The Phoenix Feather: Wha...? Belgium? But... I thought... okay, I know absolutely nothing about this anime's canon and probably should of watched it again.

Anjyu: I'll try to get to it soon, but I'm writing three... four? fics right now, so no promises :)

Okay, the Andy mentioned in this chapter actually is the one who showed up in the episode where Sarah was going to leave Kaleido Stage... and now that I've said that his name probably wasn't even Andy, but whatever.

Chapter 8

Sora found Anna pacing outside of Rosetta's hotel, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. "Anna?" she called, approaching her hesitantly. Anna looked up at her without stopping her frantic movements. "What's going on?" she asked uncertainly.

"What's going on?" Anna cried, laughing hysterically. "What's going on is that Rosetta is trying to say that my brother is her abusive boyfriend!"

Sora frowned, biting her lip. "Um... okay, and?"

"And?" Anna demanded. "And? Sora, my brother didn't do this! He would never have done something like this!"

Sora took another step forward, unsure of what to say. "Um, Anna... well, he did do this. I saw him hitting Rosetta, I saw him attack everybody else. I'm not sure what other explanation there is."

"Oh, god, not you too! Sora, my brother would never abuse his girlfriend! I don't care what you or Rosetta or anybody else says! Derek's not that type of guy!" Anna shouted, turning on her with a fierce glare.

After hesitating for another moment, Sora said softly, "Look, Anna, I know you love Derek, and I've heard the stories you've told us about him, but that doesn't change the fact that ne nearly killed Rosetta and everybody else there that day."

Anna shook her head firmly. "I don't care what you say, Sora. My brother says he didn't do it and I'm going to believe him."

Sora sighed, watching as Anna continued to pace back and forth. She supposed she could call Jerry, see if he could find some evidence that might convince Anna... but that really could wait until tomorrow- right now, she was eager to get home to Leon and actually spend time with him, something she hadn't been able to do in a while. And she doubted any evidence would really convince Anna anyway.

"Anna, I know you don't want to hear this, but the police are not going to let him go just because he's your brother. I can talk to one of the cops, maybe work out a way you could go see him, but Anna, do you really think-"

"Sora!" Anna exclaimed, immediately whirling around, eyes wide and hopeful. "Would you really do that? Would you get me a visit with Derek?"

Sora blinked in surprise. "I, uh..." she trailed off at Anna's hopeful expression, trying to find a way out of it, then finally sighed and gave up. "Yeah, yeah, all right, I'll do it," she grumbled under her breath.

"Oh, thank you, Sora!" Anna said, giving her a quick hug. "I so owe you."

On her way back to Leon's place, Sora muttered under her breath, "All I wanted was just a simple day where I could relax, is that too much to ask? But nooo, now I have to go work this out too..." People on the street looked at her like she was a deranged lunatic and gave her a wide berth, but Sora really didn't care. Once she had made this call to Jerry, she was done for the day. She was turning off her god damn cell phone and just spending the night with Leon and nobody else.

KALEIDO STAR KALEIDO STAR KALEIDO STAR

Mia shut off her laptop, glanced at her watch, then sighed. "I have no life," she mumbled to herself. "Here I am, 10 o'clock on a Friday night, and I'm sitting at home alone, working."

Shaking her head, Mia flopped down on her bed, flinging her arms above her head. Sora was dating Leon, Layla was married to Yuri, Sarah was getting married to Kalos, May was getting married to Ken, Rosetta had been in a relationship- albeit, a bad one- for over a year... aside from Marion and Anna, Mia was the only of their group still single, and Marion was only ten, so that really just left her and Anna. Of course, ever since getting that phone call yesterday, Anna had been nowhere to be found.

"And then there was one," she muttered to herself. After laying on her bed for all of five minutes and doing absolutely nothing, Mia decided that she was going out. She wasn't out in the middle of nowhere for god's sakes, she was in California. Surely she could find a social life somewhere around here.

Unfortunately, when Mia started searching for something besides jeans, sweatpants, tanktops, or sports jackets, she came to another rather sad conclusion- she had absolutely no clothes worthy of going clubbing in. "God, no wonder I'm still single," she said out loud. And then, "God, I'm turning into one of those lunatics who goes around talking to themselves. Okay, operation 'getting a social life' commences... now."

But when Mia left her room with the intention of going to get better clothes, she walked right into somebody else. "Oh, I'm sor..." she immediately started to apologize, but the words froze in her mouth when she looked up at the man she almost run into.

He was six foot five inches of gorgeous, tan skin and glossy black hair and sparkling eyes and... gorgeous, and... something else that was gorgeous, and... Um, what was I thinking about again? God he's gorgeous.

"I'm sorry," he said in a melodic voice- oh god, an exotic accent!- and flashed a beautiful smile down at her. "I didn't see you there. I'm Andy Griffin." He stuck out his hand, and it took Mia a second to remember where she was.

She nodded eagerly and said in a voice that didn't sound like her own, "Um, hi, I'm Mia Gulliam." She shook his hand, smiling what was probably a really stupid looking grin up at him.

Andy stood there awkwardly for a moment as Mia just stared at him, then said, "I'm looking for May Wong, is she here?"

Mia swallowed quickly and shook her head. "No, she's on a date with her fiancé tonight..."

"Oh. Then I should probably just come back- can you tell her I came by? I'm the CEO of a recording company, and May was interested in doing some back-up singing for some of my singers?"

He's rich, gorgeous, nice, and right in front of me! How can this get any better? As Andy turned to walk away and Mia sighed sadly, he suddenly turned back to her and said, "Hey, Mia- I was wondering, would you want to get coffee with me tomorrow morning?"

Mia almost passed out right then and there. She actually looked over her shoulder to make sure he was talking to her and not someone else. "Me?" she choked out. "Me? you want to get coffee with me?"

Andy smiled slightly, then nodded. "Yeah..."

"Then, yes! Yes, yes, yes! Um... I mean... yes, I would like to get coffee with you," she amended with a blush.

"Good," he said with another dazzling grin. "I'll pick you up at nine."

Mia nodded eagerly. "Yeah, that's perfect!" When Andy was gone, Mia stared after him, then just shook her head and smiled happily. "Well, that was easier then I thought."

Short chapter, I know, but this is what happens when I start writing late at night. Please review