Jessica walked towards the dining room at Jack's side.

"God, I'm starving," she moaned, rubbing her stomach pathetically. "Can you believe that this school only feeds us once a day? It's practically inhumane. Ooh! Maybe we should complain. I look good holding a picket."

"Yeah, we get meals like six times a day, Jess," Jack said mildly, cocking a brow at her.

"Huh. Well, it feels like once. It's possible that I spend too much time with Ophelia. Do you know how much you look like a Head Boy when you do that?"

"I am a Head Boy."

"Well, there's no need to brag about it."

"I'm not bragging. You said that I looked like a Head Boy, I'm merely clarifying that I am..."

"Anyway, the plan. Stop distracting me."

"ME?"

"There you go again, always talking about yourself. Honestly, Jack, we have a problem to sort out here. Actually two problems. Two taller than average, pain-in-the-ass, problems. What?"

Jack was eyeing her narrowly.

"You're right. You do spend too much time with Ophelia."

He pushed open the imposing wooden door, and held it for her.

'I am SO gentlemanly.' He couldn't help silently congratulating himself.

"Very gentlemanly," Jessica said approvingly.

"You just read my mind."

"Frightening. I'll try not to do it again."

They spotted two heads close together on the other side of the room, and exchanged glances.

"What do you think? Kissing or eating?"

"Well. The people around them look pretty nauseous. But whether that's because Hannah and Robert are yet again publicly inhaling each other, or just because of the food, it's hard to say."

Jack frowned.

"Do you think they'll want to help out with this? Hannah doesn't really seem like the manipulative type to me, and Robert's brain is probably fried from snog overload."

"Don't underestimate Hannah. The girl can be downright devious when she wants to, and she's got guts. We've got this one photo of her on the football fie..."

Jack looked extremely interested.

"Yes? Football fie...?"

"Never mind. Besides, Hannah really wants Ophelia to be happy. She's nice that way. Me, well, sure, I want her to be happy too, but the constant moping and anti-Will propaganda is driving me up the wall."

"Tell me about it. You wouldn't believe how much worse it's gotten since the ball."

"Hard as it is to imagine, I really think those two would be happy if they were finally together. Or, at the very least, they can piss each other off instead of everybody else."

Jack grinned and held out his hand. She shook it.

"Ok, so we fill the love-birds in, and work this out. It shouldn't be hard, right? Ophelia and Will are so busy hating each other that they barely notice anything else that's going on around them, and we're intelligent people. Hannah's intelligent. Robert's intelligent. Surely between us we can work out the details of one little plan."

They walked up behind the oblivious couple, who were in fact not snogging after all, but seemingly content to just gaze into each other's eyes in an extremely soppy fashion.

Robert reached out and smoothed back a strand of Hannah's hair.

"No, I so am not," he argued tenderly, smiling at her in a besotted way.

"Yes, you are too," Hannah murmured back, in what sounded to Jessica to be dangerously approaching a coo.

She opened her mouth to ask what they were arguing about, and was quickly glad that she hadn't.

"Don't be ridiculous, Hannah. I am totally not prettier than you!"

"You totally are!"

Jack leaned over to whisper in Jessica's ear.

"Uh, yeah, so maybe just between the two of us we try and work out a plan?"

"Might be a good idea."

"Hey, if you listen really, really closely, you can almost hear Will somewhere, throwing up."

Amazingly, his quiet tone actually broke through the love bubble.

"Hey guys!" Hannah said quickly, turning a little red.

"You are so cute when you blush," Robert told her, smilingly brushing back a strand of her hair.

Then he spotted Jack.

"Uh, yeah," he said, blushing himself, and deepening his voice to an impossibly resonant baritone, "So. Sports. And manly things. And whatnot."

Jessica rolled her eyes, and Hannah giggled.

"So, what's up?"

Jessica and Jack sat down across from the crimson pair, and shared a speaking glance.

"It's about Ophelia and Will," Jessica said seriously.

Hannah looked immediately worried.

"Oh no, are they ok? Are they sick?"

"No, we're sick. Of them."

Hannah's mouth formed a silent 'Oh.'

Robert paused, and then nodded.

"Yeah. Fair enough. All that fighting."

"Yes," Jack agreed, nodding, "It's almost as bad as two grown people speaking baby talk. And whatnot."

Robert shot him a sharp look.

"So, what do you want to do about it?" Hannah asked, biting back a smile. "I assume you have some kind of plan?"

"Pretty much," Jessica nodded. "Ok, the way we see it, Ophelia and Will constantly talk about how much they dislike each other, yes?"

"Yes," chorused Hannah and Robert.

"When obviously they are totally head over heels in lust and/or love, right?"

"Right!" they agreed in unison.

"Please stop doing that."

"Sorry," they said at once.

