Happy Valentine's Day! I've spent pretty much all of today writing this fanfiction, because I'm bored and single. I'm basically taking this fanfiction as the oppurtunity to mess with dialogue and developing character personalities, and channeling some of my useless ideas into something I'm really enjoying writing. Every half an hour I find myself closing my eyes and having a brainstorm for what to write next, even when I'm in the middle of eating or watching TV... Updates will be VERY frequent because of the tiny length of each chapter, but the actual fic is going to be about eight chapters long, and will turn out to be a KelNeal. Just like everything else I write. I SWEAR, IT'S NOT MY FAULT! THE KEL/NEAL FAIRY KEEPS DELETING EVERY OTHER PAIRING I WRITE!

Hope you like it: I'm not expecting very many reviews for such a weird fic, but they'd be appreciated... -cough HINT cough-

Hope you all have/had a great Valentine's day!

"Hey, Keladry. Thanks for saving me that seat," Neal smirked, sliding into the same seat he'd had yesterday. Once again, the hazel-eyed woman was curled up in the window seat with the same book in her lap.

"I didn't save you that seat. This place is nearly deserted. You're half an hour earlier than you were yesterday," Keladry remarked from behind the book.

"I wanted to see how early you got here," Neal replied, wrapping his cold hands around his coffee mug in an attempt to warm them up.

"Great," came her reply. "Now you can annoy me for even longer than yesterday."

"I know. Isn't it wonderful, Keladry?"

"Stop calling me that! It's the most horrific name I've ever heard! Just call me Kel, ok? Or better yet, stay away so you won't need to call me anything."

"Hey, hey! Calm down!" Neal said, waving his hands in a sign of surrender. "Aren't you going to get to finish your book or something?"

"If you haven't already realised by the huge circles under my eyes, yes, I am going to finish it, but I had to stay up half the night to do so. I now look like a cross between a panda and a cow, which isn't really the way I want to look on this particular day."

Neal leaned forward and pulled her book away so he could see her face. "You're really pretty. Stop putting yourself down." His voice was completely truthful and innocent.

Speechless, Kel glared at him and snatched at her book.

"Aw, come on, Kel, you only have four more pages to go! Just talk to me for a few minutes!" Kel didn't reply, which Neal took as a "fine, if I have to," and continued to talk. "Well, seeing as you gave me your condensed life history, why don't I give you mine? Well, my birthday is in two weeks, which means that I'm two weeks away from being twenty-five - I'm normally known as 'Dr. Queenscove' but all my friends call me Neal. Yeah, I'm a doctor, and my father is too, and basically, I have lived here all my life and have never met anyone quite like you, and am currently involved in a completely forced conversation with you even though you don't really want to but don't have any excuses, and even though you try not to show it, you seem to be a really interesting, creative person with a... somewhat frosty reception to strangers, but otherwise you seem to be really nice and I like you."

Kel was rolling her eyes all through his "condensed life history" and kept eyeing her book which Neal was currently using as an armrest, as though she was concocting a plan to get it back. "Well, Dr. Queenscove, if you're quite done, I'd like to return to my book," she said in a strained voice, hand creeping over to the object in question.

"It's just Neal," he said, watching her hand from the corner of his eye, knowing she thought he wasn't looking. "Not so fast," he said suddenly, whipping his hand out and capturing hers. "Are you just some complete recluse, or do you really not like speaking to me?" Kel was flexing her hand with surprising strength, though her cheeks were flushed with scarlet.

"I just don't like speaking to you," she answered through gritted teeth. "You keep implying we're friends, and we're not."

"I'd like to be friends," Neal replied quickly, releasing her hand and offering the book. "You know, you genuinely seem like a nice person. I wouldn't spend so much time trying to be friendly to someone I didn't even like. Come on, we can make a compromise."

"Hang on... I'm just going to buy another coffee," Kel said, emphasising each key word. Neal watched her walk up to the till, then was distracted when he realised she'd taken her bag and her book with her. When he looked around the coffee shop again, she was gone.

Neal spent the remainder of his time there (greatly elongated because of his early arrival) drumming his fingers on his empty mug, wondering why she was so mysterious and quick to anger.