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

Warning: my computer may or may not have a Trojan Horse virus, and if it does, I won't be able to update until I get rid of it. Also, I didn't quite remember how exactly Mia became a director. I know she wrote out the Triple Illusion but I'm not sure if that was it or not...

The Poenix Feather: Oooh, kudos for me! Wait a minute... I get one of the main character's name wrong... but I get a guy from ONE episode correct? Um... okay...?

Chapter 9

"Oh Yuri!" Layla called as she walked inside, smiling proudly. "Guess what I did!"

"Oh, no," Yuri said as he came after the sound of her voice. "This doesn't sound good."

Layla chuckled, rolling her eyes. "Trust me, Yuri. You're going to like this."

Her husband walked towards her hesitantly, eyes narrowing suspiciously when he saw her hiding her arm behind her back. "Layla? What did you do?" he asked slowly, his eyes widening when she brought her arm out from behind her back.

"Surprise!" she exclaimed, smiling brightly again.

"Layla! What the- I thought the cast was supposed to be on for another week!" Yuri said as he hurried forward to inspect her arm.

She shrugged. "Well, it was, but I had Kate take it off earlier. So? Does this mean we can finally have sex as a married couple?"

Yuri mock-glared at her as he shook his head. "No, Layla, it doesn't! When I said 'no sex until the cast comes off', I meant no sex until your arm was healed! Going to Kate to get it off early doesn't mean its healed!"

"But I'm fine!" Layla tried to insist, then attempted to straighten her arm out. She frowned when she couldn't get it to move more then a couple of inches, then said, "Okay, I will be fine, but come on, Yuri, let's just try it! I'll promise I'll tell you if my arm hurts or anything, but please, it's been almost three months since we've done anything more than kissing! You're driving me crazy!"

Yuri hesitated a moment longer, then groaned and gave in. "All right, Layla, we can try it. But-"

"Yes!" Layla cried, passionately kissing him on the lips to silence him. "Oh, thank you, Yuri! And I promise you won't be disappointed. Now, come on!" she grabbed Yuri's hand and pulled him along behind her as she hurried back to their bedroom.

"Layla," he started to warn, but she shushed him immediately.

"No, Yuri! No talking! First, this is going to take awhile and I don't want you talking the whole time; it'll ruin the romance. Second, I'll think you'll need your oxygen- and your mouth- for other things. Other, more appealing things." She flashed another smile at him before shutting and locking the door to their bedroom and flicking off the lights.

By the time Layla had finished taking her clothes off- and talking to Yuri with her best 'seduction voice' while she did- Yuri could hardly stand it. "You know," she said as she crawled into bed next to him, wrapping an arm around his bare shoulders, "tonight, I'm about to finally fulfill a fantasy of mine."

"Oh really?" Yuri asked in between brief kisses. "And what fantasy is this?"

Layla smiled, tracing his shin with her toe as she replied with, "Making love to my husband."

KALEIDO STAR KALEIDO STAR KALEIDO STAR

Anna made a mental note to thank Sora for this as Jerry escorted her to an interrogation room. Apparently, Sora was much better friends with him then everybody else had thought. All Anna really knew about him was that he was dating Kate, and she only knew that because she was one of the people who had gotten them together. "Thanks, Jerry," she said quietly as he came to a stop outside one of the doors and nodded for her to go ahead inside.

He nodded absentmindedly, then said, "Sora also asked me to look up something for her, and now I know why- just ask your brother why exactly he came back a year earlier then he was supposed to." Then he left, heading back to his desk, leaving Anna staring after him in confusion.

After a moment of hesitation, she shook her head and opened the door, breaking out into a smile when she saw Derek sitting at the table. He looked up unhappily, then exclaimed, "Anna!" He jumped to his feet and rushed over to her, enveloping her in a crushing hug. "What are you doing here?"

"What do you think?" she asked, hugging him back. When she caught sight of one of his hands, though, she immediately stepped back and examined the cuts on his skin. "Derek?" she asked in concern as she tenderly ran her thumb along one of the cuts. "Your hands- they're all bruised. What happened?"

He shook his head and sighed. "You know all those people the cops are saying I 'assaulted'?" He made air quotes around the word assaulted and shook his head again. "Well, I got those cuts from hitting them because they just showed up at my place and started threatening me! Apparently, self-defense is now a crime."

Anna was about to go in a tirade about the stupid cops when she remembered something from their phone conversation. "Wait... Derek... I thought you said I didn't touch them?"

Derek wasn't phased. He shook his head and explained, "No, I said I didn't attack them. But of course I was trying to defend myself."

Anna sighed as she sat on the edge of the table, biting her lip uncertainly- she was sure he had said '...assaulting some people I didn't even touch!' Well, his explanation was plausible- and there was still no proof that he was Rosetta's abusive boyfriend.

Then Jerry's question came back to mind, as well as her own- her brother had been in town for a year, why hadn't she heard anything at all from him? Even a postcard would of been nice. In fact, he was supposed to still be in Iraq. Why exactly was he back a year early?

"Um, Derek..." she asked slowly. "Not that I don't trust you or anything, I do, but... well, I thought you were supposed to be coming back from Iraq sometime this year. Why are you back so early? And why didn't you tell me?"