Jessica took a deep breath.

"Ok. That's not annoying. Anyway, despite the fact that they claim to be mortal enemies, they both get upset at the thought the other really doesn't like them."

"That's true," Hannah said slowly, remembering Ophelia's description of the altercation between herself and Will at the ball.

"I think that if they believed that the other was in love with them- "

"In other words, realized the blatantly obvious," Jack cut in.

"Then they would admit their own feelings to themselves."

"And hopefully to each other."

Pause.

"Ok," said Robert, "Sounds good. But how the hell do we get them to believe that the other is in love with them? We can't just tell them. They'll never believe it."

Jessica shook her head.

"That's exactly what we're going to do. Tell them. Only not to their faces."

Seeing the other pair's confusion, Jack elaborated.

"What we were thinking is this: you and I, Robert, let Will "overhear" a conversation where we discuss how Ophelia is helplessly in love with him. Which you know for a fact, because Hannah, her cousin and best friend, told you. In a sappy, lovesick, sharing moment."

"Hey!"

"And basically vice versa for us, Hannah," Jessica said quickly.

"Won't they see right through it?" Hannah asked doubtfully, tapping her finger against her chin.

Jessica shrugged.

"Possibly. But I doubt it. It's easy to believe in something if you want it badly enough."

Jack bobbed his head in agreement, before reaching out to absently pluck a stray hair from Jessica's shirt.

She blinked.

"Yes. And that was attached to my head."

"Sorry."

Hannah and Robert were staring at one another again.

Just when Jessica thought that they'd drifted off into pink fuzzy land, Robert spoke up.

"Ok, let's do it. It's worth a try anyway."

Hannah agreed. "If it'll make Fee happy, I'll give anything a go."

Robert touched her shoulder.

"You're such a generous person."

"Not as generous as you."

Jack shut his eyes briefly. He was beginning to feel a whole new connection with Will and his firmly anti-romance stance.

Jessica leaned in close to murmur to him.

"You realise," she said softly, "That if all goes to plan, there's going to be two couples sitting here babbling mush?"

Jack cast a disbelieving glance her way.

"Oh, come on. You can't honestly think that Will...and Ophelia too, actually...would behave like that."

He waved a distracted hand in Hannah and Robert's direction, trying to ignore what he suspected was impending snogging.

Jessica grinned, although she too looked a little sick.

"I guarantee that if we get them together, your cynical, love-hating pal will turn into a sonnet-bearing, serenading Romeo."

Jack looked utterly revolted.

"Good God," he forced out, "I'll have to change schools."

"What, you at a school where you aren't Head Boy?" Jessica gasped dramatically.

Thwack.

"Ow!"

She rubbed her shin and glared at Jack.

................................

"Un-bloody-believable!" Peter burst out, not for the first time. "I can't believe that they got together."

Mouse bounced up and down a little on the edge of Peter's unmade bed.

"It's not that surprising, is it?" he asked guilelessly, "I mean, all they had to do was talk to each other. It wasn't really going to work in the long run."

Peter ignored him, and stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"If I have to look at those two sucking face for much longer, I'm going to throw up. Or maybe kill something." He looked rather pointedly at Mouse.

"I don't know. I think it's kind of sweet," Mouse said, smiling hopefully.

"What?"

"What?"

Peter rolled his eyes and gripped his hair in both hands dramatically, yanking hard to show his frustration. Ouch. He stopped and showed his frustration by kicking the hapless Mouse instead.

Mouse rubbed his leg absently, and looked Peter up and down.

He frowned.

"Are you in mourning?" he asked curiously.

Peter set his jaw.

"I'm dressed in black because the bad guys always dress in black." Duh.

"I don't know if that's true," Mouse mused thoughtfully. "In fact, I can think of several..."

"And I'm the bad guy here, ok!" Peter screeched.

"Ok."

"I mean, who else here is as evil as me?"

"Um."

"That's right. No one. Now. My first plan might not have worked, but it did cause them some misery for awhile, and that's all good. And my new plan will break them up for good. And generally spread sadness. People will cry. And sulk. And create scenes. It'll be great."

"Do you have a new plan?" Mouse asked curiously.

Peter spluttered indignantly.

"Of course I do! I always have schemes in mind."

Mouse nodded, and then cocked his head.

"You don't have a plan, do you?"

"I said I did, you little...ok, no, I don't. But I will!"

Mouse nodded.

"I know."

"And it'll be really evil!"

"I believe you."

"Well, good. Good then."

Mouse considered Peter again.

"You know, you do look kind of evil in those clothes."

Peter preened.

"And at least you didn't go so far as to wear dark glasses too. That would have just made you look stupid."

"Glasses!" Peter scoffed. "Pah!"

And pushed his dark glasses deeper into his pocket.