Author's Note: Hi there everyone. Here is chapter one. I admit, chapter one is something of a filler chapter, but I needed to write a filler chapter or this fic seriously wouldn't have got off the ground.
Still please, enjoy.

Chapter One

"Wow, you must really love her to get up that early in the morning to go all the way to Manhattan Muffin Company in Tribeca just so that you can get her a box of cinnamon mini-muffins." Lil teased as I staggered back into our apartment's kitchen on the first of May after doing just as she had said.

"It's her birthday and they're her favourite."I grumbled as I flopped into a chair at the kitchen table. Morning person, I am not.

I looked across the kitchen table at her and saw that she was trying (and failing) to wrap something in silver paper.

"What's that?"

"Mia's birthday present, duh."

"I gathered that much for myself, thanks. What is it?"

Instead of answering me, she simply showed me.

It was a pink cat collar (obviously, for Mia's infamously fat cat Fat Louie.) with the words I Belong to Princess Mia on it that she had written in rhinestones.

"Hey, that's pretty cool." I told her with a grin.

Lil shrugged, but you could tell she was proud of herself.

"Thanks." She gave me hard, searching look. "You still haven't shown or told me what you got for her for her birthday."

I grinned a little more secretively.

"That's for me to know and you to… not."

"You didn't get her anything?"

"No, I have. I'm just not going to tell you what it is."

Lil scowled at me before sighing and went back to trying to wrap the cat collar.

"Why not just put it into a birthday bag or something?" I suggested and she gave another sigh and got up from the kitchen table to hunt down just that. She came back about five minuted before we expected Mia's Limo to arrive, holding up a birthday bag with balloons and fireworks covering it.

"You ready to go down?" I asked, jumping up from my chair the moment that she came back into the kitchen.

"Eager, aren't you?" Lil teased but pulled her school bag on anyway.

We headed down to the lobby, exiting the front doors just as Mia's limo arrived.

"Hi you tw-eek!"Mia started only to be tackled by Lil as soon as Lil entered the limo.

"Lil, you're killing her." I said, feeling both amused and jealous due to the fact that Lil got to give Mia a hug before I did.

Lil ignored me and Mia's sort of exasperated gasps for air and kept hugging her before releasing her quite suddenly.

"Happy Birthday." Lil said sounding quite bright and cheerful, for once. She handed Mia her birthday present with a smug grin before moving over so that I could get in.

"Hey."I said as I hopped into the limo, handing Mia the box of cinnamon mini-muffins, which caused her to beam in delight, before giving her our usual morning kiss. I would have liked it to have continued except that Lil was making small gagging noises after our usual morning kiss became somewhat longer than usual.

"Having a good birthday so far?" I asked as I sat down next her, since Lil had so kindly opted to sit beside Lars just for today.

Mia beamed up at me.

"Yup. It's been pretty good so far." She snuggled into my side and I kissed the side of her head, ignoring Lil's rolling eyes and Lars amused grin that he tried unsuccessfully to hide behind his morning coffee.

For most of the day, I found it hard to concentrate on school.

I did try, but with graduation in just over a week, there seemed to be very little point especially when I was already in the University of my choice. Plus it's Mia's birthday! And a lot of things were hinged upon this fact.

"Look how jittery you are."Felix snorted during English, "you're almost as bad as you were when you mustering up the courage to show her that program of yours, remember?"

I pulled a face at him and tried to pay attention to whatever it was Mrs Weinstein had just said. Of course, that didn't work and I soon found myself panicky all over again.

"What are you freaking out about? Her not liking the song you wrote for her or about her birthday dinner tonight?" Felix asked becoming once more sick of my nervous, panicky attitude.

I gave him a look and he rolled his eyes.

"Look, it probably won't be so bad." He said and I raised my eyebrows at him and he seemed to concede that he might be wrong about that.

"Ok, maybe it will be, but at least you know that her Mom, her Dad and Mr G like you, so that should make the evening go by more easily."

"Ha!" I said without any humour. "You haven't met her grandmother. She makes no situation easy to be in. Plus," I added as I looked down at my hands, "she hates me."

"Who could possibly hate that face?" Felix said in a high-pitch teasing tone causing a number of heads turning back in our direction, confusion written all over them. One of those heads belonged to Judith. She looked less confused and more questioning as she looked back at us.

I simply rolled my eyes at her while Felix shot her a wide, comic smile and wiggled his fingers at her which caused her to twist, real fast, back around to the front of the room, clearly trying to hide her obvious amusement. She's been trying (and failing miserably) to not encourage this sort of behaviour with Felix. And as I said before, is failing miserably. She just can't help but crack a smile when she's around him. Which would be fine, because then we'd all be like 'see you like him! Go out already', except for the fact that she also can't help smile when she's around Paul as well, which just lands us all back in square one all over again. Trevor is suggesting that we just lock the three of them in a room together and whoever (Paul or Felix) comes out a live then he gets to date Jude. But for some reason, I can't find it within myself to agree to this plan, if only because Felix will win hands down if this thing ever came to a fist fight.

I rolled my eyes at him while he simply shot me back an innocent smile causing me to sigh.

"Look, even if her grandmother does hate you," I pulled a face but didn't say anything, "you still at least have her parents on your side, not to mention being friends with her bodyguard, whose probably been putting in a good word or two for you, along with the princess, to them. So really, tonight you have nothing to worry about, unless you try and grope her under…" I hit him over the head with my copy of The Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe.

"Ow! I was just saying!"

"And you wonder why the parents of the girls you've dated haven't liked you." I grumbled while he simply rolled his eyes back at me.

"But seriously Mike, you have nothing to worry about."

