AN: Hi everyone! Thank you for all the reviews for last chap. Very happy Laurs here. -

Well, we have part 1 of the Maui chap! Whee! Pale!Mark.

Alison: So WHY did you put it in two parts again?

Because the second part is horribly long.

Alison: You could've cut the karaoke thing.

I enjoy the karaoke thing. It's cute.

Alison: Whatever. My second beef: Amy and Stuart Hertz. YOU USED THE T.O.D.?

They're on loan from Sensei's books. Besides, they're perfect to go up against Mark and Tara.

Alison: Why?

:chucks copy of "Boy Meets Girl": I've highlighted the passages that explains my actions.

Mark and Tara's Maui Honeymoon:

Ladies and gentleman, we are now preparing to land...please bring your seats to the upright positions and close trays.

Mark stared out the window. Palm trees. Fucking palm trees. And they weren't fake like the ones he was used to. They were real.

Tara laid her head on his shoulder. "What, never seen a beach before?"

"Not with ones were everything was tropical, nope."

"Huh?"

He smiled at her. "Don't ask. Back in the day, that's all."

They were registered at a Marriot right by the beach and everything. "Ooo!" Tara pointed out the stack of fliers on the counter. "They've got nightly luaus and tours and all these other things to do!" She grabbed at the whole array.

"You should have warned me about your uber-tourist self," Mark dead-panned, grabbing the room keys.

"What?" Tara laughed, "You've never taken a vacation? I'd thought you'd be the uber-tourist with the camera and all."

"...please don't tell me you actually thought that."

"Yeah. I did. Really." (Although, he could forgive Tara for thinking that, as everyone else Mark knew considered the camera to be a detachable body part.)

Their room was up on the eighth floor, with a balcony overlooking a gorgeous view of the beaches towards the north and some of the tropical forests and volcanoes towards the south part of the island. The room in itself was a white and blue, with a big bed and, as Tara discovered, "We've got a hot tub! YES!"

"Yeah...my dad's kinda loaded," Mark explained. "I mean, not really loaded, like the Greys, but-"

"I get it." She smiled. "So, you wanna check out this bathroom or what?"

Tara had even managed to talk Mark into going the luau dinner show. They got seated next to a couple in their thirties who claimed to be taking their second honeymoon. "Oh. Well, erm," Mark said, "We've just started our first."

"Really?" said the man, Stuart. "What line of work are you in?"

"Filmmaking," Tara answered. "It's not much, but he's got something lined up for the Angelika, right?"

"Don't they show all those weird foreign films?" His wife, Amy, wrinkled up her nose. "God, talk about taking away your country's economic pride."

"Don't worry your sweet head about that, my angel," Stuart said, nuzzling her.

"Are they for real?" Tara whispered.

"I did not just hear that, I did not just hear that..." Mark muttered, putting his head down on the table.

"Something wrong?" One of the two, now officially declared yuppie scum (although with an attitude as such, was there another level below scum?), asked.

"Oh, no, nothing..."

It was a wonder how they even got through that dinner. The Hertzes would complain about everything that was wrong about the world, while all Mark and Tara could do was sit there and gape at what they were saying. (Although, somehow the topic of homosexuality came up, and Tara had never condoned someone putting her brother's lifestyle down. Ditto with Mark about Angel, Collins, Dave, Joanne, etc. He just wasn't as vocal. But as equally pissed.)

"I say we do something heinous to them," Mark said after the dinner was over, and was walking along the beach with Tara (yes, her idea. Again).

"Oo, is this like summer camp, and we TP their awesome hot tub?"

"What is your obsession with that hot tub?" Mark asked. "Although...I'm not above TP-ing them."

"You're the last person I'd EVER thought to agree with me on that." She grinned "We should so do it..."

While the majority of their first week was spent away from the Hertzes (albeit running into them on occasion, and then pulling anonymous pranks on them), Mark and Tara did the normal, touristy things. Mark didn't have the camera (but that was more because it was "antique, and if I get sand in it..."), but he did document the two of them touring the islands.

