AN: Thanks everyone for your kindness so far. You're all really sweet. Here's the next chapter. Don't tell me it's a bit of a filler, because I know that already… fortunately it is building up to something. So it's not just meaningless crap…

I looked up and spotted the smiley red head outside my window. Cat was there. In her hands she was holding her tea cup and a thermos which, if I wasn't completely off the rack, was filled with tea. She was knocking lightly on the window and when she saw I was looking at her she smiled and waved at me.

I rose from my bed slowly, dragging my feet behind as I walked over to the window and opened it.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, my voice a little raspy from being quite all day. Just then I realized I hadn't looked at myself in the mirror since last night and I quickly drew a hand threw my hair in hopes of getting it less messy.

"We're going to have a tea party!" Cat called out as she climbed inside. If she noticed my terrible bed head, she wasn't saying anything.

"We already had a tea party at my house. We can't do it again..." I said, giving her a look.

She furrowed her eyebrows, and I knew she was thinking hard, maybe trying to find some kind of loophole, or maybe just contemplating to go back home again.

"Actually!" she said after a while. "We have only had a tea-party here, in your room. Not anywhere else in your house."

Loophole then.

"Why are you even here?" I asked. I tried not to make it sound rude, but it kind of did. "I'm really sick."

She looked at me with a face I couldn't really figure out.

"Don't you want me here?" I could hear she was hurt, again she was taking things to personal.

"No, No Cat. I do. I just..." I fell silent. "I was just wondering."

"I missed you in school. You've been gone too long." She explained, a smile forming on her lips and suddenly I felt like kissing them. Those pretty little candy-colored lips. She really made me feel better just by showing up. And that's not just something I'm saying to make you understand how extremely much I like her. I was really feeling better.

"And it's been way too long since we had a tea party anyway." Cat finished and I nodded in agreement. That was true.

"Well I guess we could go out on the balcony..." I said, sighing.

"Grab your cup!" she demanded, pointing towards the cup on my bedside table. "Let's go."

She scurried out of my room and I shook my head slightly before grabbing my cup and following her. I guess she found her way to the balcony on her own. Because when I got there she was already in the middle of setting up the tea party. I walked out and sat down opposite her on the balcony floor.

"So what kind of tea did you bring?" I asked as she poured some of it into my purple cup.

"Chamomile!" She giggled.

"What?" I had honestly never heard of it before.

"I heard Chamomile tea is good if you have a stomach ache." She explained, looking at me with wide eys. Oh Cat.

"Uhm... Cat." I looked at her. "I have a cold."

Suddenly Cat looked devastated. "Oh no!" She cried out. "I brought you the wrong tea."

"Uhm..." I searched desperately to find a way to save the situation. "Actually my stomach is feeling a little... uhm... achy, so I'm actually lucky you brought me the tea."

Immediately her face changed from sad to happy. And I breathed out It seemed to have worked.

"Taste it." She said, clapping her hands together and watching me with anticipation as I took a sip of my tea. It was actually really good so I nodded slowly, giving her an approving smile.

"Good." I stated and she giggled. God I just wanted to grab her and kiss her. But there was no way I could do that so I remained where I was, watching her carefully as she drank her tea. I couldn't do it. I couldn't tell her how I felt? Can you imagine how awkward it would've gotten? I couldn't.

"So what have I missed in school?" I asked her and she put down and she put down her cup and stared off into space as if she was thinking hard. After a while she shook her head.

"Not much." She took another sip of tea. I could tell she was being sincere, but I couldn't be sure of what she considered 'not much'.

"How's everyone?" I asked. I was determined to pry out at least a little bit more information from her.

"Great." She smiled, and then she started laughing hysterically. One of those weird things she did from time to time. Her concentration span wasn't that high. She had a pretty laugh, but I couldn't help but getting annoyed when she interrupted herself like that.

"What is it?" I asked, confused.

"I just..." Cat said but she was laughing too hard to be able to speak properly. "I thought of something Sky told us. It was hilarious."

I felt like someone dropped a giant brick on my head. Of course she was laughing at something Sky had said. Soon, she would fall in love with him, they would get married and it wouldn't be long until she was bearing his children. Or something like that.

"What was the joke?" I asked, trying to be as polite as possible.

Cat started to explain the joke but she lost me after about two sentences into the story. She noticed I didn't understand and she cut herself off.

