who trembled with her gaze. "Brown, long-haired chiuahahua" Mildred explained. "She'll be fine back at the pound. She practically lives there. I'm the fourth person to adopt her"

Kira just gnawed on the poor, little, golden butterfly charm.

It made sense. Mildred did seem like the stuck-up woman who would just go and -rent- a poor puppy just for the fact Kira liked to paint canines into the midst of her murals. Typical. Cocoa looked up at her at this point, shuddering, pathethic as she was ugly. 'I am not going to save you' Kira thought as she spit out her butterfly charm. 'I am not one bit herioc. I'm shy and I don't need a attention-mooching dog, especially not a puppy who looks like she rolled in herion and took LSD daily'

"C'mon, sign it! I'll even get a Sharpie for you..." Mildred went to turn and Kira felt a spur of her rare anger. "No" she insisted once more. "It's signed, it's done. Now that completion check -please-!"

"I don't know... it's just--" Mildred glanced at Kira and stood back at the steely glazed eyes that hardened whenever she felt angry she felt which was from time to time. "I'll just go get that check, then" Her client smacked her very fake lips and went away. Leaving her alone with Cocoa. All alone. Kira tried to divert her eyes trying to think of something that didn't have to do with the words put, to, and sleep.

Here was a mural, ugly but nonetheless successful, another chunk of money sent to her family and gallery, another few weeks gone from her life... Kira frowned as she felt her jean pocket vibrate from her tiny nokia cell phone, cutting her from her forceful optimisim.

"Hello, Kira here"

"Kira" her american secertary's voice cried through. "We have a slight problem down here" Kira glared at the puppy who pressed against her and remained piolete. "Really? Who would have thought?"

"It's bad" Samantha insisted and Kira felt alerted, taken aback by the seriousness in her secetary's voice. Sammie did cupcakes and Danielle Steele books, not serious stuff. "Okay... well, if we have a problem we should fix it..." Cocoa threw out a pleading whimper as Kira peered down at her again. "What is it?"

"Olivia sold a Rosie"

Kira jerked up, her stomach cramping, and her head suddenley beginning to throb. In the background on the phone she heard her sixteen year old goddaughter cry out, "I still don't know what I did wrong!", and she just froze over entirely. Cold spread through her body like flames. "There aren't suppose to be anymore Rosies" Kira managed through clenched teeth as she felt Cocoa shift slightly from her position.

Kira tried to bring oxygen into her cramped, throbbing body without throwing up. "Dad sold them all"

"Uh-Uh... not the first one" Sammi reminded worriedly. "Remember? We couldn't sell it because it was of gallery you big Do-Do! Olivia cleaned out the attic, found it, and managed to sell it. The lady won't give it back to us ethier" Kira was about to squeak a reply through when Mildred finally managed to come back with the completion check handing it to her.

Kira managed a 'thank you' through her frantic heartbeats and her closed throat. "Ask the lady again" she mummbled to the phone as she stuck her pay messily into her pocket. "I did, Kira. She hung up on me and when I rang again and then Edward Colins picked up. This chick's staying with him" Sammi's voice dropped in anger to sadness. "Edward was a old friend of your mother's. He's the one who alerted the lady about the Rosies and our gallery. He happened to invite me to dinner along the way"

"Oh, lovely. At least one of us will get to eat" Kira's rare sarcasm brushed out from anger at her client and disbeilef at her situation.

"No, heres the idea. I'd thought I'd accept, go, distract them and you could sneak in and steal it" Sammi explained over the tiny useful cellphone. "Then we can lock it in the attic again!" Kira's blue eyes widened to the size of saucers and it was becoming quite a big problem on the whole breathing thing. Turning away from Mildred, she hissed into the phone, "You do realize you do -not- get cupcakes in jail !?!!" her voice came out rougher then she had expected and tried for another gulp of oxygen. "And we are -burning- that thing the minute its back in our grasp. If I'd known it was in the attic---"

"Hey, whats going on?" Mildred questioned from behind her, a foot tapping impatiently in the background. "Nothing" Kira grinned forcefully at her client. "Everything is just fine" Breaking from Mildred's gaze, the artist turned her attention back at the problem at hand.

"I'm coming home. I'll be there in a few hours. Don't do -anything-"

"We never do" Sammi grumbled miserably, and the phone buzzed as the two hung up. "I sure hope everything is perfectly fine" Mildred said, looking gossip hungry. "Everything is just perfectly fine" Kira tried to keep her tone under control, despite the pressure. "That's what I do. Go and make everything fine" she gave a quiet, delicate sigh. She stuffed her cellphone in the back of her pocket beside her check, and suddenley remembered Cocoa at the base of her foot.