"Oh! Look at the flowers!" Tara ran over to the side of the path. They were on another nature tour. Mark was just straight out bored. It was cool the first few days, especially with all those exotic animals (and, living in New York, the closest to exotic and/or nature was Central Park), but now it was all meh to him. "Oh," Tara said, fingering the petals. "I should've seen if we could have gotten these for the wedding bouquets."

"Did you forget that we're already married?" Mark dead panned. He was so not in his element. Islands, especially when forced to dress in shorts and a bright red and blue shirt, was not him. "I mean, why bother thinking about the details now?"

"Oh, you're no fun." She plucked a little flower and tucked in behind her ear.

"Hey," Mark said, grinning and bringing the camera to eye level, "Strike a pose." Tara giggled and complied. As much as her husband (how weird it was to think of Mark as that now) didn't seem to get out and have some fun for once in his life, he did know when to bust out that box a little bit.

"Oh, darling, look who it is!" Tara stopped dead in her supermodel posing. "Run. Now," she stage-whispered.

Unfortunately, they didn't get far away enough to lose the Hertzes. "Isn't it beautiful out here?" Amy started gushing to Tara.

"Yeah...um...We were just about to leave..." she stammered.

"Really? Where're you headed too?"

"Um. The beach! We were going surfing, right, honey?" Tara smiled sweetly at Mark, although what she was really trying to get across was that, Go along with me, or I swear, I will hurt you.

"Um. Yeah. Surfing." FUCK. Fuck. Wherever the HELL Tara came up with that excuse, if Mark was forced to go through with it, he was going to kill her. (Well not kill her, but still get very pissed at her.)

Which he felt like doing. "WHY are we surfing?"

"To get those two off our backs," Tara answered, matter of factly, as she shimmied into her bathing suit. "Get those trunks on."

"Erm, no. I'll pass."

"Oh, come on. You're not flabby?" Tara grabbed at his shirt. "Hey!" Mark tried fighting her off, but Tara kept going at it, laughing the whole time. "Oh ho ho ho," she said, laughing, having finally managed to get his shirt off, "so that's why you don't wanna put on the trunks, huh?"

If you haven't guessed, underneath the shirt was white. Like bleached white. Mark blushed. "It's not that...you know we're gonna suck at this, right?"

The next day came two surprises, both in the morning. Tara had gone downstairs, looking for a newspaper, while Mark was still sleeping.

"Hon! Look what I found downstairs!" Tara said, bounding into their hotel room.

"Whazzit?" A despectled, mussed hair head of Mark popped up from under the pillows.

"Apparently there's gonna be this contest, for couples staying at the hotel, and ..."

"And what?" muttered a still covered Mark, poking one arm out from under the sheets, groping for his glasses.

"Mark? Take off the sheets."

"Why?"

Tara didn't answer, she just tore off the sheet. "Did you remember to put on sun screen?"

"YEAH." Mark's torso was a bright pinkish shade of red now. "I just...burn...easily..." His face now matched the rest of his body.

"Oh, Lord." Tara shook her head.

"So, what were you saying about this contest?" Mark said, reaching over for his glasses.

"It's a three day competition. Day one is all sports events- you know, tug of war, egg toss."

"...what's the other two?"

"It's not that bad. Day two is a quiz type event. Day three is the final contest and subsequent crowning."

"Oh." Mark stretched (as best he could). "Well, that should be fun, watching everyone else getting all into this."

"Including us."

"Wait, what?"

"Oh. That's the other thing." Tara smiled. "I signed us up when I saw it."

Mark's jaw dropped as Tara headed into the shower. "I would've liked to have had consultation on this, thank you!"

PS: Poor Mark's sunburnt. Heeheehee.

Alison: I still don't know why you used those characters. But so be it, and Godspeed.

Hee. Next chappie will be part 2, in which the actual contest takes place. Watermelon splitting, uncomfortable questions and KARAOKE! WHEE!