A/N: Sorry that took so long. I have been neglecting fanfiction to work on Randomninity. Anyways, here ya go.

Sarah RAN across two streets and around a corner, looking over her shoulder the whole time to make sure that Madeline hadn't followed her. If there was one thing she didn't want to explain just then, it was what had happened Friday night. Well, that wasn't quite right. She really did want to tell and get the awful weight off her chest! But Brandon had trusted her. He couldn't let anyone know his secret, and he'd taken a large enough risk by telling Sarah. She wasn't going to let him down now, no matter how bad of a liar she was!

She took the small cell phone out of her pocket that her parents made her take when she went anywhere without an adult. It was old and couldn't do anything but make phone calls, but it would do. She punched in the number for Brandon's cell, and counted her heartbeats as she waited for him to answer. Finally, he did. "Hello?" he asked, not recognizing the unfamiliar number that was calling him.

"BRANDON!" she practically yelled, not noticing that people were starting to stare at her.

"Bunches?" he asked, sensing the panic in her voice. "Are you all right?"

"Yes! I mean no! I mean, I will be! Can you come pick me up!" She glanced around to make sure that Madeline hadn't found her.

"Yeah! Sure, of course! I'm getting in my truck right now. I'll be there in a few minutes."

"Thanks," she sighed. Then, a thought penetrated her much relieved head. "Oh, Brandon! I'm not exactly at home..."

She could have sworn she heard him snicker, and pouted indignantly. Still, he said, "I was wondering where you were calling from. Okay. Where are you?"

Sarah looked around. "I'm outside a Carl's Jr. It's across from an Albertson's and a -" she squinted "- Porky's Deli Mart."

"Okay. I know where that is. I'll be right there. Bye."

"Wait!"

"What?"

"Um.." she hesitated, but said, "Don't hang up."

"Don't hang up?"

"Uh-huh."

"Okay." He paused for a moment, then asked, "So what are you doing over there?"

She cringed. "Madeline wanted me to come with her to this antique store. It's called The Attic."

"Oh, hey! I've been there before!"

"Really?" That surprised Sarah. She didn't think anyone under the age of forty ever actually shopped there. "What'd you get?"

"Oh, I didn't get anything. I went with my mom. She was trying to redecorate the guestroom, and she heard they had this marble vanity she wanted, or something."

"Oh."

"Yeah. It was odd, though. There was this really weird guy working there. He had this really white-blond hair!"

"Oh, really!" Sarah smiled. She could think of only one "weird guy working there" who would fit that description...

"Yeah. He was kind of creeping me out, though. I felt like he was staring at me the whole time I was there. And I know this is weird, but I could have sworn he thought I smelled or something! His nose kept flaring like that. Isn't that weird!"

Her eyes flew open wide, and her smile evaporated. "Yeah, that's weird..." she drawled, imagining just why Greg might have thought that. She had never noticed any weird smells around Brandon, but then again, toms did tend to have stronger senses of smell than queens. Greg was older, too. Not to mention that Greg, or rather, Mistoffelees, had, well, extra-sensory perception, of a sort...

"So did you get anything?"

"Huh?" His question had caught her off-guard.

"Did you buy anything at The Attic?"

"Me? Oh, no! We just kind of went there to ... hang out, I guess."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I guess..."

"Okay." He paused for a moment, then said, "Okay, I'm coming up on the Carl's Jr. Where are you exactly?"

Sarah looked up. "I'm underneath the 'Drive-thru this way' sign."

"Okay, I see you. I'm in the big black truck."

"Yeah, okay."

Once he'd pulled up and opened the door, Sarah hopped into the front seat and buckled the seat belt. Brandon locked the doors and started to turn the truck around. "So, are you hungry?" he asked.

Sarah was about to say no, but at that moment, her stomach growled. "I'll take that as a 'yes,'" Brandon said, smiling. Sarah pouted. Instead of pulling the truck out of the parking lot, he pulled around into the drive-thru and rolled down his window. "What do you want?" he asked.

She shrugged, completely at ease with him. "Baked potato, I guess. And a chocolate milkshake!"

"A baked potato?" he asked, incredulously.

"Yeah! Why?"

He shrugged now. "I don't know. Do they even have those here?" he asked, looking at the menu.

"Of course they do!" she retorted. "It's a Carl's Jr.!"