"Which will clearly explain why I am taking your dog"

"Huh?" Mildred exclaimed, but the red-head already bent down and picked Cocoa right up, drooping her body over her arm quite awkwardly. Kira hadn't a clue how to hold a dog. She hadn't a clue why she was doing this. She never had a pet before.

"I'm just saving you a trip to the pound and a guilty conscience" Kira grinned pleasently, thinking she must be crazy taking this woman's dog and acting like this. It had to be the pressure and having to be in the presence of this woman for three weeks. "Have a Nice Day" she carted her paintbox and the puppy to her well-used, beat up mini-van, boiling with frght and anger at the world and her problems quietly.

It all brought a bitter taste to her mouth, and she didn't like it one bit. Being anger was just not Kira's fortay. Quite and comforting, sure, pouty and sulky, why not?, but angry and sarcastic...? Kira had never actually acted like that before unless she was under the pressure and instinct to do so, like around her first stepfather or Mildred.

Once in the seat beside Kira, Cocoa began to whimper in fright as shuddering constantly at the same time. "Oh, stop" Kira chided good naturedly pulling out of Mildred's driveway, thankfully. "No complaining. Anything's better then jail"

Cocoa looked at her kidnapper with a strange, quizzical stare.

"Pound. I meant pound" Kira grumbled, as she explained to the tiny dog and babbled on to the tremulous long haired chiuahahua all the way to the Aso Gallery.

...........

By the time they pulled up, Cocoa was dead asleep and Kira was feeling surprisingly calmer. Hey, she could at least breath now. Shutting the car off, Cocoa jerked awake, her chocolate brown marbles blinking unsurely.

Kira scooped her up, the dog now heaving with anxiety attacks into the shabby gallery office and deposited him on the floor in front of her secertary and her goddaughter, both of them blonde, blue eyed and absolutely gorgeous, despite their obvious age differences. 'Definately not me' Kira thought as Cocoa squirmed unsurely on the tile.

"This is Cocoa" she announced to Sammi and Olivia. "I'm keeping her with me until we can find her some people who won't throw her into a river without diginity the whole while her back is turn"

"I said I was -sorry-!" Olivia insisted, her pretty face stubborn under her long blonde locks. Kira guessed her sarcastic and angry mood hadn't dissolved. Olivia crossed her arms, wearing a black shirt with the crooked letters that declared 'PROM SUCKS' in silver spiked words. Yet she still looked like a angel in punk clothes. The resemblance to her mother was quite amazing. Harumi ,who had worked at the gallery for awhile and ended up boarding and getting married and then divorced, was one of Kira's best friends in the entire world and when Harumi had gotten pregnant she was instantly granted godmother duties.

"Why can't we sell painting? We -are- a -gallery- , for cripe's sakes" Olivia emphasized against her aunt-like godmother, crouching down on the old peach rug to pet the trembling puppy who heaved for oxygen, backing up against Kira's legs. "What is wrong with this dog?"

'So many things' thought Kira as she turned back to the problem at hand. "Okay... it's alright... just... tell me about the painting, guys" her voice dropped to a softer tone, her more usual conversation voice, a forgiving lint to it.

Sammie sighed, ruffling her lovely short blonde locks. Even at the old age of her forties, she still looked good. "While you were in Otake, Yuta sent Olivia up to the attic to clean because Olivia broke a curfew" Kira just bit her lip as Sammi mentioned Harumi's ex-husband, who ended up being gay and owning a gay bar down in the city of Tokyo, but who still boarded in the gallery, remaining close friends with his ex-wife and a good father to Olivia.

"Oh, stop looking pissed off" Olivia insisted, patting the shaking puppy wrinkling her cute nose. "Daddy didn't let me anywhere near your locked part , so I still haven't a clue what you have hidden up there"

"Storage" the answer came automatic to Kira as Olivia rolled her sapphire-like eyes. "Yeah... right, Kira"

"Olivia" Kira caught herself crossing her arms as a strong parental flare flung up. Harumi spoiled Olivia, Kira knew that well, and so did her father. Kira had felt the obligation to take up the status of a motherly figure to the rowdy teenager holding down some hand since she had ended up spending most of her time with her as a child when Harumi or Yuta worked. At the gaze, the girl bit her lip and straightened.

"Your not in the position to fool around here. Your pushing it. And when your mother finds out...Now, please. Back to the painting"

"Daddy made me clean up the attic." Olivia sighed, explaining fully and finally. "It was full of old painted furniture with animals. Daddy said you did all of that when you were in high school. It was pretty nifty, especially the Adam and Eve bed, after we set it up---"

"-We-?" Sammi and Kira broke off Olivia's justification for a sold painting. "Yusaku and me" Olivia blinked unnsurely at the adults, mentioning her best friend in the entire world. "You didn't think I would clean the entire, rat-infested attic by -myself- did you?"