Her brother swallowed nervously and looked away. "Anna, I, um... the marines, ah... Bad Conduct Discharge," he finally finished, still not looking at her. "I had a, um, altercation with a superior officer, and he was friends with the guy who reviewed the incident. He threw the first punch, I was only defending myself."

Anna hesitated, trying to believe him, even though it was a little too coincidental. "Oh. I'm sorry. Look... Derek, you know the girl they said you tried to kill, Rosetta? You didn't... you weren't her boyfriend, were you?" she asked worriedly.

Derek raised his head to stare at her, eyes wide. "Anna!" he gasped. "I can't believe you're siding with the cops over me! You've known me your her life, how can you-"

"Wait, Derek!" she exclaimed, gesturing for him to stop. "No, no, I'm not siding with anybody! My friends just told me they saw somebody hitting Rosetta, and then they started attacking that same person, and if it was anybody else, I wouldn't even be questioning it, but- just tell me what happened, Derek."

Derek immediately launched into his story, eager to finally tell someone who would believe her. "Your friend, Rosetta, was dating one of my friends. I was letting them stay over at my place for the weekend, and I came back to get some stuff right when the others starting showing up, and I don't know, my friend must have hid in the closet or something and they must have mistook me for him, I don't know, and they went ballistic."

Anna hesitated, frowning. Derek's story just didn't match up with what every single one of her friends had said- they saw the guy beating up Rosetta and immediately attacked him, they didn't wait for him to hide in a closet just so somebody else could show up. And it was a little odd that Derek had been back in town for over a year and hadn't thought it worth mentioning to her.

But still, he was her brother.

Anna sighed, then said, "I... I have to go think about this, Derek. I'll get you that lawyer." On her way out, Jerry stopped her and handed her a file. "What's this?" she asked in confusion.

"This is the real incident report concerning your brother's discharge. I think you might be interested in reading about what actually happened." Anna hesitated before taking the file and flipping it open.

She was greeted with blown up pictures of a guy's face, swollen with bruises in shades of red and black. She blinked in surprise, then read the words under the photo. Master Sergeant Brian Smith was put in the hospital when Private First Class Derek Heart assaulted him. Five witnesses said that the brawl was sparked by Smith reprimanding Heart about a violent outburst of his earlier. Eye witnesses reports said he threw the first punch and proceeded to use the butt of his gun to bludgeon Smith. It took five marines to restrain Heart, and when Smith decided not to press charges, Heart was immediately issued a Bad Conduct Discharge.

Anna blinked, trying to make sense of the fact that the Derek Heart the file was talking about was her brother. She stared at the pictures of the Master Sergeant's bruised face and remembered the injury reports for her six friends. Oh, god... him? My brother? He actually... oh my god, he actually did this. Derek actually did all this.

Fighting tears, Anna immediately shoved the file back into Jerry's hands, not wanting to see anymore. She had to get out of here. She didn't want to see anybody else today; she just wanted to curl up in bed and forget all about this.

KALEIDO STAR KALEIDO STAR KALEIDO STAR

Mia smiled at Andy, nervously crossing and uncrossing her legs as he sat down across from her. He flashed yet another dazzling smile at her as she hesitated, then asked, "So, why exactly did you ask me out? And this is a date, right? I'm not misunderstanding it or anything?"

Andy chuckled and shrugged easily. "First, no, you're not misunderstanding anything, this is a date. And second of all, I asked you out because of... two reasons, really. First reason? I just like redheads." Mia blushed and twirled one of her orange pigtails in her hand- she had always hated her hair color. Apparently, she had made the right decision when she had chosen not to dye it. "Second reason? With my job, I meet alot of successful, beautiful women. And, more often then not, they dress like hookers or something and throw themselves at me, even though its pretty damn obvious they're only interested because I'm rich."

"Well, I'm pretty sure that's not the only reason," Mia mumbled, once again feasting her eyes on all glorious six feet five inches of him, choking herself off when she realized she had said it out loud. "Um, I mean, yeah, I meet alot of people like that, too. I work with alot of famous stars, and, uh... yeah," she finished lamely, unsure of what else to say.

"Oh, really? What do you do? Are you a performer at Kaleido Stage?" Andy asked, sipping his coffee.

Mia shrugged. "Sort of. I started out as a performer, but when I'd been there a couple months and we did a show on Cinderella, I rewrote one of the scenes for myself and two of my friends. Kalos- the manager- liked it enough and allowed it in the show. And then, when..." she paused, trying to figure out how to describe the schism that had resulted when Yuri had bought out Kaleido Stage. "And when the company decided to split up and mostly everybody- including me- decided to quit, I wrote the last performance we did before the new management took over. So when Kalos got Kaleido Stage back, I went in as a director."

Andy smiled slightly and nodded approvingly. "Nice, someone else who worked their way up! I started out basic, too- Kalos, Sarah, and I were a performing troupe, back in the day. Sarah had always wanted to start a professional singing career, though, and both Kalos and I said we could fulfill her dream. She had always had a bit of a thing for him, so she chose Kalos, and he started Kaleido Stage, I started my record company. Worked up from producing CDs for wanna-be teenagers to doing platinum records. I came back and asked Sarah if she wanted to join me, but Kalos asked her to stay, and the rest is history."

Yes, a lame ending. However, it's 1: 47 in the morning. Please review