A/N – "Thoughts"

Part 4 – No Fury Like A Woman Scorned

Miranda was slowly pacing around her room like a caged animal as fury, jealously, and anger mixed with hurt and sadness.

After they had broken up, Miranda had thought maybe sometime apart would do them some good. It had to a point; but then when Lizzie had invited them to visit, she couldn't exactly say no and miss a second chance to see the Eternal City. Plus, as much as she wanted to, Miranda couldn't make herself ask Gordo to stay home. So they talked, and agreed that they could spend some time together and not try and rip each other's throats out.

The truce lasted almost two days.

The first day in Rome, Miranda watched as Lizzie was a bit overly friendly with Gordo. She tried hard to ignore it, making herself believe that Lizzie just missed him. It wasn't a complete lie but wasn't the complete truth either.

She also didn't want to create any drama and more tension than there already was. So she bit her tongue. It also helped that Gordo seemed oblivious to most of it, he was never one to pick up on the subtle signs of a girl interested in him.

It was the second day when things started to get worse. They had gone sight seeing and Lizzie started flirting with Gordo more openly, while at the same time, Miranda tried to fool herself again. As the day went on, it seemed like Gordo was starting to wake up and notice it. By the time they went out to dinner that night, he had even started to flirt back a little. As the two kept going back and forth, it took most of Miranda's self control to not lunge over the table at one of them, especially at Gordo's throat. When they had reached the lobby of their hotel after dinner, Miranda and Gordo were in the mist of their first fight in Rome. Miranda had made a snide comment about Gordo, he shot back, and it quickly escalated. Lizzie had tried to stop them but was virtually ignored as they continued to argue all the way back to their rooms. They argued all the way up their rooms until they slammed their respective doors.

The hotel was another thing that had irked Miranda. Lizzie's apartment was too small for everyone, so she had booked and paid for three rooms in a hotel in the city. Lizzie and Miranda would have one room with Mrs. McGuire having an adjoining room and Gordo across the hall. Miranda was almost positive that Lizzie had chosen this hotel on purpose as it was the same one that Lizzie and Gordo had stayed in two years ago.

As the days passed, things just got worse, and by the middle of the second week, Miranda and Gordo could barely be near each other without taking shots at one another. In a futile effort to keep some semblance of peace, Lizzie tried to do separate things with them. Unfortunately, it just seemed to make things worse as she, unintentionally, ended up spending the majority of her time with Gordo. It didn't help that when Miranda and Lizzie did spend time together, somehow, the topic of conversation seemed to return to Gordo.

Miranda continued to bite her tongue, not wanting to tarnish the limited time she had with her best friend, but it was getting very difficult and she was barely reeling in her explosive temper. Sharing a room together didn't help the matter.

Everytime Lizzie would ask or say something about Gordo, Miranda would get annoyed and deep down, hurt. She felt like Lizzie didn't care that she was not only fighting with Gordo but had just gone through a very messy breakup with him just a few months ago. "Maybe two years away and living the high life as changed her," Miranda thought bitterly. "Are we still best friends or are we just hanging onto the past?"

This particular morning though, she had had enough and snapped at Lizzie. It had started with Miranda reluctantly agreeing to go out to breakfast with Lizzie at an outdoor café that was near their hotel. While it had started out fine, Miranda could see it coming.

Eventually, the conversation came around to Gordo. Lizzie started on about how much fun she had with Gordo the previous night, and after a few minutes, Miranda was crushing her napkin in her white knuckled fist, barely resisted the urge to reach out and slap her. Instead, she settled for snapping at her, "You just don't get it."

Lizzie looked at her in surprise and confusion, her mouth still open as she had stopped in mid-sentence. It just seemed to intensify Miranda's anger, "God, you just don't get it," she repeated as she threw her napkin down on the table and stormed off.

As she walked back into the hotel and made her way up to her floor, she passed Gordo who was walking the opposite way down the hallway. Miranda just reached back and with all her strength, slapped Gordo hard across the face, "You fucking pig."