"You would've understood if you'd been there." She said with a pitiful smile.

I would've understood if I'd been there? That felt great. I was starting to feel sick again. The happiness that had come along with Cat and her hair and her lips and her eyes had slipped off. But really, what should I have been expecting. That they all had just woken up and realized Sky was an idiot and that they liked me way more than him. Not likely. Sky was perfect. I wasn't. All I wanted was for Cat to leave. I didn't need to hear this. I really didn't. All I wanted was to sit and rot in my room, and Cat and Sky could run of too Fairy land and do whatever they wanted. I swallowed the last drops of tea in my cup and cleared my throat.

"Cat, I'm really not feeling well. Maybe you should go."

She blinked sadly a couple of times but she seemed to understand that I just wanted to be alone.

"Kay." She collected her things and rose from the balcony floor.

"Feel better, okay?" She said and I smiled vaguely at her.

"Yeah, okay."

She gave me a quick hug before scurrying off down the stairs. But I wasn't sure if I was going to feel better, because the sickness I had just felt probably had nothing to do with my cold at all.

I went back to school the next day anyway. I was still feeling sick, but I was pretty sure rest wouldn't get me through this. As I had predicted Cat and Sky seemed to have come a lot closer over the past few days and that didn't exactly make me feel better. He was going to take her away from me and I knew he was. He was everything I wasn't. Attractive, Cool, independent and most of all he didn't carry around an obnoxious alter ego on his arm. But I needed Rex. I needed him to feel safe.

I cursed myself for not realizing sooner how much I actually liked Cat. There had been times further back in time when I had thought that maybe, maybe I liked her. But it had always blown over as soon as I set eyes on someone else. I figured it was just the fact that I was desperate. But when Sky came around I understood that I wasn't only in desperate need of a girl. I was in desperate need of one girl in particular. Caterina Valentine.

Speaking of Valentine, Valentine's Day was coming up, and I wasn't even a little excited. I usually did nothing on Valentine's except for drinking tea and wallowing in self-pity. I hadn't planned to do anything different this year but a few days before the 14th that changed.

We were having lunch, just like we always do because... Yeah well, we're growing teenagers and we all like to eat.
Today all six of us, plus Sky was at the table eating our quesadillas and salads and drinking our sodas and waters. Cat was playing with her stuffed giraffe. Mr. Longneck.

For some reason I wasn't really fond of the giraffe. It just bugged me. I realized later it was because she had been carrying it when I asked her to prom and was rejected. I mean, who wants to bring back memories like that?

Sky was next to her watching her carefully. There was something in his eyes that I found threatening. It was care. He looked like he cared so much for her, like she was the only one at the table worth looking at. I saw Tori coo as she looked over at them, but she said nothing. Me myself just wanted to throw up all over the place. Was it really necessary for him to look at her like that? He wasn't the only one who cared for her. Seriously.

Suddenly she lifted her giraffe up in front of Sky's face.

"This is Mr. Longneck." She giggled. "Say hi."

Sky chuckled lightly.

"You've told me twice already." He said with a charming smile. Stupid Sky and his charming smile. Anything to make her fall for him, huh? Why didn't he just give her a ring right away?

She giggled again. Why'd she have to giggle so much? It was really only cute when she was around me, or our other friends. Basically around everyone who wasn't Sky.

The worst thing was that I couldn't really hate Sky. He was a good guy. Probably better for Cat than I could ever be. I tried really hard to find something wrong with him. But the only flaw I could find was that he drank his tea with milk in it. Who does that?

I just didn't want him to have her. I wanted Cat. And as I looked at her and Sky again, being all smiley towards each other I realized I couldn't just sit back and watch this happen. I had to do something.

And that was where my plan started to form: My plan of winning Cat's heart. Because honestly, didn't I know her better than that ridiculous English boy? That's right. I did.

And I was going to use that in my advance.

I knew Cat loved pretty and romantic stuff, I knew she loved stuffed animals and most important. I knew she loved tea. So basically, I was going to show up at her house Valentine's Day with some stuffed toy to match her giraffe and a big thermos with some sweet tea in it. And then I was just going to tell her. Easy as pie! Or easy as shortbread cookies, because they go better with tea.

AN: Thanks again for reading. Review if you feel like you've got a minute to spare and would like to make me happy.