"Great... Yusaku knows" Kira comphrended slowly and rubbed her temple as she mentally cursed Yuta on sending his daughter and close non-family friend up to a secertive attic. "Well, yeah" Olivia mumbled. "He knows theres furniture down there. What's with the attic, anyways? It's -just- furniture" Kira felt her muscles in her jaw clench and stuck her smal handy charm back in her mouth.

"Right.. the painting, Liv?"

"It was near the painted furniture" Olivia said. "Wrapped in brown paper and shoved against the blue monkey armchair. Kira, did you really paint those things up there?"

"It's just junk, Liv." Kira managed through constant chewing of her charm. "I was going through a odd phase. So, you took the painting...?"

"I thought they were nifty.. So did Yusaku" Olivia insisted crosing her arms as she kneeled down next to Cocoa, who began to lighten up to the youngest girl in the gallery.

"So, you sold it?"

Olivia sighed, her plan on convientantly changing the subject failing. "Uh-uh. We put it ack after dusting and went to the Coffee Shop for some cappucinos. And then Sammi had to go to the grocery store, so I took the counter and Mrs.Kamiya came and asked for a Rosie. I told her all we had were Fuyumi Takahasis" Olivia broke from her livid chatter, to peer at Sammi, who sat exasperated in her chair.

"Are we to ever be rid of those? I know she boards here and all, but their painting of -vomit- for heavensake--"

"OLIVIA!"

"Okay! Cool it" Olivia shuffled her feet, nervously. "And Mrs.Kamiya said no, thanks, she was looking for a painting of a kid like me would do and started talking about swirly clouds, purple stars, and checkerboards. Yusaku then said it sounded an awful lot like the painting up in the attic and since he said that the lady wouldn't budge"

Kira raised an eyebrow, knowing her goddaughter and her best friend all to well. "Yusaku said this?"

"Maybe me" Olivia squinted, innocently, wringing her ring-encrusted hands. "It's all very foggy, you know, it was just this morning..."

"Oh, please. As if Yusaku wouldn't eat swords for you" Sammi broke off. "So you went to get the painting...?"

"And she offered me a hundred bucks for it, and I said no" Olivia beamed virtuously, beaming slightly proud of herself. "But, yet, I see no painting" Kira raised an eyebrow to her goddaughter. "She kept going higher and higher but at a thousand american dollars, I caved" Olivia gave in shurgging her thin shoulders. "Now, may I ask, why getting a thousand dollars for a crappy painting is bad?"

"No" Sammi got up off the chair just to go collaspe on the customer waiting couch, propping her feet up in exasperation, looking lovely even in her forties.

"Where's your mother?" Kira mentioned her best friend, rubbing her temples. "Isn't she suppose to be in charge of the gallery while Sammi is out?"

"She's out racing" Sammie grumbled rolling her eyes and answering for Olivia. "Oh, the cycle again. Wheeling before the rainy season.. Look, it doesn't matter. This Kamiya lady looks like she won't give in any time soon. And if we fight, Kira, it'll look suspicious"

"Suspicous of what?!" Olivia cried out, agitated to no end. "No one tells me anything in this stupid gallery!" the girl scooped Cocoa off the floor and into her arms, shuddering replinishing in the tiny dog body. "If you tell me what I did wrong you can't truly blame me!"

Kira sighed peering around the large four story gallery building and bit her lip as she starred at Olivia's pouted face before going back to her gallery. All of this could put her beloved Gallery all into jeopardy....

After her first stepfather had died, Kira had felt like something was cut loose from her. Freedom rang in her years. She was in her junior year when he had passed and her nightmares were gone. The man was a rapist, using the young girl to do what he pleased and Kira had remembered those awful nights in pain and agony and could only represent that pain and agony through her art.

Kira could paint beautifully, inheriting it from her real father who was also a artist, and she thanked him everyday for that. She couldn't live without art. Especially after her mom had remarried again, remarried to a man with a art gallery. Their family was failing without money, and her mother could do only one thing for them to survive and that was to marry.

In the middle of her senior year, Kira's mother had moved them to Tokyo and into this huge art gallery, a haven for Kira. She had spent good months here, until her second stepfather had found her talent of art. Things had went downhill from there, as he suddenley began to use her amazing talents for wrong uses. Using her just like her first stepfather had, only not in body, but in her beloved art. He abused her, worked her, until Kira couldn't stand it anymore.

She wouldn't be treated like that any longer. She wouldn't. She never planned to. So she threw aside her father's evil plans, packed up, and moved out all in the tender age of seventeen. Sammi was there then, and had helped her with the transistion and Harumi had moved up with her to keep her company and the two helped with money corporating together. Then her mother hit critical condition, and her stepfather and her had to move to America.

Her stepfather had left the Gallery to her.

And it had been the Aso Gallery ever since.

Yet her past never left her alone. Especially at such crucial times. She sniffled slightly, as Olivia cuddled Cocoa as she flared at her godmother and Kira sighed knowing the sixteen year old... needed to know by now.