"Oh, okay!" he said, backing off. "I'm more of a carnivore myself..." He snickered, but the joke was completely lost on Sarah.

"WelcometoCarl'sJr.wouldyouliketotryourspecialtoday?" the voice blared over the speaker box.

Sarah didn't make out a word of what the voice said, but Brandon, unfazed, replied, "No, thanks. I want a baked potato, a medium chocolate shake, and a six-dollar burger."

"Doyouwantsourcreamonthepotatoorontheside?"

Brandon looked questioningly to Sarah, but she was confused beyond belief. "On the side," he answered for her.

"That'll be seven dollars and forty nine cents. Thankyoupleasepulluptothewindow."

Brandon put the car in gear and pulled up to the pickup window. "Wow. The potato and shake were only a buck fifty!" Sarah said, commenting on the only part of the order she had made out correctly.

Now Brandon was confused. "Huh?"

Sarah rolled her eyes. "If the burger was six dollars, then the potato and the shake were only a buck fifty!" She smiled, so proud of herself. "See? I'm good at this math thing!"

Brandon was about to try to explain to her that it was only called a six-dollar burger, that it really cost $3.95, and that they only called it that because it was supposed to be the quality of a burger that cost six dollars, but then he changed his mind. That might have been a little too much for her. Instead, he said, "Yeah, that's weird," and put the food on the floor in front of Sarah. He then pulled out of the drive-thru.

Sarah reached down to her feet to retrieve her potato, and was soon unwrapping the foil. Brandon saw her, and started, "Oh, don't - !" But then he got a look at her innocent face, and changed his mind. Normally, he never let anyone eat in his truck, but for Sarah, he could make an exception. "Never mind," he muttered, and she continued unwrapping. He could always clean the car later.

"Hey, they forgot the sour cream!" she called out once she had finished with the foil.

"It's in the bag," he said.

She found it, and cried out, "Wow! How did you know that!"

Brandon sighed, smiling.

Sarah was about halfway done with her potato when Brandon pulled into the driveway of his family's house. Together, they managed to gather the food back into the paper bags, and to clean up most of the chocolate milkshake spill. They then went around to the front door, which Brandon opened with his key.

"Dad, I'm home! Are you here?" he called, but there was no response. He shrugged. "Dad's not home, I guess," he said to Sarah. "You can make yourself comfortable in the kitchen. I think you know where it is." She nodded. "I'll be there in a minute."

She was about to turn around, but stopped, and said, "Oh, wait! Can I use your phone real quick?"

"Sure. What for?" he inquired.

"I have to call Madeline and let her know I'm still alive. I kind of ran away from her in The Attic..." she hesitated.

Brandon saw her discomfort, and said, "Don't worry. Think about it, and when I get back to the kitchen, we'll talk." And just like that, he trudged down the hall, without mentioning to Sarah exactly where he was going. At least he had a darn good reason.

When Brandon got to the end of the hall, he entered the door to the guestroom. There, he opened the large dressing closet, and pressed a panel in the back. Lo and behold (well, it was actually no surprise to Brandon), the panal swung open to reveal a set of stairs leading down into what seemed at first glance to be a basement. He descended those stairs.

At the bottom, he came to a decent-sized room with brightly-painted sky blue walls, with a few stylized clouds strewn about. It was all quite brightly lit with flourescent lighting and LED lights, so as to create an atmosphere similar to that of being outdoors (though it was physically impossible to really come close). The whole place reeked (or as Brandon would put it, "smelled wonderfully") of dog. Brandon didn't linger long in this room. He strode non-chalantly to the other side of it, and opened a door painted the same color as the wall. It was through this door that he entered.

This room may have been smaller, but it was certainly more comfortable. It was much more civilized, with paneled oak walls, and a think burgandy carpet on the floor. The walls and most of the shelves were adorned with artifacts of different kinds, but all pertaining to the same theme: Pollicles. This room held one of the only collections of genuine Pollicle artifacts. On the other side, there sat a man at a desk, pouring over a large, leather-bound, handwritten tome. Brandon walked over to this man and tapped him on the shoulder. "Dad," he said. "Sarah's here."

He didn't even look up from the book. "Is she? That's fine."