Rubbing his jaw as he was caught off guard by Miranda's first swing, he quickly dodged the follow up swings. "What the hell?" he snarled back, "What I do now?"

"Now that you got Lizzie back, you don't give a damn about my feelings, right? Obviously, I didn't mean shit to you. Well guess what, even if you are smarter than everyone else, you're still nothing but a little boy who doesn't know shit about life." Without realizing it, Miranda's anger had turning into sadness, and always one to wear her heart on her sleeve, her voice started to crack and her eyes threaten to cry. "Keep it together, damn it! There's no way in hell I'm going to cry in front of this asshole."

"Oh for the love of, stop with this wounded little angel crap. You're the one who couldn't handle us. You picked a fight over every little thing and then blamed me for it." Gordo gave her an evil smirk as he felt the need to hurt her emotionally, "Though, it's nice actually being with a girl and not have her jump down my throat. Well…unless you count her tongue."

Miranda's face scrunched up as she felt the verbal blow. "Fuck you," she said softly as she pushed him away and walked quickly down the hall towards her room.

"Yea, walk away. It's what you're good at!" Gordo yelled at her retreating back.

Miranda reached her room and after slamming the door behind her, collapsed onto her bed and cried for a few hours. Even though she thought he was a good for nothing jackass, it didn't mean she was over him and everything he'd say to her, would cut deeply. Slowly, as she let it all out, the sadness went back to anger. After beating the crap out of her pillow, imagining it was either Lizzie or Gordo, she started thinking about her next move as she began to pace around the room.

As much as she wanted to run back home, another part of her, the fighter, wanted one last face off with both or either, she didn't really care. "First come, first served." Miranda just wanted to give out as much pain as she received. Getting to her feet, she flung the door open and wildly looked up and down the hall for any sign of either one of them. "They said something about the roof."

With Miranda and Gordo's room across the hall from the other, she had heard Lizzie and Gordo talking in the hallway a hour or so ago. She couldn't hear exactly what they were saying, most of the conversation was muffled, but she had heard Lizzie say something about going up to the roof.

Walking to the elevator, she impatiently hit the elevator call button several times. As she waited, Miranda began to tap her foot as her anger started to mix with anxiety of what she might find. As her mind started playing out scenarios, each one more outrageous than the first, the sound of someone coming down the steps brought her back to reality and she shook her head trying to get the visions out of her head.

As the door opened, Miranda stepped back in surprise at who was inside. "Lizzie."

Lizzie, who's head had been down as she descended the stairs, looked up and her breath hitched softly at seeing Miranda in front of her. Slowly, almost pushing herself forward, she walked out into the hall and the two girls looked at each other cautiously.

Miranda was studying Lizzie's face, or more specifically her eyes. "Is she crying?" It was amazing how while she was still angry with her, she was concerned about her friend. It was also ironic, how her mind immediately went to one cause of Lizzie's sadness. "What did that bastard do?"

Opening her mouth to say something, Miranda watched Lizzie walk towards her and then past her. As she was along side, Lizzie simply said, "Take care of him." Stunned and caught off guard, Miranda could only turn around to watch her walk away.

Lizzie went past Miranda and walked down the hall to their room, only pausing for a brief moment after swiping her door key. She looked back at Miranda for a brief moment, giving her a weak smile before entering her room. Still rooted to her spot, Miranda just stared at where she had been, "What the hell was that? Take care of him. Who's him? Gordo?" Glancing back at the elevator doors, "What happened up there?"

Walking back to the their room, she swiped her own card key and entered the room, only to find it empty. "Lizzie?" Miranda called out as she took a quick survey of the room. "Maybe she's in the other room."

Going to the door that joined the girls' room with Mrs. McGuire's, she had just started to reach for the doorknob when it turned and the door opened a little. Mrs. McGuire slipped through the opening and into the girls' room.

"Mrs. McGuire, where did," Miranda started to ask but Mrs. McGuire cut her off.

"Lizzie is in my room right now," she said simply.

"Why?" Miranda asked immediately, "What happened?"

