Mako's Message: Sorry about the delay. I had the Holiday chapter to work on and the Bonus chapter has been giving me problems. Hopefully I'll have it and the next chapter done promptly. And I could spend a few pages bitching about what's been going on the last ten days... so I won't.

Anyway, I think you'll all enjoy this chapter. It should contain a few things you've all been wanting to see for awhile now, so I'm just gonna let you get to enjoying it.


Well... today was full of surprises.

It started earlier than usual, since Dave called off patrol last night, not that I blame him. Not sure I'd be in the mood for patrol if(And this is a pretty damn big IF) I'd gotten kicked around like that either. So since we didn't go out I went to bed earlier than usual and woke up before Marcus got home from work.

It was weird for me, since I can't recall having the house to myself for any real amount of time since I was grounded. It gave me the strangest urge to do something crazy. So I went around and closed all the curtains and then spent the next few hours walking around the house in costume.

I don't even know why I did it. It was so childish I'm almost ashamed of it. Even back with Daddy I wouldn't wear more than my belt and skirt, but today, there I was kicking back on the couch in full costume watching TV. It was kinda fun though.

Right up until Marcus came home early to find me eating cereal on the couch, still in costume.

I think it might have been a little much for him. He didn't get mad, or laugh, or even cry. He brought his hands up to rub at his eyes and said, "Go change. Just... go change." If anything he sounded tired. Might have even aged him a little.

That changed about an hour later.

Angela came over and just could not stop talking about the cheer squad. How often would we practice(No idea.), should she keep up her training regime or would practices be enough(If she wanted to be better, no, scheduled practices would not be enough.), how hot would she look in the uniform and should she go on a diet(About as hot as she always does and no she shouldn't.), would we be cheering for every team or just the football team(No idea, but the less I have to do this the better.), would we be entering into cheerleading competitions(Again, I had no idea.)? And it just kept going on and on like that until Marcus came in wanting to know what all the excitement was about.

I tried to stop her, I really, really did. But I did not expect her to bite me.

So she blurted it out, "Mindy and I are on the cheer team!"

All the damage done to Marcus from coming home to find me in costume was undone and then some, and I started wondering if I could spend the rest of my life under the floorboards in my room.

Marcus insisted on taking us out to celebrate, and since the first place we both think of when we think "celebrate" is NYBC, I didn't really have a problem with this. And the opportunity to see Dave was great too. I think Angela might have felt the same about Riley.

I kinda feel that way about her now too though, competition or not.

See, when we were walking up to the place, we could hear shouting from inside. We couldn't make out what they were saying, but it didn't really matter because before we got to the door, it swung open as Katie back out. She was saying something like, "I only" but she was cut off by Riley shrieking, "GET OUT!" and throwing one of those plastic sundaes they have on display at her head. Katie managed to dodge it and it bounced off the door.

Katie yelled back, "I'm going! I'm going!" and pushed the door shut before Riley could throw anything else at her. Then she saw us, and she looked at me and she said "Oh! Mindy, I-" and stopped(Probably because she saw the knife in my hand.) and said, "Never mind, I- bye." and she turned and ran off down the street.

Riley came out then and picked up the fake sundae and yelled, "Next time I wont miss!" Then she turned and saw us and she changed from pissed to pleasant in an instant, "Oh, hello, sorry about that. Just customers causing trouble, no big thing."

So Riley is at least 20% cooler in my mind now.

It didn't end there either. She held the door open and waved us in, told us to have a seat at a table, that she was glad to see us, and that she was especially glad to see me because she said Dave needed to talk to me. Though it was more like she wanted him to talk to me, since she practically had to shove him out of the back and towards our table. Then she called Marcus and Angela over to the counter to try something new she was working on and trying to get onto the menu.

So Dave sat down with me and didn't say anything for a minute. Then he finally said, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been ignoring you like I have. If I can face people trying to kill me, you'd think I should be able to handle a little public ridicule." We laughed a little at that, but then he stopped and said, "But I was just mad about...everything. Katie breaking up with me, the rumors, the abuse, and I'll admit I was a little angry with you about it. That I did think this was all partially your fault. I know it's just you being you, and I do like you the way you are, but you have been acting..." and he stopped and seemed to really think about how he wanted to say this before deciding on, "inappropriate around me. And I don't mind, it doesn't bother me, but it obviously gave people the wrong idea. So, I'm sorry for not talking to you this last week, but can you please not play like that anymore? At least not where other people might see?"

And, it did hurt to hear that he'd blamed me for all that, even if it was a just a little bit, but I couldn't even tell myself I was blameless. But what he said about not minding the way I acted with him was nice. When he asked if I could just refrain from doing that around other people I couldn't resist smirking at him and asking, "So, if we're alone, I could sit in your lap if I wanted?"

Dave half laughed half sighed and covered his face with his hands as he said, "Oh god. Yeah. Sure. Whatever. So long as nobody sees it, why not?"

I grinned back at him and said, "Awesome."

And he laughed a little again, then said, "So, I found this game on my computer that I totally forgot I had. After I'm done with work you want to come over and give it a spin before we go out tonight? It's really fun."

And of course I accepted. In fact, he should be getting off now so I'll end this here and get ready to go over there. Dave's lap is calling to me.