Pulling out Sammi's vacant chair, Kira looked up at Olivia with a focused look, as she sat down. "Okay, then. Here it is"

"Kira, no" Sammi insisted beneath her hands massaging her troubled face. "She's only sixteen" Kira just shook her head. "And how old was I, Sammi?" Kira mummured. "I can't remember a time I didn't know"

"Hello...?" Olivia waved at the two, looking more agitated as the minutes passed, Cocoa hiding in the shelter of Olivia chin and her long curtain of hair. "I'm right here... know what?" she questioned knowing something juicy was about to be introduced to her. Kira took a big breath and placed her hands together wondering where to start.

"Do you remember... how successfully this gallery use to be when my stepdad ran it?" Kira asked slowly eyeing the teenager. "No" Olivia replied, truthfully. "I was just a kid when he left. I wasn't really into the gallery thing then" She relaxed her grasp on Cocoa, who was shuddering insistantly beneath her chin and hair. Cocoa feeling the, release on her hold, wriggled instantly to get down and hit the rug with a splat, balancing and recovering by putting her paws on Kira's legs.

"Well... the one of the reasons my dad made this place so successful was because he sometimes... sold fakes"

"Oh" Olivia said.

"That's good" Sammi grumbled, depressed as she sat up crossing her legs. "The more people who know about this.. lemme tell you, it's for the -better-" Olivia squinted at Sammi and tried to prove her wrong. "I won't tell anyone, I swear! It's just a family secert from now on"

Kira ignored the two bickering and went on before she could force herself to stop. "Some of the paintings Dad sold were made by a man named Ishida Rosya," Kira plowed through the mistake of her life, "and Dad made a lot of money off those, -legally-. But then Dad and Rosya got into this heated argument, which ended up leading to the fact that Rosya would never get Dad another painting. So he came up with this clever idea to make up a daughter for Ishida named Rosie, and he sold five paintings of hers, making a grand deal by the fact that this Rosie was a Rosya"

Sammi slumed against the back of the old couch mumbling to herself, as her eyes grazed at the old cieling. "Invented a daughter? That's nifty" Olivia said looking quite impressed. "No, not nifty" Kira insisted, breathing out her breath she had held throughout her entire explanation and still needing more to go own. She picked up Cocoa, needing some comfort for the next part of her story and Cocoa sighed against her curling up in her lap.

"The painting you sold was the first Rosie, a fake painting by a fake artist. And this is all fraud and we could end up in prison because of a stupid 'nifty' idea my father had. Everyone wil suddenley realize its a fake because Rosya was from a farm in Kentucky in America, and the painting just sold to Ms. Kamiya is a painting of this gallery building."

"I thought it looked slighlty familar" Olivia said brushing down her bright, blonde locks. Kira noticed her odd look, and continued her head venturing to scarth Cocoa's ears. "You know, the minute they find it's a fake, they're going to come to the gallery and ask questions non-stop" Kira felt her stomach cramped, and Cocoa whimpered as her hand went alittle to rough to the sensitive part of her ears. "Then they may attempt for further investigation, which leads to finding out the others are all frauds and they'll all want their money back-- money which we -don't- have. And we'll end up in jail for that and the gallery will be taken from us so we will have no where to live and no where to belong"

Kira managed out the last few words, and tried to hold back from vomiting in fright as she gulped painfully and wished to be put to death, if she had ever lost her Gallery. She eyed Olivia and frowned in confusion as she began to perk up pulling on a blonde lock which signified her thinking. "Wait a minute" her goddaughter exclaimed throwing her hands out, looking unperturbed that her godmother's father was a crook and that she and everyone else would ethier be going to prison or end up freezing, starving, and in a gutter.

"I didn't know it was fake. Only your dad knew, right? So we're off the hook. We can blame him. He's dead!" she grinned mighty pleased with herself.

Sammi sighed as she pushed herself up and heading to her official desk. "That's pretty much the plan we've been following for the last five years, darling" she mentioned sadly, clearing her throat unhappily. "Nice try, Liv, but no" Kira said, feeling her stomach clench as she tried to talk and forced herself to not pet Cocoa so roughly.

"The gallery as a business is still liable. And there's only one other person who knew and could end herself up in jail. The person who painted those Rosie paintings"

"Oh" Olivia bit her lip, and sighed rubbing her bare belly. "Who painted them?"

"I did, of course" Kira mummured unhappily, and stuck her butterfly charm right back in her mouth.

***

A bit interesting, eh? Kira is definately out of character only because she has had a fiancee and is angered. I'll try and make her more in character eh? Don't worry, Rei will be in perfect character. This story was like -made- for these two. Heh.

REVIEW!!!!!

Onto da next chappie

Toodles,

Pandora Rose