A/N: Lila and Vandham have a very simple second date. Fluffffff!

Just before Ch. 10, and spoilers to at least that. Utter fluff and skippable, or at least skimmable. Swears, lack of clothing, and hints of things that happen between paragraphs. Next chapter is back to T, depending on your head.

Lila's not Cross (thank god), just an NPC with a blue speech bubble and interesting ways of saying thank you. All the wonderful clean stuff belongs to the gentle geniuses of MONOLITH SOFT.

Second date's a charm.

It had been five days since Vandham had seen her. Well, five days since he'd held her, which is what counted at the moment. He'd seen her on his comm device, met once even in person. Every night he'd called a sleepy Lila, wishing her a late good night. He'd called every morning, too, even more briefly, because her mornings matched his for earliness and speed. She'd called him too, once with the stupidest of jokes ("Two Prones walk into a bar…"), once with a somewhat panicked and random weather report about a tornado in Outer Oblivia. No one had flagged it, but something about her hysteria touched him.

He'd passed it on to the only team out that way. H.B.'s team, as it happened, rounded out with Rookie "What weather?" Cross and Yelv the Dim, just the group that would completely ignore the warning signs, because what's a little electrical damage when you've got a Purpose, with a capital P. Cocky little freaks, but the weird warning had reached them in time. Vandham had swung round Lila's auxiliary refueling station the next day to ask how'd she'd heard. Apparently her Ma-non tech knew a Prone who, well, had known something about sand, which had come to mind while they were cleaning skell treads. It all came down to connections.

He'd brought her lunch, too. He handed it over, still hot, well, warmish, from the Sunshine Café. He was not prepared for her burst of laughter when she peeked into the bag, but her broad smile told him she was pleased.

"A hot dog," she stated.

"Ketchup, no mustard. Wrong, dead wrong, but your preference, right?"

"I do have my lunch, you know," she said, twisting her head towards the shed of an office she'd established inside a repurposed shipping crate.

"Emergency rations, shelf stable until 2090, and tasting like crap the day they were made."

"The pizza's actually not bad."

"That pizza is a war crime. Ask your xeno tech about it. If you don't want real food, I won't bring you any."

She'd smiled and thanked him, and to prove the point she'd leaned up towards him and planted a kiss by his ear.

Elma had watched with those penetrating light blue eyes of hers. She'd come along, to thank Lila, having been the fourth member of H.B.'s peculiar team. Vandham didn't ask why she hadn't reigned in the wonder triplets earlier, knowing that she had a policy of quietly giving teams as much rope as it took to almost hang themselves. Except for Lin, that child was protected. Also with a capital P and some very effective dual guns. He'd bet that Elma had already casually and silently maneuvered the team near shelter, shelter that the kids had felt so damn lucky to find at the last moment. And all by themselves, too! Vandham worried that someday Elma would strain something, rolling her eyes back in her head like that.

Case in point. "How sweet. I didn't expect you to blush at public displays of affection," she commented dryly as they had returned to the upper administrative district.

Vandham had only grunted. He didn't expect to blush like that either. He didn't explain that Lila had whispered something very explicit by way of thanks while planting the kiss. Yeah, maybe a hot dog had a lot of other interpretations, but honestly, he had not been thinking that. He definitely had started thinking it once Lila had mentioned it, though.

God, how had he lasted this long?

And now they were on their second date, which had been about as lacking in class as he could possibly make it. Him knocking on her door, her opening it, the two of them looking at each other, barely able to say hello before they had sort of fallen in on each other. You'd think neither of them knew more than three or four words of the same language. Clearly didn't care. Someday, he'd do this better. Maybe have an actual bed involved, not just Lila's floor. Not that there was any space for a bed in here. Him, Lila, and a bed, good lord, the thought just about killed him, and he was already sprawled out with her on this ratty old carpet, having done his damndest to make it just a little rattier.

Lila was doing something along his back, it felt like a nuzzle followed by a kiss, on one newly discovered sensitive spot after another. That woman was lighting his skin up like a human FrontierNav. Great, she wanted to play Pathfinder. He'd let her go, until he felt like playing Harrier again.

What the hell was he thinking? He would never, ever be able to sit through a briefing with a straight face again.

"I did this on the White Whale too," she murmured.

"The hell you did. I would have remembered."

"I made it my business to check every centimeter of that ship. Top to bottom." Her toes wiggled against his ankles, and she planted a kiss right at the nape of his neck. Another FS lit up, level 5 mechanical, probably.

"Great. You're calling me a whale."

"The Whale. I shimmied through some weird crawl spaces to do it." She gave a sample wriggle. He rolled over to pin her down and enjoy the wriggle a bit more.

"I could always tell which bulkheads you placed," she whispered up at him. "You skimped on the margins, you know. Not quite enough space."

"We were rushed. Wriggle again."

But she didn't. She merely kissed him, quickly, and smiled. "I loved that ship."

"And I'm the next best thing. Sure you want me and not Nagi?"

"Spare my poor heart, I can't take that much awesome. Besides, everybody knows: the crew belongs to the captain, but the boat belongs to the chief."

Vandham felt a very sudden, very solid punch land somewhere near his heart. God dammit, he was hooked. He didn't feel like asking any more questions, only holding her a little closer. Done. But he still found himself asking. "Why'd ya take so long, then? How many months have we been here?"

"I wanted to avoid disaster. Because there is no way this is going to end well. Oh well." She shrugged. He couldn't tell whether she was teasing, or sad, or glib, or resigned. It made him nervous, and he hated being nervous. Keyed up, yes, but not nervous.

"What the hell makes you say that?"

"You're just so…, well, everything. It just won't last. Sorry."

"Hmph. You are full of it, you know that. You just made it a challenge, Brown. I'm going to enjoy proving you dead wrong. Repeatedly. Slowly. As often as possible."

"I'm rooting for you." She sighed, and after he had kissed her again, he was glad to see warm sparkles in her eyes. This thing, it was not going to be wrecked. She'd change her opinion, and he was going to be the one to do it, too.

Nine days later he was shouting that he wished her dead in front of a small but astonished early morning crowd in Barista Alley. But only shouting, because you do not punch girls.

a/n: Nope. Nothing. I got nothing more. Wait, yes. Happy Valentine's Day!

I get to play with the Switch THIS MONTH whooo! A week early, okay not so impressive, but still….

Next up: Fast forward through the next few dates (I'm still not sure a bed was ever involved, nope, yes, once, he ended up late for a meeting). Lila is all kinds of happy, because she's going to meet Jack. Did I just see her actually skipping?