I nodded and with a sigh, I settled back in my chair and in complete boredom, started to reread The Pit and the Pendulum, the original Saw.

"I would never have taken you for being a Poe fan." Judith said as the three of us headed in the direction of our next class.

I raised an eyebrow at her.

"I've read the first five books of Harry Potter and seen the first two movies, but you wouldn't take me for a fan of it, would you?"

"No, but it doesn't surprise me to know that you have read and watch HP." Jude started while Felix muttered on my other side "Bad example" under his breath. "I mean, nearly everyone in the world has. But Edgar Poe…" she gave me a long look.

With a sigh, I showed her what I had been reading in English and she pulled a face.

"Of course, that makes perfect sense." She said as she rolled her eyes at me.

"And his mystery stories aren't too bad either."

"I think I would have preferred finding you reading one of them rather than The Pit and the Pendulum."

"What's wrong with it?" Felix asked.

Jude and I both shot him exasperated looks.

"Think of it as the original Saw." I said as Jude shuddered beside me.

Felix, of course, looked interested now.

"Really? Cool." I rolled my eyes at him, before giving a small groan as we came to our French classroom.

"Graduation can't come quickly enough." I said with a grumble as we walked into the room and headed for the back of the room, away from the excited babble emitted from a group of girls and Mademoiselle Klein as they poured over a magazine that held highly expensive dresses.

I simply shook my head and set about planning how I was going to sneak out of period four so that I could sneak off to Wu Liang Ye and get Mia the cold sesame noodles that she loves.

Doing just that, turned out to be surprisingly easy.

Being a senior and also graduating in just over a weeks' time, does have it uses. One being that teachers who would normally march you to the principal's office the moment they saw you out of class without a hall pass, simply nodded at me and let me leave school grounds without hindrance.

And returning to school at the beginning of lunch, again no one gave me any trouble.

With a smirk, I caught up to Mia as she walked into the caff, sneaking up behind her, without any trouble from Lars who knew exactly what I was doing and simply grinned at me as I snagged her waist and pulled her gently to my side as I planted a subtle kiss to her hair.

There were too many people around for me to give her a proper kiss, but I knew the gesture was still appreciated, what with the way that she was smiling up at me.

I would have liked to have snuck her off to a private spot, preferably off school grounds but that would just end up getting us both into trouble, what with her being both a freshman and a Princess, though what could possibly happen to us, what with a heavily armed, over six-foot tall bodyguard following us around everywhere, I have no idea. So with some reluctance, I walked with Mia to her usual table.

"You're not going to seat with the computer club today?" Mia asked as she looked up at me in surprise as I sat down beside her. I gave her smile that were reserved special for her and shook my head.

"It's your birthday." I said simply and she blushed happily.

We ate lunch, Mia grinning widely when she saw what I had snuck into school for her.

"And you say you can't understand how I can eat fresh out of the oven pizza," I teased as I watched her dig into the cold sesame noddles, that are so spicy that you have to drink two cans of coke for your tongue to even begin feeling even remotely normal again, "when you love eating that stuff."

"There's a difference." She said as took a drink of coke to cool her burning tongue. "Pizza is physically hot, does more damage to the mouth. This is just…"

"Hot, even when it's cold." I said and she smiled back at me, which did funny things to my insides, giving them a sort of melting feeling.

I thought I would be more nervous performing in front of my G&T class, but I actually found it to be quite fun, even though we, the whole band, received detention due to the fact we might just have had our amps up just a little too high, so that the whole school ended up hearing the song that I had written for Mia for her birthday. But at least Mrs Hills and all the other teachers in the Teacher's Lounge let us finish Mia's song before they informed us that we had detention this afternoon. Not that that is actually a bad thing, because our detention was issued to us more because of school protocol then because we had upset anyone, in fact we were informed by several teachers that we sounded quite impressive and to keep up the good work. That had made us feel pretty good about ourselves.

But best of all was tackling hug I had received from Mia once everything had quieten down again, with the teachers all gone and everyone in G&T had return to their work.

She snuggled herself in close, burying her face into my neck.

"You liked it?" I asked, feeling hopeful that she had. The surprised, but delighted look that she had worn during the song had given me some confidence but I want her assurance that she liked it coming from her lips.

"I did, very much." She said as she kissed my cheek happily.

"Good, I'm glad."

I was just thinking of kissing her, to hell with everyone else in the room, when my lovely sister said loudly in our direction, "I thought I said that you weren't allowed to be sickening together."

"And since when do I listen to you?" I shot back at her, feeling the embarrassed blush of Mia's cheeks heating up the side of my neck.

"The least you could both do is get a room while you're being sickening so that the rest of us aren't scarred by it."

"No one said you had to look at us, Lil." I growled at her but with a sigh, I released Mia and steered her back to her chair, thinking that Mia and I seriously needed to find a private space where we could be together in peace, without the constant annoyance and interruption of sister's, parents, bodyguard (though at least Lars has the decency to look away while Mia and I make out and makes himself as scarce as he is able while still effectively performing his bodyguard duties), friends, teachers and so on.

The rest of the day past by smoothly, even detention, even though when we were finally allowed to leave I was starting to freak out due to how much time I had to get home, get ready and be at the restaurant in time.

Author's Note: As I said before, very much just a filler chapter, next chapter will be Mia's Birthday Dinner, which will be, as you've all probably guess, a lot of fun.
Anyway, thanks for reading and you all know that reviews are much loved.
Disclaimer: Obviously I do not own the works of Mr Poe, or the Saw franchise (Thank gods 'shudders adn pulls face'.) nor do I own Harry Potter. And while I'm at I don't own PD or any of the characters, i'm just playing around with them and explore their possibilites.