Mrs. McGuire sighed softly, "Its not my place to say. When Lizzie is ready, I'm sure she'll tell you." Mrs. McGuire didn't know all the pieces but she had a good idea of the overall picture. Even if she wanted to, there was nothing she could do and could only hope the situation didn't get worse.

"Can I talk to her?"

Pursing her lips together, Mrs. McGuire shook her head no. "Not right now. She needs sometime by herself. I'll let her know you were looking for her, though." Before Miranda could say anything else, Mrs. McGuire went back to her room and shut the door behind her.

Frustrated by the lack of answers, Miranda scowled at the shut door. As much as she wanted answers, she knew storming in there was a bad idea. "There is someone who would know," she thought and with that quickly left the room and headed back for the roof.

Moments later, Miranda bounded up the stairs to the roof, taking them almost three at a time. Throwing the door open, she stormed out on to the roof. As she charged across towards Gordo, she saw him sitting on the edge of the roof, his head in his hands. She knew that look, he was beating himself up about something.

She thought she had known him pretty well, they had been friends for a long time and best friends starting in Junior High, but it was nothing compared to being his girlfriend. A few months into their relationship, she started to notice little things like body language. Gordo was very guarded with his emotions but if one knew how to read his body language, they could get a better understanding of him. This insight occurred to Miranda suddenly one night.

Miranda had been working on her homework while Gordo was writing a presentation for his english class. He hated talking in public and much preferred working from the shadows. Miranda couldn't help but notice how he was constantly scratching his head and messing with hair, when he wasn't drumming his fingertips on his keyboard. As she watched him, she started thinking back on other odd things, odd for Gordo, that he had done. Like when he was embarrassed, the ground would become the most fascinating thing in the world and he would hide his hands behind his back, or when he was really nervous, he couldn't stop shaking and his hands and arms would keep moving as Gordo would begin to ramble.

For a brief moment, she felt for him but then quickly remembered she was pissed off at him.

"Hurting me wasn't enough, you decide to take a crack at Lizzie too," Miranda shouted as she approached and Gordo lifted his head, watching her warily. "She wouldn't go all the way and you got mad?" Miranda asked him sarcastically, purposely trying to antagonize him and it worked. As soon as she said it, Gordo was on his feet.

Enraged, "Watch your mouth," he snapped as he quickly met her halfway.

"What a surprise, Gordo coming to poor, helpless Lizzie's defense," Miranda snarled in his face, "Someone says something bad about your little angel and you get all mad. Its been the same way for fifteen years."

"At least she doesn't say the first stupid thing that pops in to her head," he shot back, "Your problem is you're always looking for a fight. Not everyone is out to get you. Not Lizzie, and especially not me. But everytime I tried to do something for you, you attack me."

"Cause what you try to do, is always planned to death," she said as she poked him in the chest. "True romance isn't planned, it just happens." She then gave him a sarcastic grin, "I bet you can't even do anything spontaneously. It'd fry that super computer you call a brain."

Gordo didn't want to, and couldn't resist to, let Miranda's challenge just pass but he had hoped to come up with something more than the juvenile response that came out, "I can too!"

Miranda's smirk widened as she knew Gordo was rattled. "Prove it," she said coolly, "You prolly can't," she continued to taunt him, "You probably can't even do the simplest thing, like say the first thing that pops into your head. It's prolly too difficult even for a genius like yourself."

Having enough, the words just seemed to come out of his mouth, "If you'd shut up for more than five seconds," Gordo yelled at her, "I'd tell you that I love you!" and there it was. He had said the first thing that popped into his head and it had landed him in a heap of trouble.

Watching Miranda's expression quickly falter into one of complete shock and surprise, Gordo grew nervous and scarred. "Nice, you moron. You couldn't just let it slide, once again, you had to challenge Miranda and try to be spontaneous. Well nice job, not only did you do it but you end up putting your damn foot in your mouth."

Miranda could only stare blankly back at him as her mind went spinning widely as his words kept repeating in her head. "He loves me?"