Brandon turned around to go, but his father stopped him. "You may wish to get your stuff ready tonight, son," he said. "We'll have to leave this evening if we're going to get to the pack meeting tomorrow night."

"Tonight?" Brandon queried. "Where's the meeting that we have to leave tonight?"

"In the next state."

"WHAT!"

His dad finally turned to look at him. "I know. It's far away. But it's the Moralises' turn to host this month. Hey, they've been coming over every month for the moon, so don't complain. That's the way it has to be, since there are so few Pollicles anywhere. Just get your stuff ready." And just like that, he turned back to the book.

Brandon, very much annoyed, turned around and headed back upstairs. When he got to the kitchen, he found Sarah just hanging up the phone. "Madeline said it was fine," she said. "She actually bought my explanation! I must be getting better at lying."

"Ah," he muttered as he sat at the kitchen table, "What exactly did you tell her?"

"I told her I had to run to put a contact lens in!"

Brandon sighed. His girlfriend couldn't lie to save her life. "So," he said, "Tell me again why you really had to run out?"

Sarah sat down, pouting. "Well, they were asking how Friday night went..."

"Friday night?" he repeated, grimacing. Sarah nodded. Brandon sighed again. "Bunches," he went on, "We're going to have to think of something for you to say, and maybe practice it, too."

"Yeah," she agreed. "So what am I gonna say?"

"What do you think would be most comfortable?"

"I – I dunno..." she muttered. "What would we have done if ... you know... hadn't happened?"

Brandon suddenly started coughing hysterically. She'd caught him completely off-guard. The real reason ... yeah. He couldn't exactly tell her that even though the Pollicle medallion kept him from changing, it couldn't prevent him from feeling the psychological effects of changing. He had actually hoped that being under the moon would ... well ... bring out the wilder side of him, so making out with Sarah would be ... well ... heightened. He certainly hadn't counted on Sarah being a were-creature as well ... though it did turn out far more interestingly than it would have if she wasn't ...

Sarah was staring at him. "Brandon? Are you okay?" She shook him out of his momentary stupor.

"Hm? Yeah! I'm fine!" he responded as he shook off the out-of-it feeling. "I was just thinking ... maybe we should think of another story."

They spent the next half hour in the kitchen together, rehearsing how she'd say "I was stuck in traffic all night." By the end of it, Brandon was fairly confident she'd be able to get through a short conversation about Friday night, at least until she could excuse herself. "That should be all right," he said, wrapping it up.

"Good," she responded. "It's still gonna be hard not to say ... you know ... at the tribe meeting tomorrow."

Tribe? "Huh?" he asked. "Did you say tribe?"

"Yeah, tribe!" Sarah said, oblivious to why he might be confused, for confused he certainly was. He had no idea what he meant by tribe. (What Sarah automatically thought of as a tribe, Brandon had always thought of as a pack)

"Yeah, we have a tribe meeting at every full moon," she said. "Why?"

"Ah," Brandon replied, suddenly understanding. "It's nothing. We just call it a pack."

"Oh. I guess there's a lot of differences between us." Then she giggled. "Too bad we can't tell them what really happened on Friday."

"Yeah," he snorted amusedly. That would be something. Still, Friday night really had been a blast. That gave him an idea...

"Sarah? What do you say we do that again?" he asked with an evil glint in his eye.

"But I know what I'm gonna say now! Why do we need to practice again?"

Typical Sarah. Brandon smiled, and put his arm over her shoulders as he said, "No, Bunches. I mean, why don't we do what we did on Friday night again..."

She suddenly shot him a look of pure amazement. "Do ... change again!" she asked, incredulously. "What, now!"

"No!" He looked to make sure his dad hadn't come up from the basement, then turned back to Sarah. Tickling her chin, he whispered, "No, Bunches. I mean, tomorrow night, you and me get together and ... do something." He leaned in, kissing her gently.

Sarah leaned into his embrace, lost in his kiss. "Mm ... mm hmm," she muttered. "Yeah, let's do that," she said dreamily when she came up for air.

A/N: I really have a friend who said, "See? I'm good at this math thing!" It was an honors class, too... .:shakes head sadly:.

Ekwy: No, you can't have Brandon! The ultimate boyfriend ever is mine! .:huggles Brandon:.

Eclectica: Yay! Jellice for you! (though you may not wish it after what it has become)